JerryvonKramer

I reckon Jim Ross has never been happier in his career than during the tag tournament at Great American Bash '92. My (wrong) mental image of that show is Ross quietly rubbing himself at the sight of Gordy and Williams putting on 15-minute chinlocks while Ventura half asleeping wondering about how the hell he ended up in some random civic centre in Georgia. I think 'GAB '92 is as close to "wrestling as a sport" that we'll ever see. Almost feels like Ross and Watts were making some sort of moral point about it.

http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=14271 This thread may be of some assistance. We discussed the Herd / Frey timeline there as well. EDIT: At lot of places report Herd being fired in 1992 and replaced there and then with Frey. Is there any reason to believe there was more of a gap?

Halloween Phantom has Herd written all over it.

Here's a hypothetical: do you think if Kip Frey had stayed and they hadn't brought in Watts, WCW would have been healthy by 92? The few months of Kip Frey are probably my favourite few months in wrestling period. And WCW's hottest PPV streak possibly ever. If Watts hadn't have taken WCW back to the 70s with all his retro stuff, what's to say they don't start making money? I guess quality doesn't translate into sales though. There is no casual fan who's going to think "Oh I heard Beach Blast '92 was great, I'm going to be sure to catch Fall Brawl". It doesn't work like that does it. Yeah, Herd basically killed Flair.

Having looked at the figures, I think Simmons was probably a mistake from Watts too. I mean he gave him a really half-assed push on PPV, but I'm guessing he thought he could make another JYD. Given that all those house shows struggled to sell 1,000 tickets, Simmons has got to be seen as a massive failure as champ. The first half of 92 is solid-ish if you take lowered expectations into account, but the second half of 92 practically falls off a cliff. Also, this exercise has really made me question the drawing power of Rude and Vader. I mean they were the top heels right? And both of them, like Sting, over like rover. So why didn't that translate into money? Did Rude draw vs. Warrior?

For what it's worth, and this is hurting my own Sting argument, Flair vs. Steamboat drew 12,000 which is probably the biggest crowd they'd had outside of the Japan shows in years. Gates look to be up in general in 94. The stready progress made in 94-early 96 tends to be underplayed because the idea of the NWO transforming things is a much easier narrative to tell.

I always wondered about the business model of running all those shows at the WTBS studios in Atlanta in front of 500 people. Did they get money through advertising? Was that the idea? I'd be interested to see the TV ratings, because you're right it's a different way of looking at it. Also, I'm just wondering about Flair burying Sting in 1993/4 specifically. When he was booking. Sting was still over and came out of the Vader series looking good, by the time Hogan came in he was already in total no man's land. Flair worked Vader, then Steamboat, then Hogan. Sting was totally out of the loop. I guess this depends to an extent of how big a draw you consider Rick Rude by 1993. Sting vs. Rude, you'd assume would be a high profile and money feud. But was treated as midcard fodder.

This was an awesome show and I really enjoyed it. Think goodhelmet should resurrect Good Will Wrestling and make Loss his regular partner. For some reason I had trouble distinguishing between Charles and Dave at times on this. Did Dave go quiet for like an hour? On best on the mic for 96, where do you guys rank Flair? I think his feud with Savage is pretty slept on and tends to be overshadowed by what happened later that year (for obvious reasons). But I think Flair was cutting some of his strongest interviews in 96 since probably his WWF run. He's just soooo nasty and heelish in feud, like he wanted to mentally torture Savage. I plan on getting all nine year books and watching them in order. Those sets are literally a dream come true for me. Also, I hope there's going to be some sort of show for the All Japan results. I'll be really disappointed if there isn't.

No one could have succeeded in the environment in WCW of 1991-1993. Near-constant leadership and direction changes made it impossible. Again, I don't blame Sting for most of that. I blame the way he was portrayed. So saying Sting shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame is not something I think anyone would say means that he had no appeal or potential, that he didn't deliver in the right settings and that he didn't bring huge positives. But if you look back, Sting was going to be the guy to carry things when Ric Flair left. And Ric Flair never left. So most of his run was in limbo waiting to take that top spot, which he never got. And in some ways, it was unfair to Sting, because he was never going to be able to perform at the level Flair did as champ. But because WCW/NWA fans had Flair on top so long, that's what they expected in that role. As a side note, how much do you think Flair coming back in 93 hurt Sting? I mean by December, Flair was headlining Starrcade vs. Vader and Sting was in a meaningless tag match with Road Warrior Hawk vs. the Nasties. By Spring Stampede, it was Flair vs. Steamboat with Sting fighting over the near-meaningless WCW International Heavyweight Title. By the time Hogan came in and his hair had turned brown, Sting looked properly lost until the Luger stuff and the awesome angle with Flair late on in 95. There's an argument to say that Flair practically buried Sting when he had the book.

