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Let's Discuss the WON Hall of Fame


OSJ

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Okay, I have two writing projects that I really don't feel like doing so instead I thought it might be fun to chat about the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame. I don't know that I can get John D. Williams to come over and post and Dave is likely too busy, but I might be able to drag Yohe over here from Wrestling Classics. In the interest of full disclosure I am a WON HOF voter and have been for a couple or three years. 

Now as to the HOF itself, the initial inductees were basically pulled out of the air by Dave on a plane flight with JDW, so he did have the sounding board of one of the greatest experts besides himself sitting next to him. Dave came up with 122 inductees, which may sound like too many, but viewing the list I have a problem with only two of his selections (which we'll get to later). All and all a brilliant job of it even if he missed some European guys that should have been in the first wave.

The inductees are listed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrestling_Observer_Newsletter_Hall_of_Fame#Inductees and I'm certainly not going to drag the whole list over here. Anyway, we have the benefit of over a decade of hindsight to look at the initial inductees and see if there are any mistakes. 

I will say this, I think the WON HOF is by far the best thought-out of any HOF, I can easily list 30-40 guys in the baseball HOF that don't belong, but the WON doesn't have that problem. Of the initial list, I question only two selections. However, I thought it might be fun to go year by year and see what we all think of the selections, if nothing else it gives some new folks a chance to learn about historically important people in wrestling. So let's have at it! 

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Okay, before I post my thoughts on the initial class, here's a helpful tool to use created by John D. Williams. It isn't something where you add up points to say so and so does or doesn't belong, it's simply a tool to help organize your thoughts about a candidate or inductee. not the be all and end all of discussion, just a helpful thing to use. 

Gordy List
-------------

1. Was he ever regarded as the best draw in the
world? Was he ever regarded as the best draw in his
country or his promotion?

2. Was he an international draw, national draw
and/or regional draw?

3. How many years did he have as a top draw?

4. Was he ever regarded as the best worker in the
world? Was he ever regarded as the best worker in
his country or in his promotion?

5. Was he ever the best worker in his class (sex or
weight)? Was he ever one of the top workers in his
class?

6. How many years did he have as a top worker?

7. Was he a good worker before his prime? Was he a
good worker after his prime?

8. Did he have a large body of excellent matches?
Did he have a excellent matches against a variety of
opponents?

9. Did he ever anchor his promotion(s)?

10. Was he effective when pushed at the top of
cards?

11. Was he valuable to his promotion before his
prime? Was he still valuable to his promotion after
his prime?

12. Did he have an impact on a number of strong
promotional runs?

13. Was he involved in a number of memorable
rivalries, feuds or storylines?

14. Was he effective working on the mic, working
storylines or working angles?

15. Did he play his role(s) effectively during his
career?

16. What titles and tournaments did he win? What was
the importance of the reigns?

17. Did he win many honors and awards?

18. Did he get mainstream exposure due to his
wrestling fame? Did he get a heavily featured by the
wrestling media?

19. Was he a top tag team wrestler?

20. Was he innovative?

21. Was he influential?

22. Did he make the people and workers around him
better?

23. Did he do what was best for the promotion? Did
he show a commitment to wrestling?

24. Is there any reason to believe that he was
better or worse than he appeared?
 

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Okay, now the fun stuff begins. Here's my candidate for worst selection in the initial class, Stu Hart: 

Gordy List
-------------

1. Was he ever regarded as the best draw in the
world? Was he ever regarded as the best draw in his
country or his promotion?

To the first question, the answer is certainly not. To the second he was the top draw in the small regional promotion that he owned for a considerable time. However, Calgary Alberta is hardly a major metropolitan area.

2. Was he an international draw, national draw
and/or regional draw?

A regional draw only. Stu Hart never drew a dime outside of Calgary's territory.

3. How many years did he have as a top draw?

Stu booked himself on top of the cards for a longass time.

4. Was he ever regarded as the best worker in the
world? Was he ever regarded as the best worker in
his country or in his promotion?

To part one, the answer is certainly not. To part two, he may well have been the best worker for a considerable time in his own promotion. Later on as he aged, he did bring in exceptional talents like Dynamite Kid, but Stu was a beloved figure in his territory and remained valuable as a nostalgia figure long after his peak in wrestling. Stu was considered a good to great wrestler from 1946 until the 1960s when he retired.

5. Was he ever the best worker in his class (sex or
weight)? Was he ever one of the top workers in his
class? 

No and no, Stu was really good at jumping guests in his basement in a homo-erotic fashion, but I don't count that for much.

