WON HOF 2023

[ethantyler]

I've just received my ballot so, it begins: 

This is our ballot for the 2023 Hall of Fame.
This ballot is being sent out to major wrestling stars, past and present, major management figures in the industry, writers and historians.
If you are getting this, you are being asked your opinion on who should be inducted into this year's Hall of Fame class. The criteria for the Hall of Fame is a combination of drawing power, being a great in-ring performer or excelling in ones field in pro wrestling, as well as having historical significance in a positive manner. A candidate should either have something to offer in all three categories, or be someone so outstanding in one or two of those categories that they deserve inclusion.
The names listed below are those under consideration for this year. To be eligible, a performer must have reached their 35th birthday and completed ten years since their debut as a full-time performer, or be someone who has been a full-time pro wrestler for at least 15 years.
Longevity should be a prime consideration rather than a hot two or three year run, unless someone is so significant as a trend-setter or a historical figure in the business, or valuable to the industry, that they need to be included. However, just longevity without being either a long-term main eventer, a top draw and/or a top caliber in-ring performer should be seen as relatively meaningless.

There are more changes in the rules this year largely because the historical U.S. & Canada category is so full of viable candidates. This year what we are doing is each category is separate and the number of votes in a category allowed will be one in every three people on the ballot, so each category will have a different number. The idea is categories with fewer balloters won't be easier to get in, and categories with a lot of balloters won't be so difficult that it causes a logjam. It's an experiment that I think will make the process better.

The election is broken down into a number of categories. You should check each category for wrestlers that you feel you are familiar enough with based on geography that you've either traveled or are familiar with, and based on the time you have followed pro wrestling. You do not have to vote for a wrestler in every category you've checked. The ballot is also broken down to wrestlers and those who are not pro wrestlers but have been valuable parts of the industry.
You can pick as few as zero in categories if you don't believe anyone on this list deserves inclusion or you can skip voting in categories that you don't believe you are familiar enough with to vote in.
All responses are confidential. There is nothing to worry about politically about any involvement in this process. Your selections will not be revealed unless you choose to do so yourself.

Anyone who receives mention on 60% of the ballots from the geographical region and time frame (broken down as Continental United States & Canada; Mexico; Japan; and the rest of the world) will be added to the Hall of Fame in the class of 2023.

If you are unfamiliar with any of the candidates due to geography or having never seen them, that is fine. Ballots are sent to many people from all over the world and from different wrestling cultures so that everyone has as fair a shot as possible.

The breakdown for modern and historical performers is 30 years ago, or 1993. So if the last year the person was a headliner, or was a key figure in the industry, was prior to 1993, they would be in the historical class.

All performers who receive mention on 10% to 59.9% of the ballots from their geographical region or era will remain on the ballot for consideration next year. All those who receive less than 10% of the vote will be dropped from next year's ballot. They can return in two years based on if there is significant feedback from voters who say they will vote for them. This is mostly for wrestlers who are still active who may improve their career legacy, but can be for retired wrestlers if voters believe they should be put on or returned to the ballot.
In addition, in following the lead of the baseball Hall of Fame, which is the model here, we have a 15-year-rule. The following candidates have been on the ballot since 2008. In baseball, this would be their last year of eligibility. Here, if they don't get at least 50% of the votes in this year's election they will be removed from the ballot. If they are modern candidates, they can be brought back in the historical performers era in two years if it is more than 30 years since their career as a Hall Fame level performer is up.

The following candidates will be dropped from next year's ballot unless they are elected in or garner 50% of the vote:

Big Daddy
Kendo Nagasaki
Jackie Pallo
Sgt. Slaughter

HISTORICAL PERFORMERS ERA (eight maximum)

Ole Anderson
Bob Armstrong
Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson w/J.J. Dillon
Jack & Jerry Brisco
British Bulldogs (Dynamite Kid & Davey Boy Smith)
June Byers
Wild Bull Curry
Junkyard Dog
Cowboy Bob Ellis
Pampero Firpo
Black Gordman & Great Goliath
Archie "Mongolian Stomper" Gouldie
Hart Foundation (Bret Hart & Jim Neidhart)
Sputnik Monroe
Dusty Rhodes & Dick Murdoch
Argentina Rocca & Miguel Perez
Johnny Rougeau
Iron Sheik
Tiger Jeet Singh
Sgt. Slaughter
Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood
Mad Dog & Butcher Vachon
Von Brauners & Saul Weingeroff
Kevin & Kerry & David Von Erich

MODERN PERFORMERS IN U.S/CANADA (five maximum)

Mark & Jay Briscoe
Young Bucks
Edge
Bill Goldberg
Matt & Jeff Hardy
Becky Lynch
Jon Moxley
Kevin Nash & Scott Hall
Paul Orndorff
Randy Orton
Seth Rollins
C.M. Punk
Roman Reigns
Trish Stratus
Rick & Scott Steiner

JAPAN (three maximum)

