Death From Above

WCW trying to be edgy (talking pre-Russo) I don't think ever really played to their strengths. My impression as a viewer at the time was that their network was a lot less willing to allow "controversial" stuff (in the eyes of censors) than WWF at the time. After Russo came in it got so weird and its been so long since I've seen most of it that it's not clear to me on if that remained true. I mean during the foul language brigade of the WWF Attitude period, WCW was still making guys say "kick your butt" instead of "kick your ass". Nobody has ever sounded tough saying "kick your butt", and frankly I doubt anyone seriously wanting to fight has said it since the days of John Wayne, because Dirty Harry killed that shit dead in the 1970's. It's kind of hard to be edgy that way. WCW trying to compete in that category constantly resulted in them looking second string because they were handcuffed before they began. Their hardcore matches felt second tier as well, when they finally got onto that bandwagon. Like, they felt as if they sent Bigelow and Raven out there and there was a meeting somewhere that went something like "hit each other with weapons but look polite about it and for fuck's sake don't bleed". In fact speaking of unworkable language restrictions in WCW, they couldn't even say "blood" apparently at one point, I remember that being a running gag of some kind going into a Flair/Hogan first blood match where they kept saying on TV they had a special stipulation that they couldn't say. Maybe it was just an angle but if it was then it was badly executed and didn't make any sense. But at least their hardcore matches resulted in a couple of totally bizarre/awesome Terry Funk moments. One, his PPV match with Norman Smiley that involved among other things throwing cardboard boxes at each other and Ralphus doing the Big Wiggle causing Tony Shiovone to nearly die on air, and two the time Funk and Candito had a match on Thunder that involved Funk being kicked in the head by a horse and still finishing the match. I guess being a rancher, being kicked by a horse is old hat to Terry or something. I guess that long ramble is just a wrestlecrap point about WCW trying to compete in areas they were never going to be able to compete in. Trying to go head to head on edginess when the other team's censors are letting them do more is just not going to end well.

Other random thoughts. The Warrior thing also contained something I didn't comment on above, when they ran a War Games PPV but instead of the usual team vs. team format they ran a 9 man every man for themselves thing (well actually it was sort of 3 3-man teams but it was more or less everyone on their own). With Hogan, Warrior, Nash, Luger, DDP, Sting, Piper, and Hart... Stevie Ray was in it because he was the only guy willing to do a job, pretty much. That was probably the worst war games match you could even conceive of if you drew one out on paper. That was also the night Davey Boy Smith had his back seriously fucked up by the trapdoor in the ring for Warrior's stupid ass nerve-gas smoke entrance thing, and Saturn was hurt on it too though less seriously. That would probably make it for me because it has three good factors (1) it sucked and blew at the same time, (2) it killed business off, and (3) it involved a setup so bad it managed to injure two guys not even in the match. Nice trifecta that hits some good key points for WCW. :-) The one angle that comes to mind that I think is worse than some of that stuff would be that whole weird WCW cruiserweight title thing involving Madusa and Oklahoma feuding over the belt. That was so bad I could see why you'd block it from memory. Oaklahoma would probably also make my list of worst gimmicks, because insider jokes = instant fail, and that wasn't even a good one. I didn't think Undertaker vs. Undertaker was *that* bad, all things considered. Come to think of Undertaker-involved angles, I remember seeing the PPV where Paul Bearer was "killed", and that entire Dudleys vs. Undertaker/Paul Bearer is encased in oatmeal (I mean cement) segment may have been one of the biggest abortions of a wrestling segment I have ever seen on a PPV. The match was unbelievably shit, and the whole death absolutely did not get over at all. The crowd was even more dead than Paul for the whole thing. ;-) Vince McMahon winning the Royal Rumble was pretty seriously masturbatory. It's hard to knock it for business because it was during the big run of Austin vs. McMahon mania so I'm assuming numbers-wise it did fine, but honestly that would probably make my own list. There was a WWF angle during the Russoriffic period about Terry Runnels having a miscarriage that really put me off entirely for a while. It just seemed... out of place, for wrestling. And it went nowhere, didn't get over, blah blah blah. Typical Russo shock TV that was dropped as soon as he got bored and/or saw it was bombing horribly. Fingerpoke of Doom itself was stupid but I still kind of like the angle in a perverse "I can't believe they actually did that" way. I just can't hate it as much as some. Nash taking the belt off Goldberg for no reason to begin with annoyed me a lot more. Nobody watching WCW wanted the belt off Goldberg at that time. And if Fingerpoke of Doom had actually led to Hogan getting crushed by Goldberg on a PPV, it would have been a non-fatal wound. I mean how bad do you have to book wrestling to not have the good guys win in the end someday, it's not exactly rocket science.

