WON HOF 2013 discussion

[evilclown]

He was number 2 heel in MACW in 74, so if Johnny Valentine vs. Wahoo or similar was on the card, he'd be in the semi-main. It's not realistic to expect main eventers always to be in the main event though. I included the Greensboro 12/26/1974 card so you could see this.

 

I wasn't trying to "boost" Ivan, just give an account of what he was doing in any given year. The point was that if his stuff vs. Patera in AWA was semi-main, then in MACW he was clearly a step up on the card. And a lot of the shows had him in the top match.

I see. It's a difference in nomenclature. Thanks for providing this info.

[Dylan Waco]

You have to be careful about how you define "main events" in general, which is one of the reason I think it's useful to see who people were working and whether or not there were angles on tv that set up the house show matches. Places like MACW which ran multiple crews every day make this even harder.

[JerryvonKramer]

It's tricky. I use 80s WWF as my benchmark because it's what I know best, but take DiBiase or Savage in 88. They were clearly main eventers. But did they main event every card?

 

It seemed like your top feud in MACW in 74 was Wahoo vs. Johnny Valentine. But that doesn't mean Ivan wasn't a "main eventer" on the roster.

 

I can see arguments either way, but he was on top enough for me to put him as "Main event". Other times, GCW in 78, for example, he's almost never in the main event so I put him "semi-main".

 

I agree there are no hard and fast rules though.

[jdw]

Pedro at least had a stong career after dropping the title, but nothing that boosts his resume as a HOFer, and he has the albatross of drawing much less in markets without huge Puerto Rican populations. At least he continued to be a star pro wrestler.

Here's the thing about that "Pedro bombed everywhere there weren't PR folk":

 

He was champ for 2 years and 10 months. He had to carry an entire territory, not just the New York Metro. The PR population of Philly and Boston was statistically insignificant in 1972: less than 1% of the population. Newark had a decent sized PR population: it was all of 1.6% of its PSMA, which is insignificant. The rest of the territory was equally insignificant.

 

How does Pedro keep the title for 2 years and 10 months just for drawing in a building that the WWWF drew loads of people before and after Pedro with the likes of Bruno, Superstar, Bob and Hogan? The WWWF wasn't Memphis where one might be able to justify the Mid South Colosseum was all that mattered (though I suspect in the 70s and early 80s that Jarrett and Lawler would dispute that and the rest of the territory was useful for putting money in their pockets).

 

I tend to think that that "Pedro only draw PR's" is another WWWF/WWF meme like:

 

* Bruno sold out every MSG that he ever main evented

* Backlund never worked in Boston

* Backlund lost all his heat after Snuka

* wait... Backlund lost all his heat after crying over Superstar destroying the belt

* Superstar got no help in drawing, while Backlund needed all sorts of help on the card

 

Etc.

 

It's possible that Pedro kept drawing his entire MGS run but cooled off in the other cities down the stretch, say at some point in 1973. But I think there's no way in hell that he was bombing everywhere else in 1971 and 1972, with Vince Sr and his partners and local promoters not giving a shit about it until December 1973. That just doesn't happen in pro wrestling unless that wrestler is also the Promoter/Owner (i.e. The Shiek).

[Matt D]

Has Yohe or anyone else ever gone into more detail about Morales' LA main eventing in the mid 60s?

[jdw]

Last year I noticed an interesting thing regarding Bruno. This should be the work of Vance Nevada and quite possibly some earlier instances from people like maybe Georgiann Makropoulos

 

[...]

 

Doesn't exactly scream Hall Of Fame, does it?

He got tired of travel and wear of being WWWF Champ, which is why he handed the belt to Vince Sr. The results indicate what has always been said: he settled down to work Pitt and what was essentially a territory around it. Easy schedule as far as travel, Pitt as a strong anchor town where he was iconic, he got paid and could pick his spots to work. In a sense, he was working in a version of the Memphis territory though I don't think Pitt did weekly in their big building.

 

I think if we had full details on what Bruno did between WWWF reigns (i.e. including what those buildings did without him to comp), it's unlikely there will be anything in there that hurts his and instead is likely to help him.

[jdw]

Has Yohe or anyone else ever gone into more detail about Morales' LA main eventing in the mid 60s?

Yohe has posted results for LA in those years. They're likely buries somewhere on Classics.

