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Here's the thing: I didn't watch any of those guys in the 1970s. I didn't start watching pro wrestling until 1986 when I was 20 years old. By Dave's logic, a lot of us would be limited in what we could vote on. Dave himself would be limited as well: guys like Snyder were well past their peak when he started watching, as was Torres. John

Maeda DOB: 1959 Debut: 1978 If there was a 45 year old requirement, Maeda would have hit the ballot in 2004. If there was a "45 year old or 20 years after debut", Maeda would have hit in 1998. If it was 45/25, he would have hit in 2003. It's frankly impossible for Maeda to have not hit the HOF in 1998. It also is insane to think that he wouldn't have made it if he hit the ballot in 2003 or 2004. Toyota made it in 2002, hadn't been relevant for years, and never was the star in Japan that Maeda was. "Japanese Voters" would know this, unless Dave gave out ballots to a lot of people who aren't really knowledgeable about Puroresu. I'm guessing that Dave thinks we missed a lot of obvious candidates from the US and Japan who peaked in the 1950s and 1960s when putting together the classes of 1996 and 1997. You know... guys who were as big of stars in those countries as Maeda was in Japan. I'm drawing a blank, though. We missed Hans Schmidt, though the irony there is that Dave fought that candidacy for ages. Curtis Iaukea didn't get in for just the US or Japan stuff, so I don't think he counts... and frankly think he's one of the most marginal people in the HOF. He's the probably the worst of the "Dropped Dead" Hall of Famers. So... um... yeah, who exactly did we miss? Kinji Shibuya? The was Dave's backyard, and by 1996 he was suppose to be one of the leading experts on San Fran wrestling. If Dave didn't think he was much of a candidate, it's a tough sell. In large part if Shibuya goes in, it's because (i) he Dropped Dead and got the big write up, and (ii) all of the top candidates from Shibuya's career are already in and were put in the 1996 class. So I've got to say that if Dave and I and a few other people didn't completely fuck up the 50s and 60s when selecting in 1996 (25+ years after the end of that era), how in the hell can we excuse a bunch of fuck ups who in 2003/04 didn't know that Maeda was a slam dunk HOF just 15 years after he was the first guy to pack the Tokyo Dome and... wait for it... yep... just 4 years after Dave wouldn't have written up a massive bio when Maeda retired in 1999. "Does this make logic?" Entertainment? Sight & Sound 10 Year Polls We might disagree on those movies. But it would appear that the voters in that thingy were able to get knowledgable about old movies: 01. Vertigo (191 mentions) 02. Citizen Kane (157 mentions) 03. Tokyo Story (107 mentions) 04. La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game) (100 mentions) 05. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (93 mentions) 06. 2001: A Space Odyssey (90 mentions) 07. The Searchers (78 mentions) 08. Man with a Movie Camera (68 mentions) 09. The Passion of Joan of Arc (65 mentions) 10. 8½ (64 mentions) Closest runner-up: Battleship Potemkin (63 mentions) In fact, none of that is new. The most recent movie was made in 1963. Okay... so is this just more evidence that Dave thinks WON HOF Voters are too stupid to know anything about something that happened a decade ago? If so, then way is Ivan Koloff in the Modern category? If Japan voters weren't smart enough to know Maeda in 2003/04, then how in the hell could Edge fans with Ballots know anything about Ivan? "Oh boy... I'm fucked." We put Sayama in the HOF in 1996. That was 13 years after he was awesome/landmark. It was 20 years after his debut, and he was 1 year away from turning 40. If the rule was 45/20, he would have been eligible in 1996. If it was 45/25, it would have been 2001... 18 years after his most famous match with Dynamite Kid. Were we just special voters, or does Dave really think Newer Voters are too stupid to remember things 10-15 years after their peak? Well, that's either Bob Backlund or Hans Schmidt. Since Hans is dead, I'm not sure why Dave would worry about Hans being embarrassed by something written on a board that he'll never read. I'm at a loss to see why Dave would want to avoid having Bob and Hans in the HOF. The irony, of course, is that both were well past 45/25 when they were elected. I also suspect that if there had been a WON HOF in 1965 that Hans would have gone in. Well, going back to context with Maeda: No one packed the Tokyo Dome before he headlined and packed it. He outdrew the New Japan show from earlier in the year. Budokan was almost impossible to sell out before Maeda-Takada did it. You have to go back a ways, and there's a hook to them. After Maeda-Takada, other promotions eventually started selling it out. See? Context isn't hard when it comes to drawing. I wasn't at those shows. I wasn't even watching UWF in 1989, just AJPW and NJPW. I just educated myself to those things by reading. John

