elliott

Man I always look forward to mondays for new BTS anyway, but when I saw Musgrave's name, holy crap. . You can't go wrong when you combine the two best wrestling podcasts. And then in the intros Kris just slayed me with "our guest is noted Canadian Dave Musgrave" and now people are looking at me as I laugh walking down the street. Mondays are the best. Thank you as always Kris & Bix.

Yeah, I would agree with this. Also wanted to say I just watched Strongbow vs Fuji. I enjoyed watching it but I can't figure out if its because it was a good match or because I was laughing so hard that they built a match around a purple nurple. It looked like the blueprint of a good match but I did notice some really crappy looking strikes and Strongbow's selling wasn't very engaging and his comeback was quicker than you'd like but that may be due to my hysterical laughter. My body hurts from laughing. I'll rewatch it soon and will be less caught off guard by the titty twister offense. But I didn't want yall to think I didn't/wasn't/wouldn't watch the match. I did. Just now. In the last couple of hours I"ve watched Sasha Banks vs Charlotte Hell in a Cell and Strongbow vs Mr Fuji. Needless to say I enjoyed Banks vs Charlotte more. But Strongbow vs Fuji was like Spaceballs level hilarious and everyone should watch it. I'll watch it again in a few days and give it a real review.

Sasha vs Charlotte felt like one of the 5-10 best matches in the history of the company to me on first watch.

I either want whatever drugs the person who made this bracket was taking or I don't want them. I can't decide which. All I know for certain is that drugs were involved. Ceasaro (9) Andre the giant (11) Lol

I think Arn is a really interesting comparison especially with Chicky Starr right there later on in the Tully Role. All I know is I need a comprehensive Ron Starr set.

I do think that their relative positions played a big part of it. If you want to see how Hansen worked with a peer, look at his matches with Jumbo, almost all of which were disappointing. It's a lot easier to go all-out every time out when you only work one match a month. Could Tamura have worked his style on an All Japan schedule without taking nights off or getting physically destroyed? I don't begrudge anyone for not liking the lack of matwork or bloody brawls in 90s All Japan. To that extent, it's just arguing over which flavor of ice cream is the best. What I'm arguing is that a lot of the issues with King's Road were exacerbated by the lack of variety in the main event scene, both in terms of the talent involved and the lack of gimmicks/angles. Things would've been fresher for longer with more guys in the mix and/or less conservative booking. THe Hansen vs Jumbo matches were disappointing, but you couldn't say the same for Hansen vs Colon, vs Baba, vs Tenryu, vs Funk etc so Hansen could definitely work with peers. On the issue of Tamura working one night a month, and this is something I've been meaning to talk about but kinda keep forgetting. I think the idea that Tamura worked one night a month is misguided. Sure they only held shows once a month but he, and other shoot stylists, pretty clearly spend a shit ton of time in between shows training their asses off to perfect their technique. We don't see it so it doesn't count. But he put in the hours training and sparring. That's reflected in his work. You're not that great after like 12 matches. Tamura's 12th match isn't the same as Wrestler X's 12th match because Tamura's 12th match is 3 years into his career. So yeah, he works fewer matches per month than the All Japan guys. but its not like he's just resting in between shows. I think the bigger difference is he wasn't taking 15 suplexes in a match. I agree with your final last point about the lack of variety and conservative booking on top. Freaking Baba man. All Japan vs UWFi should have happened obviously and would have been great financially and interesting artistically. Lord knows Tenryu should have come back before the split when everyone was working with everyone. Even something as small as Hayabusa & Shinzaki coming in for a run had a noticeable positive impact. If I was Baba in 1996 I would have, worked with UWFi and made millions of dollars. Have Takada "injure" Misawa and give Misawa some real goddamn time off. Like a year. Have Takada defend the TC for a year beating everyone until Misawa finally comes back to save the day and maybe not be completely broken down. With the oodles of money I made along the way I'd: Sign all of BattlArts Sign all of M-Pro Sign Regal & Finlay and push them as a top tag team while grooming Regal to be the top gaijin for the new era. Convince Tenryu to come back for a run against the Pillars. I'd give him a TC run for good measure once Takada was done. Its tough to figure out who is going to be the next generation of top natives because that generation was largely disappointing in general outside of Akiyama. But my hope would be that the UWFi influence and the Tenryu influence in the main event would change the path they were on so something like Misawa vs Kobashi 6/99 doesn't happen Unfortunately Baba didn't want to work with anyone, and financially they were successful so I can't really fault him for that. So we should probably just blame him for all of this