The Beauty Pair (Jackie Sato & Maki Ueda)
Cima
Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan
Yoshiaki Fujiwara
Hayabusa
Antonio Inoki & Seiji Sakaguchi
Tomohiro Ishii
Meiko Satomura
Shingo Takagi
Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada

MEXICO (three maximum)

Angel Blanco & Dr.Wagner
Sangre Chicana
Los Hermanos Dinamita (Cien Caras & Mascara Ano 2000 & Universo 2000)
Dorrell Dixon
Pirata Morgan
Blue Panther
El Hijo del Santo & Octagon
La Parka AAA
Huracan Ramirez

EUROPE/AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND/PACIFIC ISLANDS/AFRICA (four maximum)

Spyros Arion
Big Daddy
Dominic DeNucci
Billy Joyce
George Kidd
Killer Karl Kox
Mike Marino
Kendo Nagasaki
Jackie Pallo
The Royal Brothers (Bert Royal & Vic Faulkner)
Johnny Saint
Adrian Street
Jose Tarres
Otto Wanz

NON-WRESTLERS (six maximum)

Dave Brown (U.S. & Canada modern)
Bobby Bruns (Japan)
Bob Caudle (U.S. & Canada historical)
Bobby Davis (U.S. & Canada historical)
Joe Higuchi (Japan)
Jim Johnston (U.S. & Canada modern)
Larry Matysik (U.S.& Canada historical)
Rossy Ogawa (Japan)
Reggie Parks (U.S. & Canada modern)
Morris Sigel (U.S. & Canada historical)
Tony Schiavone (U.S. & Canada modern)
George Scott (U.S. & Canada historical)
Sanshiro Takagi (Japan)
Mike Tenay (U.S. & Canada modern)
Ted Turner (U.S. & Canada modern)
Roy Welch (U.S. & Canada historical)
Stanley Weston (U.S. & Canada historical)
Grand Wizard (U.S & Canada historical)
James Melby (U.S & Canada historical)

[Timbo Slice]

Beauty Pair/Fujiwara/Meiko are easy ones for me in Japan. The US/Canada choices basically boil down to how much you think being a modern draw matters. Roman is the only real lock, but there are arguments for half a dozen others that are all very different. 
 

Like, Punk, by metrics of this HOF, should be a shoe-in. But recent events are going to influence that way more than the 15 active years that proved he was unquestionably an influential, drawing, good worker. 
 

But then do you give credit to Moxley for being the true catalyst for AEW when he jumped and being with the Shield? Is Rollins as a top secondary draw worthy of discussion? 
 

I keep getting sucked in year after year just because I like seeing the discourse just absolutely fall to shit, but the popular discourse is not nearly as enticing as the edge cases. Slaughter needs to get in at some point given some of the other folks who are in. 

[cheapshot]

The ballot got updated as Dave made a few mistakes and omissions. 

 

[ethantyler]

Thank you Allan. Gary Will has kept me updated with the JYD to historical and James Melby to non-wrestler corrections, but I see Dave has also fixed the Beauty Pair (Ueda, not Fumiake) error. OP has been edited accordingly. 

Gary also said historical has moved to 8 maximum rather than 7. 

[NintendoLogic]

Thank you so much for sharing this. To be honest, though, my eyes kind of glazed over looking at the rules for this year's ballot. It might be time to take a step back when the voting process has become as convoluted as a TNA gimmick match.

[C.S.]

Sarge should get in - should have gotten in years ago - but won't because of the silly "stolen valor" controversy.

What are people going to do when they discover that Undertaker isn't dead? 

[Al]

15 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

Thank you so much for sharing this. To be honest, though, my eyes kind of glazed over looking at the rules for this year's ballot. It might be time to take a step back when the voting process has become as convoluted as a TNA gimmick match.

Agreed here. There’s little understanding for how voting dynamics actually work. 

[Robert S]

What's so complicated? If I am not completely missing the point, if you decide to vote in a category, you can give as many votes with the number given in the headline independent from the other categories you are voting on. That's a rule change I think making sense - though if going in that direction than a simple "yes" / "no" (/ "abstain") per candidate would have been the better option.

The biggest problems are obviously still there (having people in or close to their prime on the ballot and the complete mess that is the "rest of the world" category).

[ethantyler]

I like the idea of treating each section as its own separate ballot. We'll see when the results come out how it worked in practice. I'm certainly not going to shit on it from the get-go. 

I will say that this does solve the Mexico statistical weakness problem that I pointed out last year. Not enough voters + trigger happiness + not enough candidates = potentially weird results. Strict vote limits address that. Not having to worry about an overall voting limit may also help neglected sections like US historical & the Rest of the World, but I suspect that's an education issue more than anything else. 

[fxnj]

Can't believe the almighty knowledgeable voters still haven't voted Fujiwara in. What a joke.

[Control21]

The fact Fujiwara still isn't in the WON HOF when the likes of Kota Ibushi are is beyond me. 

I'm convinced the WON HOF voting base isn't really reflective of certain regions, including Japan or Mexico. A lot of these voters are driven by the narrative Meltzer created himself. It took how long for Akira Taue to get into the HOF? And he had to get in as part of the Holy Demon Army.

