Let's Discuss the WON Hall of Fame

[Kuetsar]

I must profess total ignorance of the Japanese scene other than the big names, so take this with the grain of salt intended, but I was surprised that Onita made it in. I know he's a legend in the garbage wrestling scene(and I have an old tape of the King of the death match tournament-the 98(?) with Foley and funk and all that goodness), but I wasn't sure that made him a HOF in Dave's eyes.

[Ace]

8 hours ago, Kuetsar said:

I must profess total ignorance of the Japanese scene other than the big names, so take this with the grain of salt intended, but I was surprised that Onita made it in. I know he's a legend in the garbage wrestling scene(and I have an old tape of the King of the death match tournament-the 98(?) with Foley and funk and all that goodness), but I wasn't sure that made him a HOF in Dave's eyes.

He was initially AJPW's junior ace before he retired the first time. Afterwards, he was the man who brought Memphis brawls to Japan and filled stadiums.

 

[Curt McGirt]

Yeah, FMW was the first independent promotion ever to fill entire stadiums. That's a big reason.

The KOTDM was put on by IWA Japan btw, and Onita wasn't in it

[OSJ]

On 6/26/2018 at 12:55 PM, Kuetsar said:

I must profess total ignorance of the Japanese scene other than the big names, so take this with the grain of salt intended, but I was surprised that Onita made it in. I know he's a legend in the garbage wrestling scene(and I have an old tape of the King of the death match tournament-the 98(?) with Foley and funk and all that goodness), but I wasn't sure that made him a HOF in Dave's eyes.

In many ways you had to have been there. During the glory days of FMW Onita filled stadiums! He was drawing houses bigger than legends like Baba, Inoki, Misawa, Kobashi, Tsuruta, Kawada, Choshu, Mutoh, Chono, and Fujinami ever did.  Think about that for a second, a former ace of the junior division was forced into retirement by his bad knees. He reinvented himself and arguably professional wrestling itself. Influence? Simply stated, without Onita there is no ECW and it's arguable that by watching Onita's successes despite his physical limitations may well have inspired a certain broken-down wrestler from Texas to re-invent himself (as he was no longer capable of being the smooth technician  we'd become  accustomed to seeing ), as a limited worker with a total brawling style, who (like Onita) was simply dripping with charisma. 

It's certainly no stretch to say that with no FMW there would have been no ECW hardcore revolution. Eastern Championship Wrestling would have stumbled along trying to fill the bingo hall and filling their advertising slots with shills for the promoter's family hockshop. Not a pretty picture.

Is it a stretch to say that Stone Cold Steve Austin re-invented himself using Onita's template? I don't think so, the similarities and time-line are just far to compelling to be dismissed.

Hey, this allows me to segue to another resource that comes in very handy for this overall type of discussion, (in addition to some great stuff written by DEAN!, the two Phils and the remaining three Fists in the Face of Wrestling), there is a site called WrestlingClassics.com which features a forum dedicated to discussing the WON in general and the HOF in particular. The archives go back quite some distance and are particularly noteworthy and useful due in large part to the contributions of Steve Yohe  (who is one of if not THE preeminent wrestling historians), John D. Williams, whose overall knowledge base (particularly of 1980s and 1990s Japan) is second to none. His writing style can be be a little dry and pedantic, but I've never encountered a lengthy post by him that wasn't worth reading (and in many cases, saving to my hard-drive), and finally, Frank Jewett, who posted under his real name as well as "BostonIdol". His last couple of years of activity were clouded by a seemingly rabid anti-Meltzer bias, but prior to that he's arguably second only to John D. Williams in knowledge base and by far the smoothest writer to ever seriously write about the subject (and as a professional author, I don't give that one up very easily). 

Anyway, some great work was done there and definitely worth checking out. For that matter, if the Wayback Machine can pull up theOtherArena.com there are a ton of bios written by Steve Yohe that he never got around to cross-posting that are "must reads" on historical figures. Have fun!!!

[Beech27]

Not exactly a sound statistical argument, but Onita was also one half of (I’d argue) the coolest entrances in a match:

 

[Kuetsar]

1 hour ago, OSJ said:

In many ways you had to have been there. During the glory days of FMW Onita filled stadiums! He was drawing houses bigger than legends like Baba, Inoki, Misawa, Kobashi, Tsuruta, Kawada, Choshu, Mutoh, Chono, and Fujinami ever did.  Think about that for a second, a former ace of the junior division was forced into retirement by his bad knees. He reinvented himself and arguably professional wrestling itself. Influence? Simply stated, without Onita there is no ECW and it's arguable that by watching Onita's successes despite his physical limitations may well have inspired a certain broken-down wrestler from Texas to re-invent himself (as he was no longer capable of being the smooth technician  we'd become  accustomed to seeing ), as a limited worker with a total brawling style, who (like Onita) was simply dripping with charisma. 

It's certainly no stretch to say that with no FMW there would have been no ECW hardcore revolution. Eastern Championship Wrestling would have stumbled along trying to fill the bingo hall and filling their advertising slots with shills for the promoter's family hockshop. Not a pretty picture.

Is it a stretch to say that Stone Cold Steve Austin re-invented himself using Onita's template? I don't think so, the similarities and time-line are just far to compelling to be dismissed.

Hey, this allows me to segue to another resource that comes in very handy for this overall type of discussion, (in addition to some great stuff written by DEAN!, the two Phils and the remaining three Fists in the Face of Wrestling), there is a site called WrestlingClassics.com which features a forum dedicated to discussing the WON in general and the HOF in particular. The archives go back quite some distance and are particularly noteworthy and useful due in large part to the contributions of Steve Yohe  (who is one of if not THE preeminent wrestling historians), John D. Williams, whose overall knowledge base (particularly of 1980s and 1990s Japan) is second to none. His writing style can be be a little dry and pedantic, but I've never encountered a lengthy post by him that wasn't worth reading (and in many cases, saving to my hard-drive), and finally, Frank Jewett, who posted under his real name as well as "BostonIdol". His last couple of years of activity were clouded by a seemingly rabid anti-Meltzer bias, but prior to that he's arguably second only to John D. Williams in knowledge base and by far the smoothest writer to ever seriously write about the subject (and as a professional author, I don't give that one up very easily). 

Anyway, some great work was done there and definitely worth checking out. For that matter, if the Wayback Machine can pull up theOtherArena.com there are a ton of bios written by Steve Yohe that he never got around to cross-posting that are "must reads" on historical figures. Have fun!!!

