Loss

I like the idea of eliminating the ballot altogether. Just let the voters vote in whoever they want without a list to choose from, and see what happens. There's always too much talk about who's on the ballot, when everyone knows only a handful of them stand a chance anyway. Having no ballot at all would make the results more unpredictable. I think a lot of this is also Dave doing anything he can to keep the HOF relevant, when almost everyone who should be in is already in. This decade hasn't really produced any HOF-level candidates. Cena will be an interesting discussion in a few years, but we're not there yet. Rey is such a no-brainer, and I have no idea why he didn't get in by a landslide the first year he was on the ballot. And does anyone else agree that considering the downward spiral Kurt Angle has gone on the past few years, his induction looks even worse than it did at the time it happened? Talk about a guy who has nowhere near a HOF career -- other guys who aren't HOF level like Jericho and Sting have far stronger cases than Angle. If you want to compare WWE main eventers with drug issues, Jeff Hardy is one of the biggest merchandise sellers in company history and is probably a better cumulative draw than Angle. When are we going to start hearing cases for UFC guys? I'm surprised it hasn't already happened (or maybe it has and I've totally missed it).

I'm just really not a fan of Tyler Black at all. He's been carried in good matches a few times, but they always run too long and he kicks out of too many things.

Even if they did say that, I don't know that that would hold up in court. And how was Chuck Austin overpaid?

Well, there was the Chuck Austin case in '94, where he ended up taking a bad rocker dropper from Marty Jannetty and the WWF had to pay out a big settlement.

He booked there in like 2003-2004 I think, or there about, right before he came to TNA, and was successful. I think a booker is handicapped coming in to TNA, no matter who they are, because they have too many masters to serve. Dusty Rhodes has had spells of both good and bad booking, but his time booking TNA wasn't very good, while his brief spell doing Smackdown shortly after that was a lot of fun. Ideally, the booker is executing the promoter's vision. Dusty booked under Graham, Crockett, Herd, Frey, Watts, and Bischoff, and each version was different because each version had different goals. The problem is that in TNA, I'm not sure the promoter really has much of a vision.

I really liked Valentine/Santana from MSG on 11/26/84. jdw (I never know if I should capitalize jdw at the beginning of a sentence) was right when he called this a Flair-style match for both of them, with lots of good stuff to keep things going and keep things interesting. Excellent match.

Edge/Hardy at Unforgiven. Where in the world did this match come from? This match is crazy, by far the best match I've ever seen from either guy, with Matt Hardy specifically wrestling on a level I'm not sure he ever did before this or since this. There is only one big highspot in this match, which is the legdrop off the top of the cage as the finish. That the match is a hateful, super heated cage match is cool on its own, but considering it's Edge vs Matt Hardy and those guys helped shift the focus toward highspots in gimmick matches, it's even more impressive. The match is really good throughout, even when Edge is in control for probably 5-7 straight minutes. When Matt Hardy begins his comeback and goes insane on Edge when he's tied in the ropes, the match goes from very good to great and never looks back. Lita was a lousy second, you could tell she really didn't want to do this program at all, as she botches a bump from outside and acts pretty disinterested. I'm definitely not blaming her, and it didn't drag the match down at all. Far better than it had any right to be, and honestly, maybe one of the best WWE matches ever.

I know he didn't write it, but publishing it I consider an endorsement. Because he sees MMA and pro wrestling as exactly the same thing, let's remember this the next time Dave says that a wrestler needs to add moves to their repertoire, or doesn't care for the wrestling style of a John Cena type because it's not fundamentally sound: http://www.f4wonline.com/content/view/10106/124/

Surprisingly, Austin/Dude Love from Over The Edge '98 still holds up as a really terrific, well-booked main event. It's not a great match in the classic sense, but it's a very effective, well-worked match, and the wrestling isn't really the highlight, but it is really good, with Foley taking some wild bumps and Austin doing some great comebacks. Even though some of the spots were done to death later, they still feel right here. If they put this much thought into laying out main event matches featuring new champions now, the main events would probably be awesome.

