WON HoF Candidate Poll Thread

[Loss]

It's something that impacts all the lucha candidates. Cien Caras was a top star during a big boom with a lot of hardcore crossover appeal and can't get in either.

[KrisZ]

Cien's problem is that it's been preached for years that the Dinamitas weren't good workers when that was totally untrue.

[Dylan Waco]

The big problem with Lucha is that there just aren't many knowledgeable voters.

[Ditch]

Voted for Murdoch, R-n-Rs and Slaughter in Modern Era and Hamada in Japan.

[Dylan Waco]

Voted for Murdoch, R-n-Rs and Slaughter in Modern Era and Hamada in Japan.

Anyone else you considered but decided against?

 

I'd also be interested to hear your thoughts on Sarge and Murdoch.

[ohtani's jacket]

I really don't see the case for Hamada.

[Dylan Waco]

I don't think he's an overwhelmingly great candidate.

 

I do think he's best of a weak Japanese field. You could perhaps convince me that Han was a better candidate if I was in the right mood, but I doubt it.

 

I think tomk made this point last year, but Hamada LOOKS a lot better than he is because Ultimo is in and Hamada is a better version of what Ultimo is in for across the board.

 

Having said that I do think there is something to be said about the fact that the style Hamada is largely responsible for has become a key, niche, moneymaking style at a time when a lot of the rest of the Japanese product is heavily depressed. He was a good-to-great worker for 20 plus years. While he wasn't a huge star in Mexico, he was a wrestler of some note there and was on top (albeit in trios) of a surprisingly large number of excellent drawing cards.

 

Hamada is a guy I would vote for if I had a ballot mainly to keep other worse candidates out. That's not saying I think he's a bad candidate because I don't. But I don't think he's a home run candidate either.

[rovert]

Will anyone here with a sub be listening to this: http://www.f4wonline.com/component/content...or-hall-of-kane

 

Wonder what people here think about Alan's case for Lesnar. Essentially and crucially it is the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame Dave does treat Pro Wrestling & MMA has this heavily interrelated thing in his coverage - whether we like it or not. Therefore is in no question that he is a Yes. Whereas Justin semi in jest thinks Kane is a stronger candidate just via the virtue of being a Pro Wrestler for more than 2 years and change. Todd makes the point that it is a Wrestling Hall of Fame citing the fact that Dave had an MMA Hall of Fame. Also Todd states Brock was vehement about not representing of the Hall of Fame in comparison to Sakaraba who flew the Pro Wrestling flag to a ludicrous and endearing degree. Even in saying that Todd thinks Sakaraba being in the Hall of Fame was mistake as Todd - a Sakaraba advocate over time increasingly has viewed MMA & Pro Wrestling as separate genres. Alan still held on to his opinion citing Brock used Pro Wrestling tactics to draw money in UFC but would completely understand if someone completely disregarded Lesnar's MMA run when voting as it comes down to how you feel about what the linkage is. Todd in jest cited Mayweather as and Justin Rodman using "Pro Wrestling tactics" in their respective fields.

 

Please be advised this is a thumbnail summary of an extended and involved debate - the most detailed I've heard on Lesnar to date.

[Dylan Waco]

We ignored Lesnar on our show mainly for time purposes. In hindsight I regret it though I think our show was very good regardless.

 

I am going to find a way to listen to this if possible because I want to hear the argument, but I would say that I think there are two problems with using the MMA stuff in Lesnar's candidacy even if you exempt the "MMA isn't wrestling" view that I subscribe to.

 

1. MMA is a real and because of that pointing purely to the economics of it in an HoF discussion strikes me as going out of ones way to make a case for someone. Now to be fair I do not know if Alan does that or not. But if he does I strongly reject it. You have to also look at Lesnar's success in the sport. And while I think Brock had a remarkable run for a guy coming into the sport relatively late in his life, the reality is that he doesn't exactly have a sterling record as a fighter. If one were to strip away the money making aspect would Brock be seen as an MMA HoF candidate on the strength of what he did in the Cage? I'm not qualified to vote, but I've followed MMA to one degree or another since the first UFC, and I can't say that I would say yes. Anyhow the point is you can't point to the economics/business end and ignore the won/loss stuff once you start talking about REAL sports.

 

2. If you say MMA should count for Lesnar, that sets a precedent of sorts and we need to start working backwards. Yes Ken Shamrock stayed around too long and the sport passed him by, but if you are counting MMA in all of it's aspects I'm not certain Ken is a worse candidate than Lesnar combining everything. Severn should probably at least be on the ballot. Bob Sapp was heavily exposed, but was a huge star in Japan for a couple of years and needs consideration going by the Lesnar metric. If Vince gets desperate and signs Kimbo and he ends up with a solid two or three year run as a main event guy, you'd have to consider him. In a world where JYD and Jimmy Hart can't even get on the ballot, I don't feel comfortable with the idea of guys who spent half or more of their "wrestling" careers in MMA getting a serious look based largely on what they did there.

