WON HOF 2016

[goc]

Kinda surprised how little discussion there's been for the WON HOF this year, at least on this board.

Yea me too. Even on twitter the only real discussion I've seen was same old Sting arguments. Even my spat with Karl Stern was really weak compared with last year's.

[elliott]

Don't you think that is more a critique of the formula though. Maybe there are people out there that think Big Daddy was a great worker but I haven't seen that crop up in any discussion of the voter base currently. Dave has always been vague with his three pronged criteria for getting into the HOF, I think devaluing the work criteria as inferior is missing an opportunity for those stronger workers based on newer perceptions to get in. It is probably a benefactor of the people I voted for in Japan but when I first was on the internet wrestling seen, rampant opinions seemed to be made that Taue was clearly the worst pillar, Akiyama was never going to draw or reach his potential as a worker to a degree. I think the study and evaluation made in revisiting these stances has helped increase the HOF case as both with the work rate component being a major factor. I guarantee JYD does so poorly on his percentage based on the fact that people think he is terrible as a worker, otherwise what is really the case. If that can be used as an absolute naysayer to a large degree for keeping someone like JYD out to the voter base, I have no issue using it as an 80-85% argument for me voting yes for Tamura.

 

I do say this as someone that ABSTAINED from historical, lucha, and other categories this year in voting. Had I voted in those three areas, there is not way Slaughter, Han or Tamura would have made my final list.

 

Oh its definitely a critique on the HOF in general and not any specific voter. You said, of everyone in your top 20 for GWE, he's the only one not in the HOF. You ranked him the 9th best worker ever. That does seem like a good enough reason to vote for someone when work is a criteria. I just couldn't really do it.

 

Tamura is tough because he is a total work candidate. His drawing would probably be worse than prime JYD's work But what makes him tough compared to other all work candidates like Benoit or Daniel Bryan is that those guys had the 10+ years of consensus at worst top 10 on average top 5 and at best #1 wrestler in the world. I actually think Tamura has roughly 6 straight years as the best wrestler in the world and then a few years later was the best in the world again. If that is how the majority of people viewed him, I'd be more encouraged to vote for him, if I actually voted. But his reputation has always been that he's a good young wrestler on the rise in UWFi and didn't reach his potential until RINGS.

 

He has the benefit of the "master of his style" reputation that he shares with Volk Han, but as I said before, you could argue being the best shoot style guy isn't the same as being the best brawler or best lucha mat worker because shoot style promotions were around for such a small amount of time, there were so few shows and so few workers compared to the rest of wrestling. You could easily counter that by saying shoot style is the hardest style to master and so Tamura being the best at it is more impressive than being the best brawler. Etc etc.

 

My point is, he's a tricky candidate if you take a step back from how guys like you and me who think he's a top 10 wrestler to ever live sort of worker feel about him and try and look at his candidacy, I think he ends up looking pretty weak.

 

And like really that is not a criticism on you or anyone else who voted for him. It does seem insane to not vote for a someone you think is the 9th best ever.

 

I think the gordy list is missing a couple of important questions:

If you were writing the history of professional wrestling, could you do it without this wrestler?

If you were writing the history of professional wrestling in their home country/territory, could you do it without this wrestler?

 

I think you could do it without Tamura until you get to the part about RINGS transition from works to shoots and that's not really a period that reflects well on him outside of his performance in the ring.

 

I'm glad you vote for Tamura and Han though. Even though I think Tamura is a better worker, I feel like I'd be more inclined to vote for Han, but it would really be a "Keep Han on the ballot/Keep People like Tenzan & Kojima out" sort of vote. Did you vote for Fujiwara? I would actually consider voting for him and actually a large part of that would be because of the footage reevaluation that you talk about above, but I do think Fujiwara has positives those other two don't have.

 

If I voted, I would be really tempted to vote historical so I could vote for Bearcat Wright, but I'd feel weird about it because I don't know enough about too many people in that category.

 

I would vote Lucha, and that would destroy my ballot so I couldn't justify a work candidate. If I didn't vote lucha, it is possible that I'd consider work out of a desire to vote for 10 people, but hopefully I'd just research the historical candidates more instead. If I were a voter who put the in ring work criteria on the same level as the others, I'd almost have to vote for Tamura. But watching his entire career and looking at it is basically why I don't think I could vote for a pure workrate candidate. No matter how great he was, I never watched Tamura and thought "this guy's a HOFer for sure" based on how I personally view/think of Hall of Famers. I get that feeling watching Dusty, watching Flair, Colon, Hashimoto, Tenryu, Baba, Choshu, Wahoo, any number of guys. I get the "This dude is a HOFer" feeling more from prime Kerry Von Erich than Tamura to be perfectly honest. I can't explain it, and it isn't a real criteria, but it is probably a factor.

