WON HoF Candidate Poll Thread

[Cox]

Honestly I have given up on the thread for the most part. People are reducing themselves to flat out lying about Cena just to prop up Sting somehow.

I think the best was the guy who argued that Cena going in as the top star in wrestling for at least the last seven years was the equivalent of the top star in Continental in 83 going in.

 

To be fair, it would be completely awesome if Ron Fuller made it into the HOF.

[Moonsault Marvin]

A similar emotional reaction seems to be surrounding John Cena. There are people who were against him in the HOF because it's too soon. I can at least see the logic in that, but does anyone really think if Cena gets hit by a bus tomorrow his current resume wouldn't be sufficient?

If Cena got hit by a bus tomorrow and ratings and attendance don't significantly drop, how much of a draw was he? It is major problem putting someone in a Hall of Fame when they're are still in the top position. We don't know what will happen when he is replaced. It is taken for granted that Cena is a good draw, but his records don't seem to be systematically examined. I don't consider him a great worker, so in a strict Hall of Fame, he would need to be a proven strong draw to balance that out. Just being on top is not enough for Sting, and it is not enough for Cena.

[Sean Liska]

A similar emotional reaction seems to be surrounding John Cena. There are people who were against him in the HOF because it's too soon. I can at least see the logic in that, but does anyone really think if Cena gets hit by a bus tomorrow his current resume wouldn't be sufficient?

If Cena got hit by a bus tomorrow and ratings and attendance don't significantly drop, how much of a draw was he? It is major problem putting someone in a Hall of Fame when they're are still in the top position. We don't know what will happen when he is replaced. It is taken for granted that Cena is a good draw, but his records don't seem to be systematically examined. I don't consider him a great worker, so in a strict Hall of Fame, he would need to be a proven strong draw to balance that out. Just being on top is not enough for Sting, and it is not enough for Cena.

 

The Rock stepped in for Steve Austin and did fantastic numbers in 2000. Austin's still a great draw. Nothing that happens after Cena is gone can erase everything he accomplished. Someone could come along and top his numbers, it doesn't nullify anything that he's done. He just headlined a show that did like $70 million in revenue.

[Dylan Waco]

A similar emotional reaction seems to be surrounding John Cena. There are people who were against him in the HOF because it's too soon. I can at least see the logic in that, but does anyone really think if Cena gets hit by a bus tomorrow his current resume wouldn't be sufficient?

If Cena got hit by a bus tomorrow and ratings and attendance don't significantly drop, how much of a draw was he? It is major problem putting someone in a Hall of Fame when they're are still in the top position. We don't know what will happen when he is replaced. It is taken for granted that Cena is a good draw, but his records don't seem to be systematically examined. I don't consider him a great worker, so in a strict Hall of Fame, he would need to be a proven strong draw to balance that out. Just being on top is not enough for Sting, and it is not enough for Cena.

 

This is a reasonable argument in many ways...except for one thing.

 

Cena is the top star in the wresting business. Not his promotion. Not the U.S. The wrestling business. Moreover he has been the top star in the wrestling business for at minimum seven years.

 

Take a look through the HoF roster and the list of guys not in. There is no one in the history of wrestling who was the top star in the business for as long as Cena who is not in.

 

I'm not saying that's a "case closed" statement, but I do think in a world where Cena has been lambasted by smart fans for years for all sorts of sins imagined and otherwise, it would really reflect poorly on the WON HoF if Cena wasn't a first ballot guy. I almost hate to say that because I agree with the general principle and now that he's in I can see a case for never voting for "prime of their career" candidates again. But it's how I feel.

 

More importantly I think there is a clear difference between Cena and Sting, because "being on top" in Sting's sense is in no way comparable to being on top in the sense that Cena has been.

[jdw]

You could make a case for Moncrief as one of the top three players in the East in '82-83.

Yeah, that was his peak year, and you could argue that between his offensive efficiency and his strong defense, he was a top-5 player in the league. But in addition to Bird and Magic on the rise, you had Moses Malone at the height of his powers, Kareem and Dr. J stil playing at an elite level, and a bunch of great scorers like Gervin, Dantley, Alex English and Bernard King. Then Isiah jumped up, and by 1984-85, you had Jordan. So if Moncrief had a window as a cream-of-the-crop star, it closed quickly.

