WON HOF 2022

[Dav'oh]

3 hours ago, ethantyler said:

Ignore the fact that Burke's a woman and she doesn't get in. Period.

Well, she'd be a 5'1", 138lb Boy Called Mildred. Far be it for me to demand intellectual rigor, but this is Facebook-level shit. If Roman Reigns had wheels he'd be a bicycle...

If your case for Becky relies on your arbitrary percentages, your arbitrary attendance cut-offs, your arbitrary allowances, your arbitrary numbers all round - by which Becky just so happens to come out smelling great - and trying to diminish Burke et al, maybe you don't have much of a case.

 

[ohtani's jacket]

On 11/6/2022 at 10:17 AM, ethantyler said:

Nintendo called her an elite worker before clarifying that he meant among the women only. Elite to me means top-10ish among your peers with zero segregation. 

Yes, I did explain how I reached that conclusion - Jeff Leen's book where he spoke to people from that era about Burke. To expand on that, Mae Young had huge respect for her but never claimed equal ability to the top guys. Cora Combs thought she was good, and that's it. The likes of Ethel Brown and Penny Banner thought Byers was better but still didn't give the latter equal status to the top guys either. Notice that I have avoided opinions from men because I can see you dismissing them outright from a mile away.

The best women's wrestler, just as good as the standard guys, etc is the general consensus. Still impressive considering how primitive women's wrestling was, having only become a regular thing in 1934/35.

We'll probably never know how truly good Burke was as a worker, especially since much of the debate about what made a good worker from that era was whether they could shoot. The opinion of other workers is hearsay. You have to take into account the biases, prejudices and jealousies that exist within the business before taking a wrestler's word at face value. That said, Leen believed that both Burke and Byers were great workers, and I'm fairly certain he meant workers period not "women workers." Just because no-one was comparing the women to the men before Terry Funk told Dave that the All Japan girls were better than the men doesn't mean the women were worse. Thesz and others may have thought women's wrestling was a freak show, but if you look at the Golden Age footage, it's not a primitive style of wrestling. A primitive style of wrestling would be hairpulling and catfights. There was an element of that in some heel-led matches, but in many bouts the women show a fair degree of technical skill. It was surprising to me, as I expected nothing but back scratching and hair tosses, but that style of wrestling became the predominant women's wrestling style after Burke & Co. retired. I also object to Burke being just as good as the standard guys given the huge number of journeymen at the time. I don't have proof of this, but I suspect Burke's better world title fights were a damn sight better than the average journeyman heel vs. babyface bout from the Golden Age. 

[NintendoLogic]

The standard in the past was "positive historical influence" or "positive historical importance" (defined as "in the sense the entire narrative history of the business would change without this person"). Dave should clarify if "historical significance" is a genuine shift or just careless wording on his part. If it's the former, that lowers the bar significantly in my view.

[El-P]

Becky Lynch is one of the first three women to have main-evented Mania. But if Ronda Rousey is not in the picture, she doesn't main event Mania, no matter how big of a star she was at this time, that's a given. From that perspective, Rousey is much more significant than Becky, and her significance comes from her MMA success. Just throwing that out there.

I don't see any shift in WWE booking that is due to Becky Lynch per say. If anything, one of the biggest shift in term of how women got booked in the company was Paige vs Emma. Sure, none got even close to the level of stardom Becky has attained, but arguably their stuff together was more influencial in actually changing the way women have been portrayed since the mid-10's than anything else.

[ethantyler]

3 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

We'll probably never know how truly good Burke was as a worker, especially since much of the debate about what made a good worker from that era was whether they could shoot. The opinion of other workers is hearsay. You have to take into account the biases, prejudices and jealousies that exist within the business before taking a wrestler's word at face value. That said, Leen believed that both Burke and Byers were great workers, and I'm fairly certain he meant workers period not "women workers." Just because no-one was comparing the women to the men before Terry Funk told Dave that the All Japan girls were better than the men doesn't mean the women were worse. Thesz and others may have thought women's wrestling was a freak show, but if you look at the Golden Age footage, it's not a primitive style of wrestling. A primitive style of wrestling would be hairpulling and catfights. There was an element of that in some heel-led matches, but in many bouts the women show a fair degree of technical skill. It was surprising to me, as I expected nothing but back scratching and hair tosses, but that style of wrestling became the predominant women's wrestling style after Burke & Co. retired. I also object to Burke being just as good as the standard guys given the huge number of journeymen at the time. I don't have proof of this, but I suspect Burke's better world title fights were a damn sight better than the average journeyman heel vs. babyface bout from the Golden Age. 

