2016 WWE Hall of Fame

[Matt D]

Terrible decision

[C.S.]

Not his fault he was given a pimp gimmick. He made the most of it and was easily one of the 5 or 10 most over acts in the Attitude Era. Plus, the "corporate feminist" was around then too. He was also also memorable as Papa Shango and had minor success during both versions of the Kama gimmick. I'd put this induction firmly in the Rikishi category. Both are deserved IMO.

[The Chief]

For a guy with as long as career as he had, I can't remember a single good or even decent match.

[C.S.]

For a guy with as long as career as he had, I can't remember a single good or even decent match.

 

He was a gimmick wrestler who was never put in a situation where could he have decent matches, and his two big runs came in eras where that never mattered less (end of Hulkamania era and Attitude Era). Workrate snobs will hold it against him, but he was over like rover regardless of his in-ring ability.

[...TG]

I didn't say the gimmick was his fault, or even saying he doesn't deserve it by the standards of that HOF. It's just that given how different things are with the company's image these days, inducting a pimp is an odd decision.

[The Chief]

 

For a guy with as long as career as he had, I can't remember a single good or even decent match.

 

He was a gimmick wrestler who was never put in a situation where could he have decent matches, and his two big runs came in eras where that never mattered less (end of Hulkamania era and Attitude Era). Workrate snobs will hold it against him, but he was over like rover regardless of his in-ring ability.

 

 

LOL, "workrate snobs." He was given plenty of opportunities to have good or even passable matches. Right To Censor was pushed near the top of the card and frequently worked the Hardys, Dudleyz, and the stacked 2000 roster. He worked guys like Shawn and Bret in long TV matches. Of course he was a gimmick wrestler but that's really lowering the bar. He doesn't have anything like a Koko Memphis run to hang his hat on either, he has nothing besides a ring entrance. But hey, people remember him, he's alive and his name hasn't been in the newspapers. Good for him.

 

And I wouldn't say he was over. The girls were over. Nobody cared about The Godfather.

[Hawkeye12]

Papa Shango and Godfather were more memorable because of the colorful gimmicks, but personally I enjoyed his run as Kama the best in 1995. His matches with Undertaker were pretty good, the casket match at Summerslam being a favorite of mine. His draw with HBK at KOTR was a pretty good match, although I'll admit I haven't watched that show for some time. And his brawl with Mongo McMichael (doing commentary on RAW six months before he would debut with Nitro) was one of the more exciting moments during that year on RAW in the buildup to LT and BBB.

[The Chief]

Papa Shango and Godfather were more memorable because of the colorful gimmicks, but personally I enjoyed his run as Kama the best in 1995. His matches with Undertaker were pretty good, the casket match at Summerslam being a favorite of mine. His draw with HBK at KOTR was a pretty good match, although I'll admit I haven't watched that show for some time. And his brawl with Mongo McMichael (doing commentary on RAW six months before he would debut with Nitro) was one of the more exciting moments during that year on RAW in the buildup to LT and BBB.

 

So yeah, slim resume

[C.S.]

LOL, "workrate snobs." He was given plenty of opportunities to have good or even passable matches. Right To Censor was pushed near the top of the card and frequently worked the Hardys, Dudleyz, and the stacked 2000 roster. He worked guys like Shawn and Bret in long TV matches. Of course he was a gimmick wrestler but that's really lowering the bar. He doesn't have anything like a Koko Memphis run to hang his hat on either, he has nothing besides a ring entrance. But hey, people remember him, he's alive and his name hasn't been in the newspapers. Good for him.

 

And I wouldn't say he was over. The girls were over. Nobody cared about The Godfather.

 

Absurd statement and not even remotely true. The girls were generally barely hot stripper types. They added to the act, sure, but the character was over.

 

Your argument that competing in a bunch of clusterfuck multi-man tag matches should have awoken the workrate giant in him is even sillier.

 

As for Koko, his Memphis work had nothing to do with his WWE HOF induction - do not kid yourself about that.

 

Look, I'm not saying he was a great in-ring technician - of course not - but that was never the point. None of his characters needed to be that.

[shakla]

Have no prob with him going in. Wish they'd try to put more pre-2000 people in first, but he's a known and somewhat beloved character in WWE history.

 

I assume there will be outcry somewhere about why Papa Shango and Kama weren't mentioned in his induction video. WWE sometimes wants to act like gimmicks, even if played by the same person, are seen as different people "in universe". And then they don't have to make up some backstory about how Shango became Kama then Kama Mustafa then Godfather.

