WON HoF Candidate Poll Thread

[soup23]

Easiest response I can make is that it is tough for someone in the main event of a national promotion throughout his career to have any "sabermetric" case. I can see that type of case being made for people like Rose (not many 10,000+ crowds but was able to fill the venues he wrestled in consistently) or Patera (In demand worker that worked near the top in multitude of territories).

[goodhelmet]

So Rose in his little territory was able to sell out buildings on a week to week basis but Stong as the major face of a national company had trouble dropping 500 people into a gym when he was on top?

[KrisZ]

The Rose argument has to be prefaced with the fact that they ran small buildings. The Portland Sports Arena was an old bowling alley, Eugene was an old fairgrounds, and the rest of the regular shows were in small towns like Roseburg or Bend. They did run Seattle & Tacoma like once a month and then there was Vancouver which Buddy did well in but Portland was one of the lowest capacity per building territories in the NWA.

 

Now Sting drawing poorly in a national territory is really bad but you can't compare him to Rose as it's unfair to both men

[blueminister]

I think Sting is one of like a hundred deserving dudes sunk pro by applying sabremetrics w/ columns of buyrates and attendence figures to a hillbilly performance art and essentially making recognition of any individual over-reliant on the wherewithal of their promoters but I accept that my beef is really more with the institution of the HOF than any particular dude who engages in that sort of thing.

[jdw]

I am assuming CM funk posts as dailyskew on Classics. In the Sting thread over there http://wrestlingclassics.com/.ubb/ultimate...9963;p=3#000102 he's now pimping Sting as a "sabermetrics" candidate. I would be interested to see what people here think of this argument. I'll reserve my criticisms of it for later.

Sting a saber candidate? Yeah... that's rich.

 

John

[Dylan Waco]

I think Sting is one of like a hundred deserving dudes sunk pro by applying sabremetrics w/ columns of buyrates and attendence figures to a hillbilly performance art and essentially making recognition of any individual over-reliant on the wherewithal of their promoters but I accept that my beef is really more with the institution of the HOF than any particular dude who engages in that sort of thing.

Totally out of curiosity and not meant as "LOL PROVE IT!" type of troll, but who are some other names you think are HoFer's that would generally be dismissed?

[Ricky Jackson]

I'm glad somebody got it, because I don't even understand what point blueminister was trying to make with that sentence.

[Childs]

I think Sting is one of like a hundred deserving dudes sunk pro by applying sabremetrics w/ columns of buyrates and attendence figures to a hillbilly performance art and essentially making recognition of any individual over-reliant on the wherewithal of their promoters but I accept that my beef is really more with the institution of the HOF than any particular dude who engages in that sort of thing.

Totally out of curiosity and not meant as "LOL PROVE IT!" type of troll, but who are some other names you think are HoFer's that would generally be dismissed?

 

The problem with your argument is that Sting isn't really regarded as a master of the "hillbilly performance art." His case for the Hall of Fame is built on the idea that he was a big star. And if basic data shows substantial holes in that case, shouldn't it be part of any robust discussion?

[JerryvonKramer]

I am not re-entering the Sting debate, I've given up on it. But I think one reason why so many people struggle with this is because it seems antithetical to a lot of what is done on this board.

 

On the one hand people get praised for being main eventers or 'proven draws' in seemingly minor territories, Dylan writes reams and reams on the drawing power of Buddy Rose or Ken Patera. Or someone like me has the tenacity, the sheer GALL, to suggest that Brad Armstrong was a lower midcarder for most of his career, only to have several people jump down my throat to remind me that he headlined several shows in Alabama or SMW.

 

On the other, Sting mainevented a national company for 12 or 13 years and he 'scarcely has a case'.

 

I'm not saying that anyone is wrong in any of their positions, I'm saying that the gap between these two 'hands' might be something that a lot of fans will struggle with, which is why this Sting debate is not going away.

[Dylan Waco]

I really haven't written that much on Rose as a draw because the data isn't there.