Sure, that's a valid criticism. But nobody always had great matches, so that's kind of trivial. Also wanted to address this because I forgot too. I made my comment about not even thy could always have great matches in response to this post: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/35792-favourites-that-you-soured-on/?p=5773321 Where you say things like: "The problem is that the Four Corners were too good for their own good." "But King's Road wasn't a style that you could just plug anyone into, and the only wrestler All Japan developed in the 90s who could work at that level was Akiyama." If your style is so great that only five guys can work it, and you're the best and smartest wrestlers ever working at a level higher than anyone else in history and have years of experience wrestling each other, then you better have great matches every time you wrestle one of the other 4 dudes.

Ok, what about Hansen vs Kobashi? Just a built in advantage due to where they were in their careers at the start of their rivalry? This is such a ridiculous strawman argument considering I've written tens of thousands of words on this site about Kiyoshi Tamura who went all out in literally every match he ever worked and even the biggest Misawa fans (presumably) would admit that he slept walked his way through dozens of matches even in his prime. You seem to think my problem with them is that they wrestled each other over and over again. It isn't. I walked through what I don't like about the style.

I'm kinda in the same boat. I really want to watch all of the 80s sets in roughly chronological order and then all of the yearbooks. But I can't really start until Crockett gets released. And WWE redux. And whatever else might be in the pipeline (I'm probably the only person really hoping 80s Joshi gets made). Now peachchaos came out with that 79 yearbook and well I HAVE to get that shit as soon as the discs are available. Basically my gathering of and organization of footage is how I'm preparing for retirement But, Loss, please post the top 500 of the yearbooks and just call it that if you feel more comfortable with it. Selfishly I want to see it as someone who has all of the yearbooks and also respects your opinions on match rankings. Or if you don't want to post it just PM it to me

Man I almost said exactly that about Jimmy Hart. I think he's the strongest non wrestler candidate.

Agreed. Fink is a nice garnish on top of everything but if he had never gotten in the wrestling business it would pretty much have 0 ramifications on WWF's success. Would it be fair to compare Fink's case as a non-wrestler to "work" candidates since so much of his case is built on artistic excellence? Does that make sense? I don't know because a "work" candidate still brings a lot more value to a promotion than a ring announcer, even a guy you want to say is the best or 2nd best ring announcer ever. I don't really like the comparison from earlier in the thread about a ring announcer being like a kicker in football either. The difference between a good kicker and a bad kicker can really make a huge difference on the outcome of games. I don't think going from Fink to Lillian Garcia really made a huge impact on overall show quality. Like, if Fink were to get put back on Raw Monday it would be an upgrade over the current ring announcer but not something that's going to hugely upgrade the show quality overall. Excellent points. And I'd agree with Parv about Okerlund being a more glaring omission than Fink.

