mookeighana

I was impressed with this because I rewound it about three times to see if I missed it, but realized later that they didn't show it on TV. Great way to keep the heat high but like you said, reward the live fans.

https://twitter.com/mookieghana/status/768606982081175552

I received my DVDVR "Best of the 1980s Portland" discs from Will. This is match 2, disc 1.

I received my DVDVR "Best of the 1980s Portland" discs from Will. This is disc 1, match 1. (I hope it's alright I'm posting about it here. This will have "match spoilers".) The announcers are cooing over the NWA belt. Rick Martel is given a glorious shine by Harley Race. If you like arm bars, this the match for ya. Referee's Sandy Barr's red outfit seems straight out of a 1970's JC Penny's catalog. There's a great spot where Race goes for a gutwretch suplex and Martel reverses it. Later Martel catches Race on the top rope and flings him "12... 15 feet across the ring" (according to the announcers). They explain the arm-bar obsession on commentary: "Why is Martel concentrating on armbars? He's giving away weight." Note: Portland crowd in 1980 dresses like a Brooklyn crowd in 2016. Race escapes from an armbar by dropping Martel across the top rope. We get Harley Race delivering a piledriver. We get the falling head butt from Race. He takes control. Eventually, Race wins the first fall with a big suplex. The second fall has Martel returning the piledriver favor. Race gets the foot on the ropes. What a ring veteran! There's a great elbow smash by Martel on Race. Falls two ends with Martel putting Race in a sleeper and knocking him out. There's an incredible moment after this where Martel has to decide whether to do the "right thing" and wake up Race. Referee is threatening Martel if he doesn't do it. So eventually Rick gives Harley Race a judo chop to the neck and awakes the champion. Third fall is a time-limit draw. Good match. Martel was massively over with the crowd and Race not only made Rick look great, but he's a lot more fun to watch than I remembered. His facials after the sleeper wakeup were fantastic.

Good call. Yeah, I think he was the Doink on the Global Warfare match against Crush in April 1993 (taped in Paris) and on the Tele5 taping from Barcelona and Tele+2 taping from Milan against perennial house show opponent Tito Santana. He was also Doink #2 for the WWF Superstars stuff in June. I'd forgotten by 1994 Bad Attitude (him & Eaton) had shown up on WCW.

I do want to apologize for the chaos I caused with the lucha ballots. I just didn't know what was happening with that. If we ever want to set a new deadline and get a revote, I'm game to tally. Like it was noted, there was some turmoil in communications and project continuity with DVDVR and general quietness. But I missed at least one ballot that was sent in and there was certainly others that had rankings that weren't included.

I'm back with a new episode of Wrestlenomics radio: http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2016/05/19/wrestlenomics-radio-wwe-q1-results-emerging-markets-talk-worked-wrestlemania-s/'>http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2016/05/19/wrestlenomics-radio-wwe-q1-results-emerging-markets-talk-worked-wrestlemania-s/ I cover: - WWE Q1 results - How WWE is changing their monthly (to quarterly) key performance indicators - WWE international/emerging market discussions - WWE Network lessons from different markets - Worked WrestleMania attendance numbers This podcast was a companion to the SeekingAlpha pieces I wrote this month: Understanding WWE Q1 results and The WWE Network in the International Marketplace. I also covered George Barrios' at today's the Needham conference at my blog. Listen here. Direct MP3 link: https://audioboom.com/boos/4587674-wwe-q1-results-emerging-markets-talk-kpi-switches-and-worked-wrestlemania-s.mp3

Rovert pointed out Mark Madden's ballot:

(We're really veering off the HOF path here but...) Having seen him on Haven, he's perfectly adequate on there.

