Observer HOF prediction/ballot question thread

[goc]

Although I want to say that if TV ratings are now a viable metric to use for arguing that someone is a draw (and personally I find it shaky ground) it makes Jerry Jarrett not being in the HOF even more of a joke when Memphis Wrestling was on over half the TVs that were turned on on Saturday morning in that market.

[Loss]

Do we know if Jerry Jarrett made money from ads or if it all went to WMC-5? But yes, I agree that he's a slam dunk HOFer. He's not in because people are bitter about payoffs.

[goc]

I'm not sure. I do know that WWE wasn't making money from ads during any of the period that people are trying to point to for Edge being a TV draw. (Mostly my argument here is if you're voting Edge for TV ratings you better add Jerry Jarrett to your ballot)

[kjh]

Yes, some of it was due to the channel they were on, but at most you can blame the move for 20% of the drop. Still, it was more than worth it for the massive hike in domestic TV rights fees they received, which raised what they could ask for in future negotiations.

[mookeighana]

Yes, some of it was due to the channel they were on, but at most you can blame the move for 20% of the drop. Still, it was more than worth it for the massive hike in domestic TV rights fees they received, which raised what they could ask for in future negotiations.

 

My point is that USA was suing to keep them on their station back then. From what I've read, I am under the impression that USA was willing to pay WWF more, but WWF was intent on leaving and it was certainly a benefit for WWF in the short-term. I was thinking of the longer ramifications of the move -- coming back is what cost WWF their domestic advertising revenue, sharing a station with UFC is what helped introduce a larger audience of pro-wrestling fans to The Ultimate Fighter. If WWF was still on USA, that would have left a network that WCW could have moved to in 2001 and there's other ramifications too.

 

As for the discussion on ratings, there are metrics that take into account "how many televisions can receive this station" and others that cover "how many televisions were on that evening". So, there's measures for ratings/viewership/share/etc. that cover both.

[kjh]

The USA Network didn't offer a true matching offer, so they took the best deal at the time. The mistake was Vince McMahon agreeing to TUF being Raw's lead-in.

[Bix]

Cable ratings are indeed percentages of homes that get the network. Broadcast network ratings are percentages of all households with TVs.

[cheapshot]

Do we know if Jerry Jarrett made money from ads or if it all went to WMC-5? But yes, I agree that he's a slam dunk HOFer. He's not in because people are bitter about payoffs.

Ah, the classic "Daddy factor". Not getting votes due to bitterness and resentment.

[RyanClingman]

Can anyone explain why the Crocketts have never been inducted, and don't get very strong support? I know that Crockett Jr. played a big part in bringing the promotion down, but Jr. and perhaps Sr. to a larger extent help build one of the more important territories of the 70s and 80s era. From what I understand, as far as promoters go, they were well liked.

[Loss]

Fairly or not, it seems like Dusty gets more credit for the successes of national-era JCP than Jim Jr. does. I can sort of see it because even at times that the booking was fantastic, they weren't great at promoting themselves, especially not in comparison to Vince McMahon, who was peerless anyway. Vince played dirty against JCP and Clash of the Champions was Crockett's only successful retaliation, but even that backfired.

 

I think the decline of JCP is an interesting topic and if anything, Dusty has taken too much of the blame. He burned out and when they acquired additional time slots with the UWF buyout, he was doing way too much booking for one guy. Crockett really should have had a support system in place to give Dusty time away to recharge for a few months here and there, even if most of the job was just to maintain the status quo until Dusty returned. Guys like Jarrett and Watts were more aware of the potential for booker burnout and did a better job cycling them in and out.

[shakla]

Here's a different topic -- as we get more into the Modern Era of WWE, when do some behind-the-scenes people other than Vince start getting nominated? I tweeted Dave asking if anyone had ever discussed Kevin Dunn or Jim Johnston with him. But along those lines, is anyone really tracking any contributions Michelle Wilson or George Barrios are making to the company? Hell, Stephanie McMahon has been an important executive for the company for 15 years. I'm not advocating her as a candidate, but I do think she should be put on the ballot so people can talk about her actual successes and failures heading Creative in the 2000s. If it really is true that WWE is driven by the brand, I think it's time to start looking more closely at the people responsible for shaping and maintaining the brand.

 

Kinda-sorta on this, I think Bischoff should be put back on the ballot. He fell off about 15 years ago, when WCW was in a tailspin. He should get another chance now that WCW is long dead and his WWE/TNA runs can be factored in. His wrestling career is more toward the end rather than 2000 when it was in-progress.

[RyanClingman]

Fairly or not, it seems like Dusty gets more credit for the successes of national-era JCP than Jim Jr. does. I can sort of see it because even at times that the booking was fantastic, they weren't great at promoting themselves, especially not in comparison to Vince McMahon, who was peerless anyway. Vince played dirty against JCP and Clash of the Champions was Crockett's only successful retaliation, but even that backfired.