I'll have to check that out, because although I was a fan from the late 80's, I've never really been that much of a "smart" fan(not using that as a pejorative, mind you), and was never a tape trader either. So outside of WWF, and WCW my knowledge is thin. . . .

[SorceressKnight]

On 6/26/2018 at 12:09 PM, OSJ said:

You're preaching to the choir, Matt. I have to admit that I'm grateful to certain folks on Wrestling Classics for researching box-office and PPV #s, because I damn sure don't want to. That said, as much as I prefer to discuss the aesthetics of wrestling, I can't forget it's a business the goal of which is to separate people from their money. This is why until Brian Danielson got on the national stage he had so little traction in HOF voting. Yeah, anyone like me that SAW him knew they were seeing something really special, but outside the hardcores he remained pretty much unknown (tree, forest, you get the idea).

Things like this is where I think the Gordy List being used has some flaws-  the question of:

Quote

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

...doesn't really work for lower-carder or midcarder performers. Considering the Keltner list question that equivalently goes to it would be:

Quote

3. Was he the best player in baseball at his position? Was he the best player in the league at his position?

And the related one when it was changed to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame one:

Quote

2. Were they ever the best band in pop music in their genre?

 

...when you realize that fact going to play, "position player" and "genre of music" is a world of difference from "weight or gender classes." Something that would work closer to that would be something like:  

"Was [x]  the best performer in their "genre" of wrestling of their time?" 

So, for instance: Were they the best brawler in the business of the time? Were they the best technical wrestler of their time? Were they the best high flier of their time? Were they the best women's wrestler of the time? Were they the best comedy wrestler of the time? And so on, and from there it can go to other levels ("Were they one of the top midcarders of the time? Were they one of the best babyfaces of the time? Were they one of the best heels of the time? Etc.)

 

Indeed, using something trying to make it equal to the Keltner List/the Rock and Roll HOF similar list, a more streamlined "Gordy List" would seem to be:

Quote

1. Were they ever regarded as the best wrestler in the world? Did anybody, while they were active, ever suggest they were the best wrestler in the world?

2. Were they the best wrestler in the promotion they're most well-known for their work in?

3. Were they the best performer in their promotion in their face/heel disposition? Were they the best in their weight/gender class at their face/heel disposition? Were they the best in their nation at their face/heel disposition? Were they the best wrestler in the world at their face/heel disposition? 

4. Were they the best performer in their promotion in their wrestling style? Were they the best in their weight/gender class at their wrestling style? Were they the best in their country at their wrestling style? Were they the best wrestler in the world at their wrestling style?

5. How big an impact did their career make on their wrestling promotion?

6. Were they a good enough performer that they could continue to be a regular national independent star after leaving the WWE and/or top national promotion they peaked in?

7. Are they the very best wrestler who is not in the Hall of Fame?

8. Are most of their wrestling contemporaries who had a similar push in the Hall of Fame?

9. Does their performances/statistics/memorable moments meet Hall of Fame standards?

10. Is there any evidence to suggest the performer was significantly better or worse than is suggested by their kayfabe accomplishments?

11. Are they the best performer at their disposition/class/gender/nation/wrestling style who is eligible for the Hall of Fame who is not in?

12. How many World Titles did they win? Were they ever the World Champion in their promotion? If not, how many major PPVs/big house show events did they main event in their promotion?

13. How many midcard-level/tag team titles did they win? How many titles, in total, did this performer win? Did most of the other performers who won that many titles get in the Hall of Fame?

14. If this performer, in their prime, was the biggest star on a pro wrestling show, would it be likely that show would sell more than 1,000 tickets?

15. What impact did the performer have on wrestling history? Were they responsible for any stylistic changes? Did they invent any new moves? Did they change the sport in any way?

16. Did the performer have any serious scandals to their name that would bring wrestling into disrepute?

 

[Captain Kronos]

On 6/26/2018 at 8:14 AM, OSJ said:

The more tangential argument is a very interesting one. Fargo gets a lot of credit for the Fabs, which MAY have led to the boom in pretty-boy face teams, I say MAY have as very few ideas are wholly original and promoters were looking for ways to draw in the young female demographic (probably after seeing footage of thousands of screaming girls at the AJPW womens' matches). Anyway, without Lane and Keirn would someone else have teamed two good-looking guys up to draw in the ladies? I sort of think it likely, Georgia or Florida being likely spots. Up in WWWF country they were pretty oblivious to the idea.

Over in Dallas, David/Kevin/Kerry may not have been as good looking as the Fabs, but the girls sure acted liked they were. 

Do they pre-date the Fabs?

[Captain Kronos]

4 hours ago, OSJ said:

Anyway, some great work was done there and definitely worth checking out. For that matter, if the Wayback Machine can pull up theOtherArena.com there are a ton of bios written by Steve Yohe that he never got around to cross-posting that are "must reads" on historical figures. Have fun!!!

When I first discovered the IWC around 2007-08, I was fortunate enough to stumble across  the TOA forums early on. JDW's match-by-match explication of the DVDVR 80's WWF set taught me a great deal about 80's wrestling - as well as writing about rasslin in general. I came to fandom later in life, and at the time I didn't know what a rich history there was to discuss. Yohe was also a regular poster back then, too. 

If I hadn't found non-toxic and insightful places like TOA, Classics, and PWO back then, I would have probably been stuck on the ROH forums and quit the hobby after a year or two. 

[Captain Kronos]

2 hours ago, Kuetsar said:

I'll have to check that out, because although I was a fan from the late 80's, I've never really been that much of a "smart" fan(not using that as a pejorative, mind you), and was never a tape trader either. So outside of WWF, and WCW my knowledge is thin. . . .

Many of the FMW commercial tapes from the 90s and early 00s can be found in full on youtube. Like ECW, whose workers they sometimes used, it's not for everyone's taste. But also like ECW, there's good wrestling in there amidst the garbage. (Megumi Kudo vs Combat Toyoda exploding barbwire death match is IMO one of the greatest women's matches of the 90s, in a decade where the Japanese women were doing outstanding work)

[bobholly138]

On 6/26/2018 at 8:56 AM, OSJ said:

I guess nobody wants to talk about Jackie Fargo, I'm just not qualified to really discuss that era of Memphis wrestling and while I know that the Fargos toured all over and were an attraction, they were never THE attraction, so what I'm looking at (unless anyone can chime in with some other positives) is a tag-team guy that was insanely over in his own backyard, but didn't mean much in the greater scheme of things. Have I missed something?

