Dylan Waco

I think the better comp to Edge is Luger. No one even advocates him for the ballot, but when I made the comp between the two multiple places last year no one could give me any real reason why Edge was a better candidate. I don't think Edge is the absolute worst guy on the ballot and I don't mind him being on, but HE IS in the bottom tier of guys on the ballot and there are a ton of guys not even on the ballot who I believe are clearly better candidates

My favorite aspect of the Lesnar candidacy is that in the realm of pro wrestling you could argue his wife was the bigger draw. And if you give points for bringing in wrestling fans to other areas, her number of DL pics by creepy pervs on the net was really high at one point as I recall.

Also I would add that for ten bucks you get access to the donor exclusive clips. Of course I'm all in for you donating more than that, but I would be interested to hear peoples thoughts on the stuff that is up for donor's so far, including a really interesting segment on the violence in ECW and some lengthy comments from Meltzer, Gertner, Mikey and others.

Effectively yes. Well that and the use of "pro wrestling tactics" to sell his big MMA fights which is something that I don't think carries any weight at all for a variety of reasons.

Bumping this. Down to about a week left and it's going to come down to the wire. Even if you can only afford a few bucks it could literally make the difference on this one. If you were waiting to donate now is the time to do it.

rovert pretty fairly outlined it a few posts up

Feel free to drag it over there. I don't want to come off as overly critical of these guys because that's not my intention. Nor do I think Buddy is this unquestionable top pick. I just get frustrated by the ECW comp and the RVD comp I think is pretty poor if you think about it for more than a few seconds. Also it's not that I think they are short sighted on historical candidates per se. I'm not really saying they are ignorant. What I do think is that they see a lot of things through the prism of what would be considered successful now, rather than what was successful then.

