W2BTD

There is. You can choose a category, and then vote for nobody if you feel none of them are worthy. This is different than not choosing the category and not being counted as part of the voting field. Really? I have never heard of this before. Yup. From the ballot itself: "The election is broken down into a number of categories. You should check each category for wrestlers that you feel you are familiar enough with based on geography that you've either traveled or are familiar with, and based on the time you have followed pro wrestling. You do not have to vote for a wrestler in every category you've checked." Okay but do we know if you check a category and vote for no one that it counts as a no vote against all of the above ? That would be the implication, no? He wants to know A.) What categories you are voting for, and B.) Who (if anyone) you are voting for. Now, are the voters being meticulous enough to follow the instructions that implicitly? Are there voters who glance, at say, the Euro ballot, determine that nobody belongs, but don't bother to check the category, thus artificially inflating the percentages? I don't know. All I know, is that I will be very clear on the three categories i'm voting on.

There is. You can choose a category, and then vote for nobody if you feel none of them are worthy. This is different than not choosing the category and not being counted as part of the voting field. Really? I have never heard of this before. Yup. From the ballot itself: "The election is broken down into a number of categories. You should check each category for wrestlers that you feel you are familiar enough with based on geography that you've either traveled or are familiar with, and based on the time you have followed pro wrestling. You do not have to vote for a wrestler in every category you've checked."

Also pretty obvious that Dave votes for Jarrett, which as an aside i'd be curious to know why people would vote no on him. He strikes me as a no brainer.

There is. You can choose a category, and then vote for nobody if you feel none of them are worthy. This is different than not choosing the category and not being counted as part of the voting field.

For me, Dave didn't really shed a ton of new light on Owen. I'm still voting for him. Most of what he said I already knew. The longevity can't be ignored, even if some guys (most of whom i'd vote for, too) made more money. My issue with the Crockett's is still where you draw the line between the two. I'm not sure if individually they are worthy, but as a collective I think i'd vote for them. Voting for Owen and not either Crockett isn't really saying you think Owen was a better promoter, I think for a lot of people it's saying we don't know how to treat the Crockett's as separate entities. I know that's the case for me, so i'm probably just leaving both off this year because that category is loaded anyway.

I decided to be ultra conservative my first time out. I stuck with US/Canada, Japan, & non-wrestler, categories where I was very well versed on just about everybody. I stayed away from everything else because like others have said, even though there are people I think deserve to be voted for (Colon, for example), it's not fair for me to vote for them because i'd be hurting the others in the category who I know little or nothing about. I'll probably vote Mexico next year. I am well versed on the workrate end, but wasn't comfortable enough on the culture or drawing power of the candidates to place what I feel were well informed votes. By next year, i'll be better prepared because I plan to really dig deep. I don't have the time for that this year with a few weeks notice.

I'd like to hear for/against for Stanley Weston/Bill Apter, or be pointed to evidence/arguments. I don't see these two discussed very often at length.

I have two brothers who dislike wrestling, and when they come over the house and catch me watching, it is always met with snickering. The only match that has ever shut them up and had them fully engrossed was Low Ki vs KENTA from ROH Final Battle '05. They were asking to see more of each guy, and these are total non fans who not only do not watch wrestling at all, but flat out dislike it. They were blown away by the athleticism & physicality.

Not my article, this is by Rich Kraetsch. Rich takes a look at the current iPPV landscape. http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2013/09/24/is-ippv-dead/

I've never seen an Orton match that I liked. With that said, I don't recall watching any of the stuff being tossed around here, so i'll make it a point to check some of these out, particularly this: "Orton/Adonis v. Rockers from 88 AWA is awesome." & this: "Tenryu/Kabuki vs Orton/Jarrett from SWS in 1990 is worth a look."

There was always an element of real danger when watching a Sabu match, due to the fact that he was completely reckless and blew so many spots. You never knew when he was going to nearly kill himself, and that was part of his charm. In an odd way, that's more interesting to me than watching somebody who is so smooth and flawless that they never ever miss a spot, like Christopher Daniels or something. Sabu fucking up ended up becoming part of the package, with him rolling around and selling before setting up his props again and nailing it the second time. Probably my favorite wrestler to watch live during the ECW Arena days.

http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2013/09/1...st-ippv-effort/ The go home show for Destruction. Angle heavy. Weakest iPPV they've produced.