Agree with this. My biggest criticism of 90's All Japan and what ended up being their biggest handicap was the lack of variety. Different combinations of matches between the same guys (barring some gajin) over and over can become tedious and since no one else was really able to work at their level, there was no significant change-up. They were kind of stuck and escalation was the way to go forward. The alternative was completely abandoning the style and starting over (sort of) but that's implausible. I get where you're coming from, but on the other hand, I just watched the entire PR set that had a shit ton of Abby vs Colon matches that I was fully expecting to be the same match over and over again. But each match was different and they didn't at all fall back on "Lets just do more stabbing in the face this time" when it came time for the next match. I again point to Kobashi vs Hansen as an example of a series in All Japan that brought different ideas and structures. Again, maybe this has as much to do with the points they were at in their career and the sort of organic inevitable differences you're going to get. But doesn't that sort of reflect poorly on the pillars when the only ideas they (the pillars) have when wrestling their peers is "MORE BABY MORE!" as the years pass? Doesn't it say as much about Misawa not being able to have have a compelling match with someone on the level of a Johnny Ace as much as it does about Ace? Take Tamura for example. He had great matches with Volk Han, Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, Vader etc. You know, great workers. But he also figured out to how to have an awesome match against Gary Albright and compelling matches with weirdos like Tom Burton and Billy Scott who weren't on his level or the level of the other greats.

Do you have a link for Fuji vs Strongbow? I poked around youtube briefly but it was late. I've seen you talk about it before but haven't watched it. Happy to do so.

Agreed. Fink is a nice garnish on top of everything but if he had never gotten in the wrestling business it would pretty much have 0 ramifications on WWF's success. Would it be fair to compare Fink's case as a non-wrestler to "work" candidates since so much of his case is built on artistic excellence? Does that make sense?

Ron gets even more impressive. By the end of the set I was thinking of him as a top 50 sort of guy. Incredibly underrated. He was able to do so much. Obviously he's an amazing brawler, but also he's a terrific tag worker either doing vicious heel in control segments or bumping and stooging. I started to think of him as one of the best guys in the 80s and like a top 50-60 all time candidate.

I can understand why you'd say this, but I've spoken at length on these boards about my thoughts of Hansen vs Kobashi being one of the all time great in ring feuds (somewhere in the Hansen thread in GWE). Those were literally the matches I urged Matt to watch to show Hansen as an all time great worker because they were different matches against the same opponent. Now, perhaps they had a built in advantage as Monster Heel vs Young Upstart and each year saw Kobashi grow up a little more and Hansen break down a little more before before finally Kobashi has passed him. Maybe that natural evolutionary progression aided them in ways Misawa/Kawada couldn't ever have as peers. Lawler and Dundee have feuded for 4 decades and still find ways to have compelling matches. They didn't generally approach every match from the same point of view. Compare 6/6/83 to 12/30/85. Also, would you acknowledge that you're entire post could actually be seen as an indictment on the workers and style. That only 5 guys could work the style and not even they could ALWAYS have great matches? And considering how banged up the all got, that makes it even worse that they had to keep working each other over and over and couldn't figure out anything to do but "Turn this shit to 11" when it was time to have their next match together?

I really wish it was something like 17-25 minutes tops where they chopped off large portions of the finishing stretches. That's where it starts to get ridiculous to me and I'm not opposed to long matches. Its not just that they weren't really good at brawling though. Its that ever match had a segment where they'd go outside the ring and somebody would get irish whipped through the reporters into the guardrail and it always looked terrible. You'd get a big move out there sometimes like a powerbomb or something, but there was never really a memorable on the floor moment unless it was one of the apron to floor bombs they started to do later but they did that shit every match to fill time. Oh of course. And it probably gets lost in all of my word vomit, but I do say several times things along the lines of "A lot of this is preference sure and I wouldn't argue that Misawa was bad at what he was trying to do. He was great at it." I way over corrected this line of thinking with my GWE voting and tended to punish my favorites because they were my favorites. I ranked Misawa 20th. In a world where Scott Steiner got a #1 vote, I'd be way more comfortable not voting for Misawa. I probably sill would, but he'd be really low because, allowing that he works a style that is not only my favorite but I don't think always (I'll come back to this) had the highest of high end matches. I think being great workers in other styles is more impressive and more difficult because they are either broader (Lucha) or more narrow (shoot style) than All Japan and are able to accomplish as great if not greater heights than All Japan without having as many things I don't like as the All Japan style. However, I would like to point out again, there are Misawa matches I think are all time great matches. 6/3/94 and 1/20/97 being the obvious two but others like Misawa vs Taue, etc as well. In spite of whatever issues I have with the style, there are times where they are able to transcend those biases and they either help the match or I just don't care or notice or they don't happen. I'm not sure. So its not like I don't see the greatness. I just don't think the greatness is the greatest So yes, I can't punish Misawa for working the All Japan style, but at the same time I can't pretend that I think All Japan is the best just because some people think it was.

