jdw

That always was a strange one. It's not like Saito did anything between 1996 and when he got in that enhanced his candidacy. "Don't ask me... I didn't vote for him." -jdw

It's not a recent thing. Dave Heeren was doing Basketball Abstracts in the 80s and 90s to play off the success of Bill James, using his TENDEX stuff. My recollection is that he developed that long before writing his books. Dean Oliver was doing stuff in the mid-90s, and Hollinger popped up around that time. Anytime someone develops stuff like Heeren, Oliver and Hollinger, they or others are instantly draw to applying it to the past: how Jordan compared to Wilt, etc. Had people looked deeper at things like (i) the high number of points being scored in the early 60s, (ii) the high number of shots / missed shots in the same period, and how (iii) it inflated PPG and RPG? Or that there were 9 teams in the NBA in Bellamy's "prime" and being 3-3-4-6-5 in Rebounds in a league with 9 Centers and the position of Power Forward not really developed yet isn't mind numbing? It's likely that people were onto that in the mid-90s at the latest. Bill James was doing it in baseball in no later than the early 80s, and influenced similar people in other sports. John

What about The Hogan Family? I am frighten that I know that... and worse, who replaced Valarie... and worse... Why.

Not a chance. Not even in the '80s. But especially not now. Like I said with Ringwald, Paul Hogan had a couple of cups of coffee in the limelight. Hulk Hogan has had several straight decades. Still, Ringwald at least endures... Who gives a crap about Crocodile Dundee today? Not even the people who grew up with it. I'd disagree on that point. Crocodile Dundee still gets shown on cable as much as Breakfast Club and Hogan got a third sequel and those Suzuki commercials a couple of years back where he was quasi in the character for them. People remember "Crocodile Dundee" as the movie and the guy, Paul Hogan as the actor may not come to mind. I'd say "Crocodile Dundee" has endured as much as Molly Ringwald has. I agree that Croc (and through it Hogan) have endured. Setting aside the Molly comp, just as Molly sticks in the minds of a lot of girls growing up in the 80s as an icon, Croc sticks in the minds of a lot of Americans from the 80s as basically being Austrialia.

I didn't think at the time, nor do today, that she was wildly talented. She was "right" for Sixteen Candles, and it's one of those movies where it feels like things came together rather than a wildly talented group of folks. Right moment, right actors and writer and director for it, the cliches felt "perfectly okay" rather than eye rolling at the time, etc. I frankly thought they and Hughes all sucked in TBC. I think as I mentioned earlier in the thread, were were only a year removed from High School at the time and we all thought it was a steaming pile of shit relative to the real stuff kids in that environment were dealing with (i.e. White Middle Class Suburban America as opposed to kids who had really tough environments). Pretty In Pink... it's always felt like it tries way too hard. Including her performance, and very much Hughes writing. Which maybe was one of the things that didn't feel like the case in Sixteen Candles. As someone who watched a lot of early/mid 90s softcore B movies, her stuff wasn't softcore B movies. It's not like she went and did Playtime taking either the Monique Parent or Jennifer Burton role.

The problem with your data is that it relies solely on 1980s box office numbers. Even in the '80s, movies had a shelf life outside of theaters. Cable and VHS rentals made so many of them big past their theatrical run, including the John Hughes movies. The Princess Bride is another good example of that. That has since continued with DVD, Blu-Ray, Netflix, etc. Are you seriously going to tell me with a straight face that Witness, Out of Africa, and Cocoon are more enduring and beloved than the John Hughes films with Ringwald, or even the ones without her like Ferris? Crocodile Dundee was a major hit at the time, but it hasn't had the same staying power. It was a huge fad, almost like Hulk Hogan. But I don't think anyone outside of the '80s really knows or cares about Paul Hogan (the Croc actor). Croc more enduring? Yes. Witness and Out of Africa? No, because Ford, Redford and Streep have a massive body of work where those movies get buried under their more iconic roles. Well, hell... with Streep there isn't an iconic role: it's Steep. Cocoon? No. On the other hand, was I offering up any of those as having lasting huge legacy? I don't think so. I was pointing to a number of movies and stars in that time period that were bigger than Molly and her movies. John

