Cox

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/more...lers/index.html This adds dates to some of them as well. It looks like most wrestlers started to phase out by early this year, but then again, that might have been around the time this pharmacy got busted. Add Sylvan to the list, too.

Here is why he IS the guy - people both pay to see him win AND see him lose. He has a split fanbase that both love him and loathe him. The fact that Vince McMahon can draw from both simultaneously with Cena on top is the reason above all why he is the guy.

He definitely looked chubbier and less defined. I assume a combination of the Benoit murders and Mysterio's name being linked to so many steroid probes both before and after probably had something to do with that.

Well it's good to see that his reputation among MMA fans is the same as it is among wrestling fans.

Do you think we could start an E-Mail campaign for Dave to keep a separate Fighter of the Year and Wrestler of the Year categories? I really think we are way past the point to where we can consider both the same thing. If he wants to cover both in the Observer, fine, I've learned to accept it, but to still keep pretending you can judge wrestlers and fighters under the same criteria for Wrestler of the Year at this point is ridiculous. Besides, something tells me that Randy Couture wouldn't really know how to accept being named the Ric Flair/Lou Thesz Wrestler of the Year when neither have anything to do with his career to this point.

The voting age requirement is really too easy. At age 35, most wrestlers are in the middle of their drawing prime, and it's too soon to be able to take a real hard look at their candidacy. The age really should be 40, as most wrestlers are starting to leave their drawing peak around that age, and it's easier to assess their real influence in wrestling by that point.

Wait, so the Rock 'n' Roll didn't work enough years on top, but the MX did? Really? LOL at the biggest Ric Flair mark ever saying that ANYBODY works a patterned style. Also LOL at the fact that he's still running the Front Row Section D gimmick 20 years later. I bet he's still pissed that Dusty's in. Their working prime was late 1989 to early 1991, roughly a year and a half. We're really going to put the Steiner Brothers in the Hall of Fame for a year and a half's worth of work? Shouldn't longevity mean something?

My bad, got my mark doctors confused. Still, don't get the guy who's already got caught with his hand in the cookie jar to go on TV and deny up a storm. I can almost hear Vince's defense.... "The man in those documents had the initials "O.G." so clearly it wasn't REY MYSTERIO! Completely different person!" "It wasn't Rey Mysterio! It was...uh...KING BOOKER!"

Which is worse than trashing a hotel room, how? What's worse, costing some Mariott in Italy a few hundred Euros, or lying to the American public about wrestling's drug problem? Honestly, I'm a fan of his work, but the whole Benoit situation really creeped me out on Cena, and how easily he was able to just go out there and lie. Which is worse than Randy calling them cunts and shitting in their bags until they quit, how? Both leave WWE open for litigation from former employees. I wouldn't call one worse than the other. Oh, Randy's got nothin' on that. But every time I've brought THAT one up on a message board, I get shouted down by people saying it doesn't matter, it wasn't his fault, whatever. It wasn't Khali's fault, but the way the APW school went out of their way for a while to hide the fact that it was Khali who killed him was pretty typical scummy wrestling business. Rotator cuff tear isn't commonly thought to be a steroid-caused injury. And Lashley doing drugs in private is worse than Randy doing drugs in public, how? If you think that's the first time a WWE wrestler has openly smoked pot in the locker room...hell, it wasn't even a Wellness violation.

It's odd that Mitchell is voting for the Midnights and the Steiners but not the Rock 'n' Roll, as I'd think somebody who lived in North Carolina during the Rock 'n' Roll's heyday would view them as much stronger candidates, since as a tag team, they were much more of a main event act than the Midnights or the Steiners ever were, and Morton is arguably a better worker than all (a case could be made for Eaton over Morton).

This past summer alone he's put over Carlito and Khali. He lost that ridiculously long match to Michaels back in April in England. He lost to Edge lots of times last year, including twice on PPV. He put over RVD at One Night Stand. Really, the problem with Cena is that he doesn't do jobs? He hasn't lost a title match in almost a year, but Cena has lost a lot of TV matches for a guy who is supposedly being protected.

I have never understood the concept of "there is more money in the chase" when nearly every single successful babyface wrestler of the past 40 years was almost always the champ (from Bruno all the way to Cena, with Hogan, Austin, and Rock in between), and when so many babyface wrestlers who constantly chased the belt without winning it (Sting, Luger, etc.) were never really draws when they did win the belt, because they were seen as #2 guys from constantly chasing the champ, instead of top guys for being the champ. There's just so much evidence to support that fans pay to see their favorite wrestlers hold onto the title against strong heel challengers for the "there's always more money in the chase" theory to hold any water.

Angle was making seven figures in WWE, there's no way TNA can afford to pay Kurt Angle seven figures.

Wait what? Since when do people get paid better in TNA?

Yeah seriously, what percentage of wrestling fans do you think assume that most of the WWE's roster is on steroids? 90%? 95%? When I first started watching as a ten year old kid, I assumed that damned near everybody was on steroids. Especially in this day and age, when the general public at large seems to be learning more and more about steroids, I think most people can assume that the wrestlers on Raw, Smackdown, and ECW achieved their bodies chemically for the most part.

Oh god, I know there's like a .001% chance of it happening, but Gabe Sapolsky testifying before Congress would be epic. He'd start hemming and hawing after being asked his name.