 

There's a talking point about how people often put too much emphasis on drawing. There's also a talking point about how people put too much emphasis on work. I think the third one is the most overlooked and should be the most important:

 

"having historical significance in a positive manner. "

 

More than drawing or working, I think that's the really interesting criteria that is all to often ignored.

 

I think it is a flaw in obvious flaw in Dave's system that being a worker/having great matches is an equal to positive historical significance. Why Daniel Bryan having awesome matches in front of 300 people or in the middle of the card makes him a no brainer HOFer and Sputnik Monroe can't even get on the ballot is an indictment of the Hall of Fame, not the voters.

[elliott]

After reading Chad's comments, I don't think JYD should get in because there is a level of historiography and self-awareness to the WON HOF and JYD is one of the most, if not the most, ridiculed people in the history of the publication. It's the WON HOF at the end of the day. He may deserve to get in but I don't think he should be in.

 

This is the only reason I would consider not voting for JYD but it would also mean I could never take the WON HOF seriously ever again and while you can't really take it seriously now, I still enjoy reading the discussions and listening to the podcasts about it. The HOF is as much about the WON as it is about wrestling history. But I'd rather pretend it was more about the wrestling and less about the observer.

[soup23]

Another great post Elliot that you articulated your thought process well.

 

I did vote for Fujiwara and have him stronger as a candidate compared to Han and Tamura.

[WrestlingPower]

Did Stern make his ballot public? I know last year his was quite, uh, polarizing.

[goc]

Did Stern make his ballot public? I know last year his was quite, uh, polarizing.

Not that I know of. I just saw he was following me on twitter and asked if he was voting JYD.

[JerryvonKramer]

Feels a bit stagnant this year and like none of the topics have moved on, which is an excellent case for inducting Big Daddy.

 

Sting obviously should never go in.

[elliott]

I'm very intrigued to see how the voting comes back for Fujiwara. I feel like most people that run in our circles would agree that he should be in, but I'm not sure if the voter group at large views him that way.

[GOTNW]

I was gonna do a Gordy list for Fujiwara but that requires way too much energy and I don't have the will to write about anything concerning pro wrestling at that length currently.

 

The one thing I do want to research more is Fujiwara's role in late 70s/early 80s.

 

Since he starts making tape as a star he's presented as pretty important. I would say he's just below Masa Saito, who was a good worker but really most of his case is probably fame, being a big Inoki opponent helps too.

 

But since Fujiwara doesn't make it in star power (sure it's cool he allegedly attended Bill Clinton's inaguration and did a bunch of roles as a(n) (voice) actor but that's not getting him in.

 

As a worker he is brilliant. He was voted around the same spot Riki Choshu was on the GWE poll which is amazing.

 

His influence is enormous. He was Karl Gotch's best student. Just think about how many people he had a hand in training. It's not like THEY constantly remind you how important Fujiwara was to them. He has a case on influence alone.

 

Fujiwara won awards in Tokyo Sports in 1987 and 1989 that would be equivalent to most oustanding. It's not a 1-1 comparison (though if someone is interested in the politics of Tokyo Sports awards I can explain stuff) but that's what they were in his case. Hase only won one of these and he's in. Fujiwara was cheered over Choshu and Hashimoto when facing them. He was very much a hardcore favourite like someone like Ishii is, except he was way better as a worker, a million times more influential, higher on the card and wrestled in a time wrestling was actually popular in Japan. The idea Fujiwara isn't great was manufactured by ten people who traded puro tapes in 1980s-and even with Dave not digging Fujiwara he still made his way on honourable mention lists and such in WON voting in real time.

[Bierschwale]

HE WAS AT THE INAUGURAL BALL OF A US PRESIDENT! "Influence" and "relevance" are used interchangeably in this crap, so that counts as influence.

[Phil Schneider]

It isn't that hard to get inaugural ball tickets, I went to Obama's second ball and there are a ton of people there

[soup23]

I am intrigued by that notion too, I think he will get around 20% or so honestly.

 

 

Been watching some Tamura vs. Sano as I have went to sleep the last two nights. Man, do I love the guy.

