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Posted
  On 10/23/2017 at 4:53 PM, Matt Farmer said:

Fujiwara was a career mid-carder and multiple failure as a promoter. So bad in fact he caused a mass exodus of talent. He shouldn't even be on the ballot.

 

The Pancrase guys left because they didn't want to work pro-wrestling matches. And the BattlARTS guys left because there was a problem with Fujiwara's sponsor and not Fujiwara himself. PWFG was a promotion of little significance. It was founded because Fujiwara didn't belong to any of the factions within the UWF and instead wanted to create a promotion for his students. It didn't operate any differently from any other small indy during the time period. It had backing from Super Megane and provided talent for their shows. After that dried up, there was a working agreement with New Japan. As a small-time promoter, he deserves credit for building the promotion back up after he was left with only Yuki Ishikawa,

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elliott

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I was super surprised to see Kiyoshi Tamura was Meltzer's last cut on his ballot. Here's the Gordy List I wrote for Tamura last year. I made a very few edits here and there for clarity.

 

 

Gordy List: Kiyoshi Tamura

 

1.Was he ever regarded as the best draw in the world? Was he ever regarded as the best draw in his country or his promotion?

He was never regarded as the best draw in the world or in his country.

He was never the biggest draw in UWFi.

He would likely be considered the biggest draw in RINGS in 1998 and 1999. However, of the 4 biggest shows in RINGS in 1998 and 1999, Akira Maeda was in the main event of 3 of them. The 4th was Tamura vs Mikhail Illioukhine only managing to sell 9,200 tickets to a Budokan Hall main event, a building that holds 16,000+.

Calling Tamura the “best draw in RINGS” is akin to calling Curt Hennig the best draw in 1987 AWA or Sting in early 90s WCW. RINGS wasn’t that bad as far as drawing, but the numbers were down from the glory days, and there were a lot of cards where they could only fill roughly half of mid-sized buildings. Plus, in the case of the Tamura/Sting comparison, the period immediately following their time period as ace saw the company’s attendance increase after a shift in direction (WCW went to Hogan, RINGS went to Shoots).

 

This isn’t a perfect comparison. RINGS tickets were much more expensive than late 80s AWA or early 90s WCW and was promoted as a more “High Brow” form of entertainment catering to a wealthier fan base. However, I use that comparison more to illustrate that Tamura’s time on top of RINGS came during the company’s low point.

 

2. Was he an international draw, national draw and/or regional draw?

No, no and no. Based on the evidence we have, I think it is fair to say that Tamura is not someone who moved noticeably moved the needle from a financial point of view.

 

3. How many years did he have as a top draw?

No years as a top draw.

 

4. Was he ever regarded as the best worker in the world? Was he ever regarded as the best worker in his country or in his promotion?

Regarded is the key word here. Since the late 90s, Tamura has generally been pointed to as the best wrestler in the world during 1998 and 1999. It is possible 1997 would be included in this, but All Japan was still highly regarded in 1997 as were juniors like Liger, Ohtani, Guerrero, Rey Jr and Benoit. However, I think it is fair to say that Tamura has generally been considered the best wrestler in the world in 98 and 99 by folks who watched a lot of wrestling from all over the world.

1998 and 1999 were interesting years in the wrestling business as All Japan was falling apart, people stopped giving a shit about New Japan Juniors, M-Pro died, AJW died, UWFi died, WCW and WWE were at their lowpoint as far as in ring work, this is pre-indy boom, and lucha guys have never really been able to get any sort of traction as “best in the world” because it is less watched and the booking doesn’t always lend itself to creating best in the world candidates (at least not in the way most wrestling fans view wrestling). HOWEVER, with wrestling quality falling off a cliff in the late 90s, Kiyoshi Tamura was pointed to as the guy still capable of having all time classic matches.

I think it would be fair to say he was generally considered the best wrestler in Japan in 1998 and 1999 by people who watched more than just the big All Japan matches at the time.

Promotion is a little tricky. Hardcore fans at the time LOVED them some Takada and most people at the time would have regarded him as the best worker in UWFi from the beginning of the promotion to the end. In RINGS, either Tamura or Volk Han was considered the best wrestler in the promotion when Tamura jumped in 6/96 through 1997. Tamura worked more than twice as many matches as Han in 1998 so I feel it would be fair to say Tamura surpassed Han officially in 1998 if he hadn’t at some point from 6/96-12/97.

The most conservative point of view would likely be that Tamura was either the best or second best wrestler in his promotion from 6/96-12/99.

 

5. Was he ever the best worker in his class (sex or weight)? Was he ever one of the top workers in his class?

This is also kind of tricky. Tamura was a small guy with google telling me he’s 5’11 and 185lbs. So you’d think to classify him as a junior heavyweight. It’s weird to think of him as a junior heavyweight. If you classify him that way his peers would be Liger, Eddy, Benoit, Rey, etc. And you really wouldn’t call him the best worker in his class until that late 90s period. It would also be hard to place him as a “top worker” (defined as a top 10 worker) in his class if you consider him a “junior” and are comparing him to the Ligers and Reys of the world. Those wrestlers were way more visible and talked about than Tamura.

I’d feel more comfortable defining his class as “shoot style.” That makes more sense to me than saying he’s better than El Samurai or Hayabusa.