I would agree with this to a point. Nobody was going to make a program with Mabel mean shit, that's probably the big example. Putting him in there against Nash was always going to suck and none of the fans bought him as a title threat, but at least Nash pulled a plancha out of nowhere in an effort to make something people would remember (which is literally all I remember about that one so it must have worked). The Davey Boy thing was never going to draw either Nash or otherwise across from him. I mean the consensus on him is he was a good worker, people liked him, just not as a top guy. I guess you could kind of compare him to Ron Garvin's role in the late 80's where people liked him as a wrestler and as a short term opponent but people weren't going to buy him holding the big belt. Hey I defended Nash. Quite a day, this.

I swear if I ever meet Terry Taylor I'm going to try and strike up a conversation, then randomly start doing that horrible imitation pecking thing he had to do when he was in the Red Rooster gimmick, just to see what he does. That old classic thread from ages gone by containing quotes by Meltzer on WCW had a ton of great moments (in the wrestlecrap sense of course) around that whole time. http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/index.php?showtopic=294 Anyone that hasn't been through it simply must do it once. Warrior-specific highlights. Ah, memories: "Warrior got lost in mid thought and walked around silently for nearly one minute of dead time, and then said something about patience being a virtue" - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: August 31, 1998 "This is not meant to be funny, because it really isn't, but next time you see Warrior, look close at his face, particularly the mouth area. I don't know what he's taken in his life but whatever it is, it has caused his facial structure to change to where his face resembles a baboon" - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: August 31, 1998 "A bunch of steam came out so Warrior was supposed to come out, but the steam got out too fast. The NWO guys came out, and right before we were going to see the Hogan vs. Hart showdown, more steam came. When it cleared, Hart had disappeared" - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: September 07, 1998 "They found Ed Leslie in the locker room hung upside down from the ceiling and asleep" - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: September 14, 1998(Pretty sure this was related to it, I seem to remember something about Warrior trying to steal Disciple from Hogan or something.) "The cage lowered. The steam came flying and when it cleared, Giant was asleep, Warrior was sitting in a chair in the ring and Hogan ran away, although not before Warrior hit Hogan with a chair shot that looked right out of a bad first day of wrestling school" - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: September 14, 1998 "After the main event, the live crowd was pissed about the match, the Warrior gimmick which is dying in every city, and the night in general, booing heavily and throwing things at the announcers. This was one for the record books. -****" - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: September 21, 1998 "Warrior took disciple under the ring. After hearing about Curt Hennig two weeks ago (went to the bathroom under the ring which was so gross it made two of the wrestlers hiding under the ring with him throw up) I don't even want to think about what Hellwig and Ed Leslie were doing down there. Probably they brought their portable VCR so they could study the latest Japanese moves to incorporate into their future matches" - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: September 21, 1998 "When the show ended, the crowd was furious and chanting 'refund'." - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: September 21, 1998 "Nitro opened with Hall showing up acting like he was loaded and Doug Dillinger trying to sober him up. They went to the ring. It filled with steam. Disciple was there when the ring cleared asleep on the mat. Hogan and the NWO B&W showed up trying to recapture the prisoner but the dreaded, and I do mean dreaded, steam came. It must not have been the crippling variety of the nerve gas since nobody else fell asleep this time. The Disciple was gone when the smoke cleared. Warrior was then in the rafters with this blow-up doll dressed up like the Disciple. This was lame. We were supposed to think, since they didn't do close ups, that this doll was the same Disciple that was just in the ring...Actually I think at this point Bischoff was using the show as a model for his new book 'How to Kill the most rabid live crowd" - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: September 28, 1998 "Hogan went to his dressing room. Warrior had it spray painted and there were small fires everywhere. Disciple was passed out in the bathroom. At this point, Bischoff was retitling his book 'How to Kill the Biggest Wrestling Company in the World" - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: September 28, 1998 "Warrior came out with Disciple,who at this time was awake and wearing an OWN insignia on his jacket. After the show went off the air, they finished with Disciple hitting the ring and beating up Hogan while the crowd booed both guys and chanted 'Nitro sucks'." - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: September 28, 1998 "Warrior showed up without the steam, as I hope they've learned that nerve gas kills ratings. Unfortunately, as this reaction showed, it wasn't the nerve gas, it's Warrior himself. He immediately was being booed out of the place with loud "Warrior Sucks" chants. A fan hit the ring in the middle of his interview and again he forgot what he was supposed to say" - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: October 05, 1998 "Hogan and Hart laughed together. Luger & Konnan came out for the save but it just got weird and fell apart at this point. The lights went out. Warrior was supposed to do a run-in. They never got him in the ring to begin with due to massive miscommunication. The show just went off the air three minutes early" - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: October 05, 1998 "They taped a Warrior interview. Warrior was there, but after the previous week they didn't dare put him before a live crowd so everyone could see him get booed out of the place. Even taped and pre-produced, his interview still sucked" - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: October 12, 1998 "Hogan ran around backstage looking for his estranged Disciple. He wound up in his dressing room and saw Warrior in the mirror. Hogan started talking to him. Now we all saw Warrior in the mirror as well, even though it was supposed to be Hogan's dream. Bischoff couldn't see him and thought Hogan was going nuts. Warrior disappeared, but Hogan still saw him" - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: October 12, 1998 "Warrior came out, and was booed out of the place, and asked Sting to let him be his partner in a tag team match. Sting never even accepted before the segment ended, but they just pretended that he did" - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: October 19, 1998 "Warrior nerve gassed all of them. For whatever reason, they didn't sell the nerve gas. So Sting came out with two baseball bats to clean house while Warrior was laying on the floor trying to catch his breath after all that exertion" - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: October 19, 1998 "Both Hogan and Warrior merchandise can't even be given away" - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: October 26, 1998 "Hogan pinned Warrior. Warrior came out to 'Warrior Sucks' chants. He was acting like they were cheering him...Warrior came back with a series of mistimed punches. After more messed up looking spots, Hogan pulled this bag out of his trunks. It looked like drug paraphernalia but it was flash paper. Hogan was supposed to throw a fireball at Warrior, but after attempting to light the paper in slow-motion, he threw the fireball and nothing happened. The whole place groaned. Poor Warrior, who didn't have a clue to begin with, really didn't know what to do. Somehow the paper then ignited, nearly setting Hogan's hand on fire. He was supposed to throw a fireball and somehow Dave Penzer was supposed to put his jacket on Warrior, and somehow Warrior was supposed to make a comeback. Warrior improvised. Hogan sliced his forehead open and threw a messed up clothesline. Warrior came back with three mistimed clotheslines. Horace hit Warrior with a chair and Hogan got the pin. Horace poured lighter fluid on Warrior and they teased they were going to set him on fire. Hogan told Horace he'd passed the NWO initiation. -***** " - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: November 11, 1998

