Dylan Waco

Dear God. I can't get a ballot because all of my research is focused on guys who aren't on the ballot.

There is a thread over at Classics where Yohe was pushing him as someone who had to go in. I recently bumped it to note that your book makes a brilliant case for him as being a clear oversight. If I had a vote or any pull with Dave I would be pushing hard for Sonnenburg who I honestly think is one of the three or four best candidates not already in. I'm thinking if you, Yohe, and others who have votes (there are at least three others that post at this board who have votes - four if you count John who may or may not still vote) emailed him in mass about it he could get put in as an overlooked historical figure (which he clearly is). Here is the link to the thread: http://wrestlingclassics.com/.ubb/ultimate...ic;f=7;t=000520

The question for you Ditch is going to be what guy do you throw a vote to to ensure that you will keep getting a ballot. I don't think there are any obvious picks on the Japan section of the ballot, though I would probably vote for Hamada if I had a vote. But I have heard from others that if you don't vote for someone, Meltzer assumes you aren't interested and won't send a ballot again.

I thought Christian's 09 run was really great and underrated, but I still don't think I'd rate him above Cena.

Sure he's got loads of great matches etc., it's just that I've got zero interest in them. Oddly this is how I feel about Jumbo for the most part, though I'd still have him in a top 100

I would be interested to see how people rate Cena next to other guys who aren't generally considered great workers by everyone, but were involved in many major main event programs and have a sizable amount of good and even great matches. I'm thinking of guys like Taker, Sting, Jericho, Luger, et. I would safely have Cena above those guys myself, but I don't really see him as an obvious pick for the next level up either.

I voted "maybe" over there. The advantage Cena has is that his best matches and performances are really great, memorable affairs and he was almost always the best wrestler in those matches. The knock on him would be that he is extremely inconsistent.

I hope this is a joke

I thought Shawn was easily the worst of the three, though I agree with the general point that they were all dog shit

"That's the big thing Ted has over Patera. Not drawing power or matches worked, but very prominent positioning in the WWF product at a time when it was at its most visible." Of course this is true and it's really my point. It's a totally illegitimate and nonsense reason for Dibiase to rate over Patera. Now as I said before there ARE perfectly good arguments for Ted over Ken (and vice versa in my view). But I don't accept that the timing of when you were a drawing card heel/major star is more important than how much money you drew unless there is a case of someone being used as the catalyst for a paradigm shift and there are VERY few guys in history who can make that claim. Neither Dibiase or Patera qualify there. I make note of Patera's run in full because he immediately started off as a top of the card talent. Was he a main eventer right away? No, not in the sense that he was at his true peak. Was he working in feuds positioned to draw against top names right away? Absolutely yes. Of note is the fact that Verne never really debuted guys that high up the card and the fact that he was quickly seen as valuable by other promotions who wanted a crack at making money with his talents. The point is not that Dibiase was not in demand, highly coveted, et. The point is that Patera was a draw a lot of different places, in a lot of different situations and consistently positioned against the top names. Dibiase was considered and seen as an NWA title holder option - what's less remembered is that Patera was too. You can't sleep on the significance of Patera holding the I-C and the Missouri title at the same time. If one were looking for an indicator of how he was viewed by the most powerful promoters that would be it.

I can't believe this is a real post I mean I realize it is possible for people to think Shawn's selling/acting was good there, just as it is possible to believe that the Nazi's escaped through a hole in Antarctica and live in the center of the Earth. But I don't know what to do with it.

I took a playful approach to this thread because it was more fun. Frankly I wouldn't want to talk about HHH for this long without that sort of approach. If that approach makes you doubt my sincerity or the way I evaluate wrestlers I don't know what to tell you. Having said that - and I'm not a Nash fan - Nash "is worse than the Ultimate Warrior" strikes me as a back handed way of saying "Nash is one of the worst wrestlers ever" and well...I don't see it. I mean he's not good. But there are a lot of guys I would rate before him and if failure to apply sharpshooter the right way is the turning point that tosses him to the bottom of the barrell, The Rock, Benoit and Vader say hello from the depths of wrestling suck. One of the reasons I think HHH is so poor is that he has a skillset that he all too often tries to exceed because of delusions of grandeur. There is no question HHH has a bigger skill set than Nash. But his total aversion to grasping his limitations is hard for me to ignore. Nash is not a good worker, but I've never got the feeling watching a Nash match that he was trying to work well above his pay grade. The average HHH match is probably better than the average Nash match, but I'd probably rather watch a best of Nash comp and HHH has a higher volume of matches that left me thinking he was embarassing himself than Nash does