Going to TNA wasn't a great career move for Joe, but going to WWE wouldn't have been much better. I doubt he would have made it out of developmental with his poor body, short stature, and non-existent mic skills, and he wouldn't have been able to portray Umaga nearly as well as Jamal has if he had been brought up. Being Angle's bitch toy is probably a step better than being Aaron "The Idol" Stevens' bitch toy. I dunno, maybe the Umaga gimmick would've been just what the doctor ordered for Joe. Joe's ROH stylings obviously wouldn't have flown in WWE, but he, like Danielson, Homicide, Nigel, et al, strikes me as the kind of indy dude who actually gets wrestling, but struggles between wrestling the match he wants to wrestle and the match he knows he has to wrestle. Maybe putting him in a promotion with actual sane standards for what wrestling is all about would get him out of his current rut. Or maybe he'd just get totally exposed as a big fish in a small pond. Who can be sure? In fairness, Umaga is way better in the wild savage role than I'd imagine Joe would be. If Joe signed with WWE tomorrow, I really don't know what they'd do with him. New Headshrinkers, maybe? Either way, staying in ROH would've been a better career move than Red Roostering himself in TNA. I'm really doubtful as to whether he'd have ever even made it out of OVW. Hell, the only reason Punk made it out was because Heyman got control of ECW and pushed Punk, and before Heyman got ousted, Punk got over, and apparently moves merchandise. I think there would have been too many forces against Joe (height, body, style, being a non-Anoia Samoan, the "indy superstar" tag) to think he would have ever gotten a real shot. Best case scenario, he gets called up for a Gunner Scott push that goes nowhere, and he's putting guys over on Heat until he's being wished all the best in his future endeavors. Is that really much better than TNA? Granted, he's Kurt Angle's Samoan job boy, but still... Thanks dude!

One of my friends, who has been strongly pro-WWE during this entire ordeal, actually E-Mailed me with the news and noted that this is another late 90's WCW guy who died young, apparently forgetting that Adams wrestled longer and more prominently with WWF. So I guess WWE pushing that talking point hasn't been entirely unsuccessful.

Going to TNA wasn't a great career move for Joe, but going to WWE wouldn't have been much better. I doubt he would have made it out of developmental with his poor body, short stature, and non-existent mic skills, and he wouldn't have been able to portray Umaga nearly as well as Jamal has if he had been brought up. Being Angle's bitch toy is probably a step better than being Aaron "The Idol" Stevens' bitch toy.

One place where I think Meltzer really screwed up with the Hall was putting Jim Cornette in without the Midnight Express. The bulk of the reasoning behind Cornette being in the Hall is because of his work with the MX, as I doubt anybody is putting him in for his success as a promoter with SMW, or his run with Yokozuna, and definitely not for being the Director of Authority for TNA. But you can't induct Lane and Eaton, or Eaton and Condrey without Cornette, because it was really the entire package, and Cornette already being in hurts their candidacy, even though I think they should be in. To me, that's the most glaring omission from the Hall of Fame, though I certainly see a great case for the Rock 'n' Rolls as well. Also, it's kind of a shame for Arn Anderson, Ole Anderson, and Tully Blanchard that Flair did so much on his own, because I could also see a case for the original Horsemen being in the Hall, also a shame that the Arn/Tully team really only had about 2-3 years working because with a little more longevity, I could see them being in as well. But I think it's pretty clear, as has been mentioned, that the biggest thing missing from the Hall right now are tag teams - the 80's in particular had a lot of great working and drawing tag teams that aren't in.

I was thinking about this one recently: Gabe Sapolsky cons Dave Meltzer into thinking Ring of Honor is a good wrestling promotion: Ever notice how Meltzer will receive ROH's biggest shows almost immediately after they happen (Kobashi vs. Joe and the first Manhattan Center show come immediately to mind), but how Meltzer will almost never review almost anything else? In particular, other than the recent PPV show, I can't remember the last Ring of Honor show Dave talked about in the Observer, during a time period where everybody is saying how bad ROH has been. It's become clear that Gabe picks and chooses which shows he sends to Meltzer, the shows he knows are good, so that way he can get the money quote in the Observer so he can sell DVD's based on the quote. Meltzer doesn't see the really awful stuff, so the bad ROH shows don't get negative reviews in the Observer (which would probably turn off a good part of the core ROH viewing audience) and Gabe can somehow win the Best Booker award in the WON after Meltzer puts over the hand-picked shows Gabe has sent him. It's almost shrewd of Gabe, although giving away ROH booking plans for Dave to print in the Observer kills any benefit of that. Seriously, Gabe worked for Paul Heyman for years, didn't he ever learn about the idea of using the Observer for misdirection and lies?

Pacman Jones cons TNA into thinking he's going to make a difference: TNA signs Jones to a contract, not thinking that maybe the Titans would seriously object to Jones actually wrestling when he might get hurt, when they're already losing out on him for a year. The Titans get a restraining order against Pacman wrestling, then negotiate a deal where Pacman can't do anything physical while in TNA, which all parties make sure to make as public as possible, killing any interest non-wrestling sports fans may have in this. Of course, there's evidence that nobody ever cared to begin with, as TNA's ratings actually dropped for Pacman's first episode of Impact. But hey, at least people were mentioning TNA's name!

I think it's more that Lawler has 30 years' experience working as a babyface and knows the emotional buttons to push when on trial to make himself look sympathetic. The USWA trials with Mark Selkar took place in Cleveland, well out of the Memphis territory's range, and he was still able to come out on top in that trial while his partner went to jail. Dude just knows how to perform and what buttons to push.

This boggles my mind. Who E-Mails Dan Wahlers looking for his insight on this? What kind of person turns to Dan Wahlers for intelligent wrestling analysis on a bad WWE rating? I can't wrap my head around this.

Is it really a con if it's necessary for survival?