I grew up watching Memphis. But by that time Jackie Fargo was well past his peak. 

[OSJ]

3 hours ago, bobholly138 said:

I grew up watching Memphis. But by that time Jackie Fargo was well past his peak. 

Even so, I'd like to hear your thoughts on what you did see. Back in the tape trading days I did get a couple of VHS tapes purporting to be "great stuff" from Memphis. Among the matches that I remember (and when I remember something from 30-some years ago, that's not always a good thing). Okay , there was a Bruiser Brody vs. Jerry Lawler match and I've made my feelings about Brody known elsewhere. On the other hand, Jerry can flat out work circles around most people when he wants to, or he can put on a performance like this one which consisted of covering up and letting Brody use him as a heavy bag until he had enough... The strap comes down, no ill effects are shown from the ferocious ass-kicking he'd received and he goes full on into punch, punch, kick, Irish whip mode none of which Brody sells. In fact, Brody doesn't sell much at all until Lawler finally hits a magic punch or something and gets Brody to roll out of the ring and get counted out. Just silly-ass crap. Next up we have a deranged Australian midget chasing poor Jerry with a whip. Lawler takes some shots and appears to be in agony, although at no time does the business end of the whip come anywhere near him. As we might expect, the strap comes down, he takes the whip away from the little fella and chases him around with the whip.

I'm about to eject this tape, but u[ next is a tag-team match that looks interesting: Bobby Eaton & Sweet Brown Sugar (Koko B. Ware, before Vince ruined him) vs. Robert Gibson & Steve Keirn... Yeah, this is totally surreal to me, you've got one half of the Fabs teaming with one half of the Rock N' Roll Express. When Steve Keirn in his prime is the weakest link in a match that speaks volumes as to how good the other three guys are. If my friend had just recorded this and left the rest pf the tape blank I'd have been totally cool with it. After all, I was swapping a second generation of (IIRC) 2 full hours of Portland TV from sometime in 1980-1982, so he was going to have to suffer through a Dizzy Hogan match.

Anyway, to my way of thinking, Memphis was really hit or miss, with the misses out numbering the hits. (The second tape has way too much Andy Kaufman vs. Jerry Lawler stuff for my liking as well as a couple of painfully bad matches featuring Tojo Yamamoto, in full degrading, racist heel mode.) Damn, if my guy was insistent on recording one match with a Japanese wrestler to provide a little (a very little) diversity why not record some- thing that's actually good like when Fujinami and Lawler had a half-hour match, (I know there are lots of folk that insist that a great match has to be an hour long, to which I say "bullshit", I've seen plenty of TV title matches with Arn or Tully as champ that were just sublime and those were limited to twenty minutes (though in reality they were often cut down to fifteen minutes).  Anyway, with this initial exposure to Memphis I wasn't sure that I cared to see any more, but a few years later I got an offer I couldn't refuse: a big box of tapes, mostly Memphis and all I had to pay was the shipping cost. Came out to around a buck and a quarter per tape. This guy had just moved in with his SO and seemingly had lost his smile when it came to the rasslin, so I was happy to help out. What struck me almost immediately was how important a figure Jimmy Hart was and on those first two tapes there really isn't much focus on him. Lance Russell talks about Fargo a lot but doesn't really offer much of any substance. 

Yeah, would love to hear your thoughts on Memphis as I respect your opinion and after sitting through 32 tapes over a summer many years ago, the only material that I found myself re-watching was Lawler vs. Fujinami , and I hate to admit it, but I watched the Andy Kaufman stuff over and over.  Kaufman's shtick has held up pretty well over the years, particularly the promo involving soap and a roll of toilet paper... Talk about heel heat, I'm surprised that he didn't get knifed by someone in the crowd. My take is that Memphis occasionally had just absolutely brilliant stuff, but the brilliant stuff was buried in mounds of mediocrity. 

 

[OSJ]

@SorceressKnight

Some very interesting thoughts, as mentioned before, a Gordy List isn't something wherein one totals up points to see whether or not someone belongs in the HOF, but rather a tool to help organize one's thoughts about a candidate. The questions for the most part leave a lot of room for evaluating an individual. For example if we look at "Was X influential"?  By itself that's almost meaningless as there are huge differences in how one may have been influential. For an example, Atsushi Onita is covered in one of my earlier posts, his influence was tremendous. On the other hand, Antonio Inoki was influential, but not in a really good way. His efforts to blend MMA with pro wrestling were by and large, a disaster.  To this day I don't think that Inoki had a really good understanding of how shooting would mesh with worked outcomes and he almost ran NJPW into the ground with this peculiar vision of how he thought this was going to work. To be fair, in the early days of MMA the sport was only a few degrees separated from the "tough guy" competitions and no one really grasped what the sport became. That's why we had so many freak-show fights and other fights built on the concept of one martial art being superior to another. Today if you step in the octagon knowing only one martial art you're going to get your face caved in.

But I digress...  This is going to sound really strange coming from me, but in many cases your questions are so performance-based (ie: "workrate") that the big picture gets obscured. Your first question is only going to apply to the "no-brainer" cases that don't need any discussion. If a wrestler is being discussed as possibly the best in the world and I should stress that there needs to be a little bit of longevity involved. For example, if Brian Danielson retired after wrestling for three  years would he be a HOFr? I would think "certainly not", three years active just isn't enough time.

Question #2 is a bad one. Here's why: Who was the best wrestler in the PNW after Buddy Rose left and before Len Denton (the Grappler) returned. Sad to say there were times when David Sierra (under one of his masks) was and if he and Matt Borne  weren't around, as much as it pains me to say it, Rip Oliver might have been the best and that's really faint praise, because Oliver sucked. A better question might relate to drawing power. 

Question #3 is awfully subjective  and here's the biggest problem with it: A huge part of the equation is drawing ability (putting the meats in the seats eeeef you wheeeeel.) Seriously, when you mention mid-carders and curtain jerkers,  as talented as they may be, these sorts of folks don't belong in a HOF as it is pretty demonstrable that no one bought a ticket specifically to see them. Did you ever buy a ticket to see Mike Jackson  or S.D. Jones? (one of the two is a great worker who made everyone around him seem better, the other is the epitome of mediocrity.) Another thing I don't like about #3 is it ignores the fact that in many promotions the heel/face dynamic didn't exist. For an example, was Volk Han (arguably the best wrestler of my lifetime) a heel or a face? He was neither, that dynamic simply didn't exist in the worked--shoot style he was involved in. The guy that I think is the best overall wrestler in the world today (Tatsuya Naito) is cheered in most cities, but still booed in some. Is he a face or a heel? It depends on where you are in Japan, the really funny thing is that he still does all of his arrogant heel moves, but now he's getting cheered for them. 

