Robert S

I don't really want to get into this discussion (the amount of posts happening seems to make it very time consuming), but there are a lot of apples vs. oranges comparisons and half-truths happening here. Just some points that come quickly into my mind, mostly concentrating on Austria & Germany: US had wrestling on local TV, Germany & Austria had wrestling at best as clips in potpourri segments (until the late 80ies when the WWF got its first slot). But I would also not draw a comparison here as there were no private TV stations in either country at that time. In Germany you usually had three public (two national and one local) station until 1985 (and the first couple of private stations had marginal numbers for the first years), in Austria, the first national private TV station launched in 2000 (though obviously we got German private TV station), before there were only two public stations. From my understanding, German & Austrian wrestling was (at least in the 70ies and 80ies) less built on bigger and smaller events but more on constant drawing, i.e. more like a circus or a broadway show. So it made less sense to fly in e.g. an NWA champion. CWA was not a touring company compared to traditional US territories, there were a small amount of cities they ran longer "tournaments" at (again, like a circus). Most cities or regions of those countries never got wrestling (for example, I would be shocked if there was ever a wrestling event in the state I live in). CWA concentrated their operations to northern Germany (Hannover, Bremen) and eastern Austria (Vienna, Graz). There were smaller tournaments outside of this cities (e.g. cagematch - obviously anything but a complete archive - lists three shows in Saalfelden of all places, this had to be sold shows). Before CWA, who knows - definitely not me. The little I have heard, read or seen from the time before 1970 was all from Vienna, but that's where the media center of Austria is, so that does not had to mean anything. Though considering that my father - who had no interest in wrestling at all - could name a couple of Austrian wrestlers from the pre-Wanz era, I have to assume that it was present in national media before that as well. Otto Wanz being a household name is both true and misleading. Wanz was a great self-promoter and knew what to do to get himself known. I think most name recognition in the public stems from his appearence on "Wetten, dass...?", a German Saturday night entertainment show that drew HUGE TV numbers in the 80ies and 90ies (I thinkt he record rating was something like 40% (of all Germans alive!) in 1985). I know I knew his name from there but had no real understanding what pro wrestling was until many years later. Of course Wanz did his phone book act there. Probably for eastern Austria there was more association between the name Wanz and Catchen than in Germany, but still.

Angle main evented a Wrestlemania and a lot of more shows that drew 10.000+, Ultimo Dragon (co-?)founded Toryumon and is at least credited with training 75 wrestlers, including almost all wrestlers of Toryumon, T2P and Toryumon X and was apparently the initial trainer of Okada. Ishii had matches in the upper midcard that the readership apparently loved.

Or Kevin's brain is so fried that he did not realize what the movie really was about and just thought "hey, that's my brothers and me on the screen".

Looking a bit over the list of Japanese people in the HOF and the current ballot: was Takayama ever a candidate?

Also Hase had some backstage power (ergo influence), definitely in AJPW and I think also in NJPW before he left. For me the weakest inductee in the Japanese section always was Ultimo Dragon. Sure, he (co-?)founded Toryumon, but the promotion only followed the tradition of Universal and MPro and Dragon was not involved anymore when Dragon Gate was the number two promotion in Japan and even though he is credited with training the first couple of classes of Toryumon, I think common wisdom is that the real training was mostly done by luchadors like Skayde and Dos Caras. Still Dragon still looks like a much stronger candidate than Ishii.

Is that a good sign? To me that reads they pulled like a lot of punches they could (and should) have thrown. I remain of the opinion that any Von Erichs movie where you don't leave the theatre thinking "well, it's kind of fitting the Fritz's wrestling character was a Nazi" is missing a big chance.

Is there any argument for Ishii besides having lot's of let's call them critically acclaimed matches in the upper midcard for 10 years or so? At least to me on paper he would look to be the new lower bar in the Japanese section.

War Games is a gimmick that (like a lot of gimmick matches) only really works if you have the right feud or angle that should be resolved by that match (like Dangerous Alliance vs. Sting's Squadron or some of the early Horsemen ones). At least WWE stopped booking HiaC (and to a lesser degree TLC) matches based on the calendar. Also, War Games matches are not supposed to last too long once all competitors are in the ring - so not like last year when the men's match went almost 40 minutes. Work a couple of heat and comeback segments until everbody is in the ring, do a clear finish with the heels being left beaten badly and be done with it.

Also domestic violence seems to be a thing you could get a pass for, I mean no one seems to care about Austin's history in that regard.

If he meant the last couple of years: keeping his matches short as after a couple of minutes in usually his body colour changes in a very not-healthy looking way.