 

Also I wouldn't lump Patera in with Rose for two reasons. 1. Rose was an ace and Patera never was. 2. The "seemingly little territories" in Patera's case were regularly running buildings as big or bigger than the ones run during the period Sting was ace of WCW - and filling them up. Often.

 

Again it comes down to how much credit you are going to give someone for being on or near the top when things aren't going well. I'm not someone who believes longevity for longevity's sake is very meaningful. I'm also not someone who believes "being on top" in and of itself is all that telling.

 

Even granting the extremely generous "mainevented a company for 12 or 13 years" point, it doesn't mean much if the company wasn't doing well.

[JerryvonKramer]

I'm not making any case Dylan. I've already said I don't think one can be made. My thought was that you could build a case by looking at shows he mainevented during his 91-93 run (when neither Flair, nor Hogan were around) vs. shows where he didn't, but the brutal fact is that he made no difference at all. No one made a difference. So the data doesn't back him up.

 

All I was saying here, is that there's a big gap between the mindset that puts enough stock in maineventing shows for Portland and drawing there, and the one that is ready to write off a career like Sting's.

 

I'm not saying that mindset is "wrong" or even contradictory, I'm just saying it is uninuitive -- it requires quite a lot of thinking and reasoning and, well, most people don't think or reason, they run on intuition. INTUITIVELY, Sting feels like a HoF guy whereas your Portland maineventer who was a midcarder at best in the big two doesn't.

 

As long as there are fans who go by gut instinct and intuition over thinking and reasoning, this debate is going to keep recurring.

 

Was this a backhanded way of saying that I think Dylan is a 'thinking and reasoning' wrestling fan? I'll leave that for you to deduce.

[Dylan Waco]

Rose is a special, unique case. I don't think he compares well to anyone. Maybe the Brits, but even that isn't right for a variety of reasons. He's the only small territory wrestler I can see a case for offhand. I've said this before but Rose is a guy who's case is that he was the best drawing ace in the history of a promotion that last for seventy plus years and he was a top tier HoF level worker. If he was just an HoF level worker he doesn't get my support. If he was just the best draw in Portland history he doesn't get my support. He got my support - which amounted to shit - because he had both.

 

I am not someone who puts a ton of stock in sports analogies for wrestling Hall of Fame discussion, but there is something that intrigues me about trying to find the right sports analogy for Sting. A part of me wants to say Roger Maris, but I'm not sure that really fits.

 

I've said this before elsewhere, but Sting is unique in his own right because I don't know that there has ever been an ace/top babyface in the history of the business who failed harder than Sting and is remembered as fondly as he is.

[Cox]

I am not re-entering the Sting debate, I've given up on it. But I think one reason why so many people struggle with this is because it seems antithetical to a lot of what is done on this board.

 

On the one hand people get praised for being main eventers or 'proven draws' in seemingly minor territories, Dylan writes reams and reams on the drawing power of Buddy Rose or Ken Patera.

Gotta love those "seemingly minor" territories Patera headlined in, like the WWF, AWA, Mid Atlantic, and St. Louis.

[JerryvonKramer]

It's true, "seemingly" is doing a lot of work there -- except for in the case of St. Louis. By which I mean you can't compare St. Louis to WCW in the 1990s.

 

The broad point I made remains the same though: the mind that sees a case for Patera but none for Sting is working uninuitively -- it requires a lot of thought and justification. And, this and other boards being THE INTERNET, and our subject being wrestling and not, say The Thought of Aristotle, you can see why these conflicts come up. Most people aren't going to put the work in.

[Childs]

I think of Sting as more like a Steve Garvey (albeit less of a creep.) Long career as a star on on a high-profile team. Very good player in his best years. Remembered as a HOF type for fans in a fairly narrow age range. Performance doesn't stand up that well to detailed analysis.

 

Garvey even had his TNA run with the Padres!

[NintendoLogic]

Who's the guy who thinks that Buddy Rose was an all-time top five worker?

[Childs]

I think a lot of us who have gone back and watched significant amounts of Portland footage consider him an elite, elite worker. I wouldn't speak for Dylan or Will, but I think both might have him in or near their all-time top five.