To be very honest, sometimes I go with pure calculations. Sometimes I go with gut. Everyone on the ballot has a case. It's always a question of whether it's the strongest case among the categories you're going to participate in. I haven't supported Sting before. I thought his relevance in WWE in 2015 was very interesting and honestly that did it for me. I've listened to Sting supporters. I've listened to Koloff supporters. I've listened to Slaughter supporters. Their arguments convinced me to give their candidate a vote. If they go in, great. If they don't? I won't be upset. Honestly, about the only candidate that I feel strongly about is JYD. Typically, with these things, before I can vote for , I usually have to concede that involves voting for and . So, if my analysis convinced me vote for Edge, then I feel that by the same criteria, wrestlers like CM Punk and Daniel Bryan had to get a vote. However, I'll admit that: 1.) This year, I went with my gut and didn't over-think it. 2.) I think I'm one-and-done with Sting unless he has another high-profile year in WWE.

A third ballot from another anonymous voter. I FOLLOWED THE MODERN PERFORMERS IN U.S/CANADA CANDIDATES Bryan Danielson/Daniel Bryan Edge Brock Lesnar NON-WRESTLERS Gene Okerlund Howard Finkel

A different voter who had shared their ballot with me (since I actively collected them last year). I FOLLOWED THE MODERN PERFORMERS IN U.S/CANADA CANDIDATES Bryan Danielson/Daniel Bryan Edge Brock Lesnar I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN MEXICO CANDIDATES Perro Aguayo Jr. L.A. Park I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN EUROPE CANDIDATES Big Daddy Rollerball Mark Rocco Johnny Saint NON-WRESTLERS Howard Finkel Gene Okerluind

A Canadian voter who doesn't have an account here had shared his ballot with me. With his permission, here's how he voted: I FOLLOWED THE HISTORICAL PERFORMERS ERA CANDIDATES - YES I FOLLOWED THE MODERN PERFORMERS IN U.S/CANADA CANDIDATES - YES Bryan Danielson/Daniel Bryan Edge Brock Lesnar Sgt. Slaughter Sting I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN JAPAN CANDIDATES - YES Jun Akiyama Yuji Nagata Shinsuke Nakamura I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN MEXICO CANDIDATES - YES Perro Aguayo Jr. Dr. Wagner Jr. I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN EUROPE CANDIDATES - NO I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN AUSTRALIA/PACIFIC ISLANDS/CARIBBEAN/AFRICA CANDIDATES - NO NON-WRESTLERS Bill Apter Howard Finkel Gene Okerlund

I FOLLOWED THE MODERN PERFORMERS IN U.S/CANADA CANDIDATES Brock Lesnar Junkyard Dog Sgt. Slaughter Bryan Danielson/Daniel Bryan Sting Ivan Koloff Edge I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN AUSTRALIA/PACIFIC ISLANDS/CARIBBEAN/AFRICA CANDIDATES Carlos Colon Domenic DeNucci Mark Lewin NON-WRESTLERS Jimmy Hart Gorilla Monsoon Gene Okerluind Jerry Jarrett

(Apologies if this is considered off-topic.) Who would be the ten people that would best fit the bill as 'most controversial members' of the WONHOF? (People already in.) I'd be curious what names would come up as a group consensus. Just thinking about it quickly I'd think the list might include Ted DiBiase, Masakatsu Funaki, Kazushi Sakuraba, Ultimo Dragon, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero, Steve Williams?

My point is that USA was suing to keep them on their station back then. From what I've read, I am under the impression that USA was willing to pay WWF more, but WWF was intent on leaving and it was certainly a benefit for WWF in the short-term. I was thinking of the longer ramifications of the move -- coming back is what cost WWF their domestic advertising revenue, sharing a station with UFC is what helped introduce a larger audience of pro-wrestling fans to The Ultimate Fighter. If WWF was still on USA, that would have left a network that WCW could have moved to in 2001 and there's other ramifications too. As for the discussion on ratings, there are metrics that take into account "how many televisions can receive this station" and others that cover "how many televisions were on that evening". So, there's measures for ratings/viewership/share/etc. that cover both.