Julia Roberts is a huge freaking star. And Demi Moore used to be quite a big name too. Not even in the same boat. Of the top of my head, Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock are the biggest female movie star of the past 25 years. They've both had ups and downs, but time of the top flies by so fast for most women (even men when you looks at it), that's it's pretty stunning the longevity the two have had since their breakout movies. Roberts: Pretty Woman (1990) --> Eat Pray Love (2010) Bullock: Speed (1994) --> Gravity (2013) Leaving out Mirror Mirror (2012) for Roberts since it doesn't feel like that much of a hit, while Eat Pray Love was $25M less in budget and $40M more in global box office. Anyway, that's 20 years for each, which is pretty mind blowing. In contrast, Demi Moore was a "big star" for a stretch, a lot of money tossed at projects for her, and has stayed in the spotlight for decades in part off her personal life. But she hasn't anchored/co-anchored a hit since Disclosure, which another one of those Michael Douglas flicks of the Fatal Attraction / Basic Instinct variety... and much less of a hit than both. It's really just three movies for her: Ghost (1990), A Few Good Men (1992) and Indecent Proposal (1993)... and AFGM really was a Cruise-Jack thingy. Demi is a big star off 4 years, 3 movies, the last of which was 20 years ago... and her personal life. Yow!

The funny thing is Ringwald was famous for leaving the U.S. and moving to France as her career cooled off in the early 90's. The couple of French films she made must not have done well. I checked. Hey, she was in "Enfants de salauds" ! So I actually saw her in a movie. Seven Sundays / "Tous les jours dimanche" (1994) Bastard Brood / "Enfants de salaud" (1996) Since you're done with the WCW Thread, maybe a movie review...

This is kind of interesting. Movies at their biggest are bigger than pro wrestling. But Hogan (and Vince) had TV supporting them. Viewership is something to wonder about: TV Households Watching 13,467,200 Main Event (1988) 11,788,800 Main Event (1990) 10,486,400 Main Event (1989) 10,223,100 SNME (1/27/90) 10,138,400 SNME (3/14/87) 9,264,400 SNME (1/3/87) 9,040,000 SNME (3/11/89) 8,933,600 SNME (1/4/86) 8,860,000 SNME (3/12/88) 8,590,000 SNME (3/1/86) Estimated Ticket Buyers 12,922,583 The Breakfast Club (1985) 10,908,804 Pretty in Pink (1986) 7,049,413 Sixteen Candles (1984) The estimate on tickets is based on Box Office / Average Ticket Price for the given here as listed by Box Office Mojo. I did not run a google on whether there's an established method to try to back out "repeat viewer tickets" of movies, so those numbers are likely High rather than conservative for the number of people who bought tickets. The Households is based on Rating * TV Households For Year / 100 with the TV Households from Nielsen and compiled by Zap2It. I took the SNME / Main Events with 10+ ratings listed. Of course people would later see those movies on Free TV, but with SNME we have the following things to think about: * it's households, not Viewers (there would be more) * SNME was 11:30 PM which is past the bed time of a lot of kids even on the weekend * the ratings don't factor in the VCR * in a given year, more people would watch semi-regularly (say 20+) the various weekly shows than any given SNME I think those 1987 SNME numbers low ball by a pretty good amount the true number of semi-regular watchers of the WWF in 1987. After adjusting for Viewers (maybe 1.5 per household), would the number double? Go up by another 1.5? That's 22,811,400 relative to the 3/14/87 SNME? Those SNME numbers are pretty batshit when you consider the hour of day those aired on. John

The most important thing I remember about Gremlins: But then again, I was a massive mark at the time for her in her Paradise / Fast Times at Ridgemont High / Gremlins peak. John

