mookeighana

Also interesting were current HOF members who didn't score highly in the model: Very interesting, thanks for taking the time do this though. You may have incorrect data if you look at the MX - you have listed them including Buddy Roberts, as you know, was in the Freebirds. Not sure if it's a typo or will scew your data. Well, that was silly of me - wasn't it! Nope, it doesn't change the results at all - that was just some after the fact summarizing mistake I made.

I put together a piece today comparing how people finished in Wrestling Observer Awards versus the Hall of Fame: http://indeedwrestling.blogspot.com/2013/1...-wrestling.html. Based on a "prediction" model looking at the scores for people over time (years, points, # of top five finishes in important categories), the top people who aren't in the HOF were: Also interesting were current HOF members who didn't score highly in the model: EDIT: Fixed Buddy Roberts blurb. Thanks cheapshot!

We had a doozy of a discussion last night on Will's podcast. I'm reminded of Phil Hartman's intro to episode 24 (s3) of Newsradio - the one where it takes place on a space station. I did stumble into what I believe is the best idea for the WWE Network - every Sunday from 2 am to 4 am, Vince McMahon opens a bottle of scotch, sits in a leather chair and just talks to the camera for two hours.

That's interesting in how the non-wrestlers are counted. I don't think that was clear in prior years, was it? Frankly, I was confused how non-wrestlers were going to be counted this year when I submitted my ballot. Dave never outright explained the non-wrestler piece (regarding which group they were part) -- I deduced it based on how he assigned percentages. Honestly, I do wonder how they dealt with Japan because I did vote for Matsunaga but I didn't vote for anything else in Japan (and wasn't trying to "no vote" either -- I just thought the non-wrestler thing was it's own piece.) I know Dave works very hard on the issue but every year he ends up leaving one or two results out of the final results tally (Koloff & Tamura this year) and I can't help but be a little suspicious about how perfectly ballots get counted. From doing the last 8+ DVDVR sets, I know very well how difficult it is to get ballots from a hundred people right before the due date and try to allign everything without error.

I think this is a key point. How can he be compared to other wrestlers from the past decade or so like Akiyama, Sasaki, Nagata or Suzuki when the numbers have been so heavily worked? With that NOAH Dome Show in 2004 that drew 58,000, the rumour was that the real number of ticket sales was 20,000, so how do you wade through all that and figure out whether Akiyama was a better draw than Tanahashi? Folks are relying on Dave to report the real numbers. On the Wrestling Culture podcast, Dylan questioned why Tanahashi's candidacy wasn't debated as heavily as John Cena's and I would argue that people simply don't get as much backstage knowledge or business details about Japan as they do about the US. Even if the Noah dome shows were heavily papered, they still filled the dome, which similarly papered NJPW shows at the time didn't. One thing I'd like to emphasize about the NJPW attendance data I looked at was the "core attendance" metric which looked at the shows between 1,000 and 10,000. It still represents 85% of the shows each year (80 to 120). Two things: a) The number of shows in this range has been dropping: about 117 (1999-2004) to 90 (2007-2012) The average attendance at these shows has dropped: 3,000 (1999-2004) to 2,400 (2007-2012) Now, maybe they've been working the attendance of all of these shows too, but to me, what I see is a company that is cutting back in the mid-sized range because they can't draw as well as they did. Honestly, beyond arguing about papering big, big shows (which really barely move the annual average, but I did the "core attendance" metric to specifically avoid that debate) I would expect the core metrics to improve if they were in a resurgence. It's too early to tell now if 2013 was a turning point. The other thing I'd say is just that Tanahashi had to win 68 voters. Every single modern candidate except Ken Patera, A.J. Styles, Bob Armstrong, Batista beat that. Jimmy Snuka for Japanese HOF!

I'm still trying to find the right mix of factors to use to evaluate something like that, but yes - I think there could be merit to that approach. Honestly, I think it's the sort of thing where three or four passes on "drawing power" are probably required and if someone shows up on most/all of those passes, that's a strong argument for them. I did a thing once where I plotted WWF/WCW Champs against average House Show attendance 1991-2001: https://sites.google.com/site/chrisharringt...cs/avghouseshow Like many charts, it's interesting but I don't know if I can draw a meaningful conclusion to it... .yet.