Historically, pro baseball players as a group peaked at the age of 26-27. The PED era changed that, at least for a while. You become eligible 5 years after you retire. Reggie Jackson won his only MVP in 1973 when he was 27. That was his peak, or 1969 which was a flukey year with the change in the strike zone (and lord knows what else). Generally speaking, he peaked from 1971-75. His big 3 HR game in the WS was 1977. He retired after 1987, a decade after the big game, more than a decade after his peak. He hit the ballots in 1993. He got 93.6% of the ballot, which was up near the high end because there always were people playing the "first ballot" bullshit. Of course there are "stats" and "honors" people could look up. On the other hand, the reporters voting were actually reporters who covered chunks of his career: you have to be a reporter for 10+ years to get a ballot. 45 year old isn't remotely close to being far enough away from the "peak" of any newcomers career for a voter to not vote him in. And again... if they don't know enough about those obvious guys, then they shouldn't have a ballot.

Dec 1979 - OJ retires Jan 1985 - OJ Elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame Jun 1994 - OJ kills Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman Five years, give or take 15. I never really cared about the argument of we need to change the age from 35 because of Benoit. It certainly wouldn't be mine. That's actually a problem with the voters, not the rule. Steve Austin turned 45 in 2009. If voters didn't understand Austin and the time frame, then Dave shouldn't give them a ballot. It's not terribly complicated. John

The WWf Roster in 1995 was decent. It's just that everyone was either booked very badly and/or given shitty gimmicks. They were also Face Heavy after Mania and Shawn turning: Nash Shawn Bret Razor Taker The heel side sucked post-Mania... and really wasn't that strong before. Yoko, but he'd run the clock with his long title reign. Shawn was heel through Mania, then flipped. And after that... weak. It's why Sid and Mabel were pushed as Monsters: old school safe thing that worked for Hogan while trying to figure out who the Savage was. They ran Bret at Rumble, and didn't really want to turn him and have another program. They wanted to bring an end to the Shawn-Nash. That kind of left Taker or Razor if you wanted to give Nash a real program to try to stretch from Summer Slam (8/95) through Survivors (11/95). That's a big problem: those were two of Vince's favorite "Cool Heel Turned Face" characters, and he tended to be pretty loathed to turn them back. Savage he did. It took forever to turn Jake back, and blew him as being a useful heel challenger against either Hogan, Warrior or Savage. Shawn took a long while to go heel again. The Hart Foundation had issues going heel after being face, and the fans actually liked them over the Rockers. Anyway, Razor never went heel again. Taker took forever to go heel again. But those might have been the programs for Nash... except that maybe Vince felt the fans would like them more than Nash. John

Bret's second run was just killing time being the bridge until Vince came up with The Next Big Thing, which turned out to be Nash. It was also a response to Lex *not* being the Next Big Thing as Vince hoped. Backlund run *was* The Next Big Thing. It was Superstar that was killing time to bridge to Bob. Bret was pretty much Bret in WWF history. The analogy for him would be Flair after Sting won the title: they would go back to Ric because other things didn't work out on top, but then look for who they could put the belt on to lead them to the promised land. We all found it kind of funny that after his first run that Bret became the WWF's Flair: not who they wented to be the Ace, but their Next Big Aces always bombed in some way, so they went back to Bret to buy them time. Given how much Bret didn't like Flair, we found it especially funny. John

Ditch: originally I had a long post drafted out in Notepad, including breaking down how many People / Household each of the categories had (including pointing out how low the Lasped were: total Don't Get Laid, Don't Have Kids level). Then I thought it was just a waste: the 108M "WWE Fans At Some Point" number was insane enough on its own that it didn't need to be distracted from by breaking it down further. So I just kept it short for a rare instance. John

Good lord... the Suzuki "candidacy" was even funnier than I thought. Yow...

The WWF sucked at the time. But Bret vs Shawn at the 1992 Survivors was up to that point the worst PPV WWF main event ever in terms of drawing power because neither of those guys were Hogan or Savage. In hindsight it looks like something awesome and ahead of its time, but at the time it was a sign of how weak the WWF had gotten in a post-Hogan era. Diesel-Mabel looked like shit on paper. But then again, Diesel as a champ looked like shit on paper with Vince going back to his old Big Guy Champ mindset. It end up bombing. Diesel-Sid and Diesel-Mabel looked like crap. But again, it's Vince and at the time we understood it was just his mindset. Vince went back to the basics time and again as he swung between his "tried and true" and attempting newer things: * Savage champ... old school! * Bret champ... try something new! * Yokozuna --> Hogan in one night... old school! * Lex Express... old school! * Back to Bret... try that smaller guy! * Nash... old school! * Bret --> Shawn... try something new style! * Sid --> Taker... go with the Big Guys! * Bret --> Shawn... go back to those newer guys! * Austin... try something... holy shit... I finally found the New Hogan! We use to laugh at Vince swinging back and forth. The stuff prior to the Monday Night Wars wasn't truly desperation: he went a whole year with Nash. The panic was really the MNWars era where he was bouncing off walls, and stuff like completely changing his plans for Mania in 1997... that was wild. John

Pretty clear that Vince's plan coming out of Wrestlemania was back-to-back Nash vs Monsters feuds: 1. Nash vs Sid 2. Nash vs Mable May IYH Mabel pinned Adam Bomb (only KOTR Qualifier on the card) Diesel dq Sid June KOTR Mabel pinned Savio Vega (wins KOTR) Diesel & Bigelow defeated Sid & Tatanka July IYH Men on a Mission defeated Razor Ramon & Savio Vega Diesel pinned Sid (lumberjack blow off) August Summer Slam Diesel pinned King Mabel After that, whatever plans he had, got morphed around because business had issues. Hence the quick slapping together of Bret-Nash for Survivors with Bret getting involved in the Davey Boy match on the prior IYH.

Had been in the WWF since 1993, was getting a push through all that, and there is no sign that he had a falling out with Vince in the 1993-95 period leading up to challenging Nash. Running a Fat Man Heel Challenger vs Babyface Champion was old school Vince, and he'd been doing it with Yoko (as champ in fact) and Bam Bam against Hart. Did I miss him getting a main event push against Nash? Or even a massive push? It was a throw away undercard match. The pushed matches were Taylor-Bigelow and Nash-Shawn, with the Bret-Bob blow off the next pushed under that... and then likely the two other title matches. This is a bit like Snuka bring brought back as an undercard guy in the late 80s. There's no desperation in any of these.

What Johnny is implying is what I was saying: leaving WCW healthy rather than leaving it taking the insurance money. Sorry bit confused about this. You made it sound like he had an option and that he might have worked if he wanted to. Why would he have just sat out if there was no gain? I don't get that. People thought Rude was full of shit with working the Insurance Angle. There were a number of other wrestlers in that era who were thought to have overplayed their injuries to take the Free Money, or who stayed out longer than they had to. But Rude was pretty much the #1 on the list of people not buying it. As for why Rude took the money? * he saw his run in WCW hitting the wall * he had no desire to work with Hogan and job to him * he didn't have a good option of returning to the WWF since his falling out with Vince was quite bad * he didn't have a good Japan option * he likely wasn't 100% at the time of walking out He didn't fell right and could see the handwriting on the wall for where his WCW career was headed and had little options, so play up the injury, get a doctor to sign off on it, play it up to the insurance company's doctors (both of which are extremely easy because wrestlers *are* physically a mess even when working fulltime), and take the Free Money and run. That's why he took it. Or at least was the strong spec at the time. Once out, pretty much everyone took the money for the entire time it was available. I can't remember anyone coming back "early". * * * * * Going in the other direction, since Rick wasn't really as hurt as he made it up to be, "what would have happened"? * He was going to be phased down in WCW * He was going to be told to do the job for Hogan * His next contract wasn't going to be as good as his current one (these were pre-Monday Night Wars) * He didn't have a good WWF option If he didn't have the Insurance, but was good enough with his money to sit out like he did in 1990-91, then he might have bailed from WCW when the time was right (likely when his contract was up) or gotten released (if his contract had release language that Eric liked to invoke on people). In which case he would have sat out until an offer came from the WWF or WCW. My comment on that part is that he would have been well placed in a "Sitting Out Without Insurance" scenario to get a pretty damn good offer when the Monday Night Wars heated up. It's what got Bret a great deal. The wars got Davey Boy a really good deal. Obviously it got Lugar and Nash and Hall good deals, as did Pillman. Rude in the summer of 1996 might have gotten a really good deal. John

If Rude had bailed on Hogan-era WCW while healthy I'm not even sure it would have taken him until '96 to go back to Vince. '95 had business tanking and WCW heating up (even though they hadn't really pulled ahead yet). Being able to get a viable main eventer at that point may have convinced Vince to give Rude a "get out of jail free card" at that time. He didn't bring back Warrior until 1996 until he was getting really desperate in the face of WCW doing well. Similar falling out, except that Vince saw Warrior as a bigger star than Rude and "his" star. I don't see a lot of panic in Vince in 1995 over *talent* even as the business is bad. He stuck with Nash a whole year. He didn't replace Nash by pulling something out of his ass: Old Reliable Bret with the plan to go to Shawn who already was a top guy by that point. Are there any moves with talent in 1995 that look desperation?

What Johnny is implying is what I was saying: leaving WCW healthy rather than leaving it taking the insurance money.

