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Hard to imagine a ton of US voters going for Saito. Unless they looked around the ballot, couldn't find other people to vote for, and just felt like they needed someone to vote for. I don't even know who a good US comp for Saito would be. John

Just to be clear, and I know it wasn't what you intended, but I wasn't the one tossing "bias". John

I'm kind of surprised that only 2 of the matches form the original Top of the Super Juniors, and nothing from the 1984 WWE Jr. Title Tourney. John

BTW - I haven't seen them, but were the first two Fujinami vs Choshu matches that bad to not make the list? Given 15+ Tiger Mask matches on there, and the lack of love that there seemed to be for Tiger, I thought some of that first run Riki-Fujinami stuff might get to a wider audience than those who have Dan's season sets (which I keep meaning to get). John

If you double counted and have less than 175, toss the Dusty vs Backlund into one of the early slots. Best Dusty Match Ever, and Bob is freaking brillant. I'm pretty stunned it's not in there, especially since the Choshu vs Backlund is. John

I think Dave mentioned somewhere that every Japanese wrestler and writer given a ballot voted for Saito. That's why he's in. Clearly the perspective of Saito's career is different inside the Japanese wrestling business than outside it in America. My gut feeling is that they're marks for his relative success in America. That puts us in our place. John

Most likely a candidate from Japan in 2007 who got a lot of votes from US Based voters (i.e. people in the business and "reporters"). *takes a look* The Rock The only person voted in. Whereas the year before was Hase, Funaki and Aja. Honestly don't understand that big drop and then bump. Did Dave push him at all? John

None. "Yes. Greatest manager of all-time is either Cornette or Heenan. In." I paraphrase, but literally no thought was given to Jimbo beyond that. Five seconds, on to the next. I think if more than five seconds were spent on it, we might have come to a better thought process: Hayes + Gordy + Roberts similar as a group to Eaton + Condrey/Lane + Cornette Not identical roles. Not identical "impact". But as candidates, what they did together makes up the core of their candidacy. Individually, they all did other things, some of them not at all insignificant (Hollywood Blondes, Fabs, Gordy's career in Japan). But when one talks about these guys as HOF'ers, most people point to what they did in the "groups" and the "greatness" on some level of these groups. I think the MX would have gone in long ago if we hadn't put Jimbo in and instead set him aside: "We need to think about groups a bit more. So many of them have someone like Gordy or Flair or Choshu who did a lot outside of the groups. Flair and Choshu are HOF'ers on their own. Flair was before the Horsemen were ever formed. Ishin Gundan did launch Choshu to superstardom, so that's a little different. Gordy might be a HOF'er on his own, though the Birds would be a large part of that. And how do you deal with all the people who flow through the groups over time, and come up with the core, key members who would go in? A lot of stuff to think of. Let's punt Cornette to next year as we think more about groups, and whether he should be part of the MX + Jim Cornette rather than just a solo candidate." I don't know if Dave would agree with all that *now*. I suspect if I said it in 1996 when we were going through the candidates that he would have. I also suspect that if I mentioned in 1999 that putting Jim in the original class rather than thinking about him as a member of a group, and walked through it a bit, he would have agreed. It would have been too late to do anything about it, as other than killing your wife and kid there isn't anyway to get tossed out of the Hall (and even that didn't do it). Groups remain an interesting topic. It's too bad that the candidacy of the Birds and the MX didn't lead to a better discussion of the topic. We tried back in 2003... 2005... and 2007: http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=609 But it never really went anywhere. John