 

Also worth pointing out to Loss's point about the HoF being about the rep of guys as great workers rather than whether or not they are actually great workers...supposedly all the boys love working with Kane. Just sayin.

[ohtani's jacket]

My thinking on Hamada is that we don't really know enough about him. We know the timeline for his career, we've seen his matches and we can construct an argument that his UWF promotion was somehow influential and important, but compared to the amount of research that goes into other candidates it just seems like a message board conclusion to me. I mentioned this before, but when he got blackballed and wasn't working and instead training the JWP girls, what was happening then?

[Dylan Waco]

That's a good question and I'm all for learning more about him. I mean I think it is patently obvious that UWF was influential to the point where I don't think there is any good argument against it, but in general I agree that he is unexplored relative to many other candidates. If I had a ballot my primary reason for voting for him would be to make sure to siphon votes off of a worse candidate from Japan who otherwise might break through.

[rovert]

Jeff Katz outted himself as having a ballot on twitter:

 

Honored to be asked to vote in the Observer Hall of Fame balloting this year. Will reveal my picks & explain thinking after names revealed.

AKA the Wrestling Retribution Project guy who worked for WCW from age 16 doing the WCW hotline and writing for the magazine & website. Of course Associate Producer of Snakes On A Plane too.

[Dylan Waco]

I listened to the show with Todd, Justin and Alan and while I enjoyed it and agreed with some of the stuff they said, there are areas where I have massive disagreements.

 

For example Todd said Sarge was not a strong contender to him because he only had a five year run of HoF quality. Setting aside whether or not I agree with that metric, he said this right before he went to bat for Edge. Surely he realizes that Edge - at best - has a five year run as a main eventer and it is more than debatable whether or not he was ever as hot as Sarge was at his peak. So what's the argument for Edge being a better candidate?

 

The Sting discussion was interesting though I forgot a lot of the details, other than the amusing bit where Todd claimed he'd never really advocated for him one way or the other. I won't go into great detail here, but that's something I know for a fact is false.

 

I already said my piece on the Brock stuff ahead of time, but I would note that I thought Alan's argument for him basically came down to "I'm a mark for him." I don't even mean that to sound as critical as it probably does because we all have our favorites (see the next paragraph for mine), but that is how it came across to me.

 

I was happy they mentioned Buddy Rose, happy that Alan had nice things to say about him and happy that Alan loosely compared him to Danielson (even though I think Rose is clearly a better candidate). I was not happy with the way they discussed Portland wrestling in general and I thought Todd's false equivalency argument comparing Rose to RVD was pretty poor. There are arguments against Rose, but "his best success was in a company ECWesque in size so he's really no better than RVD" is not a good one. There are obvious problems with this, not the least of which is the clear the differences between the way the two promotions operated, the fact that Buddy was the biggest draw in the history of a promotion that existed for seventy years, the massive differences in the landscape, et. The follow up discussion on Danielson sort of amused me as well because I don't think there is any doubt that Danielson would have gotten in no matter what his push in the WWE was. When he's eligible he'll get in barring something awful occurring with him between now and then.

 

God bless Alan for voting for Colon.

 

Todd's argument against Jarrett was interesting but incomplete. I disagree with him, but it was at least an original take on the issue. Ignoring Jarrett's break from Gulas strikes me as a major error though.

 

In general I came away from the show with the view that the biggest difference between voters of the Alan/Todd/Justin (why does Justin not have a ballot?) sort and the people who populate this board voters and otherwise is that they tend to put a massive emphasis on things that were post-Hogan boom with almost all the context and discussion coming from that perspective. There is nothing innately wrong with that, but I think what ends up happening is you see arguments like Todd's against Rose that don't make any sense because they are based on comparisons that don't work across time and space. By the same token you get unanimous support for a guy like Edge who is A. an (inexplicable) Observer fan favorite and B. someone who on objective analysis that actually looks at context is quite far from being a shoe-in (I'm being generous).

[FLIK]

. There is nothing innately wrong with that, but I think what ends up happening is you see arguments like Todd's against Rose that don't make any sense because they are based on comparisons that don't work across time and space. By the same token you get unanimous support for a guy like Edge who is A. an (inexplicable) Observer fan favorite and B. someone who on objective analysis that actually looks at context is quite far from being a shoe-in (I'm being generous).