If Ishii gets in this year over Fujiwara, I'm  also convinced the voting base isn't collectively that comprehensive in terms of historical knowledge or understanding.

[KinchStalker]

4 hours ago, Control21 said:

I'm convinced the WON HOF voting base isn't really reflective of certain regions, including Japan or Mexico. A lot of these voters are driven by the narrative Meltzer created himself. It took how long for Akira Taue to get into the HOF? And he had to get in as part of the Holy Demon Army.

If I were running a HOF, I’d have committees of regional historians submit nominees and make cases for them. I feel like that isn't really happening.

Has anyone ever brought up Michiaki Yoshimura as a candidate? I’m working on a full bio at the moment, but here’s the basics. Yoshimura was the most successful of the wrestlers who joined the JWA after starting with one of the early regional competitors. Testimonies from the likes of Karl Gotch, the Destroyer, Mil Mascaras, and Harley Race have singled him out as the best worker of puroresu’s first generation. In the late fifties, he became Japan’s first junior heavyweight champ. After Rikidozan’s death, Yoshimura became the JWA’s booker and its greatest supporting wrestler, holding the All Asia tag titles for ten reigns with six different partners. He was never a big draw in himself, but he's massively underrecognized in the West.

[ethantyler]

I have, in fact, brought up Yoshimura as a candidate for his booking work. One of many that drew my attention after Don Owen's induction. Voter ignorance will hurt him, and we do have a few names ahead in the promoter/booker cue, but I'm happy to bring him up again Kinch. 

Dave did a fantastic job last year getting Lou Daro (LA) and Johnny Doyle (LA, Mid-West, Boston, Australia) inducted on the promoter/booker side of things. Next on the list should be Morris Sigel (on the ballot) and Al Haft (Columbus, Ohio - will suffer tremendously from voter ignorance if/when he hits the ballot). Progress is ongoing in this area and not something to be concerned about. 

[Kadaveri]

I'm kinda interested in Dave putting Beauty Pair on the ballot as really that should be a total slam dunk, especially considering Jackie Sato is already in as an individual when her post Beauty Pair career adds almost nothing to her case. Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada also being on the ballot is funny considering their whole act as a tag team follows the template Beauty Pair created but they weren't 1/10th as successful or influential.

[Control21]

1 hour ago, KinchStalker said:

If I were running a HOF, I’d have committees of regional historians submit nominees and make cases for them. I feel like that isn't really happening.

Has anyone ever brought up Michiaki Yoshimura as a candidate? I’m working on a full bio at the moment, but here’s the basics. Yoshimura was the most successful of the wrestlers who joined the JWA after starting with one of the early regional competitors. Testimonies from the likes of Karl Gotch, the Destroyer, and Harley Race have singled him out as the best worker of puroresu’s first generation. In the late fifties, he became Japan’s first junior heavyweight champ. After Rikidozan’s death, Yoshimura became the JWA’s booker and its greatest supporting wrestler, holding the All Asia tag titles for ten reigns with six different partners. He was never a big draw in himself, but he's massively underrecognized in the West.

Yeah, and preferably they should be living in the country of the specific category in question (Japan, Mexico, etc). Of all the public ballots I've seen, it is very Western-oriented. I'm not saying that's bad, but I think there's a serious lack of in-country experts being polled. 

[KinchStalker]

I'm sure that people like Etsuji Koizumi could add insights on puro that Fumi would overlook. And if Tsutomu (aka "Tomas") Shimizu doesn't have a ballot, that's utter nonsense. He's called "Dr. Lucha" because he whupped Steve Sims in trivia when they went out to dinner with Meltzer in Japan in the 90s.

[ethantyler]

I posted this on the Observer board but will share here for others interested. I'm a UK-based voter by the way: 

My Rest of the World shortlist of 7: Billy Joyce, Dominic DeNucci, George Kidd, Jackie Pallo, Jose Tarres, Mike Marino, Spyros Arion.

Lets talk about Big Daddy. Based on the key categories under consideration for this HOF, I'm going to explain his case and then match him up against the 7 candidates listed above. The problem, once you remove any emotion from the situation, should become clear very quickly to rational-minded voters.

Scoring system from the best to the worst: HOF-level (3 points), great (2 points), good (1 point), ok (0 points), negative (-1 point).

Peak drawing power:
Daddy's peak would be the first half of his babyface run from late 1977-82. This is when he was tremendously popular, TV was strong, as was attendance for the most part. However, and this applies to all UK candidates post-1950, the drawing power wasn't strong enough to reach HOF-levels (top 10-15 globally) with only 1 10,000+ crowd (vs John Quinn) under his belt. That leads us to conclude that he was a great draw, but no more than that.

Longevity-on-top:
Daddy was, for the most part, The top domestic star from 1976-1988. Under normal circumstances anyone who's on top for more than 10 years has hit HOF-levels unless the time period is negative for the business as a whole. In that case, the headline status should work against them. Here, Daddy's heel run to start with is just fine, we have the hot 77-82 period, and then a very noticeable decline that is detrimental to British wrestling as a whole from 83-88. That's 46% of his run, 6/13 years, that count against him. As a result I cannot say his longevity-on-top was HOF-level but it still falls into the "great" category. Only a 1 step downgrade.

