WON 2010

[tomk]

But I think the discussion of dog shows and horse races is worht thinking about in the context of wrestling HOF. I see it as a horse race, it's not clear to me if that's the way it's currently understood.

How so? I think I agree with you, but there are a few different ways that could be read.

 

 

I think of a HOF as having the best/most important figures.

 

There is no need for someone who is representative of 90s WCW, 2000's New Japan, or 2000s AAA, or 2000's WWE.

I get the sense that there is an argument being made that you need someone to rep a period/promotion even if that person wasn't significant (interchangeable).

[tomk]

Does someone have the 80s year books.

 

In looking at the best of the decade, we went back through the Observer awards in several categories with the basic ten points for first down to one point for tenth place in several major categories from 2000 to 2009 to come up with the bests in each category. This system isn’t meant to say that the person who finishes No. 6 is better than the person who finishes No. 8, or even that No. 1 is No. 1 necessarily because this system is like the ten-point must system of judging. It’s a process that most often yields the right answers, but at times yields the wrong answers. But it does offer up a lot of evidence regarding consistency at the top, whether it be top performances or top drawing.

If you look at the same period in the 1990s and 1980s, every wrestler in both decades who would have been top 15 overall for Wrestler of the Year when it comes to points is in the Hall of Fame. The top 15 of the decade in the 90s for Wrestler of the Year were Mitsuharu Misawa, Kobashi, Flair, Kawada, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Steve Austin, Jushin Liger, Muto, Manami Toyota, Jumbo Tsuruta, Vader, Mick Foley, Rock and Shinya Hashimoto. Every one of them is in. With hindsight, I don’t know anyone would even argue the candidacy of most on that list, perhaps all. In the 80s, while we don’t have a list, I’d expect the top 15 would most all be in.

I'm not sure why he can't do this for the 80s, but hoping someone else would. Kind of curious who that top 15 would be.

[Sean Liska]

He's been a semi-consistent main event figure in a close to rock bottom period for PPV business. He's not a big house show or merchandise draw like Cena or Rey either. The feud with HBK is certainly a feather in his cap, but his main event PPV programs with Batista and Cena did pretty poor business, which led to him being shuffled back into a supporting upper mid card level role. Being in the fourth biggest match at Mania and playing second wheel to John Cena in a fourteen man tag aren't really achievements that dwarf what he did before he left in 05 either.

The Cena PPV match did all right. Before 05, he didn't have as much time on top as you would figure. He had the Cena match at SummerSlam in 05, but that was below Hogan-HBK. There was the 01-02 title run that didn't work. I'm blanking on any others.

[jdw]

I'm not sure why he can't do this for the 80s, but hoping someone else would. Kind of curious who that top 15 would be.

Some of the early year might not go 10 deep. But I can take a look if I remember tonight. There's no real results for 1980 and 1981, so they should be left off. He does actually have a vote in 1982 on.

 

My guess is that all of the Top 10 would be HOFers, and probably most of the Top 15.

 

John

[S.L.L.]

But I think the discussion of dog shows and horse races is worht thinking about in the context of wrestling HOF. I see it as a horse race, it's not clear to me if that's the way it's currently understood.

How so? I think I agree with you, but there are a few different ways that could be read.

 

 

I think of a HOF as having the best/most important figures.

 

There is no need for someone who is representative of 90s WCW, 2000's New Japan, or 2000s AAA, or 2000's WWE.

I get the sense that there is an argument being made that you need someone to rep a period/promotion even if that person wasn't significant (interchangeable).

 

OK, I agree with that. It's certainly what's in the back of my head when Dave talks about the top 15 of the 90's and 80's being HOFers, with the seeming implication that the same should be true of the top 15 for this past decade. But this was kind of a shitty decade for wrestling across the board, so I'm not sure how much that really means.

 

Wrestler of the Decade:

01/ Kurt Angle

02/ Kenta Kobashi

03= Keiji Muto

03= Chris Jericho

05= Samoa Joe

05= John Cena

07= Mistico

07= Shawn Michaels

09= Yuji Nagata

09= Bryan Danielson

11/ Edge

12/ Chris Benoit

13= Hiroshi Tanahashi

13= Eddie Guerrero

13= The Rock

Scratching out the guys who - deservedly or otherwise - are already in the Hall, who from this list has a good case? Cena should be a lock. Danielson maybe could get in on work alone, but I wouldn't be in any big rush to induct him. If Joe ever managed to turn it around and have another decent-lengthed run as a superworker, I might be able to see past his lean years, but who knows if that will ever happen? Mistico belongs in the discussion, but I don't know if he gets much more than that. Edge has a better candidacy than Jericho, but neither have particularly strong candidacies. Nagata or Tanahashi going into the Hall seems laughable unless the puro landscape changes drastically. And, of course, HOF inductee Angle is #1. That alone should tell you all you need to know about this past decade.

