WrestlingPower

That "Day in the Life of Nord" video was much-talked about in the tape trading world in the early 90s. It was hard to find in decent quality but I think Wade published a column around that time of like the 10-20 essential things you need in your wrestling video collection & that was on there for some reason.

MLW's Bauer & Pollack show broke down HOF ballots this week so since these are public, I'll post them to save people a listen. Court Bauer: Von Brauners Nakamura V3 Ramirez Misioneros Aguayo Jr. Lesnar Edge Sting Gary Hart Jon Pollock: Von Brauners Pepper Gomez CIMA Aguayo Jr. UGuerrero V3 Lesnar Edge Gary Hart Finkel Jerry Jarrett Alex Greenfield: Akiyama Big Daddy Mark Rocco Edge Gary Hart Bill Apter Greenfield's I found the most curious that Edge was the only modern one he found worthy and that he only used 4 picks. He did admit he's a first time voter who got his ballot as a reply to a year old email.

Glad to hear others appreciated Satoru Asako. Great show as always. I can't imagine how all the WCW backstage drama would have played out in the social media world.

Not a promo per se, but I saw a quote today that was totally lifted from wrestlers criticizing fans/critics. Someone in this Chase Utley controversy came out & said that unless you were/are a middle infielder you have no right to second guess or criticize what was done there. So yeah, not just you never stepped on a baseball field, but you had to have played middle infield to comment on this play.

From what I understand Pillman's death really had long lasting effects on his family. I was told by a wrestling journalist a few years ago that he was getting constant links sent to him about legal troubles Melanie & some of his children had in Cincinnati. He didn't feel it was right to report since the kids weren't in wrestling (and rightfully so). I think I remember one of his sons being rumored as getting into the business at one point but all this sidetracked that.

I like this concept in general. I always thought that was an untapped market of shoot interview producers was to get guys to show off memorabilia they own from their personal careers or travels. I'm sure there are tons of guys that were just in it for the money & didn't bother to collect anything but guys have to have at least a few items right? I never get tired of seeing Jim Cornette show off his collection of stuff, whether wrestling or not, I find it fascinating.

I think his HOF ballot has him in a pretty negative light around here at the moment.

I watched Breaking Kayfabe with Sabu/Terry Brunk. It was interesting & somewhat fascinating to see Sabu in this environment. I hadn't bothered to get any of the other shoots he'd done so a lot of the appeal to me here was just hearing him do an interview like this. Nothing earth shattering or anything so entirely skippable most likely but it held my interest & clocked in at like 78 minutes. It was a bit funny to see how the majority of questions were an attempt to get at what kind of a person the massively private Sheik was moreso than Sabu himself.

Yeah Magnum winning the title has been covered in many places. Having heard some of the recent interviews on the topic & fairly recently watching the TV from around when his career ended, it did appear he would be working Nikita at Starrcade. They were grooming him to win from Flair in early 87 it appears.

I thought the crowd looked great. The commentary was too low and the ring seemed especially loud. Some of the camera angles were off too since they aren't used to running ballparks. That said the primary reasons I figure they put this on TV was due to the large crowd & how awesome Okada/Strong was. Both were huge positives for the company despite the fact that the TV is so far outdated from modern day. I also enjoyed the aspect that this could be an unintentional troll of GFW who totally looked bush league in running minor league baseball stadiums.

I watched the trailer they put out & it's pretty impressive and I'm glad someone is trying something new. I just have to question 2 things: 1) Where are they getting the money for all this? And how quickly will it run out? Which ties into point 2... 2) Are there really enough fans that would invest their time in following something like this? To me (and admittedly I'm nowhere as far in the loop on current stuff as I used to be) it appears most fans nowadays either only follow the major groups or if they follow indies it's more from a workrate perspective. I'm not sure where Jarrett is sensing this huge market of fans that would be interested in a reality-based product that focuses on personality profiles of the wrestlers moreso that the in-ring. If the talent roster and matches themselves aren't enough to draw interest or curiosity I'd be surprised if many fans are going to invest the time to get plugged into the personality profile aspect enough to then care about the in ring. It just seems like a bit of a backward approach. Most fans are going to be interested in a list of talent or a list of matches that catch their eye moreso than taking the time to learn about a bunch of random wrestlers & then cultivate a level of interest in seeing them perform. But other than that I hope them success.

