Dylan Waco

I wouldn't be too confident of that given that business in Puerto Rico really dropped off in the early 90s, whereas Mexico and Japan were hotbeds at the same time. Yeah I know the business there started to drop dramatically in 89, but IIRC they popped some good houses in the 90's at various points.

Yes. So was Doc. This is a year or two old.

I don't know that you are "supposed" to infer anything from it. You'd have to ask Matt. I've been really critical of the metric precisely because it doesn't address the reality of different eras, promotions, regions, et.

In theory this is true, but I'm not sure I believe it. It's not that hard to build someone again if you actually want to.

The problem with the Arn spoof is that everyone knew there was no chance the Horseman were going to get revenge on the NWO. It would be like if the alternate 1985 from Back To The Future happened and then the movie ends with Marty homeless and Biff fucking two strippers in a hot tub while Marty's mom is passed out on 'ludes upstairs.

On the subject of Colon (not that anyone really cares to talk about it) if you look at Matt Farmer's research on 10k plus shows he does really, really, really well by that metric. That's a metric I find to be flawed and I want to see the particulars on these cards but look at this. http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbc...ic;f=7;t=000513 I FOLLOWED THE HISTORICAL PERFORMERS ERA CANDIDATES Gene & Ole Anderson {20} The Masked Assassins (Jody Hamilton & Tom Renesto) {4} Red Bastien {11} Pepper Gomez {32} Ray Gunkel {0} Dick Hutton {10} Hans Schmidt {22} Kinji Shibuya {30} Wilbur Snyder {35} John Tolos {35} Enrique Torres {29} Kurt & Karl Von Brauner w/Saul Weingeroff {5} Tim "Mr. Wrestling" Woods {8} I FOLLOWED THE MODERN PERFORMERS ERA CANDIDATES Batista {133} Edge {129} Owen Hart {44} Curt Hennig {59} Ivan Koloff {72} Fabulous Moolah {2} Pedro Morales {82} Dick Murdoch {31} Rock & Roll Express (Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson) {27} Sabu {3} Sgt. Slaughter {86} Jimmy Snuka {52} Sting {81} Mr. Wrestling II {35} I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN JAPAN CANDIDATES George Gordienko {5} Gran Hamada {28} Volk Han {6} includes MMA/Shoot Seiji Sakaguchi {19} Kensuke Sasaki {73} Kiyoshi Tamura {19} includes MMA/Shoot Steve "Dr. Death" Williams {34} I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN MEXICO CANDIDATES Perro Aguayo Jr. {92} Atlantis {127} Cien Caras {120} Karloff Lagarde {21} Blue Panther {76} L.A. Park {67} Huracan Ramirez {12} Vampiro {73} Villano III {76} Dr. Wagner Jr. {112} I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN EUROPE CANDIDATES Big Daddy {3} Henri DeGlane {28} Horst Hoffman {2} Mick McManus {0} Kendo Nagasaki {0} Jackie Pallo {0} Rollerball Mark Rocco {2} Johnny Saint {0} I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN AUSTRALIA/PACIFIC/PUERTO RICO CANDIDATES Spyros Arion {22} Carlos Colon {89} King Curtis Iaukea {7} Mark Lewin {13} The only guys ahead of him are Batista, Edge, Aguayo Jr., Atlantis, Cien Caras and Dr. Wagner Jr. Of those guys Batista and Edge obviously benefit tons by the change in era's and where they work - no one seriously argues that either was an HoF level draw. Aguayo Jr. is a modern guy who also benefits some from more figures being available and you could also say that Wagner and even Atlantis stats are somewhat padded by that. Caras is the one guy of the group who I would say is the most closely comparable in terms of the relative situations and I think Caras should definitely be in. Colon is ahead of Uncle Ivan, Pedro, Sarge, Panther, Sasaki and Sting. Obviously there are major differences between those guys and Colon in terms of their relative situations and you could argue for both sides of each comparison having advantages. But from what I know it is much easier to get figures for the careers of all of those guys sans maybe Koloff. Here is a quick list of shows that he headlined of note also courtesy of Farmer. 7/22/78 Carlos Colon vs Victor Jovica/ Bruno Sammartino vs Gorilla Monsoon WWC North American Title Change Juan Ramon Loubriel Stadium, Bayamon PR 25,000* (Victor Jovica & Carlito Colon & Gino Marella) 1980 Carlos Colon & Dory Funk Jr & Mighty Igor & Bobo Brazil wrestled at the National Stadium, Lagos Nigeria. Power Mike's promotion started airing old Eddie Einhorn tapes and sold out the stadium. Which holds 45,000 people 1/06/81 Harley Race vs Carlos Colon- NWA Title Roberto Clemente Coliseum, San Juan PR 23,000 (Victor Jovica & Carlito Colon & Gino Marella) 9/17/83 Carlos Colon vs Harley Race- WWC Universal Title vs NWA Title/ Pedro Morales vs Ric Flair- WWC North American Title/ Andre the Giant vs Abdullah the Butcher (10th Anniversary) Roberto Clemente Stadium, San Juan PR 27,000* (Some estimates as high as 32,000. Victor Jovica & Carlito Colon) 12/18/83 Carlos Colon vs Ric Flair- WWC Universal Title Cage Match Juan Ramon Loubriel Stadium, Bayamon PR 23,000* (Victor Jovica & Carlito Colon) 9/14/84 Stan Hansen & Bruiser Brody vs Carlos Colon & Abdullah the Butcher- AJ Tag Title (11th Anniversary) Roberto Clemente Stadium, San Juan PR 29,383* (Announced as 34,383 $230,000 Thousands Turned Away. Gate Record. Victor Jovica & Carlito Colon) 9/21/85 Ric Flair vs Hercules Ayala- NWA Title/ Abdullah the Butcher vs Carlos Colon- WWC Universal Title/ Road Warriors (Hawk & Animal) vs Fabulous Ones (Steve Keirn & Stan Lane) (12th Anniversary) Hiram Bithorn Stadium, San Juan PR 25,000* (Victor Jovica & Carlito Colon) 9/21/86 Ric Flair vs Invader #1- NWA Title/ Terry Funk vs Carlos Colon- WWC Universal Title (13th Anniversary) Hiram Bithorn Stadium, San Juan PR 22,300* (Victor Jovica & Carlito Colon) 11/26/87 Carlos Colon vs Hercules Ayala- WWC Title Figure Four Match Roberto Clemente Stadium, San Juan PR 22,000 (Victor Jovica & Carlito Colon) 1/30/88 Carlos Colon vs Iron Sheik- WWC Universal Title Chicky Starr Suspended in Cage Roberto Clemente Stadium, San Juan PR 25,000* (Some Reported as 30,000* Victor Jovica & Carlito Colon) 8/23/88 Carlos Colon vs Hercules Ayala- WWC Universal Title Roberto Clemente Stadium, San Juan PR 23,000 (Victor Jovica & Carlito Colon) Everyone of those is one of the top ten drawing shows of its respective year. The majority of them are top five. I would not be shocked to find other top ten finishes from the 90's. The only argument against Colon is that he was only a star in his territory, but a star of that magnitude should be in, especially when he's promoting the shows too.