Not sure if it was supposed to but that made me laugh. Good! It was

Do we exist?

Yes I would say thats fair, but I also think Taue is guilty of a lot of those things. Perhaps not to the extent of others, but I'm not willing to say "Misawa & Kobashi did delayed selling and i didn't like it but Taue didn't or if he did it was ok because he did other things I liked more." I do like Taue the most. I like Misawa vs Taue after more than Misawa vs Kawada after 94 or Misawa vs Kobashi or Misawa vs Akiyama. I prefer Taue vs Kawada to Kawada vs Kobashi or Misawa vs Kawada post 94. But Taue was also part of matches I don't like doing things I didn't like. So he's not faultless. But generally yeah, I like Taue the most. I like the NOAH stuff I've seen with him the most too.

Yeah. He's not exaggerating. This match was crazy, especially because you had no idea it was coming. 5 star match #2 I was stunned by how good this was. This set has a bunch of stuff like that. There are a few matches that just left me laughing hysterically at how shockingly good they were.

Sorry for the delay in response, its been a hell of a couple of weeks. Responding to Parv I look at the mid 30s as the sweet spot for a wrestling prime. As important as athleticism is in wrestling, brains are important as well. When you're in your mid-late 20s, you're at your peak as an athlete. Your body has filled out and you've had time to grow into it and you're years away from falling apart. In your mid-late 40s your body as fallen apart/is falling apart but you have so much experience and know all the tricks of the trade, great wrestlers are able to overcome their decline in athleticism. Mid 30s is that sweet spot where your body hasn't started to completely fall apart so you're still close to your peak as an athlete but you also have a decade of experience by that point as well so your brain is there as well. Of course, in a couple of years when I reach my mid 30s officially, I'll probably start saying late 30s and early 40s is when you peak That's what hurts about Bryan. Great as he was, I think we were only just getting there. It feels like a full career because we watched it unfold from the start and have probably the majority of his matches on tape. You can't say that about many people before Bryan's era so our perspective on him is all screwed up. Wait...Kawada is often the guy taking the sickest spots? I definitely wouldn't agree with that especially if you continue forward from 1997. I'd say Misawa took the nastiest shit, then Kobashi then Kawada and then Taue. But anyway, as I said last week, I probably hit the headdropping too hard but it is a real criticism and I'll get there. But I wanted to address my point about excess being the real problem. Its just that. I think excess is the real problem. For how hard they were hitting each other, the moves they were doing, how they'd choose to sell at times along the way, I think they did way too much and went way too long A lot of this is preference sure and I wouldn't argue that Misawa was bad at what he was trying to do. He was great at it. But I don't think what he was trying to do was a particularly smart way to work so there is going to be bias in seeping through in general. This is tough to talk about because it is so taboo and you don't want to be disrespectful. But yeah, I think how he died probably plays a role in it. Its kind of hard not to knowing what we know. But people were talking about cringe worthy headdrops before NOAH ever formed with Misawa. I think he tends to get the criticism more than Kawada because Misawa (& Kobashi to be fair), as the ace was more influential in pushing the All Japan style towards the way he (and Kobashi, the more popular wrestler) wanted to work. I think this manifested itself in the split and you saw the direction All Japan went with a more toned down on head dropping & even heavier on ultra stiffness while NOAH continued more in the tradition of crazy neck breaky spots and also added the ramp to throw each other off of. How much of it is the booking though? Misawa beat Kawada every time they wrestled so of course we're going to remember the three times out of 250 that Kawada beat him, right? In All Japan wins & losses mean more than any other promotion as much because of the strict adherence to hierarchy and patience in the booking as in the matches. I think the psychology in All Japan tends to be a little overrated. I remember 15+ years ago wanting to figure out all of the little nuances and similarities between Misawa/Kawada 6/3/94 and Jumbo/Tenryu from 6/5/89 because the narrative surrounding All Japan's deep psychology with every move mattering and every match playing off each other and those two especially playing off each other. I asked on tOA "So what are all the similarities beyond Jumbo's protege vs Tenryu's protege, Triple Crown, Powerbombs. And the answer from jdw & friends was "that's basically it." Oh. well that's not