I don't know if i'd rate him top 50 or top 100 or top 200 or top insert number here, because I haven't really thought of guys in that manner. I guess i'd really have to think about it, but I would think he'd safely fall in my top 100. The other thing is, I kind of group guys by style in my mind. I find it pretty hard to compare somebody like Sasaki to somebody like CIMA or PAC or Blue Panther because what they are trying to do in the ring are completely different. That's not a cop out, I just have a hard time with that. He is sort of tricky to quantify as a draw, but I know this much. He was trusted enough to main event (or be in the drawing match) at the Dome multiple times for more than one company, and was also trusted enough to be put on top for every major office in Japan at varying stages of his career. Granted, some of those were down periods, which is why I can't call him an elite draw. But the original response was in comparison to Batista, who to me is hard to quantify outside of one feud which clearly drew big money on its own, but who did it for a far shorter period of time. Less than half the time, in fact. Batista's peak show drew more money, but how many shows did he headline that drew 50,000+ I think Sasaki is a guy who falls just short of elite across all of the metrics, but high enough in everything to make him pretty much a slam dunk in my eyes, especially when you toss in other smaller scale/trivia/extras/fun stuff like being the only man to win all three major titles in Japan, the legendary chop battle, his Kensuke Office stuff and being responsible for Nakajima, etc. When I received the ballot, one of the first things to cross my mind was, "Welp, instead of just complaining, I actually get a chance to vote for RnRE & Kensuke, and hopefully help put these guys in already".

I think it's safe to say i'm way higher on Sasaki's work than you are, and to be fair, probably most people. I'll run off some matches for you, which i'm sure you aren't very high on since as you know I don't think you can find two people on the planet who are further apart on what they consider good wrestling matches than you & I. But here goes. First of all, i'm a gigantic mark for the Sasaki/Hase tag team. All of the matches against the Steiners were awesome. I'm not even sure I liked the 3/21/91 best, even though it's the most highly touted. We'll skip the team with Hawk. I'm not a fan of any of their stuff together. His entire 1997 New Japan singles push was great. How about this. Instead of listing some more obvious choices, i'll give you something a bit off the wall (or maybe it isn't, as I haven't seen the microscope thread). 12/26/08 ROH Sasaki & Katsuhiko Nakajima vs Roderick Strong & Brent Albright. Easily the best live tag I saw that year, and probably the best tag, period. In fact now that I think about it, I think I placed it in my WO MOTY ballot. How about the Kawada matches at the end of 2000 & start of 2001? I've seen varying opinions on these, but I loved them. Then there is the old man stuff during the freelance era, particularly the Burning vs KO stuff from '09 which was easily my favorite feud from that year. And of course you have the chop battle, which if nothing else was an iconic moment.

His singles puch actually started back in 1994: final in the G1 losing to Mr. August, then headlining the Dome in January challenging Hash for the IWGP Title. Since Hash was ripe to lose the title at this point (having originally won it back in 9/93), there was some fear that this would be Sasaki's turn: Hash had the IWGP, Mutoh had held it before (and the NWA Title), and Chono had held the NWA Title (as well as winning 3 of the 4 G1 tourneys). There was some fear that it was Sasaki's turn to join them. Luckily for us, Hash beat him because the title was heading to Mutoh in May. Anyway, Sasaki's singles push started when he began moving away from Hawk. They were going Hash --> Mutoh (5/95) --> Chono (1/96), with Mutoh also winning the G1. The first two happened, but after the G1 there was that little issue of Takada and UWFi, which changed things. Not sure if Sasaki was going to of winning the title earlier than 1997 and the that was another thing changed by Takada, or if they wanted to make him wait. Mostly Chono got screwed by Takada coming in, but I digress. How many Dome main events did he have in total? I'm familiar with his "second peak" so to speak, but i'm cloudy on all of his Dome main events during his first peak.

Longevity as a top level player as compared to Batista. Sasaki got his first big singles push in 1997, but was a major player in New Japan as parts of tag teams with Hase & Hawk from about '90 or '91. He main evented everywhere he went from that point until last year when he was injured and out of action. So that's about 15 years as a main eventer as a single, and well over 20 as a major star. You could even stretch his run of being a "major player" all the way in to the late 80's if you are being generous if you count his time in Puerto Rico where he teamed with Pogo. Sasaki was the top guy at various points for NJPW, AJPW, & NOAH, during various levels of business. Batista broke in from developmental in 2002 doing the undercard gimmick with D-Von, and joined Evolution in 2003. He finished up in 2010. So while his biggest main event was bigger than Sasaki's biggest main event, he was a top guy for a far shorter period of time. So that's where i'm coming from with longevity vs Batista. Combined with what I consider a massive, massive advantage is workrate, I think Sasaki is a far stronger candidate than Batista.

