WON HOF 2008 thread

[Bix]

Ballot C&Ped from a Yohe post at WC:

 

SHOULD CHRIS BENOIT REMAIN IN THE HALL OF FAME?

Yes

No

 

New rule: For wrestlers whose primes were before 1975, they only have to get 60% of the votes among those who were old enough to have been in the same era with them.

 

PERFORMERS LIST (Maximum of 10 picks)

Jun Akiyama

Gene & Ole Anderson

The Assassins (Joe Hamilton & Tom Renesto)

Atlantis

Red Bastien

Carlos Colon

Fit Finlay

Hector Garza

George Gordienko

Gran Hamada

Volk Han

Owen Hart

Curt Hennig

Chris Jericho

Rocky Johnson

Ivan Koloff

Konnan

Karloff Lagarde

Mark Lewin

Jose Lothario

Midnight Express (Dennis Condrey & Bobby Eaton & Stan Lane)

Bill Miller

Fabulous Moolah

Dick Murdoch

Rey Mysterio

Blue Panther

Rock & Roll Express (Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson)

Rick Rude

Sabu

Masa Saito

Seiji Sakaguchi

Kensuke Sasaki

Hans Schmidt

Sgt. Slaughter

Jimmy Snuka

Wilbur Snyder

Sting

Kiyoshi Tamura

John Tolos

Enrique Torres

Vampiro

Villano III

Dr. Wagner Sr.

Johnny "Mr. Wrestling II" Walker

Tim "Mr. Wrestling" Woods

 

NON-WRESTLER LIST (Unlimited picks)

Lou Albano

Paco Alonso

Jim Crockett Jr.

Gary Hart

Jerry Jarrett

Gorilla Monsoon

Dr. Alfonso Morales

Don Owen

Roy Shire

Jesse Ventura

[Bix]

SHOULD CHRIS BENOIT REMAIN IN THE HALL OF FAME?

Yes

No

Being that this is pro wrestling and there are plenty of terrible people (of varying degrees) in the HOF....

 

Andre the Giant (Andre Roussimoff): Racist.

 

Bert Assirati: Sadistic torturer.

 

Jim Barnett: Embezzlement, may have tried to fuck Jim Wilson.

 

Paul Boesch: Skimmed money off the gate.

 

Bruiser Brody (Frank Goodish): Took liberties.

 

Mildred Burke: Shooter who refused to job.

 

Jim Cornette: Smashed KC O'Connor's windshield, called security guard THE N WORD.

 

Ted DiBiase: Jebus fakery.

 

Dick the Bruiser (William Afflis): Steroid pioneer.

 

Dynamite Kid (Tommy Billington): Duh.

 

Ric Flair (Richard Fliehr): Abusive drunken flasher.

 

Terry Funk: Poked a half-dead Mr. Pogo.

 

Verne Gagne: Racist.

 

"Superstar" Billy Graham (Wayne Coleman): Steroid pioneer, abusive junkie.

 

Eddie Graham (Edward Gossett): Sadistic torturer.

 

Gory Guerrero (Salvador "Gori" Guerrero Quesada): Beat his kids.

 

Stan Hansen (John Stanley Hansen): Took liberties blaming his blindness.

 

Stu Hart: Weird shooter values made him abuse his kids.

 

Ernie Ladd: Republican.

 

Jerry Lawler: Allegedly sodomized pre-teens.

 

Akira Maeda: Took liberties.

 

Mil Mascaras (Aaron Rodriguez): Belittles people.

 

Leroy McGuirk: Not a fan of the black people

 

Vince McMahon Jr.: Duh.

 

Harley Race: Allegedly beat wife.

 

The Road Warriors Hawk (Michael Hegstrand) and Animal (Joseph Laurinaitis): Rhesus monkey hormones made Hawk homicidal, sucker punched Eddy Guerrero.

 

Randy Savage (Randall Poffo): Abusive nut.

 

Lou Thez (Aloysius Thez): NWA enforcer/bad person.

 

Vader (Leon White): Took liberties.

 

Johnny Valentine (John Wisniski): Duh.

 

Fritz Von Erich (Jack Adkisson): Duh.

 

Bill Watts: Not a fan of the black people.

 

Toshiaki Kawada: Racist.

 

Jim Ross: Not a fan of the black people.

