cm funk

Yes. They went from WCW -> WWF -> WCW in a relatively short time

That's a massive stretch. He got over in ECW. He was in WCW as Johnny Flamingo before he went to WWF.

Very interesting mookie!

Dustin Rhodes. Only in WWF briefly in 90-91 to play a role in Dusty's angle with DiBiase. Much bigger star after going to WCW and getting pushed. Then an even bigger star when he went back to WWF.

Anyone know what Rude's relationship with Hogan was like? If he was friendly with him he would have stuck around WCW during the initial Hogan years. Vince wasn't in the business of handing out guaranteed contracts until 96 when he was forced to to compete with Turner. If Rude's contract had come up in that 94-95 period I'm sure Bischoff would have thrown a big guaranteed deal at him to keep him from going to WWF. He would have been a natural fit to join the nWo in 96 (which of course he later did as a manager type) Rude had heat with Vince at that time too, stemming from the way he left WWF and testifying in the steroid trial. When he went back in '97 Vince was in desperation mode, and he promptly turned around and screwed Vince for Turner money. I think if he'd left WCW he would have gone to Japan, not WWF.

The things I've said in this thread are along the lines of what I've posted for a decade, and I still get a ballot. Dave really doesn't care about people having differences of opinion with him when they submit a ballot. More than that, he's listened when I've suggested someone being put on the ballot, and pinged me a couple of times on wrestlers other people have suggested. John I think he's talking about the 11 people who voted for AJ Styles

Jeff Hardy had his first WWF tv match when he was 16

I wouldn't have expected Warrior-Warlord or Warrior-Barbarian to be good just that it's something that could be sold to kids, which was the primary audience for Warrior and the WWF at the time. I think Abdullah would have worked better as a Hogan opponent in the 80's, when you still had blood and more violent matches. By 1990 they were entering full blown cartoon mode. And I think you would have needed the Hogan payday to entice him away from the money he made in Japan/Puerto Rico and other places. Bam Bam would have been good, but he was a regular in New Japan at this point, would have been tough to get him. Same with Vader, or any of the All-Japan guys.

Rotunda was playing Michael Wallstreet in WCW when he jumped in 91. It wasn't that different from IRS.

On the character thing, it seems holes have been poked in most of my list there. And it does seem like most of it was Vince taking characteristics that were there and going over the top with them. So is the only characters we can say he truely created before MDM The damn Hillbillies? I wonder with someone like Ray Traylor. He had legit been a prison guard before he got into wrestling. Did he come to Vince with the gimmick, or did Vince find that out and decide to make it his gimmick? Similar situations later on with Bob Holly, Shane Douglas and a number of others. Were those their ideas and he just ran with it? I guess I have two main questions: 1. What are the earliest characters we can point to Vince creating organically and not appropriating/enhancing prior to or around the time of MDM? 2. After MDM, what characters were brainstormed and then wrestlers hired to fill, and what characters were created for specific wrestlers? I concede JVK's point on MDM being the first of it's kind as far as we can tell. Other than that it's hard to pinpoint specific examples. After thinking about it for awhile, one modern one would be Spirit Squad. The writers came up with the idea, then pulled guys out of OVW to fill it (one story has Punk reportedly pitched the idea and turning it down). There's been other examples like this, where the writers come up with an idea and bring someone up to fill it. Deacon Batista would possibly be one. Kerwin White's caddy. Sure if I thought about it I'd come up with dozens of cases like this in modern WWE.

I mentioned that

I was thinking Powers of Pain might have worked as opponents if they'd been built up as singles better. Barbarian would have had the better match, but Warlord could have been a better draw. However, they ruined Warlord for me when they put him in that ridiculous outfit with the W staff and paired him with Slick. They didn't really do anything with either of them as a single. Warlord had a ton of TV squashes, and pinned Tito Santana on house shows every night up through August. Then he goes around the horn with Snuka where he loses by DQ/CO the first time around, then pins him the second, with some wins over Ron Garvin, Koko B. Ware and Jim Brunzell mixed in. Then by the end of the year he's putting over Davey Boy Smith all over and eventually loses at WM7. Pretty much the same thing with Barbarian. Beats Tito at WM. Then beats Snuka on every show up through the summer. Lots of TV squashes. Beats Ron Garvin every night for a bit. Then when Snuka goes with Warlord they put Barbarian over Tito every night for a while. Then he starts losing to Bossman around the horn to end the year, and a couple losses to Bret Hart, with a few wins against guys like Snuka, Saba Simba, Shane Douglas and Dustin Rhodes near the end to build him up for his Rumble match with Bossman. Which he loses, then starts teaming with Haku. Both guys they could have fed to Warrior in '90 before feeding them to guys lower down the card like DBS and Bossman

