RyanClingman

Oops, I missed that, sorry. Edge's spear wasn't on the level of a Goldberg, Rhyno, or maybe even Roman Reigns or Batista, but if you are going to call Edge's a "running hug", you will probably have to say the same for Batista, Reigns, and probably most people who did the move and weren't Goldberg or Rhyno.

Edge also had that one move where he grabbed a guy's head and then sat down. It was literally just a guy taking a back bump with Edge's hands on his ears. Also, he clenched his teeth while slicking down his hair. To be fair, JYD had a move where he used to crawl into people's heads with his head.

Yup, yup, agree here. I don't really understand how you could say this. Best JYD matches are as good as best Edge matches. Sure Edge was more smooth and had higher end offense, but the charisma that JYD brought in the ring made his matches better. I'll take Stagger Lee/Bill Watts vs Midnight Express over any Edge match. Heck I'll even take JYD/Tito vs Funks over the majority of Edge matches. Not to mention the cool stuff coming out of the Houston footage. What makes Edge good in the ring? He was a horrible actor who had horrible offense and the majority of his "great" matches involves him spending most of the matches building traps for his opponents. Okay, I definitely understand your argument now. I should preface this by saying that I haven't seen close to as many JYD matches as I have Edge ones, something that I hope to rectify soon, however. On the topic of Edge as a worker, as far as what the audience expected from a big match worker at the time, that is, pretty good timing, good facials, ability to perform big "set piece" style high spots, decent offense, and so on, he had it. That being said, was he a Hall of Fame level worker? No. Was he an ultra-dynamic worker? Probably, not. He was fairly patterned towards the later stages of his career too. However, I have a certain fondness for most of his ladder match work, and I feel that he was a really valuable character and big match worker on the roster, particularly as a heel. He was a character who provided me with some pretty entertaining moments particularly in his feuds with Hardy, early Cena work, Undertaker, some of the Rated RKO stuff, and a few others. With that being said, does the importance of his out of the ring work hold the same importance as JYD's? The answer to this question should be obvious, of course not. I don't believe Edge to be a Hall of Famer anyway, but from the knowledge I have and from what I have seen over the years, I respect his work to a significantly greater degree than JYD's.

Yup, yup, agree here. I don't really understand how you could say this.

Ah, the classic "Daddy factor". Not getting votes due to bitterness and resentment. I only have a rough knowledge of Big Daddy's career, and much of the information I have is highly biased in one way or another. However, here is what I have gathered from debates over the years and perhaps you could inform me of how accurate you believe these to be. Pros: -Cultural icon synonymous with pro-wrestling in England. -A good (great?) draw, although ratings and attendances are hard to come by. Cons: -Selfishness, nepotism, and the like helped speed up the decline of World of Sport. -Horrendous worker. -Unclear just how good of a television and live attendance draw he was. Thanks!

This makes sense. I haven't heard much discussion of Crockett Sr. Those who worked for him speak highly of him, and he seemed to have run one of the more successful NWA territories for around three decades or so, which is quite the feat. However, I haven't done as much about the historical candidates as I should (Crockett Sr. is in the non-wrestlers category, but I still like to think of him as more of an historical than contemporary figure as far as time periods go). I think one could make a solid case for Sr., and he seems to be a far stronger candidate than JC Jr.

Can anyone explain why the Crocketts have never been inducted, and don't get very strong support? I know that Crockett Jr. played a big part in bringing the promotion down, but Jr. and perhaps Sr. to a larger extent help build one of the more important territories of the 70s and 80s era. From what I understand, as far as promoters go, they were well liked.

The 18-49 is a very important demographic, the most important demographic in fact when it comes to advertiser satisfaction, but it seems that very few people take much notice of it -- those both in the company and covering the WWE.

My current ballot: I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN JAPAN CANDIDATES The Sharpe Brothers Volk Han I FOLLOWED THE MODERN PERFORMERS IN U.S/CANADA CANDIDATES Daniel Bryan/Bryan Danielson Ivan Koloff I have been going back and forth on JYD, and Colon.

This really really sucks -- I'm glad the surgery went well though.

I guess I am going to fall even further behind on podcasts now. I already have a two or so month backlog.

My co-editor, Ben Carass, and I put out a newsletter every week covering a fairly wide range of topics. This week we looked at the role of historical influence in the Observer Hall of Fame, and particularly how it affects the candidacy of the Sharpes and CM Punk in very different ways. We have also started a Pro-Wres Digest, where we attempt to summarize the week that was in pro-wrestling in 4 pages or less. Additionally, Ben has been working his way through Mid-South television every week and covered the April 28th 1982 edition of the program in this issue. Any suggestions, corrections, general feedback, and constructive criticism would be appreciated. You may find this week's issue here.