Agreed on this. Not just reporters, but he's also been accessable for decades to his readers. One need to know how to approach him, but he's very accessable. Agreed. I think we get 1000 bad baseball pieces for every bad wrestling one. Seriously. The Coke scandal ran through baseball, and baseball reporters largely buried their heads to it until the Pitt Trail forced their hands. Years after the fact, we see guys like Keith Hernandez still treated with respect by the baseball media. The Riods story goes back to the 80s (at the very least), and the overwhelming majority of baseball reporters largely have ignored it over the years, or just wished it would get done with so they can go back to covering the games. Contrast that with Meltzer. He's been covering the dope problem in wrestling from early in his newsletter, and increasingly covered it over the years. He touched on the riods problem as a ticking time bomb no later than his coverage of Gino's death. Think about that one for a minute: Gino's death was Coke related, and while dealing with that being a problem in the business, Meltzer was also writing the steriods were an even larger bomb waiting to go off. His coverage of riods in wrestling over the decades blows away the coverage of pretty much *every* scandal in baseball over that same time period. Dave playing favorites with people like Ross? That's nothing compared to sports reporters sitting on stories. You don't think that most of the beat reporters covering the Red Sox in the 80s didn't know that Wade Boggs was banging Margo on road trips long before it ever broke? Or the Laker beat reporters didn't know that James Worthy was fucking all sorts of groupies and hookers long before he got busted for the two hookers? Or that Magic was fucking everything in sight long before the AIDS story broke? Football still has a massive steroid problem, yet the NFL white washes it and the media ignores it except when the stupid get caught. Basketball hasn't yet gotten touched by a riod scandal. Does anyone honestly think the sport has been clean over the years? There's a lot that I've disagreed with Dave on over the years, or been critical of him on... even when we were talking and traveling together. But there really isn't any difference between how he covers his niche and how the MSM covers their various ones be it sports (which wrestling isn't) or entertainment. There are some things that Dave does better, some things that he doesn't do as well, and a host of things that he's pretty much par for the course. Perhaps one difference since he's a one stop shop is that Dave's "news", "analysis" and "commentary/opinion" all gets morphed together rather than different writers doing different things at a paper. John