[Matt D]

HE WAS AT THE INAUGURAL BALL OF A US PRESIDENT! "Influence" and "relevance" are used interchangeably in this crap, so that counts as influence.

 

 

 

It isn't that hard to get inaugural ball tickets, I went to Obama's second ball and there are a ton of people there

 

I'd like to see Dylan make the argument that Phil should go in before Sting.

[Bix]

I FOLLOWED THE HISTORICAL PERFORMERS ERA CANDIDATES

Mark Lewin

Bearcat Wright

 

I FOLLOWED THE MODERN PERFORMERS IN U.S/CANADA CANDIDATES

Bryan Danielson/Daniel Bryan

Junkyard Dog

 

I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN JAPAN CANDIDATES [Abstain]

 

I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN MEXICO CANDIDATES

Brazo de Oro & Brazo de Plata & El Brazo

Cien Caras

Karloff Lagarde

Blue Panther

El Signo & El Texano & Negro Navarro

Villano III

 

I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN EUROPE/AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND/PACIFIC ISLANDS/AFRICA CANDIDATES [Abstain]

 

NON-WRESTLERS

Lord James Blears

Dave Brown

Jimmy Hart

Jerry Jarrett

Gene Okerlund

[ohtani's jacket]

I was gonna do a Gordy list for Fujiwara but that requires way too much energy and I don't have the will to write about anything concerning pro wrestling at that length currently.

 

The one thing I do want to research more is Fujiwara's role in late 70s/early 80s.

 

Since he starts making tape as a star he's presented as pretty important. I would say he's just below Masa Saito, who was a good worker but really most of his case is probably fame, being a big Inoki opponent helps too.

 

But since Fujiwara doesn't make it in star power (sure it's cool he allegedly attended Bill Clinton's inaguration and did a bunch of roles as a(n) (voice) actor but that's not getting him in.

 

As a worker he is brilliant. He was voted around the same spot Riki Choshu was on the GWE poll which is amazing.

 

His influence is enormous. He was Karl Gotch's best student. Just think about how many people he had a hand in training. It's not like THEY constantly remind you how important Fujiwara was to them. He has a case on influence alone.

 

Fujiwara won awards in Tokyo Sports in 1987 and 1989 that would be equivalent to most oustanding. It's not a 1-1 comparison (though if someone is interested in the politics of Tokyo Sports awards I can explain stuff) but that's what they were in his case. Hase only won one of these and he's in. Fujiwara was cheered over Choshu and Hashimoto when facing them. He was very much a hardcore favourite like someone like Ishii is, except he was way better as a worker, a million times more influential, higher on the card and wrestled in a time wrestling was actually popular in Japan. The idea Fujiwara isn't great was manufactured by ten people who traded puro tapes in 1980s-and even with Dave not digging Fujiwara he still made his way on honourable mention lists and such in WON voting in real time.

 

I don't think Fujiwara did anything of importance until the 2/84 attack on Choshu. For those of you who don't know the story, his Purowiki entry recaps it like thus:

 

"The biggest break in his career came on 1984/2/3 in Sapporo. Fujinami was scheduled to wrestle Chōshū Riki for the WWF International Heavyweight Championship. During Chōshū's entrance, Fujiwara attacked him on the aisle and left him in a bloody mess. The match was "no contest", and Fujiwara joined New Japan's regular force in a on-going feud against Chōshū's Ishin Gundan. With his unique wrestling style and look which was easy to be remembered, Fujiwara was now on TV Asahi's New Japan television program almost every week."

 

That attacked earned him the nickname "Terrorist." Prior to that angle he was was most known for being Inoki's bodyguard when Inoki fought overseas.

 

He was definitely a hardcore favourite as I've had many a chat about Fujiwara with older blokes. He appeared a lot on late night TV, especially the comedy shows. You can see some of the videos on YouTube like the one where he's directing a porno while drinking a bottle of whiskey. He was in a couple of crappy straight to VHS films as well. A minor talent for sure, but during his heyday he was reasonably well known.

[Dylan Waco]

Will be voting for Tamura. I see Tamura's drawing record as equal to JYD's candidacy as a worker. Not really great but adequate and overwhelming in other areas of the ballot. For JYD it is both historical significance and drawing which makes him a slam dunk. Tamura was ranked #9 for me in GWE and ranked in the top 75 overall. Beyond that, his average vote of people that voted for him was 31.11 which is half of his overall ranking. Of the individuals I voted top 20 for WON HOF, he is the only one not currently in the WON HOF. Tamura's historical significance is not something I really am going to push as a huge plus for his candidacy but I do think it actually has grown and you are seeing newer generation of wrestling fans going back to watch the shoot style golden era of the 1990's and coming out with Tamura as the best of the bunch.