I'm not even sure what we could or would have Todd on to discuss. Here is what I wrote on Buddy/context and the silly ECW comp that I had seen before last year. Buddy is a better "work" candidate than most though I personally wouldn't vote for anyone solely on work (that I can think of anyhow). Having said that - and I've beaten this point into the ground by now - I think from the cumulative period from 77-84 he was the best wrestler in the World based on the footage we have. There are really only a small number of guys that I can even see in the debate with him (Lawler, Fujinami, possibly Terry Funk, maybe Jumbo in the eyes of some, sure Flair would get default votes) and I think they all had advantages Buddy didn't have. There are two things that hurt Buddy. The first is that so little of Portland has been seen and a lot of the voters are probably among the least likely people to go back and rewatch it. Loss made the point about HoF guys who are in on work being primarily in on reputation of being good workers and he is basically right. Buddy ALWAYS had that rep, but I think it's hard to contextualize that if you don't actually watch the footage (or didn't see it at the time). I've run into the same issue with Blackwell over at Classics as people have turned themselves into pretzels trying to shoot holes in his candidacy based on statements a simple review of the facts I have compiled would easily refute. The second problem is the Portland business model. Because Portland didn't run big arenas hardly ever it is going to be a hard sell to certain folks that Buddy was a draw. The fact that Dave himself regards Buddy as the biggest draw in Portland wrestling history and correctly noted that Buddy was the last real draw in San Francisco for Shire is something that means less to a lot of people than it should. I have seen some people suggest that Buddy basically anchored the equivalent of ECW, but that's not really a fair comparison for a variety of reasons: A. Portland Sports Arena was owned by Don Owen which meant 100 % of profits off ticket sales and concessions and no rental cost/security cost/et. Also unlike with ECW, the Portland Sports Arena didn't run once every three weeks - it ran at least once a week, often twice a week. Also, I THINK the capacity was higher than the ECW Arena (though not by much). Either way it was consistently a sell out during Rose's peak run and Owen not running bigger buildings had more to do with raw economics/bottom line than it did with fear of failure at the gate. B. By all accounts Portland got far better tv ratings than ECW ever did, even after they'd been moved into a later time slot (do to violence issues IIRC). C. Portland matches were 2/3 Falls. That may seem irrelevant but I don't think it was as the tv was formatted around this and it also meant that more pressure was on the good hands (i.e. Buddy) to keep things logical, fresh, exciting, et. D. Don Owen did occasionally run bigger venues (the anniversary shows, Piper/Buddy feud matches) and they always drew big houses for the area and big gates. E. The Pacific Northwest of that period was much less interconnected than the Northeast corridor where ECW ran - and MUCH less populated (especially at that time). F. Portland was a profitable territory, to the point where Don Owen was regarded as one of the two or three fairest payoff guys in the business (note that "fair" and "most money" are obviously not the same thing) and was still one of the richest men in the State of Oregon. Yes he made most of his money elsewhere, but the point is that by all accounts the Pacific Northwest wrestling territory was not a "money mark" promotion for Don, but a way to make even more money and he succeeded in that goal. I'm not sure ECW was ever a profitable wrestling business. G. Portland ran a real, weekly loop. ECW had venues they ran consistently (Asbury Park, Allentown, the ECW Arena), but never weekly, and never off of a single episode of tv. It would be nice if I could find hard numbers to support it, but the commonly accepted view is that Buddy did great business across the territory during his hot period. This is a view that Meltzer, Farmer and others who would know clearly accept as fact. H. Portland was a territory with history going back to the 20's and ran through until the early 90's. Being the biggest draw and anchor of that promotion is more significant than being the biggest draw or anchor of a promotion that lasted about as long as Buddy's entire peak run in Portland did. Looking at those raw facts the comp to ECW doesn't really work. But having said that, here is a fun thought experiment. Imagine ECW had a wrestling history going back to the 1920's. Imagine Shane Douglas comes in and after a few months was elevated to the top spot and by the middle of 94 is doing great business. Imagine Douglas works with a lot of also rans and up and comers always in 2/3 fall matches and always of good-to-great quality. Imagine many of them got over huge and were grabbed up by other promoters. Imagine many of them regarded Douglas as one of the best of all time and used him as a reference point when teaching young talent. Imagine that ECW ran a weekly loop, two ECW Arena shows a week, and did sellouts or near sellouts everywhere. Imagine Douglas quickly becomes the biggest draw in the history of the territory. Imagine ECW was raking in payoffs to the point where Douglas didn't want to leave because he could make more and spend less working for Paul Heyman (lol) than he could anywhere else. Imagine Douglas was loaned out to SMW and spiked business becoming Cornette's biggest draw (before ultimately putting Corny out of business after a wild in ring shoot promo ). Imagine Douglas was loaned out to Vince to work against Bret or Shawn and while the business didn't do as well as hoped it produced great matches. Imagine ECW was one of the hottest shows on tv during this period, drawing huge ratings in Philly and the other towns around the loop. Imagine this period lasted until 02 and by the end of the run ECW was running super shows in 10k plus buildings on occasion and drawing by far and away the biggest attendance figures and gates in the companies history with Douglas still hands down the biggest star in the territory. Imagine a lot of footage from the run wasn't originally available, but Douglas reputation was always as a great in ring talent, then years later when a Target LP guy shows up at his house he uncovers boxes of footage Douglas had taped himself. Imagine it became widely available and a consensus among those who watch the footage starts to form. Imagine that the consensus was that Douglas was arguably the best worker in the World for this cumulative run and also arguably the best worker in the World for several individual years during this run. Imagine Douglas left in 02 and moved to Memphis to form a tag team with Cody Michaels. Imagine they had a critically acclaimed series of matches with CM Punk and Colt Cabana though the promotion was on it's dying days and the bouts didn't do much business because nothing really was at the time. Imagine that upon his departure, ECW quickly started losing steam and became nearly irrelevant. Imagine he returned a few years later, fat and on drugs, still a good worker but to a territory that really didn't matter anymore - largely because there had been no one to fill his enormous shoes when he left. Now that's not really a fair comparison even then. For example Rose drew better figures in San Fran, than SMW ever drew do to building size IIRC. Still the point is does anyone doubt that Douglas would be considered a strong contender by Dave and co. if all of the above were true? I don't.