If we define his class as “shoot style” then he would have been considered at worst the 2nd best in the style as early as 6/96 when he jumped to RINGS and the best from 1/98-12/99.

 

In terms of being a “top worker” in the class, it gets a little trickier because of how these guys were “regarded.” Takada would have been “regarded” as better from the moment Tamura debuted until Tamura left for RINGS and Takada started doing Pride stuff. Volk Han would have been regarded as better from the moment Han debuted in 12/91 until at least 6/96 and probably further into 1997. Kazuo Yamazaki is tough because he’s among the most underappreciated wrestlers in history. My gut feeling is that people at the time would have considered him better than Tamura until at least 1994 or 95. Maybe jdw can shed some light on how Yamazaki was regarded at the time period vs Tamura.

From there it gets tricky. Fujiwara love is not only revisionist and niche. I don’t know what to do about the Pancrase guys like Suzuki or Funaki. Guys like Yoji Anjoh and Naoki Sano were great workers but even more under the radar than Yamazaki. I can’t imagine Kakihara getting a bunch of love if Tamura wasn’t getting it. Trying to be conservative, I think Tamura was probably considered a top 10 shoot stylist no later than 1994 and remained that way until the end of the decade.

6. How many years did he have as a top worker?

Worldwide covering all styles, he is generally considered a top worker (as defined as top 10) from 1997-1999.

As a top worker in his class (shoot style) probably from 1994-1999.

 

7. Was he a good worker before his prime? Was he a good worker after his prime?

I think most people would point to RINGS era Tamura as his “prime years.” Assuming that, Tamura was an excellent worker before his prime. He showed a lot of potential in his very first match in 1989 and was having legit great matches before he even had 15 matches to his name.

Post prime would have to be considered “U-Style” for reasons that are pretty silly to me, but anyway because of that I would say he was absolutely an excellent worker after his prime. When he stopped doing shoots and formed U-Style he looked every bit as good as he was in RINGS in the late 90s so I’d almost be tempted to call U-Style part of his prime. But I get why it would have to be considered post prime.

8. Did he have a large body of excellent matches? Did he have a excellent matches against a variety of opponents?

This is where it gets kind of batshit insane. Because of the nature of shoot style only working around a show a month, Tamura has barely over 100 matches in his career from 1989-1999 plus 2003-2004. But in spite of that he has a pretty staggering amount of excellent matches.

 

At a minimum he had excellent matches against:

Yoji Anjoh (multiple), Masahito Kakihara (multiple), Kazuo Yamazaki (multiple), Volk Han (multiple), Tsyuoshi Kohsaka (multiple), Yoshihisa Yamamoto (multiple), Naoki Sano (multiple), Nobuhiko Takada, Vader, Gary Albright, Nikolai Zouev, Bitsadze Tariel, Mikahil Ilioukhine, Wataru Sakata, Hiroyuki Ito, Dokonjonosuke Mishima, and Josh Barnett.

And that’s not even it! I’m leaving off more “controversial” great matches like multiples against Yuko Miyato, Dick Leon-Vrij, Willie Peeters, and Alexander Otsuka that others probably aren’t going to be as high on as I am. I’m also ignoring tags which would include dudes like Tom Burton, Mark Fleming, Mark Silver, Steve Nelson, and Yoshihiro Takayama.

So not only does Tamura have a shit ton of great matches in a very niche/narrow style, he managed to do it against a wide variety of opponents with varying degrees of skill over a 15 year time period.

 

9. Did he ever anchor his promotion(s)?

He anchored post Maeda/pre shoots RINGS in 98 and 99 and he anchored U-Style. The first would be a slightly more impressive version of Sting anchoring mid 90s WCW and the 2nd would be a slightly more impressive version of Mike Quackenbush headlining Chikara if Chikara shut down after a year.

10. Was he effective when pushed at the top of cards?

Yes and no. You look at something like his first main event at Budokan where he faced Takada at a sold out show in 1993 and you can say “that’s Tamura being effective.” But I’m not sure Tamura had much to do with that number. His ascension to the top of RINGS came at that company’s lowest point. Granted, company founder and biggest star Akira Maeda retired which is what made Tamura the ace so losing your #1 guy in history is always going to hurt, but Tamura’s drawing record at the top of the card in RINGS is not very good. When he had the opportunity to main event shows for UWFi in 1995 when the company was collapsing, there were a number of “this is the lowest attendance figure UWFi has ever had in this building.”

 

There are some sporadic instances in RINGS where Tamura was on a show that did better than they had done in the building in years. But they were few and far between .

 

U-Style he was pushed to the top because it was his vanity promotion. They mostly ran Korakuen Hall and other small buildings so its hard to say he was an effective draw at the top of the cards for such a small promotion. I’m not sure it matters as part of a HOF case.

 

Now, as a worker, yes. Tamura was effective when pushed to the top of the cards. He could always been counted on to bust his ass and put on the best performances that he could. From an artistic standpoint, he was a blow away success but from a financial standpoint, he wasn’t ever really effective.

 

I get that anyone voting for Tamura is probably going to take shootfighting into account for his career. Perhaps someone could talk about that as I’m not the guy for it. But I’ve never been under the impression that Tamura was a massive draw in MMA like Sakuraba or whoever else.