I can personally agree with the "we don't know" conclusion on how good Burke was, but Dave would've based her induction in 96 on mostly hearsay. Regardless of unreliability (we agree on that too). He wasn't led to believe that she was as good as Thesz, Gagne, or whoever and that is key here if you wish to argue that Burke is in for in-ring ability and historic sig vs Lynch's pure historic sig. I see it as one type of historic sig vs another. The bar is, roughly, the same. Rejecting Lynch means we're raising it. That is my view.  

I meant primitive literally - women's wrestling was at the beginning of it's development. Expecting any of them to be Lou Thesz level is ridiculous. I don't necessary see the hair-toss, comedy male ref rollover, style of the time as a bad thing either. It's very stereotypical to us today because we've seen so many terrible versions of it but back then it was brand new. Again, women's wrestling had only been a regular thing since 1934. I see it as simply another form of entertaining wrestling that worked for those who liked that sort of thing. Clara Mortensen got over using that style and her looks. I think - and this is pure speculation - that you have an evolution with Burke, Byers, Mae Young, etc. Those were "real" wrestlers. They still did the 2022 stereotypical stuff, but less so. From there you'd expect the evolution to continue but a combination of factors - summarized as Moolah giving in to what society wanted from women's wrestling - prevented that. In the 60s you essentially go back to the original style of the late 30s and stay there till 2014. Then it gets serious again with the horsewomen generation. If you really wanted to capture the history of women succeeding in North America as serious wrestlers then Burke, Byers, and Lynch would sum it up fairly well.  

[El-P]

30 minutes ago, ethantyler said:

Then it gets serious again with the horsewomen generation.

Well, not exactly. This is the WWE version of history. In 2007 Gail Kim vs Awesome Kong in TNA had legit great matches. I know that it's being ignored because it did not happen in WWE, but erasing them from history makes no sense. The advancement of women's wrestling in the US in a promotion that was actually on TV comes with them, seven years before the "Revolution"tm. After that point there's some going backward because of Russo's booking, of course, but still, saying there was no real serious women's wrestling before 2014 in the mainstream (as in, on national TV) US landscape is misleading. They should be acknowledged, despite the fact that of course, they could not have the same influence as people in WWE because the promotion was not competitive. The fact that to this day, IMPACT does much better with its women division than AEW is pretty telling on that matter too.

[ethantyler]

23 minutes ago, El-P said:

Nope. In 2007 Gail Kim vs Awesome Kong in TNA had legit great matches. I know that it's being ignored because it did not happen in WWE, but erasing them from history makes no sense. The advancement of women's wrestling in the US in a promotion that was actually on TV comes with them, seven years before the "Revolution"tm. After that point there's some going backward because of Russo's booking, of course, but still, saying there was no real serious women's wrestling before 2014 in the mainstream (as in, on national TV) US landscape is misleading. They should be acknowledged, despite the fact that of course, they could not have the same influence as people in WWE because the promotion was not competitive.

I didn't say no other women wrestled seriously. Gail Kim vs Awesome as mid-card for a small promotion is not an example I would use to illustrate the business treating women seriously. It goes beyond the in-ring work. Having women wrestle real matches is one thing, elevating them to the top level based off of that is another. Burke, Byers, and Lynch epitomize the latter.

[El-P]

4 minutes ago, ethantyler said:

I didn't say no other women wrestled seriously. Gail Kim vs Awesome as mid-card for a small promotion is not an example I would use to illustrate the business treating women seriously. It goes beyond the in-ring work. Having women wrestle real matches is one thing, elevating them to the top level based off of that is another. Burke, Byers, and Lynch epitomize the latter.

That's understood. But it has to be said that back then the Knockouts were treated very seriously by what was by default the N°2 promotion in the US, and there was times where they did draw their TV's best numbers. To me it's underlining how far behind WWE was when they decided that "oh, maybe we can push women's wrestling as something serious". How does that play into Becky's argument, no idea. Like I said, she sure is important. But how important has she been really, not so sure. In term of legit influence on WWE's booking politics, the name is Ronda.

[ohtani's jacket]

8 hours ago, ethantyler said:

I can personally agree with the "we don't know" conclusion on how good Burke was, but Dave would've based her induction in 96 on mostly hearsay.

Fair point.

I watched Burke vs Weston again last night to see whether I'm barking up the wrong tree, and I still think Burke looks great. Weston too. Anyway, Burke is already in, I won't take up anymore of your time about this.  

[RealDealJRH]

Some great, heated discussion here (unsurprisingly, lol). Will say looking at @ethantyler's ballot, I'm glad to see some Spiros Arion representation, especially after the research I did on him not long after the ballots got sent out.

I already went in knowing he was the second biggest draw in Australia during WCW's time, and came out learning that he was a major opponent for Bruno, a piece of setting up the British scene for the 1980s & most surprisingly an uber-mega draw in Greece with some of Europe's biggest wrestling attendances of the 60s and 70s. He has a way bigger case than I'd ever have thought.

[ethantyler]

7 hours ago, RealDealJRH said:

Some great, heated discussion here (unsurprisingly, lol). Will say looking at @ethantyler's ballot, I'm glad to see some Spiros Arion representation, especially after the research I did on him not long after the ballots got sent out.

I already went in knowing he was the second biggest draw in Australia during WCW's time, and came out learning that he was a major opponent for Bruno, a piece of setting up the British scene for the 1980s & most surprisingly an uber-mega draw in Greece with some of Europe's biggest wrestling attendances of the 60s and 70s. He has a way bigger case than I'd ever have thought.

In April/May 1970, the IWE promotion in Japan polled their fans on which foreign star they wanted to see that had never wrestled there before. Arion topped the poll, beating the likes of Mil Mascara and The Sheik, which gives you an indication of how global his fame was at the time. Combine that with the Australia, Greece, and Bruno data (Dave thinks he was Bruno's best ever opponent acutely) to end up with a very strong case.  

Unfortunately, he's another one that'll be lucky to survive vs having a realistic chance of being inducted. That section is extremely competitive, and the public conversation gets dominated by one of its weakest candidates - Big Daddy. Compare Daddy to similar names in that section - drawing power based - like Arion, DeNucci, Tarres, and L'Ange Blanc. He objectively loses to all 4, and yet comfortably outpolls them all. Most of this is down to his supporters being "visitors" to that section of ballot. By that I mean they really don't have enough knowledge to be in there, but have heard of a few names and feel that's good enough. It makes things extremely difficult for the guys actually worth considering. A shame.  

[RealDealJRH]

12 minutes ago, ethantyler said:

In April/May 1970, the IWE promotion in Japan polled their fans on which foreign star they wanted to see that had never wrestled there before. Arion topped the poll, beating the likes of Mil Mascara and The Sheik, which gives you an indication of how global his fame was at the time. Combine that with the Australia, Greece, and Bruno data (Dave thinks he was Bruno's best ever opponent acutely) to end up with a very strong case.  

Unfortunately, he's another one that'll be lucky to survive vs having a realistic chance of being inducted. That section is extremely competitive, and the public conversation gets dominated by one of its weakest candidates - Big Daddy. Compare Daddy to similar names in that section - drawing power based - like Arion, DeNucci, Tarres, and L'Ange Blanc. He objectively loses to all 4, and yet comfortably outpolls them all. Most of this is down to his supporters being "visitors" to that section of ballot. By that I mean they really don't have enough knowledge to be in there, but have heard of a few names and feel that's good enough. It makes things extremely difficult for the guys actually worth considering. A shame.  

Oh for real, a complete shame. I guess somewhat expected by a section that really is just made of odds and ends. I think another thing that factors in it to, beyond people not really knowing enough about the candidates that effects someone like Arion especially is the lack of footage of his peak years. I ended up writing an article about his case and think I made arguments that might compel people should they vote in that area... although as someone who doesn't actually get a ballot there's only so much difference I can truly make, lol.

[Phil Lions]

12 hours ago, RealDealJRH said:

Some great, heated discussion here (unsurprisingly, lol). Will say looking at @ethantyler's ballot, I'm glad to see some Spiros Arion representation, especially after the research I did on him not long after the ballots got sent out.

I already went in knowing he was the second biggest draw in Australia during WCW's time, and came out learning that he was a major opponent for Bruno, a piece of setting up the British scene for the 1980s & most surprisingly an uber-mega draw in Greece with some of Europe's biggest wrestling attendances of the 60s and 70s. He has a way bigger case than I'd ever have thought.

I wouldn't say that. Was he a draw in Greece? Yes, definitely. Was he an uber-mega draw? No. Granted, I don't have all of the numbers and never will, but based on the numbers that I do have he's more like the number 5 draw in the history of Greece after Londos, Lambrakis, Papalazarou and Karpozilos. Actually, make that potentially number 6 because Atilio (the top foreign star in the history of Greece) was a bigger deal than Arion overall. Guys like Gordienko and Megaritis have a case about being on his level too, but that's more debatable. Although to be fair to Arion, there was what seems to have been a big run of shows in 1963 with Arion being one of the keys guys and I don't have any of the numbers for that run. I suspect he drew some strong crowds during that run.