Some others: Raiders of the Lost Ark ET Beverly Hills Cop Ghostbusters Rambo Top Gun Those would be more along the lines of Batman. Big box office hits, and have had elements pop up in culture since. Some others that we big but harder to tell: Back to the Future Crocodile Dundee Fatal Attraction Back to the Future is in some new GE commercials, so it's getting some run again. It's hard for me to judge the lasting iconic nature of it since it has too much of a soft spot for me. I saw some Dundee talk when scrolling up the thread, but haven't really read the discussion. This is a tough one because it was really huge, big enough the the sequel got released the same day as Rambo II (i.e First Blood III and the direct follow up to Rambo), and kicked it's ass. Dundee II was "disappointing" because it didn't match the original, but it did 32% more box office than Die Hard, 39% more than Naked Gun, 48% more than Beetlejuice... all of which were considered Big Hits on some level that year. So Dundee was Big at the time. The tricky thing is long lasting vibe. I want to say more than we give it credit for. Dundee plus this: Along with Men At Work is how a lot of the "masses" got a view of Aussies. Shrimp On The Barbie and "Now THAT'S a knife" are pretty iconic lines from that era. So while I doubt a ton of younger people know much about it... I think it's likely remembered in the same way as Molly and her movies (iconic to a certain segement), but on a larger scale. Fatal Attraction probably isn't iconic to kids of the era. To folks over a certain age... yeah... it was pretty big. I suspect pretty iconic to a lot of cheating men who look at Fatal Attraction like a lot of us kids looked at Jaws in the 1970s and being afraid of the Beach. * * * * * On the Terminator and Scarface level, that's even tougher. Those are movies that weren't massive hits. Terminator had the massive sequel that helped cement it. On some level it got over as iconic a bit less for the movie than for "I'll be back", Arnold later turning into the massive box office star at the *end* of the decade, and the "Terminator" concept. Scarface wasn't even thought of as that iconic in the 80s: you'd toss out references like "Say hello to my little friend" or "Do you know who you're fucking with?!?!", and folks wouldn't get it that much. At some point in the 90s and into now, they and the movie are much more over. Kind of point: they took their time in building to iconic level rather than instantly getting there. They might not have been huge, but over time they got watched by a lot of people (Terminator)... or they had signature lines that people watched and got over (Scarface though of course Terminator had the big line). So others like that... Caddyshack - Murray's stuff from it is really over, and always has been. Rodney's stuff was at the time as well, but hard to tell over time. The Shining - perhaps a bit like Scarface in having an iconic scene/line. I think far fewer people have watch those two movies in full than most iconic movies, but the big scenes... they've been watched a ton. Airplane - big hit so a lot of people saw it... but probably more remembered for lines/scenes such as "I picked a bad week to quit..." and "... and stop calling me Shirley." Friday the 13th - I mean... Jason rather than Michael Myers ended up defining the genre. I'm not a fan, but... I'm not sure about Blues Brothers. The "We're on a mission from God" thing is iconic, but the Blues Brothers had been over from TV before that as well. Wouldn't argue against it. That's just 1980. So there are tiers of iconic. There's Godfather level of iconic. But there's also stuff like Terminator and Scarface level of iconic that really aren't remotely close to Godfather level or Star Wars level or Raiders of the Lost Arc level or Batman level. When this thread popped into my head over the weekend, Risky Business for some reason popped up. It's something that got pushed down in Cruise's career because of Top Gun and bigger hits later. But it's also the movie that pretty much put one of the biggest box office stars in history on the map, unlike say Rob Lowe we saw Cruise deliver on people projecting him to be a star... and it does have at least one iconic scene. But Cruise has also been around for so long that I wonder if a generation of younger folks see him as that Mission Impossible guy (good lord those movies have collectively done more box office than I remembered), along with other hits around and after them. I feel old thinking about Risky Business coming out 30 year ago, and having turned 17 4 months earlier it being one of those Rated R movies that we no longer had to fake our way into. Anyway... John

This would clear space to let Edge in, which was very much implied in what Houston was saying.

For fuck's sake... there's advice on a HOF where nothing has changed about it for more than a decade other than Dave handing out more and more ballots? Well... and adding Europe and the gerrymandered Oceania/PR categories? Can we blame a poorly thought out "Other" category on Houston? I'm also pretty stunned that it took Dave 17 years to figure out that there's a 15 year limit on being on the ballot in the Baseball HOF. John, who wonders how many years it will take Houston to mention that after the 15 years the guys who don't make it in eventually become eligible for the Vet Committee to put in...