Question #4 I'm not picking on you, I'm really not; but I don't like this one. When we start trying to discuss weight classes and styles we are heading down the path of madness. Let's take Finn Balor as an example, what is his style? To me, he's clearly incorporated some of the stuff he did in NJPW into his repertoire in the WWE, however, I'd be hard  pressed to say that he's working "strong style". Now about those weight classes, Balor is a shoot 190 lbs., which makes him lighter than many of the guys on 205 Live, except for the really tiny guys like Tozawa and Brian Kendrick (both of whom are less than 170 lbs.) And what do we do with my favorite WWE wrestler,  Pete Dunne? Pete is either eligible for the main roster or for 205 live depending on what he had for lunch ( "The Bruiserweight is announced as anything from 200 lbs to 208 lbs.) Most importantly, if Satoru Sayama and Dynamite Kid have a ***** and nobody sees it does it mean anything? BTW: Question #14 has a major flaw, 1000 attendees isn't jack. Give me a month (and the budget) to properly promote a show with a bunch of yardtards, and I could sell 1000 tickets. 1000 tickets is as Cornette would call it "an outlaw mudshow"; 5000 and we'll actually be able to cover the rent of the building and pay the wrestlers.

Quesrion #5 You could also simplify this to drawing ability, even with a smaller indy it's easy to see spikes in attendance when certain guys are on the card and dips when they're not. 

Question #6 You could also reverse this question and it would still provide food for thought (think of Ricochet, Nakamura, Pete Dunne, Asuka, Hideo Itami) all were stars elsewhere before coming to McMahonland; I can't be sure, and merchandising probably makes up for it, but I suspect that Nakamura took a pay cut initially. 

Question #7 This is far too subjective. In my opinion, the best wrestler of my lifetime just got dumped off the ballot for not garnering enough votes. (Yes, I am talking about Volk Han).

Question #8 is really a good question to get you crunching numbers and making some comparisons. I'll be the first to say that raw (no pun intended) numbers don't always tell the whole story. Over the last 100 years we've seen that wrestling is a cyclical business with tremendous swings up and down. However, it's usually easy to spot a failed push, (see also: Borden, Steve aka Sting)   The only problem with this question is that due to the cyclical nature of the business the same sort of push can have vastly different impacts on an individual's career (or not). We'd have to say that the guy holding the main title is getting a push, but if we consider the 1980s with the AWA, WCCW, JCP, and WWF, then suddenly we have the likes of Eric Embry and Larry Zbysko (who I actually enjoyed a great deal, but I'm not going to confuse him with a HOFr. 

JCP would always panic and put the strap back on Flair, using other main event or upper mid-card guys as cannon fodder for Flair,  which irritated me no end as I wanted to see Dibiase (pre-Million Dollar Man of course) or Ronnie Garvin have a decent run with the strap, not the abortive nonsense of holding the belt for a month and not defending it. Were I booking, I would have given Garvin six months to a year as champ and instead of Flair just taking the belt back, I'd have had Arn Anderson win it. There you have back to back no nonsense ass-kickers with the added drama of Flair and Arn being best friends. How important is the belt to these guys? Is it worth blowing up a friendship?  You have two of the  most notorious cheaters in the biz, will they wrestle a clean match because they're bros? The easy way out is to have to have a third party take the the strap from Arn as a transitional champ only to drop it to Flair,  but I think that the Flair/Arn scenario would be fun.

This is a great question if you tweak it to looking at the results of a push,  not the push itself. 

Question #9 We just need to defer to drawing ability and overall ring performance (parts a. & b.) as for c., Kevin Sullivan has provided lots of memorable moments, but he's certainly not a HOFr. 

Question #10 Well the poster boy for this question is Hulk Hogan. I remember my buddy, George Mayfield calling me up to shill a new tape that he had featuring Hogan/Mutoh in the main event. This was during the time period that Mutoh would frequently dog it in the ring (lying on the mat for an extended period of time and then suddenly springing into action, as much as I like his overall body of work, I thought that this particular routine sucked mightily and I'm glad he stopped doing it. Based on this I asked George, "Before I send you twenty-five bucks (yeah, tapes were kind of spendy back then) you need to tell me which Mutoh showed up, one of the best in the world or lazy Mutoh." George replied, "Mutoh had his working shoes on but it's not about which Mutoh showed up, it's all about which Hogan showed up!!! He was doing drop-kicks and he rolled out a sweet belly to belly suplex, I've never seen Hogan do so many actual wrestling moves!" Turns out that George wasn't exaggerating at  all. Turns out whenever Hogan wrestled in Japan he was a completely different performer, he could work "strong style" with the best of them. I also had a tape from George where it's Hogan and Stan Hansen just potatoing each other and doing AJPW-style head-dropping stuff. Yeah, Hogan could go when he wanted to.

Questions 11-13: Hate to say it but here we get into the realm of irrelevancy. For example, titles in Mexico don't really mean much, it's all about building feuds to a mask/mask match or hair/hair or even mask/hair. Titles in the WWE have been irrelevant ever since they started hot-shoting them.

Question 14: Addressed this earlier.

Question 15: I'd actually break this one up as there is a lot of food for thought here. The only part I consider irrelevant is that of inventing new moves because then we have to talk about Nova and the Young Bucks and I have no intention of doing so. For parts b. & d. I'd refer you to what I wrote about Onita.

Question 16 : As I said somewhere else: "If we start kicking out drunks, druggies, and general asshats the WON HOF is going to get pretty lonely for Ricky Steamboat." 

Okay, that was fun, but I've got to get some work done now. I need to write introductions for a really sick melodrama by R.R. Ryan and then do the same for a rationalized supernatural novel by his daughter...

 

[Ace]

12 hours ago, Captain Kronos said:

Over in Dallas, David/Kevin/Kerry may not have been as good looking as the Fabs, but the girls sure acted liked they were. 

Do they pre-date the Fabs?

They do. The Fabs debuted in 1982, after David, Kerry, and Kevin were firmly established. 

