WON HOF 2008 thread

[jdw]

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.

 

Since I happened to write it, let me explain where it stems from:

 

Listening to him calling a lot of WWF matches that I've watched over the past 2+ years.

 

I suspect anyone who's read what I've had to say about those WWF matches can get the feeling that what Dave thought about the WWF in that era doesn't have a great deal of impact on what I talk about. Unless it's to poke him on things like Backlund.

 

John

[jdw]

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.

I actually think Vince was better than Gorilla. Of course he tended to let Jesse have his run. Jesse was annoying, and I preferred Bobby, but the Butch-Fem relationship between Gorilla and Bobby is pretty painful to listen to these days. It just tends to suck a chunk of the enjoyment out of listening to Bobby. In contrast, Jesse came off strong opposite Vince, Vince allowed him to, but there were also times Vince would fire back and Jesse would have to admit a "I gotta call them like I see them" spot. There just was better balance in that team.

 

Gorilla with people *other than* Bobby is just fucking horrorific. With Dick Graham in Philly was terrible, especially after years of campy fun of the Dick & Kal team. Gorilla with Gene was terrible. Gorilla with Jesse was crappy as Gorilla wouldn't sell for Jesse, wouldn't put him over... and Jesse wasn't going to bitch out for Monsoon like Bobby did. Just a bad match. his pairing with Lord Al was often the worst since they'd be all over the place. I recall watching a Strike Force vs. Harts where it was Bockwinkle with Al and Monsoon, and that was painful... felt sorry for Bock.

 

 

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.

Yep, though Jesse got ripped a lot more when he went to WCW since it was clear he was just there for the paycheck and the egofuck.

 

 

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.

Yep, though it was a pretty brief pairing. They did pair again for a while in WCW, but it seemed to be missing something.

 

 

John

[Bix]

Monsoon & Stan Lane was a surprisingly awesome team for the Steiners-Harts match on the Wrestlefest '94 tape. Monsoon always shined in matches w/ good amateur style matwork.

[tomk]

Monsoon & Stan Lane was a surprisingly awesome team for the Steiners-Harts match on the Wrestlefest '94 tape. Monsoon always shined in matches w/ good amateur style matwork.

The time Schneider was able to get a gig calling Monterey lucha I thought he did a decent job with the higher end matches, he struggled alot calling a circa 1998 Fishman v Markus match.

 

Lord Alfred Hayes really ruled when calling women's matches as he had all sorts of goofball Brit carny names and explanations for joshi moves.

[jdw]

I tend to think that Lord Al rules when one is in the mood for good campy fun. I suspect that if I rewatch these matches in 2018, I'll laugh at what a goofball Al is. Same as the Dick & Kal Show was brutal to watch when first checking out good Spectrum matches, once you get use to their awfulness, you kind of enjoy it on rewatch. I'm at the point where I know if I'm watching the Spectrum in the early 80s, Kal and Dick are going to say some goofy ass, unintentionally funny shit. And if we get to have a Kal pre-match interview, especially with Muraco, it's fucking heaven.

 

Of course that doesn't mean that it's *good*. Just that it's entertaining bad stuff.

 

 

John

 

"He hit him THERE!!!!"

-Kal Rudman calling a nutshot

[Loss]

That's kinda how I see David Crockett.

[Bob Morris]

Vince McMahon in his announcing prime is definitely better than people give him credit for. I watched the 1998 Royal Rumble show and was quite impressed with his style and effort... he was very good about making observations at certain points of various matches.

 

Vince's decline came around the time Jim Ross showed up... that was when Vince was often about the cliches and goofy stuff while Ross was on his A game.

 

Vince wasn't completely awful on commentary, as there were times he could get out some good stuff. It's just that Ross was doing a better job at that point.

 

Of course, when Vince left commentary, that was when Ross began picking up some of Vince's tendencies to shout out goofy stuff. He was still pretty good overall, though, and didn't really begin to decline until around the time the 90's boom period was ending.

[jdw]

That's kinda how I see David Crockett.

