2014 Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame thread

[PeteF3]

And I'm not even saying Taue is a "no," per se. Though I will say that there's no way I could fit him on my ballot this year if I had one. I guess I'm trying to take as balanced a view of the guy as I can.

[Timbo Slice]

What's interesting is that a lot of what makes the WON HOF right now is that the older wrestlers without tape on them have to be told through historian's points of view through the information they've collected. Considering the recent Chicago footage dump, that's going to change the view of a lot of guys we haven't seen or not seen enough of, but you can't do that with some guys because we don't have access or will never have access to their work. There are definitely guys worth doing the research on and then there's guys that don't get that opportunity because people don't like their work and don't think it's worth it.

[ohtani's jacket]

This sounds dangerously close to the position posited by some people--either implied or explicit--that subjectivity with regard to the Observer HOF is inherently "bad." ("You can't deny Big Daddy's place in the Hall because you don't like his workrate--that's subjective!" Near-verbatim quote from a discussion I had on Classics some years ago). If that's the case, then we should dispense with voting and balloting altogether. Whoever meets the pre-chosen criteria gets in, whoever doesn't doesn't.

 

The majority of people don't even bother to watch Big Daddy's matches. They hear about how bad he was and it becomes accepted wisdom. You always read about how Daddy would stay on the apron while his younger, more talented partner did all the work, but that's generally not true and doesn't highlight the actual structural problems with the tag matches, which was that they didn't have a FIP structure to them. It's also why you never hear about the technical match he had with John Elijah or how much more effective he was a heel in the 70s.

 

But aside from people not considering Daddy's work carefully, it doesn't involve the same amount of interpretation as the Taue example. You can hear a Daddy promo and understand it, you can listen to Walton on commentary and understand it, and ultimately you can read what historians and other wrestlers say about him. It's not easy to do that with Taue and therefore the metrics become how many Budokan shows did he headline or how many of his matches were rated **** or above. That's not a knock on Soup, who's a great guy, but it's problematic when you know everything about a US candidate (his mic skills, his ability to work an angle, his persona, his reputation, the whole shebang) and you're in the dark about another.

 

I don't really want to go down this route, but the whole concept of Taue being a heel in the traditional US sense is iffy at best. That's why I questioned the larger than life personality thing because it seems to me people come to AJPW from their own background and look to place a heel/face dynamic on it and then ascribe all sorts of things to the matches that may or may not be true, which is fine if you're looking for narrative, but not so kosher if you're claiming one reason Taue stood out was that he was a really great heel.

[Matt D]

I didn't necessarily see him as a heel so much as a jerk (or more necessarily a dick). But maybe that's inwardly the same thing to me? I just saw a dynamic character there, one that appealed to me way more than the other three and that I actively wanted to track down more of, while I came out of that series with the idea that watching the other three more would be something of a chore.

 

I'm trying to think of a pop culture reference that makes sense. The big guy who takes your ball when it lands in his yard and pops it. And then laughs. Just because he can, and what are you going to do about it. Or the sort of big bully that would put his hand on Kobashi's head while the guy charged at him but couldn't reach him with his punches (he didn't do that but I would have believed it if he did). I posted my real time notes pretty thoroughly for the last bunch of those matches and you can see the exact moments I popped for over multiple matches. He reminded me a bit of laughing heel Andre or Ernie Ladd screwing around with guys.

 

All that said, maybe? If it was just one match, I'd buy into that idea more, certainly. I watch a luchador for the first time now and sometimes I see something that I realize obviously isn't the case after I see a few matches, but i saw multiple matches here and they were pretty long matches as well (my lacking sense of time notwithstanding). I've seen another couple of Taue matches since then, though, and I don't feel any different. That said, I'll be the first guy to tell you I lack context. At the same time, I know what I like (and usually why I like it) as well as anyone.

 

EDIT: I think the above was especially true for my first impressions, but (and hey, this shows my ignorance or something) I can't imagine watching the 06/09/95 tag match and not seeing faces and heels, between the devastation of the leg and the crazy Kobashi superman comeback and everything.

[Loss]

Taue got booed, especially in the early 90s. He probably got booed more consistently than anyone in the upper echelon of All Japan in the same time frame. I see what you're saying to an extent, but the crowd reaction lends cred to Taue as a strong heel.

[ohtani's jacket]

I wouldn't rule it out, but was it genuine heat or the kind of boos Jumbo would get?

[Loss]

I don't know what that means.

[ohtani's jacket]

Most of the salarymen who went to AJPW shows at least at Korakuen Hall would boo Jumbo for fun then cheer when he did his pose. It wasn't as bad as Hamada's UWF, but I never felt that Jumbo got legitimate heel heat.

[PeteF3]

No, these people genuinely and viscerally disliked Taue. Jumbo would always get cheers during his intro, and as you mentioned for the "OH!" Taue would get booed just for standing there being announced. Only other guy, native or otherwise, to get a similar reaction around this time was Fuyuki, for whatever reason.

 

Jumbo & co. would generally get booed for their tactics, and sometimes crowds would turn on Misawa & friends for reciprocating. Taue was definitely getting booed just for who he was. I don't recall when it died off, but I'm pretty sure the negative reactions slowed down before Jumbo went out (barring things like dropping Kikuchi on the ropes or breaking up holds from the outside).