all that mindblowing. There is great psychology sure. But I don't really think its on some level beyond everything else in wrestling that it makes up for all the other issues I have with the style which I'll talk about now. If I had to break down how I feel about All Japan in a much briefer summary I'd say something like "I think they work hard and are full of great ideas and moments but the great ideas and moments are overwhelmed by all the stuff they do." For example, I used to always love Kawada's dead legs sell where he sells getting knocked out unconscious. There are times where it works and is totally fucking awesome and adds to the match/moment. But there are times where I fucking hate it and it just halts all the momentum of the match and more often than not he's up hitting a powerbomb or jumping kick not long after even though most people who get knocked unconscious are unlikely to be lifting 250lb men up in the air. Its a really cool spot and it absolutely works at times but other times if you think about it for more than "awesome kawada knockout sell" it actually seems kinda stupid even within the framework of stupid fake wrestling I think the delayed selling stuff is absolutely terrible and honestly, more than the headdrops its the delayed selling that I really hate. Misawa hits Kobashi with a german suplex, Kobashi pops up hits Misawa with a lariat, Misawa pops up & hits Kobashi with an elbow and then both guys sell for 30 seconds. I hate that and it permeated the style and is maybe the biggest influence it had on wrestling. I think All Japan devalued mat work. I think they were smart on some level to do so because the pillars weren't very good at mat wrestling. But, you know, I like mat work. The devaluing of submissions made even less sense when guys continued to apply and treat their submissions like they still mattered when they hadn't beaten anybody in years and the fans were long past caring about them. I think they devalued almost everything they did. I think there are ways to build feuds and maintain rivalries beyond "Last time it took 2 Tiger Drivers to win, this time it took 2 Tiger Drivers & a Tiger Suplex 85. Next time it will take 3 Tiger Drivers & a Tiger Suplex 85 and a Running Elbow." Sure they're building from match to match. But is it the end all be all? Not really. I hate that they always did the crappy outside the ring brawling that never really led to anything of consequence. Selfishly, as someone who loves brawling, I don't think they did brawls well (ignoring stuff against Hansen and Kawada vs Taue matches). Wild out of control brawls like Fabs vs Moondogs or Invader I vs Al Perez or Jerry Lawler vs Terry Funk or Satanico vs El Dandy, Stan Hansen's whole career is literally my favorite broad general style of wrestling. If there was a "brawling, mat work, high flying, whatever" poll, I'd vote for brawling 100x out of 100 and it wouldn't take longer than 1/10th of a second to decide. So 90s All Japan is going to suffer that way. In addition to devaluing mat work which is like my 2nd favorite style. So when I watch All Japan, I understand why people think its great and I used to be right there. But now I just see bloated title match after bloated title match and I just want to go watch Abdullah stab a guy in the face after a certain point. I used to be in the screaming internet nerd crowd that 90s All Japan was the highest of the high end. I always thought Tamura was kinda right there with them, but gave the All Japan dudes more credit for working more matches than Tamura, something I care way less about now. Now, 90s All Japan is the period of the company I'm least likely to watch. This is going to seem really crazy since I'm a lucha guy, but I think a lot of the sequences are badly choreographed. Lucha tumbling mat work sequences are to shitty ballet as Misawa Kawada Strike Reversal Exchanges are to F-Level Action Movie Hand to Hand Combat sequences. This isn't at all to say that I think these guys are terrible workers. I just have problems with the style which in turn leads to the workers. I chose to pick on Misawa because he was the Ace, he finished highest in GWE. Misawa & Kobashi irritate me more as the decade wears on than Kawada & Taue. Though those two, especially Kawada, have their flaws. Kobashi has the advantage of still be in two of my favorite matches ever (w/ Kikuchi vs Can Ams & vs Hansen 7/93) that are still desert island matches for me. No matter how I feel about the style and Kobashi, I can watch those 2 matches anytime. So I went after Misawa as the favorite I've soured on when really its all of it. I couldn't rank any of them ahead of: 1. Tamura 2. Tenryu 3. Fujiwara 4. Hasimoto 5. Fujinami 6. Liger 7. Jumbo 8. Choshu 9. Baba 10. Etc and really the etc would just piss people off All that said, they're undeniably great at what they're trying to accomplish, it just isn't for me and I don't think its a particularly smart way to work.