The more I watch Crockett with Tony in 1986, the more it strikes me how shitty Tony was and how good David was relative to him. We just thought Tony was "professional" and sounded like he knew what he was talking about, while David was going fanboy on it. But if you listen to what they're saying, David is actually talking about the match in better detail, while Tony is talking Big Picture Fluff since he couldn't call a match in detail if his life depended on it. In a sense, Tony came into matches with his handful of Talking Points & Storyline that he was comfortable talking about, and had a tough time getting past that. David had that stuff, but could actually call the match.

 

David was annoying as all fuck. But in a sense he had fanboy enthusiasm for it, while calling it.

 

Tony really wasn't a fanboy of the "wrestling" - he was just an announcer, and it was the gig he did, and he enjoyed being somewhat famous doing it. He was a fan of the interviews... you could see that, but you could also see it from David.

 

I'm not saying David was Lance Russell. But at this point I'd take him over Gorilla. You just don't get a great sense that Monsoon enjoyed what he was calling all that much. That even when he's roll out a "classic" comment about the match, it was usually around the same time he'd be talking about how the two had been going at it like this for 20 minutes... about 9 minutes into the match infront of this sold out arena that had a mostly empty second deck. The "classic" comment was just a spot he'd toss out. There was the sense that buried beneath it that he felt everything was better in his day, but he was getting paid real good money (and ego fucking) to be one of the voices of the WWF.

 

With David, you really got that he enjoyed the wrestling, the interviews, the hanging out in bars with the boys. That wrestling in all ways was something that he was hot for.

 

 

John

[jdw]

Vince McMahon in his announcing prime is definitely better than people give him credit for. I watched the 1998 Royal Rumble show and was quite impressed with his style and effort... he was very good about making observations at certain points of various matches.

Vince was at his best as a solo man in the booth in MSG in the 70s and early 80s. I would be interested to watch some of the TV tapings (full shows) from the same era when he worked solo, since they're really two different things in calling squashes and doing interviews compared to calling the big house show matches. I thought he was one of the best of the era that I've listened to. Listen to him call the 5/80 Backlund vs. Patera, 9/81 Backlund vs Muraco and 1/82 Backlund vs. Adonios. He's just fantastic in getting over both wrestlers, what they're doing, what they're strengths are, and how the match is unfolding. He does a strong job of getting across the drama, and also is more than willing to *not* talk rather than feeling like he has to fill every second of a match with *his* voice. Which is really a lost art.

 

 

John

[KrisZ]

Vince never worked solo on TV much as he had different partners whether it be Argentina Rocca, Bruno, or Pat Patterson but still it was fun stuff and Vince would sometimes break kayfabe on commentary talking about the jobbers which was great. WWF TV pre-expansion was pretty fun stuff although the matches weren't really good.

 

David Crockett was a "serious" announcer before Dusty got there and made a good team with Bob Caudle. He wasn't over the top and they called the matches straight while doing a good job.

[tomk]

So I wrote the following on Gran Hamada at wrestlingclassics. hamada is a guy who I had a set position on when he was listed as mexican candidate and i think needs to be reconsidered now that he is a Japanese candidate.

 

Gran Hamada has been a guy floating around on these ballots for ages.

 

He’s been floating around for so long that I think he gets forgotten.

In the past he’s been treated as though a member of the Mexican group. and while he experienced his greatest success as a draw in Mexico, I wouldn’t consider him particularly important or influential in Mexican wrestling. I can’t imagine a knowledgeable voter thinking he was a better Mexican candidate than Lagarde, Atlantis, Villano III, or Blue Panther.

 

In the July 21st Observer, Hamada is listed in the Japanese category. And I’m curious whether he deserves more consideration as a Japanese candidate.

 

As up against Jun Akiyama, Masa Saito, Seiji Sakaguchi, Kensuke Sasake and Kiyoshi Tamura….Gran Hamada feels like a stronger candidate.

 

As he seems far more influential in Japan. I don’t see Toryumon, M-Pro or any of the other lucharesu indy feds in the 90s happening without him.

 

The lucharesu style is the predominant Japanese junior style of work today.