[username]

I mostly avoid Hall of Fame talk, particularly Observer Hall of Fame talk, but I think there is a flaw in asking the same questions of wrestlers in different eras.  This is probably sacrilege but I almost think the drawing ability question is overstated now that there is one major US promotion that is a juggernaut.  Unless you are John Cena a huge portion of the biggest names in the industry will get no credit for drawing anything and will have it held against them because they happen to work for the biggest promotion the industry has ever seen as opposed to a much smaller one.  We could adapt it to focus on merch more but that feels like a flawed metric to over-rely on (it is probably worth noting as a supporting consideration in a few cases). 

Basically if the way both the industry and the hall of fame are currently organized means that working in the top promotion does more to hurt your candidacy than help it that feels like a situation where reality is not being properly reflected.  If you want to rely on drawing power when looking at people who wrestled in a given era than so be it, but I think for this millennia once WCW and I guess ECW went under it feels less relevant for those working in the US.

[Niners Fan in CT]

Is Dave still pretending like midcard fodder were more a draw than Sting was?  The guy who is partially the reason for the nWo angle being so hot 

[SorceressKnight]

9 hours ago, OSJ said:

 

On most of the things you said, and trying to quote each one in this for the counterpoints (italicized due to the board's weirdness...)

 

But I digress...  This is going to sound really strange coming from me, but in many cases your questions are so performance-based (ie: "workrate") that the big picture gets obscured. Your first question is only going to apply to the "no-brainer" cases that don't need any discussion. If a wrestler is being discussed as possibly the best in the world and I should stress that there needs to be a little bit of longevity involved. For example, if Brian Danielson retired after wrestling for three  years would he be a HOFr? I would think "certainly not", three years active just isn't enough time.

Question 1...again, it's pretty much going to be the no-brainers who fit there. If there's some consensus that one person is the best in the world, even for a relatively short time, they'd probably make the Hall of Fame. In the baseball Hall of Fame, Sandy Koufax only really had a 10 year career, but you would be absurd to kick him out of the Hall for that. In wrestling examples, The Rock had a very short career, but he was the biggest star in wrestling history.

Question #2 is a bad one. Here's why: Who was the best wrestler in the PNW after Buddy Rose left and before Len Denton (the Grappler) returned. Sad to say there were times when David Sierra (under one of his masks) was and if he and Matt Borne  weren't around, as much as it pains me to say it, Rip Oliver might have been the best and that's really faint praise, because Oliver sucked. A better question might relate to drawing power. 

Drawing power is a good example there, but the big problem is that in pro wrestling, even a drawing power-based question can be subjective and wouldn't be perfect either. Here's why: We're discussing Jackie Fargo and, from his influence,  Jerry Lawler for his work in Memphis. Jerry Lawler was a very good face...but Memphis was always a good territory in wrestling...until Andy Kaufman showed up and his work made everyone in America take notice of what was going on in Memphis due to his celebrity. Same for Wrestlemania bringing Mr. T and Cyndi Lauper, or later Mike Tyson, onto the show and getting people to take notice, or WCW bringing Dennis Rodman or other celebrities in.  By the "in ring quality" thing, maybe Rip Oliver has a bit of a case due to that question...but by the "drawing power" category, suddenly every celebrity who wrestled in a show has a bit of a case as well. (Ideally, the real answer is that it's in the middle- and I'd argue that "best in the promotion" considers both "the workrate" and "their drawing power.")  

Question #3 is awfully subjective  and here's the biggest problem with it: A huge part of the equation is drawing ability (putting the meats in the seats eeeef you wheeeeel.) Seriously, when you mention mid-carders and curtain jerkers,  as talented as they may be, these sorts of folks don't belong in a HOF as it is pretty demonstrable that no one bought a ticket specifically to see them. Did you ever buy a ticket to see Mike Jackson  or S.D. Jones? (one of the two is a great worker who made everyone around him seem better, the other is the epitome of mediocrity.) Another thing I don't like about #3 is it ignores the fact that in many promotions the heel/face dynamic didn't exist. For an example, was Volk Han (arguably the best wrestler of my lifetime) a heel or a face? He was neither, that dynamic simply didn't exist in the worked--shoot style he was involved in. The guy that I think is the best overall wrestler in the world today (Tatsuya Naito) is cheered in most cities, but still booed in some. Is he a face or a heel? It depends on where you are in Japan, the really funny thing is that he still does all of his arrogant heel moves, but now he's getting cheered for them. 

Honestly, this is one place where I'd argue that the WWE Hall of Fame is BETTER than the WON Hall of Fame in this regard- simply because WWE's Hall of Fame accounts for people like midcarders, curtain-jerkers, and other aspects of the business being very important to the sport as well, not just the main event players. In sports entertainment, you can't ignore the contributions the underneath guys make just because they're underneath guys- heck, we just went over Arn Anderson's HOF credentials, but as we established Anderson was the prototypical midcarder, under this argument, Anderson shouldn't have sniffed the HOF or (at best) been a Frankie Frisch special.

As far as face vs. heel dynamic, even if worked-shoot promotions didn't use face/heel dynamics, or the face/heel regard is shrinking due to fans getting too smart for their own good, face/heel is always going to be important. If someone was the best hero in the sport or the best villain in the sport, that has to be accounted for as well.

Question #4 I'm not picking on you, I'm really not; but I don't like this one. When we start trying to discuss weight classes and styles we are heading down the path of madness. Let's take Finn Balor as an example, what is his style? To me, he's clearly incorporated some of the stuff he did in NJPW into his repertoire in the WWE, however, I'd be hard  pressed to say that he's working "strong style". Now about those weight classes, Balor is a shoot 190 lbs., which makes him lighter than many of the guys on 205 Live, except for the really tiny guys like Tozawa and Brian Kendrick (both of whom are less than 170 lbs.) And what do we do with my favorite WWE wrestler,  Pete Dunne? Pete is either eligible for the main roster or for 205 live depending on what he had for lunch ( "The Bruiserweight is announced as anything from 200 lbs to 208 lbs.) Most importantly, if Satoru Sayama and Dynamite Kid have a ***** and nobody sees it does it mean anything? 

On the opposite side, I think that if it is a path of madness, to determine the best wrestler, you kind of HAVE to go down that path of madness- because honestly, if you aren't willing to compare based on their wrestling style, then it is kind of comparing apples to oranges. If Ricochet, for example, is in the discussion as "best high-flier alive"...compare him to, say, Zack Sabre Jr. (in the discussion for "best technical wrestler alive"), if the question is: "Who's BETTER?" ...then after a while, it really boils down to personal preference. But if you compare, say, Ricochet to Mustafa Ali, another good high flier, then suddenly you have a better question of "who the better high-flier is", and who's more deserving there.