[jdw]

Sasaki's a guy who's had some big moments in his career (Dome matches with Kawada and Kobashi), but to a certain extent he feels like a Japanese equivalent of Sting. Both were guys that the booker was high on and got multiple opportunities to be the top star of their national promotion, but the pushes never really stuck. Sting has the Crow run, which really was just one big drawing match. Given how far the Japanese business has declined, from a drawing perspective Sasaki headlining for AJPW and Pro Wrestling NOAH since 2007 isn't much better than being TNA's legend during the same time period. Really, given that he's one of the few legends left working from the '90s glory days, Sasaki should be a bigger deal today than he actually is.

That.

 

One also wonders just how much of his "success" that folks would point to really has anything to do with Sasaki. The sellouts opposite Kawada? Let's be honest and admit that Sasaki has the same issue that Kawada does in giving tons of credit for that drawing: Kobashi would have dawn as well in that match, and Misawa would have had much higher ticket demand. Mutoh would have drawn as well as Sasaki in that match, likely more... and there really isn't any reason to think that Chono wouldn't have drawn as much as Sasaki. Setting aside how badly they screwed up Hash earlier in the year, it would have taken 6 months of rehab to build him back up... but that's New Japan's great sin of that era anyway. Normal Pre-Destroyed Hash vs Kawada would have had greater ticket demand than Sasaki-Kawada.

 

Same goes for the January rematch, which wasn't even sold as a rematch given the tourney format.

 

We could do that with just about every Sasaki high point.

 

There's a slight different with Sting. I'm not sure that anyone else could have worked at that time for Hogan-Sting.

 

Sasaki has lots of "accomplishments", but I don't really think they add up to two shits.

[Matt D]

Has Yohe or anyone else ever gone into more detail about Morales' LA main eventing in the mid 60s?

Yohe has posted results for LA in those years. They're likely buries somewhere on Classics.

 

http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbc...c;f=10;t=002319

 

I found the results for 65 if anyone's interested.

 

and here's 66: http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbc...ic;f=9;t=004886

[mookeighana]

For curiosity and mookie-esque fun...

 

I took my 1970-2012 WWE results database and cross-referenced it against the WONHOF list. I did a regression against three variables:

(a ) number of matches

(b ) number of singles matches with a WWWF/WWF/WWE/WCW/Raw/Smackdown World Title holder

(c ) number of times on the "last match of the night"

 

There was 44 guys from the WONHOF list that were in my database with 100+ matches: Hulk Hogan (115%), Bob Backlund (106%), John Cena (99%), The Undertaker (96%), Triple H (88%), Randy Savage (84%), Bruno Sammartino (69%), Andre the Giant (62%), Bret Hart (52%), Steve Austin (47%), Kurt Angle (45%), The Rock (42%), Superstar Billy Graham (39%), Shawn Michaels (37%), Ric Flair (35%), Roddy Piper (35%), Chris Jericho (31%), Chris Benoit (24%), Rey Mysterio Jr (22%), Killer Kowalski (22%), Mick Foley (22%), Ted DiBiase (21%), Eddie Guerrero (17%), Pat Patterson (16%), Stan Hansen (16%), Ricky Steamboat (15%), Capt Lou Albano (15%), The Dynamite Kid (14%), Dusty Rhodes (14%), Masa Saito (13%), Freddie Blassie (12%), Ernie Ladd (12%), Bruiser Brody (12%), Terry Funk (12%), Vader (11%), Bobo Brazil (11%), Ray Stevens (10%), Harley Race (10%), Dory Funk Jr (10%), Bobby Heenan (10%), Road Warrior Hawk (9%), Mil Mascaras (8%), Jerry Lawler (7%), Road Warrior Animal (6%).

 

Obviously, some of them were inducted for their WWF (Austin, Graham, Cena) work while others for work in other territories (Vader, Brody, Lawler) so it's hardly a perfect comparison.

 

The formula was: Chance You're in WON HOF = 0.0804 + (-0.0002)xWWE_matches + 0.0005*World_Title_Singles_Matches + 0.0011*Last_Match_of_Night

Essentially, your chance goes up by 2% for every 41 world title singles matches or 1% for every 9 last match of the night. Inherently, the criteria I used only rewards people in the singles world title game, and not the people that might have been managers or superior tag candidates. Likewise, I didn't include attendance, ratings, PPV buys or a zillion other factors that would actually tell you something about business. It's just a fun little list. I has an interesting formula in that it actually penalizes you having a ton of matches without every being in the world title/"main event" picture.