 

11. Was he valuable to his promotion before his prime? Was he still valuable to his promotion after his prime?

Tamura’s UWFi career is widely considered before he reached his prime. So, I would say, yes, he was valuable to his promotion before his prime as an up & coming super worker. He is a direct peer to Kenta Kobashi in terms of age, debut and role in the promotion. As a young worker, he was often the hardest worker in addition to being one of the top workers in the promotion able to go out and have good-great matches in any position on the card against any opponent. Tamura probably meant less to UWFi in terms of drawing than Kobashi did to All Japan, but on very few instances where Tamura was in featured matches as a young wrestler, he delivered in the ring.

His “post prime” would be U-Style and he was the top star and best worker in the company for its duration so he would definitely be considered valuable to U-Style after his prime. What that means as far as a HOF case is up to the voter.

 

11.Did he have an impact on a number of strong promotional runs?

No. Takada was the driving force behind UWFi and by the time Tamura progressed enough in his career to start getting regular-ish featured matches in UWFi, the bloom was off the rose. His time in RINGS coincided with RINGS’ lowest point in company history and in fact RINGS started to do a little better when they moved to all shoots and Tamura became a less featured player.

13. Was he involved in a number of memorable rivalries, feuds or storylines?

Because of the nature of the style and promotions he worked in, Tamura really never worked storylines and he worked so few matches that there aren’t many opportunities to establish memorable feuds and rivalries. However, Tamura vs Volk Han is regarded as the best rivalry in shoot style history by many people. His rivalries with Tsyuoshi Kohsaka and Yoshihisa Yamamoto are often considered to be right on or right below the level of the Han feud. His early career rivalry against Yoji Anjoh has been completely forgotten in time but was an excellent rivalry looking back.

14. Was he effective working on the mic, working storylines or working angles?

This doesn’t apply to Tamura. His most memorable “angle” was the uncooperative match against Gary Albright leading to the infamous “Break, Gary, BREAK!” moment.

15. Did he play his role(s) effectively during his career?

He was a tremendous working young up and comer. He actually worked for about 2 years playing the role of a guy who didn’t wear kickpads and borderline refused to strike so he would focus entirely on grappling and submissions. I’m not sure if people would consider this a “role” but it was an interesting part of young Tamura’s career. As the Ace of U-Style he was excellent in the ring.

Really any role Tamura played you’re going to see artistic excellence paired with usually disappointing financial gains. So this is sort of a catch 22 category for Tamura. In terms of working in the ring, he was great at whatever roles he was playing.

16. What titles and tournaments did he win? What was the importance of the reigns?

Tamura won the 1997 RINGS World Mega Battle Tournament by beating Mikhail Ilioukhine in the tournament finals at Budokan Hall 1/21/98 in front of 9,200 fans in a tournament that included: Tamura, Ilioukhine, Maeda, Han, Andrei Kopilov, Dick Leon-Vrij, Bitsadze Tariel, Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, Hans Nyman, and Nikolai Zouev amongst others. Tamura defeated Hans Nyman, Joop Kasteel, Akira Maeda and Mikhail Ilioukhine to win the tournament.

This is RINGS’ big annual tournament. Previous winners include: Chris Dolman, Akira Maeda x2, and Volk Han x2. Tamura lost the 1996 tournament final to Volk Han.

The 1997 tournament also crowned not just the Mega Battle Tournament winner but crowned the first ever RINGs Openweight Title Championship. Tamura held the title until dropping it to Bitsadze Tariel on 5/29/98. Tariel would hold the title until dropping it back to Tamura a year later on 5/22/99. Tamura held the title through the transition to full shoots before losing the title to Gilbert Yvel on 4/20/00. Yvel vacated the title 5/00 when he went to Pride and it was subsequently won by Fedor Emelianenko who held the title until RINGS closed in 2/02.

So Tamura was the first ever RINGS champion, but that reign was the shortest in the title’s 4 year existence, but he then won it back and held it until the shift to full shoots.

Tamura’s initial win of the title was the company’s worst drawing show ever at Budokan Hall by more than 1,000 fans.

In U-Style, Tamura won the U-Style tournament over the course of 3 shows (2 at Korakuen Hall) from 8/7/04-8/18/04. The promotion ran 6 total shows over the course of 4 years after the tournament so it would be hard to say it had any meaning at all.

17. Did he win many honors and awards?

 

Someone will have to help me out with any Japanese awards and honors. But looking through mookie’s WON Awards results:

1997 – Placed 7th overall Best Technical Wrestler

1998 – Honorable Mention Readers Favorite Wrestler (One point behind Kobashi, 3 points above Rey Jr)

1998 – 3rd Place Match of the Year vs Tsuyoshi Kohsaka 6/27

1998 – 6th Place Most Outstanding Wrestler

1998 – Honorable Mention Wrestler of the Year (Behind Tsuyoshi Kohsaka which I think is very interesting)

1999 – 9th Place Worked Match of the Year vs Yoshihisa Yamamoto 6/24

1999 – 3rd Place Best Technical Wrestler

2000 – 8th Place Shoot Match of the Year vs Antonio Nogueira 10/9

2003 – 6th Place Shoot Match of the Year vs Hidehiko Yoshida 8/10

2003 – Honorable Mention Best Technical Wrestler

2006 – Ranked 63rd Overall on the Smarkschoice GWE Poll placing on 23 of 49 Ballots with 2 Top 10 Votes

2016 – Ranked 62nd Overall on the PWO GWE Poll appearing on 55 of 152 Ballots with one 2nd place vote and an overall ranking of 31.1

18. Did he get mainstream exposure due to his wrestling fame? Did he get a heavily featured by the wrestling media?

I would need assistance on this. I couldn’t see him ranking in the top 20 in terms of mainstream exposure due to wrestling fame even from his own era.

