Ricky Jackson

That'd actually be a cool concept if it was better organized & not on facebook Yeah, it's not perfect. Maybe we could adapt the idea for a thread here or something.

Here's something you guys might enjoy The Great 1,024 Wrestler Tournament

Wrestling isn't a sport, so it's actually completely different. There were no pennants or World Series for Sting to win, and the championships he did win were all props. Packing houses is not the fake wrestling equivalent of winning titles unless you're a promoter. Glad I could help. Well, there was a ? at the end of my statement for a reason. Anyway, I'm not the knucklehead who compared Sting to Banks in the first place, so don't shoot the messenger.

So not winning a pennant or World Series but being a great player and nice guy in baseball = Not drawing on top* and being an at times good but usually average and sometimes worse worker and nice guy in wrestling? The Sting HoF debate and cockroaches are the only things that will survive a nuclear holocaust. *yes I know, except for 97.

I've linked to this channel before http://www.youtube.com/user/CLASSiC1PW A lot of stuff from here gets taken down, but right now it's pretty loaded with tons of old stuff and Japanese matches.

"The AWA was lame" seems to have been a default opinion by many wrestling fans for years and years, based on wrestlers bad mouthing Verne in shoots as being out of touch by the late-80s (the Rockers/rocking-chair story from Michaels), the ESPN show often coming off as looking minor league compared to WWF and Crockett/WCW TV, and a lot of poor booking choices during the last few years. Meltzer seemed to bash the AWA with every chance he got in the 80s, and even the Apter mags regularly ripped the AWA at the same time. I would guess that outside of pockets of revisionism here and there, "the AWA was lame" is still a pretty standard opinion by many fans, unfortunately.

The history geek in me loves this quote. I'm not sure if it's 100% accurate, but fuck it, it sounds good.

I don't think I had ever seen this before stumbling upon it online a few months ago (please don't shun me for being too cheap to buy the yearbook ). Say what you will about wrestling, Vince and all the tasteless angles over the years, there was something about this segment I found touching, even beautiful. Even if I'm looking through rose coloured glasses, it really made me miss the days of the WWF presenting little morality plays like this where the line between good and bad was clearly drawn. Vince on commentary is at his best, punctuating the angle with his "You can't buy the Bossman's dignity" line. A great example of why I love pro wrestling.

The Heels is very good. I skimmed Andre's bio once and it didn't seem very interesting. A friend gave me his copy of Larry's book, which he disliked, and it has sat on my shelf ever since. I just bought Shooters and have only skimmed through a few parts, but it looks like a top notch wrestling history book and everybody is raving about it. Also skimmed through Legends of Pro Wrestling and it looked skippable. If you haven't read Hornbaker's National Wrestling Alliance book I recommend it.

I'm glad somebody got it, because I don't even understand what point blueminister was trying to make with that sentence.

Billy Graham's book, while good, probably didn't make much of a sales dent either and it won the award. BTW, I bought your book a couple days ago and plan on getting into it as soon as a gap in my reading schedule opens (I'm stupidly trying to read like 4-5 books at the same time right now).

Tito was very over during the 84-86 years no doubt--more over than he is remembered today by many fans. At his very peak in the WWF he was probably at best the #4 babyface (depending on the year, with Hogan on top of course, he was behind Slaughter, Snuka, Andre when he was around, JYD, arguably Orndorff in 85, maybe some others I'm forgetting), which is still a significant achievement. He wasn't a career mid-carder, I'm not sure any wrestler ever really was, but he is still one of the best examples of a mid-carder IMO. We could always transfer the Tito talk over here http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=15282 and breathe some new life into this thread if anybody feels like it.

Either way, Sting has had plenty of time for his case to have been made.

Hogan turning heel after fifteen years as the biggest babyface ever (and "ever" means "ever" ) was absolutely what made the angle The Angle. Just like Andre turning heel in 87 made it The Angle for that time period. The build was so long coming it seemed like Hogan, like Andre before him, would never turn. Sting turning on WCW and joining WWF guys would have made no sense really. Hogan as the third Outsider, still the icon of the WWF even two years into his WCW run, was the perfect touch.

A Hall of Fame is supposed to honour the Best of the Best, period. Honestly, Sting shouldn't even be on the ballot anymore. I know the rule is if you maintain 10% of the vote you stay on, but how many years has Sting been on the ballot now? I have no idea, but if in the most extreme case he has been on since the late-90s and still hasn't been voted in after all these years, indeed, that his HoF case is based entirely on what he did prior to the 21st century, then the only way he is ever going to get in is as a "Well, we need to induct somebody this year, but all of the best candidates are already in, so we'll lower our standards and let him in this time" induction, and that would just make the HoF pointless. In baseball, if you are on the ballot for, I think, seven years and are not voted in, you are removed as a candidate. Something similar should apply to the WON HoF. If someone is truly one of the Best of the Best they will be voted in within seven years, and usually in much less time. Yes, many wrestlers are in the HoF who are, depending on your viewpoint, not the Best of the Best, as has been discussed thoroughly (usually, these controversial inductees are guys who were perceived by certain smart fans as being superworkers--Angle, Michaels, etc). Many wrestlers from the past were overlooked for much longer than seven years who were deserving of induction (eg. Hans Schmidt), but due to the fact their careers ended long ago and serious research must be made by committed fans to uncover the numbers, this is understandable. Sting is a modern star, not a name from the distant past whose career is unfamiliar to most wrestling fans. If he was one of the Best of the Best, his induction should have occurred at least ten years ago. He has not been overlooked. The majority of voters have looked at his career a million times over and have said "No" year in year out. I think it's time to move on.