I didn't realize that Matsunaga was going to be counted against the Japan standard (it does make sense) but it is a bit startling when you realize he actually got the second least number of votes among all non-wrestlers. I voted for him, but I didn't vote in the rest of Japan - I wonder how Dave counted that -- a higher bar for Japan or just a free vote? I threw my ballot up in twitter (@mookieghana) too. Edit: updated with Tamura #s.

To be fair, Dave is certainly willing to give ballots to people who have butted heads or disagreed with him in the past. Me, jdw, evilclown, Bix, etc having ballots is proof of that. I think the problem is that you have to be on his radar or fall within one of his buckets of active wrestler, former wrestler, reporter (which seems to include bloggers and podcast talkers) or historian. Since I doubt Dave is crediting my short lived career wrestling Brodie Lee and Colin Delaney, I assume my ballot was considered a reporter.

Eddy got in for dropping dead. Yeah, his justification is largely work. But it didn't get him into the HOF in 2005, or in 2004 after the big push and Mania Moment. He dropped dead and went into the Hall. Though isn't there a piece to the argument that some voters just won't vote for an active guy if he's under 40 and still working in a major federation? There's at least some voters that were waiting until he was clearly done before they were going to include him on their HOF ballot (i.e. the "I won't vote for Cena... yet" argument). But yeah, I agree there was a huge emotional sway that changed voter's people's minds -- still, at least a portion of it was probably a few minds changing with a fair assessment of his body of work.

Dave's response to my question on "why uptick if attendance is flat?" regarding NJPW attendance: @davemeltzerWON "Company switched for usual Japan fake #s to more real #s with new owner. Biz actually up about 45% y-to-y" "For example, the 29,000 Dome would have been announced at 50,000 other years."

I think they took some really weak data and just went with it. from my wwe network piece... I think one element is that they were investigating how many people were lapsed fans and whatnot; not really purchasing dynamics. Let's not forgot their other nutty claim from the Citi Global Consumer Conference in May 2013 (transcript) 80% of the homes in Mexico are WRESTLING FANS. It for them the lights turn orange & blue?

This begins and ends with his Hell in a Cell circle jerk with Shawn Michaels in 2004. I think a "Most boring match of all-time" thread is way too broad but maybe a "Most boring Main Event of a major show"? Yeah, originally I had conflated the Kevin Nash and HBK HITC matches in my mind (both at Bad Blood). 47 minutes was WAY too long for that HHH/HBK.

I went back and tried to update some of my NJPW Draw Analysis: http://indeedwrestling.blogspot.com/2013/1...-1999-2013.html My fundamental question is that while the iPPV business might be good, and hopefully is driving huge profits for the company, core attendance (for shows between 1,000 and 10,000) has been flat for years. There might be an uptick for 2013 as the start of a new trend after almost seven years, but it's really too early to tell. (My data uses the possibly worked attendance numbers from Purolove NJPW results through Sept 2013.) I'm still pretty unsophisticated in understanding the dynamics of Japanese wrestling, so it's possible that I am getting sidetracked on this attendance thing (and trying to use artificial metrics like "place on card") to drive my guesses for who are the major players; however, as has been pointed out by others, it seems like we're down substantially from even 1999-2001 era. Then again, WWE PPV buys are down from the 1999-2001 era so perhaps I'm over-focusing on a single metric as a gauge of company health.

I had thought of Shane Douglas earlier but immediately remembered how much I loved ECW Shane Douglas (vs. Taz guilty as charged 1999 or even Al Snow from Wrestlepoolza 1998) or even It's really post-ECW Shane Douglas in WCW that was just boring as hell. I'm probably the only Dennis Knight fan out there but that's just because Naked Mideon will always have a warm place in my heart for his title match against Regal (No Mercy 2000). Was coming here to say this. He's a guy that really doesn't get enough credit for being as BAD as he was. Worse yet, he hung around for so many years without having a single memorable moment, match, move, gimmick, anything. Just devoid of anything interesting. Only thing I had was when Goldberg knocked himself out against KRONIK in the 10/25/00 WCW Thunder match.