Hey no worries. I accept WCW were "national" in name, but if you look at what they were doing in towns outside their hotbed you'll see ... let me put it another way, do you remember this screen from TEW08? WCW had JUST made that jump from "cult" to national in the early 1990s and barely. They were probably around a "C" rating in most of the regions - A* in Mid Atlantic, B+ in South East, below C in Tri-State, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Don't really know what their presence was in North West, New England or the Great Lakes. In that game to be counted as being "National" you need at least a C popularity rating in EIGHT regions across the US. If WCW were really achieving that in the early 90s, they were just about doing it by the skin of their teeth. Meanwhile, WWF at that time were at least a B across the board AND in Canada AND here in the UK. They were touring Europe in 92, especially Germany to sell out crowds of 10,000+ everywhere they went. What I'm saying is that you just CAN'T measure WCW by WWF standards at that time. The gulf in the relative sizes of the operations was just too big. I mean Biscoff has to be given credit for making WCW even competitive given what he was up against. I spent a good few hours looking at house show figures last night. WCW were doing less than 1,000 typically in 92 with Simmons or Vader on top, more like 3,000 with Sting on the card. A PPV show would get 8,000 or 10,000 but WCW gave a lot of free comps at this time as well. WWF at the same time were doing 6,000+ just for house shows, 10,000+ when it was Hogan vs. Flair on top. We're talking a 7,000 crowd for a random house show in Seattle (Savage vs. Jake), WA, 7,000 in LA (Hogan/ Piper vs. Flair/ Sid). They were even drawing crowds of 2-3,000 in WCW's backyard and in the Mid-South area with Undertaker vs. Papa Shango on top -- this when a show with the WCW champion headling was struggling to break 500 in the same towns. I understand 1992 was just a HORRIBLE year for WCW box office wise, but compared to what the WWF were doing in the same time frame they really do seem like a backwater Southern operation. Would you really rate their popularity at C+ in EIGHT regions across the USA at this time? Seems to me they could only successfully run shows in Mid-Atlantic, Mid-South and South East. Look at their shows from 1992. They ran towns in GA ALOT -- basically the Omni every three weeks or so. They ran Chicago, then once in a while Houston, once in a while the Carolinas, once in a while Florida, once in a while towns out in old Watts country (OK, MO, MI, KA, TN, KY), seemed to do towns in Virginia and West Virginia fairly regularly, then random dates in Philly and New Jersey. I mean in still looks like a regional player to me (albeit a big one) with some overtures towards being national. If you look at the towns WWF ran, just in the US, let alone worldwide, there's no comparison.

I have to go to bed now, but Loss, if you do a search for "Jumbo" filtered by username "Jerryvonkramer" you'll find 26 posts where I've mentioned Jumbo, including one where I'm considering him as the GOAT 80s worker. Just for comparison, I've mentioned Mooney 15 times (which is probably 15 times more than anyone else, granted, ) and 14 for Rotunda, but of those only 7 refer to him as IRS or as part of Money Inc. I think maybe you have a certain perception of me that is magnified by the fact that you see Sean Mooney's face every time I post.

