WON HOF 2013 discussion

[evilclown]

I would note that this thread is how HoF debates should be done. When clown said "eh Ivan Koloff, prove it" people actually did the work and tried to offer something up. That's what I've done with Patera. Years ago it's what James Phillips (I think) did with Kong who was stonewalled for years.

 

To me there needs to be cases made for guys. That's half the point of the Hall of Fame.

I agree. I was hoping that was what this guy would do for Tanahashi. Instead, he decided just asking the question made me an asshole. I wanted to learn something from him.

 

To be fair he went in on why he thought Tanahashi was good in-ring pretty well.

 

Did he? In between his various threats to "retire" from the thread and somehow painting himself a victim?

[concrete1992]

I would note that this thread is how HoF debates should be done. When clown said "eh Ivan Koloff, prove it" people actually did the work and tried to offer something up. That's what I've done with Patera. Years ago it's what James Phillips (I think) did with Kong who was stonewalled for years.

 

To me there needs to be cases made for guys. That's half the point of the Hall of Fame.

I agree. I was hoping that was what this guy would do for Tanahashi. Instead, he decided just asking the question made me an asshole. I wanted to learn something from him.

 

To be fair he went in on why he thought Tanahashi was good in-ring pretty well.

 

Did he? In between his various threats to "retire" from the thread and somehow painting himself a victim?

 

:/ Yep, it is there.

[Jimmy Redman]

What do you like about him? What things does he do well? What makes him more special than other great wrestlers of his era? What are his best matches and why? It's not enough to just say "everything" and "all of them" here, as if it is self-explanatory, because it really isn't.

-What he does well: Match pacing. In this regard, I view him as essentially flawless. I can not recall a Tanahashi match that I have thought went too long or did not go long enough. He always hits the sweet spot, and has an uncanny ability to hit is peaks at the right times.

 

He is a great babyface who clearly connects with the audience. His record as a draw is knocked around these parts for not stacking up to the past, but it is clear that New Japan has turned around with him on top, as attendance, revenue, and iPPV numbers can confirm this. He is not an elite draw, but he is a good one, and greatly responsible for New Japan's resurgence. What you think that is worth is up to you, I find it relevant enough to be part of the picture for sure.

 

-What makes him more special than other great wrestlers of his era: A streak of delivering in big match main events that hasn't been matched in many years, if not ever. If you don't like the style, I suppose you can stop reading now. Nothing I say can convince you. The Okada series is the best modern series of matches since Misawa/Kobashi, and i've had serious debates with myself that it may be better. As some may know I review all New Japan shows for my website, and I have rated three of these matches 5-stars this year alone, as I felt they were perfect. Believe it or not, I am a hard marker when it comes to this. I've doled out one other 5-star rating in my entire life to this point. And despite the off handed passive aggressive insults tossed toward me in this thread, i'm no kid and not new to wrestling or puro for that matter.

 

As I pointed out earlier in the thread, a mark of a great worker to me is how many people they carried to the best match of their career. Off the top of my head, I would say definitively that Okada, Karl Anderson, Minoru Suzuki, Yujiro Takahashi, & Tetsuya Naito have had the best match of their career vs Tanahashi, and that's just in the last calendar year. Some would argue Tomohiro Ishii, but I preferred the Ishii match against Shibata. Many would also argue Nakamura, but I prefer modern Nakamura matches to his previous incarnation and I think Nakamura has topped his Tanahashi matches since with other people, but I am the minority. The only other wrestler of this era who consistently delivers in this area is Daniel Bryan, who had match after match in 2006 onward that were easily the best match of this opponents career, including with mediocre workers like Jimmy Rave, Delirious etc. So this is clearly an area that to me sets Tanahashi apart for nearly everybody else in this era.

 

Tanahashi was also instrumental in creating a new superstar in Okada, who has now started to prove himself as a draw on his own. Okada was a complete non entity that flopped badly on the Dome show in 2012 when he returned from excursion, and thanks to his great series of matches with Tanahashi, he's a bonafide star. Tanahashi just did the same thing for Naito in the G1 Finals, and it appears Naito is well on his way to joining Okada. So this ticks the influence box, as does his working style, which is clearly being emulated by many in Japan, much to the likely chagrin of people here who don't dig modern Japan.