You guys should try & get Todd on your podcast, it'd certainly make for an interesting conversation

[Matt D]

I second that. Ask him. Worst he can do is say no.

[Dylan Waco]

I'm not even sure what we could or would have Todd on to discuss.

 

Here is what I wrote on Buddy/context and the silly ECW comp that I had seen before last year.

 

Buddy is a better "work" candidate than most though I personally wouldn't vote for anyone solely on work (that I can think of anyhow). Having said that - and I've beaten this point into the ground by now - I think from the cumulative period from 77-84 he was the best wrestler in the World based on the footage we have. There are really only a small number of guys that I can even see in the debate with him (Lawler, Fujinami, possibly Terry Funk, maybe Jumbo in the eyes of some, sure Flair would get default votes) and I think they all had advantages Buddy didn't have.

 

There are two things that hurt Buddy.

 

The first is that so little of Portland has been seen and a lot of the voters are probably among the least likely people to go back and rewatch it. Loss made the point about HoF guys who are in on work being primarily in on reputation of being good workers and he is basically right. Buddy ALWAYS had that rep, but I think it's hard to contextualize that if you don't actually watch the footage (or didn't see it at the time). I've run into the same issue with Blackwell over at Classics as people have turned themselves into pretzels trying to shoot holes in his candidacy based on statements a simple review of the facts I have compiled would easily refute.

 

The second problem is the Portland business model. Because Portland didn't run big arenas hardly ever it is going to be a hard sell to certain folks that Buddy was a draw. The fact that Dave himself regards Buddy as the biggest draw in Portland wrestling history and correctly noted that Buddy was the last real draw in San Francisco for Shire is something that means less to a lot of people than it should. I have seen some people suggest that Buddy basically anchored the equivalent of ECW, but that's not really a fair comparison for a variety of reasons:

 

A. Portland Sports Arena was owned by Don Owen which meant 100 % of profits off ticket sales and concessions and no rental cost/security cost/et. Also unlike with ECW, the Portland Sports Arena didn't run once every three weeks - it ran at least once a week, often twice a week. Also, I THINK the capacity was higher than the ECW Arena (though not by much). Either way it was consistently a sell out during Rose's peak run and Owen not running bigger buildings had more to do with raw economics/bottom line than it did with fear of failure at the gate.

B. By all accounts Portland got far better tv ratings than ECW ever did, even after they'd been moved into a later time slot (do to violence issues IIRC).

C. Portland matches were 2/3 Falls. That may seem irrelevant but I don't think it was as the tv was formatted around this and it also meant that more pressure was on the good hands (i.e. Buddy) to keep things logical, fresh, exciting, et.

D. Don Owen did occasionally run bigger venues (the anniversary shows, Piper/Buddy feud matches) and they always drew big houses for the area and big gates.

E. The Pacific Northwest of that period was much less interconnected than the Northeast corridor where ECW ran - and MUCH less populated (especially at that time).

F. Portland was a profitable territory, to the point where Don Owen was regarded as one of the two or three fairest payoff guys in the business (note that "fair" and "most money" are obviously not the same thing) and was still one of the richest men in the State of Oregon. Yes he made most of his money elsewhere, but the point is that by all accounts the Pacific Northwest wrestling territory was not a "money mark" promotion for Don, but a way to make even more money and he succeeded in that goal. I'm not sure ECW was ever a profitable wrestling business.

G. Portland ran a real, weekly loop. ECW had venues they ran consistently (Asbury Park, Allentown, the ECW Arena), but never weekly, and never off of a single episode of tv. It would be nice if I could find hard numbers to support it, but the commonly accepted view is that Buddy did great business across the territory during his hot period. This is a view that Meltzer, Farmer and others who would know clearly accept as fact.

H. Portland was a territory with history going back to the 20's and ran through until the early 90's. Being the biggest draw and anchor of that promotion is more significant than being the biggest draw or anchor of a promotion that lasted about as long as Buddy's entire peak run in Portland did.

 

Looking at those raw facts the comp to ECW doesn't really work. But having said that, here is a fun thought experiment.