Was going to start a separate thread for this but apparently I don't have thread starting permission found this interesting from Dave: Doesn't sound high on either as candidates right now Bryan is surprising to me what with his WON credentials. Most Outstanding 5 years in a row. Best technical 8 years in a row! A WON MOTY (v. Morishima, 2007). If these awards matter at all shouldn't he be a virtual lock when he hits the ballot in 2016? Similarly Punk has 2 matches rated ***** by Meltzer (with Joe in ROH, MITB 11 with Cena), which is pretty rare for modern North American wrestling. And unlike Bryan he's had a 2+ year stretch of being a top headliner, 3 PPV main events in 09, and the longest WWE title reign since Hogan. Doing a glance at Meltzer's star ratings in recent years (09-13) and Punk and Bryan consistently show up among his highest rated WWE matches, where getting ****+ is rare. Not to mention all the snowflakes he threw at them in ROH. Now, I wouldn't vote for either til further down the road as Bryan should have many more years ahead of him, and Punk may or may not. But Dave doesn't have that issue with some candidates (Tanahashi) who are heavily pimped on work (and I know the argument is also that Tanahashi is a big draw now, but I remain on the fence a bit) so I found his "wait and see" stance on these two a bit puzzling. Especially on Bryan with how heavily decorated he is in Observer awards. I cosidered maybe that Dave is looking at Edge, someone he supports and always rated highty, not getting in and thinking, "these two haven't done close to as much as them in modern WWE, so the bar is set," possibly? As well as Batista and Jeff Hardy falling off the ballot so quickly? We know it's practically impossible to prove almost anyone but Cena and attitude era names a draw in WWE over the last decade, because they push one guy as THE guy and the rest is the brand. Is this a topic worthy of it's own debate? There's already enough stuff going on in here I thought I thought it should be separate from the 2013 stuff

The "Pacific/other" category isn't ideal, but I think it's for the best. Puerto Rico may be a US territory, but it's very removed from the United States. It's just as close to South America as it is to the tip of Florida. If it goes with North America, why not Australia/New Zealand with Great Britain in a British Commonwealth category? Why not throw Canada in there too? Why not Mexico as part of North America? I think the divisions are as good as you can hope for right now. And for Colon, his best chance to get in is from this category. If a strong candidate emerged from South Korea or India down the road would you include them with Japan in a larger Asia category? Unless puro just dies they'd have no chance. In a misc. category they'd get a fairer look Also on the non-wrestlers it looks like everyone just canibalized votes from each other. That's going to be a tough category in the future because there's no real consensus on anyone but lots of people with pockets of support. Then you get Weston added and splitting the vote with Apter essentially.

They did those polls a while back that suggested a ridiculously inflated # of wrestling fans in the USA. I don't know if they believe their own numbers (don't see how they possibly could), but that seems to be the basis for their target here. Also, if they can get on sports tiers eventually that inflates their numbers, so they might be thinking they can get a million + homes based on that, where only a fraction would actually subscribe for or watch the channel. Lots of channels in sports packages that are just part of the bundle and don't get watched by most people.

93 to me looks like: 1. Yoko/Fuji/Cornette - clear #1 2. Jerry Lawler - established as despicable heel on commentary, then programmed with Bret for half the year 3. Shawn Michaels - de facto #3 here as IC champ 4. Nobody in particular, and nobody is there or lasts the whole year. At different times it could be Luger pre-face turn, Money Inc (who I'd bump ahead of Michaels), Doink, Bam Bam, Ludvig Borga or even The Quebeccers. I think you can make a case for DiBiase being THE main bad guy in 94-95: Programmed against Undertaker, throwing numerous goons at him. Fake Taker, IRS, Kama, Bundy. Manages Bam Bam against LT. Then manages Sid against world champ Diesel and Shawn Michaels, two of the top 4 faces. Responsible for beloved faces Tatanka and 1-2-3 Kid turning heel. After that I'd go 2. Owen Hart - feuds with Bret all year in 94 before settling into a top uppercard heel spot in 95 3. Jim Cornette - has the Camp Cornette stable with top heels Yokozuna, Owen Hart and British Bulldog 4. Jerry Lawler - still a heel fixture. Works program with Piper in 94, then is thorn in Bret's side for much of 95