In-ring ability:
Terrible. This is an active negative that should count against Daddy. We have little evidence that he was a competent wrestler at any point in his career and what we know about his TV run is that he was, the vast majority of the time, truly awful. Daddy matches are notoriously painful to watch because he doesn't sell and isn't physically capable of pulling out an all-attack type of match. His physical limitations mean he was in tag matches 99.9% of the time, and you'll have to hope for 3 great workers to pull off something palatable. Mark Rocco and Steve Grey come to mind as guys who might make it work. Just. Other main event stars like Tibor Szakacs, Steve Veidor, and Fit Finlay were actively hurt by participating in these Daddy matches. He's arguably the worst wrestler on the ballot, and would be the worst wrestler to be inducted should that happen. Negative.

Positive historical significance:
At his peak Daddy is arguably the biggest star the UK business had ever seen. The problem is, when he started to falter, the UK wrestling scene hit record lows that it never truly recovered from. Can 6 great years counter 6 terrible ones when the impact of the latter is still felt decades later? I would argue, no. The Big Daddy experiment is one of the main reasons wrestling was removed from terrestrial television because it didn't appeal to the key demo aka the "right demographic". That was an active decision made by Max Crabtree, brother of Daddy and booker/promoter at the time. He pushed the idea of Daddy being the kids and grandma's favorite extensively. Foolish. The warning signs were there in 1983 when you can see the dwindling TV crowds. By the time time we get to 1985, I believe it was too late. Damage was done with the audience decline exceeding the gains during Daddy's peak. Joint Promotions, the promotion in question here, deserved to die due to this intentional sabotage but wrestling as a whole on terrestrial television didn't. Brian Dixon, promoting All Star wrestling, offered something new. Maybe had he hit the TV scene a few years earlier it might have worked, but instead the audience found it difficult to decipher the difference between the two promotions. The Big Daddy poison had spread too far by this point. Dixon survived for decades to come, but wrestling on terrestrial television was no more. This death, I believe, was preventable at least for a few years. WWF, with its better production, would've taken over eventually but not as quickly as it actually did. To this day, Daddy is brought up by casuals as a symbol of British wrestling - a negative, not a positive, for those actually involved in the industry. Overall, Daddy's historical significance case is negative. Detrimental to the business as a whole > peak drawing power.

Daddy's final scorecard: great/great/negative/negative (2 points total)

Now, we move on to the versus battles: 

Vs Billy Joyce: Daddy's great/great/negative/negative (2 points) vs Joyce's negative/ok/HOF-level/HOF-level (5 points) = Joyce wins.
Billy Joyce wasn't much of a draw, and despite headlining often as a 6x heavyweight champion he only qualified as a top-10 domestic headliner once. He was one of the best wrestlers of his generation and tremendously influential on HOFers Billy Robinson and Karl Gotch. Joyce's in-ring & historical significance superiority are more than strong enough to overcome the drawing power weakness vs Daddy.

Vs Dominic DeNucci: great/great/negative/negative (2 points) vs DeNucci's HOF-level/ok/ok/great (5 points) = DeNucci wins.
At his peak in Australia, when it was the number 1 territory globally drawing 9,000 every week, DeNucci was easily a top-3 global draw and arguably no.1 overall. These were mostly tours though (some short, some long), so the longevity is limited to around 3 years total. As a worker, he was there. Not bad, not good. For historical significance, he's the biggest regular TV star in Australia's history. The lack of any true negatives with regards to in-ring ability and historic significance gives Denucci the win here vs Daddy.

Vs George Kidd: great/great/negative/negative (2 points) vs good/ok/HOF-level/HOF-level (7 points) = Kidd wins.
George Kidd was the biggest star in Scotland's history but can't score higher than "good" for drawing power because of the UK issues I mentioned previously when making global comparisons. As a worker, he was one of the best in the world and footage of him in his prime is on the Mount Rushmore of discoveries for a lot of video hunters. He was tremendously influential with his style being heavily imitated by the likes of Johnny Saint and even today, you can even see hints of it in the way Zack Sabre Jr works. The drawing power weakness vs Daddy is easily countered by the in-ring & historic superiority.

Vs Jackie Pallo: great/great/negative/negative (2 points) vs good/HOF-level/ok/great (6 points) = Pallo wins.
This is also Jackie Pallo's, potential, final year on the ballot and he really is the guy that deserves the rally of support to try and save him. Pallo was a very good draw who is best known for his feud with HOFer Mick McManus, arguable the greatest UK rivalry of all time, and his phenomenal talking ability that lead to stardom once TV arrived. Heavyweights dominated the UK main event scene pre-TV and it was Pallo, McManus, etc who changed this by getting over with their personalities. He has 12+ years as a top-10 headliner, which is easily HOF-level. As a worker, I think he was limited but the charisma & promo ability unquestionable. For historical significance, some folks judge him negatively for the book he released in 1985 "exposing the business", which is nonsense in my eyes. The press had consistently reported the true nature of wrestling in the 60s in an attempt to slow it down. Mark Rocco's wife gave a TV Guide interview in the early 80s talking about what a wonderful family man he was at a time when he was the top TV heel. Etc. Pallo does sound bitter in the book, but most of what he said was already known and truthful. Shouldn't hurt his legacy at all. Overall, the lack of real negatives (a developing pattern) gives Pallo the easy win over Daddy.