[ohtani's jacket]

It would be funny if they were booing him because they didn't think he was very good. Maybe it was because he switched sides.

[evilclown]

I always thought it was fairly clear Taue was booed because he couldn't keep up with the others in the matches. Especially early in his career.

[evilclown]

Also, OJ just convinced me I probably shouldn't vote in the Japan category even though I've been following it closely for damn near 20 years.

[Loss]

I've never seen Taue get booed for blowing a spot or slowing down a match. I've seen him booed for gouging a guy's face, using a chair, dropping someone knee first on the guard rail, slapping a guy, etc. All heel tactics.

[Timbo Slice]

Yeah, what Loss said. Taue wasn't booed because he couldn't keep up. It's because he would use heel tactics in his matches. Every time he dropped someone throat first across the top rope he got booed. I'm actually pretty sure over time it was almost done as a term of endearment since he did it as a regular spot.

[evilclown]

You guys are drifting into "Benoit and Guerrero got the biggest pops of the night" territory.

[Loss]

Should we be relying on old memories instead?

[evilclown]

I'm not sure how those things are related? I felt that, especially early in his career before he figured things out, you could feel the crowds kind of balk at his inclusion in matches with the top guys. He clearly wasn't on their level. To his credit, he developed to the point he could participate in some of the best matches ever.

 

If you believe that Taue was a great heel or that his awkward physicality was somehow good for the matches, I suppose that's a matter of personal taste. I'm not sure what else there is to say about that.

[Loss]

Let me just clarify that I don't mean to discount that people weren't huge fans of Taue at the time and that he's the least good of the four. I think it's something that should absolutely be considered and treated fairly when talking about him as a HOF candidate. It's not BS I want to completely dismiss out of hand. But I also think that being down on Taue for not being as good as Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi is a ridiculously high standard, especially when he looks favorable in comparison to EVERY New Japan heavyweight in the same time period, many of whom are in the HOF. Did any of them ever have a singles match that touched Misawa-Taue in the Carny final of '95? I'm not arguing Taue as a star or a draw, for the record. I am arguing him as a work candidate.

[evilclown]

Taue had about a decade as a relevant wrestler. He was pretty good by the time 1990 rolled around and then he fell off the map by 2000 when NOAH popped up and he became an after thought. Rather than be impressed by his two excellent singles matches with Misawa, I wonder about why that's all he has to show for that time.

 

He was in the single most "work" friendly promotion of all-time. There were no artificial limitations on him. He had the chances. He just wasn't built to deliver as a singles wrestler. He worked much better as a tag wrestler where he could do his spots and then get the hell out of the way while Kawada did the heavy lifting.

[Matt D]

It's the WON HOF and that means something, yes, but in general for the sake of the conversation we're having, it's 2014. Get with the program. For a lot of people, workrate isn't the most important aspect of being a good wrestler anymore. Around here, the conversation has shifted to at least allow the possibility that there is as much if not more value in other aspects. You can disagree. That's fine. That's great, but you are showing an extreme lack of understanding and empathy towards the people you are conversing with.

[evilclown]

Who's talking about "workrate?" We're talking about the same thing. Wrestling. How good was Taue at professional wrestling?

 

When looking at business factors, there's nothing about Taue that stands out. I think it's also telling what happened when he and Kawada parted ways. He didn't slot into a top position. He was a midcarder. So it boils down to work. And I don't know that he's a work candidate.

[Timbo Slice]

What doesn't make him a work candidate? If it's strictly the style he wrestled, that's why people aren't fans. He wasn't as dynamic as the other guys, which made his nickname ironic as all hell, to be fair, but it doesn't make him a bad wrestler.

 

Of any of the wrestlers on the list that's being done for the GOAT topic, I'm not sure there are many that got more out of the skills he or she had than Taue did. Just because he didn't work the same as Misawa, Kawada or Kobashi doesn't automatically make him bad. It makes him different, for sure. But that doesn't mean bad. Lawler, Funk, Flair, Misawa and Negro Casas don't work nearly the same but they're all considered great in their own rights. Hansen sure figured out how to work with Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi and his style was loads different than the other three. It's not like Taue didn't adjust his style to fit in with the other three. If that was the case, they would have hotshotted Akiyama a lot sooner than they did.

[rzombie1988]

Taue was good. Fine, he wasn't as flashy as Misawa and Kobashi, but he worked smart and kept things simple and straightforward. I thought he got the best match out of Vader in AJPW over Misawa and crew and he was always very fun as Kawada's lackey henchman. You'd have to be crazy if you didn't think he was good and didn't hold his own in this classics.

 

Taue was booed for doing heel tactics to faces. Pro Wrestling 101...

[PeteF3]

I do think there was something that separated the negative reaction for Taue from the negative reactions to Jumbo and Fuchi and Ogawa, though. Jumbo got booed for heel tactics, too--but he didn't get booed for everything he did. That only happened to Taue (for awhile) and to Fuyuki. I couldn't tell you what that something was, but Taue was far less popular than his stablemates.

[evilclown]

No one is saying Taue wasn't good for God's sake. The argument is whether he is a WON HOF'er based on work. He's certainly not a HOF'er by other standards.

 

That's a pretty high bar to leap for a guy who, at best, was the fourth best guy in the ring during his most famous and critically lauded wrestling matches.