 

Stone Cold Steve Austin (Steve Williams): Beat wife.

 

Mick Foley: Set bar too high with dangerous stunts.

 

Chris Benoit: Family annihilator.

 

Shawn Michaels (Michael Hickenbottom): Jebus fakery.

 

Kurt Angle: Passively abused family with his issues.

 

The Undertaker (Mark Calaway): WRESTLER COURT

 

The Fabulous Freebirds: Peed on people.

 

Paul Heyman: Wiretapping compulsive liar.

 

Triple H (Paul Levesque): GLASS CEILING.

 

Eddie Guerrero: ODed in front of his family at his mom's house during Christmas.

...I think he has to stay even if he's the worst.

 

New rule: For wrestlers whose primes were before 1975, they only have to get 60% of the votes among those who were old enough to have been in the same era with them.

I guess this is good, but does it mean that the younger voters shouldn't bother to pick them?

 

PERFORMERS LIST (Maximum of 10 picks)

Red Bastien

George Gordienko

Karloff Lagarde

Mark Lewin

Jose Lothario

Bill Miller

Fabulous Moolah

Hans Schmidt

Wilbur Snyder

John Tolos

Enrique Torres

Dr. Wagner Sr.

Tim "Mr. Wrestling" Woods

Would I, if I had a ballot be allowed to/have any reason to vote for any of these folks?

[Indikator]

Aren't there rumors that Afflis molested the children in his family?

[Indikator]

Red Bastien - Sure pick in a workrate HoF. Depends on how underrated ~1970 AWA is right now. They had a magnificent roster back then, but is that enough for a HoF?

George Gordienko - If him, why not Horst Hoffman? Interesting case who proves that we need to know way more of the real journeymen, i.e. people that wrestled all around the world. But what does a stadium show in front of 40 000 people in Athens or India say? Where they papered etc.?

Mark Lewin - With a good write up on his career he might become a borderline pick.

Jose Lothario - No

Bill Miller / Wilbur Snyder / Hans Schmidt - I have a feeling that these 50s performers are vastly underrated

Fabulous Moolah - NO , Sable has a better case. Also, she was a piece of shit

John Tolos / Enrique Torres - See Miller/Snyder/Schmidt. If west coast wrestling hadn't imploded around 1980 we could possibly herald Torres as the west coast Sammartino.

Karloff Lagarde / Dr. Wagner Sr. - Ask Jose. What I read about them was interesting, but I am missing the big lucha picture so my opinion wouldn't mean too much.

Tim "Mr. Wrestling" Woods - IMO overrated, I just don't see any reasons why he should be voted in. So somebody convince me please

[kjh]

New rule: For wrestlers whose primes were before 1975, they only have to get 60% of the votes among those who were old enough to have been in the same era with them.

I guess this is good, but does it mean that the younger voters shouldn't bother to pick them?

I think we'll find out the answer to that question from whether the Fabulous Moolah gets in this year or not. My hunch would be if someone votes for them their vote will be counted regardless of the voter's age, because it has always seemed that Dave expects his voters to be self policing and only vote for candidates from regions and now eras that they know enough about. Of course this leads to people like Bruce Mitchell and God knows who else voting for Japanese candidates, who can't be considered experts of Japanese wrestling history.

[Bix]

Full version of the section of the ballot w/ the new rule, encourages those less familiar w/ foreign wrestlers not to vote for them:

 

Anyone who receives mention on 60% of the ballots from their geographical region (broken down as United States & Canada; Mexico or Japan) will be added to the Hall of Fame this year. If you are unfamiliar with any of the candidates due to geography of never having seen them, that is fine. Ballots are sent to people all over the world and in different wrestling cultures so that everyone has as fair a shot as possible.

 

For wrestlers whose primes were before 1975, they only have to get 60% of the votes among those who were old enough to have been in the same era with them.

[jdw]

I don't read that as encouraging people *not* to vote for what they aren't familar with.

 

Seriously, this is Dave so he doesn't always write stuff clear. People with a ballot will think they're familar enough with a Japanese wrestler because Dave said last year that he voted for the wrestler.

 

"And Dave knows his shit"

 

Or something like that.

 

If you don't want people who lack knowledge of some areas to vote for those areas, one needs to be explicit.

 

John

[Guest Lone Rogue]

Bruiser Brody (Frank Goodish): Took liberties.