Vs Jose Tarres: great/great/negative/negative (2 points) vs HOF-level/great/negative/HOF-level (7 points) = Tarres wins.
Jose Tarres was, at least, an easy top-10 global draw in the late 40s with many crowds over 10,000 in Spain. He was a top-headliner into the 1960s but lack of data makes it difficult to put a real number on him, so it's "great" longevity-on-top instead of "HOF-level" for me. As a wrestler, we have a few full matches of his from the French collection and I think he's extremely limited. Very gimmick headbutt heavy offense. It does go over great with the crowd though. For historical significance, he's arguably one of the top-10 draws in Europe's history. This is a great contest to see how you counter negative in-ring ability. If you're drawing power and historical significance is super strong, you should be fine.

Vs Mike Marino: great/great/negative/negative (2 points) vs good/HOF-level/ok/good (5 points) = Marino wins.
Mike Marino was a top-10 headliner 19/26 years from 1951-1977. The only person who is competitive with this would be Mick McManus. The peak drawing power is unclear, but I just can't see a guy being on-top for that long while drawing poorly. "Good" is a safe prediction. He did have a bad run as booker in the mid-70s when his eagerness to push young talent led to business declining further, but that's such a tiny portion of his overall career that I can't see it knocking him off HOF-level for longevity-on-top. A lot of his peers said he was a good technical worker, but I think his style might be a bit too "dry" more most people so I erred downwards and said he was "ok". For historical significance, he held multiple titles including a 15-year run (1966-81) as the British Mid-Heavyweight champion. When he passed away from leukemia it received a lot of attention on TV with a memorial tournament held in his honor. He died with 3 titles around his waist and, out of respect, they didn't crown a new World Mid-Heavyweight champion until over a year later. That match (won by Marty Jones) was dedicated to Marino with his wife present & others making emotional speeches. He was one of the few wrestlers highlighted as a legend on the final 1988 episode of wrestling on terrestrial TV and Kent Walton always spoke highly of him too. No negatives is again, the difference maker in this contest.

Vs Spyros Arion: great/great/negative/negative (2 points) vs HOF-level/good/ok/good (5 points) = Arion wins.
This is an interesting contest because back in 1979 Arion had a nice but short run here in the UK. He was billed as the World Champion after Tony St Clair had jumped ship to Brian Dixon's All Star promotion and was, I think, supposed to drop the title to Big Daddy. Apparently, Arion pulled a "that doesn't work for me brother" and ended up losing to Wayne Bridges instead. Anyway, Arion's a HOF-level draw thanks to his WWWF run with Bruno Sammartino, his run in Australia as the 2nd biggest regular star for the hottest global promotion, and his tours in Greece with matches that drew 10,000+ a few times. The longevity is slightly limited because both Australia & Greece were mostly short tours and the Bruno feud was a 1 year thing. Solid worker, who stood out in WWWF because the standards were lower, but nothing to write home about in my view. He's one of the biggest TV stars for Australia, one of the biggest stars (top-5 maybe) for Greece, and the best opponent short-term for Bruno. He did have a rep for being difficult to do business with in Australia - leaving without dropping the title at least twice - which stops me from saying his historical significance is "great".

I think this shows, logically, why voting for Daddy isn't justifiable based on the competition in this section of the ballot. None of these contests were close, with a 3 point gap minimum, and if you're losing to 7 candidates with a 4 vote max in the section then...yea. Not good.

I'm happy to engage with folks and debate the topic so long as we take the emotion out of it. Thanks for reading. My longevity-on-top analysis for the UK, referenced a few times in these posts, can be found here: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/may-15-2023-observer-newsletter-aews-big-announcements-wwe-backlash

[Robert S]

As an Austrian I would be curious how you would rank Wanz in your scoring system. With the basic knowledge that I have of him I would say that his drawing peak was "good" (I think he drew a couple of 10.000 crowds, but his candidacy would be about longevity), high longevity on top was "HOF level" (we was on top for close to 20 years; even if he was the promoter, CWA was doing good to great during that time (AFAIK, I am sure experts could/would correct me and at least find periods in the 70ies and 80ies when CWA was not doing so well), so you should not hold this against him), his in-ring ability was "ok" to "good" (the couple of (big title) matches I have seen were all pretty decent, judging by that his reputation on the internet for being Big Daddy-like seems at the very least to be harsh) and his historical significance was "ok" (he kept the promotion up for two decades (which I guess could make you argue for a "good"), when he retired, the promotion eventually went down; you could argue that was because having him on top blocked the rising of younger guys, but the bigger issue was to me US wrestling on TV rolling over Europe), which sums up to 4-5 points.