6. How many years did he have as a top worker?

Stu was considered a top worker from 1946-1962 or thereabouts. 

7. Was he a good worker before his prime? Was he a
good worker after his prime?

Yes, he was a fantastic amateur with tons of awards and accolades. After his prime he was a beloved nostalgia figure in his hometown.

8. Did he have a large body of excellent matches?
Did he have a excellent matches against a variety of
opponents?

There's not all that much footage available to study, but Stu was certainly a competent worker.

9. Did he ever anchor his promotion(s)?

For over twenty years he WAS Stampede Wrestling.

10. Was he effective when pushed at the top of
cards?

Well seeing how most of the time he didn't have anyone else, and he catered to entertainment-starved Alberta and Montana, one would have to say that he was effective as possible at the top of his cards. 

11. Was he valuable to his promotion before his
prime? Was he still valuable to his promotion after
his prime?

His promotion didn't exist until Stu was already hitting his prime. Afterwords he was beloved as the promoter in his hometown.

12. Did he have an impact on a number of strong
promotional runs?

In its glory days Stampede drew okay for what it was.

13. Was he involved in a number of memorable
rivalries, feuds or storylines?

I can't think of a single memorable thing about Stu's career as a wrestler.

14. Was he effective working on the mic, working
storylines or working angles?

Mic work was not an important consideration during his time. 

15. Did he play his role(s) effectively during his
career?

As lead babyface for the promotion he owned, he was effective. However, one isn't going to find big numbers from Stampede.

16. What titles and tournaments did he win? What was
the importance of the reigns?

He won a ton of amateur events which have no bearing on his pro career whatsoever. 

Title reigns in Calgary are about as important as title reigns in Portland or Memphis, which is to say unimportant.

17. Did he win many honors and awards?

As above.

18. Did he get mainstream exposure due to his
wrestling fame? Did he get a heavily featured by the
wrestling media?

Yes and no, he was always a local darling to the media in his hometown (such as it is). In the wrestling mags of the time you don't see him talked about much. The concept that Stu Hart was a top draw in the late 40s throughout the 1950s is just total bullshit.

19. Was he a top tag team wrestler?

Not to my knowledge. 

20. Was he innovative?

No, there were plenty of guys with strong amateur backgrounds before Stu, he didn't break any new ground as much as his fanboys would like you to think he did.

21. Was he influential?

Maybe at teaching people to avoid basements where a strange man lives.

22. Did he make the people and workers around him
better?

From all evidence Stu was more than competent in the ring though he pushed himself as the big star. I would have to say that he could probably get a decent match out of most stiffs, so that's a point in his favor.

23. Did he do what was best for the promotion? Did
he show a commitment to wrestling?

He did the very best he could with what was really a glorified backyard fed (and I am a huge fan of Stampede Wrestling but I'm not going to let that get in the way of the truth.)  Stu showed a lifelong passion for wrestling, even appearing in the audience at WWE shows when he was very ill.

24. Is there any reason to believe that he was
better or worse than he appeared?
 

Stu gets a ton of credit as a trainer which is probably not deserved. Stu's idea of training was jumping unsuspecting guests in the basement and stretching them in a homo-erotic fashion. This does not equate to any sort of training that I'm familiar with. So if we throw out the training piece we're left with Stu Hart the wrestler and promoter and both of these things are worth a close look. 

First, Stu as a wrestler: From all the evidence I can find he was a fine worker who never drew a dime outside of his entertainment-starved territory. I'm sorry, but I've been to Calgary numerous times and you could hold a card with Hornswoggle in the main event and people would come because there's nothing else to do except drink and fight. 

Okay, Stu as a promoter. He ran what was essentially a family backyard fed for a longass time and did so pretty successfully. 

Does he merit inclusion in the WON HOF? I don't think so. Be happy to see others thoughts on this before I get to my #2 guy that I have questions about, (Jackie Fargo). All in all the fact that Dave picked 122 people and as critical as I am I can find fault with only two selections is pretty compelling evidence that no one knows wrestling overall better than Dave Meltzer.

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4 hours ago, francescofuoco1998 said:

I agree with you. Stu Hart doesn't deserve to be in the WON HOF.

I think that he was inducted because he trained a lot of future great workers like Dynamite Kid, Bret Hart, Chris Benoit, Owen Hart, British Bulldog...

I don't think that trainers should be in the HOF.

And as I pointed out, it's pretty demonstrable he didn't really provide the training that he's credited with. 

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4 hours ago, francescofuoco1998 said:

I'd like to write a Gordy List for every non no-brainer wrestlers.

This is the list of every wrestler who was in the ballot. https://sites.google.com/site/chrisharrington/won_hof_ballot_results

Here let me help you get started! 2004 was a very odd year (and before I was a voter), but we ended up with:

Ultimo Dragon

Sakuraba

Kurt Angle 

among others, These would appear to me to be:

(1.) One of the weakest overall selections and I say that as a huge fan of the guy.

(2.) A perhaps inappropriate selection for a WRESTLING HOF, if we're talking MMA he's a no brainer. As a wrestler, I'm not 100% sold.

(3.) Too soon, not really worthy? What do you think? I'm not an Angle fanboy, and have never considered him an elite performer. He's very good, but I think he falls short of great. I also would need to see compelling evidence that Angle's presence popped the buy-rates or moved the dial in terms of drawing. That data is hard to quantify in the WWE era of "the brand sells, the performers are just cogs in the machine," but if you're are going to claim someone as a draw, you should be able to show some evidence that that's the case. 

Have fun!

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27 minutes ago, OSJ said:

And as I pointed out, it's pretty demonstrable he didn't really provide the training that he's credited with. 

Even if he had credit for training them, I think that he should have not inducted.

For example, if Regal will train other 7/8 wrestlers that will be great workers in future, I don't think that he should be Hall of Famer for that.

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3 minutes ago, francescofuoco1998 said:

Even if he had credit for training them, I think that he should have not inducted.

For example, if Regal will train other 7/8 wrestlers that will be great workers in future, I don't think that he should be Hall of Famer for that.

The only trainer that I would make an exception for is Diablo Velasco, who literally trained everybody who's anybody in lucha. That's a resume so far above and beyond anyone else that it makes him a unique individual and as we've discussed before, the truly great tend to be unique in some way.

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15 minutes ago, OSJ said:

Here let me help you get started! 2004 was a very odd year (and before I was a voter), but we ended up with:

Ultimo Dragon

Sakuraba

Kurt Angle 

 among others, These would appear to me to be:

(1.) One of the weakest overall selections and I say that as a huge fan of the guy.

 (2.) A perhaps inappropriate selection for a WRESTLING HOF, if we're talking MMA he's a no brainer. As a wrestler, I'm not 100% sold.

 (3.) Too soon, not really worthy? What do you think? I'm not an Angle fanboy, and have never considered him an elite performer. He's very good, but I think he falls short of great. I also would need to see compelling evidence that Angle's presence popped the buy-rates or moved the dial in terms of drawing. That data is hard to quantify in the WWE era of "the brand sells, the performers are just cogs in the machine," but if you're are going to claim someone as a draw, you should be able to show some evidence that that's the case

 Have fun!

1)About Dragon I agree with you. He was a very good worker, but I don't think he was ever regarded as a top 5, even top 10, in the world or in his country, so also the criteria "quality of work" is not enough strong for him.

2)About Sakuraba I don't know what he did in MMA, but if he is in the WON HOF, then also Conor McGregor, Ronda Rousey, others great MMA athletes should be inducted.

3)Angle was never a draw by himself. Reading the WON I noted that he was never a big merchandise draw, neither a ppv draw and a ratings draw. In this criteria I think that there is not so much difference with wrestlers like AJ Styles, Daniel Bryan, Edge, wrestlers who were never draw by themselves. When he went to TNA, he never moved buyrates (only the first against Joe), didn't increase ratings.

His strenght is quality of work. As John Williams wrote in his last Gordy lists, he answered to the question "Was he ever reagarded as the best worker in the world, in his country or in his promotion?", he was regarded as the best worker in the world, by WON readers, in 2001-2003 (obiouvsly the fact that Meltzer loved him, he influenced the WON voters).  After 2003 he was no more regarded as the best worker in the world, neither in his country. Anyway he entered in the top 10 among best workers, but no more regarded as the best, who was Bryan Danielson in the period 2006-2010. In this aspect Bryan Danielson is for sure stronger because he was regarded as the best worker for longer, and he remained considered as the best worker in USA until 2013, and in the top 3 all over the world.

Angle is so much appreciated by retired wrestlers (probably because he was a real athlete) and active wrestlers. In fact he received a lot of votes from wrestlers in 2004 WON HOF.

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Some good stuff, allow me to elaborate on a few factors.