Thanks for the try Jerry, but I'm not buying the degree of difference you are selling and nothing in that post really made me think twice. A couple of things before I get to the meat of the post. 1. "As much as you love Patera, Dylan...." isn't really a number that works. Of the three guys I've focused on over the last year as candidates, Patera is a distant third in terms of who I like/enjoy watching behind Blackwell and Rose. I like Patera, but I'm not sure he's one of my 200 favorite wrestlers. The reason I became interested in him is because of how much his career deviated from my preconceived notion of him as a fan who's initial exposure was the bad post-prison face run. It's an exercise in curiosity and discovery not validation of a hero or even trying to talk up a favorite. In fact I think your analysis has a lot more to do with the fact that you're "probably in the top 20 DiBiase marks on earth" than mine does with any alleged "love" for Patera. 2. I think the post-peak/decline stuff is really irrelevant, particularly in this case. Patera had a rough post-prime, but it was also a very brief post-prime by the standards of many guys who will slink on forever in irrelevancy or obscurity. Dibiase had a more notable post-prime, but there is NO ONE who seriously believes that had any factor in getting him in the HoF as a fiat candidate. Or at least I hope there isn't. I mean you don't believe that Dave sat there and said "well I think what puts Ted in as an automatic inductee was his stellar work managing Bam Bam Bigelow" do you? The case for Ted is mid/late 70's through 89/90. The case for Patera is 72-85. That is the relevant point of comparison. Now onto the meat. Not really. Not even close actually. "All of my Patera stuff" includes 12.5 years and features Patera headlining in virtually every major wrestling town in the U.S. and Canada, against nearly every major name of his era. Dibiase had a great run in Mid-South, but to claim that run is equivalent of Patera's ENTIRE run requires more than just an assertion. Where is the record? I'm not shitting on Dibiase's run, but being number two in the territory to JYD (when the territory by all accounts was dead before him) and then taking up the mantel for him for a couple of years as the territory cooled off is not the equivalent of "drew money v. Bruno, Backlund, Dusty, Andre and Morales in the WWF, v. Watts in Oklahoma, v. a variety of people as a major star in St. Louis, v. Atlas, Wahoo, and others in MACW, v. Lawler in Memphis, v. Backlund in Toronto as a farmed out match that was hot in MLG, v. Graham as a rookie in the AWA and Texas, v. Rich at the hot of his popularity in GCW, as gatekeeper v. Hogan in post-prime in AWA, v. Flyers as a member of Sheiks, w/Studd v. Andre and the friends in the WWF, et." If you are being objective it's simply impossible to claim Dibiase Mid-South = Patera from 72-85. Even claiming JYD's Mid-South run (and he ignited the territory, turned NO into the hottest city in wrestling, set records all over the loop, et.) is equal to Patera's 12.5 year pre-prison career is something you would have an extremely difficult job selling me on. In what way? Artistically? Maybe, perhaps even definitely. Although the Patera/White Wolf angle is very memorable, as was the feats of strength angle with Atlas, the Patera "sellout" angle with Adnan, the angle with Andre getting his hair cut, et. As far as highs as a draw? Well Dibiase had his value to be sure and it was clear that he could get people into the buildings. But it's not at all clear that these feuds made more money than Patera's top feuds did. In fact it's almost certainly not true. Now one could say "well look at Patera, the guy was working the biggest stars at their peak in hot areas." But that's really the point. Patera was brought in to Oklahoma, destroyed Watts on tv and OK got hot. By the end the non-native Patera was getting NWA title shots which was not at all common for that territory. He DEBUTED for the WWF in the Garden v. Bruno and then got ANOTHER run v. Bruno later. In fact Patera got multiple house shows runs v. Bruno and Backlund, which is a tell tale sign that the office saw him as a major heel drawing card. The