Typos do happen though. One year Meltzer inadvertently left off one of the Dr. Wagners, never acknowledged it, and just added him back on a year or 2 later.

I can see where he would be confused over the Andersons. While not listed on the ballot itself, they are listed under the section saying they would drop off the ballot if not getting 50%. Maybe that's left over from last year? It appears he also thinks that Ivan Koloff is historical. So it appears Madden didn't vote for any non-wrestlers. And by voting in the modern category he essentially voted No for all non-wrestlers other than the 2 historicals. I think that's why no consensus is reached on those candidates. I think people see them as a "throw on if you feel like it" category & don't realize they count as part of a region.

Re: someone only voting for Perro Jr. & Park in the lucha category, that tells me that it's a more modern fan. Someone that would have abstained had there been a Historical Mexico category with Lagarde, Ramirez, etc. in it. I think there should be more discussion around whether there should be a historical/modern breakdown per region or one historical category that spans all regions.

Do we know that these were Stern's personal picks? I know it was either last year or the year before he formulated his ballot based on listener input on his podcast. I think one year he put his final spot up for vote and then the following year he was doing his entire ballot as an exercise/group think bit on his podcast. At that point I thought Dave should chastise him for it since he wasn't using his own "expertise" and was going to seriously consider the opinions of people who regularly correspond with him over anything "objective". I echo all the sentiments above about how his picks are head scratching but I also found it kind of ironic that the guy that hosts the wrestling history podcast abstained from the historical category. At least he abstained from voting a non-Colon candidate in his region.

Loved this show. It really shows how pitiful it is that there isn't a PR region of the ballot with Hugo, Chicky, Gonzalez, etc. on it. I can completely understand that if Colon doesn't make it in then why bother putting others on the ballot. And also can see the idea that if you make a PR region you're essentially opening the way for Colon to go straight in. But not sure that Meltzer should be the one & only deciding those things. I've heard him say in the past that he won't put someone on the ballot if he feels they can never go in. To me those borderline people should be put on & let them drop off.

Just caught up on the thread. Re: Will's comment about the electorate and in particular people like Dean Rasmussen. Unless someone was actually in the wrestling business, I don't think Dave sends out ballot to non-subscribers. Dean has never been a subscriber, ever. This HOF is such an Observer-centric thing that I'm pretty sure even people like Mike Johnson don't get a ballot. Those sites operate in separate universes. We know Bruce Mitchell votes and possibly Wade Keller. But unless proven otherwise I'd be fairly certain that any reporters/historian/fan types that weren't already on Dave's radar when the HOF started and haven't directly attempted to engage in the WON universe since then, are still off his radar as far as getting ballots. Same thing where only current subscribers are supposed to vote for the year-end awards. Of course the loophole there is you could subscribe for a month just to vote.

Conrad has to be one of the ballsy-est interviewers out there. I like how he frames the questions like "the internet's version of this story is this..." or "the common rumors around this are..." rather than openly stating them as facts based on sheet reporting at the time. There's NO way he could get away with asking 90% of his questions if he was just like Meltzer or Alvarez but the fact that he's Flair's buddy that Flair lets host the show, he's able to dig much deeper with his questions with Flair as his back-up man. It's very intersesting to hear some of the guests fill in the blanks or attempt to refute the accepted version of history behind certain events. For example I don't think I'd heard the story before about how Flair basically got Bischoff his promotion to Sr. VP. Does anyone have any idea what the legit story behind Conrad is? Flair always kids him about being rich but I can never tell if it's completely false & the irony of it is what makes it funny between them or if it really is true and Flair either exaggerates it or Conrad is just too humble & uncomfortable to acknowledge whether it's true or not.

