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Let's Discuss the WON Hall of Fame


OSJ

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6 hours ago, OSJ said:

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.)

And this is where you lose me. Bitching about a guy who does a comedy spot that's over as hell while extolling the virtues of Mr 6x DUI? Fuck that.

 

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On 6/24/2018 at 9:56 AM, Ace said:

And this is where you lose me. Bitching about a guy who does a comedy spot that's over as hell while extolling the virtues of Mr 6x DUI? Fuck that.

 

@Ace, now this line of argument is beneath you. Instead, let me ask you a couple of questions:

1. Is there any reason to think that Kurt Angle doesn't care about the business? He's done everything anyone ever asked him to do including making himself look like a goof.

2. Do you think Kurt is a bonafide HOFr now? (For the record, I'm with Fowler in thinking that he was inducted way too early, but he proved that he belonged.) 

At the risk of sounding like Jim Cornette, if I were a manager on indie cards and part of my routine was to whip out my dick and wave it at the audience and it got a thunderous ovation does that mean I should do it? Ryan's dick spot is silly, business-exposing, and junior-high level humor, I'm sorry but not a fan.

If we were to start tossing guys that were drunks, druggies, or just basic jerks out of the HOF it would get pretty lonely in there for Ricky Steamboat. ?

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27 minutes ago, OSJ said:

 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.

Yes, as a worker I agree with you.

Yesterday, with a friend, we watched WCW Halloween Havoc 1995. It was an horrible ppv. Almost everything was horrible. There was the debut of the Yeti ?

In this ppv there were so many horrible workers, like Lex Luger, Zodiac, Meng, Road Warrior Hawk (who was very bad against Kurasawa, even the crowd didn't react during the match). Sting, in comparison to these wrestlers was very good, so for sure was not a bad worker.

I'm also starting watching 1992 WCW because I want to watch his matches against Vader.

 

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19 minutes ago, OSJ said:

1. Is there any reason to think that Kurt Angle doesn't care about the business?

Is there any reason to think Ryan doesn't?  Why the fuck are you more embarrassed by a comedy spot than boozing and pilling it up? Why you gotta pull out some never happened bullshit like 

Quote

if I were a manager on indie cards and part of my routine was to whip out my dick and wave it at the audience 

(which by the way, JIM CORNETTE DID, not Joey Ryan) to try to make your point?

 

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3 minutes ago, Ace said:

Is there any reason to think Ryan doesn't?  Why the fuck are you more embarrassed by a comedy spot than boozing and pilling it up? Why you gotta pull out some never happened bullshit like 

(which by the way, JIM CORNETTE DID, not Joey Ryan) to try to make your point?

 

Angle's out of ring antics are an embarrassment, I have no problem with that. However, we're not (or at least we shouldn't) be factoring in such issues in a HOF discussion. You don''t seem to want to directly answer the previous questions I asked, and all I'm looking for is discourse, not a fight; so let's try this one:

Has Kurt Angle ever appeared to be in no condition to perform? I would have to say that to my knowledge he has not. Whether that's because they had the good sense to keep him off TV when he was fucked-up  or not is irrelevant. I'm not aware of him missing any dates or turning in an embarrassing performance due to being impaired so the short form is, I really don't care what he was doing away from the ring.

Ryan's comedy spot demeans the business he works in. I really don't care what Jim Cornette did or didn't do, he hasn't been relevant in twenty years.

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The fact that Angle maybe remained sober for a couple hours at an arena does not negate the other issues. I'm pretty sure impaired driving hurts a lot more people than a dick biel.  You don't need to bury an actually decent dude in the business to put another one over. I'd take a dozen Joey Ryans over Kurt Angle any day.

 

To be honest, I see Angle on the same level as Mistico/Sin Cara I/Caristico. He had an excellent 5-6 year run, and then not so good afterwards. Then again, The Rock's real active career is only 6 years and he's an automatic lock, so YMMV.

