WON HOF 2023

[Timbo Slice]

It’s footage ease of access: Ishii’s matches were easily watchable on streaming services for a decade while the others had to be sought out. It’s not really laziness so much as it’s the medium in which they can be viewed. Before steaming, a lot more work had to be done. 

[NintendoLogic]

HOF issue just dropped. Rocca/Perez, the Beauty Pair, Slaughter, the Briscos, Ishii, Panther, and Kidd got in. The Dinamitas, Orndorff, the Bucks, Bobby Davis, and Roman all received over 50 percent of the vote as well. Some people here will surely be thrilled to know that El Dandy will be added to next year's ballot. On the other hand, Big Daddy is finally being dropped due to the 15 year/50 percent rule.

[Al]

Two advantages for Kidd.

1. Often promoted by Meltzer as the greatest lightweight wrestler ever. Whether that's true I don't know but he probably has a case. 

2. Because of the nature of Kidd's case and that he largely comes from a previous era than the other three, the merits of his candidacy are different. 

[David Mantell]

I would have a lot of support for Kidd - the only drawback is that there is little or any representative footage of him in circulation that we can watch.  Of the three bouts we have, all from the final months of his career, only this quick squash gives a hint of the man's genius - and even then it's like saying that you understand what Johnny Saint is all about purely on the basis of watching his matches against Mike Quackenbush for Chickara in 2011. 

Hopefully one day Granada TV will open up its archive of 1960s kinescopes and we will get to see Kidd properly, (plus a whole bunch of the Wigan Snakepit crowd like Billy Joyce, pre-America Billy Robinson, Tommy "Jack Dempsey" Moore, Ernie Riley etc)  
 

[Timbo Slice]

Ishii is an absolute joke given the numbers propping him up are incredibly subjective being masked as objective. Analytics for the sake of analytics pushing him across, and the eye test doesn’t cut it. Based on what attributes get you into the WON HOF, his weights on in-ring work would essentially have to be “literally the best wrestler on Planet Earth conclusively” for the last decade, which he wasn’t even if you loved him. He’s Harold Baines, if that. A completely insular, masturbatory pick produced in an echo chamber.
 

I do love the Roccas, Briscos, and the Beauty Pair getting in for their legacy, work, and appeal, respectively, but you also vote Ishii in (for work) and you don’t vote in the Bucks (appeal and influence, whether you like them or not) or Roman (an honest to god drawing anomaly in a time where there are no true “draws” anymore). I get different voting tenants, but these results really don’t paint a picture of consistency.

 

[Control21]

Blue Panther made me a wrestling fan when he appeared on all those Lucha tapes I watched when I was a kid so I'm super happy he finally got in. Almost makes up for the disrespect Fujiwara continues to get.

[fxnj]

The Bucks are far from a slam dunk pick if you're of the opinion they've been a negative stylistic influence on the scene. Ishii getting in is just lol and feels like a Kurt Angle or Ultimo Dragon type pick that's destined to become a joke punchline.

[Control21]

2 minutes ago, fxnj said:

The Bucks are far from a slam dunk pick if you're of the opinion they've been a negative stylistic influence on the scene. Ishii getting in is just lol and feels like a Kurt Angle or Ultimo Dragon type pick that's destined to become a joke punchline.

I would understand Ishii getting in if Tamura, Volk Han, Fujiwara, or Takayama got in before but that isn't the case so it leaves me mystified. Maybe he's just really influential for the voters who suddenly discovered NJPW in 2014? *shrug*

[Robert S]

41 minutes ago, fxnj said:

The Bucks are far from a slam dunk pick if you're of the opinion they've been a negative stylistic influence on the scene. Ishii getting in is just lol and feels like a Kurt Angle or Ultimo Dragon type pick that's destined to become a joke punchline.

Angle main evented a Wrestlemania and a lot of more shows that drew 10.000+, Ultimo Dragon (co-?)founded Toryumon and is at least credited with training 75 wrestlers, including almost all wrestlers of Toryumon, T2P and Toryumon X and was apparently the initial trainer of Okada. Ishii had matches in the upper midcard that the readership apparently loved.

[ethantyler]

I considered Rocca & Perez to be the strongest candidates in the US historical section, same applied to Beauty Pair for Japan, and George Kidd for Rest of the World. Suffice to say, I'm very happy with the results overall.

[ohtani's jacket]

6 hours ago, Cien Caras said:

I’m surprised to see George Kidd ahead of Daddy, Pallo and Nagasaki who by all accounts were household names. I only know of Kidd when he is referenced in Johnny Saint matches as the originator of the escape-hold trickery but I would be interested to know what the case is for Kidd, I know little about his career.

@David Mantell @ohtani's jacket

Kidd was a household name in the 60s, but his candidacy and rep is really based on the fact that he was champion for so many years and that all of the lightweights that followed, Saint, Cortez, Breaks, etc., copied parts of his repertoire. George Kidd footage from the 60s is one off the holy grails of WoS tape collecting, though I suspect that he worked a lot of showcase matches as many of the bouts are against younger opponents. The one that stands out to me is the bout against Modesto Aledo on the Royal Art Hall Show that Prince Phillip attended, though I'm not sure if film exists. Many of his title matches were held in Scotland and I'm not sure they were taped. 