 

There are little things. A few months ago, he had the best lumberjack match i've ever seen with Devitt. Wasn't a great match, but i've never enjoyed a lumberjack match ever, except for that one. His G1 performance this year was fantastic. Night after night, delivering great matches with his entire block, when positioned in the main or semi most every night while others got "nights off" by being placed in prelims. Tanahashi was expected to work hard and have his standard of match every night, and delivered. And did it twice on the final day, one being what I thought was a five star draw with Okada, and then the star maker with Naito. All six of the Okada matches are great, and all were worked differently. One was a 30 minute draw, another saw Tanahashi work heel, one saw heavy arm work on Okada to take out the Rainmaker, etc.

 

And I have barely touched on the first part of his career, where he was having great matches that nobody paid attention to because New Japan was struggling.

 

So there you go. Nothing super in depth, but some basic bullet points to show where myself & others are coming from.

 

[jdw]

I also have no problems with anyone that got in. I'm surprised both Sasaki and Tanahashi got in this year, but I also think they were going to get in at some point anyway.

Sasaki getting in is funny.

 

I'm going to reference a Yohe joke from 2005 or 2006 on Wrestling Classics: "It looks like being a WWE main eventer automatically gets you into the WON HOF". Obviously his statement doesn't seem to be true anymore but I wonder if we are having a shift in influence due to the new voters in and Japanese main eventers from the last 15 years will have it easier than ever. Next year will be a good test with Taue and Akiyama on the ballot, but Suzuki should be the most interesting name to follow.

Mutoh-Hash-Chono-Sasaki

Misawa-Kawada-Kobashi

 

The big main eventers of that generation. Even Doc got in.

 

Taue is hurt that his 1996 TC reign got cut off by the quick transition to Kobashi. I think if they did this at the Budokans:

 

04/96 Taue over Williams to win Carny

06/96 Taue over Misawa to win TC

07/96 Taue over Kobashi

09/96 Taue over Hansen (12:00 tops)

10/96 Taue over Kawada

12/96 Taue & Kawada over Misawa & Akiyama in the Tag League Final

03/97 Misawa over Taue to win TC

 

It's one of those "career year" things that puts down a marker in the Achivements line. It also saves Kobashi's TC run for later.

 

Are there any tricky matches in there? The first three matches happened, with the Misawa match happening in Sapporo in May rather than at Budokan. Taue-Kawada happened at the 06/96 Budokan rather than 10/96, and was pretty disappointing. It's likely one that would have been better if built to. The Tag League Final happened that way of course.

 

The one that didn't happen was Taue-Hansen, which was a long Kobashi-Hansen for the TC and pretty damn good. If you keep Taue-Hansen to a 12 minute brawling war, and given them a good semi (Misawa & Akiyama vs Williams & Ace actually headlined above Kobashi-Hansen on that card), then you've got a card. They also had a Albright-Kawada in the 7/96 card, which instead could have been moved to 9/96 as a "#1 Contenders Match", which likely would get the fans well behind Kawada since Kawada-Taue is what they'd want to see.

 

3/97? Misawa-Taue for the TV happened in 7/97. It already had the bloom off it because of course Taue had long since lost the TC, but also because Misawa pinned him in the Carny earlier in the year in some skullfucking booking. Anyway... they easily could have run it on 3/97.

 

How does it draw? Hard to tell. AJPW was selling out Budokan anyway at the time. Give the cards a quality SF with the likes of Misawa, and would have been fine?

 

Then flip it: going back to 1995 has "Taue Getting Good" and a role in a number of key Budokan main events, and not just as someone along for the ride:

 

04/95 Misawa over Taue in the Carny Final

06/95 Kawada & Taue over Misawa & Kobashi in El Super Clasico

09/95 Misawa over Taue in a TC defense

12/95 Misawa & Kobashi over Kawada & Taue in the Tag League Final (3-3-3)

 

You take that, and you could have made the argument that 4/95 - 3/97 AJPW featured a storyline with Taue in a leading role (in addition to Misawa), and knocked out a number of terrific matches.

 

How possible?