The only one on the current ballot that I can say certainly will go in is Danielson. I agree with Dylan on Okada, if he reaches age 35 and has gotten several more years as a top guy under his belt & the age limit is still 35, I would think he'd be the strongest candidate at that point. I could see Lesnar and AJ possibly in this category with a couple more years under their belts.

Is Rossy Ogawa still involved in Joshi? I know he was involved when Arsion became A-to-Z in 2004/5. I thought I heard that he's still involved with either Ito or GAMI's group?

According to prowrestlinghistory.com/smw, the DQ incident was 3/17/94 The Fanweek heel BBQ video and the Q&A are very good reference points to get Cornette's views at the time about the KC O'Connor car incident and his fresh issues with the Torch. The "race riot" thing with the Torch really started it. Then during Fanweek, there was something in the Torch reviewing Terry Gordy's performance at Night of Legends saying he was "in the Twilight Zone" or something which got Cornette hot. I know the rant on that in particular was at the BBQ. There was also a Mitchell column around that time which was total fantasy booking but he used Cornette's shoot girlfriend at the time "Big Red" as a character in the story & Cornette thought that was way over the line & prompted the phone calls. The heat continued even until the next year when Cornette tried to go into the stands to confront Mitchell at the May 1995 Charlotte show. Brian Hildebrand had to send Landel out of the locker room to intercept Cornette & lie to him saying "the guy we thought was him isn't him so don't go up there".

Danielson: absolutely should be in on first ballot Orton: I see him as a better candidate than Edge. Edge's candidacy always bugged me because he was out injured so much. The sum total of his active career makes him less impressive. He may have been seen as a top star for however many years but he was probably out injured 50% of that. To follow onto the talk above of representing all generations, to me Orton should go in at some point when you look at the fact that Cena & Jericho would be the only representatives of the WWE-only era. He's been "in the mix" of top guys for 10-11 years now with not many breaks. The constant turns haven't seem to dull his appeal as much as a guy like Luger. Nakamura: to me it's too early but he's in the discussion. Given the precedent set with Tanahashi it wouldn't shock me to see him go in. Styles: again I think it's a couple years too early and I see Orton as a better candidate. I'd like to hear some discussion comparing him to like Sting & Luger, guys who were the faces of a "#2" company who kind of had their careers stalled out by booking that you could arguably tie into why they weren't effective draws. CIMA: I realize in the internet age that the Observer attracts a lot more people who are influenced by so many other voices and are more widely "read" so to speak on wrestling around the world. But I almost wonder if Dave's lack of coverage of Dragon Gate over the years may harm CIMA's candidacy. I agree with all of the talk above about comparing him to Hamada and about how DG has been so consistent for so long. But it seems like they've been on the upper cusp of promotions that just misses the cut of what Dave feels is important enough to cover. And have literally been riding that cusp for their entire existence. So I think their success & consistency will be lost on enough of the voters to take him below 60% regardless of his qualifications. I think Lesnar & Punk may be the most interesting ones to track how they do. And Colon too as he continues to be a victim of the "region" he's in. The only way I've thought of to "fix" the voting would be to eliminate regions and have each & every candidate require a "yes/no/don't know enough" checkbox.

Gary Rich was most definitely not Butch Masters. He debuted in the VWA (EARLY VA independent group that ran from 1988-1992ish) as The Intimidator and was more of a bodyguard type. He was a legit like 7'0" and was a former UofR basketball player. He only started wrestling as Gary Masters here after his Dragon Master days. He also went to Japan for W*ING or some low level indy group as Dragon Master. He was NEVER any good but was given repeated chances or rumors of chances simply due to his height and was certainly on the radar of people at the time. I remember him being rumored for SMW & WWF for several years there in the early 90s.

Good show so far. I just popped in here to say I popped at the Ace/Motoko Baba stuff. That was one of the first "secrets" I was told when I started going to Japan in 2000.