 

Moncrief was a terrific player from 1981/82 - 1985/86. Consistent, efficient, excellent all around game, off the charts defensive player relative to others since it was an era when no one played defense. Not saying that if you look at the film you'll see him playing Pippen / Jordan / Payton level defense... but relative to what other guards did in the era, he and Cooper were on an entirely different level. In the sense that if Coop and Moncrief came along in the 90s and an era that paid more attention to defense, they would have been a cut above Scottie, MJ and The Glove.

 

If you're putting together a list of the best players over that five year period, the only ones clearly above him would be Moses, Bird and Magic. I suspect there are some basketball-style sabermetrics that might actually put Moncrief ahead of Magic because he was so efficient, but I don't think anyone who watched them would really buy that. After that...

 

Jabbar was still very good but in decline for that period. I love the guy, but Moncrief was probably overall a better player. Zeke came into the league at the start of that period. Different beast of a player, but those Bucks were also a better team in that period. I think I'd go with Moncrief. Doc was declining in that period as well. MJ had his rookie year then was hurt. Gervin wasn't even close: he was just a scorer.

 

If someone wanted to say he was the 4th best player in the NBA over that five year stretch, I wouldn't argue. He was an awfully good player. His teams we good as well, just running into the 76ers and Celtics. An underrated and sadly forgotten. Five years isn't that short of a time, either, to be at that level. What hurts him when people look at his record is that he doesn't have a post-prime of playing 80 games a year scoring say 17-18 points for another four years, before dropping to 13-15 for another 3 years. The injury devastated his career.

 

John

[Moonsault Marvin]

Cena is the top star in the wresting business. Not his promotion. Not the U.S. The wrestling business. Moreover he has been the top star in the wrestling business for at minimum seven years.

Maybe that is enough. But lets say if the guys that take over after him cause U.S. buy rates and attendance to rise and his time on top becomes a trough in a graph, will people say that was a great run in wrestling or will they say something else? If a hall of fame is for "greats", then I think time will give us a better sense of what Cena is doing. The current one big company system in wrestling is still relatively new and it will be interesting in years to come to see how business increases or decreases with different top draws.

[Dylan Waco]

I don't disagree with any of that, though I would note that this isn't a "dark age" period the way something like 90-93 was. Not even close.

 

At worst we will look back on the Cena era and say "business was pretty decent, with some gigantic shows he was on top of and some solid numbers, along with long term slides in ratings." No one is going to say "business was shit when Cena was on top" because it hasn't been.

[Moonsault Marvin]

No its not a dark age and that is why I said maybe it is enough. I don't consider 1990 or 1991 to be a dark age, but guys like Ultimate Warrior, Curt Hennig, etc.

are often deemed "not draws" on message boards since they didn't do as well as the golden age that preceded them, although they didn't have the bottom of the bucket numbers like in 1995 either.

[Dylan Waco]

Hennig was Hogan's worst drawing opponent during his first major run IIRC.

 

Warrior was the replacement for Hogan and things slipped.

 

Neither guy is really comparable to Cena, because again, he's been the biggest star in wrestling for seven (really eight) years.

 

I get your point but Cena is a guy who will have a better track record then the bottom barrel aces of the WWE by a healthy margin.

[Moonsault Marvin]

Hennig was Hogan's worst drawing opponent during his first major run IIRC.

 

Warrior was the replacement for Hogan and things slipped.

 

Neither guy is really comparable to Cena, because again, he's been the biggest star in wrestling for seven (really eight) years.

 

I get your point but Cena is a guy who will have a better track record then the bottom barrel aces of the WWE by a healthy margin.

I wasn't comparing to Cena, but just saying I don't consider 1990 a dark age.

[jdw]

1990 was a bad business year.

 

WCW was bombing left and right. It's not like 1989 was great business, but at least Flair-Funk did some good house show business. 1990 was a disaster.

 

In the WWF, business was so bad that they cut from their three crews down to two, and went about eliminating slots for workers. The famous Harts vs Rockets title change / not title change? It was done because they were going to let Anvil go as part of the cuts. Instead they kept him and wiped the title change from the books before it aired. Warrior bombed. Hogan took a couple of months off, and also worked a lighter schedule than he had earlier in expansion. As Dylan said, Hogan-Perfect didn't do great business, and my recollection is that the Hogan-Earthquake feud (with Bravo and Tugboat attached) was disappointing around the horn at house shows.

 

The bloom was off the WWF in 1990-96. Business is vastly better now than back in that period.