19. Was he a top tag team wrestler?

Tag team wrestling isn’t an important part of shoot wrestling. He participated in tag team matches in UWFi and tended to have excellent performances in tag matches. But I wouldn’t call him a top tag team wrestler due to the nature of the style and promotions he worked.

20. Was he innovative?

Sort of. Tamura, along with Volk Han, really pushed the boundaries of what was capable not only just in shoot style but in a wrestling ring. Tamura seems innovative because of his speed, athleticism and technique and the fact that when you combined all of this nobody could do what he was capable of in the ring. However, I don’t really view him as innovative in the way that Volk Han was. If Fujiwara & Takada are Buddy Rogers & Ray Stevens, then Tamura was Ric Flair taking their ideas and pushing them as far as possible. I see Tamura as a worker in the tradition of the shoot style founding fathers. Volk Han to me, was the more innovative wrestler within the niche of shootstyle. Outside of quality of work, I don’t see much difference between Tamura, Takada, Yamazaki, Kohsaka and Yamamoto. Volk Han was certainly more unique character.

21. Was he influential?

Not really. He was one of many people in Japanese wrestling to help turn shoot style wrestling into shoots which in my mind wasn’t just a negative to Japanese pro wrestling in general, but was a negative to Tamura’s specific case as a pro wrestling Hall of Famer in my eyes.

22. Did he make the people and workers around him better?

Absolutely. Tamura was an incredible wrestler and he had the best matches in the career of Volk Han, Yamamoto, Kohsaka, and Mikhail Ilioukhine at a bare minimum with arguments for the best match in the career of Gary Albright, Yoji Anjoh, Nikolai Zouev and some dudes I’m probably forgetting because I’m getting worn out.

The bottom line though was that Tamura could always be counted on to make limited workers look good and good workers look great and great workers look transcendent.

23. Did he do what was best for the promotion? Did he show a commitment to wrestling?

Well, he always worked hard and tried to put on the best match he could against anybody. I don’t know much about him refusing to job or anything like that. I do know that he refused to take part in the UWFi vs New Japan feud because he didn’t want to be a fake pro wrestler like in New Japan which led to him leaving for RINGS. That’s not really doing the best thing for his promotion. UWFi was in dire straits financially at this time period and the New Jpaan feud was just life support for them anyway. However, it was a HUGELY successful feud at the time period that Tamura didn’t take part in.

He really didn’t show a commitment to “Pro Wrestling” because he was quick to make the jump to shoots when that became a thing. But its hard to fault a guy for doing what he wants to do career wise.

24. Is there any reason to believe that he was better or worse than he appeared?

 

Yes. First of all, if you are a voter inclined to consider shoots, Tamura likely comes across as a better draw. I’m not sure how much better and I know he was never close to Sakuraba’s level as a star, but he probably gets some help. So there’s that.

 

Also, UWFi and especially RINGS tended to have very high priced tickets compared to traditional pro-wrestling shows so while the attendance numbers, especially for RINGS, aren’t very impressive, the gates tended to average higher numbers than you’d expect.

 

I also wanted to be as fair as I possibly could in regards work related questions in the Gordy list. I wanted to try and look at the perception and ignore my personal opinions and leave them for here. I would argue that Tamura was the best Japanese wrestler of all time and was actually the best wrestler in the world as early as 1994 until the rest of the decade. I think when he came back and opened U-Style, he instantly became the best wrestler on the planet again from 03-04 until U-Style Closed. Basically I think his case is better than it appears because his strengths are MUCH stronger than I actually presented them above. Ignoring the shooting and the year he was out from Maeda breaking his face, Tamura had a 12 year career as a pro-wrestler. In my opinion, he was the best wrestler on the planet for 8 of those years. EIGHT! That’s crazy. 75% of his career he was the best guy on earth and he had less than 15 bad matches EVER and probably less than 5 bad performances ever working probably the most difficult style to master in all of wrestling.

 

His case it worse than it appears because in addition to being basically a zero as a draw, he left wrestling in the middle of his prime to pursue other athletic interests. He left at the top of his game and had he worked a “normal” career of roughly 20 years, who knows how many classic matches he’d have?

 

His case is worse than it appears because his biggest positives as related to “influence” are outside of the pro-wrestling sphere. And even then, is Kiyoshi Tamura one of the 25 most influential people as it relates to the rise of MMA in Japan? He’d have to be behind Inoki, Sakuraba, Takada, Pancase Guys, Gracies, Bob Sapp, Maeda, Fujiwara, Takayama, etc etc etc.

 

His case is worse than it appears because he had roughly 100 total matches as a pro-wrestler. It is weird to think that a guy who performed less in 12 years than other guys have worked in 5 months to get in the Hall. That is a difficult idea to wrap your head around and it can be used against him (foolishly in my opinion) to downgrade his ranking as a worker/best in the world candidate.

