Bix

Criminal interrogation and bill collection aren't genres of entertainment.

And then when he started using LA headliners in his main events, he booked them differently (Piper and Mayne as heel allies in LA, heel and babyface respectively engaged in a feud) even though NorCal fans watched the LA TV show via the local Spanish Independent Network (now Univision) affiliate.

On the flipside, Bret and Owen smartened up Bret's kids (Owen's were very young) when they were about to start feuding because they thought it would be ridiculous not to.

Mexican based but he did have a big run in Los Angeles at least.

It was very common for one's family to be kayfabed. The Stomper situation is especially notable/colorful/etc because during a promo he specifically threatened to come to Hart House and piledrive Helen into the sidewalk. Bret ran and hid under a table, getting very confused when Helen greeted Stomper like he was her best friend. As far as family stories, one of the most famous is from when Peter Maivia was wrestling in England. Jackie Pallo was getting heat on him, and Peter's wife, Lia, not yet smartened up, ran into the ring and beat the everloving hell out of Pallo, the top heel. As far as Watts, he did end up firing Bob Orton Jr. after the latter got in a fight because there were no bruises on Orton's knuckles so it appeared that he didn't fight back and lost (though it seems like a strange story since Orton's had a super tough guy rep). There's a similar type of story that would be a good fit: Rey Mendoza, who was a very tough guy, was known for going into bars and starting fights (which he always won) because word would spread about how tough the wrestlers were. As far as Kevin Von Erich's collapse (which Gary Hart says was a seizure due post-concussion syndrome), Bruiser Brody gave him chest compressions and Tommy Rogers gave him mouth to mouth recessitation. Rogers has said that Fritz was angry at him for making Kevin look weak, but yes, generally speaking, that sort of conduct on Fritz's part was frowned upon.

Bret Hart's book has the story about Stomper coming to Hart house which is probably one of the most famous stories along these lines. You can probably find the story online somewhere too. Kayfabe commentaries has a DVD w/ Larry Hennig that apparently has extensive detail about working schoolteachers and stuff. Tributes II has the Tim Woods bio w/ the shoot fan challenges and the lengths he went to so that people wouldn't think he was George Woodin, plane crash victim riding with heels.

If you look at Wahlers' posts in the WON forum at WC, he mentions he was promised a ballot for the following year and I'm pretty sure this was a few months into his "columnist" stint.

http://www.highspots.com/nwabelt.asp

A couple clarifications: - Dan Wahlers got a ballot within months (a year at most) of writing for WO.com. - According to Kurt Brown, there is in fact an official veterans' committee. Dave has a specific group of historials who goes over the overlooked historical candidates, and they all went over Kurt and Steve's bio of Martin Karadagian to vote on inducting him. Before that, he thought the same thing that John did.

There are also the stories about how fans throughout the Gulas territory cheered and applauded when it was announced that Sam Bass, Pepe Lopez, & Frank Hester had died in a car accident (J.C. Dykes was so disturbed that he quit the business over it) and fans in the Atlanta area doing the same at an SCW show when it was announced that Paul Jones (the promoter/1st half of the century wrestler) died and they thought it was "Number One" Paul Jones who was managing for JCP at the time.

Hell, just this year there was the riot over the Mike Jackson retirement ceremony that included an old man going to his car so he could retrieve an ax to use on the heels.

Dave's HOF is modelled after real sports HOFs. No real sports HOF would give ballots to very knowledgeable message board posters. So Dave isn't going to start giving ballots out to the likes of Phil Schneider, tomk, Goodhelmet, Loss or Bix. Which wouldn't be a problem if the depth of wrestling reporters' knowledge wasn't so poor. But that's why he had to start strictly assigning voters to certain regions & subsets. Except if we all sent regular columns to Dave for his site. Or begged in a really annoying fashion like Crimson Mask did.

For some reason, doing an opinion poll about who you like best among these guys when only one wrestled after 1950 seems odd to me.

Jesus, Taker's head makes Tito Ortiz's look tiny.

It's also kinda insulting to guess that anyone would be voting for Konnan based on his US achievements or lack thereof (in-ring at least, there's probably more argument as a backstage figure but he's on the ballot as a wrestler). I'm pretty sure the less Lucha inclined voters see a guy who they know was a big star in Mexico, having headlined by far the biggest show in the history of Mexican wrestling while headlining and helping book in a boom period. They may not know all of the details, but the best aspects of his candidacy were pretty well known. Rocco is different as a guy who's being pimped based on his working ability, but how many tours of Japan did he have? He definitely had long gaps where he wasn't around.

Pretty sure that's Tyler Mane and not Kevin Nash.

Ok, one of only 2 real WWF vs WCW matches. As far as Regal goes, he was in MCW for the WWF at the time of the Pillman show. I'm pretty sure he was a permanent resident by that point.

The main event was Bret vs Davey with Bruce/Pillman vs Funks as the semi. Even if it was the battle of two undercard guys, it was the first and only WWF vs WCW match, and it was in the middle of a heated wrestling war, as Nitro started 3 months earlier and Billionaire Ted was a few weeks away from debuting.

Is there any reason why the Benoit vs Rad Radford match at the Stu Hart birthday show in '95 was relatively ignored in spite of being the only real WWF vs WCW match? At the time, nobody seemed to pay attention to the significance it it seemed like only a minor trivia note later.

Figured. I have to make sure about these things sometimes, and normally they say "In the member only section of the site..."

I dragged what Dave said over to RIM and now the discussion there is confusing me even more about this. The Rocco thing that Dave mentioned was: John Lister: Dave: Wait...what??

Is it just me or does Dave seem to be failing to understand that he's linking to the pay section of his own website?