Dylan Waco

Hard to say. What the St. Louis stuff shows with Blackwell is that he was a star of some magnitude somewhere other than the AWA. He was a consistent main or semi-main guy there. The lack of consistent attendance figures make it hard to say what sort of power he had at the box office there. I suspect he was more a piece than anything, but his Missouri Title wins seem to imply that he was viewed as a valuable piece. It's clear that St. Louis is more of a positive for him then I would have guessed coming in, but it's secondary to his drawing/star power in the AWA and even his in ring work in terms of determining where he falls on a HoF spectrum.

I disagree, especially in a case like Europe where we are trying to establish a benchmark candidate. To me you are much better off going for the obvious candidate (if there is one) or at least the most deserving first.

I didn't do a count, but Breaks looks to have had more titles than Saint. Marty Jones had a shit load too and in my view was probably the best of the name workers from England. Both should be on the ballot.

Nope. It's 100% correct.

Whether he was a mark for himself is totally irrelevant. Pretending that Vince's decision to shit on his own contract didn't matter at all is the equivalent of saying 9/11 had nothing to do with U.S. policy overseas

How is Bret responsible for Vince shitting on his contract?

Perhaps. But the reality is he did nothing of note. Which for someone with his perceived value is pretty damning.

Punk name dropped Naylor on commentary

What I've learned from this is that Dave does not see himself as a grown up

The SC GWE poll had 49 voters IIRC. If everyone who had contributed to the process had voted it would have been closer to 75.

Flair wouldn't be in everyone's top five. I guarantee that

I don't think Flair would finish first here, but I doubt he'd finish below Eddy and Benoit.

I would have said Flair ten years ago, but Flair's status has dropped with me less because of criticism of others that I've bought into, then because of the fact that... a. Flair stayed around too long and wore out his welcome. I understand the point about only comparing peak to peak and don't entirely disagree with it, but there becomes a point where it is hard to ignore post-prime work. Guys like Lawler and Funk have ENHANCED there case based on post-prime work. It seems insane to say "let's ignore everything Funk and Lawler did after 89." If someone wants to argue that peak Flair (I'd say 81-89 based on the footage I've seen) is better than any other comparative run of that length that is one thing, but I don't know how you can entirely discard his post-peak work, and include the post-peak work of guys like Lawler or Funk - and as I said before discarding it strikes me as insane. b. More footage of others has helped the case of others. Most of the great Flair we've seen. Every now and then I'll see something fresh. Watching the Texas Set I was reminded of how great he was again which was nice. But seeing all the Fujinami or Lawler or Funk or Satanico or El Dandy that I have seen in recent years makes the competition a lot stiffer than it was when he was the guy with the obvious biggest body of good matches and largest number of great matches. Even now I'd still have Flair no lower than top five if pressed. There are very few guys I could or would rate ahead of him.

Sabu can survive criticism and has before. Sabu is a guy I've gone and fourth on for years. I tend to think he was a guy with a great mystique and a guy who was in a lot of good matches but was not a great worker on his own. To me Sabu is like Abby in that a big part of how you view him is how much you buy into his gimmick. I don't mean that as an "excuse" to cover his flaws either. I just think that he is a guy where his gimmick is such a big part of his working act that you can't separate one from the other and the more you enjoy it the more likely you are to think he's a high end guy on some level.

Remarkable. I don't know what is worse the fact that Dave thinks Angle's TNA work is something that can be held up as the be all end all, or the fact that Dave doesn't feel it is worth noting that this guy who got in on a less than five year career, went to the secondary promotion at the height of his popularity and did jack shit to help pop business in any meaningful long term way.

God I hope he was kidding.

Also - and I do think you have to say Mania as a whole is the draw - but for the last three years Taker v. whoever has been the most heavily promoted match on the biggest show of the year. Again not sure how much credit you can give Taker for that, but "the streak" being a synonym with shows that have drawn huge gates is FAR more than Hennig has to offer. I don't know enough about Funaki to have an opinion on that thought he has always struck me as an "odd" candidate.

All of those guys had at least some success at the top of the card. Hennig had no success at the top of the card that I know of.

Angle and Ultimo are obviously the two worst guys in the Hall. Still as a draw do I think Angle is weaker than Hennig? Offhand I don't know of a reason to believe that.

Yep. Hennig MIGHT be the guy with the worst record as a main event draw to ever appear on the ballot. I'm trying to think offhand of who would be worse.

Hennig is one of the two worst candidates on the ballot, the other being Owen. Having said that I could see voting for Hennig over Edge. Yes Hennig did nothing to move numbers as AWA champ and he bombed as a draw against Hogan. But he was also one of the best wrestlers in the States from 83-88, if not the World. If forced to pick I would rate Edge as the better candidate, but the fact that I think Edge is closer to him as a candidate than almost anyone else on that list is really the whole point.

There is zero argument for Edge over Koloff, Morales, Murdoch, RnR, Slaughter. I think it takes a massive stretch to rate him over Snuka. Don't know enough about II but that strikes me as a "no way in hell Edge is better" guy. Sting may be lateral, though Edge was never the biggest star in wrestling and Sting was while not even being active. I think he's lateral with Batista. He may be a better candidate than Hennig.

Montreal is entirely Vince's fault. He signed Bret to a contract that he was unwilling (I don't buy "unable") to honor, then told him "oops, I can't afford you, go to WCW." If WCW wasn't so inept this would have killed his negotiating leverage with them so it was fucked up on two levels. If Bret wasn't such a mark for himself he likely could have sued for breach of contract (though I don't know the finer details and if McMahon had some sort of "out" on the deal within a certain agreed upon frame of time - that strikes me as unlikely). Still the whole thing is Vince's fault. He chose not to honor his contract and chose to put the title on a guy he was planning to fuck contractually at minimum all along.

I love that Will has watched the Van Hammer shoot

How involved was Ultimo in that process? Hamada essentially created that style of wrestling, was a good worker for longer, and was at least as big an international star as Ultimo. Hamada isn't in. Why? It's also notable that Ultimo got in before the rise of DG