[kjh]

The fact that Rey Mysterio doesn't crack the top 15 says a lot too.

[tomk]

He's been a semi-consistent main event figure in a close to rock bottom period for PPV business. He's not a big house show or merchandise draw like Cena or Rey either. The feud with HBK is certainly a feather in his cap, but his main event PPV programs with Batista and Cena did pretty poor business, which led to him being shuffled back into a supporting upper mid card level role. Being in the fourth biggest match at Mania and playing second wheel to John Cena in a fourteen man tag aren't really achievements that dwarf what he did before he left in 05 either.

The Cena PPV match did all right. Before 05, he didn't have as much time on top as you would figure. He had the Cena match at SummerSlam in 05, but that was below Hogan-HBK. There was the 01-02 title run that didn't work. I'm blanking on any others.

 

 

That Summerslam 05 match doesn't mean much. Two matches were given time and those were the only two that mattered: Eddy v Rey (after which I'd say about 11% of audience getting up and going home--which blew my mind) and Hogan v Michaels. Everything else was interchangeable.

[tomk]

I'm not sure why he can't do this for the 80s, but hoping someone else would. Kind of curious who that top 15 would be.

Some of the early year might not go 10 deep. But I can take a look if I remember tonight. There's no real results for 1980 and 1981, so they should be left off. He does actually have a vote in 1982 on.

 

My guess is that all of the Top 10 would be HOFers, and probably most of the Top 15.

 

John

 

 

I would assume so too. But I remember there being I want to say one or two years where Butch Reed was in top 5, and there being guys who surprised me slotted in places that surprised me (or maybe I'm thinking of yearbook rankings and not the awards rankings). Curius to see aggregate numbers.

[Jingus]

Before 05, he didn't have as much time on top as you would figure. He had the Cena match at SummerSlam in 05, but that was below Hogan-HBK. There was the 01-02 title run that didn't work. I'm blanking on any others.

If we're only counting PPVs, he was also in the main event title match at KOTR 2001. He had plenty of TV main events here and there, but that's the only time he was randomly put into the top spot on a Sunday night before his championship reign. EDIT: oh yeah, he was also in the 10-man-tag main events at Invasion and SurSer that year, if you're desperate enough to count that sort of thing.

 

 

What's the argument for Batista being a stronger candidate than Angle? I know Dave seemed to spend a bit longer on top than Kurt did in the WWE, but it's gotta be more than that.

[Al]

I'm curious to hear for/against Bill Apter. He's an unusual candidate because there's nothing remotely comparable to him in the WON Hall. But he absolutely had a positive impact on quite a few of our wrestling experiences.

[sek69]

Apter is a no brainer, IMO. His magazines promoted territories better than half of them promoted themselves. I remember following angles in Florida and Oregon solely by their coverage in the Apter mags since they weren't on TV here.

[Bix]

I agree that he's a no-brainer but I'd be curious to hear an argument for Stanley Weston.

 

When did Apter become the key guy at London?

[KrisZ]

Late 70's

[Loss]

Yes, I also think Bill Apter is a no-brainer. Without question.

 

For the record, Dave Meltzer should also be a candidate for his own Hall of Fame.

[KrisZ]

Dan Shocket should get in as well.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Dan Shocket should get in as well.

If he doesn't, it's because some fan favorite paid off the voters.

[sek69]

Yes, I also think Bill Apter is a no-brainer. Without question.

 

For the record, Dave Meltzer should also be a candidate for his own Hall of Fame.

 

I would expect that Bryan or whoever inherits the WON from Dave would probably put him in the HOF at the first opportunity. As much as we give him shit (deservedly more often than not), I don't think there are too many people ever who actually cared about wrestling more than Dave. His writing during the steroid trials probably would have won him awards if it was written for a mainstream newspaper, and that's why it was really sad when you could see there was a point when it was obvious things were never going to change and Dave was just like

"fuck it". You could chalk it up to youthful Dave thinking he could play some part in changing the world, but there was something heartbreaking over seeing the exact time someone's spirit was broken being commemorated in print.

[kjh]

The thing is I don't see Apter getting much support. I just think people will write him off as a candidate. It doesn't help that as the business changed, his magazines weren't quick enough to change with the times and he became increasingly irrelevant.

[jdw]

I would expect that Bryan or whoever inherits the WON from Dave would probably put him in the HOF at the first opportunity. As much as we give him shit (deservedly more often than not), I don't think there are too many people ever who actually cared about wrestling more than Dave. His writing during the steroid trials probably would have won him awards if it was written for a mainstream newspaper, and that's why it was really sad when you could see there was a point when it was obvious things were never going to change and Dave was just like

"fuck it". You could chalk it up to youthful Dave thinking he could play some part in changing the world, but there was something heartbreaking over seeing the exact time someone's spirit was broken being commemorated in print.