 

Mildred Burke: Shooter who refused to job.

 

Stan Hansen (John Stanley Hansen): Took liberties blaming his blindness.

 

Ernie Ladd: Republican.

 

Akira Maeda: Took liberties.

 

Mil Mascaras (Aaron Rodriguez): Belittles people.

 

Lou Thez (Aloysius Thez): NWA enforcer/bad person.

 

Vader (Leon White): Took liberties.

 

Mick Foley: Set bar too high with dangerous stunts.

 

The Undertaker (Mark Calaway): WRESTLER COURT

 

Triple H (Paul Levesque): GLASS CEILING.

 

...I think he has to stay even if he's the worst.

Either you were reeeeeeally stretching to make your list look big, or you really believe any of this should be treated as something to look at for figuring whether someone should or should not be in the HOF. Taking liberties in wrestling is like PIM in hockey; it may look bad, but it won't keep you out of anything.

[Loss]

I think the realization becoming obvious with the HOF, if it hasn't already been so for a few years, is that nearly everyone who needs to be in is in, so the standards are being changed so someone can be inducted every year. Really, I think you can put Rey in and shut the thing down for good until John Cena is eligible, and then shut it down again.

[Bob Morris]

I think the realization becoming obvious with the HOF, if it hasn't already been so for a few years, is that nearly everyone who needs to be in is in, so the standards are being changed so someone can be inducted every year. Really, I think you can put Rey in and shut the thing down for good until John Cena is eligible, and then shut it down again.

Absolutely. As I understand it, when Dave first started his HOF, he pulled a bunch of people in as those he and a few others felt should be in, then took the rest to a vote.

 

He probably would have been wiser to just start with voting from a select few right away and then only hand out a new ballot if somebody who had been voting decided to stop. He might have been able to spread out the inductees better.

[Bix]

Bruiser Brody (Frank Goodish): Took liberties.

 

Mildred Burke: Shooter who refused to job.

 

Stan Hansen (John Stanley Hansen): Took liberties blaming his blindness.

 

Ernie Ladd: Republican.

 

Akira Maeda: Took liberties.

 

Mil Mascaras (Aaron Rodriguez): Belittles people.

 

Lou Thez (Aloysius Thez): NWA enforcer/bad person.

 

Vader (Leon White): Took liberties.

 

Mick Foley: Set bar too high with dangerous stunts.

 

The Undertaker (Mark Calaway): WRESTLER COURT

 

Triple H (Paul Levesque): GLASS CEILING.

 

...I think he has to stay even if he's the worst.

Either you were reeeeeeally stretching to make your list look big, or you really believe any of this should be treated as something to look at for figuring whether someone should or should not be in the HOF. Taking liberties in wrestling is like PIM in hockey; it may look bad, but it won't keep you out of anything.

Most of the ones you quoted were intentionally ridiculous. The list was a slightly reworded version of one I did as a half-joke a year ago.

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

I'll never understand how Jim Cornette is a first-year Hall of Famer. Granted, I think half of all people ever employed in the wrestling industry got into the HOF the first year, but still...

[sek69]

I think you can make a case for The Midnights/RnRs for changing how tag team matches were looked at (weren't they the first tag teams to main event that wasn't two main eventers paired up?), and maybe Ivan Koloff, but after that I think what Loss said is right.

[sek69]

Also, Gorilla not being in as an announcer/backstage guy is ridiculous and probably due entirely to Dave's weird hate boner for the guy in the 80s. Monsoon was the voice of the WWF for anyone who started watching in the 80s, and should probably be in for that alone not even taking into account his work behind the scenes.

[Loss]

What exactly did he do behind the scenes?

[sek69]

He owned part of Capitol Sports, right? Also I'll cop to not knowing a whole lot of WWWF history, buy wasn't he also involved with booking some of the areas outside of NYC back then?

 

Like I said, I'd say he should be in just for his announcing work alone and anything else would be icing on the cake.

[kjh]

What makes Gorilla Monsoon a stronger candidate as an announcer than Tony Schiavone, who was a lead announcer for a national promotion for longer than Gorilla was?

[Al]

What makes Gorilla Monsoon a stronger candidate as an announcer than Tony Schiavone, who was a lead announcer for a national promotion for longer than Gorilla was?