I don't see Wilson and Barrios as good candidates at the moment given that before they came to the company in 2007 WWE grossed $485.7M and posted a $52.1M profit. They entered an already successful company, but have seen profits decline under their watch in the first half of this decade. They mishandled expectations of the NBCUniversal deal, which led to a stock price crash and investor lawsuits. If the WWE Network becomes a big success and leads to record profitability in the latter half of this decade, then maybe you could make the case for them. Bryan Gerwirtz would probably the best behind the scenes guy to put on the ballot at the moment, as he was Monday Night Raw's lead writer for over a decade. He'd be a tough sell to get people to vote for though. But that longevity in the role is impressive. If the WWE Network becomes a huge success and the company actually has the 3M-4M annual paid subscribers that Barrios & Wilson have talked about, then there would be a case that the architect(s) of that success (one or both of them) would be worth considering. However, I still believe they are being overly optimistic in their estimates. They're telling Wall Street what it wants to hear and the shareholder lawsuits prevent them from backing away quietly. The lack of clear leadership for the WWE Network project is my biggest qualm. Barrios might be the CFO and Chief Strategy Officer, but the track record of people coming and going from the Network project (Singerman, Fox, Miller, Schwartz, etc) doesn't project people who are designing a top-to-bottom solution as much as a shell of a project which is missing some key ingredients. If WWE were to achieve another major broadcast coup - say striking a concurrent significant television deal with a NBCU rival (can't see how, but let's pretend) - and they used it really building a significant secondary revenue source (let's say an "alternative wrestling promotion"), then the business architects of that would deserve to be considered. However, the state of WWE today is a lot of revenue with profit levels at/below the old PPV model. We're still a far cry from the popularity and financial success in the attitude era with WWE taking a bath on the XFL-esque projects. The greatest success for WWE in the past 15 years has been negotiating stronger and stronger television rights with guaranteed contracts (i.e. ratings slides don't cost them dough in the short-run). However, those negotiations did come at the expenses of advertising revenue. In retrospect, I wonder whether moving to Viacom in September 2000 for was really the right decision. At the end of that deal (Spike ending negotiations abruptly) exposed WWE as weak and they had to give up their domestic advertising revenue. Perhaps just sticking it out with USA would have been best (especially since WWE wouldn't have been the lead-in for UFC on SpikeTV). Toady, there's nothing about the current WWE model that I think is HOF-worthy (from a business perspective). Especially when you still have albatrosses like the WWE Studios around and it's unclear whether WWE really has their licensing department back in shape. Upon further thought, only person I'd nominate for WON HOF in terms of impact/influence? Jerry S. McDevitt.

@mookieghana

Is this something new that Dave rolled out? This doesn't sound like something he ran in with back when the issue was discussed last decade. In fact, I seem to recall the Maeda Argument was the one made, which most of us saw as a problem with the Electorate rather than the Candidate. He said it on The Board either last year or the year before. Here's a quote from Dave: http://theboard.f4wonline.com/viewtopic.php?p=4786314#p4786314

Guess that means Weston, unless he's asking Stu about Apter. Doesn't voting close in two weeks? He may just be trying to anticipate things. Or maybe he's just trying to send Stu a ballot. Usually Dave says that he doesn't even start counting ballots until after the cut-off date. Whether or not I really believe that (since you need to validate that ballots are following rules) is questionable, but I would find it really surprising that he would be tipping his hand that much this early. It's probably for a larger project or discussion.

Is anyone "collecting" ballots this year? I did it last year. I've had a few people ask I was doing it again this year.

That's what happened to me too. This year I ended up leaving Weston off my ballot this year because I didn't want to be in the Historical Wrestlers category. That's why Jarrett is unclear.

Honestly, one of things that's screwing up the system in my opinion is the non-wrestler category. When people vote for certain non-wrestlers, they become voters for their entire category. So even if you abstain for the Historical Wrestlers category, if you vote for certain non-wrestler personalities, you might be counted as a Historical Wrestler and casting a no vote for all of the Historical Wrestlers. Really, you should be just casting a no vote against all of the Historical non-wrestler personalities. You've got guys like Jerry Jarrett who had impact in both modern & historical wrestling, so it gets confusing how your vote is going to count and the ballot isn't clear about it at all.