12. Did he have an impact on a number of strong promotional runs? Basically a one company guy. But he had arguably 4 distinct "strong runs" - 88-9, 91-3, 98, and TNA. Of which 91-3 is the only time he was "the ace". 91-3 was not a "strong run" by any sane metric. In fact it was quite the opposite of a "strong run" and this is coming from someone who loves much of the wrestling in the company from that period, attended dozens of live cards during the era, et. Having said that I think in a sense this is Sting's biggest plus as he is a guy people think of when they think of the post-Turner buyout TBS/TNT television World. I think for most long time fans he is the first guy they think of after Flair and I think that's why a lot of folks have trouble grasping just how poor his record really was as a drawing ace. He definitely had an impact for the totality of this stretch, in periods both strong and poor. As I said previously in this thread, I think it's harsh to blame Sting for the poor performance in those years. WCW had expanded too fast, too soon and was very badly managed and, at times, booked to boot. I'd credit him with almost single-handedly keeping the company afloat during those lean times. I reckon with Simmons vs. Vader on top and no Sting in 92, WCW files for bankruptcy in 1993. Watts didn't help him or the company either with his old-school approach and INCESSANT pushing of the Miracle Violence Connection either. Williams and Gordy simply were not draws in the US in 1992 -- yet he devoted 3 of the years biggest shows to them and buried the world title in the midcard. That sort of bull shit is to blame for the poor performance, not Sting. 13. Was he involved in a number of memorable rivalries, feuds or storylines? Yes, yes, yes to the max Okay so tell us what they are. The Vader feud is an all time great in ring feud that didn't really make money. I liked the Rude angle a lot - it didn't make money. The Muta stuff was fun as a kid but was extremely secondary in a loaded year. The Flair stuff is memorable, but really is weak next to stuff like Flair v. Luger. Crow Sting v. The NWO obviously had huge value and was memorable. Over all though I actually think it's shocking that a guy who was around as long as Sting in such a well placed spot has so few memorable rivalries, feuds and storylines. Well, aside from those you mention, the whole Luger angle in 95-6 was pretty good. More subtlety and complexity than your average wrestling angle. Also think the stuff with Flair in late 95 is dynamite. 14. Was he effective working on the mic, working storylines or working angles? Yes, yes, yes to the max Your answer tells us less than nothing. What are some examples of this. I would point to Crow Sting. Beyond that there are some things he did that I thought worked well, but didn't really lead to any solid business returns. Well I thought Sting's strengths on the mic were self-explanatory and obvious. Sting is basically a textbook babyface maineventer. Solid promo, solid at everything. I think he's a guy who was 4 out of 5 in all things. Just a terrific allrounder. 15. Did he play his role(s) effectively during his career? To the max Honestly this isn't even really argument by assertion. I'm not sure what it is, but I really had hoped for someone to try and use this tool to really hash out Sting's strengths and positives and I think you could do better than this. Great at being the underdog, great at being the trusting face tricked by the evil heel (Flair) or the trusting friend tricked by the evil partner (Luger) -- Sting is probably the stupidest wrestler of all time in kayfabe terms, ha ha. He played the surfer role perfectly and then when he had to play the darker Crow character, it was hard to believe it was the same guy. Totally believable in both roles. 