Yep, Tito was the first name that came to mind when I saw this thread. I think at some point in the Tito thread I even wrote he was the dictionary definition of a mid-card babyface.

Couldn't find anything, but this pops up pretty quick when you search: Admit it Jerry, DiBiase isn't your greatest wrestling obsession, solving this mystery is. Oh, and then there was this: Case closed.

I was actually thinking wrestling being featured in a mainstream (well, close enough) movie was the unusual context, not Dangerfield's character.

In Natural Born Killers there is a scene where Rodney Dangerfield's character is watching a WWF show with Tatanka wrestling somebody and he screams "Kill the Fuckin' Indian!" at the TV. Chief Jay Strongbow and Gorilla Monsoon were referenced in a Stephen King book but I can't remember which one.

I know there are people that are high on him today, and I thought he was pretty good 4-5 years ago, but Randy Orton shouldn't come within 100 miles of the WON HoF.

Well, we really don't talk about them as much as we talk about other wrestlers...or maybe we do, I don't know, I tend to focus mostly on pre-Attitude Era stuff. 20. Rock 55 29. Austin 42 Because this list was done in 2009, the Rock would maybe be ranked higher today, I'm not sure.

Looking at the various top ten lists over the years, a lot of misleading conclusions can be read from them regarding who the actual top draws were in any given year/all-time. For example, Kamala ranks #4 in 87 because of his run against a guy, Hogan, who was in the middle of an historic run as a draw. Flair ranks #2 for 95 based almost solely on all the bonus points he received for headlining against Inoki (#3 for 95) at a show that "drew" 170,000, or whatever the number was, in North Korea. Kane is ranked so high because he main evented against all-time great draws during a period (98-01) that is generally considered the hottest ever for wrestling. Was Bossman (12 pts) really as big an all time draw as Monsoon, Pat Patterson, or Mad Dog Vachon (also 12 pts), or bigger than the Fabulous Kangaroos, El Hijo del Santo (11 points) and Bearcat Wright (10 pts), let alone Ted, JYD, and Watts? One has to be careful how they interpret the data for certain wrestlers.

No Ted, no JYD, and perhaps most surprisingly, no Bill Watts, which reveals the heavy Northeast bias. The only year Ted cracked a top ten was #5 in 88. For the record, Patera hit the top ten in 77 (#5), 80 (#4), and 82 (tied for 10th). Lawler hit #3 in 74, #6 in 75, #8 in 76, and tied for #3 in 77.

I'm looking at the top draws issue of the WON right now (8/5 2009) and Meltzer acknowledges the less than perfect nature of the 10k criteria right away: Highlights from the issue regarding some points already discussed in this thread: He points out how prior to the 70s there were very few 10k arenas in North America or internationally. Here is what he had to say about several territories outside of the huge metro areas and the venues they ran during the 70s and into the 80s: Florida Georgia Memphis Carolinas Meltzer then goes on to state: and Meltzer, based on Farmer's research, ranks the top draws of all time based on a formula that gives points based on 1) top ten per year ranking (most 10k shows headlined in a year, 10 points for number 1, 9 points for number 2, etc, with a bonus point for drawing 20k, 30k, etc., 2) ten points for having a "dominant year" (defined by someone who drew double the number of big gates than the number 2 wrestler), and 3) a five point bonus for "breaking the record for most biggest gates drawn" (typical awkward Meltzer phrasing). Based on this, here is the top ten of all time: 1. Jim Londos 250 2. Bruno Sammartino 196 3. Lou Thesz 172 4. Bill Longson 159 5. Hulk Hogan 154 6. Strangler Lewis 149 7. Ric Flair 126 8. Buddy Rogers 122 (back-to-back Nature Boys) 9. Joe Stecher 99 10. Dick the Bruiser 81 Some notes regarding the ranking of wrestlers discussed in this thread/discussed often on this board: 11. The Sheik 80 13. Bob Backlund 73 14. Andre the Giant 73 15. HHH 72 26. Harley Race 43 29. Antonio Inoki 42 31. Randy Savage 40 47. Shawn Michaels 30 47. Dusty Rhodes 30 53. Bret Hart 28 55. Pedro Morales 27 56. Kane 26 56. Jerry Lawler 26 67. Kurt Angle 24 72. Ivan Koloff 23 77. Sgt. Slaughter 22 78. John Cena 21 (remember this list was done in 09, so Cena would be ranked higher today) 78. Ultimate Warrior 21 92. Nick Bockwinkel 17 100. Chris Jericho 14 100. Ken Patera 14 120. Randy Orton 11 124. Lex Luger 10 No Sting anywhere on the list is somewhat surprising. Anyway, I've been working on this for long enough. Maybe I'll add more later. Hopefully this has been food for thought.

Meltzer did a top draws of all time issue a few years back. The criteria was most shows headlined which drew 10,000 or more. Flair was number 2 for the 80s. Not sure about the rest of the top ten, but I could check it out later.