[NintendoLogic]

The interesting thing about Ishii is that he didn't place in the top 30 in either the active or retired wrestler voter categories. That suggests he doesn't have anywhere near the level of respect among his peers you would expect from someone whose candidacy is based entirely on working ability.

[funkdoc]

4 hours ago, Control21 said:

I would understand Ishii getting in if Tamura, Volk Han, Fujiwara, or Takayama got in before but that isn't the case so it leaves me mystified. Maybe he's just really influential for the voters who suddenly discovered NJPW in 2014? *shrug*

It's 100% that last part.  i personally know people who say "Tanahashi & Okada are like Austin & the Rock to me" as far as making them lifelong wrestling fans, and that generation is becoming the key influencers more and more over time.

Also, Kurt Angle is 100% not seen as a joke pick outside these circles.  If anything i see *more* widespread appreciation for him now, with even the Perc Angle time in TNA receiving a lot of nostalgic love.

[David Mantell]

14 hours ago, Cien Caras said:

How would you compare Kidd to Daddy, Kendo and Pallo as HOF candidates? (Or even Haystacks who I assume has never been on the ballot?) 

Well I've never paid much attention to the HOF, so I don''t know. They were all fairly legendary in their different ways. George Kidd massively developed the art of technical wrestling especially defensive/counter wrestling (something sorely lacking in American-style wrestling), he managed to make a World Lightweight title a draw in spite of all received wisdom and between them he and Johnny Saint kept that title a draw for nearly half a century.

Of the other three only Kendo was particularly a great technical wrestler- when he wanted to be, mainly in round one of his 1970s bouts.In the ring he was a Terry Funk like character, a guy who was trained to be a scientific marvel but found his niche in violent dirty wrestling. Much like Terry Funk during his Flair feud/USWA/ECW/Chainsaw Charlie years, he blossomed and ripened with age, having some of his best years as a controversial heat drawing heel (albeit with a significant col heel following) during All Star's two years on ITV and even more so in ASW's post-TV boom period when his violent battles with Rocco etc were blowing Joint Promotions/Big Daddy out of the water and confirming All Star's overtaking of Joint as dominant UK promotion, a title it still holds in 2023.  Mention has to be made also of his powerful ring entrance in Kendo helmet, cape and sword, a combination of Darth Vader and Ax & Smash of Demolition.

Ironically Kendo didn't just destroy Big Daddy but he made him also as it was their mid 70s feud, after Daddy pulled off his mask on TV in 1975, starting a feud that was the prototype for Daddy's feuds with Haystacks and Mighty John Quinn.

Obviously Big Daddy was no technical wrestler. Contrary to popular opinion, he did know how to sell and work on the defensive as some surviving bouts from 75-78  attest.It was Max Crabtree who deliberately booked his brother as an unstoppable juggernaut that moved down all opposition heels. A force of nature. He was a household name with particular appeal to the child/family audience and kept at least some of that drawing power until his Dec 1993 retirement. Ultimately however he alienated much of the locker room and adult fans alike with the way the entire scene was subverted to putting him over with heels all being humiliatingly mown down by him and blue-eyes (faces) having to be rescued by him, that both defected in droves to opposition All Star.to the point where they took over the territory and held onto it to this day.

Pallo is usually thought of as joined at the hip with his heel Vs heel nemesis Mick McManus.An arrogant cocky smug heel who sometimes treated the thin line between  that and being actually quite a loveable rogue, a cheeky chappie who people might actually have liked if not that what he was being cheeky about was grossly violating the rules and taunting and harassing ringside fans. His charisma got him a lot of showbiz work outside wrestling.

 

[Bix]

Like I said on the HOF show Kris and I did a couple of weeks ago, which he agreed with: Even if you're pro-Ishii, should he really get in ahead Meiko Satomura, who has consistently been one of the very best wrestlers in the world for roughly a quarter century? Should he even go ahead of the Briscoes, who are pretty much indisputably the longest-tenured great working tag team in wrestling history? I don't necessarily mind him going in, because he does have a massive resume of widely acclaimed matches and his career arc leading in to his HOF-level in-ring run is so bizarre that it feels like he deserves credit for shedding the journeyman label and getting over to the degree he did. But he wasn't even the best workrate candidate on the Japanese ballot. He just had the advantage of his run coinciding with the NJPW streaming boom.

Regardless, I'm...more or less fine with who got in. Nobody who I could never see myself voting for got in, and three candidates I voted for (Rocca/Perez, Beauty Pair, and Blue Panther) got in.

Also: It's fascinating to me that Randy Orton was the top vote getter among retired wrestlers and wrestling personnel, but didn't even reach the top thirty among any other voting block, even active wrestlers and wrestling personnel. It's like they're voting for the idea of Randy Orton more than the actual Randy Orton.

I do think Dave needs to split up "Rest of the World," though, and more or less reset it to what it was before a few years ago. Europe can be a category with maybe the Middle East and Africa thrown in if needed because there was a decent amount of overlap, the Jim Barnett/Steve Rickard countries can be another (with maybe Hawaii thrown in as Dave has done before), and Puerto Rico can just be thrown in with U.S./Canada.