Sayama's reputation is one of work and influence as much as drawing, at least that's my understanding of it. Sure, for some people. But what puts him over the top as a HOF candidate? * Great Worker There are people who think he's a great worker. Whether he is a great worker is debatable. I'm not sure if he were a Brian Pillman level guy who didn't draw and had no influence that *anyone* thinks Sayama's "work" would be enough to get him in. * Great draw This is a harder one to put a finger on. We hear ratings tossed out. We have nothing to truly compare them to: the full 70s of NJPW and AJPW ratings, the 80s ratings for both, and their respective time slots. We just don't have a full picture of that. In turn, ratings don't always mean "drawing" because it's not like TV was NJPW's major cash cow. It was running shows. So what type of data do we have from 4/81 - 8/83 of what NJPW drew, what they drew before and what they drew after? In addition, how well do we have that data broken down to split off the 1983 stuff to comp it with 1982 to see if there's an Choshu Turn impact? In addition, how well to we have the date broken down to deal with the IWE Invasion relative to what NJPW was doing before. There are a lot of moving parts there, and we have... hardly anything of much use. So I don't think "Big Draw" alone puts him over. * Big Influence Not sure is anyone is arguing that one. It is what puts him over for most. I'm not even going to go into Innovation because that's pretty open to debate, and just stick with Influence. It's pretty much what gets him in regardless of the rest. I'm not sure it would matter. John Cena got in, and in that sphere of influence it's not exactly like he's thought of as a "great worker". Dittos Rock. Dittos Trip. It's not really an example you've come up with out of thin air. Dave has gone to the Sayama's Work defense spot when people have been critical of him. But in the end, it really has nothing to do with whether Sayama is a HOFer or not. He'd get in easy, and he'd get in for influence. He'd be someone like Sasaki to Dave: For years Dave wouldn't think he was a HOFer because he saw Sasaki's career, and he really wasn't at the level as package as the rest of the Top Guys from that era. Sasaki and Taue... those would be his left overs from what we could consider the Big 8 of that generation of heavies. The someone would put together a list of all the Big Cards and Big Shows that Sasaki "headlined". Dave might not read it carefully or think about it much, and would think, "Holy shit... Sasaki was a bigger star than I thought." Then someone else would pull out a list of ****+ matches that he was in. Wouldn't have to be overkill, but a list going back to 1990 (IWGP Tag win) through some point in the 00's (at least the Kobashi match), and Dave might think, "Okay... he was in more good matches than I thought, and for a long time." At which point on a superficial level of thought and analysis Dave would "see" him as a HOFer. It's not really revisionism. Dave didn't think Sasaki was shitty, and then thought he was "at his best a good worker for a lot of years." Dave didn't think he was a shitty draw and then suddenly thought "he was a bigger star that he'd been given credit for." Instead, Dave always knew he was a pushed guy in NJPW, that they had plans for him, that he won honors and headlines a fair number of Dome and Budokan / Sumo Hall cards. He also knew he was a solid worker at his best, and was in a fair number of good cards. So it's not really revisionism to go from that Solid Base of a HOF candidacy to a Strong Candidacy as you have more information/thought on him... which is how Dave would see it. Sasaki isn't a 180. With Bellamy, it's not people thought he was shit. They thought he was a good player, and he had a long career, and he did some stuff. But they didn't really think he was GREAT~! After he retired, as the years went on, as we got futher removed from guys putting up 20-14 career numbers (or 30-20 in a season), his numbers started looking even better. So on a superficial level of thought and analysis, voters thought of his as a HOF. John

And didn't think you were picking on me. I wanted to run with your point to take it to its logical conclusion: I'd be limited as a voter, Dave would be, Yohe would be, we all would. It quickly gets silly if we follow Dave down that logical rabbit hole.

I thought so as well, but Hans died before he went in the HOF. Hard to imagine that Dave saying people in the business don't think he could work would hurt Hans' feelings now 3 years after he dropped dead. There is a ton of tape on Bob. But I get the sense from these discussions that Dave seems to think people watch 5-10 matches when pimping Wrestler X, rather than trying to find every Backlund / Fujiwara / Lawler / Colon match they can track down. John

I don't get this either. If Dave thought he was a HOF and Maeda wasn't getting in, all he would need to do was write a one page article explaining what Maeda did. It wouldn't need to be overly detailed: a simple USA Today Bulletpoint article. John

There's been debate about the Baseball HOF since it was created. At various times, the standards were lowered so low that if we use those standards we'd have a slew of mediocre people in it (i.e. far more than we have at this point). Instead, on some of the worst, people have looked at Ross Youngs and Chick Hafey's stats in total and gone: "Right... those don't mean anything. We'll just ignore them rather than apply them to other folks. Dear god those are awful." Debate happens for one reasons, and one reason only: People Care Either about the HOF in general or a candidate. When they don't care, they don't debate. John

That's hilarious. John

Why? Liger isn't a HOFer as a draw. Hogan isn't a HOFer as a worker. I think they're both HOFers. There certainly is room in the HOF for both. John

UFC baby! Yeah... I know that Funaki didn't fight in UWF, and it's a big stretch. But some such nonsense about MMA would be the reason.