Did you send this to Meltzer Kris? Usually you hear about II's peak run being 77-81, but this piece makes it seem like you can push back that date. It also seems like you could maybe push back his true peak to 80. Just curious what time frame you would point to as his peak run Kris.

I listened to the show with Todd, Justin and Alan and while I enjoyed it and agreed with some of the stuff they said, there are areas where I have massive disagreements. For example Todd said Sarge was not a strong contender to him because he only had a five year run of HoF quality. Setting aside whether or not I agree with that metric, he said this right before he went to bat for Edge. Surely he realizes that Edge - at best - has a five year run as a main eventer and it is more than debatable whether or not he was ever as hot as Sarge was at his peak. So what's the argument for Edge being a better candidate? The Sting discussion was interesting though I forgot a lot of the details, other than the amusing bit where Todd claimed he'd never really advocated for him one way or the other. I won't go into great detail here, but that's something I know for a fact is false. I already said my piece on the Brock stuff ahead of time, but I would note that I thought Alan's argument for him basically came down to "I'm a mark for him." I don't even mean that to sound as critical as it probably does because we all have our favorites (see the next paragraph for mine), but that is how it came across to me. I was happy they mentioned Buddy Rose, happy that Alan had nice things to say about him and happy that Alan loosely compared him to Danielson (even though I think Rose is clearly a better candidate). I was not happy with the way they discussed Portland wrestling in general and I thought Todd's false equivalency argument comparing Rose to RVD was pretty poor. There are arguments against Rose, but "his best success was in a company ECWesque in size so he's really no better than RVD" is not a good one. There are obvious problems with this, not the least of which is the clear the differences between the way the two promotions operated, the fact that Buddy was the biggest draw in the history of a promotion that existed for seventy years, the massive differences in the landscape, et. The follow up discussion on Danielson sort of amused me as well because I don't think there is any doubt that Danielson would have gotten in no matter what his push in the WWE was. When he's eligible he'll get in barring something awful occurring with him between now and then. God bless Alan for voting for Colon. Todd's argument against Jarrett was interesting but incomplete. I disagree with him, but it was at least an original take on the issue. Ignoring Jarrett's break from Gulas strikes me as a major error though. In general I came away from the show with the view that the biggest difference between voters of the Alan/Todd/Justin (why does Justin not have a ballot?) sort and the people who populate this board voters and otherwise is that they tend to put a massive emphasis on things that were post-Hogan boom with almost all the context and discussion coming from that perspective. There is nothing innately wrong with that, but I think what ends up happening is you see arguments like Todd's against Rose that don't make any sense because they are based on comparisons that don't work across time and space. By the same token you get unanimous support for a guy like Edge who is A. an (inexplicable) Observer fan favorite and B. someone who on objective analysis that actually looks at context is quite far from being a shoe-in (I'm being generous).

I don't disagree with you, nor did I mean to imply that Bret is an asshole. Just that it doesn't LOOK good.

I'm hearing it was a massive heartattack which is not exactly surprising given what we already know. This segment with Cena/Punk/Hart just feels really wrong on this show. Makes Bret's criticisms of the Owen show going on look unbelievably self serving

As an aside I saw on Mooneyham's fb page that today is II's birthday

Very glad that you did this Kris. More voters and advocates need to do pieces like this and make them as widely available as possible. It's going to take me a while to go through and absorb all of it, but II is one of those guys who I have always wanted to know more about

Yep. Looks like it might be getting moved to a new server

That's a good question and I'm all for learning more about him. I mean I think it is patently obvious that UWF was influential to the point where I don't think there is any good argument against it, but in general I agree that he is unexplored relative to many other candidates. If I had a ballot my primary reason for voting for him would be to make sure to siphon votes off of a worse candidate from Japan who otherwise might break through.