[Bix]

It's true, "seemingly" is doing a lot of work there -- except for in the case of St. Louis. By which I mean you can't compare St. Louis to WCW in the 1990s.

 

The broad point I made remains the same though: the mind that sees a case for Patera but none for Sting is working uninuitively -- it requires a lot of thought and justification. And, this and other boards being THE INTERNET, and our subject being wrestling and not, say The Thought of Aristotle, you can see why these conflicts come up. Most people aren't going to put the work in.

WTF?

 

WWF. AWA, and Crockett were the three biggest money territories in the country. St. Louis was just one city, not a full time territory, but it was a big money town that cherry picked the biggest stars in the country. Plus Patera was brought into Houston as an attraction, which was also a big deal. He worked on top in all of the biggest money territories and cities.

[ohtani's jacket]

The thing I don't get about Sting is that people say he couldn't draw during a low drawing period but then they say guys like Edge shouldn't be in for drawing during a reasonable drawing period, so if Sting had been in Edge's position would he be a HOF'er?

[Loss]

Sure.

[jdw]

2. The "seemingly little territories" in Patera's case were regularly running buildings as big or bigger than the ones run during the period Sting was ace of WCW - and filling them up. Often.

Yeah, that was an odd one. The WWWF/WWF that Patera main evented on two runs was the largest in the country. I've said before, it was so big that it was essentially a national promotion in terms of population. Big... really big.

 

Okay, that's just throwing a concept at the wall. How about some numbers?

 

1980

226,542,199 US Population

 

55,883,664 WWF Territory (25%)

-----------------------------

17,558,165 NY

11,864,720 PA

7,365,011 NJ

5,737,093 MA

4,216,933 MD

3,107,564 CT

1,297,145 N VA part of DC Metro (major areas being Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria, Prince William)

1,125,043 ME

947,154 RI

920,610 NH

638,432 DC

594,338 DE

511,456 VT

 

Okay, so 25% doesn't seem like much. That would be wrong.

 

Let's look at this in three ways. Before that, what other states had 10M+ people in 1980?

 

23,667,764 California

14,225,513 Texas

11,427,409 Ilinois

10,797,603 Ohio

--------------------

9,746,961 Florida

 

That's it. Florida was just under 10M.

 

* * * * *

 

Okay, so looking at it in Way #1:

 

Let's look at how the biggest two of them were broken up:

 

23,667,764 California = SoCal (LeBell) and NoCal (Shire)

14,225,513 Texas = World Class (Von Erich) + West Texas (Funks) + Southwest (Blanchard) + Houston (Boesch)

 

That's 6 promotions in 2 starts splitting up 38M people. The WWF had 56M people in 1980 under its banner.

 

* * * * *

 

Let's look at it in Way #2:

 

Let's say by magic you could combine a "national" promotion that owned CA, TX, IL and FL. That's big in 1980. You've got the West Coast biggy, the South West biggy, the Mid West biggy, and the Deep South biggy. Huge!

 

58,437,841 Magic 4

55,883,664 WWF

 

Difference is 2.6M That's a bit below the population of CT (3.1M). Now think about that: when we look back at the WWWF/WWF in that period, we don't really think of CT being all that big of a deal... because it wasn't relative to NY, Boston, Philly, Baltimore/DC. So missing a *second* CT worth of population isn't that much of a difference. It would be just a 4.57% boost in the population under the banner of the WWF.

 

So if it's not clear...

 

A Super Promotion covering California (which had 2 promotions) + Texas (which had 4 promotions) + Illinois + Florida would have been only 4.57% larger than the WWF in 1980.

