W2BTD

Terry Taylor http://www.voicesofwrestling.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=111&p=9632#p9488 http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/32030-hacksaw-dugganterry-taylor-vs-nikolai-volkoffkrusher-darsow-4684/?hl=%2Bterry+%2Btaylor http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/31799-terry-taylor-vs-nikolai-volkoff-21084/?hl=%2Bterry+%2Btaylor

Love him. Love Twin Towers. I like his singles work more than most. But not nearly enough there to make a serious case.

Influenced Ryusuke Taguchi's awful gimmick, disqualified. Also, looks like the Japanese Steve Blackman.

Who nominated him? This one seems like a real stretch. Would love to hear someone pitch a case.

Still going strong, if you can stomach watching Wrestle-1. You know, as I sit here and think about it, he's one of the more underrated wrestlers of the post millennium era. He's pretty damn good and hardly ever gets talked about since leaving NJPW. Working for AJPW in the "barely has a pulse" era and now W1 is an easy way to be forgotten about, I guess.

Of course. That's why it's a *fun little gimmick match*. It doesn't take a genius to work that gimmick either, but it's well done, and Lawler is quite funny getting money in his pocket by running away. But that's a not a great match, nor even a great angle or TV segment. Fun little gimmick match is perfectly okay though, nothing wrong with loving that. I don't understand the hype either. It's more of a vignette than a match. It's pretty silly & goofy, slightly amusing, but I never "get" Lawler and never understand what people love about his stuff so obviously I'm missing something. There is a Lawler RAW match vs Goldust that's as average as average can be, completely forgettable, and people rave about it like it's something incredible. So what do I know?

Disappointed to see you'll be taking Cena out of your top 100. I think Makabe is a very good worker who gets unjustly shit on, mostly for ridiculous reasons and often times by people who don't or barely watch modern New Japan. When I first started paying attention to NewJa heavyweights 2k10 I thought he was solid but I didn't care for him much, mostly because "for a brawler" he didn't work stiff enough. But as I watched more my appreciation for him quickly grew. I don't even think of Makabe as a brawler anymore-he's primarily a shtick worker. His shtick is over, he's got good timing and crowd control and is very good at teasing and building up his finisher. Doubt he'd make my top 100 but I enjoy his formula and find an average Makabe performance a lot more entertaining than an average Tanahashi/Goto/Okada/Nagata/Kojima/whomever performance. Makabe has become the trendy guy to pick on recently, especially among striking fetishists. He's not nearly as bad as people would make you believe, but I've never thought he was great, or even good. He's a perfectly average wrestler who can have great matches against great opponents a couple of times per year. He could disappear from NJPW tomorrow and I bet I wouldn't even notice until someone brought it up. Not a guy I would even have under liberal consideration for something like this.

One of my favorite matches ever.

I think they should count FOR him. That thing drew lots of money.

People are going to watch Jay Briscoe tapes in 100 years and wonder how the hell this guy wasn't a mega star and how the hell he isn't considered an all time great. As Dylan said he has that legitimate dangerous aura about him, not just between the ropes but also in his promos, which are the most believable nd easiest to suspend disbelief for in the business today. Don't forget to check out the NOAH tags circa 2007.

Does she even have a half dozen great matches at this point? Way too soon.

I's add Styles & Nakamura to that list.

Right, but if we were keeping everybody on who garnered at least 5%, we'd have all of these additions plus the removal of almost no one. I could buy lowering the 50% threshold a little for saving 15 year guys, but 5% seems obscene to me to the point that almost no one would ever get the boot.

To me these are all issues with some of the other rules, more so than the 15/50 rules. There should absolutely be historical buckets for every region, or at least one historical bucket for everybody at minimum. Or, eliminate the historical bucket all together.