Oh all right, I'll start right at the top. David Arquette is forever etched in my mind. Wrestling legend. Maybe TNA should bring in Patricia and let her win the Knockouts title, they've done everything else to recapture the old days. Hell, Patricia would probably pop the ratings more than David. It wouldn't be near the craziest thing TNA has tried. The funny thing is I remember actually liking that ridiculous 3-tier cage match with Jarrett, DDP and David that resulted of all of that, especially with the ultimate Russo-riffic ARQUETTE HEEL TURN at the end being just so ridiculous it wasn't even worth hating on. That had to be the head-exploding angle of them all for me.

I wasn't a huge fan or anything, but I did think he always seemed like a guy that managed to do a lot with some pretty limiting gimmicks on paper. "Some guy ripping off Mortal Kombat" and "Guy imitating DDP" were not the kind of things that had success written all over them but he managed to make it work well enough back at the time. Sad that he did himself in. People that haven't dealt with it can't get their head around what a complete monster chronic depression can really be, and I'm sorry to hear he felt this was his only way out.

Hell I've more or less quit on wrestling (still haven't watched a minute of it since Misawa died though I've been thinking of giving some of the Mid South set another spin around because it did embody so many of the qualities about wrestling I like), but even I think the OMGWrestlingFanLOL card is about the lamest shit ever. I think a lot of it is from fans/ex-fans in my age bracket who were in high school when wrestling actually got cool for a while during the Attitude/nWo spike (which also sycnehd up with the boom of the internet into the mainstream) that wrestling isn't going to duplicate again anytime soon, and frankly a lot of them were just bandwagon jumpers of a kind that were only really willing to be fans when it was "okay" to be one. Now it's gone back to it's usual "people are aware of it but it's not anything to be proud of" status, and I think that has more to do with it than the state of the product or anything. Same people hanging around out of habit or nostalgia or whatever you want to call it. I mean hell, the peak of the "cool" period produced some of the most God-awful rubbish Crash TV in wrestling history. It can't even be spun as an issue of work quality if you stop to think about it. Not even watching their current product I'm willing to bank on current WWE tv kicking a lot of the Monday Night Wars period square in the teeth if you actually want to see a decent match. Some of that "Nitro 3-hour nWo promo vs. DX saying Suck It 75 times a show" stuff was insufferably afwul in retrospect, even if it was a ratings bonanza.