I watched Misawa/Ogawa vs KENTA/Marufuji from 04/25/04. Really strong tag match that I enjoyed quite a bit. KENTA has some nerve working exact move-for-move Kawada sequences with Misawa, doing all of Kawada's kicks, blocking all of Misawa's counters in the way Kawada always did, and even wrapping up the sequence with the stretch plum. Marufuji goes for his finisher way, way, way, way, way too often. Ogawa was the best part of the match, cutting off Marufuji's comeback with the thumb to the eye and working most of the match as more of an American-style heel. Great match, but not as good as the other two NOAH matches.

Oh wow, Liger vs Makoto Hashi from 3/6/04 is another phenomenal match. I'm on a huge Liger kick at the moment, to a point where I'm starting to wonder if it's Liger who's the greatest wrestler of all time. Liger is the master at always knowing his audience, and this was a crowd that wanted to boo him and get behind Hashi, so he gave them exactly what they wanted. I love that most of the matwork and early moves here are so basic, yet executed so well that every move just seems epic. I don't know how good Hashi is, as I've never seen him outside of this match, but working with Liger he looks like he can do anything. It's hard to think of another wrestler who combined being so mechanically awesome with being able to adapt to just about any setting or opponent and having superstar charisma. I've only seen a few things from Liger's 00s, and while it's different than the 80s and 90s Liger in terms of less offense, he's still awesome, and he's still performing at a much higher level than Misawa or Kobashi in this decade. I of course say that only having seen a few things, with lots of skewing, but it's still a favorable impression. I love that the crowd totally thought an inside cradle was going to be Liger's demise. I will admit that I still just don't get the shotey and why it's such an effective finisher, but that really seems minor overall. This is possibly the best match of 2004, I am eager to see how it holds up after rewatching everything else from that year. But those who said Liger's "best match in years" was against Danielson later in the year in ROH either haven't seen this match or are insane.

I understand why Sting/Luger vs Steiners from SuperBrawl has gotten the love, as it was a huge dream match at the time and it was a cool matchup. But it's not really that good of a match at all. I was pretty underwhelmed.

I watched Liger/Kanemoto vs Kanemaru/Kikuchi from NOAH 01/26/03. Phenomenal match. Jushin Liger is a meanie. Kanemoto isn't very nice either. Whereas you often see guys working in America doing an American style match and mixing in Japanese influences, this is at heart a Japanese style match with really strong Southern style influences. It's the 8/29/02 match that gets the most praise, which I still haven't seen, but I really loved this one. I'm watching a top 25 NOAH matches comp, and this is #25. I'll be shocked if 24 matches are better. We shall see.

Great stuff, hope it continues. I will pin this one also.

By the time Vince passes, who knows, Stephanie and Shane's children may also be adults fighting for their piece of the pie.

For a lot of the show yes, but Punk, Rey, Hardy, Cena, and Orton all got superstar reactions, with Punk's promo getting more heat than anything all night. HHH got very polite applause. I think the kids watching now cheer him because they know they're supposed to, but I don't get the sense they really care about him that much. Also, the dark match got over live. I think it was opening the show with a heel versus heel match, that probably should have been worked more as two teams trying to outcheat the other than having Jericho default to FIP, that killed the crowd. But sometimes I don't know what show Dave and Bryan are watching. The six-way wasn't any more or less heated than most of the other matches, and people knew who the Smackdown and ECW wrestlers were.

I should also add that there sure were a lot of empty seats for a show that was "sold out" ...

I was at Night of Champions in Philly, and it's amazing how the make-up of the crowds is so different now than it was just a few years ago. The place was filled with families, especially kids wearing the Jeff Hardy arm things, Rey masks, and Cena shirts. Just sitting in the audience and looking around made it obvious why Vince laughed a writer out of the room recently when he suggested Cena turn heel.

I'm not sure. If it helps any, it aired on Velocity.

Truthful weight is a pretty useless way to rank wrestlers.

Announcers are fed probably over 90% of the lines they say by Vince, so I don't think I'd blame JR for this one.

These guys work holds brilliantly -- I love the headscissors battle and Backlund's failed bridge attempts, but it seems like every time they locked in a hold, they held it too long. Cut the match time and hold time in half and the end result would be a great Muga match. They do pick things up at times, and the action is really good every time they do. Ivan's top rope pseudo-knee drop was awesome, but having the doctor enter the ring without the match being stopped is silly.