Successful amateur wrestling career. Successful professional wrestling career, both as a heel in the '60s and face in the 70s. I don't think his announcing career alone gets him in, but the whole of his career in so many roles is enough, IMO.

[Loss]

What makes Gorilla Monsoon a stronger candidate as an announcer than Tony Schiavone, who was a lead announcer for a national promotion for longer than Gorilla was?

Not to mention that Tony was probably a better announcer than Gorilla, until his rapid decline from '98 on.

 

Gorilla was the voice of a company that happened to be successful (and Vince announced just as much or more than he did, honestly), but it wasn't a company that owed any of its success to his role, really.

[kjh]

What makes Gorilla Monsoon a stronger candidate as an announcer than Tony Schiavone, who was a lead announcer for a national promotion for longer than Gorilla was?

Successful amateur wrestling career. Successful professional wrestling career, both as a heel in the '60s and face in the 70s. I don't think his announcing career alone gets him in, but the whole of his career in so many roles is enough, IMO.

 

The problem is he's on the ballot as a non-wrestler, so whatever he did inside the ring should not be considered when voting for him.

[S.L.L.]

I think the realization becoming obvious with the HOF, if it hasn't already been so for a few years, is that nearly everyone who needs to be in is in, so the standards are being changed so someone can be inducted every year. Really, I think you can put Rey in and shut the thing down for good until John Cena is eligible, and then shut it down again.

Eh. There aren't too many slam dunk picks left, but there are definitely guys who you could make decent arguments for.

 

The bulk of the really strong picks at this point are your old-timey Yohe candidates, so I guess if Dave has to fiddle with the rules to get more people in, this is at least fiddling in the right direction.

 

Only other group with real significant candidates not in at this point is "luchadors from recent eras who Dave didn't think were great workers". Not sure how you would rig the process to fix that.

 

Of course, this is all besides the point, as the WON HOF is really a joke now, anyway.

[jdw]

Absolutely. As I understand it, when Dave first started his HOF, he pulled a bunch of people in as those he and a few others felt should be in, then took the rest to a vote.

The initial class and the second one weren't via "vote". He started the voting with the 3rd year (1998) if I recall correctly.

 

 

He probably would have been wiser to just start with voting from a select few right away and then only hand out a new ballot if somebody who had been voting decided to stop. He might have been able to spread out the inductees better.

Initial voting would have been hard if you limit it to 10 ballot. Just too many "no brainer" wrestlers eligible, even if you made the cut at being 50 years old. How long would it have taken Londos to get 60%? Or Bruno? I suspect Lou would have made it. But beyond that... it would be a shot in the dark when so many were on the ballot.

 

There is a need to clear out a certain chunk that would obviously already have been in if there had been a HOF going back 20+ years.

 

That process should have been thought out better. Lots of errors.

 

#1 - Probably the biggest was the 35/15 rule: over 35 years old or having been a full-time pro wrestler for at least 15 years.

 

That was largely aimed at Joshi, where with the old manditory age retirement, 35 years old was 10 years *past* retirement age. If you think of other sports, that's more than enough time to judge people after retirement. Balance it out with the fact in Pro Wrestling, so few retire at a clear point. It's one of those things that "makes sense at the moment", but pretty at a point is just a bad idea.

 

If Joshi was had unique issues, it should have been carved out with it's own rule rather than bending everything to it.

 

Even 40/20 it also too short. The first class was 1996, at at that point Flair was 47/24 and Hogan was 43/19. I think you very much wanted to have Flair and Hogan *not* in the initial class, and instead coming up in later classes.

 

Does that make 50 reasonable? I think so. 50/30? Or just toss out the requirement for the number of years wrestled and just set it at 50 years old? Or perhaps 50 years old or "10 years of retirement from fulltime wrestling". A Fritz or Watts coming out of retirement once a year doesn't count as working fulltime, or the Destroyer working his one series a year doesn't count. But if you work 5 of the 8 All Japan series, you're pushing it. It you work 6 PPV's a year, you're not really "retired".

 

Anyway, something like that would have been better for "eligibility".

 

Having the age at 50 would have a hell of a lot of people still hitting the ballot *now*. If, after the initial mass of candidates was cleared away, and if it seemed like waiting to 50 was too long, then drop it to 45. But it's easyier to drop it to 50 when the candidates are getting thin than to raise it from 35 when you figure out that you've fucked up.