 

John

[ohtani's jacket]

Personally, I've always thought the biggest blow to Sting's career was his knee exploding in 1990 or thereabouts. You got the feeling the Horsemen turning on him was where he was going to get the proverbial rocket up the ass push. The injury scrapped all those, and the rebooking that had to be done in the aftermath really cooled him off when he came back. To me he never really seemed to fit the same way again. He was still Sting, he was still popular, but there never was any real sense he was going to be the clear #1 guy.

To be honest, I don't think Sting was ace material. He didn't have the mic skills for it and I'm not sure he had the right look either. To me he was an Intercontinental Championship level guy, the equivalent of which was probably the US Championship but I never felt that belt was handled as well as the IC title so bear with me. With better booking he may have had a more successful tilt at the mainevent, but Sting's saving grace is that his work wasn't all that bad during the period in question. Given that Sting's work wasn't the problem, I have my doubts whether better booking would have helped the company's bottom line. A down period is a down period and few (if any) companies have been able to avoid them. It's possible that people started tuning out and houseshow numbers dropped because Sting didn't catch on, but I suspect it had more to do with Crockett as people knew it having run its course. Sting would have had to have been one of the great all-time attractions to prevent the downslide. Having said that if business had been a little healthy or Sting had drawn a few good gates from time to time maybe he'd have a stronger case. It seems WCW was still Flair to a lot of people during Sting's run and I wonder what things would have been like if it was obvious Flair was never coming back ala Hogan and the WWF. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems Bret was accepted by what remained of the WWF audience moreso than Sting was accepted in Flair's absence. Not that I mean to make living in Flair's shadow into the latest excuse for Sting. If he'd been overwhelmingly popular he would have made people forget about Flair. I just think the mechanics of what makes someone a star in pro-wrestling is interesting.

[blueminister]

So not winning a pennant or World Series but being a great player and nice guy in baseball = Not drawing on top* and being an at times good but usually average and sometimes worse worker and nice guy in wrestling?

Wrestling isn't a sport, so it's actually completely different. There were no pennants or World Series for Sting to win, and the championships he did win were all props. Packing houses is not the fake wrestling equivalent of winning titles unless you're a promoter. Glad I could help.

[Dylan Waco]

Sting did some good numbers v. Flair at times in 90, but they were basically isolated cases surrounding by poor showings. Luger actually did reasonably well v. Flair for the portion where Sting was out with injury. I'm not sure what conclusions can be drawn from that, but it's not a positive for Sting.

[ohtani's jacket]

Flair/Luger was an infinitely better match-up than Flair/Sting but I'm not sure that has anything to do with it. To me the Flair/Sting dynamic never really worked. Even watching the Luger/Flair matches years later, I wanted the Total Package to kick Flair's ass and take the title. With Sting it was more whether poor little Borden could overcome his knee troubles and hang in there.

[Ricky Jackson]

So not winning a pennant or World Series but being a great player and nice guy in baseball = Not drawing on top* and being an at times good but usually average and sometimes worse worker and nice guy in wrestling?

Wrestling isn't a sport, so it's actually completely different. There were no pennants or World Series for Sting to win, and the championships he did win were all props. Packing houses is not the fake wrestling equivalent of winning titles unless you're a promoter. Glad I could help.

 

Well, there was a ? at the end of my statement for a reason. Anyway, I'm not the knucklehead who compared Sting to Banks in the first place, so don't shoot the messenger.

[El-P]

Flair/Luger was an infinitely better match-up than Flair/Sting but I'm not sure that has anything to do with it. To me the Flair/Sting dynamic never really worked. Even watching the Luger/Flair matches years later, I wanted the Total Package to kick Flair's ass and take the title. With Sting it was more whether poor little Borden could overcome his knee troubles and hang in there.

The thing is, if you put aside the first Clash match, which is an incredible carry job from Flair, Flair and Sting really never got the best out of each other. It became really obvious to me watching 1994 as after those great matches with Vader, Sting working Flair has him regressing to chest pumping and no-selling left and right, while Flair reverts to his most routine work in years. For some reasons they had a match in 1990 which was really not that good and it's like it was their reference in how to work together in later years. So yeah, I would agree Flair and Sting just weren't the best dynamic. It's like Hart and Shawn in the WWF, it really never clicked that well in the ring while they had great matches with other workers, including way inferior ones.

[Dylan Waco]

Meltzer with a run-in in the Sting thread at Classics

 

Cena is a Hall of Fame level draw by objective standards.

