Cox

Alvarez had a really weird rant about the Christian/Regal match from last week's ECW. It was almost like he was pouting that the guy he wanted to win didn't. It really read almost Scott Keith-esque.

I think the difference is, if a sports team owner gets tired of losing money, they can eventually sell. Who is TNA going to sell to when they get tired of losing money? Nobody wants to touch pro wrestling, as the perception is that the only person who can do pro wrestling is Vince McMahon. There is also a certain prestige that goes with being the owner of a sports team, whereas there is nothing of the sort with owning a pro wrestling promotion; if anything, it's heavily stigmatized. Even with Hulk Hogan, the Carters aren't going to get any sort of positive publicity for owning TNA. It's a make or break move to try to either turn a profit out of this thing or get out of the wrestling business. Unfortunately for them, the only person who might have any interest in buying them when this is all said and done is Vince (and ask the ECW creditors and Turner how much he was willing to pay for a dead wrestling promotion).

Jimmy Kimmell once made a joke to Flavor Flav something along the lines of "Chris Benoit was a better father than you!" at a roast, so clearly all bets are off. If you don't like tasteless jokes and unwarranted cheap shots, why even go to a roast? That said, the best roast performance I ever saw was Norm Macdonald at the Bob Saget roast, which is six minutes of genius.

Yeah, that's pretty racist. I'm pretty sure Red was born in the US.

Weren't Nancy O'Dell and Maria Menounos on the show to plug some sort of charity thing? To pull the refuse to acknowledge thing when they were there to plug something to help others, not to plug their TV show, is pretty rotten.

Just a random thought I just had; now that the Olympics are going to be taking place in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, does that mean that there is finally going to be a wrestling tournament held in Rio that isn't made up?

Or at least compared wrestlers across eras instead of doing weird polls like these, where clearly the most "modern" of candidates is going to carry the day. Of course Wahoo is going to dominate this category, most of his readers are more likely to have seen a Wahoo match than a Bill Longson match.

Yeah, wouldn't he have been deported if he was fired? I think Meltzer had said something around that time that WWF and WCW kept signing him after the other company fired him to keep him in the US.

Hey Bix, I think you are right about Dave. It appears he and SLL share more in common than Judaism.

I believe he even fell off the ballot one year as well, and had other years before where he came close. Maybe he was left off of other Japanese ballots in years where bigger stars were inducted?

You might have some insight into this, but how much of Cornette's induction related to his booking of SMW as well? I know it was never a financial success, but from what I've read, it was always well-regarded by smart fans at the time (much like his OVW run later on), and he won Booker of the Year in 1993. Now, it might look ridiculous, because he never really booked a successful territory for very long, but in 1996, it might not have seemed so crazy to include that for Cornette, which was enough to make Corny a first-ballot guy separate from the MX.

Wow, Dave didn't even try to defend his dumb talking points back then. I guess that show how he's evolved.

That PPV argument is ridiculously bad, and he has to know that. The Great Khali has headlined more PPVs than Andre the Giant, so he must be a better Hall of Fame candidate! Ridiculous.

For those that subscribe to the online Observer, this week's 1992 classic issue is a must-read. Probably one of my favorite classic issues posted since they started with this, since there is little talk about the drug and sex scandals, and most of the talk is about the problems with morale the Watts regime in WCW at the time, along with a recap of Dave's trip to Japan and the start of the WWF/USWA working agreement. If you haven't already, give it a read.

Not sure that I agree with you there. The MX have a better track record as a drawing team (at least the Condrey/Eaton team) and drew against opponents other than the Rock 'n' Roll. The Rock 'n' Roll's run as a top drawing tag team was shorter as well. I think both teams should have gone in, and really probably should have gone in together because you can't tell one's story without the other, but if you're going to put in one ahead of the other, I'd go with the MX first.

What's weird is, Snuka wasn't mentioned at all, not as a guy who fell off the ballot nor as a guy who was staying on.

I assume the voting will be announced with today's Observer - anybody want to hazard a guess as to who makes it in?