 

I think the decline of JCP is an interesting topic and if anything, Dusty has taken too much of the blame. He burned out and when they acquired additional time slots with the UWF buyout, he was doing way too much booking for one guy. Crockett really should have had a support system in place to give Dusty time away to recharge for a few months here and there, even if most of the job was just to maintain the status quo until Dusty returned. Guys like Jarrett and Watts were more aware of the potential for booker burnout and did a better job cycling them in and out.

 

This makes sense. I haven't heard much discussion of Crockett Sr. Those who worked for him speak highly of him, and he seemed to have run one of the more successful NWA territories for around three decades or so, which is quite the feat. However, I haven't done as much about the historical candidates as I should (Crockett Sr. is in the non-wrestlers category, but I still like to think of him as more of an historical than contemporary figure as far as time periods go). I think one could make a solid case for Sr., and he seems to be a far stronger candidate than JC Jr.

[RyanClingman]

 

Do we know if Jerry Jarrett made money from ads or if it all went to WMC-5? But yes, I agree that he's a slam dunk HOFer. He's not in because people are bitter about payoffs.

Ah, the classic "Daddy factor". Not getting votes due to bitterness and resentment.

 

 

I only have a rough knowledge of Big Daddy's career, and much of the information I have is highly biased in one way or another. However, here is what I have gathered from debates over the years and perhaps you could inform me of how accurate you believe these to be.

 

Pros:

 

-Cultural icon synonymous with pro-wrestling in England.

-A good (great?) draw, although ratings and attendances are hard to come by.

 

Cons:

 

-Selfishness, nepotism, and the like helped speed up the decline of World of Sport.

-Horrendous worker.

-Unclear just how good of a television and live attendance draw he was.

 

Thanks!

[Jingus]

Just going by this:

 

Heres an excerpt from the email that Dave sends with the rules: The criteria for the Hall of Fame is a combination of drawing power, being a great in-ring performer or excelling in ones field in pro wrestling, as well as having historical significance in a positive manner.

Big Daddy flunks at least half of the qualifications. His business practices ultimately had the long-term effect of permanently killing all professional wrestling as a viable industry in England forever. And in-ring, he's possibly the single worst wrestler that I've ever see perform on the entire nomination list.

 

Lots of veterans will knock Jerry Jarrett (and rightly so) for his poverty-line payoffs; but there's still plenty of praise out there for him as a moneymaker, as a booker, and as a human being. In comparison, I literally can't recall a single good word ever spoken by any British worker about Big Daddy ever.

[kjh]

One of the things that's so frustrating about the Big Daddy debate is how people dismiss him out of hand without understanding the business here.

 

Saying he "had the long-term effect of permanently killing all professional wrestling as a viable industry in England forever" is ridiculous when less than four years after ITV cancelled British wrestling, the WWF drew the biggest crowd in their history, a record that stands to this very day. What killed the local wrestling scene was the fact that American promotions like the WWF and WCW could provide tapes of their programming for rock bottom prices that promoters here couldn't compete with. Could they have forestalled cancellation by not running with a pat hand for so long and providing more up to date entertainment? Probably, but the end result was going to be the same, once the WWF got a foothold in the market.

 

The ballot mentions that "A candidate should either have something to offer in all three categories, or be someone so outstanding in one or two of those categories that they deserve inclusion" so just pointing out that he was a horrid worker isn't enough to exclude him from the HOF.

 

At his peak (1979-1982) he drew consistently well (in the traditional wrestling venues) to the point that independent bookers who hired Daddy on a Saturday (best day to draw a crowd) would have to hand out 50% of the profits to him, and was a household name through appearances on non-wrestling TV shows, having his own comic strip and having a brand of brown sauce/ketchup named after him. He also sold out Wembley Arena twice for two of the biggest events in British wrestling history up to that point in time. It should also be noted that before Big Daddy got hot as an act, the British wrestling scene was struggling in the mid '70s and thus he was a shot in the arm for the industry here, at least the shows he was on.

 

Where the hatred of the Crabtrees come from is that the combination of promoting one star above all others and a long economic recession in the early 1980s meant there was less demand for shows in the UK (that said, around 1200 wrestling shows were ran in 1983, which shows how different the business model here was). There was disaffection at how the Crabtrees divvied the work up, with many people believing they played favourites rather than give work to the best talent. I think that would be a more valid black mark against his candidacy if Big Daddy was on the ballot as a promoter rather than as a wrestler.

[Loss]

I love that free trade killed British wrestling.

[kjh]

I love that free trade killed British wrestling.

 

Well, free trade killed the NWA and AWA too.

 

There's a famous story of the Crabtrees trying to get onto satellite TV after they were booted off terrestrial television (where their production was paid for and they got a rights fee) and the offer was for a comparatively derisory amount, because the WWF had lowered the bar as to what wrestling shows were worth. So instead they milked what was left of the Big Daddy drawing power by running one-off nostalgia shows around the country.

[W2BTD]

 

Here's a different topic -- as we get more into the Modern Era of WWE, when do some behind-the-scenes people other than Vince start getting nominated? I tweeted Dave asking if anyone had ever discussed Kevin Dunn or Jim Johnston with him. But along those lines, is anyone really tracking any contributions Michelle Wilson or George Barrios are making to the company? Hell, Stephanie McMahon has been an important executive for the company for 15 years. I'm not advocating her as a candidate, but I do think she should be put on the ballot so people can talk about her actual successes and failures heading Creative in the 2000s. If it really is true that WWE is driven by the brand, I think it's time to start looking more closely at the people responsible for shaping and maintaining the brand.

 

Kinda-sorta on this, I think Bischoff should be put back on the ballot. He fell off about 15 years ago, when WCW was in a tailspin. He should get another chance now that WCW is long dead and his WWE/TNA runs can be factored in. His wrestling career is more toward the end rather than 2000 when it was in-progress.

 

 

His WWE & TNA runs add nothing significant to a HOF resume, though. He was a good TV character in WWE, and unless we consider his ability to steal money from the Carter's as some sort of plus for being a great carny, I don't see anything he did in TNA being remotely significant to adding to a HOF pedigree.

 

Eric Bischoff was the promoter of a company that did great business for like two years. That's all he has to hang a HOF hat on. How could anyone justify voting for him over either Crockett, Jerry Jarrett, Don Owen, or a bunch of other promoters who have long fallen off the ballot or have never even been on it?

[Jingus]

How could anyone justify voting for him over either Crockett, Jerry Jarrett, Don Owen, or a bunch of other promoters who have long fallen off the ballot or have never even been on it?

His company was national, theirs weren't. And Bischoff invented the modern style of televised production which is still the standard formula for the industry to this day.

[W2BTD]

 

How could anyone justify voting for him over either Crockett, Jerry Jarrett, Don Owen, or a bunch of other promoters who have long fallen off the ballot or have never even been on it?

His company was national, theirs weren't. And Bischoff invented the modern style of televised production which is still the standard formula for the industry to this day.

 

 

National or not, he was successful for two years, and then it wasn't as if he fought tooth & nail to the end with a good business plan. He basically self destructed and ran the company directly in to the ground because he was terrible. I'd take those three regional guys over Bischoff every time. He lost more money in one year than those guys probably lost in their worst years combined.

 

I don't know, I can't even fathom a yes vote for Bischoff.

[W2BTD]

In baseball terms, Bischoff was a bench player for many years (AWA, WCW C-team announcer), led the league in HR's out of nowhere two years in a row, went into a colossal slump to the point he was released, batted 7th and contributed for the best team in the league for a while but wasn't anywhere close to being a vital player (WWE talent), and then went to the worst team in the league at the end of his career and faded away until he retired (TNA).

[cheapshot]

Just going by this:

 

Heres an excerpt from the email that Dave sends with the rules: The criteria for the Hall of Fame is a combination of drawing power, being a great in-ring performer or excelling in ones field in pro wrestling, as well as having historical significance in a positive manner.

Big Daddy flunks at least half of the qualifications. His business practices ultimately had the long-term effect of permanently killing all professional wrestling as a viable industry in England forever. And in-ring, he's possibly the single worst wrestler that I've ever see perform on the entire nomination list.

 

Jingus, you're spouting the same old narrative that like Keith pointed out, it just simply isn't true.

[cheapshot]

I always think a good reference point when trying to get non Brits to understand the culture and scale of UK entertainment compared to the US is to look at music.

 

If you look up any music tour from the 60s/70s/early80s of the biggest bands in the world, you see them selling out huge stadiums/arenas in the US, then when they get back over to the UK it's the same small theaters and halls that the wrestling was using.

 

Just one example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Day_at_the_Races_Tour#Tour_dates .

 

The Beatles were no more of a draw in Britain than Big Daddy, if you're looking at pure numbers. Which is obviously silly but gets the point across that there's more to the cultural impact of something than just attendance numbers.

[MFoy]

While I wouldn't vote for Bischoff, it seems unfair to dismiss him as a short term success without taking his long term influence into account.

[Loss]

He has had long-term influence, but I would put it second only to Vince Russo's long-term influence as the worst thing about wrestling now. Every match features name wrestlers, which means the midcard has no importance at all because they all do too many jobs and are overexposed. There's very little focus on ensuring that things make sense from week-to-week. And worst of all, WWE has a virtually unbreakable monopoly and no competition to force them to try new things and step outside their comfort zone.