Loss

Hmmm ... Jim Cornette Jimmy Hart Bobby Heenan Gary Hart Sherri Martel Skandor Akbar Paul E. Dangerously Lou Albano Ron Wright JJ Dillon Heenan I'm basing solely on WWF stuff, and could go a little higher as I see more AWA. Hart and Cornette was a close call. I honestly struggled to think of ten good managers, but I think everyone on this list did their job very well. Sherri offset being a pretty bad promo by adding so much heat and excitement to matches.

Not the point. He could have left, was made an offer, and stayed with Vince. Loyalty matters. This is true. Whether you see him as a valued performer or not, the company clearly did.

Talk about where to find footage moved you know where. We need to be careful.

I'm guessing Combat's retirement tour had started by this time, if the video package before the match is any indication. This was really good. I didn't get the feeling that they were trying to deliver a classic -- more that they were out there to have fun, keep things going and give all four a chance to show off their best stuff. And they succeeded. Kudo was as good as or better than so many of the Joshi wrestlers that are far more praised. She reminds me of Steve Austin in some ways -- in that she works really hard, but she's not overly flashy. She has some high end stuff, but mostly sticks to basics and just executes really well. Her sense of when to speed things up, slow things down and building drama within a match is also excellent. I don't remember much about the Toyoda/Kong singles match a few weeks later, but this seems about on par with that.

At what point did they start mixing in guys like Robert Fuller and Eddie Gilbert, and what led to them getting those chances? Any idea?

Just wanted to make a thread about the wrestling philosophy in Memphis and how different it was than other territories at the time. Mid South was awesome, but was more wrestling through the lens of ex-jocks, which is probably what most of wrestling was at that point. Memphis was different. Jerry Lawler was an artist. Jimmy Hart was a musician and a DJ. So I've always thought that was why it was a wilder, more bombastic presentation. They gave us the colorful gimmicks and music videos that helped get tons of guys over in the early 80s. We associate it now with the old school, but for its time period, it was a pretty progressive territory, to a point that it was often looked down upon by other groups. I've also always seen the whole presentation of Memphis wrestling as what Vince Russo thinks he does, but doesn't. For example, Jerry Jarrett built his all-time most successful rivalry -- Jerry Lawler vs Bill Dundee -- off of two guys who had legit heat. Matches bordered on overbooked at time. The shows were generally fast-paced and angle driven. They loved to build programs off of fake shoots. Title changes were frequent. Screwjobs happened fairly regularly. 10+ minute dueling promos on TV were common. But Jarrett was a guy who understood wrestling so well that at the core, there was still a very logical wrestling center. There was a clear hierarchy with Lawler as the top star and a rotating cast of top opponents surrounding him. And all the non-finishes and run-ins typically built to a big blowoff that was settled decisively, provided the guy stayed around the territory long enough to see the program through. Without Lawler, the formula wouldn't have worked. He was the constant. Because he was such a great promo -- from my view, the best of all time -- he was able to make sense out of just about anything, convince people of the booking points and get over his constantly rotating crop of challengers. He was a guy the fanbase believed in. Jarrett also knew the value of the announcers and did a great job protecting Lance Russell almost as much as he did Lawler, if not more. If Lance Russell said something, it carried weight, so he could make key points about upcoming matches and Lawler challengers and people bought into it. I've always wondered if there are any lessons that could be applied to a modern setting from Memphis. They did weekly shows on Monday nights that were built for the same audience. They usually needed to keep things interesting for 3-4 weeks with their big matches. This isn't to say there weren't down periods, bad decisions and that every idea worked. That's pretty far from the case. Hindsight always brings with it a little romance, and we think of the high points more than the daily grind. But all in all, it was a really fun ride.

Holy polemic!

I remember siding with Vince for a long time in the Austin/McMahon feud. My thought was that Vince paid him and he should do what Vince says, and also that he started the problems with Vince by attacking him without provocation. And when they'd do an angle where Vince would fire him or something, he always told him ahead of time he'd fire him if he did something specific, then Austin would do exactly that. Then, they would act like somehow Vince did something wrong.