 

This may be more a response to the international success of Rey Mysterio than a response to the popularity of Japanese lucharesu indy feds. But still when I watch current NJ juniors, Noah juniors, or AJ juniors the lucharesu style is the predominant influence. The work feels more lucharesu influenced than Ogawa/Fuchi/Kikuchi influenced or Fujinami/Tiger Mask/ Lyger/Samurai influenced.

 

Ultimo Dragon is in the HOF largely based on his influence and training. There would be no Ultimo Dragon without Hamada training him and the generation of lucharesu workers around him, and Ultimo doesn’t have as strong a body of work.

 

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything from the 70s, and he was too tiny to ever anchor a major Japanese junior division in the 80s/90s but he’s a guy who has been consistently good to great for four decades.

 

He was never a draw in Japan. But a guy with a strong body of work and who was arguably far more influential than the candidates he’s up against.

[Indikator]

tomk, you wrote in that thread "..I must be missing someone, but I can't think of another Gaijin who was put in role of being anchor guy in Japan."

 

The answer is Billy Robinson for IWE. The success is disputable of course.

 

Regarding Hamada, we all know how fast Shoot UWF Version 2 shows sold out - are any kind of informations for Universal available?

[tomk]

tomk, you wrote in that thread "..I must be missing someone, but I can't think of another Gaijin who was put in role of being anchor guy in Japan."

 

The answer is Billy Robinson for IWE. The success is disputable of course

Was he the anchor or just the A1 gaijin? Han was the A1 guy.

 

But that’s the kind of wrestling discussion that I never want to get involved in.

 

Regarding Hamada, we all know how fast Shoot UWF Version 2 shows sold out - are any kind of informations for Universal available?

Hamada is not a draw.

I am not making an argument based on draw.

I don’t know to what degree Saito or Sakaguchi are nominated for their drawing ability.

 

I’m making an argument based on influence and importance:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Lucha_Libre

 

If :

-Onita’s FMW never drew as big as W*NG,IWA Japan, or Big Japan

-FMW trainee Kanemura ended up anchoring WAR’s junior heavyweight division

-Garbage wrestling is the predominant junior style in 2008

 

::would Onita be a better or worse candidate for the HOF?

 

That’s a silly counterfactual.

Onita was both a draw and inspired a short boom in garbage wrestling feds.

 

But how important is draw vis a vis influence/historical importance? would Onita still be a HOFer if he inspired the Death Match boom but wasn't himself a succesful promoter/draw?

 

It’s 2008, deathmatch wrestling is a minor blip compared to lucharesu. To whatever degree puroresu exists in the mainstream, deathmatch wrestling is something that exists completely separate from mainstream while lucharesu is right there in the main weave.

 

I'm not a guy who is completely sold on Hamada as candidate. But he seems more historically important than the other nominees.

 

When he was on the ballot as a Mexican I felt: "This guy may have been a star in Mexico but he didn't mean more historically than a couple dozen other Mexican stars". Moved to Japan category I start to question "Not a star but he means something to Japanese wrestling"

[Indikator]

AFAIK Robinson was the anchor guy around 1970, but frankly only an older Japanese expert could tell us who the company ace was. I know too little of Rusher Kimuras and Strong Kobayashis status as IWE topcarders to list them in the correct order. Also, whoever said Robinson was the anchor guy might have been biased as a pro-gaijin. I once spoke to an European guy who had a tour for IWE, a normal no-name one-tour gaijin, and it was funny how he tried to con me into thinking he was a superstar over there as I knew his match results. At least he told me a couple of things about the IWE midcarders

 

Oh... could it be that Terry Funk was the most popular AJPW guy from... lets say 1980-1983? I am always amazed watching his AJPW run and don't forget how Freebirds vs. Baba/Tsuruta couldn't sell out Korakuen Hall in 1984 at one point.

 

I was seeking the Universal information because the UWF success could be used as a benchmark. Maybe every wrestling show in Tokyo like Pioneer Senshi sold out as there might have been a wrestling boom. Maybe it wasn't like that and people didn't care about fired midcarders and guys who had to go to Mexico to get into the business.

 

"-FMW trainee Kanemura ended up anchoring WAR’s junior heavyweight division"

 

How about Masato Tanaka? I have to admit that I don't follow Z1 that much so somebody else needs to school me on that topic.