Absolutely. We're talking about a HOF where an amateur background carries weight, particularly if you went to the Olympics. If that carries weight, then so too should a successful MMA career, especially if you were billed as a pro-wrestler, drew as a pro-wrestler and attracted long time pro-wrestling fans to shows that were essentially promoted as pro-wrestling. Whether PRIDE was a work or shoot never mattered in Japan. Sakuraba spent his pro-wrestling career trying to create the illusion that his matches were shoots. To say he was no longer a pro-wrestler when he joined DSE is silly. If he hadn't been successful, he probably would've wound up back in pro-wrestling. He was a cross-over star. He wasn't a judo-ka or a rikishi. Why should either a successful amateur career or a successful MMA career matter at all towards a pro wrestling Hall of Fame? They are three completely separate entities. Would an amateur wrestling Hall of Fame consider Kurt Angle's pro wrestling success? Would it consider Brock Lesnar's MMA success? Of course not, that would be ridiculous. When talking about the merits of a man for a pro wrestling Hall of Fame, all that should matter are pro wrestling credentials. What exactly has Sakuraba done as a pro wrestler that merits induction?

Prodigy Classic was not - it died off at Y2K. Prodigy Internet was around, but by that time Bob Ryder had long moved on to 1wrestling.com.

I believe the popular line being thrown around was that he's the only guy ever who was once the best in the world as an amateur and best in the world as a pro. It's still not relevant to a pro wrestling Hall of Fame discussion. Barry Bonds was one of the greatest college baseball players of all time, and arguably the greatest pro baseball player of all time. Yet I don't think we're going to hear anybody talking about his exploits at Arizona State when he becomes eligible for the Hall of Fame, and there are a LOT more similarities between college and pro baseball and amateur and professional wrestling. That doesn't even weigh into account that Angle was pretty far from the best pro wrestler of all time, either.

Wasn't Flair doing a tour of autograph appearances for Highspots too? Maybe he hasn't fulfilled what he was contracted to do with them and that's why he owes them money as well.

Since the Angle induction, it's clear that Meltzer has valued outside of wrestling achievements as much as contributions inside the ring. I'm pretty sure Angle's whole candidacy came down to "Won the gold medal and then became a pro wrestler." Of course, that's ridiculous, it would be like somebody pointing out Deion Sanders' baseball achievements as a reason to put him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

I would apply the best pure athlete tag more to a guy like Shelton Benjamin, who is clearly a very good athlete but has never picked up on how to put together a great, or even a good match. Because he's a great athlete, he will keep getting chances in WWE, but between being uncharismatic, his non-existant interview ability, and his lack of understanding on match structure, he's never going to get higher than he is now. He really is a good example of "it's now what you do, it's how you do it," because he can do some remarkable things, but doesn't know how to use them in creating a basic match structure that engages a crowd.

No he doesnt. In certion aspects he sees similarites but to say he thinks they are the same thing simply isnt true. He's on record on numerous occasions stating that MMA should promote itself like pro wrestling (in terms of personalities, not "it's a work"), so I think sometimes it's more like he believes MMA basically turning itself into more or less real pro wrestling is the best way for it to gain in popularity. I think his talking point is more "MMA does pro wrestling better than pro wrestling does pro wrestling" as the UFC seems to do a better job promoting personal grudges between fighters to set up more interest in fights than pro wrestling does in setting up fake versions of the same thing, and is thus much more successful as a result.

Well, no matter what, if Jeff Hardy was going to get busted with that amount of drugs, he was going to make WWE look bad regardless of whether he was under contract or not, but at least they will be spared having to write him out of any storylines, for whatever that's worth. I wonder if CM Punk is going to cut the mother of all Jeff Hardy promos next week - by storyline, he really should, but they might choose to ignore all of this. He's going to probably catch a distribution charge, but shit, 262 Vikes and 180 somas is like a week's supply of painkillers for a wrestler. This was probably his own stash, or at worst something he was splitting with Matt or another NC wrestler like Helms. Sucks to be him.