16. What titles and tournaments did he win? What was the importance of the reigns? Well who can forget the most prestigious tournament of all time? The Iron Man tournament at Starrcade '89? And what about that coveted BATTLE BOWL RING from 1991? What about the King of Cable tournament from 92? Or the Jim Crocket Sr. Memorial Cup? If tournament wins are important, Sting has a unique trophy cabinet. Anyway, 7-time World Champ, 11 if you count TNA. Important runs with the US and TV titles that elevated those belts. I don't see how his title reigns really elevated the belts in question. I'd be interested to see what you and others think his most substantially title reign was. Both times Sting held the US title, he'd already been World Champ. And he was already a main event guy. Him going for and defending the secondary title made it seem like something worth gunning for. This wasn't a title for second tier guys, STING was wearing it with pride. In 89, Sting was probably the fastest rising star in ALL of wrestling period, and he was the TV champ, so I don't see how that's not elevating the belt. It's a damn site more impressive (for the TV title) than a career midcarder like Mike Rotunda holding it. .... 18. Did he get mainstream exposure due to his wrestling fame? Did he get a heavily featured by the wrestling media? You missed this one. I would say very little mainstream exposure relative to other top stars, though he was well covered by wrestling media. I think in that period of 1990-94, if you could name one wrestler from WCW, it was Sting. The main issue here is, however, that NWA/ WCW was NEVER over with the mainstream media. That was Vince's greatest trick: getting his boys over with the general public. Making Wrestlemania a household name. So, again, is this a knock on Sting or the company? I mean Hillybilly Jim probably had more mainstream exposure than anyone on the NWA roster in 1986, just by virtue of being in the Hogan cartoon. 19. Was he a top tag team wrestler? Yes. His stuff with Luger, outside of that Steiners match, is underappreciated in general. He had a few good runs with the tag titles. I think it's a real stretch to say he was a top tag team wrestler and I liked the Luger team. The Bladerunners were really bad, but even excluding that how would Sting compare to someone like Arn, Eaton or Windham who are guys that I think we all agree qualify as "top tag team wrestlers." Even taking it a step down from that do people really view Sting as a guy who's tag performances stood out? I'll grant you, this is weak. But Sting could play face in peril or do a big comeback as well as any other maineventer put in a tag match. He has dozens of decentish tag matches to choose from. 20. Was he innovative? I'd argue he was. The Stinger splash was quite distinctive. Seriously? I like Sting, but citing the Stinger splash as innovative in the context of an HoF discussion seems like the ultimate in "I want to make SOME case for this guy!" I'd argue that the Stinger spalsh is about as innovative as the People's Elbow, the Worm or the Spinarooni 21. Was he influential? I think you can see the influence of Sting in guys like Edge, Christian and Jericho. I have no clue what you are referring to here. I have no doubt that a lot of guys who are wrestlers now enjoyed Sting as a kid but I don't see anyway in which Sting was an influential wrestler and see no connection at all between Christian and Sting. I see Sting as a smaller guy main eventing. By "smaller", I mean that he's obviously not in the same weight bracket as Hogan, Warrior or even Luger. I see Sting as the guy who made it possible for a guy like Jericho to main event shows. He's also a more "athletic" main event babyface. I see more of Sting in the guys named than Bret or Shawn. 22. Did he make the people and workers around him better? This is probably Sting's main weakness as a worker. The answer is no. Sting is a guy who'll have a match as good as who he is working with. That's the main knock on Sting in general. I'm not sure that's true. I mean he wasn't going to carry anyone, but he was not a guy who had a rep of burying people or undermining them either. I can't say he made people better, but I don't think this is a negative for him either. Ok, so I can live with it being a neutral. It's more that Sting is never going to be a guy to drag a good match out of a shitty worker. I don't think Sting could have pulled off a Wrestlemania 6 with Warrior for example.

