shakla

Thought there was talk of another Flair book with some emphasis on Charlotte.

Pretty sure the Stomper/Archie Gouldie was laughed off when someone asked in the mailbag before he died. Dave saying something like "there's hundreds of guys like the Stomper". Kinda surprised Ox Baker wasn't included with the other recently deceased names added. This is Kerry's third time on the ballot. Looking at the Less than 10% post, there's a bunch of modern candidates likely added too early that are worth considering again. RVD, Dudleys, Steiners, etc. Has Dave released any kind of statement/follow-up on Nakamura mistakenly placed on the ballot after his election last year? He may want to remedy that ASAP as he gets a decent amount of ballots quickly, as he's implied previously.

This post of those who fell off the ballot by Yohe is helpful, although the last election results are not included: http://wrestlingclassics.com/.ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=7;t=000499 Lot of recently deceased added to the ballot. There's usually a few, but seems heavier this year. Didn't Dave say the WON Best Technical Wrestler award is going to be named after Daniel Bryan? He must think he's a lock by doing that.

It feels like Sasha is using Mad Libs to do her promos. Inserting the same buzzwords. Also think she needs to tone down on saying insider stuff in character. Like "wanting to have a good match" or that time on Raw where she said her match at TakeOver "tore the house down" (despite losing). Her character seems more motivated to "have a good match" rather than win. That's fine backstage, but not on-screen.

Wish I had seen this earlier. Let me add something. if someone wants to spin it off into another thread, that's fine. Are wrestling characters necessarily the same age as their "shoot/IRL" ages? I think for the most part, they are the same, even though it's rarely explicitly said on broadcasts. But there may be some exceptions. The woman who plays Bayley just turned 27 IRL. But is the Bayley character 27? Maybe not. It happens plenty in movies/TV. Look at the original 90210 with a few 30somethings IRL playing high schoolers. I think the AJ Styles WWE character comes off a bit younger as well. When Abyss started doing promos in TNA, he was late 30s IRL, but came off like someone in their late 20s to me.

Not saying it was good, but like what the OP said about Who, Beaver Cleavage was not designed to be a long-term deal. It was on Raw once.

Beaver Cleavage. Think he was on Raw once (not counting vignettes) before being degimmicked. And the way that gimmick gets talked about, you'd think it was behind all the sleazy of the Attitude Era.

AJ Lee. A con artist of sorts. WWE tricked the fans into making her seem talented by doing a storyline with the hottest talents in the company and having passable mic skills (which got graded on a curve). Also was made out to be a great wrestler b/c she knew a submission hold and didn't look like a "typical WWE female". Her character got stale quick, her work ethic dropped over the last year or so with all the vacations.

I think Jackie's HoF speech was likely scripted by WWE creative for the most part, which the inductees do have the option of doing. The Piggy (Mickie) James angle, being somewhat of a shoot on her weight gain, is pretty low.

Another thing with Sasha and other modern women, even with the way interviews are now, she's still at least somewhat in character when making the rounds. As most WWE talent are. Moolah is an icon in WWE canon. I cringe when someone on a WWE broadcast lists women of the past and says "Alundra Blayze". A short-lived ring name that was all but forgotten until the HoF and revisionist history kicked in last year. But on the original topic, feel like GLOW and similar groups had a fair amount of promoter shadiness.

I assume the New Day/Freebirds deal is a way for WWE to make like the "Freebird Rule" was this revolutionary development in wrestling history. It's a cool trick that's been used once in awhile, but I think wrestling would have survived if there wasn't an unofficial rule about a stable having the ability to switch up tag team matchups. Typical revisionism we get every HoF ceremony.

Was the same ep as the infamous Kathie Lee/Hoda breaking wine bottles on each other skit.

That's how I'm looking at it. Even old WWF magazines used to have PPV previews that I'm sure needed a lot of lead time to get on the newsstands before the show. That leaked candidate list didn't totally pan out anyway, and I assumed it wouldn't since WWE probably scrambled to make a few picks less predictable. Hansen looks like a probable induction, but the celeb news has been all over the place. Could be Regis, now Snoop has entered the rumor mill and there was a lot of speculation about Lemmy after he died.

Wonder if they'll pretend she's been retired the last 12 years.

The magazine stuff is still speculation, even if some sites are reporting it as fact. The content for a magazine like that needs some lead time. Hope the Hansen part is true tho.

About a week ago, Dave brought up Lee Reherman as a random point about a mailbag question dealing with the look of announcers. Almost forgot about that guy. Lee died the other day: http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/lee-reherman-dead-american-gladiators-1201719847/

And then they did that weird Naomi/Brie deal where no one got an entrance, but Lana gets hers at the end just to laugh at Brie. At least Sasha/Becky is more fun to watch than that neverending series with Titus/Stardust.

Well, it was on the leap day. Barely made the month.

Man did they go overboard with jobber intros (aka, "Already in the Ring" intros) tonight. And some of the things they gave time to. Poor time allocation.

TBH, I think it's pointless to try and compare the WWE HoF to a regular sports HoF. They book each induction class like a wrestling card. There's no voting on the best eligible candidate like a sports HoF usually has.

I think Kama and The Godfather are the same "character" though. In the way Blue Chipper Rocky Miavia evolved into The Rock, and Miavia simply was dropped. That is what happened here. Kama Mustafa just evolved into the pimp character The Godfather after Faarooq was turfed from The Nation and they stopped the group militant gimmick and went with "whatever floats your boat" gimmicks. True. In WWE's release, they did mention him being in NoD, but didn't use the Kama name:

Have no prob with him going in. Wish they'd try to put more pre-2000 people in first, but he's a known and somewhat beloved character in WWE history. I assume there will be outcry somewhere about why Papa Shango and Kama weren't mentioned in his induction video. WWE sometimes wants to act like gimmicks, even if played by the same person, are seen as different people "in universe". And then they don't have to make up some backstory about how Shango became Kama then Kama Mustafa then Godfather.

There's plenty of older people that can be put in before we get to guys born in the 1980s. With a finite amount of possible headliners, they can wait a year or more on DB.

Didn't she win the WCW TV Title as well? She beat Disco Inferno while he was champ in a non-title match on PPV. I hope the Regis thing is true. He's getting up there too, so best to do it ASAP.

She's milked the fact that she was only attractive for like 3-4 years in the mid 90s for all it's worth. What's the real deal behind the "most downloaded woman in 1996" stuff? I thought it was more of an America Online/AOL award, back when WWF didn't have a website and just an AOL channel.