WON HoF Candidate Poll Thread

[kjh]

Snyder would make an interesting comp to Pedro. I doubt his best run early in his career was quite as hot as Pedro's run in New York in 1971-73, but I get the sense he was more consistently successful in a wider variety of territories. Snyder had NWA World Heavyweight title matches in nine territories, not quite as good as Schmidt or Torres, but in the tier just below them.

[Dylan Waco]

Snyder would make an interesting comp to Pedro. I doubt his best run early in his career was quite as hot as Pedro's run in New York in 1971-73, but I get the sense he was more consistently successful in a wider variety of territories. Snyder had NWA World Heavyweight title matches in nine territories, not quite as good as Schmidt or Torres, but in the tier just below them.

It wasn't close to as hot IIRC. I looked at the results on Snyder fairly recently and could look again. Someone should make a strong case for him

[Matt D]

What's the argument for Hennig?

"Trained Brock Lesnar."

[Guest Nell Santucci]

What's the argument for Hennig?

"Trained Brock Lesnar."

 

Dave Meltzer restates the argument for Curt Hennig every year, and the basis for Hennig's induction is that he was one of the top 5 best wrestlers on a planet for a few years but that his peak generally isn't viewed as long enough to merit inclusion. I'm sure that Hennig had a memorable gimmick helps with the current wrestlers.

[Dylan Waco]

What years was Hennig a top five guy on the planet?

 

I have come to love Hennig from 82-88. He may have been a top five U.S. worker for a couple of those years. But if you factor in Japan and Mexico? I guess it's possible, but it would take a lot of leg work to convince me. And I'm one of the bigger Hennig boosters from that era online.

[Matt D]

I imagine Meltzer counts his WWF run. That's really one of those "sacrosanct wrestling opinions," no? I know people here feel otherwise, of course. It's actually funny to think that his IC title run, which really loomed as a key part of my youth was really only a few months after Mania 6 and then Jan-August of 91. People forget that Kerry had the thing for so long.

 

I think he was a top WWF babyface from Survivor Series 92 to Mania IX, but I'm not sure how he drew in that spot. He sure as hell didn't draw against Hogan as a heel. His only WON award was most improved in 83. I think he was actually a very effective announcer and maybe Vince's best partner ever, but I'm not sure if that translated into buys at all.

 

But yeah, TRAINED BROCK LESNAR. There you go.

[goc]

The Mr. Perfect love is something that I just don't get. I mean LIKING Mr. Perfect and thinking he's one of the more memorable people from the era, sure. Saying that he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame over all the other guys that haven't made the cut over the years? I just don't even see an argument for it.

[Dylan Waco]

I'm sure Dave likes Perfect era Hennig more than me. Do I think he thought he was top five in the World during that period? I very much doubt it.

[khawk20]

Dave regularly touted Curt as probably the best worker in the company when he was in the AWA, and that was in 1984.

 

As such, his love for Hennig would appear to have longer roots than just his Mr. Perfect era.

[Matt D]

I feel like he wasn't even taking the HUGE LIVE ACTION BUMPS as a face in AWA.

[Bix]

As we've discussed in the past, Hennig being a top 5 guy wasn't exactly the consensus opinion at the time.

[Cox]

From this week's Observer:

 

Frye had a good run with New Japan and headlined some Tokyo Dome shows that sold out, including a then-record gate with Antonio Inoki in 1998, but he’s only a Hall of Famer if you include his MMA career. It’s one thing for a Masakatsu Funaki and even more Kazushi Sakuraba as historical figures in Japan, particularly Sakuraba because of how he was viewed by the public, but with hindsight, Frye should be in an MMA Hall of Fame and not a pro wrestling one. Funaki and Sakuraba are weird again because if you view things as they are today, neither should be in. If you view things as they were during the period they were being inducted for, Sakuraba is a slam dunk (and he actually got 86% of the vote to go in, one of the bigger numbers of all-time) because of the lay of the land and how he was viewed and how his world was at the time. Today, same circumstances, does a Sakuraba get in? Probably not.

I don't think anything has ever better illustrated why Dave's "15 years in the business/35 years or older" threshold is far too soon to properly judge HOF candidates. Time and perspective are very important to evaluating the career of a Hall of Famer, and trying to make calls on guys who are still in the prime of their career is asinine. When Funaki and Sakuraba were elected, the MMA fad was still very prominent in Japan, and without any distance from it, Funaki and Sakuraba made the HOF when they probably wouldn't if on the ballot with more perspective. It's a shame, because I do think the WON Hall of Fame is the closest thing there is to an actual Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame, which is why silly things like this drive me up a wall, because I want to expect more out of it, but know that I shouldn't.

 

All of this is to say, I'm going to be very upset when Brock makes the HOF next month.

[KrisZ]

Hence why I won't vote for active competitors unless they are on the verge of retirement.