 

My struggle with this is that where would it leave someone like El Dandy, William Regal, or if we want to get really outside of the box Chris Hero.

 

Dandy was almost certainly a bigger star at his peak in Mexico than Tamura was, like Tamura can realistically claim years where he was the best on Earth based on the opinions of those who have watched the footage, worked in higher profile promotions and had higher profile feuds, is widely revered by fans of the style he represents, et. Dandy finished above Tamura in the GWE, and had a close average placement per ballot.

 

Regal was never as important to his promotion as Tamura was to Rings, but like a Fujiwara he was often times considerably more over than his push. Also like Fujiwara he's had a massive influence on subsequent generations, and as an office figure/trainer/mentor has probably done as much or more to open up WWE developmental recruiting and talent grooming in productive ways than anyone. He placed on 83 more ballots than Tamura (only 11 people appeared on more ballots than Regal) and yet had a per ballot average that was within 2 points of Tamura. He nearly made the GWE top 20, with Arn Anderson at 19 (two spots above Regal) being the only other career mid-carder ranked above him and Arn at least worked around the top guy periphery more than Regal.

 

Hero is someone who has started calling himself the greatest of all time, and at least within the context of indie wrestling that's a point that is increasingly difficult to argue. From my perspective the only real competition to that claim is Danielson, and as the years role by Hero's case grows and Danielson's is static. Hero also has a reasonable claim to being the best in the World in several years, including this one, an opinion that is not considered controversial by those who watch outside of the major promotions. Given the quality of indie wrestling, it's depth, growing influence, et. the argument that he's the best of all time at that level can not be dismissed IF it is true that work alone is enough to get you into the WON HOF. While Hero placed just outside the top 100 in GWE, I suspect if the poll were redone in five years he'd be a top fifty candidate at worst.

 

Now it may be that you would advocate for these guys as HOFers, or it may be that you consider them just below the threshold for where work alone can get you in. But my suspicion is that Tamura is viewed differently because of the novelty of the style, and because he's someone who connects in a way where if you divorce the volume issue from the discussion he seems like a believable candidate for THE best wrestler ever not ONE of the best wrestlers ever. That said that doesn't reflect consensus, nor has anyone explicitly made that case.

 

I echo a lot of what elliot has said in this tread, but I do think the issue of consensus is a tricky one. On the one hand I reject the notion that democracy or master narratives of wrestling history should govern how we view certain workers. I'm also not comfortable with the idea that Matt expressed in this thread about WON history disqualifying JYD. As a voter I believe we are trustees and not delegates. If our job were simply to reflect back consensus, the research would be all within the context of the Observer canon. I don't even think Dave wants that or otherwise I wouldn't be getting a ballot.

 

That said I do think the extreme subjectivity surrounding the issue of in ring work, combined with the increased disagreement surrounding who is and isn't a great worker, makes it hard to say yes to someone purely on your thoughts alone. I do get that you referred to the results of a large poll, and that in effect none of the counters to Tamura I listed above are wildly outside the boundaries of what would be considered a great worker by the vast majority of WON HOF voter types. That said Dandy can't get on the ballot, Regal fell off easily, and even though Hero's eligible I doubt Dave has even given a thought to including him.

 

In a way revisionism has allowed candidates like Buddy Rose and Akira Taue to get on the ballot, but revisionism has also killed the idea of a work alone candidates by contributing to the breakdown of critical consensus. Conditions on the ground as we speak probably can and will change this, and there are people who seem to transcend and still find themselves appealing to virtually every cross section of hardcore fandom (Danielson, Styles, dare I say it, Chris Hero), but it does feel odd to me to vote for someone that didn't reflect a certain degree of critical consensus on work without at least strongly arguing for them via some other metric to bolster the claim.

[Dylan Waco]

Also to elliot's point about Japan, the problem with that section of the ballot from my perspective isn't that no one is deserving, it's that it is filled with borderline cases and/or guys where the master narrative has effected the perception of them so much that I don't know what to do with them.

