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Bruce Mitchell is voting for The Masked Assassins, Ivan Koloff, Konnan, The Midnight Express, Rey Mysterio, The Rock, The Steiner Brothers, Jim Crockett Jr. and Jesse Ventura this year.

I'll be very surprised if SummerSlam drew huge numbers this year. It hasn't got a dream match main event like two years ago and the card isn't as stacked as it was last year. From what I can tell the Orton/Cena hype has been overshadowed by the who is Mr McMahon's illegitimate child angle. There also seems to be very little buzz for the returns of Triple H and Rey Mysterio. I understand the theory behind holding back their first appearances for the PPV will boost the buy rate, but in execution it has created two dull feuds with obvious outcomes. I expect Orton to win the title, but only hold it for a short period, just like his last title reign. He'll probably lose to the same person as well.

I'd suspect Hepatitis wasn't the problem, as I assume the health problem is something that could perhaps be caused by steroid abuse or prescription painkiller abuse. Something that could be directly linked to all the Benoit stuff.

I don't think Cena is any more protected in the booking than Batista (at least before he fell out of favour somewhat after the Booker T fight), Triple H or Undertaker, though him dominating the WWE title for so long gives that impression. Hell, I don't think any of the others I mentioned would job to Carlito like he did.

From a business standpoint Hollywood Rock at the time was really a bit of a disappointment. If I recall correctly all three PPV shows he headlined during that run drew disappointing numbers. Which brings me to another point. The decline in PPV business is a trend that has been going on for years, really since Austin turned heel at WrestleMania 17. There has been some short term boosts when a big star returns like Hulk Hogan or they luck into a hot feud like Batista vs Hunter, but overall the trend for an average PPV has been downward ever since then. I think it is pretty clear that a lot of people who used to buy every PPV now pick and choose, which is why the only PPVs that draw big numbers tend to be the big four (WrestleMania, SummerSlam, Survivor Series and Royal Rumble) and gimmick match blow offs to major feuds. I don't think that would change if Cena was chasing the title this summer instead of holding it. Hell, they got rid of brand only PPVs this years, so their B shows had more star power and it did nothing to stop the rot.

I can't really blame stars like Jericho for not seriously considering the TNA option when their booking is so counterproductive, incompetent and indulgent. Being held down by Triple H in a hugely successful company is better than being dragged down by Jeff Jarrett in a hugely unsuccessful company.

I'm not surprised to hear Hayes' attitude. Vince did a great job in the mid '90s of brainwashing his confidantes and plenty of his wrestlers that Eric Bischoff and Ted Turner had a personal vendetta against him and were on a meanspirited campaign to drive him out of business. Of course, the irony is Vince drove out of business every other one of Hayes' ex bosses (Fritz, Verne, Watts, Crockett, etc). I suppose if you ended up on the winning team and have still got a job, you don't care about that.

You are right that Jericho is not a woman, but he's perfectly happy to gossip to Dave Meltzer under the protection of anonymity. Where else did the Triple H is sabotaging Jericho's career stories come from?

You've got to love how they criticise the media coverage for being sensationalistic and speculative, then in the same paragraph state: Hasn't Jerry McDevitt learnt anything from the Fragile X debacle? Are they still holding out hope that it was Nancy who killed Daniel, not Chris? You've also got to love the veiled shots at the US drug enforcement agency:

Erm, Ultimo had successful runs in Mexico and America, while Sasuke didn't. How are you measuring success? I wasn't really measuring it, just pointing out why many HOF voters would see Ultimo as a stronger candidate than Sasuke and how they would justify it in their minds. The key is his run in WCW because it coincided with his peak as a worker and exposed him to many more voters than a more obscure Japanese candidate like Sasuke. I can see voters with vague knowledge of Mexican and Japanese wrestling extrapolating and thinking he was always that good, which wasn't the case.

Erm, Ultimo had successful runs in Mexico and America, while Sasuke didn't.

Flair though was really underpaid by WCW, especially considering he was a great ratings draw for the company despite his lower placement on the card. I mean guys like Scott Norton and Stevie Ray were being paid more than him. I don't think moving to WCW in 1993 was a bad career move, but holding Eric Bischoff up at Halloween Havoc '94 for a new contract before doing the job for Hogan was a big mistake in the long term, because that's the incident that caused Bischoff to lose all his respect for Flair.

I'd also add that Heyman was all for the Lashley push. Indeed, he lobbied for Lashley to be sent to ECW and be given the title when it became clear that Big Show was leaving the company.

Actually, if Samoa Joe was with WWE a year ago I could really see Heyman making a play for him to be sent to the new ECW and pushing him even harder than he did CM Punk.