Ultimo Dragon also gets a lot of "trainer credit" rightly or wrongly and he did start a pretty hot minor fed in Japan. I will also say that I've never seen a UD match that I didn't enjoy, but oddly enough my permanent dvd collection is surprisingly light on his material, which simply means I had little desire to re-watch anything.

Damn, I wish you knew more about baseball, because I have to use the Gil Hodges analogy for UD. (For the record, Gil Hodges was a beloved star 1st baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1950s who went on to a successful career as a manager.) For years his fans have been trying to put the disparate pieces together to form a whole greater than the sum of its parts and claim that he belongs in the HOF. Problem is, it can't be done, he was a great player for a handful of years and a good one mostly after that. His managerial run is really unimportant, anyone could have taken that particular Mets team to the World Series. 

IMO fans took several different things about UD's career and constructed something that really wasn't there out of it. He's not a horribly embarrassing choice, but he's certainly not a particular good one either.

Sakuraba: Guess you really had to be there in the early days of MMA it was blended almost seamlessly with pro-wrestling in Japan, you weren't entirely sure of what was a shoot fight and what was worked unless you really studied the tapes and then you sometimes got it wrong. BJJ was new to most and the Gracie family were considered well-nigh unbeatable, that is until they got in the ring with Sakuraba, a whiskey guzzling, chain-smoking pro-wrestler with an unbelievable tolerance for pain. (I've watched a match in which he took some forty unprotected shots to the face while cheerfully snapping the other guy's ankle, then shin, and the dude finally tapped when it obvious his knee was next. He is a tough bastard, even now.) Does he belong in an MMA HOF? Without a doubt. In a pro-wrestling HOF? I'm less certain, though I could be swayed either way. I will say that I've seen plenty of Sak's wrestling matches and haven't bothered preserving any of them, even if I enjoyed them at the time. (90% of matches I enjoy I don't feel the need to re-watch, with so much product out there and limited time, to get me to re-watch something it has to be Pete Dunne/Tyler Bate level of special.) 

Kurt Angle: Dave and I rarely disagree, but he has always been far more sold on Angle than I have. Yes, he's a technically fine performer in the ring with a ton of amateur credentials. I've never found him particularly amusing on promos, he has two facial expressions, both of which are goofy as fuck and I can't think of a single match of his that I want to re-watch. Angle to me is one of those guys who while I won't change the channel when he's on, I'm not going to tune in to watch him either. In current NJPW Goto would be a good comparison for how I feel about Angle. He's just fine when he's featured but I'm not going to skip a dinner date with friends just because he's on TV. It's really hard to gauge someone's drawing power in the era of the machine as I've said, but I live in wrestling-crazy New Mexico and I have never seen anyone wearing a Kurt Angle shirt, not once. To me, that speaks volumes. 

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Francesco said: "Angle is so much appreciated by retired wrestlers (probably because he was a real athlete) and active wrestlers. In fact he received a lot of votes from wrestlers in 2004 WON HOF."

It likely won't surprise you that I have the same low opinion of many of the pro wrestlers who are voters as they do of people like me and Yohe who obviously aren't qualified to vote because we've never been in the ring. *sighs*

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1 hour ago, OSJ said:

Some good stuff, allow me to elaborate on a few factors.

Ultimo Dragon also gets a lot of "trainer credit" rightly or wrongly and he did start a pretty hot minor fed in Japan. I will also say that I've never seen a UD match that I didn't enjoy, but oddly enough my permanent dvd collection is surprisingly light on his material, which simply means I had little desire to re-watch anything.

Damn, I wish you knew more about baseball, because I have to use the Gil Hodges analogy for UD. (For the record, Gil Hodges was a beloved star 1st baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1950s who went on to a successful career as a manager.) For years his fans have been trying to put the disparate pieces together to form a whole greater than the sum of its parts and claim that he belongs in the HOF. Problem is, it can't be done, he was a great player for a handful of years and a good one mostly after that. His managerial run is really unimportant, anyone could have taken that particular Mets team to the World Series. 

IMO fans took several different things about UD's career and constructed something that really wasn't there out of it. He's not a horribly embarrassing choice, but he's certainly not a particular good one either.