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15 minutes ago, Ace said:

The fact that Angle maybe remained sober for a couple hours at an arena does not negate the other issues. I'm pretty sure impaired driving hurts a lot more people than a dick biel.  You don't need to bury an actually decent dude in the business to put another one over. I'd take a dozen Joey Ryans over Kurt Angle any day.

 

To be honest, I see Angle on the same level as Mistico/Sin Cara I/Caristico. He had an excellent 5-6 year run, and then not so good afterwards. Then again, The Rock's real active career is only 6 years and he's an automatic lock, so YMMV.

Now we're getting somewhere, keep in mind that as a recovered drunk myself, (30 years sober on Tuesday!) I'm hardly an advocate for DUI. 

I think we can agree that Angle was inducted way too early, and I'm not 100% sold that he really belongs in now. It's pretty demonstrable that the Rock popped houses and PPVs like nobody's business and it's impossible to make that case for Angle. Angle's presence in the WON HOF comes down to just one element which has been used to justify the induction of only one other person. That element is his work in the ring, and the other person did far worse than accumulate a string of DUIs, I'm sure that you know who I mean. 

The discussion that we SHOULD be having is about Angle's body of work and if it really is as stellar as his contemporaries seem to think that it is; not sidetracking about Jim Cornette's dick, which is a visual that I certainly didn't need over breakfast. ?

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2 hours ago, Ace said:

Is there any reason to think Ryan doesn't?  Why the fuck are you more embarrassed by a comedy spot than boozing and pilling it up? Why you gotta pull out some never happened bullshit like 

One is happening in private, the other isn't. 

You can go to Ryan's twitter and you can see how much he cares. Him thinking him flipping someone with his dick is as realistic as an Irish Whip. Which it maybe a stretch, but I think its more likely to sling someone into a turnbuckle than flipping someone over with their dick. 

My favorite is him mocking older wrestlers for needing crowd funding for surgery and how rich he is. But indy wrestlers pretending to be rich is the new Kayfabe. 

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7 hours ago, OSJ said:

I think we can agree that Angle was inducted way too early, and I'm not 100% sold that he really belongs in now. It's pretty demonstrable that the Rock popped houses and PPVs like nobody's business and it's impossible to make that case for Angle. Angle's presence in the WON HOF comes down to just one element which has been used to justify the induction of only one other person. That element is his work in the ring, and the other person did far worse than accumulate a string of DUIs, I'm sure that you know who I mean. 

On the Angle induction, he was inducted way too early, but if you consider his TNA run was to solidify him...I'd honestly argue Angle in TNA was very similar to Sting in WCW. He was the ace of the company, he was a quite good worker and, similar to the Keltner List, he was a comparatively good worker compared to other guys in his spot (but probably not best in the world at any point),  but he also was someone who never proved that he was someone people would go to the arena specifically to see (as seen because TNA could never crack into the house show market, period).

This helped on Angle's history, since another good question for the quality of a performer is putting them in the Peter Principle: "What is their level of incompetence?" How high on the card does this worker have to be before they clearly don't have it?  This question does well for Sting (even if he was never a mega-draw, he never seemed like an incompetent ace of the company), but it is damning for Angle (who always seemed like his level of incompetence is "he could be one of an ensemble of main eventers, but couldn't be THE GUY." 

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Now this is why I started the thread @Ace & @ SorceressKnight you have made me re-evaluate my thinking about Angle, whom I previously thought was a weak choice whose longevity ended up making him belong, (albeit as a weak selection) to someone who doesn't belong in there at all. 

Yeah, his runs on top with two companies prove that by himself he couldn't draw flies with two handfuls of shit, so all we're really left with is five or six years of being one of the best, but certainly not the best in NA. That's just not enough. 

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23 minutes ago, Johnny Sorrow said:

So much old weird venom being tossed around here, it's kind of odd.

Speaking of old, weird, and venomous; have you looked in the mirror lately? We're having a discussion about the WON HOF, you're clearly out of your depth here.

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I think we've probably run Stu Hart,  Ultimo Dragon, and Kurt Angle into the ground by this point. Anyone want to take a shot at a Jackie Fargo Gordy List? I have to admit that old Memphis is about my least favorite territory to watch, so I'm not as conversant with Fargo as maybe someone else is. From what I see, he was a huge regional star as a solo and known world-wide as a popular, but never top of card tagteam guy. 