What if someone is great at juggling and you argue that they should be in the Hall of Fame because they have great juggling skills? If I point out that it's a wrestling hall of fame, and therefore, I think, while the juggling is impressive, it's not really a Hall of Fame case, am I making a value judgment and being inconsistent? Is valuing wrestling in a wrestling hall of fame really that outlandish, especially when your argument about charisma was framed in such an obscure way that it didn't really point to anything specific? I agree with you that Okerlund is charismatic, and I think it's what made him a fun wrestling personality. But his HOF case is that he parlayed that into something that worked in a wrestling setting, not just that he happened to have a fun personality. His charisma helped get over angles. His charisma helped guys who struggled with interviews make their case. His charisma was useful when PPVs were being hard sold. I agree with all of those things, by the way. I do not disagree with you on Okerlund. I just disagree with your reasons for stating his HOF case. Brad Armstrong is said to be a really funny guy with a big personality. It has never really transferred to TV, but that's his reputation. So Brad Armstrong has charisma on a personal level, but he didn't really demonstrate it (at least not in that way) in a way that worked in pro wrestling. So even if he is a funny, articulate guy, no one is going to make the case for Brad Armstrong in the HOF because he was incredibly charismatic. The point: Traits are what make someone great, but there has to be something demonstrable. Put it this way. There's a nuance in the argument that you are missing. Ric Flair is a HOFer I'm sure no one here would argue about. Ric Flair is not in the HOF because of his charisma. Ric Flair is in the HOF in large part because he used his charisma to have a successful wrestling career. The charisma is the means by which he accomplished things, not the end result. The debate should be focused on the end (the career), not the means (the qualities, such as his charisma, that helped him have that career). There have been successful people in wrestling for many reasons. Some for entirely different reasons than others. There are people who are not in the HOF who have no HOF case who have traits that are better than those of people who are in the HOF that pretty much everyone can agree on. I used the Windham/Flair example. The point is if you make the argument by listing all the things Windham was good at doing, and make the argument by listing all the things Flair was good at doing, it starts looking like Windham is a better candidate, which is bullshit. If you list the things Flair did with what he had and compare that to the things Windham did with what he had, Flair takes his rightful place well above Windham. Same with announcers. I challenged the point on the merits, but arguing that Jesse created the heel color guy role and should be in the HOF is a perfectly reasonable, on target argument. I don't agree with it, but that doesn't mean it's "wrong", necessarily. Reasonable people can disagree. But if you started arguing that Jesse Ventura should go in the HOF because he was "colorful", I would have a bigger problem with that, because it's a buzzword that doesn't really symbolize anything we can talk about in more detail. Much like "charisma".

Joshi and NJ junior heavyweight style are the same?

Agreed. In a recent shoot interview, Shane Douglas gives him tons of credit for working in really tough conditions, that don't compare at all with what WCW and WWF announcers were working with at the same time, and pulling it off despite all the bullshit. Joey was a big part of getting the ECW product over. I think he got exposed as soon as the first PPV, and his character became a bit annoying after 1998. He was at his best on his own before that. I was always under the impression that every line he had was fed to him by Paul Heyman.

NOOOOOOOOO.

It's not clear, no, but I used Flair as my goal post, not Ultimo or Angle. Is there any doubting that point that Windham was more talented than Flair, but that Flair did more with what he had? My point in bringing that up was that there are people not in the HOF who are better than people who are in the HOF. My other point was that there's a difference between being talented and having lots of great matches. One doesn't always mean the other, and I think the output is what we should discuss, not whatever personal skills anyone may have in reserve. Anyway, if the HOF discussion is a mess, so is everything in the world that's subjective. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be any fun at all. We would just create an algorithm, have an automatic yes or no for everyone, and it would be out of our hands. The subjectivity is unavoidable, and there's nothing wrong with that.

It's not. That why people vote and that's why these heated debates are a good thing. If a candidate can survive that, they should go in.

I'm not a huge Dynamite Kid defender, but there's a huge difference between him being in the WON HOF and Koko B. Ware being in the WWE HOF. The Tiger Mask/Dynamite Kid matches -- whatever we think of them now -- were considered the greatest matches of all time by many when they happened. They also introduced a completely new style of wrestling to Japan. Dynamite was considered the best wrestler in the world in the early 80s, and those who didn't see it that way at least talked about him at that level. His return with Davey Boy to Stampede in late 1988 popped the territory. Along with Abby and the Mongolian Stomper, he was at worst one of the three biggest draws in the history of Stampede Wrestling. There are arguments to make against him, but that's a much stronger case than Koko in the WWE HOF.