I too agree with this, but a few weeks ago I had to torrent an issue from 1990 to find Dave's Tsuruta/Misawa recap for a piece I was writing.

I was reading an old Observer from June 18th 1990, which was published after Dave returned from the trip that he saw the first Misawa/Tsuruta match on. He mentions being at an FMW show on June 2nd at Korakuen where, following a main event tag match of Onita & Lee Gak vs. Mitsutero Tokudo & Fumiharu Asako, Onita was in the middle of cutting a sob-story promo about FMW being the underdogs when hecklers got to him and he threw the mic at them, which led to fans responding by throwing cans at the hecklers, and a near-riot. Onita was then mobbed in the crowd. Is there anywhere that I can see this? Did it even make tape? I am highly intrigued.

It was spat started by Coughlin ripping in to Todd on THE BOARD. Basically he called Todd not a real lawyer and a failure of a person in the most venomous and real way and it escalated from there. Dave didn't fire Todd. I see. I read about some of that. Why then has Todd vanished from the site if Coughlin was the instigator?

I don't know if I have just been incredibly unobservant, but could someone please explain the Todd Martin/Dave situation to me? I heard that Dave had a wrestler who he had buried in one of the 80s Observers call him angrily, and that he had responded by cutting the Todd show. I am sure I have misunderstood part or all of this, or perhaps much of the story (probably involving Coughlin) was lost in translation, but a synopsis would be greatly appreciated.

I guess I'll track down some World of Sport comps to go through some of his other work. The Tiger Mask match has some uncooperative elements, but I guess for whatever reason it turned into anything but a mess.

I would love to see more of Steven Wright, as his match with Tiger Mask in 1980s NJPW stands as one of my favourite matches from that time period that I have seen. Sayama was, however, so tremendous during that era that it becomes very difficult at times to ascertain how good someone was simply by watching them work Sayama. Are there any Wright comps floating about somewhere, or is there anyone here who has seen enough of his career to say whether that kind of thing is worth seeking out?

Thanks everyone! It was an 11 person effort.

If this is what Punk wants to do to keep himself busy, good for him, and it would be great if he succeeds and all. The big problem, I feel, is that Cabana mentioned in passing that Punk had 13 concussions, and as everyone knows with concussions, the more you've had, the easier it is to get another -- and that's worrying.

Antonio Inoki won't be making my list, even if his matches act as the greatest of sleeping pills.

Wow, I was thought of Kopylov as really bland compared to Volk Han, although Han was clearly on another level. I have only ever seen the matches he had with Volk Han, and thought that they weren't of an exceptionally high caliber compared with some of my favourite Han matches, with Tamura, Maeda, Vrij, and so on. I will have to watch more of him though to make a fair judgment.

Puro is in a similar spot with one counts, which are becoming less and less meaningful. Of course their historical value differs from one promotion to the other, but I do find it annoying when a promotion like NJPW, who protected the one count over the last 5 years or so, are suddenly letting Komatsu and Tanaka bust it out in the opener.

That's the one with the stupid bullshit involving Dynamite breaking a bottle, right? Even by the overrated standards of their series that match easily stands out as the worst of the bunch. Yep, that's the one. This gets my vote seeing as how Sayama was having ten times better matches with other people at around the same time period. His matches with Steven Wright, Hamada and Canek are all worlds better in my view.

Dean, I understand where you are coming from in terms of the Dome shows and have heard your thoughts on the 2013 show before, but could you please explain what you saw in the 12/21 show in particular. I personally found that show, with the exception of the main event, pretty bad when comparing it to major NJPW iPPVs and even other Korakuen shows over the past year. I know that you liked the Honma match, but what else was there for you? I felt that the Tanahashi/HASHI, Makabe tag and Nakamura/New Japan matches were all pretty bad. Naito/Gedo I also found really disappointing. I can see more of a case for the 12/23 show, considering that the main event, opener and Ishii tag were really good. While I love the pageantry of the Dome, I just think shows in Korakuen are just more fun. While I would agree that the actual in ring on the Dome was better, I would much rather watch two and a half hours of fresh match ups at Korakuen then nearly six hours of the Dome. And I love anything that Gedo does! Should probably spice up that last statement w a few f bombs in tribute to Gedo. Thank makes sense - the Korakuen shows are generally easy viewing.