Backlund feud was so hot and well regarded it was farmed out to other places. Patera was also a go to opponent for Andre and Dusty in both the WWF and elsewhere. This is to say nothing of his value in St. Louis where he was the Missouri champ twice and got NWA title shots, neither of which were things Muchnick just hurled around to random people. He won the PWI Most Hated Wrestler of the Year Award twice and was in the top five two other times. We can laugh about that, but the reality is those awards were pretty good indicators during the era, particularly in regards to the WWF. When he left the WWF he was brought in as Rich's rival in GCW at a point where Rich was the hottest babyface in the nation. This is to say nothing of his run in MACW or his post-prime work where he was consistently positioned at or near the top of the card prior to his prison stint. So we can say "I thought Dibiase's angles were cooler" and I'd probably be inclined to agree. But I don't think we can say "Dibiase's angles and feuds were more successful." It's simply not clear that they were and if anything the evidence would trend the other way. And "Dibiase had more to do with those runs than Patera did his" ignores the fact that Patera was wildly in demand with promoters all over the country. I think this is peripheral to his case. I get that you like the matches and having international credibility is not irrelevant in these matters, but I don't think it's a key building block anymore than Patera's work in Japan would be a building block for his case. It's their as padding at most. Again, not really. You are either inflating Dibiase's Mid-South run or deflating Patera's 12.5 year run as a top of the card talent in multiple territories. I can't tell which and it's possible it is both. There are a few ways you could breakdown this comparison, but "Mid-South v. all of Patera's pre-prison work, then throw on the WWF stuff for Dibiase to fatten him up" isn't really one of them. How do their top feuds compare in terms of importance to promotion/drawing power, et? How do their careers in the WWF stack up next to each other? How do their careers in places outside their "home base" compare? Is Dibiase's value to Mid South more impressive than Patera's value as a guy who could be brought in anywhere against anyone and draw? Who's title runs carried more weight/were more significant? Now it is possible to break all of this down and come to the conclusion that Dibiase's resume is better than Patera's. What I don't think it is possible to do is make those comparisons and come to the conclusion that Dibiase is a vastly superior candidate to the point where Teddy is fiat and Patera is peripheral. Not even close. As an aside I think we all tend to romanticize and overrate the MDM character as a draw. I'm not saying he wasn't a draw and I freely admit I have not closely looked at the numbers. He was clearly a big part of the Andre/Hogan stuff and the Megapowers feud did very well as I recall. But as a money drawing character the run was not as long as we may think. I've seen people criticize the brevity of Patera's run as a true main event draw as a reason to keep him out, but I don't think Dibiase's run is any longer even if you add Mid-South and WWF together. I'm also not certain Dibiase would stack up as well in the particulars to Orndorff, Piper and other top dog heels from the rough time period. It's something I'd like to see researched and analyzed but I'm not going to be the one to do it. I doubt Ted would be in my top ten U.S. workers from the period but he certainly has an advantage over Patera in regard to work. If you are someone who regards that as a MASSIVE factor in HoF voting you could argue that Ted distances himself a bit from Patera, but a. I'm not one of those people and b. we do not have the scope of Patera's career that we have of Ted's. What we have of Patera tends to range from "very good" to "great." It is not all together clear to me that Dibiase was a vastly superior worker to Patera based on the footage we actually have. I suspect if we had more Patera in MACW and earlier in his career he would be seen as someone closer to Ted's "peer group" in that regard than not.