Quesrion #5 You could also simplify this to drawing ability, even with a smaller indy it's easy to see spikes in attendance when certain guys are on the card and dips when they're not. 

Again, it's the same problem with drawing ability, even with spikes in attendance. With smaller indies, it pretty much is skewed to national, likely WWE-talent. A smaller indy will likely see a spike in attendance if a WWE castoff- even a failed WWE castoff- comes to town...but it also can't be "you worked WWE, you have a HOF position waiting for you."

Question #6 You could also reverse this question and it would still provide food for thought (think of Ricochet, Nakamura, Pete Dunne, Asuka, Hideo Itami) all were stars elsewhere before coming to McMahonland; I can't be sure, and merchandising probably makes up for it, but I suspect that Nakamura took a pay cut initially. 

Absolutely it requires food for thought, but then you get into the same issue of "is a midcarder equally worthy of a HOF spot?" that goes when it's purely drawing value. Heck, sometimes the question actively napalms their HOF chances (we saw it with Sin Cara, but you can argue KENTA would have had a Hall of Fame career if he stayed in Japan, but with his injury-prone NXT run leading him to be "just" a 205 Live guy, Hideo Itami lost his HOF potential from it.) 

Question #7 This is far too subjective. In my opinion, the best wrestler of my lifetime just got dumped off the ballot for not garnering enough votes. (Yes, I am talking about Volk Han).

Again, it's subjective- but it was still even on the original Gordy list as a question mark there.

Question #9 We just need to defer to drawing ability and overall ring performance (parts a. & b.) as for c., Kevin Sullivan has provided lots of memorable moments, but he's certainly not a HOFr. 

That would be a question mark by timing as well. In the modern (post-Monday Night Wars) era of wrestling, memorable moments is equal to drawing ability and ring performances in its own way. Kevin Sullivan may not have been a HOFer in the 1980s...but if Sullivan was doing what he did in Florida in the '80s in ECW in the 1990s- then suddenly he's Raven with more of an edge, and suddenly he has a place in the discussion- maybe not a surefire HOFer, but at least worthy of a Gordy List of his own.

Question #10 Well the poster boy for this question is Hulk Hogan. I remember my buddy, George Mayfield calling me up to shill a new tape that he had featuring Hogan/Mutoh in the main event. This was during the time period that Mutoh would frequently dog it in the ring (lying on the mat for an extended period of time and then suddenly springing into action, as much as I like his overall body of work, I thought that this particular routine sucked mightily and I'm glad he stopped doing it. Based on this I asked George, "Before I send you twenty-five bucks (yeah, tapes were kind of spendy back then) you need to tell me which Mutoh showed up, one of the best in the world or lazy Mutoh." George replied, "Mutoh had his working shoes on but it's not about which Mutoh showed up, it's all about which Hogan showed up!!! He was doing drop-kicks and he rolled out a sweet belly to belly suplex, I've never seen Hogan do so many actual wrestling moves!" Turns out that George wasn't exaggerating at  all. Turns out whenever Hogan wrestled in Japan he was a completely different performer, he could work "strong style" with the best of them. I also had a tape from George where it's Hogan and Stan Hansen just potatoing each other and doing AJPW-style head-dropping stuff. Yeah, Hogan could go when he wanted to.

That exact thing is going to make a LOT of interesting debates as the indy stars who made it to WWE end up making the ballot- in almost all cases, even the ones who seem to be flopping in WWE have enough of a track record on the indies to say "they're better than their WWE run indicates."

Questions 11-13: Hate to say it but here we get into the realm of irrelevancy. For example, titles in Mexico don't really mean much, it's all about building feuds to a mask/mask match or hair/hair or even mask/hair. Titles in the WWE have been irrelevant ever since they started hot-shoting them.

For 11, the same issue would go above when it's comparing people from different styles of wrestling, different dispositions, etc., so it's the same argument. For 12-13, though, there is almost a case where you can't have it both ways: A major part of saying "drawing value matters more than inring work" would have to also consider kayfabe accomplishments when you're dictating someone's HOF credibility (and just using titles doesn't mean that, say, Lucha de Apuestas don't have equal standing for an argument like this.) When kayfabe accomplishments have to be used, titles (or victories in Apuestas matches) have to be considered...and even if WWE hotshots titles sometimes, by and large title victories still matter for WWE. Well, outside of blips in the universe like the Hardcore Championship, which led guys like Crash Holly (who would have NO CHANCE at a HOF induction) would suddenly have a stat gaudy enough where you could state a case for them.

Question 14: Addressed this earlier. (Copied and lowered: BTW: Question #14 has a major flaw, 1000 attendees isn't jack. Give me a month (and the budget) to properly promote a show with a bunch of yardtards, and I could sell 1000 tickets. 1000 tickets is as Cornette would call it "an outlaw mudshow"; 5000 and we'll actually be able to cover the rent of the building and pay the wrestlers.

Again, this is the whole problem of the modern era...the concept of 14 has a case, it's just that the exact wording would have a problem. Something similar to the Keltner "If this guy was the best player on the team, do you have a chance at winning the pennant?" is viable to account for drawing value, but there doesn't seem to be a good equivalent. The best otherwise I can think of is "If you run a show with this wrestler as the best worker on the card, will the show make money?" or some wording similar to it would be there.

Question 16 : As I said somewhere else: "If we start kicking out drunks, druggies, and general asshats the WON HOF is going to get pretty lonely for Ricky Steamboat." 

Well, that's why I tries to change the wording for the "bringing the sport into disrepute" a bit, since wrestling is built on drunks, druggies, and general asshats"...but then, not all asshattery is created equal. You'd be hardpressed to say, for example, that what Big Cass did to get fired was in the league of what Enzo Amore did to get fired, or that Shawn Michaels being a drug addict and a general asshat were in the same league as what Chris Benoit had done.

 

 

[Brian Fowler]

I assume Konnan is a voter as well.

[Ryan]

Interestingly, I get 10 ballots. Am I lying? I won't tell.

[OSJ]

On 6/30/2018 at 5:45 PM, Ryan said:

Interestingly, I get 10 ballots. Am I lying? I won't tell.

Oh, I believe you! Dave has trouble with these new-fangled things like e-mail. Was much more streamlined when we voters would just line up outside Yohe's garage and take our turns dropping brightly-colored pebbles into the appropriately-labelled piles. Lent a certain gravitas to the whole proceeding.