 

Dave also would be getting an interesting batch of bios as he went along.

 

 

#2 - Yes/No for the First Class

 

That's largely what it was. There really wasn't the concept that you go with a high end class the first time out. A high end class is positive and negative. The positives outweight the negatives.

 

The Yes/No process should have just been done to cut it down to the people looked at as the first pass of "finalist". Those guys should then have been group. Okay, you've got the Londos, Gotch, Lewis group. Waldek and Stan Z are behind them. Stecher is between them. Same when you get to later eras - Verne, Buddy and Lou are at one level. Where to the others fit in.

 

Put in the top group in each era. Ponder whether the group right below it should go in now, or wait a year. Etc.

 

I'm less interested in the notion of a Fixed Number: "We need the Top 5 from 00-40, we need the Top 8 of the 60s", etc. It's more along the lines of figure out who are the Hogans and Londos of each era, and coming up with that top group. It's okay if it's just 2 people in one era and 5 in another. What you want to make sure is that you've identified them... of course it's a judgement call.

 

 

#3 - Not enough thought give to Regions and Era Balloting

 

Pretty much a clusterfuck. You really have to tell people what they're allowed to vote in. Dave's the gate keeper, not simply someone handing out ballots.

 

 

#4 - Balance

 

It's hard at this point to figure out what the balance in the votership is, but one gets the feeling that it is dominated by people who are in the business or were in the business. I'm not sure that's a good thing, anymore than 100% Fan Voting is a good thing. Probably would have been better off going with either a balance in the numbers, or Precinct Voting (each group of voters being given an equal weight regardless of number of voters in the group), or the equiv of "Ratification" (passing 3 of the 4 voting groups).

 

I'm don't suggest this to prop up the weight of Historians. They're as full of shit as the rest.

 

 

There's more... but that's a few to start with.

 

 

John

[jdw]

He owned part of Capitol Sports, right? Also I'll cop to not knowing a whole lot of WWWF history, buy wasn't he also involved with booking some of the areas outside of NYC back then?

I don't think his "ownership" role meant a whole hell of a lot in putting the product together. I don't think he did much in terms of the booking/storylines of the company, at least of much note.

 

 

Like I said, I'd say he should be in just for his announcing work alone and anything else would be icing on the cake.

I think he's a pretty mediocre announcer. Certainly nothing landmark. There are times when he was flat out horrible, working his own storylines that ignored what the wrestlers were doing, or worse crapping on it.

 

 

John

[sek69]

I think he's a pretty mediocre announcer. Certainly nothing landmark. There are times when he was flat out horrible, working his own storylines that ignored what the wrestlers were doing, or worse crapping on it.

You know, I've heard this off and on, it seems to stem from the WON back in the 80s when Dave was in an anti WWF mindset and seemed to hate everything they were doing. I don't recall him working his own storylines, unless you're talking about the running jokes he'd have with other announcers. The only times I've heard him ignore or crap on matches would be during those excruciating 30 minute jobber vs jobber matches where you can't really blame him for not wanting to discuss the finer points of a 15 minute Steve Lombardi headlock.

[Loss]

Have you read the WON recaps I've posted? The idea of Dave as someone unwilling to treat the WWF fairly in the 80s is not really ... fair.

 

He also never really said anything horrible about Gorilla during that time. He did say he was the worst announcer around that time period, but if you look at who was announcing in WCW at the same point in time, aside from probably David Crockett (who wasn't calling matches anymore by the time Gorilla started doing all the PPVs), he was. The other announcers in that time period were Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone, and Bob Caudle.

 

He was definitely better than everyone else in the WWF at the time, like Sean Mooney, Craig DeGeorge, and Lord Alfred Hays, and in hindsight, one of the three of them should have been called the worst announcer, not Gorilla.

 

But that doesn't mean Gorilla was all that good. Regarding those boring matches, the point is that a good announcer would be focusing on the match, no matter how boring it is. And yes, you can blame him for not doing so.

 

Also, the criticism didn't apply solely to Monsoon. Jesse Ventura would also get criticism from the newsletter crowd around that time (not solely Dave) for spending too much time talking about himself when calling a match.

 

The Jim Ross/Michael Hayes pairing on UWF TV in '86 was considered the gold standard at the time, depending on how people viewed Gordon Solie.