 

These happened:

 

04/95 Misawa over Taue in the Carny Final

06/95 Kawada & Taue over Misawa & Kobashi in El Super Clasico

09/95 Misawa over Taue in a TC defense

12/95 Misawa & Kobashi over Kawada & Taue in the Tag League Final (3-3-3)

04/96 Taue over Williams to win Carny

06/96 Taue over Misawa to win TC (happened in 5/96)

07/96 Taue vs Kobashi for the TC

10/96 Taue vs Kawada for the TC (happened in 6/96)

12/96 Taue & Kawada over Misawa & Akiyama

03/97 Misawa vs Taue for the TC (happened in 7/96)

 

This one didn't:

 

09/96 Taue over Hansen (12:00 tops)

 

Match quality? 6/95 and 12/96 are legendary for quality. 4/95 & 9/95 were highly rated at the time, and collectively are still praised. 4/96 & 7/96 were highly rated at the time and are still well thought of. That's a base of great matches. It's likely that 5/96 would have been better at Budokan being forced to be a Budokan main rather than trying to get across a flash finish. Pretty certain Taue-Kawada would have been better at any point in the year than in 6/96 when Kawada was at the height of his doghouse. Match quality is pretty damn decent in there.

 

So... I think we can blame Kobashi for Taue not having a better HOF candidacy.

 

 

 

Agree that Atlantis going in before the other luchadores is insane, but also think he's done enough to be in.

That was one where you and Sims disagreed.

 

I think we need to get Dave to put the Dynamite Brothers on the ballot as a group, since it's the only way Cien is going to get in. :/

 

 

I feel bad for Colon but I can't imagine that people voting for him in 2013 won't vote for him next year. The category has hurt him but not as much as I'd have thought, and he's a hard to place guy anyway.

I thought this would be the year, but my guess is that the increased number of ballots isn't helping him.

[jdw]

I don't remember Dave saying she was an inferior worker to Dump, I'm not sure how much of an argument there is for that...I mean I guess there is in that Dump was so good at the intangibles and got by almost completely on having ring psychology.

It was more than Aja was a Dump knockoff & she wasn't as good as Bull were the central comments Dave made about her for several years. Which was more than a bit annoying since when one watches Aja as the Big Red Champ, you're not seeing a Dump. You're seeing something along the lines of a female Vader (Big Worker who can to a lot but can bump and sell their ass off when the time is right) with a decent amount of Jumbo mixed in (The Women who can go over clean & decisive while making the challenger look good for being in there with her).

 

I'm not going to say Aja was a better worker than Bull, since Bull was terrific. I will say that Aja was terrific as well in her prime, and really felt like the perfect Champ in that 11/92 - 12/95 interpromotional period. I'm 100% certain that Bull would have been perfect in it as well if she had come along later... but there's also a sense that Bull in 1/90 - 12/92 was helping lay the foundation for the promotion became in those six years. To a degree, they were the perfect champs for their respective periods, and Aja was strong as Bull's rival prior to winning the belt.

 

 

 

I know Kong's drawing record put her over the top but it's hard for me to see anyone from that era of AJW *not* as primarily being a workrate candidate based on the way AJW was pushed in the WON.

Again, I don't think I'd call it "drawing record". It's more in how she opened Male eyes to the promotion. She helped slap the haze off men's eyes.

 

It's a bit like Rhonda with MMA. I don't think in 15 years that were going to look back on Rhonda as one of the 5 best women fighters ever, unless she has more growth in the tank than I think... and the women's game fails to evolve and develop as fast as the men's. But I do think we'll look back on her as really import: she got Dudes to watch Womens MMA and get it over. That's important.

 

Aja was kind of that, though it's almost certain Rhonda will be the much bigger draw unless she starts getting her ass kicked in every fight starting with the next one.

[Dylan Waco]

At the risk of sounding like a troll, why shouldn't the opinions of peers and contemporaries carry more weight than those of guys watching footage decades after the fact? Also, if Rose was so highly regarded by his peers, why isn't he a serious HOF candidate? It's not just that he cant get in, he can't even stay on the ballot.

I already covered the second part, you willfully ignored it as you do with any post I make that you dislike.

 

The first part has been covered a multitude of times on this forum as well.