[David Mantell]

I'm thinking of starting a thread asking why the United States is automatically ASSUMED to always have been the Big Time worldwide capital of professional wrestling.  Is it just patriotism/chauvinism on the part of American wrestling fans?

Obviously nowadays WWE is the biggest wrestling company on the planet and it's American so that much is understandable. In the 1960s there was a good case to be made that European wrestling was as big if not bigger a business than American wrestling.  Both British and French wrestling had prestigious mainstream national TV slots that would have been the envy of any individual US or Canadian territory between 1955 (closure of DuMont) and 1985 (launch of SNME). In  Germany/Austria by the early 80s  there was a fixed cultural link between wrestling and the big traditional festivals and a thriving early home videotape market for wrestling and a massive talent exchange with the US. 

In North America, NWA members were. ACTIVELY PREVENTED from sending footage to TV stations in other territories. In Britain and France in the 50s/60s/70"s, ITV and (O)RTF were cheerfully flogging b/w 16mm kinescope prints of their respective wrestling shows to TV stations all over Africa and Asia.

In Britain, France and Germany, old school European wrestling culture lives on, at least at grassroots level. In the US and Canada, with the one obvious exception of New York Wrestling which lives on as WWE, all the old territorial wrestling cultures of the mid//late 20th century have been wiped out. Where small time wrestling exists in America today, it takes the form of a generic modern indie wrestling style.

I would put it to you all that in the 60s, 70s and even into the early 80s, the centre of the wrestling universe was Northwest Europe, not the US and this helped smoothen the road for the popularity of WWF and to some extent WCW in the early 90s

[ethantyler]

Dave on WOR said that the only reason Jackie Pallo didn't survive this year, 50%+, was due to American driveby voters (mostly reporters) who popped into the section only to vote for Big Daddy. 

With Daddy gone, those voters are likely to leave the section with him and I think that benefits all the other candidates. I'd keep the ROW section as it is for the time being. 

[NintendoLogic]

I was under the impression that Australia and Japan were the major business hot spots in the 1960s. Those were the areas that had the pick of the litter when it came to bringing in top talent.

[David Mantell]

8 hours ago, ethantyler said:

American driveby voters (mostly reporters) who popped into the section only to vote for Big Daddy. 

That's odd.  Everyone insists to me that America would NEVER have accepted someone like Big Daddy, dear me no!!!  I always said that if anything the American public are less fussy about technical ability and he would have at least got over as an end of the night comedy act in WWF.  You can have fun booking imaginary Big Daddy tags in the WWF - Big Daddy and Tito Santana vs One Man Gang and Butch Reed, Big Daddy and Sam Houston vs Akeem and Rick Martel, Big Daddy and Paul Roma vs King Kong Bundy and Paul Orndorff.  The formula was transferable.

There's aslo a lot of similarity between Big Daddy tags and those six man tags they used to have at the end of the night with Andre and/or Callhoun plus Dusty or Putski or the babyface tag champs/top contenders versus three of the biggest nastiest heels like Bruiser Brody or Bugsy McGraw or the current heel tag champs/top contenders such as the Blackjacks or Executioners, where it would all end with Andre or Callhoun squashing the heels gruesomly for the winning pinfall and fans could end the night happy that the men they hated had been thoroughly defeated and probably badly injured too.

[David Mantell]

9 hours ago, David Mantell said:

I'm thinking of starting a thread asking why the United States is automatically ASSUMED to always have been the Big Time worldwide capital of professional wrestling.  Is it just patriotism/chauvinism on the part of American wrestling fans?

Obviously nowadays WWE is the biggest wrestling company on the planet and it's American so that much is understandable. In the 1960s there was a good case to be made that European wrestling was as big if not bigger a business than American wrestling.  Both British and French wrestling had prestigious mainstream national TV slots that would have been the envy of any individual US or Canadian territory between 1955 (closure of DuMont) and 1985 (launch of SNME). In  Germany/Austria by the early 80s  there was a fixed cultural link between wrestling and the big traditional festivals and a thriving early home videotape market for wrestling and a massive talent exchange with the US. 

In North America, NWA members were. ACTIVELY PREVENTED from sending footage to TV stations in other territories. In Britain and France in the 50s/60s/70"s, ITV and (O)RTF were cheerfully flogging b/w 16mm kinescope prints of their respective wrestling shows to TV stations all over Africa and Asia.

In Britain, France and Germany, old school European wrestling culture lives on, at least at grassroots level. In the US and Canada, with the one obvious exception of New York Wrestling which lives on as WWE, all the old territorial wrestling cultures of the mid//late 20th century have been wiped out. Where small time wrestling exists in America today, it takes the form of a generic modern indie wrestling style.

I would put it to you all that in the 60s, 70s and even into the early 80s, the centre of the wrestling universe was Northwest Europe, not the US and this helped smoothen the road for the popularity of WWF and to some extent WCW in the early 90s

Have bounced this over to a thread of its own: