Dylan Waco

I wonder if Graham updated the site recently, because I can't see how I was THAT far off on Patera title matches. Especially that far under. It's official - I'm conservative on Patera

On Weston there isn't a ton written about him or at least not that I know of. I know he's in the International Boxing Hall of Fame for his contributions there and people who worked with him talk about him being a genius with photos. Here is a list of wrestling magazines that is charted with fields for publisher and founder/editor. Weston appears far more often than anyone else. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_profe...tling_magazines

If we say "Wrestler X is in, so Wrestler Y has to be a serious candidate" look out. There a fuck load of people I think are better candidates than Ultimo Dragon

I am hoping to finish a Gordy List on Patera I just don't think it's going to happen before most people have already voted. I hate to not do it right/do it half assed especially in lieu of all the work I've done on him over the last year or so. Hopefully he won't fall of the ballot this year and I can have it out before next years vote. Anyway... This thread at Classics is basically the same results review stuff I did in the thread here, but I answer critics more directly. At the end of each year I wrote a brief little summary about the year in question, though I think I may have undersold some of the early years originally. In any case here is the link there, if you want to skip the detailed results craziness you can scan to the end of the first page where the debate/discussion starts to open up http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbc...;p=0&r=actu Here is a post where I talk about Patera in comparison to Ted Dibiase who is in and who I believe should be in: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?s=&a...t&p=5512683 Here is a breakdown of Patera major market main events and title matches. Please not the preface where I explain how this is a metric that actually skews very conservatively against Patera (lots of obvious double main events aren't counted in his favor at all for example). This is also posted in that Classics thread and seemed to impress Yohe. http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?s=&a...t&p=5520778 One more from the infamous "If Not Race Then Who?" Thread. This basically lays out the argument for why Patera was on the radar as a potential World Title holder and shows that definitively that even after walking out on a key office he had no problem getting booked in strong spots in the heart of the NWA http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?s=&a...t&p=5546407 Dave Musgrave and I also did a detailed podcast on his career for those who care.

I sent you the Rings results record last year right? Han and Tamura are both outstanding and at that style I don't think anyone has ever been better unless you count Fujiwara as a rep of that style. I just don't know how much that really means in the grand scheme of things. I can see a case for both guys, especially Han, but he's just a really tough guy to compare to the existing field. HA.

A decent man you are Another follow up question for voters here - Do you feel compelled to vote for people just to keep them on the ballot for further review? I ask this because in the areas where I feel like I would be qualified to vote I don't think I could find ten guys I am positive I feel should be in, but there are a few slots I would be tempted to give to guys I would be afraid would fall off the ballot and into obscurity otherwise. I'm not saying that SHOULD be the role of voters, but do any of you guys feel that way?

Follow up question for clown that may read as a troll when I don't intend it to - Is the vote for Han a vote against the other Japanese candidates or a vote for Han? Edit: Han and Hamada are the two guys on the Japanese ballot I would be most inclined to vote for, but I'm not 100 percent positive I think either really belongs the more I think about it.

I would think Don Jardine would be a very good comparison to Ivan and he's not in the HoF and has never been on the ballot. Of course he should be on the ballot in my view and is an interesting candidate, but you get the point.

clown who are the guys you are locked in to this year? Who are the guys you are fence sitting with? Who are the guys you are interested in but don't know enough?

Just on this board alone I suspect we have close to sixteen historians/reporters who have ballots.

I like The Rockers a ton and have been touting them as a top level U.S. team for years. But they aren't the Rock N Roll Express.

Thanks for that Hollinger. I look forward to seeing tallies for the other champs going forward. I should have figured that a homesteader like Monsoon would be one. That sort of list isn't the be all and end all but it does help you spot anomalies and at least gives you an idea about what was what with some of the guys being brought in as challengers. Good work. To John's point about the five non-performers, my point wasn't so much that voters have to pick five guys and Gene doesn't cut it, and more that even if you think Gene is deserving, it's hard for me to see him as one of the five most deserving guys in that category.

I suspect "self taught" or "learning on the fly" is far more common in wrestling then we know. Quack is a good wrestler, who at times has flashes of greatness. He has his annoying habits, but as a worker I find him far less annoying then most indie guys. As a trainer I don't think he's particularly special at all. As a promoter I hated the product he produced, but I think developing and expanding his nice was incredibly impressive. Then all this happened.

I doubt he even knows it exists. I don't talk to Matt much other than in exchanges on Classics. I think I've messaged him a handful of times mainly to ask a question or get info about something.

The WON forum at Classics has some excellent threads. Beyond that and here of course I wouldn't begin to guess. Maybe Kayfabe Memories

Dream scenario is Dusty goes to a dive bar and recruits The Nasty Boys to help him and his kids fight The Shield and Randy Orton

I think it's tough to say. Between people who post here and Classics there are probably at least twenty-five voters that are at least looking at some of this stuff. Whether or not they use it to make informed decisions I have no way of knowing. In some cases I think it is likely that is happening (pretty much everyone who posts here for example and I think we have something like 10-12 voters here maybe more), in other cases I'm not sure. With the wrestlers themselves I think it's largely a lost cause.

To me you have to look at both anchoring and the "in demand" metric more closely then just saying "well X did Y so there for he is in." Some anchors anchor smaller promotions or weaker offices or don't draw as well or have brief runs. Some of those people who are theoretically "in demand" spent an awful lot of time in the mid-card, didn't work top guys very often, and didn't really stay any place all that long. To Indikator's point I think there is a tipping point with the "self promoters." I have watched enough Puerto Rico at this point to know that Colon was over as fuck. He may have promoted some loaded shows, may have kept himself in that top slot, but at those shows people were dying to see him win and he was drawing in that top slot. Not drawing enough to sustain himself, not drawing enough to make a little coin, drawing enough where WWC was one of the hottest promotions on the planet for much of the 80's. I understand the skepticism of guys who book themselves in those slots, but even those kind of anchors some times have numbers that I personally feel are impossible to deny.

I can't argue with that Keith. I wouldn't vote for either of the Crockett's at the moment. I'm not completely opposed to the idea but I think there are five better candidates in that category and I'm not sold that they really belong. I was mainly using Jr. as an example of how I think people should take a more discerning look at promoters instead of just saying "well he went out of business so no" which is an argument I have actually seen voters make before.

I see absolutely no problem with skepticism. I am a Patera lobbyist obviously and it's going to annoy the shit out of me if he drops off the ballot this first go around (yes I know he was on the first ballot out of the gate but that was well over a decade ago), but I would rather people be skeptical then just say "well I take Dylan's word for it because he's done the work." That's why I think it is important to show the work and not just do it. It's how Yohe convinced me on Torres - you look at the record book and read around the other stuff that's available and talk to other historians (yes I'm a big enough geek where I have done that even though I don't have a vote which probably says something about my sanity) and you start to get a complete picture. From there if we disagree on what constitutes an HoFer that's fine. The important point is that we try to operate from the same basic group of facts. On the in demand metric I am extremely skeptical of applying modern standards to "pre-modern" standards. In other words, I am very suspicious of the argument that we can look at the post-territory landscape the same way we look at the territory landscape. Again I don't know a ton about Ivan's specifics but I do know a ton about Patera and here is what I know about the "in demand" metric in his case. - His early feud with Billy Graham was considered strong enough in the AWA where it got farmed out to the Texas office and unfolded in exactly the same fashion a good indication that an office (which was not closely related) that it could make them real money. - He was brought in to work multiple feuds and runs against Backlund and Bruno in NY and around the loop. This was not terribly common in NY. I'm still not positive anyone got more title shots against Backlund (maybe Valentine) and I am doubtful anyone got more major market title shots. Also notable that Bob/Patera was worked on the road in key locales (Greensboro, St. Louis, Toronto) an indication that it was considered an especially hot feud. - He was a top of the card/main event guy in St. Louis and Toronto, two of the three big "one shot" spots in wrestling (he rarely worked Houston for whatever reason) for several years, headlining both outright ten times or more a piece. In fact he was a big enough main event guy in St. Louis where he was still getting main events and NWA title shots there even after he walked out on the Georgia office and was working full time in the AWA, something that is hard to imagine a non-major star getting. - The list of guys who were regular opponents is pretty much a who's who of stars. It strikes me as odd that a guy who's most consistent opponents, rivals and feuds were against those names would be a guy who promoters didn't consider an attraction with some real value. - He headlined at least once in virtually every major market in the country and the vast majority of the key towns he was either a regular main eventer or a regular semi-main eventer (I use that term conservatively - in a lot of places there were double main events or the match that went on second to last was a hotter feud underneath a title match). - Even on shows he didn't technically main event, he was often booked second from the top in a match that would have clearly been considered an attraction by any reasonable metric. For example working second from the top v. Andre at Maple Leaf Gardens or working v. Dusty second from the top at the Super Bowl of wrestling super show in Florida. - Even after the period that would generally be considered his prime enough was thought of him that he was working main event runs and slots for the AWA, St. Louis, Memphis and Montreal all at right around the same general time in 1983. Some of these were tag bouts, but not all including a main event v. Andre at The Forum in Montreal that drew 16,500 people. - Despite a pending jail sentence Vince thought enough of Patera to bring him into the WWF and put him in a money drawing angle with Studd v. Andre and friends around the loop. This feud was often paired with Greg/Tito on shows that did very strong business and was almost never the tour that worked with Hogan. It was one of these cards that sold out Detroit for the first time in over a decade effectively opening up the town for the WWF. These are just some points and they are sort of scattered around. Some of them feel more like addendum's then rock solid building blocks for a candidacy (particularly the last one), but the point is they are things that you can glean from a review of Patera's career which suggests to me that it's unlikely he just kept lucking his way into promoters who saw more value in him then he was really worth. The fact that there are at best only a couple of guys with comparable resumes from the same general time frame who aren't in the HOF (if there are any at all) makes me feel even more strongly about it. With modern guys they are stars made by a national tv model, not a local tv/house show model. Kane is a star because he's on tv a lot and presented as a star and he gets "recycled" up top because there is one show in town and that's just how he is presented. I don't think you can say the same thing for Patera or Koloff

I enjoy Ivan over Sting and Nash but I am surprised to see you use the tremendous adjective when discussing him Parv. I would have Ivan as a good worker that executed his role really well but I doubt if I made a top 50 GOAT list, he would be in contention at all. For instance someone like Atlantis seems like a better worker to me based on available footage seen. Let me put that another way: he had a rep as a good to great worker. You hear a lot of guys from the era talk about him in glowing terms. Not "best in the world" status, but certainly a guy who was highly rated as being more than just a good hand. I understand why evil clown is subjecting his case to scrutiny and wanting to see numbers -- that's all good. My point was that compared to the likes of Sting or Nash, he was a "great worker". I was trying to think of an 80s or 90s equivalent of an Ivan but I'm drawing a blank. I'll say this: he's mostly a notch down from most of the guys who are already in from that era. We could talk about Billy Graham as an interesting comparison point. Graham had a hotter peak, but I don't know if you could say career vs. career he had a better one than Ivan. Other than that you're pretty much looking at "super workers", all-time champs, or all-time draws, or all three, and I'd admit that Ivan's not quite there on any of those scores. I do think in a way Ivan is a "gate way" guy: put him in, and maybe you slightly lower the bar for everyone else. He is a bit of a "best of the rest" pick. I think Ivan is comparable to Wahoo. Wahoo may be a stronger candidate. My inclination is to say that he is. But I don't think he is a VASTLY better candidate. I think they are similar in many ways, probably have a lot of the same sorts of positives and probably even similar negatives. I actually think Ivan is a better candidate than Graham on the surface, but I wouldn't want to have to defend it with specifics

I think all those criteria are relevant, but I would say the most important one to ask in most cases is "were they part of a formula that was successful in drawing fans and how big a part were they?" In the case of promoters this is usually fairly clear. I think the problem here is that there is a tendency to punish promoters for their worst moments and biggest failures. "Well Jim Crockett Jr. went out of business so he can't be a WON HoFer." Yes, but this ignores the fact that they ALL went out of business eventually excluding Vince. I'm a skeptic on whether Crockett belongs, but the point is that he shouldn't be judged entirely on the fact that he went out of business. It's a piece of the puzzle not the whole puzzle. Same goes for Jarrett (I guess he technically didn't go out of business but still), Owen, et. I would argue the same goes for non-promoters too. Jimmy Hart is an HoFer in my eyes not just because he a great performer, not just because he was a template of sorts for someone like Corny and others, not just because he was around forever, et. In fact the primary reason I think he was an HoFer is because he was effectively the lead heel for Memphis during a hot period for Memphis wrestling and in the absence of Lawler was asked to carry the show. Hart is a Hall of Famer because he was a drawing card who did all those other things, not because he was a guy who just happened to be a drawing card while doing those other things. If that makes sense.

No offense, but that's wind. That's not the kind of stuff that would make me vote for a guy. Looking at his record post WWE title I see: 1972: Follows WWWF run with a build to a match with Verne. Loses and then loses his way down the card too. 1973: Successful heel tag team with Billy Graham near top in AWA. 1974-1975: Spent the year in Crockett. Looks to have been on the losing end in a lot of midcard matches. 1976: WWE run. 1977: Florida run. Looks to have had some success here. Would have loved to have seen his team with Pat Patterson 1978: More Florida and an Atlanta run teaming with Ole. Back in New York in the latter part of the year. 1979: More Atlanta. Teaming w/ "Other Nikita" Alexis Smirnoff 1980-1981: More of the same. Less successful return to Florida and then Crockett. 1982-1987: Mixed bag in Crockett. Really catches a break when Nikita catches fire. That's pretty solid stuff, actually. What I don't know is how he did in any of those runs? He had some sustained runs, but rarely at the tippy top of the card. He seems to have been a solid player in a couple of major territories. What value do we place on that in a Hall of Fame context? Lots of wrestlers meet that criteria. These are all very valid questions and I honestly hope HoF voters as a rule look at things this way. I would rather have a high standard then a low standard and people wanting to study then going on gut. In many ways I think Koloff is comparable to Patera (here I go again I know, but here me out for a second) because neither was ever really an ace, neither were homesteaders and neither was ever the absolute top heel in the country (though there were times when both were probably really close and there are metrics where you could argue Patera was in 1980 but I digress). Koloff has the big "moment" that Patera lacks - namely a WWWF title win and more importantly the fact that the win was over WWWF god Bruno. It is possible that that win inflates the value of Ivan in the eyes of some myself included. I'm open to the idea that that is the case, but the real point is that I would want to look at Ivan in the particulars and not necessarily the generals. For example with Patera here is what I can say as a cliff notes case: He debuted as a guy who was at or near the top of the card in programs that were designed to draw and basically stayed that way minus a month here or a month there in between territories until he went to prison 12.5 years later. How many guys with careers like this during the territorial era exists and aren't in? He headlined in Montreal, Toronto, Philly, New York, Boston, Milwaukee, Chicago, Memphis, St. Louis, San Fran, Dallas, Winnipeg, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Landover, Baltimore, et, et, multiple times. In his case I have a post that breaks this down and is actually really conservative in how I apply the data (for example I count virtually no AWA shows as main events unless he went on last which is not realistic. Same with St. Louis where everyone acknowledges they often ran double mains. Same with the Carolinas where it wasn't always clear. Et.). But the point is how many people have that sort of major market main event record spread over more than a decade who aren't in? He feuded, had rivalries with or was an extremely regular opponent of Dusty Rhodes, Bob Backlund, Bruno Sammartino, Pedro Morales, Pat Paterson, Hulk Hogan, Billy Graham, Wahoo McDaniel, Jerry Lawler, Andre The Giant, Bill Watts, Jack Brisco, Tommy Rich, Tony Atlas, Dino Bravo and The High Flyers. How many guys who did this or something comparable aren't in? These point specifically to Patera but the point is these are the sort of things that would be useful to have pointing to Ivan. Some of that can be gleaned from a record book, but not all of it. These are generals that can get you to specifics or which can illustrate specifics. Okay so we get more specific. He was brought in for multiple big money runs in New York opposite both Bruno and Backlund. How many guys who did that aren't in? Not specific enough? Okay, he had 28 WWWF title shots against Backlund alone. How does that compare to other wrestlers? Did anyone have more title shots against Backlund? Did anyone have more title shots in New York in the Bruno era forward against an individual champion? If not who were these other people and what did their history look like? Are they Hall of Famers? Now I know the counter here is "that's a fuck of a lot of work and no one is going to do that." Probably so. I mean I might one day, but I'm not going to now. That's where I would say thinking about things that combine the specific and the general are helpful. For example Patera got title shots against Bruno, Backlund, Billy Graham, Hogan, Terry Funk, Harley Race, Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes virtually all of which were in major markets and all of which we have numbers for did great business? Who else has done that or something roughly comparable over a span of nine years (76-85) and isn't in? Or my favorite in the case of Patera has anyone else headlined the Kiel, the Mid-South Coliseum, MSG, The Boston Garden, The Philly Spectrum and Toronto Maple Leaf Gardens ten times or more a piece and not gotten into the Hall of Fame (actually has anyone EVER done this besides Patera?)? I realize these aren't criteria but the point is are they anomalies and are these the sort of anomalies you would expect to see in someone who was a Hall of Famer? The point here isn't solely to talk up Patera (though of course that is always partially my point ), but to illustrate the kind of work that maybe should be done in greater detail on Ivan. I think he's an HoFer and would almost certainly vote for him if I had a ballot, but I think evilclown is on to something in arguing that someone should go out there, do the work and then show it. One other thing relevant to something evilclown said in another post. Pointing to whether or not guys popped houses is great if you can get, the problem is it's not always possible. Sometimes territories don't have attendance figures available (often in fact). Sometimes they aren't reliable attendance figures or are inflated (often in fact). Sometimes promotions are hot and stay hot when a new ace comes in which means the ace held the fort down but he didn't really "pop" anything. This is one of the reasons historians seem to have started looking at things like whether or not guys were in demand all over and/or getting multiple major title shots in important spots - it suggests they had value to promoters, and in the absence of other metrics it is the best you can do.

Already answered above

Not complete or detailed as much as I would like, but here is something of an Ivan record book via Clawmaster http://sportsandwrestling.mywowbb.com/forum2/14118.html