Sakuraba: Guess you really had to be there in the early days of MMA it was blended almost seamlessly with pro-wrestling in Japan, you weren't entirely sure of what was a shoot fight and what was worked unless you really studied the tapes and then you sometimes got it wrong. BJJ was new to most and the Gracie family were considered well-nigh unbeatable, that is until they got in the ring with Sakuraba, a whiskey guzzling, chain-smoking pro-wrestler with an unbelievable tolerance for pain. (I've watched a match in which he took some forty unprotected shots to the face while cheerfully snapping the other guy's ankle, then shin, and the dude finally tapped when it obvious his knee was next. He is a tough bastard, even now.) Does he belong in an MMA HOF? Without a doubt. In a pro-wrestling HOF? I'm less certain, though I could be swayed either way. I will say that I've seen plenty of Sak's wrestling matches and haven't bothered preserving any of them, even if I enjoyed them at the time. (90% of matches I enjoy I don't feel the need to re-watch, with so much product out there and limited time, to get me to re-watch something it has to be Pete Dunne/Tyler Bate level of special.) 

Kurt Angle: Dave and I rarely disagree, but he has always been far more sold on Angle than I have. Yes, he's a technically fine performer in the ring with a ton of amateur credentials. I've never found him particularly amusing on promos, he has two facial expressions, both of which are goofy as fuck and I can't think of a single match of his that I want to re-watch. Angle to me is one of those guys who while I won't change the channel when he's on, I'm not going to tune in to watch him either. In current NJPW Goto would be a good comparison for how I feel about Angle. He's just fine when he's featured but I'm not going to skip a dinner date with friends just because he's on TV. It's really hard to gauge someone's drawing power in the era of the machine as I've said, but I live in wrestling-crazy New Mexico and I have never seen anyone wearing a Kurt Angle shirt, not once. To me, that speaks volumes. 

i want to disagree with Ultimo Dragon, as he hovers near my personal top-10, but i agree. he's great but not HoF great when you look at non-subjective matters like drawing and impact.

as for Sakuraba, i agree that it's a stretch, but as a big MMA fan, let me tell you why his accomplishments could arguably translate while others' may not.  Sakuraba entered the UFC Japan tournament with the fighting style "pro wrestling", which would be laughed at here in the states, but since he was from the worked shoot organization UWF-i, it was accepted in Japan. He won the tournament and cut a post fight promo which basically said "this proves pro wrestling is strong!" and added legitimacy to what he had been doing. This (along with Takada/Gracie in Pride) helped open the doors for other Japanese pro wrestlers to try their hand at MMA (mostly to their own detriment). He held true to his pro wrestling background and returned to the ring in 2012 after his mma career was over.
All that said, i'm not arguing for/against his inclusion, just adding some context.

Kurt Angle was a top level WWF performer from the day he made his TV debut. he picked up on the in-ring stuff from the beginning, has amateur credentials to the utmost, and was a natural at promos. To put him in the Hall in 2004 is odd, since he was still a top performer, but i have no doubt that he 100% deserves to be in. I remember in 2000 when he won the WWF World Title, i felt it was too early and that he wasn't as good as his reputation. In my Monday Night Wars rewatch, i completely disagree with my earlier assessment. He's committed to whatever role he has to play (whether that be goofy dork, serious ass kicker, or chickenshit heel) and the audience always has a strong opinion of him.  He was absolutely considered the best in the world at one point, he was a huge signing for TNA (so much so that people speculated that TNA would really become crazy popular.........that never happened). As for accomplishments, KotR winner, 6x World Champ in WWF (all versions), 6x TNA World champ, WWF Grand Slam Champion, WM 19 Main Event. I just don't see the argument against Angle (unless we're specifically saying in 2004).

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Ultimo is in entirely due to Toryumon. Saku's in because of his initial pro wrestling training leading him to be one of, if not the biggest draw in Japan in the 00s at that point with PRIDE, before they ran him into the ground. Of course that's hurt because nobody else in that crossover sphere entered after him. Angle was far too early, and IIRC, the reason for a rule change that you have to be in the business for 10+ years AND hit the age point. 

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1 hour ago, Ace said:

Angle was far too early, and IIRC, the reason for a rule change that you have to be in the business for 10+ years AND hit the age point. 

This ties into the bigger problem with the WON Hall of Fame: they induct people who are still active...and worse, the "minimum age limit of 35 years old" is really damning if you think about it in pro wrestling.