[fakeplastictrees]

So what's a good starting point for WWE HOF candidates? I don't think its too much to ask that the men/women that are inducted have some memorable in-ring stretch. I Know WWE isn't a wrestling company and isn't in wrestling business, but surely if one of the first questions that people have is 'What good matches has this wrestler been in?", then that's a problem. Unfortunately, The Godfather doesn't pass the Greatest Matches DVD test. I am saying that the HOF should just be about workrate, but surely there should be more consideration other than gimmick, entrance, and whether or not someone did a porn.

[DMJ]

Seems like a silly induction to me. Calling him "one of the 5-10 most over guys of the Attitude Era" is a bit of a stretch too. Sable, Goldust, Shamrock, the Hardys, Christian, and Mark Henry aren't in the Hall yet either and were definitely bigger stars in that same 98'-00' era.

 

On the other hand, I expect them to play up the Papa Shango stuff big time because the one thing the aforementioned talents *don't* have that Charles Wright does is a resume that dates back to the early 90s. When you look at things that way, and you run down the rest of the roster in 92'-95', he's not the absolute worst choice.

[Gregor]

Arguments against Godfather in the Hall don't even need to involve wrestling ability. He was an over midcard act, but so were plenty of guys in the period. Al Snow and Scotty Too Hotty feel like guys who were more over than he was (in addition to those already mentioned, although I'm not sure about Mark Henry). Gangrel strikes me as about equal - cool entrance, but no one really cared whether he won or lost.

 

Godfather's heyday was when I was 9-11 years old, and I genuinely do not remember him coming up in any wrestling conversations at school or anywhere else. Maybe the appeal was lost on kids who didn't quite know what a pimp was yet. Regardless, he worked for WWE for a long time, and they clearly have their own criteria for worthiness, so there's not much of a point in arguing about it.

[SteveJRogers]

Have no prob with him going in. Wish they'd try to put more pre-2000 people in first, but he's a known and somewhat beloved character in WWE history.

 

I assume there will be outcry somewhere about why Papa Shango and Kama weren't mentioned in his induction video. WWE sometimes wants to act like gimmicks, even if played by the same person, are seen as different people "in universe". And then they don't have to make up some backstory about how Shango became Kama then Kama Mustafa then Godfather.

 

I think Kama and The Godfather are the same "character" though. In the way Blue Chipper Rocky Miavia evolved into The Rock, and Miavia simply was dropped. That is what happened here. Kama Mustafa just evolved into the pimp character The Godfather after Faarooq was turfed from The Nation and they stopped the group militant gimmick and went with "whatever floats your boat" gimmicks.

[Matt D]

It's outright embarrassing to push a babyface pimp character into the hall of fame in 2016. There is zero upside. Vince has no perspective.

 

I have to think that they're hoping this gets mainstream publicity, even if it's the sort they really don't want.

 

In the last month they've released statements that they aren't racist and that they aren't sexist. In the last month.

[Jimmy Redman]

I honestly don't think it's going to be that big a thing. I know it's 2016 and women's issues are a hot button, but Godfather doesn't strike me as a big enough star to get anyone's attention in the media, nor does a wrestling pimp character seem like that big a deal either. I don't think people expect anything more from wrestling, really, especially late 90s wrestling.

[The Chief]

 

LOL, "workrate snobs." He was given plenty of opportunities to have good or even passable matches. Right To Censor was pushed near the top of the card and frequently worked the Hardys, Dudleyz, and the stacked 2000 roster. He worked guys like Shawn and Bret in long TV matches. Of course he was a gimmick wrestler but that's really lowering the bar. He doesn't have anything like a Koko Memphis run to hang his hat on either, he has nothing besides a ring entrance. But hey, people remember him, he's alive and his name hasn't been in the newspapers. Good for him.

 

And I wouldn't say he was over. The girls were over. Nobody cared about The Godfather.

Absurd statement and not even remotely true. The girls were generally barely hot stripper types. They added to the act, sure, but the character was over.

 

Your argument that competing in a bunch of clusterfuck multi-man tag matches should have awoken the workrate giant in him is even sillier.

 

As for Koko, his Memphis work had nothing to do with his WWE HOF induction - do not kid yourself about that.

 

Look, I'm not saying he was a great in-ring technician - of course not - but that was never the point. None of his characters needed to be that.

Just, wow....

 

I brought up Koko because he's often used as the barometer for poor candidates. My point was Koko at least has a hot run that he can point to where Godfather doesn't. I never once said Koko's Memphis run got him in, but do whatever mental gymnastics you need to interpret it that way. What's the Godfather's high point? The Tiger Ali Singh feud? The D-Lo tag team?

