WON HOF 2022

[El-P]

40 minutes ago, ethantyler said:

- 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.

Would you mind clarifying this bit ? Being unfamiliar with the issues at hand that you seem to point out, and having a "distant" only knowledge of lucha libre (but also some opinions about the way it's been handled in term of prescription in the last 20 years), I would be interested in what you precisely mean by that.

[ethantyler]

Nintendo - thanks for that.

2 hours ago, El-P said:

Would you mind clarifying this bit ? Being unfamiliar with the issues at hand that you seem to point out, and having a "distant" only knowledge of lucha libre (but also some opinions about the way it's been handled in term of prescription in the last 20 years), I would be interested in what you precisely mean by that.

The smaller the total voting pool, the statistically weaker the results. With Mexico, we're dealing with only 94-95 total voters this year. That's 35-36 votes less than the 2nd smallest voting pool (Rest of the world) and translates to needing only 10 votes to survive,  56-57 to be inducted. Combine this with the herd mentality of Lucha voters - the determination to induct at least 1 candidate every year - and you end up with weird results. By weird, I mean, weak inductions specifically. The lack of depth on the candidate side exacerbates the problem. Los Brazos last year at 86% - tied 4th highest of all time (same number as The Rock). Mistico this time at 76% - tied 13th highest of all time (same number as Kawada & Taue). The voting % alone doesn't give you the full story. These are statistically weak results with the candidates looking stronger than they really are.

So far, we've been fine. Both Brazos & Mistico are deserving regardless of the actual %. But at some point you are going to induct someone questionable because of all this. Difficult to get knocked off + easy to get inducted leads only one way. We need more knowledgeable Lucha voters, more worthy candidates, or we'll have to consider the viability of Mexico as a standalone section. Statistical strength needs to go up one way or another to maintain credibility. It's one of those problems that you can see coming, so no excuses when the weirdness amplifies. 

[El-P]

2 hours ago, ethantyler said:

The smaller the total voting pool, the statistically weaker the results. (...) Combine this with the herd mentality of Lucha voters - the determination to induct at least 1 candidate every year - and you end up with weird results. By weird, I mean, weak inductions specifically. The lack of depth on the candidate side exacerbates the problem. (...) These are statistically weak results with the candidates looking stronger than they really are.

Thanks for the clarification. Seems like fair criticism.

[Robert S]

I agree that with 80ies candidates slowly being moved to the "historical era" category, you screw up the whole category. I mean I personally have some feeling about a quarter or so of the candidates in that category w.r.t. thumbs up or down and I am by no means a wrestling historian. (the distribution of candidates seems arbitrary anyway, why are the Von Erichs, Tully & Arn, JYD and Slaughter modern performers while the Bulldogs, the Hart Foundation and the (Midnight) Rockers are historical candidates?)

And I think it's time for my yearly rant about the shit show that is the "rest of the world" category. I doubt that there are more than ten people in that voter group who are qualified to judge candidates from Australia, UK, France, Austria, Spain ... at the same time. I suppose most of the voters are voting mainly on Brits (going by the fact that the only candidates in that group who traditionally do well are Brits).

[Al]

The Baseball Hall of Fame has a committee of sixteen that votes in Hall of Famers each year. To have a pool of 94-97 voting isn't that small. Lucha voters agreeing on candidates is probably a function of their nominees being the smallest pool, unlike historical which is completely unwieldly. 

I've seen people dumping on the voters for not inducting Rocca/Perez. Part of the blame needs to take into account that the ballot is just a convoluted mess. The MLB Hall of Fame ballot sent to the writers has 28 candidates listed. The Observer ballot has [b]105[/b] candidates! I don't have an issue with the voter pool but I would blow up the process and start over.

[Robert S]

8 hours ago, ethantyler said:

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.

Looking at the detailed results, it's basically down to one voter group that Rocca & Perez did not get in this time. Among retired professionals, they were the top vote, among historians number two (behind the HDA), the reporters (which would have been my suspect for "messing up" the historical candidates category) still had them at number 7 but among active wrestlers, the are not even among the top 31.

[ohtani's jacket]

Lucha was neglected for a long time, so I don't mind the tide turning there. Were Rocco's cheerleaders at it again? I guess they are officially trying to make Rocco one of the most overrated wrestlers of all time. 

[ethantyler]

1 hour ago, Robert S said:

Looking at the detailed results, it's basically down to one voter group that Rocca & Perez did not get in this time. Among retired professionals, they were the top vote, among historians number two (behind the HDA), the reporters (which would have been my suspect for "messing up" the historical candidates category) still had them at number 7 but among active wrestlers, the are not even among the top 31.

I saw that too, and you'll notice nobody pre-1980 made the active wrestlers top 31. They are literally the "people who've heard of the 80s candidates only creeping in and fucking things up" group. Same people. 

[Phil Lions]

5 hours ago, Robert S said:

And I think it's time for my yearly rant about the shit show that is the "rest of the world" category. I doubt that there are more than ten people in that voter group who are qualified to judge candidates from Australia, UK, France, Austria, Spain ... at the same time. I suppose most of the voters are voting mainly on Brits (going by the fact that the only candidates in that group who traditionally do well are Brits).

Agreed. That is an almost impossible category to adequately vote in. I know when I'm voting in it I always feel like I'm not able to judge it as properly as I want to be able to judge it. More than any other category, there are huge knowledge gaps when it comes to this category and they're the type of knowledge gaps that are very hard to fill even if one wanted to fill them in and this is due to a number of reasons (lack of research, the disjointed nature of the research that is already out there, language barriers, lack of attendance information to properly judge who was a great draw and who wasn't, wrestlers from too many and too different territories having to be judged against each other, etc.). That said, I don't know what the solution is or if there can even be one.

On that topic, seeing L'Ange Blanc get less than 10% of the votes and therefore drop off the ballot is very disappointing to me. Not unexpected, but definitely disappointing. If perhaps the most well-known wrestling star in the history of one of the most historically significant European territories cannot get enough votes to stay on the ballot then something isn't right, in my opinion. On the flipside, I'm glad to see Jose Tarres with a significant increase this year and I chuckled at him getting one vote more than Big Daddy. I don't feel he's trending up for the right reasons (i.e. more people actually trying to learn about him), but rather just because Dave keeps mentioning him as a no-brainer and "the third biggest draw in European history", but either way I'm glad to see him moving on up.

Rocca and Perez not getting in is the other big disappointment for me.