I confess to really scratching my head over Saito. I wouldn't have a problem with him going in as part of an Ishingundan "group". But I think that anyone who looked at things honestly would find that Terry Gordy is a better stand alone candidate than Saito, and never really got a serious push as a solo candidate. Even within Ishingundan, one would be surprised by how limited his role was because he left for the US: New Wolves Phase 1-7-83 (taped 1-6) 2. Killer Khan/Seiji Sakaguchi d. Riki Choshu/Masa Saito 1-14-83 3. Antonio Inoki/Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Riki Choshu/Masa Saito 1-21-83 (taped 1-20) 3. Tatsumi Fujinami/Antonio Inoki/Seiji Sakaguchi d. Killer Khan/Masa Saito/Riki Choshu 1-28-83 2. Rusher Kimura/Isamu Teranishi/Animal Hamaguchi d. Killer Khan/Riki Choshu/Masa Saito 2-4-83 (taped 2-3) 3. Antonio Inoki/Tatsumi Fujinami d. Riki Choshu/Masa Saito 3-4-83 1. Tatsumi Fujinami/Seiji Sakaguchi vs. Riki Choshu/Masa Saito 3-11-83 4. Antonio Inoki/Seiji Sakaguchi/Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Masa Saito/Riki Choshu/Killer Khan 3-18-83 2. Killer Khan/Masa Saito/Riki Choshu d. Rusher Kimura/Animal Hamaguchi/Isamu Teranishi 3-25-83 (taped 3-24) 2. Masa Saito/Riki Choshu d. Adrian Adonis/Tony P. 4-5-83 (taped 4-3) 4. Kengo Kimura/Seiji Sakaguchi vs. Killer Khan/Masa Saito 4-8-83 (taped 4-7) 3. Killer Khan/Riki Choshu/Masa Saito 4-22-83 (taped 4-21) 3. Antonio Inoki d. Masa Saito Saito jobs in a Loser Leaves Town match, and heads to the US Ishin Gundan vs Seiki Gundan Phase Choshu and Khan farted around for a while after Saito left, before they joined hands with Animal Hamaguchi in June to form Ishin Gundan. Their first TV matches together where in July. Yatsu returned to Japan in October after a year abroad "growing up", and got a major push as a member of Ishin Gundan. It was 10 months before Saito appeared on TV with them again: 5/11/84 1. Kengo Kimura/Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Riki Choshu/Masa Saito 5/25/84 3. Antonio Inoki/Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Riki Choshu/Masa Saito 6/1/84 2. Kengo Kimura/Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Yoshikai Yatsu/Masa Saito 6/8/84 2. Fujiwara/Osamu Kido/Sakaguchi vs. Riki Choshu/Yatsu/Masa Saito 6/15/84 1. Riki Choshu/Yatsu/Masa Saito vs. Patera/Adonis/Murdoch And that's it. In for a series, then out. Choshu & Co. jumped from New Japan on September 21, ran an angle with All Japan on November 1 and debuted on the final night of the Tag League. Their went regular with All Japan on Jan 2, 1985 and started working TV the next day. Saito's TV with All Japan? 2/2/85 (taped 1/24) Jumbo/Tenryu/Ishikawa vs. Choshu/Masa Saito/Khan 2/16/85 (taped 2/5) Jumbo/Tenryu vs. Choshu/Saito That's it. He joined the opening series of the year at the tail end of it, worked a pair of TV tapings, and wouldn't appear again on All Japan TV. I'm not saying that Saito played *no* role in the New Wolves / Ishin Gundan / Choshu's Invasion of All Japan. He did. He played a key early role in the New Wolves. He played a less key early role in the jump to All Japan, as a major focus was placed on Yatsu right out of the gate in All Japan. He did play a role in the jump back to New Japan, but that really wasn't Choshu's Army for long. He frankly only played a "key" role because Choshu was barred from wrestling and working on TV due to lawsuit threats from Baba and NTV. In a sense, Saito was Choshu's stand in for those "big matches" with Inoki. It's kind of sad that Saito goes in on his own as it makes it far less likely that the Ishin Gundan group will go in. Ishin Gundan (Choshu, Saito, Khan, the wildly underrated Kobayashi, Hamaguchi and Yatsu) had a vastly greater impact as a "group" on New Japan and All Japan from 10/82 - 2/87 than the Four Horsemen had on Crockett as a "group" (rather than Flair as a solo with his various singles feuds) from the 1985-88 period covered by Will's set. Ishin Gundan jumped from one national promotion to another, changed the fortunes of a promotional war, crippled the first promotion they left to the point that Choshu was given a piece of the company to come back and impacted the second promotion they left by indirectly forcing the feud that would carry it for the next three years. I love the Midnight Express & Jim Cornette, but it would be a stretch to say that "group" had the impact Ishin Gundan had. I think one of the sad things about the hap-hazzard fashion inwhich things get done. Corny never should have been put in with the original class. 95% of his "case" in 1996 was related to the Midnight Express, and he should always have been bundled with them as "The Midnight Express & Jim Cornette". They were a "group" in every sense of the word, and Hall of Fame Manager Jim Cornette really was little more than his role in the MX group. His stuff in Memphis before the MX may have been enjoyed, but it really had nothing to do with him getting a thumbs up. His stuff in Smokey got props, but again it had next to nothing to do with him getting the thumbs up. It was with Eaton & Condrey/Lane. But once you put in Jim on his own, you're literally cutting of 1/3rd of the aguement for the MX as a "group", and an extremely critical third. Not just as a talker, but also as a worker: Jim was an exceptional working manager at ringside adding a good deal to the quality of the group's matches. I'm rambling... John

Steve didn't advocate Marshall. Steve was pushing other candidates. Beats me who was pushing Marshall. John

That would be off. It may have been one of the earlier two I gave the dates for. Check the times and finishes and buildings. If it's not one of those two, then it's probably from 1988 or early 1989 before Fujiwara jumped. My guess is that they are both from June 1987.