I guess Schurl Blemenschütz would do about the same (great to HOF on drawing peak, great to HOF on longevity, negative on in-ring ability (not sure how good he was in his heyday, but he was still wrestling when he could barely move which lead to the nickname "the mummy of the Heumarkt") and negative to ok to significance (he definitely stayed on top way too long)).

[ethantyler]

1 hour ago, Robert S said:

As an Austrian I would be curious how you would rank Wanz in your scoring system. With the basic knowledge that I have of him I would say that his drawing peak was "good" (I think he drew a couple of 10.000 crowds, but his candidacy would be about longevity), high longevity on top was "HOF level" (we was on top for close to 20 years; even if he was the promoter, CWA was doing good to great during that time (AFAIK, I am sure experts could/would correct me and at least find periods in the 70ies and 80ies when CWA was not doing so well), so you should not hold this against him), his in-ring ability was "ok" to "good" (the couple of (big title) matches I have seen were all pretty decent, judging by that his reputation on the internet for being Big Daddy-like seems at the very least to be harsh) and his historical significance was "ok" (he kept the promotion up for two decades (which I guess could make you argue for a "good"), when he retired, the promotion eventually went down; you could argue that was because having him on top blocked the rising of younger guys, but the bigger issue was to me US wrestling on TV rolling over Europe), which sums up to 4-5 points.

Otto's peak drawing power would be good-to-great. Best he did was 20,000 in South Africa 1977 vs Don Leo Jonathan, drew at least a couple of 10,000+'s in the AWA including 12,000 for his world title win vs Bockwinkel (a card without Hogan too) and I think he did 15,000 vs Terry Funk in his 1990 "retirement" match.

Longevity-on-top would be HOF-level if it wasn't for 1990s negatives. Otto's booking philosophy was based around size. Not a shocker considering that's what got him over, but it hastened the demise of the CWA in my view. Once WWF hit television it was always going to end badly, but his philosophy accelerated things. Fighting Vince based on looks & size was a recipe for disaster. People complain about him staying on-top for too long, true, but the issue was his philosophy and that would've applied regardless of whether he was on screen or off.  1991-2000 work badly against him so, have to drag it down to great only.

In-ring, I thought he was terrible. Entertaining enough, but really needed to be carried to a decent match. Vader, Leon White, performed miracles in that regard back in 1990. Not as bad as Daddy, Wanz did sell for his opponents, but still negative. 

Historical significance is tough. He was The top guy for over 20 years. A mainstream icon thanks to phone book tearing Guinness record and winning the AWA title at his peak in the early 80s. He also did contributed significantly, if secondarily, to the demise of his promotion but that did take a while so...I would say he's ok here. Not enough to place him in negative. 

Great/great/negative/ok = 3 points max for me. Slightly higher than Daddy because I don't think Otto specifically was as devastating to his domestic industry. His promotion lasted from 1977-2000, that's not a bad run. 

[NintendoLogic]

If I had a nickel for every time the roster of a Fujiwara promotion left en masse to form their own company, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

[ohtani's jacket]

I thought Daddy looked competent against John Elijah, and allegedly he has a similar match against Colin Joynson, which exists in at least one person's collection that I'm aware of. He looked decent in his other mid-70s work as well. So, I don't agree that there's no evidence that he was ever a competent wrestler. 

[ethantyler]

13 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

I thought Daddy looked competent against John Elijah, and allegedly he has a similar match against Colin Joynson, which exists in at least one person's collection that I'm aware of. He looked decent in his other mid-70s work as well. So, I don't agree that there's no evidence that he was ever a competent wrestler. 

The Elijah match was fine, I agree. I've edited my post to not be as absolute. Still doesn't come close to changing the overall view of him in that category. The 1976 tag with Haystacks vs Szakacs and Veidor is one of the most infuriatingly embarrassing matches I've ever seen considering the caliber of his opponents.

[Tenese Sarwieh]

JYD not being in the HOF based on historical significance is criminal. 

[cheapshot]

On 10/9/2023 at 3:31 PM, ethantyler said:

I posted this on the Observer board but will share here for others interested. I'm a UK-based voter by the way: 

My Rest of the World shortlist of 7: Billy Joyce, Dominic DeNucci, George Kidd, Jackie Pallo, Jose Tarres, Mike Marino, Spyros Arion.

Lets talk about Big Daddy. Based on the key categories under consideration for this HOF, I'm going to explain his case and then match him up against the 7 candidates listed above. The problem, once you remove any emotion from the situation, should become clear very quickly to rational-minded voters.

Scoring system from the best to the worst: HOF-level (3 points), great (2 points), good (1 point), ok (0 points), negative (-1 point).

Peak drawing power:
Daddy's peak would be the first half of his babyface run from late 1977-82. This is when he was tremendously popular, TV was strong, as was attendance for the most part. However, and this applies to all UK candidates post-1950, the drawing power wasn't strong enough to reach HOF-levels (top 10-15 globally) with only 1 10,000+ crowd (vs John Quinn) under his belt. That leads us to conclude that he was a great draw, but no more than that.