Like Sid wasn't scary enough when he's in character.

Who: No one in particular in my personal life. I was an only child raised by a single mom, so I sort of just came across it on my own on TV one day. It wasn't something others introduced me into. What: In my own mind, my first ever memory of wrestling was once flipping through the stations (which was like, 4 of them I think) one Saturday morning and stumbling across something I didn't recognize. There was this bizarre looking guy, wearing purple cowboy boots, some werd purple outfit with a bunch of tassles, a sparkly purple cowboy hat, and the weirdest sunglasses I'd ever seen. That was, of course, Macho Man Randy Savage. So I wanted to see what this shit was about, and by the time he dropped that top rope elbow, I wanted more. I'd never seen anything like it. It's possible I'd seen wrestling before that, but that's the first concrete memory I have of wrestling. When: I think probably just before I started school, or just a bit after. Somewhere in that range. Pretty young. Where: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I remember getting WWF Superstars and Stampede Wrestling's program until they went off the air in either 1988 or 89. I don't remember seeing other wrestling until the monday night wars. And in those last periods of the pre-internet days (well internet was around but it wasn't absolutely everywhere then like now), finding out there was "another company" where "Hogan, Deisel, Razor Ramon, the Steiners, and those other guys" went actually seemed interesting. Why: I never really watched that many cartoons, except for a couple. I mean I watched Spider Man but looking back the only thing that made any real impression was that awesome theme song. I never really read comic books either. Wrestling and reruns of Star Trek were like the only two things on TV that really interested me when I was a kid. Plus I had about a billion Masters of the Universe action figures, which led to what would be called a fantasy wrestling federation today. Skeletor's Army = the real nWo, damnit. I just thought wrestling was really exciting like nothing else at the time. Of course other kids at school liked wrestling too. There's all the usual stuff you'd hear from kids in that era: the Royal Rumbles at recess (I always wanted to be the Million Dollar Man for some reason... I just always had a thing for heels), the ridiculous theories about how many Ultimate Warriors there were, the excitement around all the PPV's which I actually couldn't see back then which only made them more mysterious. Once I got a bit older and realized it had to be a work, it didn't change that I thought it was incredible entertainment. This is around the Bret Hart on top in WWF period which was obviously huge in these parts, and I guess around then was when WCW started to matter in an international way too. When I went to high school was around the nWo period, the monday night wars, and the explosion of a new thing called "the internet" and lo, for a time being a wrestling fan actually became cool. Me and a buddy got huge into tape trading, discovered ECW and then Japan, and became the two most annoying puro nerds in history. Good fucking times, those were. Ect.: My interest in wrestling started to fade over time once I moved out of Edmonton, because I didn't have a circle of friends that were really into it anymore. And I wasn't interested in the shit WWE was selling, and at the time money was tight enough that it cut into my Japan budget (before high speed internet was cheap and downloading it was so easy). It was a lot of factors. I still watched Japanese stuff for a long time but haven't really watched WWE TV since the Monday Night Wars died. I watched a few of their PPVs for a while but haven't seen one of those either since before Austin retired, so I guess that's like 1000 years in wrestling time. Over time my interest in wrestling has switched pretty much to all the carny bullshit and backstage politics and all the weird shit that makes wrestling tick, more so than the product. Plus a couple of the message boards are pretty interesting collections of people, so I still hang around those. But I haven't watched wrestling regularly since probably 2004 or 2005. And I literally haven't watched one minute of it since Misawa died. That was sort of the last straw in a line of dead/fucked up people that have ruined my ability to get that much out of it entertainment-wise. I can't watch any of the wrestling I like without having it in the back of my head "yeah, that guys's dead. Shit, that guy is dead too. That one has had 11 knee surguries and is a painkiller addict, hey there's one that's actually still alive, go Stan Hansen", I mean that's not healthy and it just wasn't fun anymore. For now the last serious watching I did was the DVDVR '80's Mid South project, which I had a lot of fun with and was very well put together. I still have a bunch of (probably degrading) tapes and DVDs, but they are just taking up space these days. Me and wrestling are basically divorced right now, aside from a couple message boards which I hang around because I for the most part like the people there.

