KrisZ

It was one of those working while staying close to the family deals.

True it is odd though

Don't throw shade on the 1980 tag titles run with Smirnoff as it had one of the best angles in GCW's history involving Tony Atlas & Kevin Sullivan. This is fucking awesome.

These were his well documented tours with New Japan: 10/24/75 - 12/11/75 New Japan 08/27/76 - 10/07/76 New Japan 10/29/76 - 12/09/76 New Japan 03/03/78 - 03/30/78 New Japan I'd have to pull out some of the reference books to see if he worked those full series. I do know that he joined the 1975 one midway through. It's not clear that he worked the second half of the first one in 1976, or the first half of the second one in 1976. That wasn't uncommon back in those days, especially for longer series: gaijin would work part of it, though some might work the whole thing. My guess on the last four months of 1976: Ivan was working other shots in addition to New Japan. That's just what guys did: work as many dates as they could. He may have worked a month-and-half in Sep-Oct with some promotion that lined up nicely (i.e. close) to Japan, such as Pacific Northwest, Los Angeles, San Fran, NZ, or even working dates in Korea for Ohki... who knows. For everyone like this, there are always going to be lots of missing dates, not just within promotions (we are missing a ton of his WWWF dates), but also promotions missing entirely. I've got quite a bit of results from PNW/LeBell/Shire from the end of 1976 and he's nowhere to be found.

Tanaka benefited on that early run with Bruno as there weren't a whole lot of challengers then.

From Meltz

Very little but I haven't really done the research on that area.

After Ivan left WWWF in 1971, I got him going to JWA, PNW, AWA which was his home through the end of 1973. Now in late 72 throughout 1973 he worked quite a bit in St. Louis & Honolulu main eventing some of the time. Ivan started working for Dick the Bruiser in January 1974 but didn't last too long eventually working some shots for AWA until leaving for JCP in March where he stayed for 11 months before going to New Japan then coming back and going to IWA in March 1975. Koloff in IWA was one of the top heels with Ernie Ladd but would only stay 5 months when he saw the writing on the wall there and left. Koloff was one of the lucky guys who worked opposite of the NWA that when he wanted to come back into the fold he was able to get work but he had to start working for Harry Thornton in Chattanooga for a month until WWWF brought him back home in October. Ivan stayed there until July 1976 where he would make New Japan his homebase for the rest of the year not working anywhere in North America the last 5 months of 1976. Ivan became quite the North American traveler from January-April 1977 as he split time between WWA, San Francisco, Eastern Canada, & CWF which is where he eventually made his homestead in May meanwhile working shots for St. Louis & Bob Luce in Chicago for the next year. May 1978 saw Ivan make his way to GCW for the first time and stayed through the end of September. Ivan worked some TV's for WWWF though building up his return which he made in October and by this time Ivan had made his body completely different than what he was 2 years earlier as he toned up dropping a lot of bulk while gaining stamina and agility. Ivan would stay for the next few months into 1979 but went back to GCW early in 1979 before making it home again in April and would stay there up until June 1980. Watts would bring in Koloff a little bit during this time as well to main event some shows also. Ivan went to Florida in June staying there through the end of September but is most known in this period for being one of the special referees in the Dusty/Ole steel cage drama at the Omni on July 20th. Ivan would return to JCP in October where he would make his home the next 2 years. This was Ivan's biggest run there probably as he had a big main event feud with Jimmy Valiant over the NWA World TV Title in all the top cities not to mention his feud with Ric Flair months before he won the NWA title. Ivan went back to GCW in October 1982 where he was a top singles heel for the first time there until early 1983 when he started teaming with Iron Sheik feuding with a reunited Texas Outlaws (Dusty & Murdoch) until April when he went back for his last run with WWF. Ivan stayed in WWF through the end of November and went back to JCP where he stayed the next 5 years. Ivan then spent the rest of his career bouncing around from WWC to AJPW to random indies.

FLIK is rising up the indy scene keep it up my man.

My ballot is pretty locked in right now but I have 1 spot I'm leaving open for various reasons with one them being Friday night and how Atlantis & BP will come out of the show.

Which titles.....all of them were preexisting

Bob never held the Georgia Heavyweight Title when it was the top title or the National Heavyweight Title when it was the top title. He never even held the TV title. He held the Georgia Tag Titles, Macon Heavyweight Title, Columbus Heavyweight Title, Georgia Brass Knuckles Title but never the big titles in his home promotion. The funny part was he held the Southern titles in both Memphis & Florida and of course was the ace of Southeastern/Continental but they were a very small promotion.

Dustin is awesome but I'm a mark for the Taker WM spectacles plus the early Taker gimmick was one of my favorites so I went with him.

I voted R&R but the Rockers aren't very far behind. The one problem with them as a team is that they never had that money feud. They had the great feud with Rose/Somers but that was during the beginning of the end of the AWA.

Bob wanted to stay home so that's why he worked Georgia, Florida, Southeastern, and the like. He worked New Japan's original tour and did a couple of shots for WWWF in the early 70's but he was a homebody just like Lawler in a way. Ron & Robert Fuller were the same way and a lot of others as well. I love Bob Armstrong to death but I couldn't vote for him in the HOF. He never was the main guy in the biggest promotion he worked (GCW)

Orton is now definitely winning on Sunday

Who innovated the heel color role? Piper in Mid-Atlantic? Piper was the first weekly heel announcer in GCW in late 1981.

Jose is so dead on with Valente Perez......the old Lucha Libre magazines were insanely huge in making stars in that era and were quality wise as good if not better than their American counterparts.

I thought the Dragon outfit and the fire breathing was a lot cooler than Steamboat the karate kid. That being said, the jump back to WWF in 91 was totally ill-advised. The execution of the return to the WWF (i.e. the Dragon nonsense) was ill-advised. But the return itself wasn't. He hadn't worked in 1990. He only worked Feb through Jul in 1989 for WCW. Before that, he hadn't worked since Mar 1988 for the WWF at Mania. Before that he had worked very sporadically since taking off for his son's birth. The amount of matches he worked from say June 1987 through March 1991 were pretty small considering it was nearly 4 years. Now it's possible that Ricky was really good with his money, and his Gold's Gyms had been doing great~! But considering he he didn't stopped working roughly from March 1991 through August 1994 when his back went out, one gets the sense that there was some need for an income again. I wonder if he had one of those Lloyd's deals like Rude and others did. Steamer worked a good bit for South Atlantic Pro Wrestling in 1990

Stats wise you are right but more people remember Ivan from teaming with Nikita than his runs for WWWF. At least in the younger voters minds

Regarding the Andersons their last year together as a team was 1981 while Ivan worked as a high profile type guy during the JCP/WWF war so he is definitely more modern than the Andersons as a team.

I get your point and think it could help put one or both over especially if the show does well and Dave covers it big time in the Observer. My thought is that Panther should be in. I'm less certain on Atlantis (though I lean toward thinking yes), but A. I haven't seen much 80's Atlantis and B. based on what I have seen I think Panther is a vastly better worker. Meltzer heavily pushing the show is the reason why I posted that because more people will be watching the show than normal and both men are in very high profile matches on the card. BP is a better worker than Atlantis yes but Atlantis has had the better career if you get where I'm coming from and the upcoming 80's set will be very friendly to him. BP will get his shine as well but years working for UWA and their lack of footage is a disadvantage for him.

This Friday night's show at Arena Mexico could be really big for Atlantis & Blue Panther's chances at getting in the HOF.

Koko Ware should be on this list

Yoshiaki Fujiwara