Exactly. Backlund. A large chunk of it was more info (MSG book) coming out. But there was some revisionism. Schmidt wasn't revisionism, but more info being dug up. It's really hard to point to many. Yeah, there is a good deal of that. And yeah... I get the irony. Yep. That's a tough one. There are so many subtangets of that that have had to be killed off as well, though who knows... a lot of those live on depending on who is writing history. Yep. This is true. John

Let me split this into two. On Sayama, is anyone arguing that Sayama shouldn't be in the HOF? Even if one thinks he's a shitty worker, are there people who think the impact/influence isn't worthy of getting in the HOF? I think he's a HOF. He was a no brainer to me in 1996 when Dave flipped the page and Tiger Mask's picture was there: jdw: "Yes." DM: "Of course." If Sayama were on the ballot this year, I'd voter for him. Easy, and I'd have a hard time thinking of anyone on the ballot this year other than Matsunaga who I would vote ahead of him if I was limited to 1 vote. So back to this one: Here's the problem... or problems. Belemay became eligible in 1981. The people closer to when he played didn't think he a sure shot HOFer. It took Belemay until 1993, 13 years of eligibility, to get in. You can look up the guys who got in before him: http://www.basketball-reference.com/awards/hof.html Now it's the Naismith HOF, which covers Pro + College, so someone like Bill Bradley has items in both and would never get in for just his pro career. But there are centers Willis Reed, Nate Thurmond, Wes Unseld, Dave Cowens, Bill Walton and Bob Lanier who came along after he debuted, along with Neil Johnston and Clyde Lovellette who played before him. Even in that batch, none of them are top tier (Russell, Chamberlain, Jabbar, Moses Malone, Olajuwon and O'Neal), though an exception can be made for Walton because his College was top tier with the pros being gravy. Belemay just wasn't highly thought of in the 1981-92 period. Okay, what about his contemporaries? All-Star Games 1962 NBA 1963 NBA 1964 NBA 1965 NBA Awards 1961-62 NBA Rookie of the Year 0 All NBA Teams (a bit hard with Russell & Wilt This was the only time he got an MVP vote: http://www.basketball-reference.com/awards...s_1963.html#mvp 1 point (i.e. the final vote on someone's ballot), tied with John Barnhill and behind Red Kerr and Terry Dischinger. Those guys I mentioned above who came along after him? Reed, Unseld, Cowens and Walton won MVP's (and titles as well), while Thurmond (2-8-9), and Bob Lanier (3-4-10-13-14) ran circles around Belemay's recognition. What happened with Belemay wasn't that people thought he was great when he played (they didn't), or instantly after he retired (they really didn't). It's that over time, being 20-14 PPG-RPB and 7th on the RPG list made him look better than he was. It was Stats, not how people thought of him in the era, or how he reflected it. So in turn, people coming around after that enshrinement (and frankly even before it) to point out that his stats are wildly inflated and he wasn't really that great isn't revisionism. It's dealing with what got him in (Stats) with deeper analysis (Contextualizing those Stats), along with pointing out how he was thought of in the era. It's actually trying to correct what was revisionism. Agree with this.

Well, there is that.

It's either that or Dave thinks most his readers/voters are morons who can't possibly evaluate old footage the right way. I get why he tends to not respond a lot on wrestling boards but is he always so dismissive in person? Do people actually talk about this kind of criticism when they talk to him? Just curious. He and Bruce have the same view, though: * it's largely aimed at those who don't agree with how they view a worker * it may be Dave's idea and Bruce has disagreed with enough people *cough* on work that he agreed with it If we all thought Sayama was great, Dave would be happy. When people watch Flair tapes and think Flair is still great, he'd think they knew what they were seeing. Those MX Matches that the WWE makes trainees watch? "Right on! Er... I mean... that contradicts my point... er... let's just ignore it." Again, I go back to that list of Great Movies. People have been doing it since before Dave was born. People don't always agree with the lists, but still it's a common thing for people to watch/read old forms of entertainment and judge/analyze/rate them. Why is Pro Wrestling different? I don't buy that "athletic entertainment" aspect. It's a visual medium, and a performance one. Plays are as well. As are movies.