It's ballot clutter. What is the point in keeping someone like Curt Hennig on the ballot if he is going to get ~20%-30% in perpetuity? Someone like that, especially if they are deceased or retired for good, is never getting voted in. Plus, the new rule is extremely lenient, in that if you're close (over 50%), you get to stick around anyway, which is very fair. If you haven't gotten to at least 50% in FIFTEEN YEARS, I mean, c'mon. It isn't happening. Let's move on. And this thing is so lenient, that if enough people ask, or if there is new evidence, dave will put you back on anyway after a few years. Not to mention backdooring your way back on the ballot in the Historical bucket if you qualify. I mean, these candidates get a million chances. I really don't understand the point of leaving these cold candidates on the ballot forever. So people can just have the same tired arguments over & over every year? If everyone over 5% was kept on the ballot, it would bloat up to hundreds of names eventually, which would continue to spread votes even thinner among a bunch of candidates that have no chance, leading to diminishing returns of candidates actually being elected. What sense does that make?

Sting headlining a major WWE show in 2015 basically strengthened what was already his #1 HOF attribute, which is that he's been a main event player for three different companies since 1988 (and added the most important company in the process). His longevity at the top is without a doubt the most impressive part of his argument.

Abstained from Historical, Mexico, Europe U.S./Canada Daniel Bryan Danielson Japan Jun Akiyama Misc World category Carlos Colon Non Wrestler Jimmy Hart Jerry Jarrett Gene Okerlund Don Owen

In baseball terms, Bischoff was a bench player for many years (AWA, WCW C-team announcer), led the league in HR's out of nowhere two years in a row, went into a colossal slump to the point he was released, batted 7th and contributed for the best team in the league for a while but wasn't anywhere close to being a vital player (WWE talent), and then went to the worst team in the league at the end of his career and faded away until he retired (TNA).

His company was national, theirs weren't. And Bischoff invented the modern style of televised production which is still the standard formula for the industry to this day. National or not, he was successful for two years, and then it wasn't as if he fought tooth & nail to the end with a good business plan. He basically self destructed and ran the company directly in to the ground because he was terrible. I'd take those three regional guys over Bischoff every time. He lost more money in one year than those guys probably lost in their worst years combined. I don't know, I can't even fathom a yes vote for Bischoff.

Kinda-sorta on this, I think Bischoff should be put back on the ballot. He fell off about 15 years ago, when WCW was in a tailspin. He should get another chance now that WCW is long dead and his WWE/TNA runs can be factored in. His wrestling career is more toward the end rather than 2000 when it was in-progress. His WWE & TNA runs add nothing significant to a HOF resume, though. He was a good TV character in WWE, and unless we consider his ability to steal money from the Carter's as some sort of plus for being a great carny, I don't see anything he did in TNA being remotely significant to adding to a HOF pedigree. Eric Bischoff was the promoter of a company that did great business for like two years. That's all he has to hang a HOF hat on. How could anyone justify voting for him over either Crockett, Jerry Jarrett, Don Owen, or a bunch of other promoters who have long fallen off the ballot or have never even been on it?

IIRC, it was Cornette who had the biggest beef with King and claimed he'd never allow him back.

Without the slightest bit of hyperbole, he's one of the most underrated wrestlers ever. He doesn't even get the proper amount of hype among people who closely follow the style. When put in a position to deliver, he never fails. A real pro's pro who does everything right and never leaves you flat with a sub par effort. The issue with him, like with just about everybody in DG, is the cycle booking that makes you forget he exists for months at a time. That leads to a relative lack of super high level classic matches, and that's something I weigh very heavily. He'll be hard to rate in that respect, almost like a William Regal, because i'll almost surely think he;s a better wrestler than people I have ahead of him, but he just won't have the match resume to justify being higher.

He doesn't stand out in DG, and lacks charisma, but would probably be among the best workers in just about any other promotion in Japan.

CIMA knows how to connect with crowds. I didn't like the Shingo match you mentioned, and I don't think he's a guy where I could run off a half dozen singles matches that were great like I could with other Top 100 contenders, because he's a guy who is just always really good in every match he's in as opposed to a guy who peaks really high with memorable performances. He's as technically proficient, smooth, and clean as you can possibly be as a worker. Especially in his style, which in my opinion is the most difficult and physically/athletically demanding style there is. There is no way I could construct a list like this and not include CIMA.

He's a guy i'd love to put on my list, but there probably won't be room.