I was talking about Rocco, not DK. I am indifferent to DK being in, though I think he is one of the weakest guys in the Hall.

I'm past the point of arguing hard one way or the other for Euro candidates (excluding DeGlane who I think should be in). Having said that I don't think the argument about drawing power is really framed correctly. There may only be a handful of guys in on drawing power alone, but there are a ton of guys that would be in on drawing power lone if they didn't happen to have other plusses. Guys like Hogan, Andre, Londos, Santo, Rikidozan, The Sheik (who could argue IS in on drawing power alone), Takada, Onita, Rocca, Bruno, Austin, The Rock, Watson, Robert, Fargo, et, et, et. There are a shit ton of guys you could argue for entirely as drawing cards where everything else is icing. Is Daddy in that category? I honestly have no clue. On the surface it sure doesn't seem like it, but on the surface only a handful of guys have his cultural significance. I wouldn't vote for Daddy at this point, but I don't think I'd vote for any of the Brits and I think what someone needs to do is show why Daddy is a worse candidate than McManus, Pallo, George Kidd, Saint, Breaks, Rocco, Jones, Nagasaki, or whoever else is being pimped. Because right now it's tough for someone who lives over here to figure out why a guy who pretty much everyone concedes is the most well known wrestling name in the history of the country shouldn't go in, but a guy who had some overrated matches with Tiger Mask should. I will say that I think it's interesting how much Daddy talk there is relative to how much Colon talk there is when Colon has more positives, far more and bigger figures to support his claim to be a huge draw, and far fewer clear negatives. I guess this may all come down to "Brody" but I'd like to think it doesn't.