Yeah, Jesse Ventura was in one of the biggest news stories featuring a wrestler ever, but Owen Hart was in a bigger one. Should he be in the HOF too, because his death led to him becoming more famous than the majority of wrestlers already inducted? The key to Ventura's candidacy in my eyes is how big a historical impact he had on the wrestling business. I'd argue that though his election as Governer of Minnesota led to a lot of positive publicity for professional wrestling in the short term, his actions as Governor quickly eroded that good will. In particular, working as a special guest referee at SummerSlam 1999, mere weeks after criticising the WWF in the aftermath of Owen Hart's death, led to a lot of criticism that he was privately profiting from his heightened fame and made him look like just another sleazy carny huckster.

The Funks are marks for him and goaded Dave to put him on the ballot. If Jim Crockett Jr and Jerry Jarrett were the top stars of their promotion, they'd be in the HOF too, as Watts is someone in mainly for his wrestling career, but gets tossed into the promoter's bucket too because he was one with some success. I'd say it was Jerry Lawler who was the person who kept Memphis wrestling around for so long.

I thought one of the WWE's talking points was "It's all the fault of that evil rasslin promoter Ted Turner".

Actually if you want to point to Gabe being a conman, probably the best thing to point to is how he dealt with this situation, particularly how it took several months longer to oust Feinstein from the company than when it was announced he was gone.

In WWE? The same promotion where currently you have to be over 6 foot tall and a muscular 225 pounds to even be considered for a developmental contract unless your dad was in the business. The fact is very few smaller guys are getting hired and if they are lucky enough to be hired and promoted to the main roster they aren't pushed past the meaningless cruiserweight or tag divisions. Rey is an anomaly within WWE, not some sort of trendsetter that changed Vince McMahon's narrow perceptions about what a wrestler should look like. That said, I don't disagree that Rey's influence was phenomenal, but more for the reasons Kevin Cook suggested.

Here's the ballot with new candidates bolded: PERFORMERS LIST Jun Akiyama Gene & Ole Anderson Masked Assassins (Jody Hamilton & Tom Renesto) Red Bastien Carlos Colon The Dudley Boys (Bubba Ray & D-Von) Ultimo Guerrero & Rey Bucanero Gran Hamada Volk Han Owen Hart Curt Hennig Chris Jericho Satoshi Kojima Ivan Koloff Konnan Karloff Lagarde Jose Lothario Mark Lewin Midnight Express (Dennis Condrey & Bobby Eaton & Stan Lane) Bill Miller Fabulous Moolah Dick Murdoch Rey Mysterio Paul Orndorff Blue Panther The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) Rock & Roll Express Rick Rude Sabu Seiji Sakaguchi Masa Saito Kensuke Sasaki Hans Schmidt Sgt. Slaughter Jimmy Snuka Wilbur Snyder Steiner Brothers Sting Kiyoshi Tamura John Tolos Enrique Torres Universo 2000 Rob Van Dam Villano III Vampiro Kerry Von Erich Dr. Wagner Sr. Johnny "Mr. Wrestling II" Walker Tim "Mr. Wrestling" Woods NON-WRESTLER LIST Lou Albano Paco Alonso Jim Crockett Jr. Gary Hart Jerry Jarrett Gorilla Monsoon Don Owen Roy Shire Jesse Ventura

Isn't that what he uses the more gullible Wade Keller for?

It probably has something to do with wanting to follow in the footsteps of the father she never really knew, but idolised at a young age, hoping that her father up in heaven will be looking down smiling that she's taking after him. Look at how Jake Roberts and Dustin Rhodes got into wrestling to try and gain the love of their larger than life, overbearing, absentee wrestling fathers.

The Ringmaster A role that Austin was terribly miscast for. This was the ideal role for someone like a Chris Benoit or Dean Malenko who were technically gifted, but lacked charisma and needed a mouthpiece to speak for them. Indeed, I'm sure Benoit would have been given this grab bag gimmick if he signed with the WWF after his tryout with them in the summer of 1995. I'm sure Austin knew that, but at the time he needed the job and it got his foot in the door. He deserves a lot of credit for persevering during this frustrating time and tinkering with his gimmick, so he was ready when he lucked into the opportunity of winning King Of The Ring, when the originally planned winner Hunter Hearst Helmsley was the scapegoat for the Clique's arrogant breach of kayfabe in Hall and Nash's goodbye to MSG. One gets the sense that Hunter doesn't realise that his big push being postponed until he was more ready for it was the best thing for his career, with all the complaining he's done about his burial, but I digress. Going back to tinkering with his gimmick, I think people forget that his character evolved into "Stone Cold" over several months, it wasn't some complete repackaging out of nowhere at King of the Ring '96. It was only about two months after his debut on WWF TV that he started being referred to as "stone cold", wrestling a more aggressive, vicious style and had his head shaved and started growing a goatee for his revamped gimmick. By the end of May, he had lost DiBiase and the Million Dollar championship and started using the Stone Cold Stunner as his finisher. More later.

He could have been talking about Johnny Ace, as when Ace first joined the WWF he worked as an agent before being chosen to be the new Head of Talent Relations when Jim Ross wanted to step down from that position.

JBL should feel slighted that he wasn't told the good news by Vince McMahon despite being part of his inner circle.