In a real sport, people usually are in their prime in their 20s/early 30s, and by 35 all but the most freakish athletes are winding down their careers...but in pro wrestling, you can argue a wrestler doesn't truly hit their prime until their mid-30s, and a particularly good performer can wrestle at a high level into their fifties or beyond.  It's almost a particularly new thing where a male wrestler can even make it to a World Title reign before their 30th birthday, and the people who did that would be almost first-ballot Hall of Famers anyway...and so younger performers who make the ballot with 10+ years at age 35 by and large will still have a lot of high-level wrestling in their career to do before the vote happens (the best example of this: AJ Styles being knocked off the ballot for under 10% voting for him in 2014 when he was Mr.TNA and an IWGP champion, only to make the Hall of Fame in 2017 when he got back on the ballot in large part because of the rest of his New Japan run and his WWE run solidifying his career.) 

Upping the age limit to "you don't get on the ballot until you turn 50 years old, with deceased performers being added to the ballot immediately" would help get a more in-depth look at people's careers even after their prime, as opposed to voting on guys who for all intents and purposes are still in their absolute prime as performers.

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I think Angle going in then was absurd, and I'm not a huge fan, but I wouldn't have a problem with him going in now, so I guess it's fine?

I'm not sure I agree that being a great trainer shouldn't count, to be honest. Coaches go into Halls, that's the closest comparison.

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Ahh, now we're getting the sort of discussion I had hoped for! (other than Francesco and me just talking between ourselves, we can do that on IM) ?

@twiztor and @ace provided some excellent context that I had sort of short-handed and SK has hit on one of my biggest gripes and that's the 10 years and/or 35 years of age business. Due to genetics and improved healthcare (better living through chemistry as I'm fond of saying), people are no longer peaking athletically at 28-32 as they did when I was a kid, now it isn't at all unusual to see a wrestler as an active and effective performer in their 50s,  hell, Kevin Sullivan is closing in on 70 and he's still mixing it up with guys like Sami Callihan, Funk and Lawler are still quite capable for being senior citizens. 45 would make a lot more sense as while we haven't had the travesty of a guy getting in at 35 and then turning into a goof that hurts the business with shitty matches or a ridiculous gimmick for the next twenty years, that possibility certainly exists. 

My only beef about Angle is that he was inducted far too soon, let's say when WWE canned him he started doing the Joey Ryan dick spot on indies, would we still think of him as a HOF'r? Of course, nothing like that happened, Kurt has far too much class and respect for the business to do crap like that, but I will point out that HOF'r Mick Foley recently took the spot, (which isn't quite as bad as DOING it, but it is damn sure close.) What if Foley with his juvenile sense of humor were to now incorporate the dick spot into his repertoire, what then? Is he still a HOF'r? (I think "yes", though I'd be plenty disgusted.)

Anyway, just some food for thought. Dave is very serious about the WON HOF (as am I) and always willing to listen to ways to improve it. My most recent crusade is to change the voter definition from (I'm knowledgeable about historical figures to breaking the 20th century down into ten or twenty year chunks)  as "historical" means different things to different people and the voter base is getting younger, not older so that we really have knowledgeable voters for whom "historical" means the 1980s. When a fan of that age sees the names of the likes of Bearcat Wright, Orville Brown and Enrique Torres on their ballot they're going to stare blankly and that's totally excusable. The guys like Dave, JDW, Yohe, and myself can probably be counted on Dave's fingers and toes. There just aren't that many people that study all periods and all styles of pro wrestling. You have to be a real nerd to do that. ?

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8 hours ago, OSJ said:

Francesco said: "Angle is so much appreciated by retired wrestlers (probably because he was a real athlete) and active wrestlers. In fact he received a lot of votes from wrestlers in 2004 WON HOF."

 It likely won't surprise you that I have the same low opinion of many of the pro wrestlers who are voters as they do of people like me and Yohe who obviously aren't qualified to vote because we've never been in the ring. *sighs*

John, can you explian better this last sentence. 

You said that you have not a good opinion of pro wrestlers (both retired and active) who vote in the WON HOF? Right?

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5 hours ago, francescofuoco1998 said:

 

John, can you explian better this last sentence. 

You said that you have not a good opinion of pro wrestlers (both retired and active) who vote in the WON HOF? Right?

Same with the Veterans Committee during the Frank Frisch era in baseball, lots of the older guys consider their contemporaries to be far more important than they were and there's a good deal of cronyism among the newer guys with well-liked workers getting a nod over perhaps better candidates. No system is perfect, Dave has managed to construct one where the internal checks and balances are pretty damn good. I'm not saying all former and current pro-wrestlers make some goofy choices just as I wouldn't say that all historians are infallible. We have goofy choices coming from all sectors which explains choices like Sting and Shawn Michaels as  examples.