What I wrote: Some dates: 1957 = Seventh Seal: no one 1964 = Mary Poppins: 7 people (heartbreaking for me!!) 1972 = Godfather: no one 1985 = Ghostbusters = "Have you heard of Bill Murray?": 4 people / 3 people 1986 = Labyrinth: 2 people 1987 = The Princess Bride: 4 people 1991 = Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey: 2 people 1991 = Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves: 1 person They're kind of old. 20 years ago is a hell of a long time ago. 18-22 year old. For me, that would have covered 1984-88. 20 years prior to that would have been 1964-68. Godfather is 41 years ago, which for me would have been 1943-47. I don't think *a lot* of kids my age would have know the semi-obscure films like Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Bill & Ted and Labyrinth from the 1964-68 range. By semi-obscure I don't mean that those weren't hits (though Labyrinth wasn't). But more in the sense that none of them even had much staying time within their own era. RH:POT was a bit of a throw away blockbuster. B&T was fun for it's time, but there are all sorts of goofy comedy's that come and go like that (such as Police Academy that was a big hit). So... that's not terribly surprising. Maybe someone was a big enough movie fan of 1964-68 to know what their equivs were, but I'm not sure. Ghostbusters was huge at it's time. But I'm not sure that it was still huge in say 1995, other than for those of us who had some fond memories of it. Murray's career ran aground. Ackroyd's went bust. There wasn't any big reason for it to stay in younger folk's minds, other than the iconic symbol. Going back further... not may at the age of 18-22 would know the equiv of Godfather from 1943-47 in 1984-88. I'm looking at the Oscar nominated Best Picture movies from 1943-47, and Casablanca stands out to me as the most likely to be known by my peers in 1984-88, though there are other great films. Kids in the UK in that same time frame would have a lay up: Henry V, because it's an iconic movie. But going beyond those... how many 18-22 kids would have cared much about those older movies, to the point of knowing riffs from them? Not many. :/ I think sometimes we think what we know, or how we are, is what others probably know or how they are. I toss out Animal House references at work, to friends, on boards, etc. But... it was a 1978 movie. I was 12 when I saw it for the first time. Most of the folks on the board weren't even born at the time. They have their own Animal House... and since we have so many different ages, there are probably several different Animal House equivs for the posters here. It's at times jarring that people don't know that, or who Rod Carew and Reggie Jackson are, or for whom Fleetwood Mack is an oldies group. [insert joke of me going to a John Fogerty concert a couple of weeks ago and having a blast] My past, your past, or collective past... it doesn't mean much to folks today. But my father's past growing up in the 40s and 50s didn't mean a whole helluva lot to me, other than the really big things (WWII, Korea, etc). Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Bill & Ted and Labyrinth vs 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. I'm trying to figure out which ones might be equiv. Labyrinth really was a bomb here in the US, and not one with critical acclaim or lasting impact. I don't think it's any of those. Bill & Ted was a "hit", but the #32 movie of the year in terms of box office ($40M in a year with 9 $100M+ movies), and it's legacy kind of got turfed by Wayne's World three years later being a much bigger hit. Maybe in theory that's Rosemary's Baby since it was topped massively by Exorcist a few year later in what became the iconic movie of the genre for the era, but Rosie was a much bitter hit than Bill & Ted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_1968_...e_United_States That said, I don't think a lot of my friends in college knew dick about Rosemary's Baby. Robin Hood was a really big hit: #2 for it's year. It's strange, but the movie has really little legacy for reaching that level... other than say that silly Bryan Adams song. I think there may be two major reasons for that: (i) Costner's iconic movies from that era are Dances With Wolves and Bull Durham from a legacy/longstanding viewpoint, and (ii) there are a lot of Robin Hood's that the character is a bit more iconic than that movie can get to. Can that happen? Hawaii allegedly was the biggest box office hit of 1966 as far as new releases. That, or Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? or The Bible: In the Beginning. None of those movies meant a thing to the average 18-22 year olds in 1986. Cleopatra was the Liz & Dick movie. Ten Commandments was the Biblical movie. Hawaii... that was a Michner book to me, and I don't think I've ever seen the movie. I'd agree that most of the #2 movies of the year in the 60s would be something that I probably would have known. But I tended to be a bigger fan of history (of pretty much any history) than most of my peers, and a bigger movie fan. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Bill & Ted and Labyrinth... they're not really big movies 23-26 years later. Pretty confident that would be the case if we find the true 1964-68 peers for them.

I got a "fuck you", a "twat" and a "wanker" all in one thread. Outstanding. John

I suspect that a good deal of what Vince is credited with "creating" were actually the ideas of other folks. They were other "characters" before they got to the WWF, and Eadie actually played another character in the WWF before it was decided to rip off the Road Warriors. Whoever came up with it, Vince approved it and pushed the shit out of them. John

He did end up working in ECW in 1997. But with the "injury" it wasn't really working as a wrestler. There were some people who passed through ECW from one company to the other, like Austin and Pillman. Well... Pillman hadn't really "left" WCW, but instead Eric thought he was going to resign Pillman and the ECW stuff would just play into Pillman's gimmick. Austin was banged up at the time of getting the axe at WCW, and wasn't really on Vince's radar. Rude was a bit different: he had headlined both promotions in a rather big way. If he was healthy and just sitting out after quitting WCW, he really wouldn't have needed ECW to heat himself up. Both Vince and Eric knew who he was. If he had the money, he could have just sat back, let his name get floated out there, and work the two offers. Vince at a certain point in 1996 was starting to get a little desperate.