Well, you can only build someone back up so much. Fans had already seen DiBiase beaten handily by both Hogan and Savage, and he was not especially big. No amount of rebuild is going to make fans buy him against Warrior. Rude was already beaten handily by Warrior himself, and not especially big either. Only gonna get to a certain level of credibility against him the second time around. Perfect was never going to get there after Hogan squashed him. And in fact he never did get to world title level as a heel or face. That's why I think they needed to copy the Hogan formula and feed him monsters. Hogan had his guys like DiBiase and Heenan who were thorns in his side, but the real meat of his title run was the giants and monsters, because they could be built up as credible threats to "Superman". DiBiase and Heenan were more like Lex Luthors who hired goons to take him out. I just don't know who that would have been for Warrior in 1990.

That's a fair distinction. How many other guys did he hire after already coming up with the concept for a character? Probably hard to nail that down, but I doubt MDM was the only one. The MDM story has been well covered over the years, but with lots of characters the chicken/egg argument won't be so clear.

I'd venture to guess that almost everyone from my generation (born in 81) knows Hulk Hogan. Older people like my mom and my grandmother who have no knowledge at all about wrestling know Hulk Hogan. Younger people know Hulk Hogan. He was at the forefront during the biggest pop culture crossover wrestling has ever seen, and the second biggest. Local newscasts and shows like Sports Machine would cover him. Cover of Sports Illustrated! SNL, Regis, Arsenio, MTV, Leno, Howard Stern etc. etc. Movies. Tabloid coverage in the early 90s and with his show/divorce/set tape now. He's a genuine transcendent pop culture figure. Look at all the coverage Randy Savage got when he died. Hogan dwarves him as a star. When he dies he'll get writeups in Time, People, SI, The NY Times etc. etc. He'll get tons of coverage on the net and on tv. Saying that someone like Molly Ringwald is more well known or more popular is just so far out there I can't believe it. She had a string of modest hits in the 80's that new audiences discover over the years. She was a star. You could even say she's an iconic 80's pop culture figure. But she hasn't really been relevant in over 25 years. I looked her up and you know what she does now? She writes novels and has recorded a few albums. How many people know that? What sort of coverage does it get? Hulk Hogan farts and he's on TMZ and all the celebrity tabloid blogs. I put Hogan up there with the biggest pop culture and sports names of the last 30 years. He wasn't a bigger star than say Montana or Gretzky or Tyson I don't think, but I bet if you threw out the names or showed pictures more people would probably know him today. This has nothing to do with Hogan but what the hell: I'm 32. I find the idea of kids in their early 20's in general not knowing older films pretty interesting. I think you can directly trace that to the death of the video store. I grew up during the VHS boom of the 80's-mid 90's and I know for a fact that that introduced me and a lot of others to older movies. I could browse the comedy section at one of my local video stores and come across something like The Jerk and think, "I love Steve Martin, and this looks funny" and rent it. I can't tell you how many movies I discovered that way, and I know I'm not unique in that experience. First Arnold movie I saw in the theater was T2, but I'd seen all his 80's movies on VHS. I remember renting Black Sunday specifically because the cover looked cool. As I got into my teens and high school years and got more into cinema as art I started watching stuff like The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Serpico, Cuckoo's Nest, Kubrick etc. etc. Once I watched all the best stuff from the 70's, I started going back to the 60's.....and I still discover more and more old movies to this day, stuff that I couldn't have seen back then because it was probably too obscure or niche to be carried at one of the video stores. If you didn't grow up with that tactile experience of browsing through the video store looking at covers and boxes you might not have watched as many movies growing up, or certainly not as many older movies, unless you had a parent/sibling/friend who introduced them to you. Sure, there's Netflix and IMDB....but with all the media out there pulling at kids attention....video games, internet, tv, music.....I totally buy that kids today don't watch as many films or don't have the interest to go back and explore cinema history. To jdw's point about how he wouldn't have known or cared about movies from the 64-68 period growing up, I bet that's less true than you think. That period was full of all-time classics that have obtained iconic status. Planet of the Apes. Night of the Living Dead. 2001. Rosemary's Baby. Cool Hand Luke. The Graduate. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. The Jungle Book. The Sound of Music. Even if you hadn't seen all these movies, I bet you'd at least heard of them.