 

If people cared about The Godfather, his matches would have had heat. His matches barely had consequences. They took the girls away and nobody cared. They rebranded them as escorts and nobody cared. But hey, people popped when he talked about smoking blunts so he's for that going for him.

 

It's the WWE Hall of Fame. All that's required is that you have a pulse. And if you don't that's fine too, they just limit you to one a year. Fakeplastictrees makes a good point, there should be at least some kind of metric other than "people remember him/her."

[shakla]

 

Have no prob with him going in. Wish they'd try to put more pre-2000 people in first, but he's a known and somewhat beloved character in WWE history.

 

I assume there will be outcry somewhere about why Papa Shango and Kama weren't mentioned in his induction video. WWE sometimes wants to act like gimmicks, even if played by the same person, are seen as different people "in universe". And then they don't have to make up some backstory about how Shango became Kama then Kama Mustafa then Godfather.

 

I think Kama and The Godfather are the same "character" though. In the way Blue Chipper Rocky Miavia evolved into The Rock, and Miavia simply was dropped. That is what happened here. Kama Mustafa just evolved into the pimp character The Godfather after Faarooq was turfed from The Nation and they stopped the group militant gimmick and went with "whatever floats your boat" gimmicks.

 

 

True. In WWE's release, they did mention him being in NoD, but didn't use the Kama name:

 

Remembered most to WWE audiences as a fun-loving staple of the Attitude Era, The Godfather's journey to the Hall of Fame was certainly one wild train ride.

In the late '90s he was most recognizable for being the muscle of The Nation of Domination, but as that group began to slowly disband, The Godfather seemingly began to have more and more women accompany him to ringside every week.

This trend continued after The Nation officially split and The Godfather quickly transitioned into one of the WWE Universe's most beloved Superstars, both for his attractive supporting cast and for his enigmatic charisma and charm.

[shakla]

TBH, I think it's pointless to try and compare the WWE HoF to a regular sports HoF. They book each induction class like a wrestling card. There's no voting on the best eligible candidate like a sports HoF usually has.

[Matt D]

Match quality is the single least important metric for the WWE HOF.

[C.S.]

Just, wow....

 

I brought up Koko because he's often used as the barometer for poor candidates. My point was Koko at least has a hot run that he can point to where Godfather doesn't. I never once said Koko's Memphis run got him in, but do whatever mental gymnastics you need to interpret it that way. What's the Godfather's high point? The Tiger Ali Singh feud? The D-Lo tag team?

 

If people cared about The Godfather, his matches would have had heat. His matches barely had consequences. They took the girls away and nobody cared. They rebranded them as escorts and nobody cared. But hey, people popped when he talked about smoking blunts so he's for that going for him.

 

It's the WWE Hall of Fame. All that's required is that you have a pulse. And if you don't that's fine too, they just limit you to one a year. Fakeplastictrees makes a good point, there should be at least some kind of metric other than "people remember him/her."

So now I'm supposed to be psychic and automatically know what you meant when you mentioned Koko? Please... Give me a break!

 

And yeah, Koko is mentioned as a low point for candidates and rightfully so, because he absolutely is. Hot run? I'm not so sure about that. At his height, he was a lower midcarder in the WWF; at his lowest, he was a legitimate jobber. Godfather had a much hotter run by miles as that character and actually won the I-C Title. As forgettable as that reign was, it's more than Koko ever got. Granted, different eras - it's unlikely Godfather would've won gold in the '80s either. I was also going to say it's unlikely he would've had that gimmick, but Slick was around back then, so...

 

You refuse to see that he was super-over. You've constructed a false narrative that suggests otherwise, because it's what you believe so it can't possibly be wrong. No one is saying he was Austin or Rock, but he was legitimately popular.

 

Honest question: Did you have a problem with Rikishi's induction last year? Because, to me, their careers parallel in a lot of ways, and they more or less had similar spots on the card (Rikishi was a bit higher up on the chain briefly).

[Hegs]

Among if not the worst candidate for the HOF. The Godfather was a blip in WWE history let alone wrestling history.

[C.S.]

The Freebirds were just announced - including Jimmy Jam.

 

 

http://www.wwe.com/shows/wwe-hall-fame/wwe-hall-fame-2016/article/fabulous-freebirds-wwe-hall-fame-2016

[WingedEagle]

Here's hoping for a HOF worthy speech from Hayes.

[victory]

About frickin time. I always figured it was some sort of rib on Hayes to not put them in. Too bad Buddy has now passed.