Shawn Michaels was so terrible during that last segment that it was fucking funny as fuck. Just unbelievable horrible. HHH wasn't much better, but Shawn truly outdid himself tonight

Valentine probably got less consistent when the Dream Team started to wind down, but he still had some pretty great matches after that point. I actually think he had a very underrated year in 89.

Not sure about the comp with Sheik. He might loosely fit some aspects of the terms I laid out, but I think you would really have to stretch it. Adonis I sort of see as a lesser version of Patera in the sense that he got the main event runs, but they tended to be in smaller promotions, or they were shorter/less significant versions of what Patera had. I also don't think he has quite the cast of opponents or main event slots on the biggest shows that Patera has. But he's a reasonably good comp within the rough guidelines I laid out. Valentine is a good pick and will likely be my next "project" in terms of being a guy I want to focus more on and dig into with a results sweep. I do not think he was a star in demand across as broad a geographical era as Patera, but he comes close to having the same sort of record with marquee feuds against big names. He is also the only wrestler in history to be a three time winner of the PWI Most Hated Wrestler of The Year Award which I thought was amazing when I stumbled across it the other night. Ivan probably fits pretty well too

Let's look at this another way just for fun if you guys will indulge me. What is the argument for Ted Dibiase as a guy who gets in by fiat? I'm not saying he has no argument there (though I think Ted is a guy who probably should have been put to a vote, but whatever), but what is his resume and what gets him in? Now compare that to Patera. Unless we pretend Ted's years in Money Inc and managing Tatanka were the tipping point that made him a lock via "longevity," I can't see a real measurable gap between Dibiase and Patera as candidates. Certainly not enough of one where one guy was non-controversially put in by fiat in the first class and the other guy was one and done on the ballot

Jake is not a bad name to throw in as a guy who is more mobile than we may remember (though he was never on top in ECW or even a fixture there). He also had that run in AAA where he was a part of some huge shows. Having said that there is a pretty big difference between Jake - who was never really a main eventer in the WWF, though he flirted with the top of the cards at time - and Patera who's debut match for the promotion was v. Bruno in MSG. More to the point (and not to repeat myself), but Patera DREW all of those places I listed. He challenged Rich on top at the Omni, Lawler on top at MSC, Bruno, Pedro, Backlund, Andre and Dusty in all the big WWF markets and other big buildings (multiple times - he seemed to be a bit of a go to guy for Andre across multiple territories actually), Atlas, Wahoo and Steamboat around the big loop for Crockett, Graham in Dallas and all the major AWA towns (in his rookie year), v. High Flyers for a super hot run in all the AWA towns, runs v. Hogan as Bock's gatekeeper in the AWA, NWA title shots in the Kiel and in OK, farmed out matches on top in Toronto and Montreal v. guys like Backlund, second from the top v. Dusty in Florida at the huge Superbowl show, hot house show with Studd v. Andre and friends including the show that is widely credited with breaking Detroit open as a WWF market (IIRC), et. I mean I am obviously lobbying here, but my point is that the scope here is a LOT different than what we saw from Jake, Luger or Sting.

The difference is that Sting and Luger did not draw well in all those venues with regularity Patera did, plus they did it in a different era while working for one or two companies. Patera was an "in demand" wrestler in the territorial era, doing that for various promotions.

Bumping this with the same question I asked over at WC. Believe it or not this is not intended to be rhetorical. I'm really curious if I'm missing anyone. Tossing this out there as a thought experiment. Patera worked programs or mini-programs (for lack of a better term) against Bill Watts, Jerry Lawler, Andre The Giant, Dusty Rhodes, Billy Graham, Tony Atlas, Dino Bravo, Wahoo McDaniel, Tommy Rich, Pedro Morales, Bob Backlund, Hulk Hogan, Bruno Sammartino and The High Flyers (among others). He worked on top multiple times in MSG, Philly Spectrum, Pittsburgh, Boston Garden, Baltimore, Landover, Hawaii, Dallas, Oklahoma, St. Louis in the Kiel, St. Paul, Chicago, Montreal Forum, MSC in Memphis, Toronto Maple Leaf Gardens, The Omni in Atlanta and several other large cities and major venues I may be forgetting. This run occurred over a twelve and a half year period and he was a multiple time challenger for both the WWF and NWA titles during this run, to go along with major secondary title runs in St. Louis, Mid-Atlantic, New York and the AWA. My question is how many people who are NOT in the HoF have similar resumes? From what I can tell Hans Schmidt would fit. Dick Murdoch is arguable and has a much bigger international profile, but I don't know that he has a string of programs/feuds with names quite like that (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). More to the point I would vote for both Schmidt and Murdoch and think at minimum most would consider them very strong candidates even if they would not vote for either. Patera was one and done on the ballot and he's got a resume that on cursory review looks like it would dump him in with HoFers and/or guys who are right on the cusp. Having said that I am open to hearing the names of other guys I am forgetting that would fit the mold of a decade plus as a top of the card worker, in the biggest buildings and territories all over the country, against a who's who of stars.

Dusty has to have logged a ton of tv hours between wrestling, announcing, authority figure/guest spots, et.

Problem is a lack of arena footage more than anything (if I'm not mistaken). We have yet to start really going through that stuff though.

Disc 2 is really fucking loaded. Glad you enjoyed the stuff later in the decade. Watching the stuff the first time through the Showboat era was WAY better than I expected to be. I'd still like to see you add your thoughts on some specific matches over there when you get some time. On my rewatch I'm up to Bock v. Hennig draw which I will watch this evening. I'm still not entirely sure of what my number one will be, but I'm even less sure of what my number two is going to be.

Shit you are already done Kevin? You should post some of your thoughts over at the DVDVR. I'm curious to hear what your number one is.

Bix has a really good Barry Horowitz comp.