Honeslty I tried skimming over that 37 page monster thread that tonight spawned on DVDVR, and the only thing that stuck in my mind was the mention that TNA has a PPV in 2 weeks with no announced card whatsoever, and only one more week of TV to build. It's the death throes of WCW brought back to life. Which is hilarious for about 25 seconds but isn't really encouraging. And really the fact that it's now 2010 and we have Bret Hart/Michaels/Vince on one show and nWo Reuinion/Nasty Boys/Mick Foley is old on the other, it's just fucking amazing. It's like watching wrestling cannibalize itself until it dies.

I've watched a relative suffer through the progress of cancer, including it getting into the brain. I don't think it's sappy at all to be honest, nor do I think most who've seen anything similar. A sad point to end what's been a very downer year for me as a sort of ex-wrestling fan. Sadly I'm running out of old heroes to even say this about. Enjoyed his work a lot, so thanks for the memories Doc. RIP.

That's true of every big althetics/entertainment business though. Michael Vick probably thinks we're all jealous of him too.

I don't know exactly what Onita and FMW payed Terry Funk to come do a clean job to Onita, but I'm pretty sure it was a large amount of money. I'm not sure there's any reason to think that, given the right price, Brody wouldn't have considered doing the same. For the right price, it was probably the most high profile match in the world he could realistically be in at that point, and as you point out he wasn't a young man. It wasn't like there was likely to be a ton of other decent, very high paying options. Brody would have had to have been aware, had he been alive, that by that stage of his career the number of bridges he had left was fading. It's not like in 1994 (or so) there were still all these independants he could go around to, hodling up for short term money, then taking off when he decided to. Vince had already killed that dead. I don't think Brody had a ton of friends left in either New or All Japan either, although I'm not really sure what terms he was on with Inoki and they had feuded in-ring in the past. Maybe it's possible that *if* Brody had gone with SWS/WAR (assuming he's on good terms with Tenryu) and *if* he didn't fuck that up, that *maybe* New Japan uses him during that cross-promotion run they did that featured Inoki/Tenryu at one point. But I kind of find the "Onita pays Brody all the tea in China" more likely, because Onita was a guy desperate to build a legacy while he had time. New Japan had less to gain bringing him in again. I could see Onita backing up a dump truck of money to Brody and him taking it, especially if it was in the wake of the Onita/Funk match and seeing how it really put Terry back into the spotlight at least for a while. If Brody's goal was to keep himself close to the top, and in the spotlight, it might have been his last good option. From there, I'm really not sure where he fits in the wrestling business with all the changes. I wouldn't have been surprised if him and Abby ended up stabbing the shit out of each other in Big Japan, or something, given enough time. There's always the possibility of course, that Brody would take the Onita money, get in the ring, and just refuse to cooperate. Frankly that could have been fun, Onita and a shooting Brody in one of those special effects exploding ring extravaganzas. My sense of humor is warped enough that the idea of even that seems interesting in it's own way. I'm not sure why everyone thinks Brody and Heyman would have worked together so well. Brody's whole thing was getting his money, and fucking promoters. Heyman's whole thing was running up $50 000 on his worker's credit cards, running a PPV that people bought at $30 a pop, and then not paying any of his boys because he had "no money". Maybe as a one off shot a la Raven vs. Gordy, but I can't see an actual run there.

Bret may have forgiven Montreal, but was that really more bitter than the circumstances around Owen's death? I don't give a shit what the legal conclusion of that was, for me I find him getting past that a lot more remarkable. It's possible I've forgotten a lot of the details of how that all played out because it's been years since I've visited any of it, but I find Bret going back to work for Vince after that a lot more shocking than the Montreal issue, personally.

This thread now officially covers the spectrum of every reason I gave up watching wrestling. Well done.

An article comparing the smart marks booing Favre but all the casuals still cheering and buying all that merch as a comparison to the career arc of John Cena does seem overdue.

I would agree with that, pretty much. I think everyone more or less agrees there are times where ideas the WWE runs with are because "Vince thought it was funny" or whatever, and then you have to hope enough of those stick to the wall that it works. But if "Vince thought it was funny" you pretty much have to at least give it a go. I'd also agree that there are times when the sheet writers seem to really lose sight of what the casual audience wants to see, which is really where all the cash is at the end of the day. But they also don't write for the casual audience, so I find it somewhat excuseable, though I don't disagree with what you're saying.