I can see that there's no getting away from this by being flippant Ok, I appreciate the demand for greater rigour. To make things more complicated here, I'm going to add my explanations here in Italics 1. Was he ever regarded as the best draw in the world? Was he ever regarded as the best draw in his country or his promotion? No for world or country, but for his promotion, definitely. When was he considered the best draw in his company? He was certainly pushed as the top face in the company for a couple of years, but the point of this question is to get to the meat of his value - in Sting's case that meat doesn't really exist, at least not on the surface. Someone else argued that shows with Sting featured prominently did better buyrates. That's the sort of thing I would want to see here to point to proof that he was actually someone who's position on the shows was getting some results. The point I'm making is that he was put in that position and was WCW's undisputed number 1 draw for the entire time Flair was gone. Flair became number 1 again in late 93 with the Vader match and the Steamboat match in early 94. 2. Was he an international draw, national draw and/or regional draw? Yes to all? I knew who Sting was when I was 12, being from the UK. Although I don't know how much stock you can put into that, since I wasn't exactly your average fan. Being known is not the same thing as being a draw. This is a common misconception that we all fall into from time to time and it works both ways. The High Flyers are less well known team than The Rockers, but The High Flyers were unquestionably bigger draws. Having a degree of fame and name recognition is not irrelevant to an HoF discussion, but I don't think it's as important as drawing and the two things should not be confused. Fair point this. I don't think you could have headlined a show at Wembley with Sting in the main event. 3. How many years did he have as a top draw? Shall we say 5-6? Sting had no years as a top draw. Actually let me amend that. If you count Crow Sting - and you arguably should - he may have had one year. I really can't conceive of any argument that would get his total up to five or six even if we were being REALLY generous. This is a semantic point. I'm saying this is "top draw" as in "top draw of the promotion". Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels each had a couple of years as "top draws", even though they didn't do great business. Also, there is an argument to say that all those 8,000-10,000 shows they did in 1991-3 would have been SMALLER if Sting hadn't been on those cards. What would shows headlined by Rude and Steamboat have done? Beach Blast '92 -- from a work perspective one of the all-time GREAT PPVs in my book -- only got 5,000 with Steamboat and Rude heavily featured in the build, and on the front cover of the VHS. In no sense was Sting's match the main event or even second main event there -- even though he was champ, he was buried in the midcard against Foley, admittedly in a fantastic non-title match. Even though Great American Bash '92 is famous for the meaingingless tag tournament and Watts pushing Williams and Gordy to the moon, it was SOLD on Vader vs. Sting and drew 8,000 -- 3,000 up from Beach Blast. What about Ron Simmons vs. Vader? No PPV matches, but they were doing 1,900 - 3,500 (average around 2,000) around the horn in August. From September to October, the figures with Simmons as champ are really horrible, getting as low as 400 in some places. But averaging around 700-1000. Then from November Sting is back in the main event and they are getting 5,000 at the Omni, Then they go back to being awful with Sting not on the cards ... but there's a noticeable spike in December: You can see this pattern across the year. Shows with Sting headlining (or advertised to be on the show) do over 2,000 sometimes 5,000+ and 7000-10,000 for Clashes and PPVs, shows without him do 1,000 or even fewer. 4. Was he ever regarded as the best worker in the world? Was he ever regarded as the best worker in his country or in his promotion? Probably not, but he did have his fair share of great matches given the right opponent Definitely not, though I agree with your second point. 5. Was he ever the best worker in his class (sex or weight)? Was he ever one of the top workers in hisclass? Ditto Sting is tough because it depends on how you define "class." He was sort of branded as a musclebound face, but his frame was different than someone like Hogan's. He wasn't really a Flair type, nor was he really a Luger type. I would feel more comfortable classing him with Luger than with Flair though that may be an error of my perception. Anyhow to the extent that he is in that sort of "musclebound" babyface class I actually think you may be underselling him a hair here. He was a very good worker by the standards of guys in that class, or at least he was for a few years. It's also worth noting that his matches with Vader are among the best "musclebound but still underdog face v. monster" matches in wrestling history. I've always struggled to buy Sting as a real muscle man because he's so much smaller than a Hogan or a Luger. I really see him as a smaller main event guy. More on this later. ... 10. Was he effective when pushed at the top of cards? Well define "effective" ... was he effective at popping the crowd and being the most over guy in the company? Yes. Was he effective as a draw? More debatable / no. I don't understand why it is hard to define effective. Seems to me that the question is pretty clearly "as an anchor/top of the card act did this guy draw money/help business/sustain business." Referring to the figures above, I certainly don't think Sting was HURTING business, and he was basically the only guy in the company with ANY sort of drawing power. 5,000 would turn up for Rude vs. Steamboat on PPV. 8,000 for Sting vs. anyone. I mean that's still moderate, but he was clearly the biggest draw they had.