[El Boricua]

I'm not surprised Carlos Colon missed again. I agree that he's not in the appropriate category (it should really be just Pacific/Oceania), but feel that if he were placed in the U.S category (which is the one that makes the most sense of the existing ones) he would fare worse. There could be a Caribbean/South America bucket, but I don't know if there are any other candidates you could put there (Jack Veneno?, Relampago Hernandez? someone from Guatemala? other Puerto Rican wrestlers? Karadagian's already in).

[jdw]

I'm not surprised Carlos Colon missed again. I agree that he's not in the appropriate category (it should really be just Pacific/Oceania), but feel that if he were placed in the U.S category (which is the one that makes the most sense of the existing ones) he would fare worse. There could be a Caribbean/South America bucket, but I don't know if there are any other candidates you could put there (Jack Veneno?, Relampago Hernandez? someone from Guatemala? other Puerto Rican wrestlers? Karadagian's already in).

Agreed that Colon would get hammered in a NA category: he would never get this close to getting in.

 

The category he's in now is essentially an "Other" bucket, with the major Others (Japan and Lucha) and a minor Other (Euro still is at this point) pulled out.

[kjh]

2001-03 is only a few years removed from business being strong. Tanahashi is now a decade and a half removed from when business was strong.

Tanahashi is 7 years into being pushed as a World Champion. When he was first pushed as Champ, we were a day less than NOAH packing the Dome for the second straight year. Two years from Jun being able to hold up his end of the bargin as an opponent for Kobashi to pack the Dome on that 2004 card.

Tanahashi was on the second Dome show and it was embarrassing the dearth of reaction he got for his match. It wasn't home territory, but other outsiders certainly popped the crowd at that event. I'm sure you could chalk that up to "how far he's come since then", but it was only eight years ago and sort of telling at the time about the future of the Japanese wrestling business when he was New Japan's top youngster being pushed.

[ohtani's jacket]

2001-03 is only a few years removed from business being strong. Tanahashi is now a decade and a half removed from when business was strong.

Tanahashi is 7 years into being pushed as a World Champion. When he was first pushed as Champ, we were a day less than NOAH packing the Dome for the second straight year. Two years from Jun being able to hold up his end of the bargin as an opponent for Kobashi to pack the Dome on that 2004 card.

 

So yeah, Tanahashi in 2013 is quite removed from days when the business was strong. A large chunk of the period, 5-6 years of it, was when Tanahashi and Nakamura were anchoring New Japan.

I thought the consensus on Tanahashi was that he's going in because of what Dave has written and said about him the past two years. There doesn't appear to be much consideration of his career as whole, but rather the upswing in business the best few years. And wasn't that NOAH Dome Show papered?

 

I don't think there was a lot of positive leaching by New Japan off of MMA a decade ago. It actually helped lead to the fall. In turn, NOAH really didn't give a crap about MMA. But setting that aside, it kind of misses the obvious reason why Jun drew better in New Japan in 2001-03 than Tanahashi has in New Japan.

I think the industry leeched off MMA a fair bit, particularly the magazines. Now there's nothing to leech off. People talk about these internet PPVs, and maybe they're a valuable source of income for the promotion, but to me that makes NJPW an incredibly fringe product in Japan and nowhere near achieving mainstream appeal since TV is still king. MMA was the last combat sport to have any significant television exposure. That's gone and the casuals have left with it. There's not a lot for the industry to really tap. The base audience is so small that to sell out Sumo Hall you need those people to bring people with them, like my wife's ex-worker did the times he took her there.

 

New Japan wasn't hot in 2003 when Jun popped in. The promotion was already in the crapper by that point. He made it hot. Again, for obvious reasons.

Why? Because it was interpromotional?

 

Small market? Tokyo isn't a small market.

It is for pro-wrestling in 2013.

 

The promoters all got credit in the 90s. As did the stars.

 

As far as once hot wrestlers no longer drawing what they once did, look up Hogan in 1994 and 1995. Did he draw what he did in 1986? No one expects Misawa to draw in 2002 what he drew in 1992, or that signs of rot wouldn't set in from running the same thing for a decade.