Longevity-on-top:
Daddy was, for the most part, The top domestic star from 1976-1988. Under normal circumstances anyone who's on top for more than 10 years has hit HOF-levels unless the time period is negative for the business as a whole. In that case, the headline status should work against them. Here, Daddy's heel run to start with is just fine, we have the hot 77-82 period, and then a very noticeable decline that is detrimental to British wrestling as a whole from 83-88. That's 46% of his run, 6/13 years, that count against him. As a result I cannot say his longevity-on-top was HOF-level but it still falls into the "great" category. Only a 1 step downgrade.

In-ring ability:
Terrible. This is an active negative that should count against Daddy. We have little evidence that he was a competent wrestler at any point in his career and what we know about his TV run is that he was, the vast majority of the time, truly awful. Daddy matches are notoriously painful to watch because he doesn't sell and isn't physically capable of pulling out an all-attack type of match. His physical limitations mean he was in tag matches 99.9% of the time, and you'll have to hope for 3 great workers to pull off something palatable. Mark Rocco and Steve Grey come to mind as guys who might make it work. Just. Other main event stars like Tibor Szakacs, Steve Veidor, and Fit Finlay were actively hurt by participating in these Daddy matches. He's arguably the worst wrestler on the ballot, and would be the worst wrestler to be inducted should that happen. Negative.

Positive historical significance:
At his peak Daddy is arguably the biggest star the UK business had ever seen. The problem is, when he started to falter, the UK wrestling scene hit record lows that it never truly recovered from. Can 6 great years counter 6 terrible ones when the impact of the latter is still felt decades later? I would argue, no. The Big Daddy experiment is one of the main reasons wrestling was removed from terrestrial television because it didn't appeal to the key demo aka the "right demographic". That was an active decision made by Max Crabtree, brother of Daddy and booker/promoter at the time. He pushed the idea of Daddy being the kids and grandma's favorite extensively. Foolish. The warning signs were there in 1983 when you can see the dwindling TV crowds. By the time time we get to 1985, I believe it was too late. Damage was done with the audience decline exceeding the gains during Daddy's peak. Joint Promotions, the promotion in question here, deserved to die due to this intentional sabotage but wrestling as a whole on terrestrial television didn't. Brian Dixon, promoting All Star wrestling, offered something new. Maybe had he hit the TV scene a few years earlier it might have worked, but instead the audience found it difficult to decipher the difference between the two promotions. The Big Daddy poison had spread too far by this point. Dixon survived for decades to come, but wrestling on terrestrial television was no more. This death, I believe, was preventable at least for a few years. WWF, with its better production, would've taken over eventually but not as quickly as it actually did. To this day, Daddy is brought up by casuals as a symbol of British wrestling - a negative, not a positive, for those actually involved in the industry. Overall, Daddy's historical significance case is negative. Detrimental to the business as a whole > peak drawing power.

Daddy's final scorecard: great/great/negative/negative (2 points total)

Now, we move on to the versus battles: 

Vs Billy Joyce: Daddy's great/great/negative/negative (2 points) vs Joyce's negative/ok/HOF-level/HOF-level (5 points) = Joyce wins.
Billy Joyce wasn't much of a draw, and despite headlining often as a 6x heavyweight champion he only qualified as a top-10 domestic headliner once. He was one of the best wrestlers of his generation and tremendously influential on HOFers Billy Robinson and Karl Gotch. Joyce's in-ring & historical significance superiority are more than strong enough to overcome the drawing power weakness vs Daddy.

Vs Dominic DeNucci: great/great/negative/negative (2 points) vs DeNucci's HOF-level/ok/ok/great (5 points) = DeNucci wins.
At his peak in Australia, when it was the number 1 territory globally drawing 9,000 every week, DeNucci was easily a top-3 global draw and arguably no.1 overall. These were mostly tours though (some short, some long), so the longevity is limited to around 3 years total. As a worker, he was there. Not bad, not good. For historical significance, he's the biggest regular TV star in Australia's history. The lack of any true negatives with regards to in-ring ability and historic significance gives Denucci the win here vs Daddy.

Vs George Kidd: great/great/negative/negative (2 points) vs good/ok/HOF-level/HOF-level (7 points) = Kidd wins.
George Kidd was the biggest star in Scotland's history but can't score higher than "good" for drawing power because of the UK issues I mentioned previously when making global comparisons. As a worker, he was one of the best in the world and footage of him in his prime is on the Mount Rushmore of discoveries for a lot of video hunters. He was tremendously influential with his style being heavily imitated by the likes of Johnny Saint and even today, you can even see hints of it in the way Zack Sabre Jr works. The drawing power weakness vs Daddy is easily countered by the in-ring & historic superiority.

