tomk

So Konan was the number one vote getter among reporters? Curious what percentage of those votes had to be ditched or tossed into a seperate US bucket, since so few reporters are actually knowledgeable when it comes to lucha.

Again I don’t understand this complaint at all. It’s like the people making this complaint haven’t even looked at the match list Will provided. Doing a quick finger math count I get 58 juniors matches (singles and tags with nothing but junior participation). I get another 30 matches with juniors where they are in multiperson matches that also include heavyweights. 88 matches on a set with 175 matches. More than half of the matches on this set include juniors. For the purpose of my finger-counting, I’m saying that from 82 forward Fujinami is a heavyweight. This on some level is inaccurate as in 82 and first couple months of 83 he essentially was working as a natural junior fighting out of his weight class. Also I’d suggest in 88/89 he was being positioned as a true lightheavyweight (while most of the juniors were true middleweights). All that is to say that my finger counting of 88 matches under represents how many junior matches there are on this set. This is a set of 175 matches where more than half of them have juniors in them. If you watch a season of NJ TV, you’d think this is ridiculous over representation of juniors. The three guys who put this together pretty clearly have a pro juniors bias. The three guys who have acted as curators for this set did come at this with a clear post MMA bias. They can only conceive of wrestling as being presented as a great form of hand to hand combat. For most of the 80s wrestling was not just presented as the top hand to hand fighting style but also as being superior to most armed combat styles. Wrestlers vs. combatants fighting with forks, fencing foils, chains, and kendo sticks was a big part of what New Japan was all about.. This set fails to showcase that. Only one Ueda match and it’s a match where he doesn’t use a weapon. Only three Abby matches, two Brody, and two Buzz Sawyer matches. People are going to walk away from this set seeing only four matches with a chain and no matches with swords. No Tiger Jeet Singh, Kendo/Pogo, or Gaspar matches. Really? Are we supposed to believe that in the entire decade their were no great matches involving fencing foils or kendo sticks? More than half of the juniors matches didn’t even make TV, or were shown in clips. Almost every second of the matches with Kendo sticks and fencing foils were shown in full. More than 50% of this set is steaming with junior heavyweights while less than 5% of it features guys who bring weapon to the ring. This set is permeated with a pro juniors bias.

but look at the list. Fujiwara isn't particularly overrepresented. Perhaps the UWF angle is overrepresented. Fujiwara, Takada, and Maeda are all in 23 matches on the set in 86-87. From 81-83 Antonio Inoki, who is the promotions ace and main evented most of their show only appears on the set 15 times. From 81-83 Andre the Giant was one of the biggest stars in the world and a regular on big New Japan shows yet only appears on the set 3 times. Hulk Hogan who is the biggest star in wrestling history and a regular in New Japan from 81-83 only appears in 3 matches during those years. Compare that to Tiger Mask who is in a whopping 17 matches when he was only in New Japan for three years (81-83). Look at those numbers. If anything the set way overrepresents Tiger Mask given the length of his New Japan career. The Machines were in New Japan for three years too, I don't see the set compilers giving them 17 matches on the set. Biased against Machines. Hiro Saito worked New Japan for almost the entire decade. Where are his 17 matches? I mean this set has only one Bad News Allen match. This set only has only one Umanosuke Ueda and that's one from way after his peak. It has no Rusher Kimura matches. It has no Tiger Jeet Singh matches. No Kendo/Pogo matches. No Gaspar brothers. Doesn't have the undercard heavyweight Roger Smith v Animal Hamaguchi match. And instead is overflowing with undercard juniors matches. There are complaints to be made about this set, but anyone who complains "not enough juniors matches" hasn't actually read the match list.

I wasn't involved with putting this set together, but a quick look through list and still don't see the numbers being that odd. I can't see how you'd look at this and make the complaint your making. Fujiwara, Maeda, and Takada all have 23 matches in 86,87 when they were part of hot big UWF angle. Fujiwara also shows up three times in 83 as third guy on a team facing Choshu's Army. Tiger Mask who only wrestled in New Japan for three years is in a whopping 17 matches with the majority of them being singles matches. Tiger Jeet Singh who still a major player in New Japan for first three years in the 80s and doesn't have a single match on the set.