Riki Choshu vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara is either 06/09/87 in Osaka (Choshu pins him in 12:28) or 06/29/87 st Korakuen (Fujiwara is COR at 8:14) Riki Choshu & Strong Machine & Kuniaki Kobayashi vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Nobuhiko Takada & Osamu Kido is 06/12/87 at Sumo Hall. Kengo Kimura vs Masa Saito was taped 06/10/87. It aired later in the month. John

Hell... I couldn't even remember what I wrote. Had to go look it up. John

Steve's pieces are actually very opinionated (and thus very subjective), but he backs up his opinions as far as possible with facts. All wrestling analysis is subjective, but good analysis is well informed not based on romantic nostalgia or tired conventional wisdom. Actually, Yohe pieces have gotten people into the HOF. And I do agree that they have been subjective at times. The Curley one clear was. Of course Curley should have gone in earlier if we had a better clue. John

I haven't read much Povich reporting over the years: he wasn't based out here, we didn't get the Washington Post and I just don't recall him writing in The Sporting News, Sports Illustrated or any of the other national magazines. No judgement on him. I don't think that Bill James would have ever called himself truly a "journalist". He long has preferred "historian", and has been comfortable with forms of "analyst" and "writer" and even coined a term for his field. If one actually reads his writings from the 80s it's pretty clear that he's trying differentiate himself from "journalists" and "media" that cover the sport, and regularly pointed to why he did. I've seen debates/discussions between James and people like Povich. He was part of a weekly radio show during the baseball season for a few years in the late 80s/early 90s. It was a three headed monster. The host was either a local baseball broadcaster or local talk radio guy. One of the years the other person was a noted award winning baseball writer. I'm pretty sure it was Tracy Ringolsby (a J. G. Taylor Spink Award winning in the HOF) rather than Tim Kurkjian (future Spinks winner) or Jayson Stark (future Spinks winner). Anyway... Ringolsby was really quite awful. Pretty much all forms of American Journalism to a large degree such. They're frankly embarassing. Baseball Journalism, as with much of Sports Journalism, is dogshit. Not saying that Wrestling or MMA Journalism is any good. It really isn't all that good relative to what we know as great journalism. But I wouldn't hold up much of any sports journalism as an example to wrestling or MMA journalism. They're pretty similar. That is pretty funny. John

It's pretty amazing that we have 16 pages on what a prick Ross is. John

The pro-Sak stuff is laugh a minute level quality. John

Mexico City probably isn't a great example. It's highly likely that all of the very biggest draws in Mexico City in the last 50+ years also were draws at one point or another in their careers elsewhere in the country. Mexico City and Mexico have vs London and England... that's not really a population comp that Mexico takes a back seat in, and hasn't for a while. That's not to say that Big Daddy wasn't a national draw, and that there isn't value in that. John

Mainstream journalism is probably worse at this point. Whatever valid criticism we aim at pro wrestling reporters can be written on a far large scale at the MSM. John

It wasn't 1Wrestling or Prodigy. It was the WCW Live show that Ryder and Borash hosted. I don't recall if there was a lawsuit filed. He did at the very least bring it to the attention of Time Warner/Turner very strongly, and they did settled it out. I believe Eric had to apologize at the very least. The "hate" that Eric had for the Torch predated that, and was aimed at Wade. I don't recall what specifically caused Eric to threaten Wade, and seem to recall that Wade was surprised by it since he had a decent relationship with Eric going back to the AWA days where both were based in the Twin Cities. I don't know if kjh is still a Torch sub. He probably could ask on Wade's forum... better from a "longtime reader" than as wise ass like myself. John

Setting aside the earlier "Ric is financially set" nonsense that none but the marks ever bought, why in the hell did Flair take out loans from ROH and Highspots? Weren't those folks paying Ric for services rendered? My guess is that these aren't "loans" but closer to "advances" on a certain number of X (sales in the case of the Shoot Video). And if he owes money to those companies, then those sales fell below the level of the advance. Just taking a stab there. Trying to figure it out as those to companies just loaning $$$ to Ric doesn't make a lot of sense. John

The Sano thread in Projects lists the BatBat matches that we throught were taped at the time. If you get a chance, it would be a good addition to that thread if you talked about them. From watching him do these in the past, Will really values folks pointing out stuff worth looking at for a set. If someone says it's a "must" and explains why, Will's more that willing to include it even if he's not fully getting warm and fuzzy over it. And a lot of the time, a "must" will be something he hasn't seen, and really digs when checking it out. John