Also, someone mentioned Vince trying new things in this timeframe and DiBiase being the start of him "creating characters" as possible support for him getting the belt, but I don't really see that. Yes, he did do a few things outside of the usual playbook (heels go over in Survivor Series main, belt off Hogan at all) but I don't see DiBiase as a landmark when it came to Vince creating characters. Off the top of my head prior to The Million Dollar Man: Honky Tonk Man George "The Animal" Steele Jake "The Snake" Roberts "Adorable" Adrian Adonis Hercules Hillbilly Jim & Cousin Luke "Birdman" Koko B. Ware Demolition Among others. Million Dollar Man was pretty elaborate, but he was still "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase. When Perfect came in he was "Mr. Perfect" Curt Henning. It wasn't until later that they'd drop the names and just go with the nickname, or they'd bring in guys well known elsewhere completely as characters

My biggest question is when was No Holds Barred greenlit? In January 88 Meltzer mentions the filming schedule isn't finalized yet, and speculates that Hogan would remain champion past WM if he could work weekends and tapings. Then in February he mentions that filming begins in April, so they knew at that point that Hogan would be out of the picture. I assume NHB had to be greenlit at some point back in 87, and in development for some time before that. My thought is that if you can pinpoint when the movie was greenlit and announced that's probably where you find the genesis of the angle with Hogan-Andre-DiBiase and the tournament at WMIV. It's a hot angle going into the big show of the year, and you guarantee a Hogan-Andre match in the first round as the main event. Then once you know Hogan's status you can either a) put the belt back on him and you're right back where you want to be, or b ) try to create new stars to carry the ball while Hogan is out, and get the belt off of him without ever really beating him. It's just clever booking that gave them two options depending on NHB I'd also speculate that turning Savage and having him be endorsed by Hogan in fall of 87 was their way of setting him up as the contingency plan top face if Hogan had to be off the road. What I'm a little unsure of is if there was ever serious consideration for DiBiase to carry the belt. My gut says no, because it goes against everything Vince and Vince Sr. had ever done. Also, the heels won the main event of Survivor Series 87, and the heels screwed Hogan out of the belt on Main Event. Would they have ended 3 big shows in a row with the heels coming out on top? I have a very hard time believing that. My feeling is Savage was the backup plan all along, with the screwjob angle a way to establish DiBiase with a short, disputed reign, and setup his comeuppance at WM. The brackets are originally set up for Hogan, when they learn he'll be gone they are setup for Savage. I'd also be interested to know when exactly SummerSlam was conceived. I have to think it was already in the plans before WM and was setup to coincide with Hogan's return, and possibly to have a big PPV event where he could get the title back. It's possible that Savage would have transitioned the belt to DiBiase in the summer, giving him an actual run, and Hogan comes back to reclaim the title at SummerSlam. Then you eventually get the same turn angle from Savage and title match at WMV with Hogan defending. But Savage surprises them how well he does as champion, and they decide to keep the belt on him for a year, giving them two strong house show draws. The one thing that throws a monkey wrench in all this is the Honky Tonk story. I've just never bought that he had the kind of pull to get away with that, much less directly impact long term world title plans, much less hold the belt all the way til SummerSlam without repurcussion. And why would he have no problem getting squashed by Warrior in August? That's always been hard for me to swallow.

That, and they wanted to move the belt onto Flair without having Hogan lose to him. At the time the angle happened the plan still would have been Flair defending the belt against Hogan at WM. Tuesday in Texas was just an experiment to see if a PPV like that could work, with the title situation (and Savage-Roberts) as the hook. I'm not sure when Hogan decided he was leaving after WM, but that's the big thing that would have nixed Hogan-Flair (along with the "disappointing" house show numbers which I've always found suspect as the reason). The steroid cloud was full blown by late 91-early 92 (Vince institutes drug testing in Nov 91), along with the sex scandal, so it's probably right around this time that he decides to go on hiatus.

This pretty much nails it for me. The WWF formula, and more specifically the Hogan formula called for them to cycle heels in and out to be fed to the babyfaces, "monster" heels to greatest effect with Hogan, and by the late 80's/early 90's not only did the formula start to become stale, but they ran out of credible, compelling and fresh heels. Look at the guys paired with or fed to Hogan from 84-88 (this won't be a complete list): Andre, Bundy, Piper, Orndorff, Savage, Studd, Kamala, DiBiase, Terry Funk etc. A strong list with some strong monster opponents, and heated angles with great performers. You also had Bobby Heenan as a main antagonist, and Hogan ran through all his guys: Orndorff, Andre, Hercules, Harley Race, Bundy, Haku etc. That well eventually ran dry too. In 89-90 you had the Twin Towers (were good in this role), Savage (great angle and matchup) and Zeus (terrible) as the main opponents. They milked Savage after WM for all they could but he was clearly on his way down the card at that point. They rehashed DiBiase. You had guys like Bad News and Honky put him over on SNME. He works with Perfect & Genius but Perfect is never credible. So they're already running out of main event heels when he "passes the torch" to Warrior Then you see the biggest problem when Warrior has the belt......there's nobody left who Hogan hasn't beaten thoroughly. They rebuilt and bided their time with Savage long enough to where he was a credible opponent for Warrior, but they take the belt off Warrior before they run the match. The big monster they bring in this year, Earthquake (with Dino Bravo), is fed to Hogan instead of Warrior. Warrior wrestles Rude @ Summer Slam, who he's already worked with and beat at the IC level and is not a strong challenger. Who else was he supposed to wrestle that isn't a rehash of a Hogan program? I don't think you can turn Piper or Jake at this point. Then by the end you're bringing in a retread Slaughter (who wasn't setting the world on fire in the AWA) to transition back to Hogan. I really think Warrior could have had a much better run as champ and the Hogan formula would have worked with him if they'd just had some fresh, credible monsters for him to face. Undertaker would have been eventually, but by that time the belt is off of Warrior, and business is in the crapper. Looking at the landscape in 90, with the territories dying/dead and the dearth of talent beginning to show.....who could you bring in from the outside? Sid would have been perfect in 90 if they could have gotten him. Would Kokina Maximus have worked in 1990, or was he too young and not yet gigantic at this point like was as Yokozuna? What about Cactus Jack? The Warrior-Cactus dynamic would have been interesting, but was he ready and could it have drawn? He was terrible, but what if they discovered El Gigante before WCW did? Could they have made money promoting Warrior-Gigante? They had a loose relationship with AJPW, is there anyone from there they could have used? Would Warrior-Gordy have been a draw? Not a lot of options that jump out at me? And of course you have to take a while to build these guys up first before you feed them to Warrior. And then you have some of the guys who were potential Hogan opponents who didn't pan out. I think Bam Bam would have eventually turned on Hogan and had a run with him, but he was out of the company before it could happen. Windham was being groomed for a run with Hogan but was in and out too quick. They'd had on and off talks with Brody for years about having a run with Hogan, and I think it would have happened eventually and done good business, but he's murdered in 88. They tried to get Flair earlier than 91, if he jumped when Arn & Tully did that could eat up a big chunk of 88-89 for Savage and Hogan.

Completely agree with this. Said above: there was a chance to fix this after Angle, it was a known problem since the original reasoning was moot at that point (Joshi retirements at 25 years of age), and it wouldn't have impacted anyone on the ballot yet... and frankly would have allowed focus on clearing some people off the ballot. To me the strong comparison here is Tanahashi and Mistico. Mistico was a rare Luchadore who was covered fairly well and in better than average detail by Dave. He was treated as a major star and he was one. Dave was higher on his matches than me (as with Tanahashi), though not at the level of Tanahashi praise. On the other hand, there were some who touted Mistico very highly as a worker, much higher than any other Luchadore of the period in terms of the your non-hardcore Lucha fans. My understanding is that the success of Mistico was huge for CMLL and "turned things around." On top of that, he was clearly a bigger draw than Tanahashi. But Mistico was not eligible for the ballot during his prime. He was signed by WWE, which in a strange way almost is another form of HoF validation for some (the fact that the WWE saw it as a huge signing and actually promoted him the way they did at first speaks to their perception of him, which is a huge part of Dave's argument for Lesnar) and has basically fallen on his face there. Mistico will end up on the ballot and may eventually end up back in CMLL. But I cannot imagine him being touted as a no brainer, where there is no real argument against him at all. And it's largely because he wasn't eligible during his peak as a star. Good comparison Dave pimped Mistico really hard when he was at his peak as a draw in Mexico, and if he'd hit the ballot at his peak he would have gotten a ton of support. In 2013 Mistico is nowhere close to a "slam dunk" candidate. Is Mistico today a stronger candidate than Pedro Morales, who will never get that sort of Meltzer inspired popular support

RE: Tanahashi I just stick to my argument that nobody that young and in the prime of their career should ever even be a candidate. It's stupid. And if Tanahashi gets in in 2013 it just continues the horrible precedent st when Angle, HHH, Cena were voted in. None of them belonged on the ballot when they did. That doesn't mean they aren't HOF talent, it was just way too soon to nominate them. I could never vote for Tanahashi today above other candidates, and if he gets voted in it's sad and an indictment of the whole process really