 

Edit:

I've added in the spoilers below in his UWFi/RINGS results that I looked at last year in preparation for writing the Gordy List with analysis in case folks wanted to look at that as well.

 

 

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PeteF3 Collaborator

PeteF3

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I don't really know how that can be answered besides, "He had more great singles matches than all of those guys combined."

 

Edit: Expanding a bit, here's a breakdown of how Fujiwara did in the Other Japan '80s DVDVR voting. Looking at the results of where his matches placed, he was far and away considered the best worker on that set. Again, not the final word, but strong evidence that this isn't just a random few people who really like him. The people who watched the matches perceived him as not only the best worker of the group but comfortably so.

 

He was also in a 3-way tie for highest-voted wrestler on the New Japan '80s set. (Clarifying, the votes were for matches, not wrestlers--this is a breakdown of how each wrestlers' match placed). Being even with Fujinami is hardly a HOF-level work detriment. Kengo is there too and he was one of the names you listed, but I would argue that Kengo benefited pretty highly from selection bias. His great matches are top-of-the-line great but he was far more likely to look mediocre than either Tatsumi or Yoshiaki and those matches didn't make the set.

 

Bottom line, the Fujiwara worker love isn't exactly new or revisionist. It comes from how well his matches performed in front of a sizable-by-IWC-message-board-standards voting bloc.

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Shrike02

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  On 10/23/2017 at 8:28 PM, Matt D said:

You should give a podcast with Phil where are you both examine specific Fujiwara matches and go point/counterpoint. It worked well for me.

 

http://placetobenation.com/digging-in-the-crates-7/

 

Bonus points for good taste in books; the Flashman novels are brilliant. :)

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PeteF3

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  On 10/23/2017 at 10:29 PM, NintendoLogic said:

Just out of curiosity, what was the contemporaneous view of Fujiwara as a worker in outlets like the Observer?

 

Navigating those pre-computer Observers is a pain but just from looking at the '87 Observer Yearbook, Fujiwara placed #24 in the world in a survey of 30 "responding pro wrestling experts."

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To my knowledge, Fujiwara at the time wasn't viewed as anything special. You have to remember a lot of the praised workers at the time from Meltzer were the more fast paced action oriented guys. Fujiwara wasn't a guy known for flashy highspots so he wasn't going to grab the attention of someone like Meltzer or Bowdren or whatever other opinion maker at the time you want to consider.

 

He is truly a revisionist candidate built up by work. He isn't someone you can't really point to as a major draw, but it is super easy to craft an influence argument for him as one of the shoot style founding fathers. I think it is awesome that he is someone who went from being on no one's radar to a strongish HOF candidate for people who have gone back and looked at him. However, I don't expect him to ever have a realistic shot of getting in considering the guy running the show is someone who rejects the idea of revisiting old matches.

 

I couldn't craft an argument for him as a drawing card. However, looking at how he was presented and how the crowd reacted to him, he was clearly a key figure in the UWF vs New Japan feud and treated as a real player by the fans.

 

His influence as a trainer is something to definitely add to his case. There is at least one guy in the HOF for training who never trained anyone who went on to become as good as Fujiwara's guys (I'm looking at you, Stu Hart).

 

I view Fujiwara as primarily a work candidate who has other pluses to his candidacy. He's almost the reality of Ultimo Dragon's fake HOF candidacy. Great worker, trainer, influence. But you have to buy into the work argument. That's the strongest building block.

 

I would recommend literally every match he had against Sayama. I think that is the most underrated feud of the 80s from an in-ring perspective. He also has classic matches against Maeda, Yamazaki, Takada, and Choshu in the 80s. He has maybe the best Inoki match I've ever seen from 1986. He excels in multi man matches with a shit ton of other great & charismatic worker. To the point where he is often one of the two or three standout performers in those classic New Japan 10 mans.

 

I've recently called Tamura my pick for the best Japanese wrestler ever, but the more I think about it, the more I lean towards Fujiwara being the guy. He's a guy who peaked as high as anyone else as a performer and never really had a stretch of being bad or uninteresting. He has enough other stuff (influence, training) that I'd consider him.

 

Comparing him to the guys Farmer mentioned: Hamaguchi, Kobayashi, Kimura and Yatsu is mean to those other wrestlers. I like all of those guys, but I do view it on some level like saying "What sets Nick Bockwinkel apart from Eddie Gilbert?"

 

In addition to having a higher peak, Fujiwara has all of those guys on longevity as a great/interesting worker, variety of opponents or styles, consistency, great matches, nuts and bolts (selling, mat work, psychology) etc. Whatever metric.

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ohtani's jacket

Posted
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  On 10/23/2017 at 9:59 PM, Matt Farmer said:

I still don't see Fujiwara, if he's getting in on work alone. What sets him apart from a dozen other mid-card Japanese wrestlers? He's was no better, and IMO not on the same level as guys like Kuniaki Kobayashi, Kengo Kimura, Animal Hamaguchi, Yoshiaki Yatsu and dozens more.