With Lucha voters? Why? Add what they've done as a group along with what Universo and Mascara Ano have done to what Cien Caras has done, you'd think it would be a lock. :/ I can't imagine the "lucha voters" that don't get Cien Caras in would get the three brothers in as a group. I'd vote for Cien Caras as a single, Hermanos Dinamita as a trio, and I'd have to think about Universo 2000 as a single. When Sims said that Hermanos Dinamita would be a lock for him, but Cien wasn't a lock vote for him... :/

Long term, Rude was screwed in WCW and he knew it. He rather openly said he wasn't going to job to Hogan, which is a problem when the whole company was going to revolve around Hogan. In the other direction, his departure from the WWF in 1990 was a big falling out with Vince, and 1994 wasn't a time when Vince felt the need to take back people who had really pissed him off. At the time, people pretty much thought the "injury" was bullshit in the sense of forcing him to "retire". They thought he knew he was screwed in both companies, the options for making money at the time other than WCW and the WWF were limited to Japan where (i) there were few jobs that paid what Rude wanted, and (ii) his options there were limited as well. There was the Lloyd's of London money sitting there to be taken while not having to work. Of course if there wasn't Lloyds money, and he simply left WCW in 1994 at some point and largely sat around, the landscape would have changed in 1996 to 1997 where (i) Vince would have been more willing to take back headaches, (ii) any issues with WCW would have been squared off, and (iii) Rude would have seen the money being made and wanted to work the two companies against each other for the best deal. You get the sense that Rude just might have been good enough with his money to sit out in that time stretch then take advantage of the changes. He was out of making the big money for pretty much a year in 1990-91 after leaving the WWF and before going to WCW. That wasn't super common in that era for people who were at the level Rude was when he left the WWF. WCW may not have been offering what Rude wanted in terms of $$$ in the Herd Era, and perhaps the purse strings did loosen up around the short Kip Frey era. John

Even Yoko didn't do it. Bret --> Diesel --> Shawn --> Taker was face dominated. They had a strange heel --> heel run of Bret to Shawn in 1997, but it led to Austin who was the dominant face without a truly dominant heel Summer Slam 98. Sure, heels won the title like Rock, but when you can't even hold the title for a 60 day right, the word "dominant" isn't applicable. The company never pushed a dominant heel (i.e. Ric Flair with the NWA Title) type of champ until Trip got Big Goldie in 2002. 9/02 - 3/04 was dominant. There have been a few since then.

That should piss people off... *whistling softly*

I had suggested "The Matsunaga Brothers" collectively since there were a number of them involved in the business. Dave was going to check with people in Japan to see if one was really the lead of them. I know of at least one native Dave knew well in the mid-90s who dialed into the inner workings of AJW and likely was one he would have checked with.

Good question... From the original release of the book, these were the items Bill appears to have personally selected to post on ESPN.com: Meeting Isiah Thomas at a Topless Pool In Vegas http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...ons/book/091021 Summer of 1976: The Merger http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...ons/book/091022 What If the ABA had Landed Kareem? http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...ons/book/091023 Should Bill Walton Have Won the 1978 MVP? http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...ons/book/091026 Why Patrick Ewing Was the 39th Best Player Ever http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...ons/book/091027 From the paperback version, this addition... which felt longer in book form: What if Portland had taken Kevin Durant over Greg Oden? http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...aperback/101206 Think a bit about them... * the Zeke thing both fits in with a theme of the book (teasing The Secret) and Bill's partying writing over the years * Merger gets over the "How We Got Here" section of the book * Jabbar is a "What If" teaser, teasing a lot more that are in the book It's far from the best one, but kind of funny for the ABA's ineptitude. * He's a mark for Walton, so he loved that one (wait until the final section of the book) * The Ewing thing was something he would have self loved because it hits on the Ewing Theory * Durant-Oden was one of the two "Big New Things" since the hardcover The other was The Decision, which he'd covered a lot in Page 2... and was too long of a new Lebron section to except. This kind of made sense, though it really needs the impact of the other Portland items in the book (Walton and Bowie-Jordan) to really have a stronger impact. Anyway, most of those are pretty throw away. The Merger piece was the best, though it kind of needs the context of some of the previous years that he wrote about to hit home (such as ABA had been bagging some elite talent). There's nothing new there for folks who've read some books covering the ABA in more detail, but it and the other short pieces relating to the ABA are a good summary to make an interested reader go get something like Loose Balls by Terry Pluto. For the most part, these attempt to get across a similar type of writing that Bill had done for ESPN (and pre-ESPN) for years. "Like my normal stuff? See... you'll like the stuff in my book too!"

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 That would be funny.