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Last time after I asked you about the reason that Danielson only got 12% of votes among active wrestler and also he got few votes among retired wrestlers (if Nick Bockwinkel and Red Bastien would have voted for him if they were alive), I searched the WON HOF issues from the past.

Triple H, for example, in 2004 and 2005 got so much more votes than Eddie Guerrero, . I think that wrestlers vote for their friends, while retired wrestlers for sure don't watch a lot of wrestling of today. Yesterday on reddit, the real Greg Valentine wrote that the best wrestler today is Randy Orton because his father, Bob Orton Jr., was his friends. That shows how wrestlers vote. I imagine how many  votes Shawn Michaels got from his friends.

However, I'd like to know who are the wrestlers that vote in the WON HOF. I think the majority is made WWE wrestlers.

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5 hours ago, francescofuoco1998 said:

An other name that was responsible of various threads in the past was Sting.

I'd like to write a Gordy List.

Please do so! I can find lots of discussion of Sting and suggestions of a Gordy List over on Wrestling Classics, but oddly enough, I can't find an actual Gordy List for him. I did however, find something I wrote a few years ago and while I'm not quite the deep thinker about wrestling that JDW is, nor am I as smooth a writer about the subject as Frank Jewett was, I think I get my points across. I still would love to see you do a Gordy List, all the evidence for/against Sting is probably as accessible as any data on anything, it just becomes a matter of how we interpret it. Anyway, a few years ago, OSJ sez:

*********************************************************************************************************************************************************

Sting is a great guy to use the "Gordy List" on as big parts of his HOF platform turn out to be balsa wood. To wit:

"Sting was the Ace for the Number #2 Company in America". Make this statement at a gathering of serious fans (particularly those who were watching in the 80's and 90's) and you'll get a lot of sage nods in the affirmative, because those folks likely have fond memories of Bill Watts UWF and JCP with Surfer Sting running to the ring screaming like a lunatic as all the little Stingers soiled themselves in excitement. 

The POP was real, no denying it, Sting live was EXCITING!!! However, it's been proven looking at the numbers that the PROMISE of Sting live did no more than the PROMISE of Capt. Mike Rotunda or the PROMISE of Brad Armstrong. I've said it before, if you were at my house to watch wrestling and Sting was on TV and you wanted a beer or soda, you damn sure were doing self-service, because though I try to be a good host,I also like watching Sting. The key here is that I'm watching Sting at home on my TV, not at the arena. Sting was an exciting performer that people obviously enjoyed watching, but he wasn't so exciting that people would specifically buy a ticket to see him.

"Sting had a really long and successful career!" Did he? Well, there is some truth to that statement, very few people have made as much money for doing as little as Steve Borden. Now if we stop and look at the real numbers and attendance figures, some inconvenient truths become evident. When you subtract all of the periods of inactivity Sting didn't really have an exceptionally long career. He DID make a lot of money, but I think you would have a hard time finding anyone that knows anything about accounting to suggest that Sting showed a good or even adequate ROI. 

What's ironic is that the Sting supporters don't seem to want to talk about the areas where their guy has some actual traction. Wrestling fans seem to go in for hyperbole more than most, I do it myself, (if anyone wants to see me make a jackass of myself, just bring up El Samurai, who was a fine performer in his day but who happened to be the right guy at the right time with the right opponents for me to consider him far, far better than he really was...) The result of the sea of hyperbole is that not everyone has to be Misawa or Tsuruta in order to have great matches. In fact, if I'm a promotor, I'd rather have five guys that are pretty good for ten years than five guys that are outstanding for five years. There's absolutely nothing wrong with "pretty good" (see also: Cena, John). Sting didn't have a plethora of ***** matches over the course of his career, but he sure had an awful lot of **** matches for a guy that revisionist history likes to say wasn't very good in the ring. 

Was he ever better than Barry? Likely not. For that matter a motivated Lex at his peak was probably better, but there are way too many top quality matches to suggest that Sting was not a good wrestler. He wasn't going to go out there and make anyone think he was Liger; that wasn't his role, for almost the entirety of his career he was a muscle guy with a limited moveset who got the most out of what he had.

Do I think he belongs in? I wouldn't have a meltdown if were inducted, I personally think he's more suited to join Arn Anderson, Curt Hennig, and El Samurai at the head table in the Hall of the Very Good, but we can (and have) made worse choices before. Inducting Sting would be a mistake in my opinion, but it would be a very understandable mistake.
 