My initial thought was (like a few others have posted) Dory Funk Jr. However, I realized two things: (a) his height was a generation me so that's one reason his style might not be my cup of tea (i'm sure watching Bull Hefmer and Everette Marshall go an hour in 1932 would also seem boring today) ( when your brother is terry funk and has the charisma of 60 men, you're always going to seem exceptionally bland by comparison. I can't go along with the HHH hate. Yes, there's certainly been some stinkers where he went WAY too long with guys (vs. Kevin Nash at Bad Blood 03 comes to mind) but there's a least of dozen matches of his that I love (San Jose RAW tag, cactus jack feud, batista feud, taker WM). You can credit his opponents with some uptick in quality and editing, but he's fine. Even terrible musclehead wrestlers like Zeus or Ahmed Johnson (or freakshow Giant Gonzalez/Giant Khali/Raja Lion) can be fun to watch in that trainwreck cringeworthy way. (Side note: Wiki page on "tallest professional wrestlers" lists "Terrible Ted". Under notes it just reads, "bear". Love it.) For me, a boring wrestler can be one of those bottom-of-the-card guys who I just can't find anything interesting to watch. More often that not, it seems like they're employed partially as a family favor. I'm talking about the Tiger Ali Singh, David Sammartino, Shawn Stasiak and Horace Hogans.

I know this was Dave's comment many years ago but I still took a look... Wrestlers that were alive, above 45 years old at time of induction after 1996.. 2012 Mick McManus (age 92; died in May 2013) 2009 Konnan (age 46) 2009 The Midnight Express (Bobby Eaton, Stan Lane and Dennis Condrey) (average age about 55) 2009 Masa Saito (age 68) 2006 Hiroshi Hase (age 46) 2005 The Fabulous Freebirds (Michael Hayes, Terry Gordy, and Buddy Roberts) (average age about 51, Gordy had died and Roberts died this year) 2004 Bob Backlund (age 55) 2001 Black Shadow (age 81; died in March 2007) 2001 Lizmark (age 52) 1998 Dos Caras (age 48) 1997 Édouard Carpentier (age 71; died in October 2010) Alfonso Morales (age 64) and Jim Ross (age 48) were inducted as well while they were alive but over the age of 45. Living and inducted under the age 45 from 1997 onwards: John Cena, Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio, Jr., The Rock, Aja Kong, Masakatsu Funaki, Paul Heyman, Triple H, Kurt Angle, Masahiro Chono, Kazushi Sakuraba, Último Dragón, The Undertaker, Chris Benoit, Shawn Michaels, Manami Toyota, Kenta Kobashi, Bull Nakano, El Satánico, Akira Hokuto, Steve Austin, Mick Foley, Shinya Hashimoto, Lioness Asuka, Jushin Liger, Keiji Mutoh, Chigusa Nagayo, El Hijo del Santo, Toshiaki Kawada Posthumous inductees (after the initial 1996 class): Henri Deglane, Hans Schmidt, Gus Sonnenberg, Lou Albano, Kent Walton, Steve Williams, Curtis Iaukea, Wladek Zbyszko, Roy Shire, Everett Marshall, Bill Miller, Martín Karadagian, Tom Packs, Evan Lewis, Paul Bowser, Eddie Guerrero, Tarzán Lόpez, Earl Caddock, Jack Curley, Wahoo McDaniel, Martin Burns, Diablo Velasco, Bill Longson, Frank Sexton, Sandor Szabo, Jimmy Lennon, William Muldoon (Dr. Death would have been 52 and Eddie would have been only 39 years old at time of induction) I couldn't find the birthdate of Francisco Flores (UWA promoter).

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1805212-pi...t-starts-to-run Seeking Alpha has a piece today which is better than some of the real hack jobs that appear on the site (about WWE stock at least). That said, there are some ludicrous statements in there like: I find his "strong probability" they'd almost double total company revenue from 2014 contract negotiations to be quite questionable.

I'm really curious whether we'll hear more rumors about interested networks after the exclusive period of negotiations with NBCU expires. TV Rights Fees FY2006 2006: $85.5M + $7.4M TV Advertising 2007: $92.4M ($59.6 domestic + $32.8M int'l) + $5.9M TV Advertising 2008: $100.7M ($63.5 domestic + $37.2M int'l) + $7.4M TV Advertising 2009: $111.9M ($72.8 domestic + $39.1M int'l) + $7.7M TV Advertising 2010: $127.0M ($81.6 domestic + $45.4M int'l) + $5.9M TV Advertising 2011: $131.5M ($80.3 domestic + $51.2M int'l) + $1.1M TV Advertising 2012: $139.5M ($88.9 domestic + $50.6M int'l) + $1.4M TV Advertising 2013 YTD: $119.6M (3 quarters = $78.5 domestic + $41.1M) - which is up 20.7M over Q1-Q3 last year ($98.9M = $60.6M domestic + $38.3M int'l) +$1.7M TV Advertising We're already at 15% increase for this year before even the big boosts; I have to think they'll hit at least 30% improvement by early 2015 after they negotiation Raw, Smackdown, UK and India.