 

 

* * * * *

 

Let's look at it in Way #3:

 

We know that the WWF was in an area of dense population. The insanely big New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-CT-PA CMSA contained 18,905,705 of those 55M people. They... well... let's just lay this out:

 

 

18,905,705 New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-CT-PA CMSA

5,790,555 Washington-Baltimore, DC-MD-VA-WV CMSA

5,649,031 Philadelphia-Wilmington-Atlantic City, PA-NJ-DE-MD CMSA 5,892,937

5,121,673 Boston-Worcester-Lawrence, MA-NH-ME-CT CMSA

2,571,223 Pittsburgh, PA MSA

1,242,826 Buffalo-Niagara Falls, NY MSA

1,080,710 Hartford, CT MSA

1,076,557 Providence-Fall River-Warwick, RI-MA MSA

1,030,630 Rochester, NY MSA

 

I don't think they worked Buffalo much. I do see that Pedro-Patera reopened the Rochester market in 1980. I'd have to study the results and the maps to figure out how they might have services upstate New York. Toss those if one wants to. It's 40,195,454 that lived in Metros where the WWF ran shows... limiting it to Metros over 1M. Up next is 824,729 in the Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY MSA. 616,864 were in the Scranton--Wilkes-Barre--Hazleton, PA MSA.

 

1M doesn't look like much next to those 5M of Philly, Boston and Baltimore/DC, let along NY. But...

 

1,080,710 Hartford, CT MSA

1,076,557 Providence-Fall River-Warwick, RI-MA MSA

 

1,200,998 Norfolk-Virginia Beach-Newport News, VA-NC MSA

971,447 Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill, NC-SC MSA

950,763 Greensboro--Winston-Salem--High Point, NC MSA

761,311 Richmond-Petersburg, VA MSA

744,428 Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, SC MSA

664,788 Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC MSA

 

The WWF's *third* tier Metros were as big / bigger than Mid-Atlantic's.

 

938,777 Memphis, TN-AR-MS MSA

953,520 Louisville, KY-IN MSA

850,505 Nashville, TN MSA

 

The WWF's third tier Metros were as bigger than those in the Memphis territory.

 

1,304,212 New Orleans, LA MSA

860,969 Oklahoma City, OK MSA

657,173 Tulsa, OK MSA

494,151 Baton Rouge, LA MSA

474,463 Little Rock-North Little Rock, AR MSA

 

The WWF's third tier Metros were about as big as Watt's #1 metro, and bigger than the rest of them.

 

At their best, those territories did big businees.

 

The benefit of the WWF having so much of it's popultion in major metros is that it was easy to promotion shows to them: good sized arenas, easy to get TV, and easy for people to get to the shows. 72% of the state (+ the non-MD part of DC Metro) populations were in the Metros that I listed above even after knocking off the Buff and Rochester.

 

* * * * *

 

The WWF was so big that you could split it into two: the New York metro and Everything Else, and it would still be two big territories.

 

The population in the WWF's territory in 1980 was larger than all but 13 countries. It slots nicely in here:

 

56.5M Italy

56.3M UK

55.8M WWF

55.1M France

53.7M Vietnam

 

I could split it even more, but it's overkill. Big territory... HUGE.

 

John

[jdw]

On Mid Atlantic...

 

I agree with what Bix said. It was behind the WWF and with the AWA as the next tier of territories in the late 70s through early 80s when Patera was in his prime. Memphis was a metro that supported a territory running weekly shows, and one that drew well. JCP had a lot of metros that were in the range of Memphis or a bit below that could sustain cards, and the promotion used that base metros/cities to build a very successful promotion. It was "small" relative to the WWF, but everyone was. It was small in square miles relative to AWA, and lacked the giant top end metros that it had (Chicago, Twin Cities), but it packed a lot of punch.

 

John

[jdw]

I think of Sting as more like a Steve Garvey (albeit less of a creep.) Long career as a star on on a high-profile team. Very good player in his best years. Remembered as a HOF type for fans in a fairly narrow age range. Performance doesn't stand up that well to detailed analysis.

 

Garvey even had his TNA run with the Padres!

Not a bad comp.

 

John

[JerryvonKramer]

Honestly, I don't think Bix or jdw really needed to make those posts.

[goodhelmet]

Who's the guy who thinks that Buddy Rose was an all-time top five worker?

I have him in my Top 5 and I know Dylan's brother once said he was in his Top 5. I will let Dylan speak for himself. I do know that Dylan has said he was arguably the greatest worker straight from 1977-1982... an incredibly long stretch.