[thee Reverend Axl Future]

My goofy relationship with the interWeb is that I am mostly a lurker/consumer, with no desire to debate or share with strangers, and even here in thee confines of DVDVRbbs I still prefer to absorb others observations opinions and views, and I often feel like putting in my $.02 could skew the discussion and also I am lazy. However, OSJ has just gone above and beyond with this topic (and the SMIchaels marks have moved on (trigger warning: SM vs. Flair retirement match is in my top 25, I am a complex man), so I feel moved to add several disjointed but sagacious thoughts into this here mix.

 The WON HoF is really really good, mostly because of all the hard work put into it, as well as the transparency of it's voting process. Rassling is a difficult subject to be objective about, and a HoF brings this right up to thee surface:

   - Meltzer has a really heavy influence on his readers, both (overtly) in his opinions and (subliminally) in what gets featured. My first WON was the Bruiser Brody death issue. I remember wrapping in $5 bills in notebook paper, the ink feathered with beer drips like some damned Bukowski/nerd lowlife, limericks about DC Drake adjacent to my latest address and requests for "more Cactus Jack coverage, less Lucha spot show results, be nicer to Dusty". Oy. Thee mighty ChokeHold zine (Lance Levine was/is such a smartie) once ran a piece on  how to read the WON ("skip over the MMA section, scan the totally worked results parts for indy shows you were at and laugh at the attendance figure that DM dutifully printed..."). Even reading the soberest , most centrist journalism requires knowledge of the context and an active filter on the part of the reader, and DM, Giant Baba bless his heart, is no journalist. Pro wrestling newsletters are no place for journalists, RASSLING IS ABOUT EMOTION and that means opinion and prejudices and imprinting from when you were a shaver watching with your grandma/seeing your first Japanese third-gen ladies VHS tape/getting worked for drinks by Sandman (and loving it).

   - So you are a smartsmartysmart mark and maybe even have taken some college courses or read some Sontag or McLuhan or GMarcus or even RICHARD Meltzer (very applicable to this here thread) so you can decode the palimpsest of thee holy WON itself and be unswayed, and you can parse your own emotional attachments/revulsions (this is why grown menfolk defend the ringwork of The Anabolic Warrior, I guess) nevertheless you are still hampered by what wrestling you have access to. Back in the day (see $5 humblebrag anecdote, above) you had an excuse even if you were the most dedicated of tape traders AND lived in a major (but not too urban/e area) AND had the right cable TV, but even today's YouTubez/streaming/digital/restored/thee Vault of Vince era can merely make one realize what is missing. I dig how Melzer is trying to slice up the votes to give weight to thee nonAmerikan promotions and the historical figures of the past, but c'mon if you haven't actually sought it out AND watched it and liked it, you are not voting for it. 

   - Thee crazy wrestlings is loco, there are so many factors involved that even an intelligent litmus like the Gordy Test cannot take it all in. Workers are in thrall to bookers who are getting paid by a promotion, you can get de-pushed these days because you aren't using the InstaSnapChatGramTwit as well as some other goon, or maybe the announcers have a hard-on for football players, or maybe you are getting over with the gimmick that was supposed to sink you... Your veteran voters are marks for tough guys, yeah, but some like the hookers and some like the shooters and some like the barfighters. You are a vet and that fellow that you knew in the lockerroom who always paid for the first case of beer is up for a vote but maybe to the wrestling journalist (ecch) he's just a carpenter who never put enuff asses in seats.

   - Remember those super big year end WON editions, like portrait legal size paper with these gnarly staples and pastel covers that the HoF results used to get published in? They really need to get collected, there was some random stuff in them, and pictures! In fact, some modern archivist & scholar needs to do a history and analysis of all the years of thee WON HoF (OSJ, I am looking at you), NOT DM (the syntax, yow), work with him and reprint the old results and such, and add some commentary and hindsight and perspective, now there's a history of thee (modern) biz and the fandom surrounding it. The hard work of tabulation is done, so an overview would be fabulous.

   - Here is an intriguing exercise:  pick your own favorite as-of-yet-unenshrined wrestler, and justify to why s/he deserves to be in, work backwards if you will. Use your emotional responses, or try to be coldly analytical about it. Maybe you have similar-minded friends who will tolerate your viewpoint, and augment it or even debate you in a civil manner. Or, you could post your opinion on the interWeb and watch your hatred for humanity grow.

- RAF

(for thee kids) ---  tl;dr - nice job, OSJohn!

[OSJ]

Okay, with my buddy Steve Yohe's permission, I've dragged his bio of Bearcat Wright over here for discussion. The case is a bit of a strange one as none of us were around to see Wright wrestle. Well, I was, but I would have been a little kid, not exactly the best source of information. The big negatives all center around his "bad attitude", his double cross of Blassie in LA and similar stuff. 

I've often said that one thing to look at seriously when discussing a potential HOFr in whatever sport is what did their contemporaries say about them during the time.  I have little use for reminiscences years after the fact as it's pretty much a given that in the case of jocks, the older they get the better they were and this extends to their contemporaries. However, when it comes to a bunch of white guys talking about a black man in the early 1960s, I'm taking the grain of salt approach. That said, here's Mr. Yohe's excellent work:

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

This is one fact that can't be disputed....he was the 2nd best black wrestler of his era...until Rock...his only competition was Bobo Brazil....and Bobo was a no brainer who went in on the first ballot without a argument. And Wright was a better worker than Bobo. Brazil had a great look & a huge style. Wright earned his stasis by his work. So why is it so hard for #2 to get in, when #1 doesn't even need to be thought about. 

There in no doubt that he was used terribly in Minneapolis & Winnipeg early in his career. While he got a nice push in Honolulu & Australia (1953)....he came home to be jobbed for years in Minneapolis. Doing his recorded it just pissed me off. Everybody does jobs when your starting out...that is a given...but it's hard to job a guy who is 6' 7". Losing to 5 8" guys in hard to explain. The move would have been to job him some & then moved him out to someone looking for a big guy. There were a lot of killer heels in the 50's (Kowalski, Kiniski, Von Erich, Miller,) who needed a big face to work with. But the Stechers (Dennis ?) kept him around for years as a jobber. 

Minneapolis had to have been one of the worst places for a black to work. When the owner of the Washington Senators was trying to move to Minneapolis, a reporters in the city ask him why he wanted to move to their town. He said, in 1960, "there are only 15,000 Negros in your city". What Black guys did Verne Gagne push? Not even Bobo.