Did I say at any point that the HOF is only a place for people who have drawn money? Did I say that once? Did I not agree with you that you can't really use that as a guide for announcers because they have more of an indirect affect on the gate? No one ever argued that Benoit got in the HOF based on his ability to draw money either. Yet I'm the one moving goalposts ... If you look at the gates for 1990 WWF, actually, no he's not. At all. No one has ever argued that Robinson and Dynamite are in because of their drawing power, to my knowledge. But they are not in because they were talented. Plenty of wrestlers are not in who were talented. They are in because the voters could point to great MATCHES. They have accomplishments to show for their talent. I have pointed to examples that make that case in point -- like Windham being a better athlete than Flair -- that I would like to see you directly respond to if you're going to engage in a debate. For wrestlers, if they're going in on work, you point to their matches. Their matches that "actually happened". For announcers, you point to specific angles they were involved in, or specific interactions, specific points they made at the booth that MADE A DIFFERENCE in how that wrestler was perceived. That doesn't mean that Lance Russell made Jerry Lawler a star, but it does mean that maybe some of Lawler's angles would not have gotten over they way they did without Russell's hard sell. If you can't point to those types of things, then what's the point of putting them in a Hall of Fame? Because they entertained you as a kid? This idea that Warrior was a huge draw is a case of rose-colored memories. You're also looking at things SOLELY from a WWF-fan-at-the-time perspective and seem hostile to any other viewpoint. The fact is -- he was not really a draw. You should check out some of the WONs from that time period and some of the things that "actually happened". For example, the WWF knew he wasn't a draw and tried to modernize his look, thinking that was the problem. Road agents reported that he was bombing almost every night. You perceived him as a star as a child. So did I. That doesn't mean he was a draw and it doesn't mean he should go in a HOF. Because it's WRESTLING. It means more to be a great wrestler than to be a great announcer. And when it's an industry-wide Hall of Fame not confined to one company, and it's not even a consensus that they were great announcers by anyone except people who were kids in the 80s, it's going to be debated. That's not moving goalposts.

Charisma alone doesn't mean much, unless you can say Okerlund used his charisma to get over Wrestler X, who became a huge draw, or Okerlund's segment with Wrestler Y was huge and played a big part in him being a star. I agree with you that gates can't really be used to make a case for an announcer, but there are still tangible accomplishments we can point to in order to build the case. The more I think about it, the more I like Gene for the HOF because I do think he and Hogan were great together, but not because of his talent alone ... because of what he accomplished with his talent.

Alright, I can get behind this mentality, but only in this specific situation (though of course, it IS what we're talking about). If we're talking about something other than a HOF, I still don't feel confident with "great matches" as the indicator since opportunity is a huge thing. Tito Santana, for instance, if he had spent his career in Memphis or Crockett or Mid South might have had a slew of much better matches. Well, we're talking about a HOF, which is what actually happened, not a chance to right wrongs. If someone makes the argument that Tito is better than someone pimped in JCP, they're going to have to change the framework beyond just a list of best matches in order to effectively make the case ... most likely.

Ross and Solie called Power Hour together for a little while in late '89, and also called Clash 9. Each had some good calls ("Five letters. Two words. I Quit" in Solie's case), but I thought they were too alike to be effective. It was cool though hearing them each try to outdo the other in how strongly they could gush over Luger. For PBP guys working together, I think Jim Ross and Bob Caudle were a GREAT team, just because their styles were so different. Caudle wasn't as emotional, but he was good at explaining things in ways that were easy to understand. I still love the Bash '89 call of Steamboat/Luger with Caudle using the "take my ball and go home" analogy so perfectly.

WCW did a better job using Show than the WWF in spite of all that, but I always wonder what could have been if WCW sent him to New Japan for a year before even getting started in the U.S. at all. Maybe it wouldn't have changed anything, but I think it's an interesting topic to ponder. While they broke in during a fairly successful time, Goldberg and Giant both had tons of potential -- some of it realized, some of it not -- and came into a really fucked up system where the headliners did as little as possible to get by instead of trying to have good matches, there was open drinking in the locker room and people could just coast on past success. So I think that's how they learned wrestling and Show probably fell into that, while Goldberg may not have, but he didn't really have anyone guiding him.

I liked how Ross and Ventura worked together, even if they both hated it. The tension worked for me. Solie worked in a different era. His job was not to entertain fans. It was to try to help sell the idea that what fans were watching was real, and convince them to buy tickets. Whether he did that by himself or in the company of others is really unimportant, but an announcer being funny would have been frowned upon during that time period.

Yes. Did I say anything to the contrary? I said charisma alone is meaningless unless it results in good matches or money drawn ... some type of tangible accomplishment.

Being a better worker is a trait, yes. Having better matches is an accomplishment, which Terry did. What good does it do to be talented if you do nothing with it? Some of the most talented guys in wrestling history have no business in a Hall of Fame because they weren't able to translate that talent into a good career. Barry Windham was more talented than Ric Flair, but Ric Flair did more with his talent than Barry Windham. Buddy Landell has done some of the best promos of all time, but he squandered so many opportunities that he has no business in a Hall of Fame. Jesse Ventura was a funny, entertaining guy -- probably more so than Jim Ross or Lance Russell -- but I don't know what the WWF ever had to show for that, which is why I'm skeptical of his HOF case. And khawk, that's what I said if you re-read my post. It's not the charisma that puts Terry ahead of Dory. It's what he did with it.

Terry is not a better candidate than Dory because of his charisma. He is a better candidate because he drew more money and was a better worker. Maybe he accomplished those things because of his charisma, but the HOF is about accomplishments, not traits.