I was inner circle at the time, and I'd have to go back and check, but could swear we road tripped really soon after the trial... in fact it may be way Dave didn't stay around until the end while Wade did. Anyway... his spirit wasn't broken by it. Zero change in how he looked at the business.

 

I think what had greater impact on his was:

 

* death of ECW and WCW

* death of loads of wrestlers, many of whom were part of his age generation

 

The first two were things that could be seen coming, but it still just left one promotion in the US. TNA didn't exactly fill the same place. Japan also died in the same period, which had been a key part of his wrestling interest from even before the WON started. When any one promotion sucked or drove him crazy from 1983-2000, there always was some alternative out there doing things well. From 2001 there hasn't been a lot of counterbalance when the WWE had fucked things up. Even when TNA or ROH didn't things well, he also could see they didn't have a pot to piss in, were limited in what they could do, etc.

 

It's a bit like covering the American League in the 1950's: it would have been extremely boring.

 

The deaths likely hit him harder than any fan: he knew a lot of the people, dealt with many of them, and was close to a few. So many, so regularly, the business doing very little about it, Dave even taking heat for making a "big deal" out of it. Perhaps more difficult is that it wasn't an easy problem to clean up, as Dave wrote about often: there was no magic bullet to the problems. That's more than a bit draining for someone covering it.

 

Those both reached a tipping point through the first half of the 00's.

 

In the 90s when I dealt with him, there was very little changing in his interest in wrestling. The one thing that did change was the workload stress of the Monday Night Wars, the increase in PPVs to Monthly (with ECW eventually having a few), and the addition of Thursday TV. While he watched a lot of stuff in the 80s, he didn't have to "write them all up". Compare what he wrote about WCW SN or World Wide in the 80s with what he did about Raw, Nitro, SmackDown, Thunder, etc. He copped to it being a pain in the ass by the end of the 90s, and it was clear even earlier than that.

 

My guess is *that* is what people are seeing when the think there was something going on with the writing in the second half of the 90s: it was a grind.

 

But the melancholy is more a 00's thing where he's openly talked about the shrinkage of the business being bad for wrestling, and at times has even comes out hoping that TNA doesn't die regardless of how awful it is because it would be bad for the business in terms of jobs for wrestlers. I don't recall Dave saying anything like that when SMW was going in the tank.

 

John

[kjh]

I think somewhere during the aftermath of the Benoit murders is when Dave realised that the business will never be forced to change from outside, so you might as well just hope that the business will eventually change for the better from within.

[sek69]

It doesn't help that as the business changed, his magazines weren't quick enough to change with the times and he became increasingly irrelevant.

 

I would think that is something you could say about almost everyone involved in wrestling besides Vince McMahon. Wouldn't seem fair to hold that against Apter when it's the same thing that killed every territory. At least PWI is still around in 2010.

[jdw]

Has Apter been with PWI recently? Thought he left ages ago for some new start up mag that is also long gone.

 

If folks are serious about Apter (it's hard to tell from the comments), I wonder if there isn't someone in the generation before him that warrants going in first. Apter didn't invent wrestling mags. Frankly I'd like to see someone write up a history of wrestling mags so we know a little bit about them first. We all call them Apter Mags because he's the name hardcores associated with them, and he got a fair amount of face time relative to other guys in the mag business. But do we really know anything about that side of the business other than we picked read them at the newstand?

 

John

[Bix]

Apter left PWI et al for WOW a way back when WOW was around.

[Strummer]

Yes, I also think Bill Apter is a no-brainer. Without question.

 

For the record, Dave Meltzer should also be a candidate for his own Hall of Fame.

 

I would expect that Bryan or whoever inherits the WON from Dave would probably put him in the HOF at the first opportunity. As much as we give him shit (deservedly more often than not), I don't think there are too many people ever who actually cared about wrestling more than Dave. His writing during the steroid trials probably would have won him awards if it was written for a mainstream newspaper, and that's why it was really sad when you could see there was a point when it was obvious things were never going to change and Dave was just like

"fuck it". You could chalk it up to youthful Dave thinking he could play some part in changing the world, but there was something heartbreaking over seeing the exact time someone's spirit was broken being commemorated in print.

 

sek, do you mean Dave was specifically heartbroken over the verdict in the trial or just a general "The business will never change" way?

[Graham Crackers]

I think Apter has a regular column these days for one of the British magazines. Probably "Fighting Spirit" but I can't remember off the top of my head.