First, thanks for the comments and thoughts. I appreciate the feedback and those are all good points to consider. I would love to do a podcast point/counterpoint sometime with someone. I don't claim to be an expert; just someone who is trying to read articles, throw out ideas, test a model or two and gather feedback. I agree that the basic clearance model would have opened doors providing a model with some other backup options - especially as you point that Smackdown! has a backup US home (and another selling point) for the future. However, as Bix noted, it doesn't seem like networks were biting. I do believe that they're safer being a premium channel with PPVs on it rather than just a special basic channel with WWE Classics on Demand 25/8 version two. I'm curious whether there are any opportunities for WWE to try and pressure any networks (such as Comcast/NBCU) during this upcoming round of negotiations for RAW/Smackdown regarding carrying the channel. Similarly, both Stephanie and George Barrios have made reference to "non-tradtional distribution methods". (For some reason the Forbes Sportstalk article/video segment decided this meant Google or Netflix would be interested in WWE content; I don't really buy it but it does raise the question of whether there will be anything beyond a premium channel on cable/satellite.) I agree with kjh that drawing conclusions from WWE PPV curves that are normally 2x or 4x higher is very dangerous. I used to be a supermarket pricing consultant so I implemented a pricing model we'd use for deep discounting of grocery; it's ballpark but the fault tolerance is huge and I agree - it's ludacrious to take the $5 or $10 price points too seriously because it's really uncharted territory. The idea you can project annual income for a monthly subscription is questionable - they might be able to hit a million subscribers for Rumble (probably with ridiculous package offers akin to what Showtime/HBO does), but during Football season? I'm not so sure. My basic premise has two pieces: 1. Vince has won a lot of his TV gambles, and this one looks like it's something he could succeed at. (I like they own their library outright and a premium model would let them regenerate the $35M in Domestic PPV quickly. However, I think it's going to be really, really tough to cover the $50M+ network investment without a huge base.) 2. I am becoming increasingly optimistic about their TV Rights renewal; just seeing them up $30M rolling 12 months this year alone makes me think they could easily hit $200M by 2016 (if not before). That makes me think they're going to have a nice cushion to work with so they can invest in something like the Network. I really don't believe they're going to hit the Network hard until they're comfortable about the TV Rights negotiations. I am not expecting them to launch day after the Minneapolis PPV (Elimination Chamber) next year. Honestly, would WWE be better if they avoided the XFLs, WBFs, World Resturant, WWE Studios and so forth, but I am now convinced they're going to keep at least one boondoggle on the books at all times.

Also, what's a NJPW iPPV cost in Japan? Is it (the equilivant of) $45-$55?

There was Dave's quote on Tanahashi was from this weekend's Sin Limite show at the 7 minute mark

I put all of my thoughts about WWE Network into one place: http://indeedwrestling.blogspot.com/ I think it can succeed. I look at WWE history of risks, current WWE financial situation, modeling the rollout, overview of the current television landscape and so forth.

Dave's quote on the topic of "Worked Matches in PRIDE" from June 2011 from the F4W board was: He wrote on the wrestlingclassics board (as noted above) - I think Dave said he had friends who discussed with Coleman about how to work the finish, but I don't know if he outright said that he was consulted directly on it.

Most recent WON 11/4/13 noted: * Six inductees this year * First is Henri Deglane (bio included) * "Will likely have one more induction next year" from the pre-1950 era (then "most likely all inductees will be those voted on from the days after wrestling made it on television") Speculation on the other five people? I feel bullish on Rock & Roll Express (Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson) but I'm pretty surprised there are four others besides them!

Just one? I find that odd. I would have guessed multiple people would be getting in this year for sure. Would the results be out already for the 2013 ballot? Maybe he is doing one from a previous ballot? He made a vague reference to the "Hall of Fame issue" in the weekend F4W/WO episode. Considering many of the historical bios have been heavily guided/handled by others, it's always possible that there will be more than one bio. Regarding the Rey comments, maybe he just feels that once Rey is done with his WWE contract, he's pretty clear the important portion of his wrestling career will be done. Or it could be because putting things like WWE's Mexico expansion into perspective is going to hinge heavily on how they use Rey in this (persumably) final WWE period. Or it's the dirt like you said.