What I had remembered from the observer issue was this line: Which is kind of confusing in the actual context of paragraph. As I mistook "Saito's peers" for being retired wrestlers. On a completely seperate note rereading issue realized that neither Dylan Waco or I when discussing the historical candidates mentioned the Assassins( who showed up in top ten of former wrestlers and historian voters). I kind of forgot that the Renesto/Hamilton team ended before the cut off, but they look to be the next ones in. BILL MILLER 69 70% 58% The Assassins 56 57% 51% Wilbur Snyder 49 50% 38% Red Bastien 47 48% 44% Hans Schmidt 46 47% 34% John Tolos 37 37% 22% George Gordienko 32 32% 28% Enrique Torres 31 31% 36%

I think Dave mentioned somewhere that every Japanese wrestler and writer given a ballot voted for Saito. That's why he's in. Clearly the perspective of Saito's career is different inside the Japanese wrestling business than outside it in America. My gut feeling is that they're marks for his relative success in America. http://wrestlingclassics.com/.ubb/ultimate...;f=7;t=000463;p It's what Dave told Yohe, to get him off his back.Reading the Meltzer analysis in the actual issue where he talks about Saito getting worker votes vis a vis Murdoch, it's implied that a bunch of that is American worker votes.

Honestly don't remember the stationary bike reference, but my favorite part of that whole story was that it wasn't just Angle...the story in Observer was that Angle and Luther Reins were complaining about Eddie because he would stay down selling for too long thus slowing down their matches. Horshu was complaining that being programed with Eddie Guerrero was preventing him from having high end matches.

JBL got crowd to pop for Cena. Umaga got crowd to pop for Cena. Khali did. Big Show did as well.

I don't want to argue WWF since I really didn't follow closely but my impression was that the Austin v Taker stuff was pretty important. Also forgot to mention Vince as big wrestling heel being part of top five ahead of HHH. Also reading my way up and down this to find stuff I may have missed skimming: Bastien has a reputation as guy who a guy who is well liked by everybody who was a good highflyer. That doesn't equal superworker. There are at least 5 or 6 Red Bastien matches easily available and don't see the Benoit comparison. He was a somewhat small highflyer who bumped big. I don't get the impression that his highflying was any more impressive than Verne Gagne's highflying or that his bumping was any bigger than Gagne's bumping.Was his highflying more impressive than Argentne Zuma who had a couple huge MSG draws? Unfortunately I don't think we have any Zuma footage. We have some Larry Chene and Joe Blanchard matches (both bumping small guys who hit some highflying spots) to compare.

The Hase vis a vis Taue discussion from Dave is far more interesting than the Edge stuff: In response to question of how Taue is viewed as worker (by workers) Dave writes: I'm picturing Steve Williams as a Meltzer source telling Dave about how he struggled with Taue and how he would have paced himself better opposite a great amatuer like Hase.

Didn't JYD headline a bunch of B show tours? For whatever its worth HHH went into Hall of fame in 2005. And while in 2009 he's obviously a HOFer, he essentially went on as being the fifth most important guy during the WWE wrestling boom (behind Austin, Rock, Undertaker, Cactus Jack). Edge is essentially the fifth or sixth most important guy now. If being fifth most important part of machine is HOF worthy, he meets that standard.

My impression is that Saito got lots of votes from other workers, and my guess is Saito went on based on being in wrong category. I think Adrian Street could have easily gotten more than 32 votes but categorizing him as European would be silly. Kollof's career went way past 79 so he isn't categorized as part of the historical category. Both Enrique Torres and Wilbur Snyder seem to also be as good candidates as Shmidt. I would need to read more about Gordienko as well. Meltzer says that he will be moving the cut off date up for "historical candidates" every couple years, with the Andersons falling into it in next couple years.

Honestly reading the interview, I mean nothing there that is too embarassing. Wahlers had a favorite fed and a rooting interest in his home team. That he might think that Alavarez's book would give him some insight is sad but whatever. Some of his columns are more indicting than that interview. I mean yes, I think an actual sportswriter like Childs should get a journalist vote before the likes of Wahlers (and thats even with Childs' inexplicable dislike of RogerSmith v Animal Hamaguchi). But lets be honest. Standards for wrestling journalism are really really low. There is no Taylor Spinks award for wrestling jouranlism. But if their was, who would deserve it? I've mocked the Snowden takes on Metlz and gang threads on the ob server board a bunch. They are amusing dumb threads. Part of what made those so amusing and also part of what made them so sad was that when it comes to MMA watching Meltzer, Snowden, Todd Martin and Alvarez debate is like getting access to a debate between Shirley Povich and Bill James. According to Meltzer: Thats the best the field has to ofer. Wrestling journalism standards are even lower than that. And by those standards Wahlers is nowhere near the bottom of the pack.