[FLIK]

Next week Bryan Alvarez says he's doing a special audio show just to debate Big Daddy. So can't wait for this

[Guest Nell Santucci]

As we've discussed in the past, Hennig being a top 5 guy wasn't exactly the consensus opinion at the time.

I would never rate Hennig as a top 5 worker except possibly in North America, and it'd be odd for Meltzer (who I generally agree with critically almost everything when we rate matches separately) to think Hennig was in the top 5 if I didn't. Though we rate matches in eerily similar ways, we seem to differ on questions of who are great workers. If I were to throw an intuitive number, I would put Hennig at the 25th percentile of the great workers. Now, I haven't watched much of his AWA work and would love recommendations since I'm a Hennig fan, but his WWF work was a strange hit-or-miss, and I feel like Hennig's workrate gets ranked largely because he was one hell of a bump taker. But that's a narrow way to assess a worker just as it is narrow to assess Kurt Angle as an elite worker because he throws a bunch of suplexes around. By that standard of rating Hennig, one could argue that Dolph Ziggler is a great worker. (In truth, I think Ziggler takes way harder and far more interesting bumps than Curt Hennig ever did, who would borderline on being ridiculously repetitive anyway with his bumps. But as a general package, I would never regard Ziggler as an elite worker, and he has largely been disappointing.)

 

What struck me about Hennig is his degree of hitting or missing. He was an awfully inconsistent worker. For example, his match against Lex Luger at Wrestlemania IX was just. . .average. I'm sure it could have been good, but it wasn't, and it wasn't that good because Hennig didn't have that extra neurotic drive that people like Bret Hart and Chris Benoit had in pulling off great matches when they mattered. Hennig's matches against the British Bulldog all around the horn in 1991 were never seen as anything special, and a plurality of his matches were seen as crap. With the Coliseum video filming, where Hennig yells "FUCK!" whilst Bulldog has him in a hammerlock, their match still wasn't good; it was just average. But Hennig's match against Hulk Hogan (Jan. 1990 MSG) showed Hennig as a spectacular worker and bump-taker. I forgot my star rating for that match, though I think it was around **3/4 just because it was so one-sided anyway. But Hennig was spectacular in that match. His work with Bret Hart speaks for itself, but one could make a case that Hart is the best WWF worker of all time. But when I think of Hennig, I often think back to his match against Ric Flair on the January 25, 1993 Raw. The match was good, borderline excellent even. But it's not a match I would ever match again because, in truth, the match was a disappointment. As good as the match was, it could have been so much more; Ric Flair certainly wasn't just going through the motions in that match. I suspect it was Hennig's inability to translate his bumps into a match with a lot of smooth transitions and heat. Hennig's matches always looked way too mechanical and without soul for me to say he was the best of the best of his era, though he was undoubtedly a very good worker and could be a great worker when he was "on" - which happened whenever he felt like it. But even when he was "on", unless he was taking on Bret Hart or in that one instance against Hulk Hogan, his matches always seemed to be lacking in some essential way. So in conclusion, I would never rate Hennig as a top 5 worker.

 

The idea of Brock Lesnar getting into the HOF is repulsive. He had a brief 2 year run in the WWE, wasn't a particularly strong draw on top, and he headlined a Wrestlemania against Kurt Angle in a match that didn't draw. (Hogan/Vince gets scapegoated as the reason for Wrestlemania XIX's failure, and that is a serious argument. But I think that's a non sequitur too given that no matter how much Hogan/Vince was promoted, no one who bought Wrestlemania that night was unaware of Lesnar/Angle taking place and that roughly 500,000 buys for Wrestlemania is a bad number no matter how you spin it.)

 

His UFC run should be irrelevant except insofar as his UFC heat translated into buys for WWE PPVs (which they sort of did and sort of didn't). Honestly, Extreme Rulez should have done a much better number given the buzz surrounding Lesnar's return. The number looked impressive in one lens, from the standpoint of comparing April 2012 to all of 2011, but the number looks much less impressive when compared between April 2012 to May, June, and July of 2012. Whatever the case - and this is an argument that I would use against anyone who tries to tack on Lesnar's UFC fighting as part of his HOF resumé is - WWE is not New Japan, where New Japan often blended shoot scenarios into works. Just because New Japan is pro-wrestling, New Japan blends itself with shoots, and the WWE is pro-wrestling does not imply, by principles of set theory, that the business model of New Japan can be projected onto the WWE. As pro-wrestling, New Japan and the WWE are intersecting sets. But business model wise, New Japan is not a subset of the WWE and the WWE is not a subset of New Japan with respect to shoot fighting. They're just totally different because North America and Japan have very different combat sports cultures. So Lesnar as a drawing power in UFC is basically a total non sequitur. In Japan, it would matter more because both perception of the audience and the promoters try to blend shoot fighting with pro-wrestling into something that is totally different from anything in the North American scene. But no one but the most ignorant would confuse UFC Lesnar and WWE Lesnar. With that being said, as a pro-wrestling draw, Lesnar is an even worse HOF candidate than Bill Goldberg. But the Bill Watts syndrome might take hold in the voting next month, and I'll be very upset.