We ignored Lesnar on our show mainly for time purposes. In hindsight I regret it though I think our show was very good regardless. I am going to find a way to listen to this if possible because I want to hear the argument, but I would say that I think there are two problems with using the MMA stuff in Lesnar's candidacy even if you exempt the "MMA isn't wrestling" view that I subscribe to. 1. MMA is a real and because of that pointing purely to the economics of it in an HoF discussion strikes me as going out of ones way to make a case for someone. Now to be fair I do not know if Alan does that or not. But if he does I strongly reject it. You have to also look at Lesnar's success in the sport. And while I think Brock had a remarkable run for a guy coming into the sport relatively late in his life, the reality is that he doesn't exactly have a sterling record as a fighter. If one were to strip away the money making aspect would Brock be seen as an MMA HoF candidate on the strength of what he did in the Cage? I'm not qualified to vote, but I've followed MMA to one degree or another since the first UFC, and I can't say that I would say yes. Anyhow the point is you can't point to the economics/business end and ignore the won/loss stuff once you start talking about REAL sports. 2. If you say MMA should count for Lesnar, that sets a precedent of sorts and we need to start working backwards. Yes Ken Shamrock stayed around too long and the sport passed him by, but if you are counting MMA in all of it's aspects I'm not certain Ken is a worse candidate than Lesnar combining everything. Severn should probably at least be on the ballot. Bob Sapp was heavily exposed, but was a huge star in Japan for a couple of years and needs consideration going by the Lesnar metric. If Vince gets desperate and signs Kimbo and he ends up with a solid two or three year run as a main event guy, you'd have to consider him. In a world where JYD and Jimmy Hart can't even get on the ballot, I don't feel comfortable with the idea of guys who spent half or more of their "wrestling" careers in MMA getting a serious look based largely on what they did there. Also worth pointing out to Loss's point about the HoF being about the rep of guys as great workers rather than whether or not they are actually great workers...supposedly all the boys love working with Kane. Just sayin.

Aww shit. That's too bad. Really fun match though admittedly I seemed to like it more than most. Anyhow the thing I like about King this year in particular is that we've got him in a variety of different settings and roles against vastly different types of opponents.

I've heard very good things about it from others as well. I'll pry the iPad away from her later and DL the app

I don't think he's an overwhelmingly great candidate. I do think he's best of a weak Japanese field. You could perhaps convince me that Han was a better candidate if I was in the right mood, but I doubt it. I think tomk made this point last year, but Hamada LOOKS a lot better than he is because Ultimo is in and Hamada is a better version of what Ultimo is in for across the board. Having said that I do think there is something to be said about the fact that the style Hamada is largely responsible for has become a key, niche, moneymaking style at a time when a lot of the rest of the Japanese product is heavily depressed. He was a good-to-great worker for 20 plus years. While he wasn't a huge star in Mexico, he was a wrestler of some note there and was on top (albeit in trios) of a surprisingly large number of excellent drawing cards. Hamada is a guy I would vote for if I had a ballot mainly to keep other worse candidates out. That's not saying I think he's a bad candidate because I don't. But I don't think he's a home run candidate either.

When my wife asks why I have hijacked her iPad can I blame you rovert?