So why do you think it's ironic that Tanahashi can't draw what Akiyama did a decade ago when you know the business isn't as good as it was a decade ago? There's irony in there for people who think Tanahashi is a good draw I suppose, but no real irony beneath the surface. If NJPW are starting to report legit numbers like Dave says then they're doing better than I could have imagined them doing five or six years ago, even if it's a minor accomplishment by historical standards. It seems like the new owners have a more sensible business plan. Maybe people go overboard in praising the turnaround, but it's not worth cheapening.

[kjh]

Looking at the figures for Brits this year and seeing Pallo didn't get any bump as leading candidate once McManus got in and "freed up" a spot I suspect it may be many years before anyone gets in. With Daddy on 38% (a big rise), I get the impression that a fair proportion of the European voting group is split between "would never put Daddy in" and "will always vote for Daddy ahead of anyone else, often as the only UK pick". In turn that creates a logjam that Daddy won't get in, but eats up enough votes that it makes it very hard for anyone else to get on 60 percent of ballots.

 

There appear to be 120 people voting in the Europe category, which is staggeringly high.

I think the logjam isn't just caused by Daddy being such a polarising figure, but also the more modern workrate candidates like Rocco, Saint and Breaks, whose performances have been widely tape traded.

[kjh]

What exactly is the criteria to obtain a vote for this version of a wrestling HOF? Ex-wrestler or sucking Dave's balls?

 

What's all this hullabaloo about then? You've got Colt Cabana not voting for RnR because Morton was a dick to him one time, or Gibson's eye is too far out of alignment, or whatever the hell that is? Fuck Cabana then, take his vote away. Or make him come up with a better reason.

 

Why doesn't Dylan have a vote? Or Loss? Goodhelmet? Khawk, for Christ's sake? Dylan watches more wrestling than any two people here combined.

 

There is no legit HOF and I personally don't see how this is less of a sham than the WWE HOF that houses Vince Sr's limo driver.

 

A possible way to make this version slightly less of a sham would be for one of the regular Dave Ball Suckers we have here to get to sucking a little bit more, change up the routine, or whatever of Dave's needs sucked to get Dylan and Khawk, at minimum, a ballot.

To be fair, Dave is certainly willing to give ballots to people who have butted heads or disagreed with him in the past. Me, jdw, evilclown, Bix, etc having ballots is proof of that. I think the problem is that you have to be on his radar or fall within one of his buckets of active wrestler, former wrestler, reporter (which seems to include bloggers and podcast talkers) or historian.

[mookeighana]

What exactly is the criteria to obtain a vote for this version of a wrestling HOF? Ex-wrestler or sucking Dave's balls?

 

What's all this hullabaloo about then? You've got Colt Cabana not voting for RnR because Morton was a dick to him one time, or Gibson's eye is too far out of alignment, or whatever the hell that is? Fuck Cabana then, take his vote away. Or make him come up with a better reason.

 

Why doesn't Dylan have a vote? Or Loss? Goodhelmet? Khawk, for Christ's sake? Dylan watches more wrestling than any two people here combined.

 

There is no legit HOF and I personally don't see how this is less of a sham than the WWE HOF that houses Vince Sr's limo driver.

 

A possible way to make this version slightly less of a sham would be for one of the regular Dave Ball Suckers we have here to get to sucking a little bit more, change up the routine, or whatever of Dave's needs sucked to get Dylan and Khawk, at minimum, a ballot.

To be fair, Dave is certainly willing to give ballots to people who have butted heads or disagreed with him in the past. Me, jdw, evilclown, Bix, etc having ballots is proof of that. I think the problem is that you have to be on his radar or fall within one of his buckets of active wrestler, former wrestler, reporter (which seems to include bloggers and podcast talkers) or historian.

 

Since I doubt Dave is crediting my short lived career wrestling Brodie Lee and Colin Delaney, I assume my ballot was considered a reporter.

[evilclown]

To be fair, Dave is certainly willing to give ballots to people who have butted heads or disagreed with him in the past. Me, jdw, evilclown, Bix, etc having ballots is proof of that. I think the problem is that you have to be on his radar or fall within one of his buckets of active wrestler, former wrestler, reporter (which seems to include bloggers and podcast talkers) or historian.

I've always gotten along with him. I enjoy talkign with him whenever we cross paths at a UFC event. His readers? That's another story, at least the ones on his message board. Wow!

[W2BTD]

What exactly is the criteria to obtain a vote for this version of a wrestling HOF? Ex-wrestler or sucking Dave's balls?