And were the Greek crowds some of the biggest in Europe in the 1960s and 1970s? Probably, but since we don't have numbers for the Sportpaleis shows in Antwerp and the Spanish bullring shows especially, it's hard to say where the Greek crowds truly ranked during that era.

For reference: my History of Greek Pro Wrestling article (which I see that you've quoted in your Arion article so thank you for that!)

Full disclosure: If I recall correctly, I have actually voted for Arion in the past, but this year he missed my cut.

[Matt D]

26 minutes ago, Phil Lions said:

Granted, I don't have all of the numbers and never will, but based on the numbers that I do have

Phil, while we have you, do you find it odd at all that L'Ange Blanc is so poorly represented in the French footage we have? Especially relative to guys like Ben Chemoul or LeDuc?

[Phil Lions]

11 hours ago, Matt D said:

Phil, while we have you, do you find it odd at all that L'Ange Blanc is so poorly represented in the French footage we have? Especially relative to guys like Ben Chemoul or LeDuc?

Yes and no. Yes, in a sense that it is odd to not feature one of the top stars on TV regularly, but on the flipside no, because even at the peak of his popularity Blanc was always used as a special attraction on TV. For his entire January 1959-March 1961 big run as a masked wrestler he only had three television matches, and the third one was 18 months after the second one. Once Blanc's popularity exploded the promoters took him off TV and focused on him as a live event headliner. I don't know as much about his later years, but it seems to me he continued to be used in that way on television while other top guys like Leduc (another guy who I rank very highly and has a HOF case in my opinion, but it's a harder case to make), Chemoul, Delaporte, Bollet, etc. were featured more regularly.

Also, we are for sure missing some Blanc TV matches in the footage. I know of at least two that aired but we don't have, and there must be more than two, I would assume. One of those two matches in particular was quite important/interesting. Wrestling got taken off TV for a while in 1963 and there were arguments between the various promoters, but after pressure from the viewers the network had to bring back wrestling and the network put the pressure on the promoters to put their differences aside. This all lead to wrestling's big TV return in October 1963 in a match which was essentially a relevos increibles match: L'Ange Blanc & Jack de Lasartesse vs. Gilbert Leduc & Robert Gastel. To me the fact that they went with Blanc and Leduc as the babyface stars in wrestling's big TV return tells you who the top babyfaces were at the time. Another Blanc match that aired, but we're missing, is L'Ange Blanc & Gilbert Leduc vs. Hercules Cortez & Robert Gastel from October 1964.

[ohtani's jacket]

I'm not super high on L'Ange Blanc as a worker, but those tag matches look intriguing, especially the one with Hercules Cortez. 

[RealDealJRH]

10 hours ago, Phil Lions said:

I wouldn't say that. Was he a draw in Greece? Yes, definitely. Was he an uber-mega draw? No. Granted, I don't have all of the numbers and never will, but based on the numbers that I do have he's more like the number 5 draw in the history of Greece after Londos, Lambrakis, Papalazarou and Karpozilos. Actually, make that potentially number 6 because Atilio (the top foreign star in the history of Greece) was a bigger deal than Arion overall. Guys like Gordienko and Megaritis have a case about being on his level too, but that's more debatable. Although to be fair to Arion, there was what seems to have been a big run of shows in 1963 with Arion being one of the keys guys and I don't have any of the numbers for that run. I suspect he drew some strong crowds during that run.

And were the Greek crowds some of the biggest in Europe in the 1960s and 1970s? Probably, but since we don't have numbers for the Sportpaleis shows in Antwerp and the Spanish bullring shows especially, it's hard to say where the Greek crowds truly ranked during that era.

For reference: my History of Greek Pro Wrestling article (which I see that you've quoted in your Arion article so thank you for that!)

Full disclosure: If I recall correctly, I have actually voted for Arion in the past, but this year he missed my cut.

Oh for sure, my "uber-mega draw" comment was a bit hyperbolic. But in terms of people who:

1. Your research has numbers on
2. Is on the ballot

I think he at least has a case worth considering. I do feel some of the names bigger than him who aren't already in deserve a look in, at least for the sake of people doing more research into the area/potentially finding more data for us to work with.

Glad I came across your post on WrestlingClassics, because I randomly stumbled across it after writing the article and was blown away by your findings.

[NintendoLogic]

Eight new entrants this year according to Meltzer. The HOF issue should be a doozy.