I can't even think of any contenders for ROTY this year. Derrick King matches: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCagk72y6m4 Nominating Derrick King/Frankie Tucker/Jerry Lawler v. Pokerface/LA Hustlers - MCW 3/2/12 Really awesome match enhanced a lot by the setting. This is the same place that ran Lawler v. Doug Gilbert last year, which looked to be really good though it was heavily clipped. This match had a cool vibe to it as it looked to be a totally packed crowd, presumably because they were working around a Pokerface retirement stip. Before the match even starts you know it's going to be a hell of a lot of fun as the LA Hustlers literally take some fan jawing with them ringside and physically place them in his seat. The match itself is very much a less is more match but it absolutely works. Everyone in this match throws some shotgun like punches. Lawler has an awesome entry as Pokerface attempts to sucker him with a kick to the gut and Jerry turns it around into a string of Kawada style kicks to his mid section. Lawler is really great hamming it up for the crowd throughout and really getting a kick out of his role as the hired hand brought in to put Pokerface in his place. King ends up as the FIP and takes some really good bumps, gets in some nice hope spots, et. His dropkick to set up the hot tag also looked great. Finishing sequence ends up in a bit of a brawl with Pokerface saving one of the Hustlers from a piledriver, only to take one himself losing the fall and his career in the process. Post-match the fans surround the ring, while Pokerface shakes hands with the babyfaces. Lawler tells him he understands if he wants to go back on his word and he doesn't have to leave the business, but he grabs the mic and says that as a man his word means everything, that was his last match, and if someone had to put him out the King was the one to do it. Really cool match that got you invested in the storyline they were working on top of being well executed. Nominating Derrick King v. Maxx Corbin 4/27 King worked heel in this and naturally this was his best match of the year (at the time that I wrote this). Really fun stuff as it is home town hero v. dastardly heel in a Southern setting. King's over the top bumping on the front end is really great and you have ringside kids swarming him and mocking him throughout. Later when he's on offense he mocks them and nearly gets in a fight with one old lady after he tries to use anothers walker as a weapon. Hope spot on the floor with the post was good, you got lots of good punches and I liked the way they set up the finish. Derrick King v. Frankie Tucker 5/? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvQAcmI8lVc...;feature=relmfu I don't mind low key matches, but I really would have liked a little bit more meat to this. Having said that I enjoyed the shit talking, the dropkick spots were cool and man alive the punches. I am YES'ing this almost entirely because of those. These guys were decking each other with some Futen level shots at points. I fucking hated this ref and was openly hoping he got his ass kicked even more than he did so that was icing. Derrick King v. Frankie Tucker 5/25 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEuXb_fDnWA&feature=plcp I have a full review of this one: Today my local record store got in both of the Youth Of Today LP's, so I listened to Break Down The Walls for the first time in about eight or nine years while watching this and I've gotta say watching two guys mill around in a seedy garage type setting, punching each other as hard as they can in the face was pretty much the perfect visual track to coincide with Ray Cappo shrieking in between a burst of blast beats and random break downs. Seriously this was a GREAT match. I knew it was going to be good the minute King took his nutty between the ropes bump off of the opening exchange and then Tucker walks right over to the camera and pops King right in the nose for all to see. This had the cool element of doubling as a tour of the awesomely Southern indy fed building they are running as we got to see the fridge, the bench seating, the concession area, and my favorite the podium underneath the American Flag where the ring announcer/timekeeper is stationed. Totally classic Southern wrestling dive. King making an early comeback by using a random fans boot and then later successfully using an old ladies walker as a weapon was great. I also thought the shitty condition of the door they used as a weapon was fucking awesome and fit the setting, with both guys taking convincing bumps into it. Teased podium piledriver was cool, though I do wish they had delivered something with it. I literally think the only non-punch/face smash in the match the was King's superkick which looked great and led to the surprisingly well done screwjob finish. Still with guys who punch this well, in this environment you don't want them doing anything other than decking the fuck out of each other. Nearly perfect match and a top ten contender for the year so far. Jerry Lawler/Brian Christopher v. Precious/Derrick King WFW 6/2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxp2imB-lXs Phil likes this more than me, but that's not to say I don't like it. In fact I like it an awful lot. Really fun Southern tag match and we get King as a heel which is really the best King (though he's also very strong as a face). Frankie Tucker/Golden Nugget v. Derrick King/Chief Hill 6/9 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6mhE6qZOl0&feature=plcp I'm not in love with this match even though I do love your Southern staple of non-wrestler teaming with wrestler v non-wrestler teaming with wrestler so that the community kitchen can raise some extra coin. Still King was good here yet again and I think it is worth noting the difference between how he worked heel in the previous match and how he worked face here. Stan Lee v. Derrick King 7/28 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFPnhm85bNs&feature=g-u-u I really loved this match. It's not a tremendously great match by any means, but it is very good, stripped down match with a great performance from King against a limited opponent There is more King out there, though several of the matches from earlier in the year had the "stalling" clipped out and had awful Nu Metal overlays. The matches all ranged from "fun" to "really fucking good" but both things were annoying.

Are back issues of the magazine available?

Anyone else you considered but decided against? I'd also be interested to hear your thoughts on Sarge and Murdoch.

The big problem with Lucha is that there just aren't many knowledgeable voters.