You are right John, the internals for her were disastrous. There are people inside her campaign talking about losing 5 plus points on this if they don't get in front of it. Of course the can't get in front of it no matter what they do now, but they can't ignore it.

The difference is HHH is heralded by Dave for his great instincts and timing as a worker, whereas Daddy was one of the worst workers to ever get over as a headlining act. I do think the problem with Daddy as a candidate is that a lot of people can't put his lack of working ability to one side and objectively assess the positives he brought to the table. He's the British Junkfood Dog / Anabolic Warrior of the ballot in Dave's eyes I think. There are plenty of differences between them, but when Dave was touting HHH as a candidate it was almost always based on drawing power. When people (yourself included as I recall) pointed out things like the criticism's he now applies to Daddy's candidacy he would dismiss them as nonsense, people being shortsighted, people holding him to an impossible standard, et.

Yes, but it shouldn't count for everything. A wrestler's motivations for disliking someone can range from "he didn't know the difference between an O'Conner roll and a sunset flip" to "he killed the territory." And they aren't always right and are likely to be skewed for reasons of self interest among other things. On UK historians? Well it's not altogether clear to me that Dave knows or talks to that many. I'm sure one could find UK wrestling historians and/or people around from the era who regard Daddy as a lock. I have no clue what Lister's opinion on him is (Edit: turns out he vehemently opposes him) and I know Kenny McBride thinks he's a shit candidate, but I doubt very much the consensus to a man is "Big Daddy is a horrid candidate" among UK fans, wrestlers, historians. I do think this may be case where hardcore fans and casual fans have have a DRASTICALLY different view of someone historically.

No one said he wasn't, though in terms of being the biggest draw/most over act in nation of origin Daddy is ahead of Trip, so I don't think "in every way" is an accurate way of pointing to the disparity in candidacies. That reminds me I got a good laugh out of Dave burying fame/cultural relevance as an HoF quality, when he indisputably uses that as a tool to push his favorites like Ventura, Albano, et. every year. My point is that if you look at many of Dave's general criticisms of Daddy they apply to HHH as well (got disproportionately massive push due to family connections, was seen as big draw but actually hurt business when he became primary star, only drew in that one place where his family ran the show). Yet Dave went out of his way to push HHH as an obvious candidate the first time he popped up on the ballot. For the record I'm not saying HHH shouldn't be in or that Daddy should be in. Just pointing out that the criticisms Dave lobs are the sort of criticisms he considered absurd when they were applied to The Game.

Setting aside the business model argument which I'm not qualified to take on (and frankly Dave isn't either), most of his major criticisms of Daddy could be applied to HHH who Dave went bonkers over during his time on the ballot as a guy who people would have to make massive leaps of logic to keep out.

It will be available for sale to anyone once it is released.

I think anyone who has followed things closely knows Dave isn't going to give any of the European guys a bump. I don't even think they would be on the ballot if it weren't for outside pressure.

I don't ever read Meltzer's opinions on matches or wrestlers unless they are posted here as that is a "loop" that usually runs pretty counter to mine.

Just looked and Dandy has never been on the ballot. Fuerza has been on twice and fallen off.

Yeah that's pretty much what I figured a lot of Lucha fans would say in general regarding Dandy. I still agree with John that he should definitely be on the ballot, but I can't argue that he should get in before Wagner Sr or Ramirez for example.