[S.L.L.]

But how important is draw vis a vis influence/historical importance? would Onita still be a HOFer if he inspired the Death Match boom but wasn't himself a succesful promoter/draw?

Depends on the degree of drawing power and influence. If Onita's strength was inspiring a short-term death match boom, and didn't have the drawing power on his side, I'd be inclined to think it's not enough.

 

With Hamada, I think the question one must ask is whether or not his influence in and of itself merits his induction. If we agree that he's not much of a draw, than that question also answers whether or not he belongs in, unless, of course, you think that his body of work is strong enough to provide a significant boost to his candidacy.

[ohtani's jacket]

Can't really see a case for Hamada to be honest.

 

Not sure if he was any more influential than Kotetsu Yamamoto or Fujiwara.

[Guest KÄSE]

Another question is how strong the "root influence" argument ultimately is. If we are looking for that one guy who set lucharesu in motion, he is already being inducted in Asai. Is the argument for Hamada that he trained Asai? Should we also include guys who trained Funaki or Sayama or Takada?

 

I'm not against Hamada as such but seems to me that it necessarily calls for yet another reevaluation of the seemingly endless Ultimo Dragon case.

[S.L.L.]

Another question is how strong the "root influence" argument ultimately is. If we are looking for that one guy who set lucharesu in motion, he is already being inducted in Asai. Is the argument for Hamada that he trained Asai? Should we also include guys who trained Funaki or Sayama or Takada?

 

I'm not against Hamada as such but seems to me that it necessarily calls for yet another reevaluation of the seemingly endless Ultimo Dragon case.

Well, the thing is that training Asai is hardly the only influence that Hamada has on the proliferation of lucharesu. Starting the UWF, training the first generation of lucharesu guys - of whom Asai was only one, and arguably not even the most prominent depending on how you feel about Sasuke - which ultimately led to the formation of both Toryumon/Dragon's Gate and Michinoku Pro and various lesser indies, plus maintaining a name for himself on that scene into his 50's and being long recognized as an innovator in that field. Made enough of a name for himself that his daughters could use their parentage as a selling point. I don't know if that all adds up to a HOF career, especially if he was never much of a draw, but it's not a simple case of "Ultimo had HOF-level influence, and Hamada trained him, therefore Hamada had HOF-level influence". Frankly, even if Hamada hadn't trained Asai, and their careers had otherwise been the same, I'd still argue that Hamada was more influential than Asai. I don't really think either belongs in the Hall, though, so that's kinda beside the point for me.

[Ray]

I got the WON HOF issue a few days ago. Partial results:

 

Paco Alonso is the only person to be voted in this year. He got 73%. Konnan and Dr Wagner Sr got 48% and didn't make it in. Atlantis and Blue Panther were both below 40%.

 

Fabulous Moolah just missed the cut, getting 138 votes when you need 147 to enter from the US section. Midnight Express got 133, but their percentage jumped to 54% from 35% last year. Jesse Ventura had 119 votes. Mysterio 104 votes. R&R Express 95 votes.

 

For the historical category, Bill Miller got 90 votes and Roy Shire 86 votes. Needed 94 to enter.

 

For Japan, Seiji Sakaguchi almost made it with 43 votes with 49 needed.

 

Hector Garza, Jun Akiyama, and Fit Finlay all got less than 10% and will be dropped from the ballot next year. Edge will appear on the next year's ballot for the first time. Dr Wagner Jr will be placed on the ballot again.

 

Benoit recall vote:

 

YES (should stay in) -- 46.4%

NO (remove him) -- 53.6%

 

However it required 60% to remove him, so he's staying in.

 

If anyone wants to know more results, let me know.

[sek69]

Anyone else think Mexican stars who were before the mid 80s or so get screwed when it comes to the HOF? Outside of no brainers like Santo and Demon, it seems like any of the guys who were stars in the 60s or 70s are out of luck since there's no footage of them.

 

You'd think Dr. Wagner Sr would be a shoe in, but I doubt most of the people voting ever saw him wrestle.