Please I'd be so pumped for that pod! I want more Pro Wrestling Super Shows with these Stephen & Tim people!

Had a ridiculous stretch at work. Sorry for taking so long to respond to these posts. Responding to Dylan To take it a step further, people can easily think Sid or Nash or whoever was a great wrestler and frame cases for them. That's obviously extreme, and quite frankly I don't think anyone voting for the WON HOF would think Nash was a great wrestler for a lot of reasons, but we just spent almost 2 years figuring out the Greatest Wrestler Ever and we couldn't all even come to agree on criteria for what makes for a great wrestler. So it seems...odd...that being a great worker is so important that it can get people in by itself and can keep people out by itself when we can't even get a group of (relatively) like minded individuals who (semi) regularly converse with each other to agree not only who great wrestlers are but what makes for one. I mean, Scott Steiner pulled a #1 vote, people called bullshit and dude passionately explained himself. You can't come close to doing that as far as Steiner being a draw or influence. Dandy should probably be in, but much later after a bunch of Lucha guys go in. He is the sort of mostly work candidate I could get behind though because he had some real drawing positives with the Satanico feud. My knee jerk reaction is that the bulk of his HOF case is too short. I'd like to learn more about his drawing/impact on either side of the Satanico feud. I get the impression he's a real borderline candidate (even if worse candidates are already in & yet to get in) and you have to be a slam dunk no brainer (or tragically pass away) to make it through the Lucha ballot (and even then you probably won't make it). I don't know if Dave views Dandy as an all time great wrestler. If Dave thought Dandy was a top 30 wrestler ever or so, I suspect he'd likely be on the ballot already if he didn't go in with the 1996 class. I'd like to see Dandy on the ballot at some point and if you take the "he's better than the worst guy in" viewpoint he should really be in the HOF. Considering work is as important to some as drawing, it seems silly that Vampiro is on the ballot but Dandy isn't. But I'd want to see...maybe every luchadore on the ballot except for Vampiro & Doc Wagner go in before Dandy. I also think people like Sangre Chicana, Los Infernales as a trio, and others should get looks as well. Skipping ahead. Though, I think Regal's candidacy is going to look really interesting 15-20 years from now and he could even end up as a non-wrestling candidate depending on what happens. In addition to the novelty of style, Tamura also has the advantage of being regarded as one of the (at worst) two or three best wrestlers ever in his style. Its either Tamura, Volk Han or Takada with Tamura & Han being the most frequently cited, even back before all the Takada hate. Fujiwara obviously is a real candidate for best shoot stylist ever, but I'm trying to view this through the prism of the WON experience instead of my experience because my experience is that Tamura is one of the 3 best ever. Anyway, I think that's "best wrestler ever at his style" is a real tangible plus for some people even if I kinda shot holes in that idea already. I'd suspect if we went through all the "styles" of wrestling and figured out who the top handful of workers ever were, they'd likely all be in ignoring death matches. On a sidenote, I'm going to start making the case for him as the GOAT in the Complete & Accurate thread soon. I've working on writing up comparisons between him and the 61 wrestlers who placed ahead of him in GWE. He's one of my favorite wrestlers ever and I kinda turned my celebratory thread about him into me tearing down his HOF case. So I'm gonna move away from that and get back to him as the best Japanese wrestler ever. I love what Dylan says about being a trustee and not a delegate. I think that's absolutely how the HOF should be run and thats why I was happy for Dylan when he got a vote finally and glad others like soup, Bix & Kris who run in our circles have ballots. I don't mean to start a section where we stand around and pat each other on the backs for