WrestlingPower

I just find it ironic that Chikara is so anti-traditional wrestling tenets and wanting to abandon the way it "used to be done" but yet strictly maintain some forms of kayfabe. They seem to want to pick & choose which aspects of kayfabe/traditional wrestling protocol to keep. They want people to buy into time travel, wrestling in slow motion, etc. but yet it's sacrilege to even suggest guys are anything else outside of their world. No other form of entertainment attempts to hide people's identities/pasts/alter egos from the press but yet to their office it seems to be a major offense for anyone to disclose that some guys wrestle under a different name elsewhere or perform without a mask elsewhere. I wonder if they have a secret handshake or something instead of the carny handshake? I was thinking about the "death" angle last night and it probably is no different than the Undertaker stuff & when they tried to kill off Vince. But I still think there's a disconnect to present a family friendly/fun environment and then expect people to feign a somber moment or buy into a heavy angle as a "heavy angle" under the guise of buying into the universe.

I have been told that I don't "get it" since I'm not into comic books. Apparently in comic books, the faces get killed off on the regular to "get over" the latest heel & then are miraculously brought back after the big heel is vanquished. Who knew? But that doesn't really translate to me in pro wrestling. I fall more into the Cornette camp & I'm not sure how openly admitting it's fake & dropping all pretense of presenting it as a sport is supposed to ENHANCE continuity & logic. If people aren't invested in the characters and/or know they are playing a role then why would they pay to see issues settled? Just run a "Wrestling Is Fun" show with wacky gimmicks for the kiddies. Muddying the waters while trying to play to kids and then trying to act like a promotion or wrestlers are legit dead just seems screwed up to me. Why try to pretend to be serious at all? Not to mention creating a culture where their most ardent fans get legit offended if you try to get anyone to break the slightest bit of kayfabe within the niche/hardcore internet MB community.

What are people's thoughts on current Chikara? I have zero interest in following it and largely think it's utter BS from what I hear but I have to admit I'm intrigued at the level of kayfabe they are able to maintain in 2014. Maybe they draw nothing but comic book nerds now who like to immerse themselves in an "alternate universe" and completely suspend disbelief but sometimes I think they take things a bit too far. A friend of mine reffed on their show yesterday where they "killed off" the Archibald Peck character. Apparently they attempt to play these things up like the dude is really deceased. My friend was advised not to go out & mingle amongst the crowd and cancelled some post-show get togethers he had scheduled with other fans because they didn't want him "ruining the somber mood" of the death or whatever. Sounds way too wacky for me but it seems the thought is rather than have a character disappear never to be seen again they want to present a reason to kill off a character. But to think anyone is buying that someone legit died from a wrestling move in a family friendly environment seems a bit dark to me. And if they think people that attend are doing anything more than playing along I really have to question just who's kidding who here.

This week's show is the best in a while. Cornette shares some thoughts on Ox Baker & seems in a good mood. Then his co-author Mark James joins the show to discuss Memphis/Louisville wrestling history.

Another idea, I was wondering if there could be a pre-vote or some vetting of candidates before they appear on the ballot. Is it strictly Dave's call who goes on & who doesn't or a small subcommittee? For example how do Kojima & Tenzan go on without warning when arguably comparable US teams from the same era like Hardys or Dudleys never get on? Assuming the region idea stays, is Dave having discussions with anyone about deciding not to include Invader, Hugo, Chicky in creating a true Caribbean region for example? The theory behind treating PR as an insignificant region creates an unintended bias against that territory. Listening to the latest VOW podcast it got me thinking about how guys like Sasaki that never drew other than Japan get in because Japan is "important" but Colon can't get in despite drawing stadium houses in the "unimportant" PR, meanwhile people are trying to cobble together candidacies for guys like DeNucci in a long-dead Australia region while ignoring his lack of success in his home country. Lots of inconsistent criteria.

Was the 15-year rule ever completely ironed out? One thing I haven't seen discussed is if someone hits 15-years and gets 50% to stay on, then I assume every single year after that he has to maintain 50+%? What if someone is dropped after 15 years & then gets readded later? Do they have to maintain 50+% each year from then on? That could get tricky if someone hits 15 years before their career is even over. Eventually that would create 2 subcategories of guys each year, those that need 10+% and those needing 50+%. That could become a mess logistically. The only solution I can see would be eliminating regions and have every voter have to choose yes, no, or "I don't know enough" for each & every candidate. Something like that will eliminate the whole "I don't want to vote for Colon and essentially vote No on all the others in the region".

Re: that AWA pic, I think the guy in the hat is Otto Wanz maybe? Most assuredly not Wally Karbo. Re: the George Scott story, I'm thinking the failure to plug the Clash may have been 8 days before not the same weekend. That Clash would have been on a Sunday and I distinctly remember they had a special Friday night? show that had a debate or contract signing or something the weekend of to try to salvage things just before the show. I remember Harley Race & others were on the show giving predictions. The reason I remember this is I'm pretty sure the show was live which was a rarity in those days & wondering how much expense they were going to in order to get everyone from Atlanta to New Orleans in like 36 hours.