Now before anyone says "That's not his fault, tagteams didn't get top billing, I'll be happy to bring up the Kangaroos, Duseks, and Grahams among others, the fact is that top tagteams did get top billing frequently and the Fabulous Fargos simply weren't at that level. Jerry Lawler is sort of a good comparison, but Lawler managed to get national exposure on his own and Fargo never did. Thoughts?

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2 hours ago, Ace said:

On a side note, if Mistico/Sin Cara/Caristico never goes to WWE, does he go into the HoF?

 

Here's a spot where I wish Matt Farmer would join us as he knows his lucha as well as anyone living. Without doing a lot of research or rolling out a Gordy list (which in this case I probably should do just to organize my thoughts), my gut feeling is "no". I know that he was over in the clover in Mexico and arguably the best worker in NA for a couple of years, but it was a pretty short run. He's really a unique case, like a Solitario who drew even bigger houses but for a shorter period. I know that I've said "The truly great tend to be unique in some way." Mistico certainly was, but damn it was a short run on top and then nothing much on the biggest stage of all. This really requires more thought, as he's really such an odd case. 

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45 minutes ago, OSJ said:

Here's a spot where I wish Matt Farmer would join us as he knows his lucha as well as anyone living. Without doing a lot of research or rolling out a Gordy list (which in this case I probably should do just to organize my thoughts), my gut feeling is "no". I know that he was over in the clover in Mexico and arguably the best worker in NA for a couple of years, but it was a pretty short run. He's really a unique case, like a Solitario who drew even bigger houses but for a shorter period. I know that I've said "The truly great tend to be unique in some way." Mistico certainly was, but damn it was a short run on top and then nothing much on the biggest stage of all. This really requires more thought, as he's really such an odd case. 

The big problem with Caristico is that he was a good example of a fatal flaw in the sport, where Mistico's reign would probably have to tie into the overarching problem: Gabe Sapolsky not liking lucha libre kept luchadors from breaking out in the independent scene revolution of the 2000s, and that wrestling style became the national wrestling style in the 2010s...while also ignoring that the problems of luchadors translating to America means that a lot of the top luchadors NEED to get some reps in the US to know how to work American style. 

Caristico not being in the HOF isn't just "he did nothing in WWE", but just as much that the 2000s was almost a lost generation of lucha libre due to it being a ghost town in the  North American scene for the 2000s. WCW made luchadors popular in the 1990s, and Lucha Underground will do it for the 2010s, but the 2000s was nothing (to the point where instead of "If Mistico didn't go to WWE, does he make the HOF?" can arguably also be asked as the comparable question, "If Perro Aguayo Jr. didn't die young, does he still make the HOF?")

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Something I've never understood is the seeming consensus that Arn Anderson somehow doesn't warrant inclusion. It feels at odds with several other consensuses (consensi?). I don't think it's hyperbole to say he's a Top 5 promo ever, nor do I think its crazy to say he's a Top 5 tag worker, either. I don't think many would argue that tag team wrestling isn't very important, and of course being able to cut effective promos is, as well. He's also the prototypical TV champion, and gatekeeper, two more positions I would argue have tremendous value, especially at the time he was most active. While he didn't have a main event singles run, his being a part of the Horsemen and main eventing as part of the stable should count for a lot, since he's clearly the glue that keeps both the stable, and those matches (particularly Wargames) together. 

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1 hour ago, Meltzing Pot said:

Something I've never understood is the seeming consensus that Arn Anderson somehow doesn't warrant inclusion. It feels at odds with several other consensuses (consensi?). I don't think it's hyperbole to say he's a Top 5 promo ever, nor do I think its crazy to say he's a Top 5 tag worker, either. I don't think many would argue that tag team wrestling isn't very important, and of course being able to cut effective promos is, as well. He's also the prototypical TV champion, and gatekeeper, two more positions I would argue have tremendous value, especially at the time he was most active. While he didn't have a main event singles run, his being a part of the Horsemen and main eventing as part of the stable should count for a lot, since he's clearly the glue that keeps both the stable, and those matches (particularly Wargames) together. 