[GSR]

After seeing that Martin Karadagian got elected this year, it made me think more than ever that British Wrestling is completely neglected in the Hall. Bert Assirati is the only person in based on his work in the UK, whilst Dynamite and Robinson are in due to their work in US and Japan, and Finlay was only added to the ballot due to his work in WWE from the past few years.

I dont know enough to make a case to Meltzer, but I wish someone who did could plead the likes of McManus, Pallo, Breaks, Saint, Rocco etc. Whilst I wouldnt expect all to get in, I would hope that a few would.

[Indikator]

You do know that the these British guys are having it a lot easier than their Pre-WWII counterparts and pretty much all other Europeans. There are quite a number of instances where I read lines like "....and my biggest career moment was wrestling in front of 40 000 fans in Athens" that today almost nobody knows anything about and that are hard to research. Just look at King Kong Czaya and you will see that there are a lot of potential candidates .

 

I remember a newspaper article about a wrestling scandal in Vienna during the 50s in which the promoter was quoted "They never write about us when we have sellouts with 20 000 people, they only write when there is a scandal " . Then I think about how one tournament in particular produced about 8.000 fans on weekdays and 10.000 fans on the weekends and I wonder why Pallo and McManus are deemed to be better HoF prospects. I don't want to disregard them, but the British scene was notorious for bad pay days and small venues. You don't get into the HoF for selling out the Zembo Mosque 100 times, you have to sell out big venues like Madison Square Garden

[Bix]

I think that the biggest part of the problem is that the guys who seem to have the influence to get Dave to put someone in by fiat (Steve Yohe, Tim Hornbaker, Steve Sims, and Kurt Brown) aren't well-versed in European wrestling. It also seems like it may take writing a detailed bio in advance to get Dave to consider someone.

[Robert S]

You do know that the these British guys are having it a lot easier than their Pre-WWII counterparts and pretty much all other Europeans. There are quite a number of instances where I read lines like "....and my biggest career moment was wrestling in front of 40 000 fans in Athens" that today almost nobody knows anything about and that are hard to research. Just look at King Kong Czaya and you will see that there are a lot of potential candidates .

 

I remember a newspaper article about a wrestling scandal in Vienna during the 50s in which the promoter was quoted "They never write about us when we have sellouts with 20 000 people, they only write when there is a scandal " . Then I think about how one tournament in particular produced about 8.000 fans on weekdays and 10.000 fans on the weekends and I wonder why Pallo and McManus are deemed to be better HoF prospects. I don't want to disregard them, but the British scene was notorious for bad pay days and small venues. You don't get into the HoF for selling out the Zembo Mosque 100 times, you have to sell out big venues like Madison Square Garden

There is one thing I was questioning myself for quite some time: Would Otto Wanz be a legit HOF candidate? I have hardly seen anything from him, but I think it is safe to say that he wasn't a great "worker", but he was a very successful (self-)promoter (till he quit) and/or a big draw during the 80ies. I am pretty sure he is still the most commonly known pro wrestler in Austria, nearly 20 years after his retirement.

[Indikator]

In the end probably, he was successful in some capacity in South Africa and other countries that we tend to forget, had a couple of ~10 000 fans houses and was the company ace for quite some time. There are also claims that he was responsible for the wrestling revival in a small number of towns, his hometown Graz for instance. God dammit I hate myself for saying something good about Wanz

 

A funny tidbit - his predecessor in Vienna was Georg "Schurl" Blemenschütz who wrestled until he was over 70 and was adequately called "The Heumarkt mummy" (Heumarkt being the open air venue in Vienna where pretty much every big tournament was held). Take that whoever thought wrestling was serious business back then over here.

 

(für dich Robert im Originalton, "Mumie vom Heumarkt")

 

Edit:

Personally I find people like Paul/Ivar/Jan Martinson to be way more interesting. He was a guy who was also in the American world title scene around 1948 and had several huge matches against the likes of Frank Sexton and Lou Thesz and did some good houses in Paris. That was back in the day when it was said that the German/Austrian wrestling scene was in big trouble because taxes where so high that most top names preferred to go to Paris or Madrid where they often wrestled in front of +20 000 fans and earned more money