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Dave wouldn't rate Blassie that high. He would have Jimmy Hart in his place. The "carried the heel side" doesn't sound right. Someone should track who was the manager of each heel that main evented MSG in the "Albano Era" - i.e. the person who was opposite the Champ and/or the Heel Champs. I don't think Lou come out on top. John

The reason the original age/debut line was set was because of the joshi wrestlers: they "best candidates" all were from an era where everyone retired at 25. Hence, they all were 10 years past their "careers". That even considering those who were returning around then: Chigusa, Jaguar and Lioness. Their real careers of note were back from 15-25. At the time, holding off on them until 45 (20 years after their original retirement) didn't seem to make sense. Our problem is that we built a rule to deal with a relatively small number of candidates and applied it to everyone. If one were to restart it, I'd go with a simple 45 with an exception carved out for joshi wrestlers who retired between 1970-90 due to the age limit. Just what that carve out would be... perhaps 10 years post retirement more than enough. I prefer 45 years old to 25 after debut for the reason you hit upon: folks like Kurt Angle sitting around until they're 54. Vader: 2002 - 45 years old 2010 - 25 years past debut 2002 has a bit better feel for someone like him who debuted late. I tend to think with Kurt that 2014 isn't bad at all. 2024 seems a bit long. For most wrestlers, the 45 vs 25 ends up being fairly close. Bret and Benoit and Eddy it's extremely close. I honestly don't think there's anything wrong with waiting until Rey is 45. If everyone is 45, there would have been plenty of folks hitting the ballot infront of him. Raising it now is a bit of a problem because the field has been cleared and we'd likely end up voting in a bunch of folks who probably weaker candidates. It probably would have been better to move thing up to 40 five years ago, and 45 for "new" guys by this point. Or back in 2000 move it to 40 (when it was pretty obvious that it was becoming an issue and joshi no longer applied), and then 1 year every 2 years until it was up to 45: 2000 - 40 2002 - 41 2004 - 42 2006 - 43 2008 - 44 2010 - 45 If you're 39 in 2000, you're hitting the ballot in 2001 (when you turn 40). If you're 38, you're hitting it in 2001 (when you turn 41 and the rule is still at 41). It may sound complicated, but it's easy to mock up a spreadsheet. I recall putting one together back when we first started arguing about 40/45 20/25... which I seem to recall led to that really strange discussion on Classics about Maeda. John

Am I reading between the lines of the comments that Evolve just isn't the draw that ROH is? That if Gabe was still in ROH, Bryan was still the ROH Champ (rather than a guy folks can now see for free on WWE tv), and that Gabe had a month or more to pimp the greatness of Sawa as a dreamy opponent for Bryan, that the thing would have drawn more than 300 in the NY Market? John

Doesn't help much with Rey - he's past 20 years, and would get to 25 before reaching 45 years old regardless of how one counts it. I'd just make it a straight 45 years old. John

I'm hoping in a coming issue he comes through on his statement that he'll publish clear details on *votes* in each "region" and be each voter category. That "Top 10" that he did this week doesn't come close to answering the questions people raised last year. John

I suspect he's known for sometime that Jericho was getting in. Ballots were due at the end of last month. I know he use to keep track of WON Awards results pretty much as he got them: "You won't believe this, but Sabu might win Wrestler of the Year." -Dave in 1994 while ballots were still coming in Setting aside Rey's qualifications, there really is something uncomfortable about a 35 year old going into the WON HOF. I really wish the age limit was pushed up to 45. John

FWIW, it does look like Dave is also questioning why the fight was allowed to go on if Sonnen copped to PED before the fight to a CSAC official. John

What if Sonnen goes in there and quite literally *kills* Silva. Sure, we've had very few of those relative to boxing. But what if this was the fight? And the CSAC let a guy who admitted to PED's go in there and fight. The end of MMA? The end of it in California, and a massive overhaul/death of the CSAC? Despite the quotes looking crystal clear, there has to be something lost in translation. One wonders if the MMA writers at Yahoo are going to be asking the tough questions of both the CSAC and UFC (depending on whether they were told before the fight) on why this was allowed to go on given what appears to be a pre-fight admission of guilt. John

This is a confusing story as it develops. How was he allowed to fight if he copped to PED at the pre-fight dope testing? John

Someone should quickly register PWDouchebags.com John

Lets see what his next book says about Vince and Hunter first. Is he working on a book at the moment with a non-WWE publisher? John

I'd be interested to see the rest of the mic spot. It's cut after all of Trip's burying, and would be interesting to see if Austin had any comebacks. There was the earlier discussion about Rock-Nash. Here's an example of Trip pulling it. Austin is probably one of the few people who could have comeback on Trip if he was in form to do it. John

This is a hoot. BTW: was there any re-evaluation after the lower buyrate came in? I'm pretty inconsistent on my WON reading, and often skim through it. Dave ever comment and analyze it? John

That is the #1 thing I'm looking forward to. After watching a lot of '80s AJ, SWS and WAR over the last year, I think the case for Tenryu as an all-time great wrestler is just as easy to make as the case for Jumbo was. Tenryu has weaknesses in things like matwork and athleticism, but makes up for it with such incredible consistency in so many feds and against so many opponents. No weak years at all between '83 and '94, then '95 was (as near as I can tell) an 'off' year for WAR, then back to good stuff in '96 and straight through to the World Japan disaster in '03. And even there it's not like he was bad. Then he goes to NOAH and tears the house down a bunch at age 55. Taken as a whole his body of work is incredible. I think he absolutely smokes more-beloved wrestlers like Liger at this point, and I say having probably seen a higher % of Liger's big matches than I have of Tenryu's. That's pretty much what I expect to hear from most of the voters/posters. I was a fan when starting to watch AJPW in 1989, and he was on the first tape a Japanese co-worker gave to me: Tenryu & Kawada vs Hansen & Gordy. I probably "turned" on Tenryu back when Frank did his Jumbo-Tenryu tape set (which McLorefice then traded all over the place). Frank wrote up each match in Frank-style, and if you popped in the tape with it in hand you started to get the sense that Tenryu had a Sayama-esque quality of sloppiness, spottiness and at times happy to lay around catching breathers. He was missing the 1987 matches, which have seen one of them later wasn't terribly favorable to Tenryu's work (though of course he brought the "intensity"). I tended to agree with Frank's theme in those pieces: the 1988-90 matches on rewatch (and rewatch since) have looked like The Jumbo Show in their better moments. I've found Tenryu hit-and-miss when watching his matches since then, often in the same match. The analogy might be Shawn Micheals, which may please some Tenryu fans... and not please some other Tenryu fans. Lord knows I might before I die become a Shawn Fan, and perhaps come a full 360 on Tenryu as well. Haven't reached that point with either of them yet. I doubt that's the way the voters will see him, and highly doubt anyone will be the Frank to the group in putting out an opposite view on Tenryu (and if there was, he'd piss the hell out of the rest of the voters). It's far more likely there will be a Jumbo-contrarian than one for Tenryu. I think what will come out of the voters will be very close to how Meltzer viewed Tenryu in the second half of the decade. My guess is for the same reasons: intense, stiff, great persona & aura, Cool Stuff. Just a wild ass guess. John

The 9/89 mactch wasn't talked about a lot because it was edited way down on TV if I recall. The JWJ may have pimped it as being great while lamenting the edit job. The analogy might be the 10/95 Kawada & Taue vs Misawa & Kobashi that wasn't pimped at the time because it wasn't on TV. Then the commercial got in a few hands, it got pimped, then became a collectable. That's one of the big benefits of the project: getting stuff out there in people's hands. It may not be my 150, your 150, Phil's 150, Will's 150... but it's an excellent starting point for someone to launch off into watching the promotion/area. If one likes Sayama from what's on there, it's not hard to get a whole hell of a lot more Sayama. John

The June Can-Am vs Footloose was ***** at the time, so it would be Sayama-ish if people ripped it. One thing to make sure of, if you're not already doing it: get the Classics versions of all of those matches rather than the original TV. Can-Am vs Footloose was JIP on original TV, and some of the ones later in the year were butchered by TV. Classics seemed to be pretty complete on matches. Some of that. Also, All Japan wasn't as deep on the natives that they pushed for much of the decade. In the first half of the decade, natives other than Baba, Jumbo and Tenryu didn't get pushed much. In the second half of the decade, it didn't seem to have the rounded native depth that either NJPW did or that AJPW in the early 90s had. But rounded I mean that in the early 90s they had Jumbo, Misawa, Kawada, Taue, Kobashi, Fuchi, Kikuchi and Ogawa all getting pushed to a degree on TV not just against gaijin but against each other in a variety of match-ups but also in an pretty ongoing, focused fashion. In the 80s, you'd have stuff like the lumpy heavies who teamed with Jumbo & Tenryu in the feud with Choshu's army, but they never really amounted to anything remotely like Fuchi, Kobashi, Kikuchi and Ogawa did in the Misawa & Co. vs Jumbo & Co. feud. That really stunts the ability for guys to break out. In New Japan, all sorts of people were getting on TV even if it was still a Inoki, Fujinami, Sayama, Choshu, etc dominated show. In a way, New Japan was long good in that way, deep into the 90s. John

Dave spent the second half of the 80s putting over the greatness of Tenryu, so the voters would be hitting the old consenus. Fujiwara is an entirely different beast: Fujiwara Luv is something that popped up in the past decade or so, and is complete different from the old consensus. In a sense, Tenryu is the Fujinami of the New Japan set: voters reaffirming the old beliefs. I'm not sure if there's a potential Fujiwara on the set. Rethinking Jumbo's work in the 80s in contrast to what the old consensus sad about it has been done so long, and so often that "Jumbo Was Lazy" has been run into the ground. Jumbo's 80s work was Fujiwara before Fujiwara, and by the time the set comes out it's nothing new. I don't know if there's another native with enough stuff that folks would rate as high end as they rate Fujiwara _and_ was crapped on or ignored in the 80s. It's possible that folks will love Hara, but I doubt to the degree that Fujiwara is. Yatsu has been pimped forever, and his "decline" is an old topic as well. It's not like a lot of other natives have a ton that would get them rated that high. There might be some gaijin, but we've already mentioned Brody as being the Sayama of the set. John

Understood. My prediction is (or better said "was" in the comment above) that there will be a lot of Tenryu Love after the set comes out from the folks who watch it and vote: "I could make a similar prediction about a wrestler in the All Japan set, though in the other direction." The other direction from Sayama (who has been predictably ripped) would be getting love.

Tenryu.

I don't think anyone is saying the point of the 80s project is to point out who sucks. My earlier comment had these thoughts behind it: * there were going to be Sayama matches on the NJPW set * folks were going to see he isn't as good as the legend On the first, it's basically impossible to do 150 matches of NJPW from the 80s without Sayama matches. He was an iconic wrestler in the promotion, with iconic matches. Some of them have to be on there, with a mix between the best and the most famous. This is same general reason that Hogan matches have to be on the WWF set, and while the general process would be to get the "best" it also means something like Hogan-Andre from Mania III *has* to be on the WWF set. It is one of the two biggest matches in pro wrestling in the entire decade (and frankly the other one needs to make the 80s WWF set as well). If 150 matches isn't enough to get in someone as iconic to a promotion's decade, with a mix of his "best" and his most important, then a set needs to be expanded to 175 matches. It really doesn't matter if something like Tiger-DK or Hogan-Andre ends up at #175. In a project like this folks need to see it in the context of other matches from the promotion in that decade, see how it fits in and judge it within that context. That's a great value to the project. Not that those matches suck, but that people are able to put them into the context of the larger promotion. On the second point, the rest of this thread has plenty of discussion on why folks were going to think Sayama would stick out as not as great as the legend/hype. It was very expected by folks who've participated in Sayama discussions over the years, or even were slightly paying attention to comments coming out of the Selection Team as the matches were being sifted through. I could make a similar prediction about a wrestler in the All Japan set, though in the other direction. John

I suspect that Dave put over Brody in the WON (right from the start in early 1983) before Brody started talking to Dave. It's possible that Dave had Brody as a source prior to starting the WON, but it doesn't read like it. Dave appears to have been a big fan of Brody's similar to Flair: long before he talked with them. I think people are putting to much thought into why the WON has written so highly of Brody's work over the years. The reason is straight forward: Dave was a big fan of Brody's work. It's one of those workers that clicked for him. John

And Sean's point is correct: Dave loved Brody from day one of the WON, and seemingly prior to it. Dave's a champion of Brody, and doesn't really need Larry to help much. John

Is McAdam still a Brody lover? I bet Keith or Bix would get slogged on the WO-4 boards pointing out that Brody wasn't great. John

Depends on how one defines "conventional wisdom in the smark realm". Do you mean online smarks like the DVDVR? Specific groups within that? Or what all hardcore fans, including the WON/Torch/F-4 writers and their readers? Even with online, there are groups where conventional wisdom (say Kurt is overrated) are at odds with the conventional wisdom elsewhere online (Kurt Rulz!). I'm thinking the wide gulf between the consensus of DVDVR Posters and Scott Keith Readers. John

No doubt some others as well. I recall that Dylan was one of the first proponents of Fujinami-DK *long* ago (I want to say on A1, but probably a lot of other places as well). He drew the comp to DK-TM, and TM took knocks. I don't want any of this to sound like "Kids today don't have any new thoughts that us old farts didn't think up 10-15 years ago." Just wanted to get across that TM-bashing can't be blamed on DVDVR or any specific DVDVR poster or posters. It's one of those things that I suspect a number of folks knew would come out of that specific set even 3-4 years ago when the whole project was being contemplated: "TM will get shit on when the NJPW set comes out because it's really hard to miss." I'm not sure how many locks there were/are like that in the various sets. If we were coming up with a Top 5 of what the overwhelming majority would agree on, that might have been #1. Or Fijiwara Luv. John