Isn't Hogan buddies with Chuck Zito. How would Zito /Hogan v Nathan Jones and head of Devil's Marbles branch of the Hells Angels draw? I assume Flair eats the pin.

Moolah also does extremely well with active wrestlers, so I think part of the difference is historical perception, unless she taught the modern day Divas how to whore themselves out to management and all the top stars. Also, many of Moolah's female peers hated her guts for the same reasons Daddy's peers hate his. I don't really have good answers for this outside of Moolah was well liked by the boys. Moolah's legend as beloved figure is passed down from one generation of wrestlers to next. And yes her female peers hated her, but she was liked by the boys.. and I don't think Meltzer has many of those girls voting in HOF. The girls he does have voting like Missy saw Moolah as role model (an example of someone who figured out how to stay ahead in this male dominated industry) and not someone to hate.

I don't think the difference is about historical perception. Moolah is well liked by her voting peers. Impression I get is that Big Daddy isn’t well liked by voting peers (British wrestlers or the wrestlers who toured the Uk during their careers). Perhaps if Crabtree was more gregarious backstage. did more social drinking, or had a stable of female trainees he was willing to pimp out to his colleagues he might do better.

When a football player has an MMA match, he is a MMA fighter. When a football player works a wrestling match he is a wrestler. Bob Sapp shouldn't go into pro football hall of fame based on his MMA record.

Tinieblas isn't in the HOF. Neither is Superzan or Neutron el Enmascarado Negro. bios of Santo and Blue Demon covering their careers pre-movie stardom are availble here: http://www.luchawiki.com/index.php/Santo http://www.luchawiki.com/index.php/Blue_Demon

This is honestly my fear too. I don’t see why this should be a fear. This is how ideas get sharpened. The importance of one quality gets talked up eventually leads to other qualities being overlooked…people start talking about those qualities till others fall secondary, etc. This is how our understanding of all that goes into a particular wrestlers performance gets sharpened. A quality that we thankfully don’t talk about anymore is shooting ability. Yohe wrote on wrestlingclasics: I can’t imagine anyone in 2009 arguing that shooting ability is more important than ability to entertain. If someone today argued that legit shooter Baron Von Raschke was a better wrestler than Shawn Michaels cause Raschke had a reputation for shooting….it would be laughed off.

Angle would have gone in as easily this year as he did originally.

Case against Cien pretty much amounts to Konan being a Meltzer source. Meltzer on Konnan: 1993: Konnan vs. Cien Caras (Mexico City Plaza de Toros - 48,000 - set all-time Mexico attendance record ) Konnan vs. Cien Caras vs. Jake Roberts (Los Angeles Sports Arena - 17,500) Konan in the 90s was the rare Mexican heavyweight with fully roided body, he was always on top with people like Cien and Perro Aguayo, genuine charismatic draws who were better workers. He has a series with Vampiro that draws well based on unique relationship between the two. And then after that I don't get the impression that he means much more as a draw then Latin Lover or La Parka Jr.

Bix, for comparison sakes what are Bobby Eaton, Gordy, Rude and Arn's Yearbook numbers during same period?

It's one thing for me in 2009 to say in reflection that I can't imagine thinking of Hennig as top five worker in the business. But was there ever a point where the Observer readers thought he was a top five worker in the biz? I don't think Loss mentioned awards in his coverage of 88 observers. 1991 year end awards voting appears on the Observer site: Wrestler of the year: Previous winners for wrestler of year: Previous winners for most outstanding wrestler: anyone have the runners up for those years? know where Hennig placed on ballots?

Real busy of late and lots of things want to respond to but: Meltzer's top five workers between 87-91 would be who? also What?? BIX: Well big problem with Saito is that he feels like a guy who may get the most votes for Japanese category based on positive feelings about his US performances.