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I think that many people don't know Sting's career. 

In the past, 3 or 4 years,  I also thought that he was a huge star, because I always read comments of this kind: "Sting was the face of WCW and he was the face of WCW during the hottest period in wrestling." In an Italian forum, he also won the tournament "The Greatest wrestlers of WCW". Luckly  I joined wrestlingclassics and I learned the reality.

About the Gordy list, give me two or three months. In the sense, I want to study in depth his career. Yesterday I started watching WCW of 1992. I want to make a list of his best and worst matches, then make a definitive judgment about his body of work.

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1 minute ago, francescofuoco1998 said:

Last time after I asked you about the reason that Danielson only got 12% of votes among active wrestler and also he got few votes among retired wrestlers (if Nick Bockwinkel and Red Bastien would have voted for him if they were alive), I searched the WON HOF issues from the past.

Triple H, for example, in 2004 and 2005 got so much more votes than Eddie Guerrero, . I think that wrestlers vote for their friends, while retired wrestlers for sure don't watch a lot of wrestling of today. Yesterday on reddit, the real Greg Valentine wrote that the best wrestler today is Randy Orton because his father, Bob Orton Jr., was his friends. That shows how wrestlers vote. I imagine how many  votes Shawn Michaels got from his friends.

However, I'd like to know who are the wrestlers that vote in the WON HOF. I think the majority is made WWE wrestlers.

Yeah, definitely some goofiness and cronyism at work there. You weren't around when the whole Shawn Michaels debate was raging, but the general gist of it was that guys like Matt Farmer, JDW, and myself remarked that IN ADDITION to the major reasons that Michaels didn't belong in, he was an unprofessional asshole. This quickly got spun on the Internet by the Michaels fanboys as the ONLY reason he wasn't getting votes from some people was the lack of professionalism in his early years. After all, he was a changed man now and anyone holding his past conduct against him was a sour old bastard nursing a grudge.

Now this was a good ten years ago IIRC, and while I may have just turned or been coming up on fifty, I am neither sour nor old and I have I think ten years on JDW and twenty on Matt so they don't fit the definition either. The main points for our anti-Michaels feelings have NOTHING to do with his attitude. I don't care how much of a jerk someone is backstage, it doesn't affect me one way or another, I am simply watching what they do in ring and looking at numbers. The fact of the matter is that I don't now nor have I ever considered Michaels anything but "very good" in the ring. That's not a HOFr. 

Further, it's demonstrable that he never drew a dime except for a short time as part of DX. Again, any HOF arguments fall woefully short. Sad thing is the Michaels fanboys made it all about the "unprofessionalism" until Michaels seemed like he was being martyred for being a jerk in his twenties and let's face it, most of us are jerks at that age. So in he went on a wave of sympathy...

Dave's not going to tell me who the active wrestlers are that vote and we go back to the 1980s (nor should he). I think it safe to assume that most are WWE employees.

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7 minutes ago, francescofuoco1998 said:

I think that many people don't know Sting's career. 

In the past, 3 or 4 years,  I also thought that he was a huge star, because I always read comments of this kind: "Sting was the face of WCW and he was the face of WCW during the hottest period in wrestling." In an Italian forum, he also won the tournament "The Greatest wrestlers of WCW". Luckly  I joined wrestlingclassics and I learned the reality.

About the Gordy list, give me two or three months. In the sense, I want to study in depth his career. Yesterday I started watching WCW of 1992. I want to make a list of his best and worst matches, then make a definitive judgment about his body of work.

Not that my opinion is the be-all and end-all of wrestling knowledge (much as I'd like to think that it should be) ?  But I can save you some considerable time if you want... One false knock on Sting is that he was a muscle-bound stiff that was a bad worker. No, he didn't have many (if any) ***** matches that come to mind, (though one of his with Vader might have garnered *****), but he did have far, far too many **** matches with a wide variety of opponents for a bad worker, there's just no justification for the myth that he was a bad worker. 

The biggest load of horseshit that the Sting fanboys roll out is longevity. When you look at the amount of time that Sting was actually active and not sitting in the rafters or at home for several years, that one dries up pretty fast. There are some tremendous positives to his career, but they aren't the ones that his fanboys have chosen to hang their hats on. 

The biggest negative is that it is easily demonstrable that Sting failed horribly every time that he was pushed as the ace of a company. No one in the business ever had more chances to succeed and failed more miserably than did Steve Borden. That's not a HOFr.

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