 

I think the answer to this pretty clearly that Fujiwara had a better singles career than any of those wrestlers. If all Fujiwara had in his resume were multi-man tags during hot feuds like Choshu vs. Fujinami and UWF vs. New Japan then you could make a comparison to someone like Animal Hamaguchi but Fujiwara clearly had a more significant singles career than the names you listed and was an occasional headliner.

 

I do think he is a marginal candidate but he wasn't a career midcarder.

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PeteF3

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  On 10/23/2017 at 10:58 PM, elliott said:

He is truly a revisionist candidate built up by work.

 

On this you're correct and I was misleading--those two '80s sets are, what, almost 10 years old at this point? The Fujiwara love has been around for that long if not longer, perhaps long enough that it's becoming more of a consensus among people in the know than revisionist. But yes, it's definitely "revisionist" in comparison to his time, where he was obviously respected as per that '87 Yearbook ranking but not considered elite.

 

Edit: And I agree with OJ that he's a marginal candidate. On my purely hypothetical ballot, the lucha backlog is too crowded for me to really consider "maybes," and that's what Fujiwara is. My ballot would have a bunch of lucha guys and a few other token votes (Punk, Taue, Enrique Torres), plus the Non-Wrestlers.

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I think Han is great and would be fine with him as a HOFer but I don't think he can really touch the other two in terms of versatility and variety. And just being a pure RINGS guy shouldn't be a copout excuse, because I think Tamura has him beat in those categories and he was a pure shootstyle guy as well. Honestly, though, I think all 3 guys are in that "marginal HOF" category but would see Tamura as the strongest of the 3 simply because he *was* the best wrestler in the world at one point. And as someone with an anti-shootstyle bias, for him to stand out as such to me means he was very good indeed.

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I think Han is great and would be fine with him as a HOFer but I don't think he can really touch the other two in terms of versatility and variety.

 

 

I think this is interesting. I agree about Fujiwara having the advantage in versatility and variety. But Tamura is an interesting comparison to Han when thinking about versatility and variety.

 

On the surface, you could make an easy argument for Tamura just based on the nature of their careers. Tamura worked in UWFi which was more pro-style in nature than RINGS and Han only worked the one company. Tamura had a wider variety of opponents because of this and his career narrative was different. We saw him develop from Young Boy to Rising Star to Star. Volk Han was a main eventer from day one till the end.

 

I haven't explored this theory in depth at all, but maybe the very nature of Volk Han gives him a built in advantage for in-ring variety as compared to the more classical shoot style workers. I wrote this about Tamrua in response to the "Is he Innovative Gordy List" Question:

 

"Sort of. Tamura, along with Volk Han, really pushed the boundaries of what was capable not only just in shoot style but in a wrestling ring. Tamura seems innovative because of his speed, athleticism and technique and the fact that when you combined all of this nobody could do what he was capable of in the ring. However, I don’t really view him as innovative in the way that Volk Han was. If Fujiwara & Takada are Buddy Rogers & Ray Stevens, then Tamura was Ric Flair taking their ideas and pushing them as far as possible. I see Tamura as a worker in the tradition of the shoot style founding fathers. Volk Han to me, was the more innovative wrestler within the niche of shootstyle. Outside of quality of work, I don’t see much difference between Tamura, Takada, Yamazaki, Kohsaka and Yamamoto. Volk Han was certainly more unique character."

 

In the realm of shoot style, Volk Han himself was almost the definition of variety. If that makes sense. :)

 

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And just being a pure RINGS guy shouldn't be a copout excuse, because I think Tamura has him beat in those categories and he was a pure shootstyle guy as well. Honestly, though, I think all 3 guys are in that "marginal HOF" category but would see Tamura as the strongest of the 3 simply because he *was* the best wrestler in the world at one point. And as someone with an anti-shootstyle bias, for him to stand out as such to me means he was very good indeed.

 

I'd consider Han a stronger candidate just based on the fact that he walked into RINGS as a main eventer and was the top gaijin in the history of the promotion, in addition to being a working maestro from day 1. I put less emphasis on work than most do when it comes to the HOF. I actually think Tamura was the best worker in the world from 1994-1999 and again in 2004 which would make him a no-brainer HOFer for most normal people :)

 

I do also think Tamura has a more complete career arc/narrative that makes him easier to get a handle on than someone like Han who just appeared as someone who was amazing and on top and just stayed that way in a mid-level to upper mid-level promotion that is still kinda underexplored by many.

 

Also, there is definitely something to Tamura bridging the gap to someone who doesn't like shootstyle. You're not alone in that.

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Dylan Waco Newbie

Dylan Waco

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I don't want to pick on Matt Farmer, but he's anti-Taue too, and if I remember correctly part of his argument is that he doesn't think he was particularly good in the ring. There is nothing wrong with that, it's a matter of tastes ultimately, but I do think that the difference of opinion you see in HoF voting and discussion very often has to do with how the particular person engages with what they see and the facts that are available. There is no 3000 hits or 500 home runs metric you can pull from here, it's about making a holistic case for guys and with that a lot of the smaller points are relative. I've had guys like Patera dismissed as career mid-carders before and it's hard to take seriously with my own research, but I just have to accept that the definition of mid-card is relative and maybe I'm coming from it from a completely different place than the other person.