I'll give a quick response because I have to run. I think two obvious advantages for Sasaki are longevity & workrate. Reasonable minds can disagree on work, but I think Sasaki is world's better than Batista in ring. Batista is a guy who could be carried, while Sasaki has had great matches with a wide variety of opponents, both in tags and in singles. And at all stages of his career. When I look at Sasaki, he is a guy who ticks all three criteria boxes at a level right below elite, especially if you put any stock into his Diamond Ring/Kensuke Office stuff as a trainer (I do). Batista maybe ticks the box as a draw, but not only was it a short period of time, but also hard to quantify due to the era of WWE he was a part of where the promotion itself was marketed as the draw. I just don't view Batista as a serious contender. For me, if you aren't a great worker and lack longevity or influence, you need to be an elite draw. He wasn't.

Karl Stern on his last F4W podcast was openly asking for listeners to provide him with the case for Patera. Posted a link to the Wrestling Culture profile show and a link here. I will probably be back on the The Board early next week. Is it worth the trouble for me to drag over all of the Patera stuff to his forum or not? There's a two page ironic thread in the Pro Wrestling section. Start a thread in the Classic Wrestling section. My worry is that the Classic Wrestling section gets much fewer eyes on it. On the other hand the regular wrestling section over there isn't exactly a decent spot for any serious discussion and if last year is any indication most HoF talk there consists of people trolling and/or whining about the fact that their heroes who drew sub-1986 AWA numbers as aces aren't considered stone cold locks. Maybe Alan's board? The Classic section will get fewer eyes, but those will also be the right eyes.

I am willing to absorb any and all information on any candidate. [email protected]

Court Baurer shared the same anecdote about Dave on his Baurer & Pollock podcast this morning. Dave sent him his ballot in response to a years old email when Court was still in WWE. Court offered the pro-tip of bombarding Dave with (news tip) emails during this season if you want a decent chance in receiving a ballot. My ballot came as a reply to an email I had sent him years earlier about UFC fighter Tim Kennedy. I'm dying over here. My ballot was a reply to an email I sent him titled "NWA Houston Parade of Champions". That was months ago and not the last email i've sent him. Odd.

I was extremely humbled to find a ballot in the inbox of an email account that I rarely check that I use almost strictly for wrestling related correspondence. As a first time voter, I am taking this process very seriously and doing an insane amount of research. This thread has been fantastic, so I thank everybody. I plan on being a VERY hard marker & conservative with my first year vote. I am voting in the U.S./Canada, Japan, and Non-Wrestler categories. While I am familiar with the in-ring work of every candidate on the European & Mexican ballots, I do not consider myself well versed enough in the wrestling culture of either region to responsibly assess things like drawing power, influence, etc, so I am abstaining. There are three absolute locks that I have settled on: -Rock & Roll Express -Kensuke Sasaki -Hiroshi Tanahashi I am 90% certain that i'll be voting for these two: -Don Owen -Jerry Jarrett Im currently considering everybody else to varying degrees of seriousness. I have only completely eliminated a few that I consider bottom feeders. I can not be swayed by any argument for AJ Styles, Edge, Batista, and a couple of others. I should note that I would probably vote for Carlos Colon (or at least very strongly consider) had he been placed in U.S./Canada. But since he's lumped in with the odd miscellaneous international category, I don't think it's fair to vote for him while not voting for anybody else in the region due to my ignorance of their resumes. I wonder how many others are doing the same. I really think he should be moved out of that category.

http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2013/09/0...dness-delivers/ 17 mystery opponents. 14 deliver. Good show, impressive debut, looking forward to seeing more.

The Boesch show was the best live show i've seen all year. Kahagas, who I normally do not like at all, had a kick ass match against Byron Wilcott that blew me away. They worked a pace that flat out shocked me and just kicked the snot out of each other. Conway/Masters was really good. The KES/KOTU match was also strong, way better than I was expecting and I figured it would be pretty decent. Ray Rowe vs Mike Dell delivered. Damian Wayne vs Carson was a let down because it was angle heavy. Wayne is one of my favorites and I love Carson, so it was pretty disappointing to get a shit finish. The work was solid though. Jax Dane vs Erickson was shit, but I figured it would be. I might be forgetting something. There was a tag opener that was fine. Overall the show blew me away, and that's after being pumped about Wayne/Carson and then being let down. EDIT: show is on sale here: http://nwahouston.com/shopsite_sc/index.html

Thank you very much. I really appreciate that. I'm oddly hyped for Conway/Liger as well, and I can't wait to see what i'll get to see live in terms of Conway's defenses on the NWA/New Japan shows in Texas next month.

Full review here: http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2013/09/0...-ippv-overkill/ A fun show, well worth the $10 price. If you are expecting another classic show with MOTY contenders, skip this. This was intended to be a setup for Destruction on 9/29. For diehards only.