That's a good question. I watched the Dandy comp from beginning to end almost totally ignorant on the man as a worker. What I found was one of the most versatile workers of all time, who has been in some of the best matches of all time, and appeared to be really fucking over in doing those things. To be fair he spoke fairly highly of Dandy as a worker already, though probably not as high as I would rate him. He also said he regarded him as a Dick Murdoch type, i.e. the "cutoff" guy for Lucha candidates. You get the feeling that he could probably be convinced, but I'm sure the argument would be that there are other Luchadores currently on the ballot who would have to go in first. If I thought Dandy was anything like a Barry Windham type (and everyone who has been around the block knows I'm about as high as you can be on Barry) I wouldn't really back him as a candidate. But I don't get any sense that he is a Barry Windham type.

To be clear I think Casas is clearly the best in ring worker this year in Lucha and no worse than top three in the world over all. Frankly I don't think anyone is terrible close, though a large part of that has to do with opportunities/footage available. I was more looking at him as an overall candidate for WOTY

The problem with Satanico/Dandy is that they ran it into the ground. By all accounts it was a feud that did well at first but was very over exposed. Sims said it did over 17/18k several times before that point. Again, I don't know a ton about this stuff. But I don't think Dandy gets in because he was this great forgotten draw. On the other hand I don't think he is a NEGATIVE as a draw. He appears to have been a stronger draw/bigger star than a lot other people who got in on work with limited drawing power used to give them artificial weight (I'm thinking Michaels, Hase, to a lesser extent Benoit). Dandy seems like a sort of "mixed bag" type draw based on what I know, with more positives I've heard about than negatives. I almost hesitate to throw this out for discussion, but I suspect you could probably make a Dandy comp to someone like an Akira Hokuto and I don't know that it would come out unfavorably to him at all (cue OJ and possibly others telling me Hokuto is the wrong Joshi comp in 3...2...).

Yeah I know Sims is opposed to him, but he doesn't strike me as viscerally opposed. I'm not saying he's the strongest Lucha candidate or anything close to that. I don't know enough. But he does strike me as someone that is worth debating the merits of. Among the people I know online who are either Lucha experts or have watched a lot of Lucha, he is routinely regarded as one of the better workers from Mexico over the course of the last thirty years. He was a main event star of some note for a while. I'd be curious to see someone more knowledgeable compare him to guys like Atlantis, Villano III, Panther, et. I don't know that he would stack up favorably to any of them, but on cursory review - based on what I know - he doesn't seem to be way below them. I'm a pretty massive LA Park fan and if you are someone who puts a lot of stock in how they did outside of Mexico, he was the bigger star in the States, but I have a hard time believing he's a demonstrably better candidate than Dandy. With Blackwell I know it's a project and convincing Dave to put him on the ballot is highly unlikely. There are other guys I've discussed as potential candidates that fall in that category. They are projects and require work convincing Dave, other voters and fans that they should even be in the discussion, let alone in the Hall. A guy like Dandy, feels like he is closer to a Jimmy Hart or Ken Patera type where there are clear reasons why they merit inclusion on a ballot and serious evaluation as candidates. They SHOULD be studied and analyzed more, but that level of work really shouldn't be required to get them on the ballot.

This just came up in a conversation with Musgrave, and I don't really know enough about Lucha business to know how I feel about this, but Casas has had an excellent year in the ring, some title matches of note, the big hair v. hair v. Panther earlier in the year...I mean it's probably a stretch, but everyone feels like a stretch for WOTY this year.

I kind of hate the Kane angle already. I loved the first few skits, but I'm already bored as piss by it all and the "partners that hate/argue" meme is something I've never really enjoyed. I can see the appeal, but it's close to a channel changer for me at this point

Name any other wrestler who was on top of the biggest promotion in the World for eight or nine years who isn't considered a lock? If business was tanking it would be one thing. It's not. Cena is one of two wrestlers in the United States that could be legitimately called a draw of note. He was the star that picked the company out of the doldrums of the HHH as god-king business years. He's not an all time great draw and you can certainly point to flaws in his candidacy, but they are pretty clearly eclipsed by the positives. There is no way you could write a history of wrestling though the present day without Cena being mentioned.