 

If you start from the position that Fujiwara was a career mid-carder who was good but not particularly special it's unlikely you are going to be convinced by any argument. That's not a knock on Matt, it's just true. One of the things about revisiting the footage, GWE, et. is that it's created a situation where a lot of people sort of forced themselves into blank slatism. Yes you still come in with biases but if you are watching an entire DVDVR set, eventually some personal truths start to emerge even if they aren't what you expected coming in. For example, I didn't expect to think Ricky Fuyuki was as good as he was in AJPW, or that Michael Hayes was actually a great in ring performer in World Class.

 

The question for an HoF discussion is whether personal takes like that matter in a vacuum, or whether or not they should be buttressed by consensus. I can make an argument for why I think Michael Hayes was a demonstrably great worker, or why I think Invader I is an all time great brawler, or why I think Fuyuki was better than Kawada in Footloose. But if it's an outlier argument, and I can see that, should that really matter in an HoF discussions? For years my answer to this was "probably not," but as time has gone on my answer is inching very close to "of course it should!"

 

The reasoning is this - if you are selected by Dave to be a HoF voter, he is presumably picking you because he trusts your judgment with a ballot. He curates an electorate presumably so they can give their actual opinions on whether or not someone belongs in the Hall of Fame, and not so that the consensus editorial views of the Observer can be reflected back into the HoF. More than that even IF Dave's HoF voter curation is a Manufacturing Consentesque way of making his own views look like truisms, to my mind this makes it even more critical that a voter not act as a delegate for Observer speak, but rather a voice that reflects their own views.

 

This does not mean being contrary for the sake of being contrary, but rather researching and making arguments for the strength or weakness of candidates as you see them.

 

This also is not meant as a wholesale denunciation of consensus, but I do think we should think about what consensus actually means. For example, based on the consensus of hardcore fans at the time Fujiwara seems to have been thought of as a very good/great wrestler, who was near the top of talents in the World, but not at the tip-top. But this is based off of one worker poll, with 30 anonymous respondents. We know nothing about their biases, viewing habits, et.

 

We can watch the footage and I think demonstrate that Fujiwara always seems to have been extremely over with live crowds, but what does that mean? I think Farmer's comparison of Fujiwara to Meng is away off if we are comparing what they do in the ring, number of great matches, skill, et. but it may not be wildly off base to compare him to Meng insofar as he was always more over than his push would actually indicate. So the consensus of crowd response and even sometimes card placement can betray you a bit or play into established biases very easily.

 

Among the rewatchers, the project fans, the first time engagers, and the revisionists, Fujiwara does really well as noted by the stats Pete introduced above. I made a similar argument regarding Tamura and Regal last year based on GWE results (I'm not advocating a vote for either of them, but Regal finishing as high as he did, when looking at his surrounding company, and when considering the breadth of opinion and experience among the voting pool is a fascinating tidbit that was not really thought about when the results came out as everyone fixated on the number one race). One could argue that there are biases with the DVDVR sets (bias on the committees toward or against certain guys, guys who had several excellent high end matches but lots of trash and the trash doesn't get seen on a best of, et) and that is true. One could also argue that GWE voting still reflects a marginal pool of hardcore fandom and that is also true. But it is engagement, and I can't criticize that. I will personally take those metrics over those pointing to the individual star ratings of Dave Meltzer 100 out of 100 times, but with the understanding that there are still problems. I also prefer it to looking back at an anonymous fan poll result.

 

I think the question of revisionism is interesting in general. It certainly has it's critics, though most of the arguments the critics make ignore how a lot of the revisionist process has unfolded. But at heart I'm in that camp.

 

I'll vote for Fujiwara because I think he's one of the 15 best wrestlers of all time, the true godfather of shootstyle, and influential stylist and trainer, and was a guy who radiated a special energy as a talent when performing that live crowds clearly were attracted by regardless of his placement on cards. Any one of those things would not get him onto my ballot. As a whole it's enough for me.

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GOTNW Explorer

GOTNW

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  On 10/23/2017 at 9:59 PM, Matt Farmer said:

I still don't see Fujiwara, if he's getting in on work alone. What sets him apart from a dozen other mid-card Japanese wrestlers? He's was no better, and IMO not on the same level as guys like Kuniaki Kobayashi, Kengo Kimura, Animal Hamaguchi, Yoshiaki Yatsu and dozens more.

Fujiwara is, at worst, an absolute no brainer hall of famer trainer. None of the random New Japan guys you're coming up with match his case in any way-work, influence or training.

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Loss Proficient

Loss

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I'm a big proponent of revisionism. I struggle to articulate how I feel about it being used as criteria when considering HOF candidates, because I neither fully endorse nor dismiss it. But I don't think it should weigh as heavily as what people thought in real time. That's not because my general opinion of pro wrestling is the Meltzerian view is that matches are only worked for a specific time and place and shouldn't be revisited. It's because I don't think the Hall of Fame specifically is the place for a true deep dive into revisionism. I think in an ideal setting, that happens in special projects more than it does HOF voting. I also don't see revisionist thinking as something that's a one-and-done. Maybe you go through a spell of watching old footage and rightfully elevate a wrestler to all-time status. Years later, maybe a deeper sampling of that wrestler becomes available and you realize that yes, the wrestler you loved a few years ago is still really good, but not quite as special as you originally thought. I think one thing - perhaps the best thing - about revisionism in my eyes is that it lives and it breathes, and nothing is ever truly final. HOF induction is final. Today's ****1/2 match can be tomorrow's *** affair, and today's slam dunk HOF candidate can be tomorrow's marginal pick. To me, revisionism is most useful in reframing how we think about wrestler accomplishments and what we consider HOF-worthy, be it sellouts, influence, great matches or anything else. ("You know, Wrestler X didn't get credit for how much he drew at the time but look at it through this lens and I think you'll see in hindsight that it was pretty impressive.") TomK made a great case for Hamada as an influence candidate a few years back along these lines.