 

If you go through in 2012, 2011, 2010, etc. compare cards Cena on and average attendance,and those he's not on, you'll find a substantial difference. There is nobody who drew as much as he did for as long as he did who is not in. In fact, there is not even one person you can put in his league as a guy who drew on top year after year as top guy in the business who isn't in. The closest I could find was Vincent Lopez, and he's a long way from Cena.

 

Now, are his numbers in the ballpark of Hogan, Austin, Rock, Londos, Rocca, Rogers, the really great draws. No. He's below that pack and ahead of the Bret/Michaels pack, who were big stars but not fantastic drawing cards. And they are ahead of the Sting pack.

 

Sting is a guy who is a strong candidate to be talked about. As far as getting in, when the best argument is he was a better draw then Benoit, or John Cena was pushed and TV ratings have fallen (which they have, but he also brought attendances up from a bottoming out period seven years ago to a higher level today), you need to do research and come up with something better.

 

There are several voters in this thread and they are very open minded, as years go by, we all get more open minded about people. If you make a valid case for Sting, he'll get in. It's happened with a lot of people in the past. The valid case isn't anything to do with John Cena, who was a no brainer pick. Sting is a brainer, like dozens of marginal guys, you need to show why he belongs in.

 

Saying Benoit or Jericho is a bad argument because Benoit and Jericho were both considered by their peers to be very close to the best performers in the business during their peaks. Benoit obviously more than Jericho, but both are held in very high regard. If Sting was considered at their level as a performer, he'd have been in a long time ago. He's not.

 

They are both bad comparison points unless you want to argue inside the ring Sting is better than they were. And if you do, you're not looking at it as a wrestler for sure because it would mean you don't know the difference between leader and follower and guy who doesn't want to do anything more than get by and guy who wants to be the best.

 

Sting had one home run PPV, with a year long build against one of the bigger stars in history. Batista did almost 500,000 more buys for his best PPV against a guy who was no Hogan on a strong four month build and you don't see a lot of people saying Batista should be in. Batista's PPV numbers generally are far better than Sting's. His house show numbers on top blow Sting away.

 

It's not a "could have" Hall of Fame. "Could have" is a nice thing to do, but you can't use it for a Hall of Fame.

 

Also, regarding people getting in, unless you understand it, don't comment on it.

 

I never voted for Steve Williams, but to those in Japan, where he was voted in on, Steve Williams is a Hall of Famer. I know who voted for him and he had universal respect, particularly among those who worked with him. The only thing that kept him out was Americans who voted for Japanese candidates, but within Japan, the respect he had was huge.

 

I see him as borderline, but I don't live in Japan, only visited and watched TV. Still, at his peak he was a better wrestler than Sting for sure, a bigger star (partially because All Japan in the 90s trumps WCW within their respective cultures) except for maybe 1997 and a few months of early 1998. Sting beats him for longevity at the top. Sting was a far bigger U.S. star, but this isn't a U.S. wrestling Hall of Fame.

 

Even Iaukea, who I also never voted for, Iaukea was closer to the biggest star in Australian history than Sting is in U.S. history, was the single biggest star ever in Hawaii during a boom period drawing tons of sellouts, is either the biggest or second biggest star ever in New Zealand. That's where he got voted in from. In those parts of the world he trumps Sting to the point you can't even make an argument. Iaukea in New Zealand at his peak was a genuine mainstream sports star, on covers of sports magazines that Sting could never get his name in the U.S., let alone a cover. In Hawaii, he's a huge cultural figure. There is probably nobody over the age of 45 in Hawaii who doesn't know Curtis Da Bull Iaukea. In mainland U.S., I'd guess 80% or so of the population that was around in the 90s when asked about Sting, would think you're talking about a rock star and have no idea who the wrestler is. Yeah, he was big in wrestling magazines, but to the public, he was never like Cena, Savage, Piper, Hogan, Flair, Andre, etc. You don't see states wanting to make him the face of their Lottery even after tons of bad pub. He doesn't have national endorsements. He's not in movies. All the things the larger than life stars had, Sting never got a whiff of, because he was only a star to wrestling fans, while the biggest wrestling stars were names people like my mom and dad would know and Sting's not even close there. Goldberg is even ahead of Sting in that regard.