Vs Jackie Pallo: great/great/negative/negative (2 points) vs good/HOF-level/ok/great (6 points) = Pallo wins.
This is also Jackie Pallo's, potential, final year on the ballot and he really is the guy that deserves the rally of support to try and save him. Pallo was a very good draw who is best known for his feud with HOFer Mick McManus, arguable the greatest UK rivalry of all time, and his phenomenal talking ability that lead to stardom once TV arrived. Heavyweights dominated the UK main event scene pre-TV and it was Pallo, McManus, etc who changed this by getting over with their personalities. He has 12+ years as a top-10 headliner, which is easily HOF-level. As a worker, I think he was limited but the charisma & promo ability unquestionable. For historical significance, some folks judge him negatively for the book he released in 1985 "exposing the business", which is nonsense in my eyes. The press had consistently reported the true nature of wrestling in the 60s in an attempt to slow it down. Mark Rocco's wife gave a TV Guide interview in the early 80s talking about what a wonderful family man he was at a time when he was the top TV heel. Etc. Pallo does sound bitter in the book, but most of what he said was already known and truthful. Shouldn't hurt his legacy at all. Overall, the lack of real negatives (a developing pattern) gives Pallo the easy win over Daddy.

Vs Jose Tarres: great/great/negative/negative (2 points) vs HOF-level/great/negative/HOF-level (7 points) = Tarres wins.
Jose Tarres was, at least, an easy top-10 global draw in the late 40s with many crowds over 10,000 in Spain. He was a top-headliner into the 1960s but lack of data makes it difficult to put a real number on him, so it's "great" longevity-on-top instead of "HOF-level" for me. As a wrestler, we have a few full matches of his from the French collection and I think he's extremely limited. Very gimmick headbutt heavy offense. It does go over great with the crowd though. For historical significance, he's arguably one of the top-10 draws in Europe's history. This is a great contest to see how you counter negative in-ring ability. If you're drawing power and historical significance is super strong, you should be fine.

Vs Mike Marino: great/great/negative/negative (2 points) vs good/HOF-level/ok/good (5 points) = Marino wins.
Mike Marino was a top-10 headliner 19/26 years from 1951-1977. The only person who is competitive with this would be Mick McManus. The peak drawing power is unclear, but I just can't see a guy being on-top for that long while drawing poorly. "Good" is a safe prediction. He did have a bad run as booker in the mid-70s when his eagerness to push young talent led to business declining further, but that's such a tiny portion of his overall career that I can't see it knocking him off HOF-level for longevity-on-top. A lot of his peers said he was a good technical worker, but I think his style might be a bit too "dry" more most people so I erred downwards and said he was "ok". For historical significance, he held multiple titles including a 15-year run (1966-81) as the British Mid-Heavyweight champion. When he passed away from leukemia it received a lot of attention on TV with a memorial tournament held in his honor. He died with 3 titles around his waist and, out of respect, they didn't crown a new World Mid-Heavyweight champion until over a year later. That match (won by Marty Jones) was dedicated to Marino with his wife present & others making emotional speeches. He was one of the few wrestlers highlighted as a legend on the final 1988 episode of wrestling on terrestrial TV and Kent Walton always spoke highly of him too. No negatives is again, the difference maker in this contest.

Vs Spyros Arion: great/great/negative/negative (2 points) vs HOF-level/good/ok/good (5 points) = Arion wins.
This is an interesting contest because back in 1979 Arion had a nice but short run here in the UK. He was billed as the World Champion after Tony St Clair had jumped ship to Brian Dixon's All Star promotion and was, I think, supposed to drop the title to Big Daddy. Apparently, Arion pulled a "that doesn't work for me brother" and ended up losing to Wayne Bridges instead. Anyway, Arion's a HOF-level draw thanks to his WWWF run with Bruno Sammartino, his run in Australia as the 2nd biggest regular star for the hottest global promotion, and his tours in Greece with matches that drew 10,000+ a few times. The longevity is slightly limited because both Australia & Greece were mostly short tours and the Bruno feud was a 1 year thing. Solid worker, who stood out in WWWF because the standards were lower, but nothing to write home about in my view. He's one of the biggest TV stars for Australia, one of the biggest stars (top-5 maybe) for Greece, and the best opponent short-term for Bruno. He did have a rep for being difficult to do business with in Australia - leaving without dropping the title at least twice - which stops me from saying his historical significance is "great".

I think this shows, logically, why voting for Daddy isn't justifiable based on the competition in this section of the ballot. None of these contests were close, with a 3 point gap minimum, and if you're losing to 7 candidates with a 4 vote max in the section then...yea. Not good.

I'm happy to engage with folks and debate the topic so long as we take the emotion out of it. Thanks for reading. My longevity-on-top analysis for the UK, referenced a few times in these posts, can be found here: https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/may-15-2023-observer-newsletter-aews-big-announcements-wwe-backlash

Ethan, I applaud you for this write up and the way you're looking at Daddy's candidacy vs. the others on the ballot in the region.

Big Daddy's matches were designed around his limitations. The same be said for Lesnar, Goldberg, and so many others. 

[NintendoLogic]

What limitations does Lesnar have that need to be worked around?