[Dylan Waco]

Next week Bryan Alvarez says he's doing a special audio show just to debate Big Daddy. So can't wait for this

I have absolutely no interest in listening to Bryan talk about this. I hope he was joking because there is a good debate to be had there and it should be had. I want to hear someone duke it out on the Euro candidates who has the knowledge to make real cases for or against these guys.

[Dylan Waco]

I love Hennig but his WWF run is really lacking in high end stuff. There are glimpses but not much over all. One big difference is that he was non-stop stooge. No offense to speak of during his WWF run. Even when in there with another good worker we rarely saw him working at full strength when he was in control. Will and others I know just think he was a much better face, but I'm not buying that because his run as heel champ in the AWA was really great. I think the Bret matches are good but overrated and while there are other matches I enjoy (v. Ron Garvin, w/Poffo v. Warrior/Hogan, v. Doink) I think he is the ultimate example of a guy who fell off a cliff as a worker when he went to the WWF.

 

If you look at it year by year it's not easy to find a clear cut year where he would be a top five worker in the U.S let alone worldwide.

 

 

I don't think Brock will get in.....yet.

 

I think Brock is hurt because those bitter about the other MMA guys being in, those who opposed Angle's early induction, those like KrisZ who don't vote for active performers and other groups are a going to be more than enough to offset those who will vote for him because of his UFC run. I have been conversant with several voters this year, including a few newer voters. Not a single person has done anything other than scoff at Brock.

 

If I had to guess he'll get between 30-40%.

[FLIK]

Next week Bryan Alvarez says he's doing a special audio show just to debate Big Daddy. So can't wait for this

I have absolutely no interest in listening to Bryan talk about this. I hope he was joking because there is a good debate to be had there and it should be had. I want to hear someone duke it out on the Euro candidates who has the knowledge to make real cases for or against these guys.

 

Nope he was serious

him & Karl Stern will be doing the show and Karl (who I like) admitidley has limited Euro knowledge as well so yeah, can't wait to hear this.

Bryan said he was basicly doing it in response to ppl on "the board" commenting that if he thought Sting should be in the HoF because he was really famous then that should mean Daddy has to go in too.

[Dylan Waco]

This is a spin off question from the Hennig stuff but is there anyone who is not currently in that you would/could vote for solely/almost entirely on work? Personally I wouldn't vote for anyone SOLELY on work, but if pressed to the name the guys who aren't in and could hang there hat on that case I'd say....

 

Danielson, Windham, Morton, Dundee, Volk Han, El Dandy, Fujiwara

 

To be honest I don't really think Fujiwara belongs on this list as I consider him to be influential, but I wanted an excuse to mention him . I didn't include Buddy only because I think being the anchor of Portland is a significant "other" aspect to his candidacy. Morton has influence and some drawing power.

 

Of course you could make a case supporting Dundee based on other things. I'm ignorant on Dandy.

 

To be honest all of these guys have "extra" stuff you could point to that is notable other than maybe Windham and MAYBE Han.

 

Anyhow the point is that IF I believed in voting purely on work - and I don't - I think I'd vote all of those guys in just on that alone Am I missing any other obvious ones who aren't already in.

[Eduardo]

Of course you could make a case supporting Dundee based on other things. I'm ignorant on Dandy.

FWIW, there was an old Steve Sims article where he talked about peak Dandy drawing 17,000-18,000 fans at Arena Mexico "more than once".

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

I would only vote someone in on work alone (and god knows I should never and will never be anywhere near a ballot) if they had 10+ years, preferably consecutive, of being a great worker.

[ohtani's jacket]

Hennig vs. Tito from SNME is an excellent match. Easily the best SNME match I've seen.

[Dylan Waco]

Of course you could make a case supporting Dundee based on other things. I'm ignorant on Dandy.

FWIW, there was an old Steve Sims article where he talked about peak Dandy drawing 17,000-18,000 fans at Arena Mexico "more than once".

 

Anyone got any idea where this article would be?

[kjh]

Bryan said he was basicly doing it in response to ppl on "the board" commenting that if he thought Sting should be in the HoF because he was really famous then that should mean Daddy has to go in too.

Sting *really* isn't all that famous though. Big Daddy is the cultural equivalent here of a Gorgeous George / Hulk Hogan type that everyone over a certain age would know their name. I think if you never lived in the UK, then you don't understand what a pop culture icon he was in the late 70s / early 80s.

[FLIK]

Sting *really* isn't all that famous though.

Well to wrestling fans he is. To be more specific, Alvarez' point on Sting (which I sorta agree with actually) was that to a whole generation of ppl that grew up watching he was the man and that once more older voters are faded out and replaced by the folk that grew up on him he'll get voted in by them.

 

That he wasn't main stream famous is irrelevant really, a great bonus if you can gain that staus (which only a handfull ever do) but in no way a negative if you can't.