 

[For instance, the dirty dozen at the bottom of the list are old hands: Sho Funaki (-6%), Barry Horowitz (-6%), Jose Estrada Sr (-7%), Koko B Ware (-7%), Shelton Benjamin (-7%), Billy Gunn (-10%), Val Venis (-11%), Bob Holly (-13%), Matt Hardy (-13%), SD Jones (-15%), Johnny Rodz (-19%) and Steve Lombardi (-20%). ]

 

Mookie's Ridiculous WWF Projected WON HOF Likelyhood Calculation (20% and higher list in full with WON HOF already removed)

Randy Orton: 1381 matches (383 World, 583 Last) = 65%

Batista: 922 matches (264 World, 494 Last) = 58%

Pedro Morales: 1379 matches (269 World, 561 Last) = 57%

Chief Jay Strongbow: 1809 matches (31 World, 708 Last) = 54%

Edge: 1568 matches (321 World, 530 Last) = 53%

Ivan Putski: 1524 matches (13 World, 633 Last) = 50%

The Ultimate Warrior: 1022 matches (173 World, 455 Last) = 48%

the Big Show: 1544 matches (219 World, 483 Last) = 43%

CM Punk: 946 matches (261 World, 273 Last) = 33%

Glen Jacobs: 2088 matches (199 World, 488 Last) = 32%

Sgt Slaughter: 959 matches (158 World, 306 Last) = 31%

Big John Studd: 895 matches (53 World, 330 Last) = 30%

Yokozuna: 627 matches (161 World, 218 Last) = 28%

Ivan Koloff: 499 matches (85 World, 205 Last) = 25%

Mr Fuji: 1302 matches (34 World, 366 Last) = 25%

Ken Patera: 909 matches (54 World, 285 Last) = 25%

Paul Orndorff: 776 matches (83 World, 242 Last) = 24%

Prof Toru Tanaka: 592 matches (35 World, 225 Last) = 23%

Brock Lesnar: 326 matches (120 World, 139 Last) = 23%

Sheamus: 525 matches (168 World, 150 Last) = 23%

Afa: 707 matches (25 World, 237 Last) = 22%

Greg Valentine: 1994 matches (68 World, 436 Last) = 21%

Rick Rude: 658 matches (45 World, 214 Last) = 21%

Jake Roberts: 1197 matches (3 World, 318 Last) = 21%

The Junkyard Dog: 858 matches (0 World, 260 Last) = 20%

George Steele: 980 matches (66 World, 251 Last) = 20%

Don Muraco: 1237 matches (76 World, 289 Last) = 20%

Gorilla Monsoon: 689 matches (3 World, 225 Last) = 20%

Jimmy Valiant: 512 matches (21 World, 185 Last) = 20%

Spiros Arion: 468 matches (49 World, 165 Last) = 20%

Johnny Valiant: 618 matches (10 World, 207 Last) = 20%

Stan Stasiak: 585 matches (46 World, 185 Last) = 20%

...

Jimmy Snuka: 1141 matches (24 World, 270 Last) = 17% (right by Blackjack Mulligan, Booker T, ADR and Haystacks Calhoun)

Curt Hennig: 1098 matches (56 World, 186 Last) = 10% (right between Dean Ho, Bob Orton Jr, Scott Irwin and John Tenta)

Dick Murdoch: 164 matches (3 World, 27 Last) = 8% (right by Nailz, Ray Traylor, Buddy Rose and Dino Bravo)

Owen Hart: 1470 matches (80 World, 197 Last) = 5% (right by Outback Jack, Mike Shaw, Duane Gill and Pete Austin)

[evilclown]

Has Yohe or anyone else ever gone into more detail about Morales' LA main eventing in the mid 60s?

Yohe has posted results for LA in those years. They're likely buries somewhere on Classics.

 

http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbc...c;f=10;t=002319

 

I found the results for 65 if anyone's interested.

 

and here's 66: http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbc...ic;f=9;t=004886

 

I love reading these results, seeing Morales wrestling a Mummy in the main event, then thinking about all the idiots angry at Vince for "exposing the business."

[JerryvonKramer]

Do the Jeff Walton 57talk shows cover this stuff?

[Matt D]

Found 1969:

http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbc...ic;f=9;t=005032

 

and 1968:

http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbc...0999;p=1#000018

[khawk20]

11-15-71--Fred Blassie 22,000 Well Fred was major..but old..well guess Fred was born old.