 

What's all this hullabaloo about then? You've got Colt Cabana not voting for RnR because Morton was a dick to him one time, or Gibson's eye is too far out of alignment, or whatever the hell that is? Fuck Cabana then, take his vote away. Or make him come up with a better reason.

 

Why doesn't Dylan have a vote? Or Loss? Goodhelmet? Khawk, for Christ's sake? Dylan watches more wrestling than any two people here combined.

 

There is no legit HOF and I personally don't see how this is less of a sham than the WWE HOF that houses Vince Sr's limo driver.

 

A possible way to make this version slightly less of a sham would be for one of the regular Dave Ball Suckers we have here to get to sucking a little bit more, change up the routine, or whatever of Dave's needs sucked to get Dylan and Khawk, at minimum, a ballot.

To be fair, Dave is certainly willing to give ballots to people who have butted heads or disagreed with him in the past. Me, jdw, evilclown, Bix, etc having ballots is proof of that. I think the problem is that you have to be on his radar or fall within one of his buckets of active wrestler, former wrestler, reporter (which seems to include bloggers and podcast talkers) or historian.

 

Since I doubt Dave is crediting my short lived career wrestling Brodie Lee and Colin Delaney, I assume my ballot was considered a reporter.

 

I'm thinking historian fits better for you. But who the hell knows.

 

Dylan should have a vote as a historian. Or a reporter. Or something.

[El Boricua]

Quick question for Mookieghana: Would it make sense to look at wrestlers as draws in term of standard deviations above or below their contemporaries?

[jdw]

I thought the consensus on Tanahashi was that he's going in because of what Dave has written and said about him the past two years. There doesn't appear to be much consideration of his career as whole, but rather the upswing in business the best few years.

He made it for the Current rather than the Past.

 

 

And wasn't that NOAH Dome Show papered?

Any moreso than any Dome show?

 

 

I think the industry leeched off MMA a fair bit, particularly the magazines. Now there's nothing to leech off.

There wasn't much thought at the time that Pro Wrestling benefited at all from MMA in Japan. Quite the contrast: it damaged it externally and internally. Puroresu was hot before MMA. It was was in the tank for the most part when MMA hit its peak.

 

 

People talk about these internet PPVs, and maybe they're a valuable source of income for the promotion, but to me that makes NJPW an incredibly fringe product in Japan and nowhere near achieving mainstream appeal since TV is still king. MMA was the last combat sport to have any significant television exposure. That's gone and the casuals have left with it. There's not a lot for the industry to really tap. The base audience is so small that to sell out Sumo Hall you need those people to bring people with them, like my wife's ex-worker did the times he took her there.

Soccer in the US has a small made audience. Yet the Seattle Sounders averaged 43,124 fans a game for their 17 home games this year. It's not the only sport in town. The Seahawks of the NFL will average 67K+ for their 8 home games, and the Mariners of MLB averaged 21K+ for their 81 home games. It's a metro of 3.6M.

 

The horrible Chivas USA averages 8,381 for their 17 home games in MLS, with no one else averaging less than 12,765 per game.

 

So I get the concept of the fan base of puroresu being small. But it's *extremely* small, not just small.

 

 

New Japan wasn't hot in 2003 when Jun popped in. The promotion was already in the crapper by that point. He made it hot. Again, for obvious reasons.

Why? Because it was interpromotional?

Yep.

 

 

Small market? Tokyo isn't a small market.

It is for pro-wrestling in 2013.

This is true.

 

 

The promoters all got credit in the 90s. As did the stars.

 

As far as once hot wrestlers no longer drawing what they once did, look up Hogan in 1994 and 1995. Did he draw what he did in 1986? No one expects Misawa to draw in 2002 what he drew in 1992, or that signs of rot wouldn't set in from running the same thing for a decade.

So why do you think it's ironic that Tanahashi can't draw what Akiyama did a decade ago when you know the business isn't as good as it was a decade ago?

Is the business really worse now than it was in 2003? If it is, given the fact that Tanahashi and Nakamura have anchored New Japan for almost all of the time since 2003 (2006-2013), what does that say? That on their watch it went to shit? That doesn't account for anything in addition to a 1-2 spike that you're saying doesn't even get it back up to 2003's shitty numbers?