 

Imagine ECW had a wrestling history going back to the 1920's. Imagine Shane Douglas comes in and after a few months was elevated to the top spot and by the middle of 94 is doing great business. Imagine Douglas works with a lot of also rans and up and comers always in 2/3 fall matches and always of good-to-great quality. Imagine many of them got over huge and were grabbed up by other promoters. Imagine many of them regarded Douglas as one of the best of all time and used him as a reference point when teaching young talent. Imagine that ECW ran a weekly loop, two ECW Arena shows a week, and did sellouts or near sellouts everywhere. Imagine Douglas quickly becomes the biggest draw in the history of the territory. Imagine ECW was raking in payoffs to the point where Douglas didn't want to leave because he could make more and spend less working for Paul Heyman (lol) than he could anywhere else. Imagine Douglas was loaned out to SMW and spiked business becoming Cornette's biggest draw (before ultimately putting Corny out of business after a wild in ring shoot promo ). Imagine Douglas was loaned out to Vince to work against Bret or Shawn and while the business didn't do as well as hoped it produced great matches. Imagine ECW was one of the hottest shows on tv during this period, drawing huge ratings in Philly and the other towns around the loop. Imagine this period lasted until 02 and by the end of the run ECW was running super shows in 10k plus buildings on occasion and drawing by far and away the biggest attendance figures and gates in the companies history with Douglas still hands down the biggest star in the territory. Imagine a lot of footage from the run wasn't originally available, but Douglas reputation was always as a great in ring talent, then years later when a Target LP guy shows up at his house he uncovers boxes of footage Douglas had taped himself. Imagine it became widely available and a consensus among those who watch the footage starts to form. Imagine that the consensus was that Douglas was arguably the best worker in the World for this cumulative run and also arguably the best worker in the World for several individual years during this run. Imagine Douglas left in 02 and moved to Memphis to form a tag team with Cody Michaels. Imagine they had a critically acclaimed series of matches with CM Punk and Colt Cabana though the promotion was on it's dying days and the bouts didn't do much business because nothing really was at the time. Imagine that upon his departure, ECW quickly started losing steam and became nearly irrelevant. Imagine he returned a few years later, fat and on drugs, still a good worker but to a territory that really didn't matter anymore - largely because there had been no one to fill his enormous shoes when he left.

 

Now that's not really a fair comparison even then. For example Rose drew better figures in San Fran, than SMW ever drew do to building size IIRC. Still the point is does anyone doubt that Douglas would be considered a strong contender by Dave and co. if all of the above were true? I don't.

[rovert]

Worth pointing out they covered historical/long term candidates last year as they did mention on this year's podcast. You should listen to that if you think those those guys are some what short sighted historically. It may or may not change your opinion.

 

I thought Alan made a strong pro-Lesnar case and responded to the counter points fairly well. But I see what you mean, Dylan he has made up his mind and isn't moving.

 

Alan thought Edge was a slam dunk last year while Todd thought Edge wasn't a slam dunk but one of the stronger members on the (very strong and competitive) ballot.

 

Here is what I wrote on Buddy/context and the silly ECW comp that I had seen before last year.......

Can I post this in the show thread on F4W?

[Matt D]

I'm not listening to this thing right now. What's the pro-lesnar argument?

[Dylan Waco]

Feel free to drag it over there.

 

I don't want to come off as overly critical of these guys because that's not my intention. Nor do I think Buddy is this unquestionable top pick. I just get frustrated by the ECW comp and the RVD comp I think is pretty poor if you think about it for more than a few seconds.

 

Also it's not that I think they are short sighted on historical candidates per se. I'm not really saying they are ignorant. What I do think is that they see a lot of things through the prism of what would be considered successful now, rather than what was successful then.

[Dylan Waco]

I'm not listening to this thing right now. What's the pro-lesnar argument?

rovert pretty fairly outlined it a few posts up

[Matt D]

So wait, the entirety of the argument is that if it's a combined wrestling/MMA HOF too due to the nature of Dave's coverage, he gets in as a given based on his 4 chopped up years of MMA combined with his wrestling?

[Dylan Waco]

So wait, the entirety of the argument is that if it's a combined wrestling/MMA HOF too due to the nature of Dave's coverage, he gets in as a given based on his 4 chopped up years of MMA combined with his wrestling?

Effectively yes. Well that and the use of "pro wrestling tactics" to sell his big MMA fights which is something that I don't think carries any weight at all for a variety of reasons.

[Matt D]

I forget. Are we supposed to believe that Brock is just naturally jerky and misanthropic and just wants to ride on tractors all day and tell people to screw off or is this all supposed to be some sort of elaborate money making ruse to sell MMA PPVs that we should all be impressed with due to its pro-wrestlingesque savvy? I'm fine towing the company line here, but what is it?

[Dylan Waco]

My favorite aspect of the Lesnar candidacy is that in the realm of pro wrestling you could argue his wife was the bigger draw. And if you give points for bringing in wrestling fans to other areas, her number of DL pics by creepy pervs on the net was really high at one point as I recall.

[Strummer]

At one point she was drawing bigger ratings than Steve Austin. Vince Russo actually wanted to put her segments in the main event time slots but was shot down