kjh

It's just Matt being Matt on Twitter. I mean after the first DWI he claimed that "miraculously all his vices were gone". Then he claimed that his hospital emergency had made him change for the better. He's a con artist, though at this point the only person he's fooling is himself.

The Steiners have dropped off the ballot, so he couldn't vote for them even if he wanted to. IIRC, Bruce when he did vote for them was influenced by rose-colored memories of their run in Japan and thought it was longer and more significant than it actually was.

Exactly. Saint getting in first would be like Daniel Bryan being voted in before John Cena. I think McManus and Pallo may have to get in by being historically overlooked candidates (ditto Henri Deglane) if the voting is skewed by people like Bruce who have only a cursory knowledge of the British scene.

At the tapings.

Is this like the ROH Dragon Gate six man that was the greatest match ever? Bruce "I loved watching the guy when I got the chance" Mitchell voting for British and Mexican candidates is quite the joke, which exposes the flaws of the voting system.

Meltzer on his message board insists there was no heart issue.

I think the problem is Creative's primary goal is to get Hunter over in his new authority role and getting Punk over is their secondary one. Hunter still wants to be the big dog in town, which is problematic when they need to create new stars.

When Mick Foley says about recent developments in the Punk angle: "Aww man, we have to see how it all plays out, I'm going to try to resist my urge to be critical of storylines for a company I'll likely be working for again.", then I don't think Punk would be patting himself on the back for how the angle has turned out of late, but more frustrated with how he's been scripted.

I'd hope that Stephanie has grown up enough in the last decade that she wouldn't make the same mistake again.

The committee was still in place at that time. IIRC, Flair quit the committee just before Wrestle War '90 in late February.

It seems that Rock's on board to do multiple matches next year with WWE creative batting around the idea of a three match series between Cena and Rock. If that's the case, then I think having Rock lose in his first singles match back would be a mistake. It's a pity they haven't got a hot young star ready to be fast tracked to superstardom, as having Rock beat Cena but then lose to a rising star would have more long term benefits than adding another big name to the long list that Cena has already vanquished. Punk might have been that guy and might still be the best guy for that role, but he's cooled off a ton in the past few weeks.

I think Rock being a surprise winner of the Rumble would work if they want to do Cena vs. Rock for the title at WrestleMania.

Why can't TNA institute rigorous drug testing with similar punishments to WWE? Why can't TNA hold their performers accountable for their actions? Why isn't Dave banging that drum harder? I know drug testing would cost the company a significant amount of money to implement, but think of all the worthless things they've pissed money away on over the years. Just because there's "no solution" to Kurt's out of control runaway train, doesn't mean you shouldn't try and do everything in your power to put the brakes on. Wringing your hands and saying "well, it's TNA, what do you expect?" doesn't cut the mustard.

Todd Martin cutting a promo on UFC for cancelling GSP vs. Diaz is glorious.

I'm still not sure whether it was shoot bullshit firing or a bullshit bullshit firing.

Yeah, I'd agree that Misawa-Kawada was great support, but Kobashi-Sasaki was clearly the bigger match on the day.

I think it's more that MMA commitments has eaten up a lot of the time he would used to spend watching wrestling tapes.

I think that perception is misleading because 2011 Dave writes so little about the major matches in the indys, Japan and Mexico.

I could see KENTA being pushed in as the best junior heavyweight of the 2000s.

Diaz did manage to get to the airport, but not board the plane. This is what you get when you work with the MMA equivalent of the Hardys.

Agree on that. Sasaki has Domes and Matt's laundry list of 10K+ cards that he headlined. That over time is going to sway people who don't know the context of most of that "drawing power". And he does have a lot of hardware, the title in all three promotions, and 7 total reigns. It will be interesting to see if anyone notices that for all three it was in periods of decline, and at least in New Japan's case one could point to his early reigns as the period where the declines started. Perhaps not the cause, but not a help... and really more of a deviding line from the nearly four years of Hashimoto dominance where business was very robust to the decline of the late 90s, and decline again in the 00s. Yeah... I expect that to go right over people's heads. I wouldn't at all be surprised if Sasaki goes in, especially if Dave gets behind it. I don't see Dave getting behind Kenta and Cima. Here's the results from last year: Votes needed for induction into the Hall of Fame: Japan (69) (59) Steve Williams 68 59.6% ---- Kensuke Sasaki 47 41% 57% George Gordienko 33 29% 32% Seiji Sakaguchi 26 23% 43% Kiyoshi Tamura 26 23% 45% Volk Han 25 22% 39% Gran Hamada 12 11% 27% Sasaki's already picking up steam as a candidate getting very close in 2009 and only slipping last year due to Doc being added to the ballot. Listening to Todd Martin and Alan4L talk about Sasaki as a candidate a lot of that context has already been lost at least with those two voters. I don't think Alan4L fully understood Matt's analysis (73 points doesn't equal 73 shows over 10,000 fans as a sold out Tokyo Dome show would get 5 points). No discussion of how with the Dome shows in the '90s he'd be usually way down the list of guys responsible for drawing the crowds or how the big drawing Kawada matches was merely the luck of being the champion when the All Japan/NOAH split happened. His success as a freelancer was put over, even though results have been mixed (return to New Japan in 2004 and first couple of NOAH shows in 2005 were big successes, while World Japan was a disaster, there were diminishing returns with his other runs and Kensuke Office hasn't taken off past small show level). The only negative that was brought up was the Hiromitsu Gompei scandal. Todd still thinks he's one of the stronger candidates on the ballot despite knowing the limitations.

I'm surprised some Japanese names haven't been added to the ballot, even if it's just guys who have dropped off in the past, as there's so few left. I'm not sure I'd vote for say Takayama or Taue, but I think it'd be useful to get people to stop and think about how Sasaki and Doc match up to others from their era. I'd argue that Doc purely on his Japanese work is a lesser candidate than Akiyama or Taue who aren't even on the ballot.

Dave only seems to want to watch things on tape.

Juniors Koshinaka didn't go down very well in the DVDVR poll (perhaps unfairly so). I think a large part of it is mainly due to being a mid level guy and his career just fizzling out at the end.