1. Was he ever regarded as the best draw in the world? Was he ever regarded as the best draw in his country or his promotion? No for world or country, but for his promotion, definitely. 2. Was he an international draw, national draw and/or regional draw? Yes to all? I knew who Sting was when I was 12, being from the UK. Although I don't know how much stock you can put into that, since I wasn't exactly your average fan. 3. How many years did he have as a top draw? Shall we say 5-6? 4. Was he ever regarded as the best worker in the world? Was he ever regarded as the best worker in his country or in his promotion? Probably not, but he did have his fair share of great matches given the right opponent 5. Was he ever the best worker in his class (sex or weight)? Was he ever one of the top workers in hisclass? Ditto 6. How many years did he have as a top worker? Shall we say 3-4? 7. Was he a good worker before his prime? Was he a good worker after his prime? Arguably yes? 8. Did he have a large body of excellent matches? Did he have a excellent matches against a variety of opponents? Yes? Flair, Luger, Vader, Foley, Muta, Rude, DDP ... and yes I'm acting as if TNA never existed. 9. Did he ever anchor his promotion(s)? Yes 10. Was he effective when pushed at the top of cards? Well define "effective" ... was he effective at popping the crowd and being the most over guy in the company? Yes. Was he effective as a draw? More debatable / no. 11. Was he valuable to his promotion before his prime? Was he still valuable to his promotion after his prime? Are we saying 88-89 is before his prime? The answer is yes. If we're saying that TNA is after his prime, well someone else can answer that. 12. Did he have an impact on a number of strong promotional runs? Basically a one company guy. But he had arguably 4 distinct "strong runs" - 88-9, 91-3, 98, and TNA. Of which 91-3 is the only time he was "the ace". 13. Was he involved in a number of memorable rivalries, feuds or storylines? Yes, yes, yes to the max 14. Was he effective working on the mic, working storylines or working angles? Yes, yes, yes to the max 15. Did he play his role(s) effectively during his career? To the max 16. What titles and tournaments did he win? What was the importance of the reigns? Well who can forget the most prestigious tournament of all time? The Iron Man tournament at Starrcade '89? And what about that coveted BATTLE BOWL RING from 1991? What about the King of Cable tournament from 92? Or the Jim Crocket Sr. Memorial Cup? If tournament wins are important, Sting has a unique trophy cabinet. Anyway, 7-time World Champ, 11 if you count TNA. Important runs with the US and TV titles that elevated those belts. 17. Did he win many honors and awards? Well, look, he was massively over with PWI: PWI Most Popular Wrestler of the Year (1991, 1992, 1994, 1997) PWI Wrestler of the Year (1990) PWI ranked him #1 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 1992 PWI ranked him #15 of the top 500 singles wrestlers of the "PWI Years" in 2003 And to a lesser extend with WON: Best Babyface (1992) 5 Star Match (1991) with Brian Pillman, Rick Steiner, and Scott Steiner vs. Ric Flair, Larry Zbyszko, Barry Windham, and Sid Vicious (February 24, WarGames match, WrestleWar) 5 Star Match (1992) with Nikita Koloff, Ricky Steamboat, Barry Windham, & Dustin Rhodes vs. Arn Anderson, Rick Rude, Steve Austin, Bobby Eaton, & Larry Zbyszko (May 17, WarGames match, WrestleWar) Match of the Year (1988) vs. Ric Flair at Clash of the Champions I Most Charismatic (1988, 1992) Most Improved (1988) And winning best babyface in 1992 is no mean feat considering all the things that were happening around the world that year. 18. Did he get mainstream exposure due to his wrestling fame? Did he get a heavily featured by the wrestling media? 19. Was he a top tag team wrestler? Yes. His stuff with Luger, outside of that Steiners match, is underappreciated in general. He had a few good runs with the tag titles. 20. Was he innovative? I'd argue he was. The Stinger splash was quite distinctive. 21. Was he influential? I think you can see the influence of Sting in guys like Edge, Christian and Jericho. 22. Did he make the people and workers around him better? This is probably Sting's main weakness as a worker. The answer is no. Sting is a guy who'll have a match as good as who he is working with. That's the main knock on Sting in general. 23. Did he do what was best for the promotion? Did he show a commitment to wrestling? He's probably the only major guy since 1980 never to jump to Vince. That's pretty impressive. He definitely showed loyalty and commitment. 24. Is there any reason to believe that he was better or worse than he appeared? I don't really know what this means. I think Sting always looked good and he was good.