 

I had Akiyama in my top ten for GWE. I think he was the best wrestler in Japan in the 00's, and no worse than the third best wrestler in the World for that decade. He's been a very good-to-great wrestler for the entirety of his 24 year career. As a pure work candidate it's extremely difficult to see how he's meaningfully worse than Daniel Bryan. If you start adding in other factors I still think it's unclear how he's worse than Bryan, BUT there is a narrative surrounding Akiyama that any advocate has to overcome in a debate with critics, and if you are self aware enough that is going to lead to some concern about over correction. You can say similar things about Taue, Fujiwara, Tamura, Han, and Cima at minimum.

[Matt D]

 

I echo a lot of what elliot has said in this tread, but I do think the issue of consensus is a tricky one. On the one hand I reject the notion that democracy or master narratives of wrestling history should govern how we view certain workers. I'm also not comfortable with the idea that Matt expressed in this thread about WON history disqualifying JYD. As a voter I believe we are trustees and not delegates. If our job were simply to reflect back consensus, the research would be all within the context of the Observer canon. I don't even think Dave wants that or otherwise I wouldn't be getting a ballot.

 

That said I do think the extreme subjectivity surrounding the issue of in ring work, combined with the increased disagreement surrounding who is and isn't a great worker, makes it hard to say yes to someone purely on your thoughts alone. I do get that you referred to the results of a large poll, and that in effect none of the counters to Tamura I listed above are wildly outside the boundaries of what would be considered a great worker by the vast majority of WON HOF voter types. That said Dandy can't get on the ballot, Regal fell off easily, and even though Hero's eligible I doubt Dave has even given a thought to including him.

 

In a way revisionism has allowed candidates like Buddy Rose and Akira Taue to get on the ballot, but revisionism has also killed the idea of a work alone candidates by contributing to the breakdown of critical consensus. Conditions on the ground as we speak probably can and will change this, and there are people who seem to transcend and still find themselves appealing to virtually every cross section of hardcore fandom (Danielson, Styles, dare I say it, Chris Hero), but it does feel odd to me to vote for someone that didn't reflect a certain degree of critical consensus on work without at least strongly arguing for them via some other metric to bolster the claim.

 

 

I'm not at all comfortable with what I said either. I said it, to some degree, because I'm not comfortable with it. I was going to actually finish it, at first, with the comment that JYD may well deserve to be in the WON HOF but that the WON HOF didn't deserve to have him. That seems a bit much and I probably don't believe it. I do think that both Dave and the history and trends of the publication drive the HOF, and that's something which may or may not be changing. I think it's something Dave is aware of in some ways (I'd point to his interest in Morales maybe? I don't know). You're right about how consensus has schismed somewhat in years' past. I just sense more historiography than is usually accepted with the process and it makes JYD in specific (along with someone like Warrior or, I don't know, Invader I) somewhat surreal to me.

[Parties]

Does anyone know how long Mean Gene has been a nominee without getting in? In terms of the way Dave and most US voters think, it really surprises me that he wouldn't have made it yet. Hasn't Meltzer called him the greatest or most important non-wrestling performer in history, or something to that effect? Meltzer has also said that he thinks Finkel should be in too, but Okerlund is the one that feels like the biggest shoo-in, unless he's just getting nothing from foreign voters or American contemporaries who have some beef with him.

[NintendoLogic]

When did Meltzer say he thought Finkel should be in? I recall him being fairly dismissive of the idea, saying that a HOF-level ring announcer wouldn't have been replaced by Lilian Garcia.

[sek69]

When did Meltzer say he thought Finkel should be in? I recall him being fairly dismissive of the idea, saying that a HOF-level ring announcer wouldn't have been replaced by Lilian Garcia.

 

I seem to remember the opposite, him saying how stupid it was to replace one of the best ring announcers ever just because Vince felt he was too old.

[Parties]

It could have just been that he's said he thinks Finkel the GOAT ring announcer? Which I suppose would mean that he thinks none of them should be in. But yes, my memory of it was that he's cited Finkel's ousting as a particularly egregious example of Vince putting cosmetics ahead of talent.

[NintendoLogic]

It could have just been that he's said he thinks Finkel the GOAT ring announcer? Which I suppose would mean that he thinks none of them should be in.

 

Jimmy Lennon was one of the guys Dave put in by fiat, so I doubt that's it.

[shakla]

Okerlund first put on the ballot in 2013. (https://sites.google.com/site/chrisharrington/wonhof_voting_results)

[Loss]

Dave has called Finkel the greatest ring announcer ever, but has also said ring announcer is not really a position a company can't do without, like a wrestler, announcer or promoter. So the argument against Finkel in the HOF is the unimportance of the role of ring announcer, not Finkel's talents.