evilclown

I apologize. I admit your discussion of Renegade made me unreasonably angry. It's sort of like suggesting that Fake Diesel and Fake Razor were the most misused talent in wrestling history isn't it?

Won't Chael Sonnen win Best Promo going away? It would certainly mean a lot to me to win the best book award. I'm not sure if I made a big enough sales dent to do it.

Nash's role in WCW's demise is hugely overstated and his role in their success generally undersold. I'd think he's a better candidate than Sting based on 96-98 alone. Discussion of a historical wrestling Hall of Fame shouldn't be any broader in scope than the wrestling you grew up on? Got it.

I think it's both irresponsible and bizarre to blame someone's suicide on their wrestling bookings. Beyond that, I think if you are on a serious discussion board, particularly one discussing a wrestling Hall of Fame, one with members that span the entirety of pro wrestling history, then it doesn't make sense to use phrases like "best ever" unless that's what you mean. What you meant was "best I could think of off the top of my head."

I agree with soup that the best points of entry occur where shootstyle crosses paths with traditional wrestling. It helps ease into things. The second Vader-Takada match is a good one. I'd also recommend the Funaki-Backlund matches as an interesting way to get over the ethos of the UWF movement. I also like the 1/22/97 Han v. Tamura match. It moves quickly and is legitimately great. I wouldn't want to start anyone with something like Tamura v. TK. It's amazing, but moreso when you've grown to appreciate the style. Same with any of the Takada v. Maeda matches which were always so looooong and had lots of deadspots.

Not to sidetrack this discussion, but the idea that all the most screwed over wrestlers in "wrestling history" all wrestled in the 1990's is a fairly myopic viewpoint. That is almost certainly not true.

Genuinely interested in your guys opinion on this. Is he right or is he totally completely discounting the Wrestlecrap/Botchamania afterlife it has had online? 1993 WCW was hardly a formative period of the people I know online. Somehow I don't think press row would pop for Charlie Norris or Big Sky if they appeared on the big screen at a UFC show. There just happen to be a lot of Dave acolytes among the MMA media. Among the regular non obsessives, I suspect exactly zero reporters got that reference.

I don't understand why it is supposed to matter that guys didn't get over in St. Louis or Japan. I get that it's a metric used for quality, but why should that be a main consideration when a guy DID get over in other places?

There's a chapter on this fight in my book Shooters if you are interested.

Just to be clear, I didn't vote for him.

I suspect Lesnar will go in.

Tapes were also traded frequently. If you made a few smart purchases they could be turned into a substantial collection fairly quickly. If you were an obsessive weirdo. I heard. From a guy. re: Jumbo as a GOAT, I think that almost anyone who was serious about Japanese wrestling found there way into the cult of jdw and his opinion was as influential as anyone's outside of Meltzer's in that era.

Tell me more....is there Japanese media with this written out somewhere online? Not really sure what you're after... The kanji for Ishu Kakutogi Sen is 異種格闘技戦 Inoki didn't coin this term as such contests existed long before his fights. These days MMA is usually called 総合格闘技 (Sougoukakutogi.) A Japanese source tells me that they have been referring to mixed matches as Ishu Kakutogi Sen (異種格闘技戦) since Inoki-Ruska in 1976. Do you believe it to predate that bout? What I'm looking for is maybe a poster or VHS tape cover or some piece of media showing Japanese promotions were using this rough translation (mixed martial arts) before the UFC or Extreme Fighting, or even the Pittsburgh Penguins!

Wow. I don't know quite what to make of it, since it was the only hit in Google's news archive. But it's used in such a throwaway fashion by the writer that you do wonder... what the heck. You've probably done as much work looking through old writings on the subject where if it were semi-commonly used, *you* would have run across it somewhere. John I went to contact this guy and he passed away a few years ago. And this is how fun mysteries collapse.

That was fantastic.

Tell me more....is there Japanese media with this written out somewhere online?

Wow.

He didn't invent it if that's what he meant. Meltzer's talked about it a bunch recently, short version, the term MMA had existed for years as that's what Inoki used to call his mixed matches vs Karate guys & boxers n shit & the term may have gone back further then that. When Blatnick went over to Japan he heard it thear and then years later he did sugest it to UFC when they were looking for something to replace no holds bared. I've talked with Dave about it. That's one of several stories. I'm looking for substantiation.

As you may have read, former UWFi broadcaster Jeff Blatnick passed away last week. In an interview with me, Jeff told a great story about how he coined the term MMA during a UWFi PPV broadcast in the early 1990's, then later dragged it out to replace "no holds barred" when he was the UFC's color commentator. It's a good story, but there are some skeptics out there. Unfortunately, I only have the Japanese commercial tapes for those shows and not the U.S. PPV versions. Does anyone have these U.S. broadcasts? Are they available for me to borrow or steal? Do you happen to recall Blatnick referencing mixed martial arts? Can you capture that snippet of footage if so? This seems like a neat mystery and I don't want to be part of any posthumous mythologizing if I can help it. Help appreciated.

I'm sure Dave knows this, or will learn quickly—there is no reason to spend 15 seconds worrying about the comments on a MMA blog. If there is a group lower than the lowest common denominator, they exist in the comments of any big MMA site.

Just so no one is confused, mmafighting.com certainly doesn't belong to Ariel Helwani. It belongs to SB Nation, which is a growing sports blog empire still coasting off some investment capital. Will be interesting to see if they do better with it than AOL/Huff Po where it was a money pit. They have cut back on travel it looks like, but Dave probably wasn't cheap. I wish we had known he was willing to write daily. I think Bleacher Report might have jumped into discussions.

My Final Ballot I FOLLOWED THE HISTORICAL PERFORMERS ERA CANDIDATES Gene & Ole Anderson Hans Schmidt I FOLLOWED THE MODERN PERFORMERS ERA CANDIDATES John Cena Rock & Roll Express (Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson) I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN JAPAN CANDIDATES Volk Han Kiyoshi Tamura NON-WRESTLERS Jerry Jarrett

Where I currently am: I FOLLOWED THE HISTORICAL PERFORMERS ERA CANDIDATES Gene & Ole Anderson Hans Schmidt I FOLLOWED THE MODERN PERFORMERS ERA CANDIDATES John Cena Rock & Roll Express (Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson) I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN JAPAN CANDIDATES Volk Han Kiyoshi Tamura NON-WRESTLERS Jim Crockett Jr. Jerry Jarrett

Neither here nor there, but I don't think Dave feels this way at all. We had a long discussion about it once at a UFC event and I think Cornette's role as a WWE booker would make him an even better candidate in Dave's mind. Not sure who to vote for. Want to think about it a little more before I turn it in. Anybody in particular you are on the fence with? Schmidt, the Andersons, and the Rock and Roll Express are three I'm considering. I'd really like to find a way to justify Volk Han.

Actually, he gives Cornette credit for a lot of stuff involving the Hart Foundation and Austin when the promotion first started heating up...