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Herodes Newbie

Herodes

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My ballot, if I had one

 

 

I FOLLOWED THE HISTORICAL PERFORMERS ERA CANDIDATES

 

Sputnik Monroe

 

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

 

Junkyard Dog

 

I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN MEXICO CANDIDATES

 

Brazo de Oro & Brazo de Plata & El Brazo

Sangre Chicana

Cien Caras

Blue Panther

El Signo & El Texano & Negro Navarro

Villano III

 

I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN EUROPE

 

Big Daddy

Jackie Pallo

 

NON-WRESTLERS

 

Dave Brown

Jimmy Hart

Jerry Jarrett

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shoe Newbie

shoe

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I put my ballot in yesterday.

 

I FOLLOWED THE HISTORICAL PERFORMERS ERA CANDIDATES

Enrique Torres

Bearcat Wright

Sputnik Monroe

Mr. Wrestling 2

 

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

JYD

Sgt. Slaughter

 

I followed wrestling in Japan

Taue

Fujiwara

Sharpe Bros

 

Non -Wrestlers

Jimmy Hart

Gary Hart

Jerry Jarrett

Don Owen

Dave Brown

 

I abstained in the other 3 cats.

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KrisZ Newbie

KrisZ

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WON HOF ballot is finalized

 

I FOLLOWED THE HISTORICAL PERFORMERS ERA CANDIDATES
Sputnik Monroe
Johnny "Mr. Wrestling II" Walker
Bearcat Wright

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

I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN JAPAN CANDIDATES
Yoshiaki Fujiwara

I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN MEXICO CANDIDATES
Cien Caras
Blue Panther
Huracan Ramirez
El Signo & El Texano & Negro Navarro
Villano III

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

I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN EUROPE/AUSTRALIA/PACIFIC ISLANDS/CARIBBEAN/AFRICA CANDIDATES
Abstain

NON-WRESTLERS
Dave Brown
Gary Hart
Jimmy Hart
Don Owen
Stanley Weston

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Cox Newbie

Cox

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I've been thinking about the WON HOF, and the more I think about it, the more I think it is absurdly structured. There are too many candidates and not enough votes per voter. It's somehow worse than the baseball Hall of Fame ballot, which has 12-15 legitimate candidates among 34 players on the ballot where voters can only vote for 10 players. Writers have been petitioning to add more spots on their ballot, or even allow writers to vote for unlimited candidates.

 

It's somehow worse for the WON HOF, which has a ridiculous 74 wrestlers (not even including the non-wrestlers) across 6 geographical areas and only 10 votes. It leads to situations where voters have to make choices they shouldn't have to. Like, if I think Akira Taue is the second best guy on the ballot and want to vote for him, but think Jun Akiyama is a guy I think is worthy of induction, but is the 11th best wrestler on my ballot. I'd be better off abstaining from Japan all together and strategically putting those two votes in another category (like Mexico or US Historical, both of which have an abundance of worthy candidates) but in the process I'm dropping the guy I think is the second best guy on the ballot. Those are choices voters should not have to make. If a voter thinks there are 11 or 15 people worthy of induction, they should be able to vote for that many candidates.

 

There's also the situation I think I bring up every year with people voting for candidates in categories they otherwise have no business voting in. For instance, Allan has done a great job talking up Big Daddy's candidacy (and rightfully so, he's a great candidate). This will hopefully lead to a lot of people voting for him. But I fear a lot of the people who might vote for Big Daddy based on Allan's lobbying but don't vote for other European candidates are voting no for candidates who may very well have good hall of fame cases, but don't have anybody publicly lobbying for them the way Allan has for Big Daddy (and this is not a criticism of Allan's great work on Big Daddy, but more a criticism in the flaw of Dave's voting system). It's a situation where, if a voter votes for one candidate in a geographical location, that voter should really be familiar with everybody in that geographic location, or else that voter may well be voting no on a worthy candidate in error. I doubt all voters are thinking that way, though.

 

I'd love to see Dave lift the cap on the number of votes a voter can make, or move to a yes/no/abstain format, but unfortunately I don't think we will be seeing that anytime soon, so I think we're going to see a flawed system for the foreseeable future, which is too bad.

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JNLister Rookie

JNLister

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Yeah, I'd be tempted to ditch the categories and the 10 vote limit altogether. Just give voters the full list and have them tick yes, no or abstain (with heavy emphasis that it's fine to abstain if you don't know the candidate), then put in anyone who gets 60% of their yes/no votes.

 

I also suspect many if not most voters who aren't in forums/listening to podcasts give approximately zero thought to the mathematical effects of which categories they vote in and instead just pick their 10 favourites.

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