 

 

There's irony in there for people who think Tanahashi is a good draw I suppose, but no real irony beneath the surface. If NJPW are starting to report legit numbers like Dave says then they're doing better than I could have imagined them doing five or six years ago, even if it's a minor accomplishment by historical standards. It seems like the new owners have a more sensible business plan. Maybe people go overboard in praising the turnaround, but it's not worth cheapening.

Bret vs Taker vs Desiel turned around the WWF's business in 1996. To say it's not a HOF worthy turnaround doesn't cheapen the turnaround. It just says that it wasn't a mind number turnaround.

 

John

[Dylan Waco]

What exactly is the criteria to obtain a vote for this version of a wrestling HOF? Ex-wrestler or sucking Dave's balls?

 

What's all this hullabaloo about then? You've got Colt Cabana not voting for RnR because Morton was a dick to him one time, or Gibson's eye is too far out of alignment, or whatever the hell that is? Fuck Cabana then, take his vote away. Or make him come up with a better reason.

 

Why doesn't Dylan have a vote? Or Loss? Goodhelmet? Khawk, for Christ's sake? Dylan watches more wrestling than any two people here combined.

 

There is no legit HOF and I personally don't see how this is less of a sham than the WWE HOF that houses Vince Sr's limo driver.

 

A possible way to make this version slightly less of a sham would be for one of the regular Dave Ball Suckers we have here to get to sucking a little bit more, change up the routine, or whatever of Dave's needs sucked to get Dylan and Khawk, at minimum, a ballot.

To be fair, Dave is certainly willing to give ballots to people who have butted heads or disagreed with him in the past. Me, jdw, evilclown, Bix, etc having ballots is proof of that. I think the problem is that you have to be on his radar or fall within one of his buckets of active wrestler, former wrestler, reporter (which seems to include bloggers and podcast talkers) or historian.

 

Since I doubt Dave is crediting my short lived career wrestling Brodie Lee and Colin Delaney, I assume my ballot was considered a reporter.

 

I'm thinking historian fits better for you. But who the hell knows.

 

Dylan should have a vote as a historian. Or a reporter. Or something.

 

Well, I did report to Dave two minor points that have been in the Observer recently....

[puropotsy]

"Bret vs Taker vs Desiel turned around the WWF's business in 1996. To say it's not a HOF worthy turnaround doesn't cheapen the turnaround. It just says that it wasn't a mind number turnaround."

 

John, could you elaborate on this point? I ask out of interest and not disagreement

[pantherwagner]

Dylan, has your Patera case ever been published on the Observer website?

[Dylan Waco]

Dylan, has your Patera case ever been published on the Observer website?

No.

 

I had thought about writing a bio for the site this year but got lazy/busy.

 

I will do it for sure for next year

[Dylan Waco]

Most random result

 

Top vote getter among former wrestler - Horst Hoffman

[pantherwagner]

I can vouch for you (whatever that means) and push for you to get a ballot and I know others would be willing to do so too. But I doubt Dave is listening to your 4 hr podcasts (and the content of those alone should give you voting rights) and I don't know that "well, he posts cool shit at a message board that you don't read" would be enough for Dave. I believe that you also post at WC so he may be familiar with you so you need that extra step to catch his attention. Plus it would be an awesome read.

 

Same goes for Khawk who I thought had a ballot as a long time Classics poster and all.

 

Dave doesn't read this board so how is he supposed to know that Loss, Will and others are some of the smartest fuckers on the internet?

 

I also believe that anybody on the selection team of the DVDVR 80s voting (not necessarily anybody who votes) should have a vote based on the research undertaken for the project, but we all know what Dave thinks of footage being revisited.

 

To be honest anybody who wants to vote should just mail him local indy results and hope to get noticed.

[Dylan Waco]

I have reason to believe others have vouched for me this year. If others want to I'm not going to stop them and of course I appreciate it. In general the HoF is just an excuse for me to do research, though I do tend to take it seriously, because I take all exercises like this far more seriously than I should.

[Dylan Waco]

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkC...2658&cmd=tc

 

Musgrave and I talk up the results here. The show clocks in at around two hours, an admittedly short show by our standards