 

Regarding WCW, the fact is WCW's business was strongest in 1998 with Goldberg as the top face. Goldberg and Sting got monster pushes and Goldberg's year was better than Sting's year if you look at the attendance figures. I spoke to Zane Bresloff 3-5 times daily, and that was his department. He's the guy selling the tickets and he never thought Sting was a guy who sold tickets. It was Hulk and it was Goldberg the next year. At Sting's peak in 1997 they brought him to L.A. and spent six figures marketing a show around Hulk and Sting, they announced Hulk first, sold tickets and when Sting was announced for the late push (they were feuding with WWF which had a show the same day or same weekend, I don't remember) and the addition of Sting sold no extra tickets and they ended up actually losing money on the show. That was when Sting never did house shows and was at his so-called peak, so it had to be 97. Even then, he was not a draw past the match with Hogan, which did great, but also fell off huge after the first meeting.

 

If wrestlers considered Sting a great worker, he'd be in. While that's not entirely what got Benoit in or Jericho in, their peers did vote for them in strong numbers. Angle even more. I can't tell you how many guys, I mean guys who have worked on top with everyone, including if I name names, Austin, Rock, Benoit, Guerrero, Jarrett and even Flair who have told me that in their opinion, Kurt is either the best (three of the above said absolute best) or one of the best they were ever in the ring with. That's why he got in. You could argue they are wrong, but it is their opinion and those names have been in with an awful lot of great wrestlers.

 

Sting's drawing numbers are not Hall of Fame. His in-ring ranges from very good at times to really ****** at times, but a Hall of Fame worker without the drawing power, not a chance. His best argument is that he had a bunch of world titles at a time they were devalued, and main evented a lot of shows that didn't do very well and a few that did. He had a very long career where he was considered a top star, and still is today, which is a plus and is his best credential.

 

I did drawing comps in the 50s for Sting, and his comps were Roy Shire (who is in, but would not be in as a wrestler), Angelo Poffo (not in), Sheik (who is in but more for the 70s and Sting never had a 70s Sheik run anywhere) Crusher (also in, but for the 60s and 70s and if Crusher never did anything after the 50s nobody would consider him), Mexico's Tony Borne (not in), Bull Curry in Texas (not in), Prince Neff Maiava (not in). Dick Hutton had a few years as a non-drawing world champion and is also not in.

 

For the 60s, his drawing comps are Bob Ellis (who I think would actually be ahead of Sting or at least equal, but isn't in), Johnny Barend (not in), Hans Moriter (not in), and Toru Tanaka (not in).

 

I get people's childhoods but you have to be able to move past that. My childhood had Rocky Johnson (who had a hell of a career, I worked on the guy's WWE Hall of Fame speech and it was way more than I expected) and Pepper Gomez as top faces who kids of my era where I lived knew far better than Sting at a similar stage. Johnson is not in, never got support, and I won't argue him, and he had a hell of a career in a lot of places. Gomez is probably even stronger as a candidate, and is to this day a household name is any second generation Hispanic household around here in a way Sting could never be, and he's not in. And I've never voted for either.

 

For a sports analogy, maybe not the best, but from reading this thread, this is how I see the argument, Sting was a quarterback who was a first round draft choice by a real good team, in his third year he worked his way to starter and started for several years, most years on a crappy team and his stats were below average. He had one year where the team went to the Super Bowl. But he had a really long career. And he was pretty famous. His team doesn't get him in, his stats aren't even close, but you get a bunch of arguments that if he had only gone to the 49ers and played under Walsh, he'd be in. And who is to say it's not true, and who is to say Walsh would have started someone over him that was already there. Or who is to say he would have started and flopped. In any case, that's not a Hall of Fame argument at all.

[WingedEagle]

That's a win. Pretty much nailed it.

[KrisZ]

So Sting is basically Craig Morton

[Dylan Waco]

I started to post this on Classics the other day when someone mentioned Sting as a "bubble" candidate, but I liken him to a college basketball team from a major conference that is a game or two above five hundred, with a weak RPI, but one win against a top five team.

[ohtani's jacket]

Oh yeah, Sting can't compare to the biggest star in the history of New Zealand. Did we even have a mainstream in Iaukea's day? And as for Williams being a star in Japan, where were the national endorsements, the movies, the household name? Williams was a star for wrestling fans in Japan the same as Sting in America. What Dave wrote was pretty convincing, but he should really stick to the US examples.

[Dylan Waco]

He was referencing complaints that came up in the thread.

[Matt D]

Frigging Angle.

 

Uh, but in general, yeah, after that I think I'm done arguing about Sting except for in the meta way, because figuring out why we feel like we do is way more interesting to me.

[ohtani's jacket]

He was referencing complaints that came up in the thread.

All righty, but we didn't even have sports magazines in New Zealand during Iaukea's day.