being the best voter, but I'm a lot more comfortable with someone like Dylan or Soup voting for someone with a large emphasis on work than the voter pool at large. When there are people who have gone on record about not voting for the Rock n Roll Express because Robert Gibson didn't know the name "O'Connor Roll" that's where I get uncomfortable. When Karl Stern lets readers/listeners/whatever make his last pick for him I get the feeling that work isn't a great idea. When Dave talks about how watching old footage and revisiting & rethinking workers is dumb because its all about what was happening then, I start to think voting for work is a terrible idea because you're just relying on your memories/memories of others and personal favorites/bias comes too much into play and that has no place in a legit hall of fame which is what we all want the HOF to be. Ideally, the voters would all view themselves as trustees and do as much research/thinking about this shit as folks here and other places over the years do. But I'm under the impression you guys are in the minority when it comes to research, analysis, discussion, and openness to alternative candidates. I do think most people who vote will be like "JYD, he sucked, no way." Which...I mean...again I hate to harp on better than the worst guy in but freaking Ultimo Dragon is in and Dave has to be dragged kicking and screaming into putting JYD on the ballot. This ties into what I referenced before & what Matt talked about the HOF is just a self fulfilling prophecy and so JYD going in would be bizarre given his coverage in the WON. But Dave wants it to be about wrestling & WE especially want it to be about wrestling. But I think Dave's influence (and probably unintended influence to be fair) guides the Hall so much that someone like JYD being in sticks out like a sore thumb in a world where Dragon & Angle get in & Dynamite Kid & Bret Hart are 1st ballot HOFers in 1996. It shouldn't be about that. I don't want it to be. But that sort of looms over the whole hall of fame. I don't know WTF this turned into but the short of it would be I have less of a problem with someone like Dylan or Kris or Soup voting for "work" candidates, because I think they're less likely to be influenced by WON narratives because they are the sort of people who are going to go out and research, analyze, discuss, and take this sort of thing way to seriously. Its the people that look at the ballot and say "Big Daddy? Nah he sucked, but Sting was a national star for 20 years!" or "I sure did like Tim Woods, we drove around the territory together. Oh and fuck Jerry Jarrett, that jerk owes me money!" I have no percentage or real evidence I can point to, but I do think lot of voters look at the ballot and think shit like that instead of actually considering the cases. That's sort of my problem with voting based on work. Its as much the voters and Dave as it is the criteria. In theory the idea of voting for work isn't a terrible one given the reality of the WON and the fact that its readership are the types to overanalyze work & matches and value it more than just stardom & drawing. But when the curator of the Hall of Fame thinks watching old footage is & rethinking old footage is a waste of time, it starts to be about delegation. If Dave thought El Dandy's 1989-1991 peak was the greatest 3 year stretch ever and Dandy was one of the 20 best workers ever. He'd have gone in. Instead he's just one of 30 luchadores standing on the sideline as Perro Jr goes in for passing away.The voter pool is so oversaturated that a lot of this does get filtered out to be fair. But that's also a problem, because someone like Ken Patera who is a total revisionist candidate gets filtered right out when if you took the time to look at the evidence Dylan presented about Patera and thought about it for more than "He sure did suck as babyface in WWE in 1987," Patera was pretty clearly a strong pick.

This is the best answer! As for my picks, I'd basically go back and forth between being a Terry Funk & Sangre Chicana deadhead. I'd follow Terry around the Amarillo territory & through his days as NWA champ before finally moving to Mexico City in 77 or so to watch all of Sangre Chicana.