I've recently watched some early dark-haired Blassie stuff from California. Even as a youngster, Blassie DID look old.

 

Not for nothing but Pedro's AWA run has been described by most everyone I've talked to that saw it as "underwhelming". That would have been the mid-70's, two or three years removed from his WWWF reign.

[KrisZ]

Pedro had a solid run in Florida in 1977 where he feuded with Ivan Koloff ironically in tag teams and singles feuds over titles.

 

Pedro went to JCP where he was full midcard and was basically in the same boat as Tony Garea as they were there at the same time and I've seen different historians over the years bring that point up when talking up Pedro's legacy.

[BrickHithouse]

Well Fred was major..but old..well guess Fred was born old

Indeed:

[KrisZ]

AWESOME

[ohtani's jacket]

Mwahaha, man Brick you need to do run-ins for every thread.

[BrickHithouse]

Mwahaha, man Brick you need to do run-ins for every thread.

I'd prefer to be known for my profound cerebral takes on wrestling.

 

Ha, just kidding. Challenge accepted!

[W2BTD]

I was extremely humbled to find a ballot in the inbox of an email account that I rarely check that I use almost strictly for wrestling related correspondence.

 

As a first time voter, I am taking this process very seriously and doing an insane amount of research. This thread has been fantastic, so I thank everybody. I plan on being a VERY hard marker & conservative with my first year vote.

 

I am voting in the U.S./Canada, Japan, and Non-Wrestler categories. While I am familiar with the in-ring work of every candidate on the European & Mexican ballots, I do not consider myself well versed enough in the wrestling culture of either region to responsibly assess things like drawing power, influence, etc, so I am abstaining.

 

There are three absolute locks that I have settled on:

 

-Rock & Roll Express

-Kensuke Sasaki

-Hiroshi Tanahashi

 

I am 90% certain that i'll be voting for these two:

 

-Don Owen

-Jerry Jarrett

 

Im currently considering everybody else to varying degrees of seriousness. I have only completely eliminated a few that I consider bottom feeders. I can not be swayed by any argument for AJ Styles, Edge, Batista, and a couple of others.

 

I should note that I would probably vote for Carlos Colon (or at least very strongly consider) had he been placed in U.S./Canada. But since he's lumped in with the odd miscellaneous international category, I don't think it's fair to vote for him while not voting for anybody else in the region due to my ignorance of their resumes. I wonder how many others are doing the same. I really think he should be moved out of that category.

[Dylan Waco]

W2BTD was one of the other people I thought might have a ballot from this board which brings the number up to twelve. I still suspect there are a couple of others.

 

I completely agree with you on Colon being in the wrong category, but I think his case is so compelling that it wouldn't matter to me if I had a ballot. The Sharpes are also in the wrong category in my view.

 

Do you have the Enrique Torres record book? I can email it to you if you are interested.

 

Beyond that I would just say "Ken Patera"

[rovert]

Beyond that I would just say "Ken Patera"

Karl Stern on his last F4W podcast was openly asking for listeners to provide him with the case for Patera. Posted a link to the Wrestling Culture profile show and a link here.

[Dylan Waco]

I would like to hear people's thoughts on Kinji Shibuya and Wilbur Snyder. I think both are interesting candidates but neither get talked about all that much. I've done a good bit of digging and research on both over the last couple of years and I'm pretty confident I would vote for Shibuya, but less confident about Snyder. I'd be curious if anyone here has paid much attention to them and what conclusions they have drawn if they have.

[Dylan Waco]

Beyond that I would just say "Ken Patera"

Karl Stern on his last F4W podcast was openly asking for listeners to provide him with the case for Patera. Posted a link to the Wrestling Culture profile show and a link here.

 

I will probably be back on the The Board early next week. Is it worth the trouble for me to drag over all of the Patera stuff to his forum or not?

[rovert]

Beyond that I would just say "Ken Patera"

Karl Stern on his last F4W podcast was openly asking for listeners to provide him with the case for Patera. Posted a link to the Wrestling Culture profile show and a link here.

 

I will probably be back on the The Board early next week. Is it worth the trouble for me to drag over all of the Patera stuff to his forum or not?

 

There's a two page ironic thread in the Pro Wrestling section. Start a thread in the Classic Wrestling section.