Okay, I was originally starting the thread to see if (with the benefit of hindsight) we could find a few folks that really didn't belong as opposed to talking about those who aren't in. However, as it is a pretty well-known fact that Arn Anderson was one of my two favorite NA wrestlers, I'll feel both sad and privileged to roll out a Gordy List on him and then we can chat further. (Privileged, because I like talking about AA; sad, because (as you can imagine), I've played this one out in my head many times and I don't like how it winds up, but it is what it is.)

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49 minutes ago, OSJ said:

Okay, I was originally starting the thread to see if (with the benefit of hindsight) we could find a few folks that really didn't belong as opposed to talking about those who aren't in. 

Why do you have this desire to constantly throw people out of Hall of Fames?

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Gordy List for Arn Anderson (As done by perhaps the biggest AA fanboy in the world; (that is to say, me)


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?

No and no. He just wasn't.

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

As a part of the Four Horsemen, Anderson has to be considered a national draw. By himself, not so much.

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

By himself, Arn was never positioned to be a top draw, so the answer is "none".

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 (1.) and (2.) No and no. I could make the argument than after Barry's departure Arn was the best worker in JCP, but the Flair fanboys will get all butthurt and stuff. 

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

Arn was never THE best worker at any time. However, he was always one of the best. 

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

He started in 1982 and by the time he became "Arn Anderson" in 1984 he was already polished well beyond his years. (Didn't hurt that Arn always looked about 35-40 even when he was in his 20's). His injuries and surgeries had made him lose a step or two by the time he retired, but he was still a top worker who knew how to hide any limitations. 

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

Took him two years to put all the pieces together and he was awesome the next 16 years. 

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

He most certainly does, not a lot of *****, but you rarely got anything less than *** even in squashes.
Did he have a excellent matches against a variety of
opponents? 

Oh, hell yes. Flair used the line about carrying a broom to a **** match, the reality was it was Arn that could do so.

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

No

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

Again, as part of an elite unit, the 4H WERE JCP and it's pretty hard to imagine them without Arn.

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

No and yes. Arn is still a well-loved figure in the business, a producer of RAW and recently showed he can still hit a spine-buster like nobody's business.

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

Absolutely. 

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

Again, the short answer is "absolutely". When you can make a mini-feud with the Renegade seem important, you're hitting on all cylinders.

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

Arguably there have only been three or four people better and two of them were managers. Arn's no bullshit style of both work and interviews made you suspend disbelieving. Arn cutting a promo in summer of '86 as TV Champ is really what got me back into wrestling.

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

Without a doubt. I don't care who you were, you believed in Arn Anderson

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

Please see his wikipedia entry for this it's a pretty long list.

17. Did he win many honors and awards?

As above.

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

No and yes. The Four Horsemen and later the Brain-busters were always a favorite subject of the Apter mags and news-sheets.

19. Was he a top tag team wrestler?

And here's where the rubber really meets the road... Arn wasn't just a top tag-team wrestler, he is arguably the GOAT. His teams with Tully Blanchard, Ole Anderson, Larry Zybysko, and Bobby Eaton are all the stuff of legends, he could also be effective working in this capacity with anyone. His infrequent tags with Ric Flair brought back memories of how good the early tag-team work of Ric had been. 

20. Was he innovative?

Not really, he took the no-nonsense ass-kicker template of Ole Anderson and made it his own.

21. Was he influential?

Sadly, no. The next generation was far more enamored with the flippy-floppy shit of Shawn Michaels than they were with the much harder feat of making it seem real even when working in comedy spots. 

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

Absolutely.

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

Yes, and he still does.

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

It would be hard to be better than Arn appeared to be. 
 

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3 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

Why do you have this desire to constantly throw people out of Hall of Fames?

1. I'm a cranky and contrary bastard.

2. It's called "providing content" and "fostering discussion".

Pick one or both as it floats your boat. ?

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