Jim has clearly run out of material/new ideas. Description for this week's show says it's a return of Kenny Bolin and the resurrection of a fabricated "bit" they did on the show a month or 2 ago. It was comical then, but come on, as many other podcasts are out there to listen to...

Way behind on reading this thread so sorry if this has been covered. I was reading up to the stuff about Matysik and thought of Kevin Dunn. He's not involved with the booking per se but as far as his influence on Vince McMahon & the way WWE product is presented, it seems like he's at the very least worthy of being on the ballot.

Listening now & had a question that wasn't addressed either here or on Bix's appearance on VOW. Is Cien Caras a stronger candidate as himself than in the Dinamitas? Or even if so, are the Dinamitas worth considering as a trio, given that if Caras goes in on his own the trio can't go in.

I agree and I think that's what brought up the point about Meltzer using hyperbole & giving immediate reactions comparing modern stuff to "greatest of all time". Fans born in the 90s that may not have the context of living thru some stuff giving reactions like that is understandable. But Meltzer was plugged in since the early 80s on watching a wide breadth of stuff. Yes, accessibility now is such that he can see lots more whole shows & very quickly but to proclaim like 3 shows in the last 18 months as top 5 of all time kind of screams a lack of historical context & time-consuming comparisons even if people may agree with it. I really enjoyed the early 90s AJ vs. current NJ talk & that could be a whole show on its own. I heard from lots of people in the 90s era that kind of got lost in trying to follow the AJ stuff saying how the Observer would proclaim something as 5*, must see, and then 2 months later there would be another one "that's even better". As hard and expensive as tapes were to come by then, people got lost in the hyperbole when trying to keep up. Lucily those performances have stood the test of time. I'm worried that even if individual matches from this era stand up over time, the hype that led to HOF inductions & claims of how hot business was without the #s to back it up, that historical context gets muddied, as Dylan alluded to.

Great show & an endless topic really. The whole idea of various sites/boards having "contrarian" opinions sprung out of the hardcore tape trading/sheet reading community. I think in the 90s it was fairly uniform the type of wrestlers the hardcores liked. I think as each generation of fan got removed from direct influences of the "taste testers" as you called them, more diversity of opinion formed. Even the taste testers evolved and were criticised. How many times have we heard complaints of the Meltzers, Scherers, whoever else moving toward only covering the most mainstream stuff and everything else got marginalized? Even as early as the late 90s you had to pretty much go to the internet to see coverage of Gaea, WAR, etc. on DVDVR because that stuff just didn't get ink in the Observer. The whole model that "dirt sheets" used to set up correspondents and make people part of their network of contacts was totally tapped into by the advent of the internet and the idea of community. People started watching stuff thinking their opinion mattered (or was fun to share anyway) to where everyone started thinking they were doing some civic duty watching everything so they could share their thoughts on it. All that landed us to where we are today.

Really enjoyed the show and this type of discussion. I agree that Andy didn't really bring forward many points to change people's minds but it was interesting to explore points that are oversold or undersold. I would have liked to hear more on TNA also. Maybe his TNA run only served to keep Sting more relevant in people's minds than Luger. I agree with Dylan that I very much see Luger & Sting as equals as far as candidates go & Luger isn't even on the ballot. Sting's "fame" and perception is what caused TNA to sign him year after year and in some ways Sting's run there made him a more complete performer as he brought in more elements (like promos) that were a criticism of him over the years. Maybe TNA's reputation and booking have clouded views on Sting like early 90s WCW did? I feel that the TNA run might be the difference in Sting over Luger, since he did help them in various ways, and it's just a matter still of do those factors carry him across the line? They certainly brought him longevity that he wouldn't have had otherwise. Maybe the question should have been raised, if Sting's career was over in 2001, how does he look as a candidate? If you're going to focus on early 90s and 97-98 as his peak periods, then theoretically his career ending in 2001 should make no difference.

Yeah Stewart started in Central States I think. I'd be curious to know more about him too.

I had heard as well that Tony had distanced himself from wrestling to the point of refusing to talk with fans about it. Glad that seems to not be the case any longer.

Didn't Stewart die of AIDS, not cancer?

Listen to the show. He was very detailed about Horner, from before SMW even started, where he brought Horner into the business so as not to have Horner running random on-off shows in an area he was trying to open up. This whole part of the story I hadn't heard before. The entire rest of the story about Horner running merch, the ring truck deal, etc. was very much in line to how Jim explained it during the 1995 Fanweek Q&A. Amazing this man's memory for details 20 years later.

If you want to hear a detailed discussion on the early days of SMW's business that doubles as a rant on Tim Horner, this week's show is for you. That discussion alone is like 10+ minutes.