I'm not sure I buy the idea that "just because you couldn't do it means your critique doesn't have value" as a generalization. In the world of pro sports, the vast majority of successful coaches sucked as players. That doesn't mean they aren't qualified for the role of coach. In fact it's somewhat rare that top athletes become highly effective as coaches. I don't think being a critic of (insert chosen entertainment genre here) is a wildly different train of thought from that. Not saying that to defend any one specific statement or anything, and not saying I always agree with stuff I see Dave or whoever say. I just don't particularly follow the train of thought that says "you can't do it yourself so keep your mouth shut".

In the comparison of "guys that are somewhat famous and have become parodies of themselves as they age", Ric Flair looks like he has a hell of a lot less time left on this planet than Don Cherry, and Cherry is 75.

I'm not entirely convinced the car flipping story is bullshit, or at least not total bullshit in terms of being impossible. Not that he could pick it up and just flip it like he was Godzilla, but I think it might still be possible. I only say that because with my local CFL team this year, they did this little comedy video with one of our offensive linemen that they run before every game as part of the pregame nonsense, and the guy is something like 6'7", 340 (or so... it's a lot) pounds. "Patrick Kabongo, Community Lineman", and he runs around doing sort of a "friendly Bob Sapp is getting ripped off but no one here will know it" bit with this local commedian where he runs around pretending to beat up the comedian as a guy that behaves as "that annoying fan" in the area around the stadium etc, and one of his things is shaking the hell out of this car with the guy inside, and I get the impression that if he really, really wanted to, he could probably flip the car if he rocked it enough, and if you bet him enough money (or a steak dinner). So I think it's theoretically possible to do, though whether Andre did it or not... well, who cares, it makes a cool story either way. But I don't think the story of Andre possibly flipping over a car would crack my personal top 100 of "least believable things wrestlers say happened".

I'd be careful if I was Sid. All those extra points of impact in a six sided ring could really be bad for a guy's legs.

Does this entire thing blow a hole in the theory that Linda is the sane one in the family? Because I really can't imagine a scenario in which a McMahon of this generation makes it into the senate, regardless of being qualified or not. Maybe it's just me but this whole thing seems no less nutty than the XFL, though at least it's probably less costly.

The Gracies have always been good carnies. "400-0. That's a nice round number." - Bas Rutten

In fairness, there is a good chance that Ric is loaded as we speak, just not in the sense Dave meant. This whole thing reminds me of the scene in Raging Bull where LaMotta takes a hammer to his championship belt so he can pawn the stones.

To be honest, I don't even care one way or the other if Big Daddy is in the hall (and I don't really care about the hall in general). I don't know much of anything concrete about the UK wrestling scene that is relevant to a hall of fame discussion, beyond "for whatever the reasons, Big Daddy, who sucked as a worker, was the biggest star in his territory for a billion years". I just find his situation an interesting case study, basically. There are guys in the hall that drew money, and could have "great matches" according to the standard the people voting hold. Everyone pretty much agrees those guys should be in. (The subjectivity of what is "great wrestling" is an entire other discussion I suppose. I think it's probably the second-most subjective "I enjoyed that" subject I can think of besides music. And I refuse to even have a serious "what is good and what sucks" discussion about music because it's utterly pointless and is based almost entirely upon your own history and points of reference.) There are guys in the hall that drew money, who were "average" to "somewhat poor" wrestlers, depending on who you ask. Most still seem to agree they should be in. Daddy is a horrible wrestler by almost unanimous consensus, who clearly drew some amount of money (I couldn't talk specifics personally) and was a top star in a territory. I guess the crux for me is there seems to be a tipping point where being "blah" as a worker but making money is fine, but being really bad as a worker and making money isn't. It's like the opposite of the big discussion in Pulp Fiction about if a pig has a charming enough personality does he cease to be a filthy animal. The entire discussion is moot of course if there wasn't any real money in the UK scene, and I honestly have no idea if there was or not. And I guess there's another subpoint there about "if you draw 10 000 at $5 a ticket, have you really got more drawing power than the guy who drew 2500 at $30 a ticket". Obviously if you can't work or draw money, you're a clear "no" vote. But, I'm approaching this whole thing assuming that this end of the equation comes up trumps. If not, the whole thing is ridiculous.