Getting stuck there jobbing, when he had talent & had been pushed in other territories with good results, probably drove him nuts. A black guy arguing with a white boss probably wasn't a good thing in the 50's. I can see why this treatment stuck with Wright & maybe that's why he fought for everything he got. And maybe created his reputation. Some of that is earned, but how much is unknown.

Another thing that can't be disputed, (maybe I see this because my back ground is Los Angeles)....no one can write an article or story about Wright...without all the negative stuff that was outside the ring...and in most it leads off the story. I'm not saying it's all untrue...but it's stuff from the 1950's to 1970's from white people about a strong willed black. Bruiser Brody & Shawn Michaels had terrible reputations.....and there are others. And it didn't stop them.

Yes he refused to give the WWA Title back to Blassie & it killed the territory for a long time. Killed the glory period of Blassie, Carpentier, & Destroyer. But the was the end of 1963, with the death of a President and the very peak of the civil rights moment. He was the first major black World Champion, and he had to have had great pressure to keep it, so.... A smart promoter would have worked with him (he was a huge draw) & just pushed the title change back until he was cooling off. Getting all upset, sending Gene LeBell out to assault him, and breaking KF and getting the business exposed on TV....was a bad move. Not smart. Then after driving him out, Jules Strongbow spent years trying to find another black wrestler to replace him. That wasn't resolved until they got Bobo Brazil to work full time. Strongbow even brought Wright back three times. The Destroyer ( who was a white guy under that mask) refused to job & unmask to Hercules Cortez & let to Portland. Did they send LeBell after Dick? No...they brought him back & made him world champ two more times. But Beyer wasn't black...was he? 

I think the territory went dead, not because of the double-cross, but because the fans lost the hero they were into and supporting. And they also got lied to by the promotion on TV, when they knew the truth.

Strongbow & the others were & are great guys. Mike LeBell maybe had problems. But The Olympic, in my believe, wasn't a racist place. But in the early 60's a intelligent black worker standing up to a white boss....would most likely get a bad reaction....from just about any white boss. In my mind Wright should get credit for standing up. Wright probably knew he couldn't get away with stuff that whites could.....and he did what he felt was right.

I don't know if everything he did was right or not....or if he was a good guy....it's just not enough to keep him out of the WON Hall of Fame.

Another thing you have to look at is that a major babyface didn't have many places to go where he could be the long term #1 in a territory. Bruno & Rocca had NYC, Carpentier had Montreal, Thesz had St Louis, Pepper Gomez has SF & Texas, Snyder & Bruiser had Indianapolis, Ilio had Buffalo, Baba & Inoki had Japan, etc. Heels could also turn face & be very good in those positions. For a major black wrestler in those years....you had to rule out everything in the South (until the 1970's---both Brazil & Wright stayed away from there). For Wright he lost NYC & more important Washington DC...then Detroit....to Bobo Brazil. 

You just couldn't be good....you had to find a spot. I think Bearcat Wright thought Los Angeles was going to be his city. And it looked good...until.

Another point I want to get to....Wright was never going to drop the title to Ed Carpentier. So he never refused to drop the title to him. Faces didn't drop titles to face in 1963. I was there, the match had draw written all over it. If Carpentier was going to get the title, he'd have beaten Blassie early in the year. That was not a good match & Ed had been in a car accident & didn't look his self. The third Blassie/Wright match at the Olympic had been pulled back because of the reaction to Bearcat. First they pull Varga in with him & then Carpentier...and waited for the right time for the third Blassie/ Wright match & the title change (the booking style was doing every thing in three's). The Carpentier match was just entertaining "fill". Dave keeps telling this story in the Observer & it upset's me...because it's wrong. It's in Blassie's book, but Blassie got everything wrong about the Wright period & I can prove it ....with logic. In 1963, Jeff Walton was just a fan, so he really doesn't know either. 

Ok...Wright's working style. I think he was a great worker & today's fans may not get it from the few films we have. So I worry. He had a unorthodox style...that's why he was popular. He was playing a wrestling Harlem Globetrotter, and it was over with white fans. He had long arms & legs but weight 260 pounds with no fat. I think he quit boxing because in the 1960's no expert in boxing thought a tall boxer could fight. They were said to lack stamina & couldn't take a punch. Ali was a big heavyweight at 6' 3" & 220. Ernie Terell was a freak & rare but not fun to watch. But as a wrestler, I think the only major star bigger than him was Sky Hi Lee. (Who is kind of forgotten at 6' 9".) In Australia they billed Wright as the tallest wrestler to ever come to the Island. So Wright was only a step below the Andre or Baba position in pro wrestling in 1953. Anyone taller was a freak who didn't last long. Wright could move & did flying moves very well. He had a corkscrew leg scissors, that I've only seen done by some lucha guys today. He had dropkicks & did Carpentier's flips and had the Rogers figure 4. He gimmick was defensive wrestling. Like Rubberman Johnny Walker, he would slip out of every hold & the heels would go nuts complaining he was greeced. Had better headbuts than Brazil and his slaps looked better than Rikidozan's chops. I think he was great, but there is no one else in wrestling history with the same style or moves. To me he passed that test without question. It's why he liked by fans...he was really different.

So I could go on, but I get the feeling that the voting period is about over. I don't think he is a no brainer like famous long term stars like Londos, Stecher, Bruno, Gagne, Thesz, Baba, Inoki, Rogers, Blassie etc. But he fits the bill. He deserves a spot more that Murdoch, Taue, Sakaguchi, Masa Saito, and all the other considered borderline, and he is very important historically because of wrestling's race issue. Should go in.

[twiztor]

i have never seen a Bearcat Wright match, but have heard the name mentioned along other all-time greats.  what was the story with the double cross?

[OSJ]

2 hours ago, twiztor said:

i have never seen a Bearcat Wright match, but have heard the name mentioned along other all-time greats.  what was the story with the double cross?

Basically having lost several spots on the East Coast to the remarkably untalented but popular Bobo Brazil, Wright came out west and LA was going to be "his". Of course, he was asked to put over Fred Blassie and objected strenuously should we say...  That local reports said he was being "uppity", is about all you need to know of the rightness of his case. We like to think all the racist asshats in the 1950s & 1960s were in the Deep South, sadly, not at all true. We had plenty on the West Coast (still do) ;-(

[OSJ]