[Jmare007]

I remember Danielson taling about phones in the AEW locker room...

Quote

"I came in and everybody was on their phones in the locker room. That’s not what I want. The last three years of my career, I don’t want to spend in the locker room with a bunch of young guys looking at their phone. So, we start….we talk about flaccid penises, asexually. We are not talking about anything that would be considered perverted. It’s just amongst the boys. It’s the boys talking about flaccid penises. It is a blast.”

I guess that's one way to tackle that problem (?)

[ethantyler]

Dave clarified on WOR that it's 6 voted in - including tag-teams as one act - and 2 auto-inductions. My prediction: Rocca & Perez, Slaughter, HDA, Ibushi, Mistico and Bobby Davis voted in, Lou Daro & Johnny Doyle auto-inducted. 

I've campaigned for both of those auto-inductees and if it is them, then it should be known that Dave listened to the feedback on the Don Owen induction last year. Doyle in particular will send a strong message to those voters, stronger than I expected, but I'll go into more detail if it is revealed to be them. 

[JMuseMich]

On 12/6/2022 at 10:59 AM, ethantyler said:

Dave clarified on WOR that it's 6 voted in - including tag-teams as one act - and 2 auto-inductions. My prediction: Rocca & Perez, Slaughter, HDA, Ibushi, Mistico and Bobby Davis voted in, Lou Daro & Johnny Doyle auto-inducted. 

I've campaigned for both of those auto-inductees and if it is them, then it should be known that Dave listened to the feedback on the Don Owen induction last year. Doyle in particular will send a strong message to those voters, stronger than I expected, but I'll go into more detail if it is revealed to be them. 

Also hoping for Daro and Doyle. 

[NintendoLogic]

The issue's out. The HDA, Mistico, Ibushi, Naito, Los Villanos, and Mark Rocco were voted in and Daro and Doyle were auto-inducted. Just missing the cut were Rocca/Perez, Slaughter, and Los Hermanos Dinamita. Kind of surprising to see Villano III alongside Kawada as the first multiple inductees. I guess it really is true that Mexico has gone from the hardest region to get voted in to the easiest.

[MoS]

Very disappointed by Becky Lynch's numbers. To me she is a sureshot HOFer for historical influence and drawing alone, as has been shown very well by @ethantyler in this thread. I understand the argument that it might be too soon for her, but 20% is way too low. Edge and Randy Orton, guys who were never the top star in WWE the way Becky arguably was in 2019, got far more votes than Becky, as did the Hardy Boyz, which is crazy to me. 

[ethantyler]

 I'll copy & paste my initial thoughts from the Observer board here but suffice to say Rocca & Perez are going to dominate the conversation: 

The good:
- I'm fine with everyone who got in. Voted for 4 of them.
- Becky Lynch survived! I consider that a job well done.
- Some disappointing eliminations (Hennig & Race, Blanc, Starr) but nothing too egregious. I was worried it would be a lot worse so, again, fine with this.
- DELIGHTED with both auto-inductions. Both Daro & Doyle entered serious conversation after Don Owen got in last year. Both are vastly superior to Owen, and Doyle's induction in particular - as a guy who technically needed to be on the ballot because he isn't pre-1950 - is a direct message to Don Owen voters. Whether they like it or not.

The bad:
- Something needs to be done about that Mexico section. I've brought it up on the previous page, but now that you got Mistico being inducted on 76% and Los Villanos inducted with only 59 votes the trend is clear. Voting pool too small, herd mentality too strong. I say that as someone who voted for Los Villanos and is happy they got in.

The ugly:
Rocca & Perez not getting in is the most embarrassing result I've ever seen for this hall of fame. Sorry, but unlike Dave I don't need to play diplomacy and sugarcoat things - that is a really fucking bad result. It is proof - along with other trends like Bobby Davis struggling - that we have too many historical voters that have no fucking business being in there. I'm guessing it's people who've heard of the 80s candidates creeping in and fucking things up. But that's just a guess.

The inductees are good, the auto-inductees extremely strong, but Rocca & Perez not making it will overshadow everything, which is a shame. People who wish to disparage this HOF, the best in the business still in my view, will use that solo result to their advantage. I spent so much time trying to save Becky because I genuinely didn't think Rocca & Perez would have any issues. Sigh. Considering who got in, I didn't think I'd be as bummed out as I am but here we are.

 

[NintendoLogic]

14 minutes ago, ethantyler said:

- Didn't Dave say we had 6 inductees, rather than 5?

The HDA is the sixth. Dave made a mistake in not including them in the chart showing votes and percentages, but they got in with 76 percent.