As an Austrian I would be curious how you would rank Wanz in your scoring system. With the basic knowledge that I have of him I would say that his drawing peak was "good" (I think he drew a couple of 10.000 crowds, but his candidacy would be about longevity), high longevity on top was "HOF level" (we was on top for close to 20 years; even if he was the promoter, CWA was doing good to great during that time (AFAIK, I am sure experts could/would correct me and at least find periods in the 70ies and 80ies when CWA was not doing so well), so you should not hold this against him), his in-ring ability was "ok" to "good" (the couple of (big title) matches I have seen were all pretty decent, judging by that his reputation on the internet for being Big Daddy-like seems at the very least to be harsh) and his historical significance was "ok" (he kept the promotion up for two decades (which I guess could make you argue for a "good"), when he retired, the promotion eventually went down; you could argue that was because having him on top blocked the rising of younger guys, but the bigger issue was to me US wrestling on TV rolling over Europe), which sums up to 4-5 points. I guess Schurl Blemenschütz would do about the same (great to HOF on drawing peak, great to HOF on longevity, negative on in-ring ability (not sure how good he was in his heyday, but he was still wrestling when he could barely move which lead to the nickname "the mummy of the Heumarkt") and negative to ok to significance (he definitely stayed on top way too long)).

What's so complicated? If I am not completely missing the point, if you decide to vote in a category, you can give as many votes with the number given in the headline independent from the other categories you are voting on. That's a rule change I think making sense - though if going in that direction than a simple "yes" / "no" (/ "abstain") per candidate would have been the better option. The biggest problems are obviously still there (having people in or close to their prime on the ballot and the complete mess that is the "rest of the world" category).

I vaguely remember people making fun of the huge amount of Thunder Fire Powerbombs in Gannosuke matches during that era and judging by this match it's not hard to see where those people were coming from.

LOOOOOOOOOOOL I doubt that his urine would even pass as being from a human.

Those podcasts do 300.000 downloads? Holy fuck. If you would have asked me, I would have guessed maybe 1/20 of that number.

I have no idea how much money there is in podcasting in 2023 in a niche product like pro wrestling, but listening to the kind of sponsors he has the money can't be huge. I mean Stephen P. New won't spend more than a couple of grand on a podcast add a year, right?

It's more like comparing the business to the territory days with the usual key points being (1) that there were many more people living from professional wrestling back then compared to today and (2) taking a couple of numbers people (I think Ole's income is a common example) were claiming to make back then and putting them through the inflation calculator.

I remember listening to a WALTER interview maybe 5-6 years ago where he pointed out a key of his wrestling philosophy: if big guys do high flying stuff and small guys power spots, then in the end everybody is the same. It's obviously a big simplication (e.g. if hosses use high flying stuff very sparingly, they could mean a lot; but a good example of what I don't like at all: the Keith Lee vs. Dijakovic series), but WALTER is definitely fully embracing this way of working.

I suppose you could consider the venue fees as part of the rent by the company that is paid by the customers in the end, i.e. the rent would be significantly higher for AEW etc. if they would not add fees to the ticket prizes.

I read over the coverage of the incident in the latest Observer and there is an almost hidden tidbit that might have had a huge influence and the handling of the situation: I would assume that said footage makes Punk look VERY bad, i.e. that the version where Punk sucker punched Perry is the one closest to the truth. Because I would assume firing Punk outright would only be an option if you have no fear at all of a lawsuit.

Cui bono? I mean Punk not working a Chicago PPV (that does not really have an announced card four days before the event) seems to be a worst case scenario for AEW.

BTW, I made the mistake to listen to Cornette's opinion on the whole thing and of course it's something along the lines of "people get guzzled (sp?) in wrestling all the time, just fire the jobber, the veteran knows what he is doing". To show how deep in the old-school wrestling bubble he is stuck at, Corny was surprised that Brian Last never had to "guzzle" someone in his regular daily life.

One thing that needs to be cleared up is how the glass spot got a go-ahead. I think it's very unlikely that this spot was something Perry did all himself. Considering all the drama about the glass thing beforehand I find it hard to believe that the limousine was there for any purpose but for that glass spot. And if that's the case that's more than just a thing between two wrestlers and an agent. I would not be surprised if TK himself gave the go-ahead for that thing.

Is there a worse singer than Jericho who has performed in front of such a big crowd? And I also agree with the sentiments: the layout and pacing of the show was great. The trios title match was probably the "worst" match of the show, but it was designed to be a cooldown match and it fulfilled that purpose and got some nice pops in the end as well. The main event was not my style of wrestling (and I don't care for Adam Cole anyway), but I guess I have to learn with such matches in 2023 mainstream wrestling. I can't decide which was the stupidest bump of the night: the "real glass" one on the pre-show, the coffin drop on the coffin or MJF's bump to the edge of the stairs in the main event. Regarding JR: he sucks and should not be on TV / PPVs, true, but at least he speaks in such a low-key manner nowadays that it's easy to tune him out.

I am with you here, I paid a bit extra attention on Cole's commentary during Summerslam and he did not sound any different than he did a decade or whatever ago.