Alright let me have a go at this in the next hour. Also, I wanted to take this up with Dylan and jdw earlier but I'm skeptical as to the extent to which WCW was TRULY a "national" promotion in, say, 1992. They might have positioned themselves like a national company, they might have been spending as if they were, but really were they? WCW always seemed to stay in its hotbed a lot more than WWF until at least the Nitro era. Which towns up North did WCW regularly run in the early 90s? Did they even run places like Houston as much as WWF did?

Whoa now. Hold on. A few things. It's not entirely fair to say " this is the first time I've ever heard you praise anyone that wasn't in the WWF in the 80s or 90s". Up until very recently I had a website on which I'd reviewed every WCW PPV in the early 90s until Bash at the Beach 96. If you go over to DVDR I've left comments on pretty much all 150 matches on the All Japan set. And plenty of comments in the MidSouth thread -- I missed the boat on being part of the project, but I said plenty of things about the first 5 or 6 discs that I watched before All Japan took over. Sure, without doubt I'm someone who thinks the WWF did a hell of a lot of things right in the 80s from a booking perspective. And, yes, I think crowd reaction is as important as workrate, which I understand isn't a popular view. But it's not entirely fair to say that I only praise 80s WWF. Second, the only thing I was saying is that "based on work" is not really a metric like being a draw. There are no figures for "work" or "rep". So if THAT is part of the consideration, there's no reason why consistent crowd reaction and overness can't be too. I mean, we've been down this road so many times, but there IS an argument to say that a guy who is not over is not working effectively. I don't know how far to take that argument because it ends up saying JYD wiggling his butt is "more effective" than a sweet suplex by Barry Windham ... But it is still part of wrestling. And it, the crowd, simply can't be ignored. The argument that says "we've got to ignore crowd reaction as a measure of a guy's success because Ice Train and Virgil once got big pops" surely ignores something about a guy like Sting who was consistently over for his entire career. Why was Sting still considered such a massive asset in 1998 and given "Sting money" if he was such a failure? The promoters obviously saw value in him, and they couldn't ignore the crowd. That's got to be worth something.

What are the normative elements that led to Benoit going in then?

That was good fun. Really can't wait for the AWA set now.

I don't see how you can say "wrestling ability" is in any way important either then, if it doesn't translate into money. "Wrestling ability" is AS ARBITRARY a benchmark as overness. IF wrestling ability is a criterion, I don't think that being massively over should be overlooked either. If wrestling ability is not important, and it's just about being a draw, fair enough.

I want to say that even if Sting ISN'T a big draw to a wider casual audience -- and honestly I think probably less than 10 wrestlers are in the history of wrestling -- for a period of about 8 or 9 years he consistently got the biggest pop of the night whenever he worked. Even after Hogan came in, and before the crow gimmick, in like 95, Sting would be the biggest pop of the night. Doesn't that overness with the crowd count for anything when building a HoF case? Seems to me that it should be AS IMPORTANT as wrestling ability. Also, do we only look at PPV buyrates and gates? What about merch sales?

Having spent about 20-odd minutes looking into this, one thing seems for certain: Sting never was a draw. He only appears once in this list as the 9th biggest draw in 1998. That's honestly surprising for me. Sting has always seemed the most consistently over babyface. He always got a massive reaction. Guess it was a case of a particular set of fans of that loved him.

Have to admit, going in I was a bit worried that it would be 2 hours of Cena chat, but I obviously shouldn't have underestimated the little bro of Mr Hales -- in a way, I should have expected it. That reminds me, I was going to make a thread about wrestling fandom and geekery -- and why the two things seem to go hand-in-hand. Will save it for now. The idea that someone can not remember the MNW era is legitimately mindblowing for me. But Devon has exactly the right attitude. I've developed a concept called "eating your sprouts" -- basically going back and doing your homework. Great to see someone actually doing it!

Can you give me some figures here? What were the biggest houses they were doing? I also think Dusty is in your "something else" category. He was probably drawing in non-wrestling fans.

I should elaborate on what I just said a bit. My theory is that wrestling AS WRESTLING had a certain fanbase of a limited size in the 80s down south. The NWA catered for those fans and WCW until 94 and the Disney bullshit continued catering for those fans. THAT demographic gave you crowds of 5,000-8,000 for a PPV event, 10,000 max. These were the rasslin fans. The WWF had a different audience: kids. My point is that no one in a million years would expect Flair vs. Steamboat to draw 50,000+ gates. There aren't that many people into wrestling. Hogan vs. Andre is a spectacle, a cartoon, something else. Point is: can you really fairly compare NWA guys with WWF guys in that period? You could have taken exactly the same two guys and the same match and you know WWF would be getting a much bigger crowd, just because of its audience.

Seems harsh to pin that failure on Sting though. Look at all the management issues at that time -- Kip Allen Frey, Watts, then Bischoff with Dusty and then Flair constant backstage movers. Watts did a lot of things to hurt Sting as "the ace" in the first 6 months. Putting the title on Ron Simmons, jobbing Sting out clean to Vader, doing weird stuff like putting Williams and Gordy in the main event and burying the world title match somewhere in the midcard. In any case, I've always argued this: did anyone EXPECT any Southern wrestling promotion at that time to do more than 8,000 at The Omni? Had the NWA EVER really had bigger crowds than that? I don't think you can blame Sting for forces beyond his control, like the fact that the WWF did marketing and promotion 1000s of times better than WCW. And it's not like Hogan coming in significantly improved performance in 1994.