NintendoLogic Posted October 16, 2017 Report Share Posted October 16, 2017 It surprises me that Don Owen is probably falling off the ballot completely. I get Portland was never the top territory, but it had several periods of being really hot and Owen was, next to Jerry Jarrett, the last of the territorial promoters to fold up the tent It's disappointing how much the smaller territories get written off, by Dave especially, for not drawing huge crowds when they didn't have the population bases to do so anyway. Having a successful money making promotion for decades is impressive even if your biggest arena could only hold 3,000-4,000 instead of 10,000. Memorial Coliseum held way more than 4,000. So did Key Arena. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted October 16, 2017 Report Share Posted October 16, 2017 To be fair, the further away we get from the territory era the more people write them off. It usually comes down to a combination either "in the end, X promoter lost to Vince so they can't be HOF worthy" which disqualifies everyone who ever promoted wrestling in North America from the dawn of time until the 90s except the Lutteroth family, or not understanding the context of how big a draw a promotion was in a given area. A place like Portland has the added handicap of not having a ton of footage available and what does exist is usually multiple gen copies of stuff stored in Buddy's garage or wherever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted October 16, 2017 Report Share Posted October 16, 2017 It surprises me that Don Owen is probably falling off the ballot completely. I get Portland was never the top territory, but it had several periods of being really hot and Owen was, next to Jerry Jarrett, the last of the territorial promoters to fold up the tent It's disappointing how much the smaller territories get written off, by Dave especially, for not drawing huge crowds when they didn't have the population bases to do so anyway. Having a successful money making promotion for decades is impressive even if your biggest arena could only hold 3,000-4,000 instead of 10,000. Memorial Coliseum held way more than 4,000. So did Key Arena. Sure but those weren't their regular venues for Portland and Seattle like MSG was for WWF or Mid-South Coliseum was for Memphis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Jackson Posted October 16, 2017 Report Share Posted October 16, 2017 There is actually a fair bit of Portland out there in decent quality from the early 80s. The late 70s is mostly the Rose footage, but it's not all in poor quality. I would say Portland's main handicaps are it wasn't a well publicized territory during the peak of the mags and thus not seen as important by many, and the idea of a successful territory built around Buddy Rose, who many only know from his late jobbery period, likely doesn't give it prestige in a lot of fans eyes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted October 16, 2017 Report Share Posted October 16, 2017 It surprises me that Don Owen is probably falling off the ballot completely. I get Portland was never the top territory, but it had several periods of being really hot and Owen was, next to Jerry Jarrett, the last of the territorial promoters to fold up the tent It's disappointing how much the smaller territories get written off, by Dave especially, for not drawing huge crowds when they didn't have the population bases to do so anyway. Having a successful money making promotion for decades is impressive even if your biggest arena could only hold 3,000-4,000 instead of 10,000. Memorial Coliseum held way more than 4,000. So did Key Arena. Sure but those weren't their regular venues for Portland and Seattle like MSG was for WWF or Mid-South Coliseum was for Memphis. They would have been if Owen could have turned a profit running them. At least, that's what I imagine Dave would say. This is pretty much just speculation on my part, but I get the impression that Dave doesn't consider being consistently profitable in an era when the NWA cartel protected promoters from any real competition to be much of an accomplishment. I think he expects HOF-caliber promoters to run big shows at big arenas, or at the very least greatly expand business from where it had been. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shakla Posted October 16, 2017 Report Share Posted October 16, 2017 Putting Chyna in the non-wrestler category is a rather curious decision. Have Arn and Tully ever been on the ballot as a tag team before? It's probably the closest we'll come to having the Four Horsemen on the ballot, so they should get in. Chyna was on last year and barely got 10%. Arn was on the ballot as a solo about 10 years ago. (http://wrestlingclassics.com/.ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=7;t=000499) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dewar Posted October 17, 2017 Report Share Posted October 17, 2017 Tully and Arn did not even make it three full years as a team. That should be an easy no vote. If I had a ballot.... I FOLLOWED THE HISTORICAL PERFORMERS ERA CANDIDATES Sputnik Monroe I FOLLOWED THE MODERN PERFORMERS IN U.S/CANADA CANDIDATES Junkyard Dog I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN MEXICO CANDIDATES Cien Caras Karloff Lagarde L.A. Park Villano III I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN EUROPE Big Daddy NON-WRESTLERS Bill Apter Jimmy Hart Jerry Jarrett Don Owen Stanley Weston Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dkookypunk43 Posted October 17, 2017 Report Share Posted October 17, 2017 If I had a ballot, this is how I'd vote I FOLLOWED THE MODERN PERFORMERS IN U.S/CANADA CANDIDATES Edge C.M. Punk A.J. Styles I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN JAPAN CANDIDATES Jun Akiyama Cima NON-WRESTLERS Jimmy Hart Howard Finkel Jerry Jarrett Don Owen George Scott Stanley Weston Justifications Edge: Very good career, drew as Cena's foil for many years and was consistent in the ring CM Punk: A candidate that has a strong case for influence alone and I feel that influence of being the indy guy in the grand scheme of things changed how WWE attacks those indy and international names when it comes to signing and packaging them. In ring, his WWE stuff holds up better than his actual indy run and draw I think being the number one merchandise seller for long periods of time constitutes people wanting to see you. AJ Styles: A pure in ring candidate and that alone if you actually watch all of his matches from different promotions, he is so overwhelmingly good. Jun Akiyama: The in ring alone makes Akiyama a slam dunk and if you add the other two criteria he saved All Japan from the dead and drew the biggest non New Japan Tokyo Dome house, yeah he's the most obvious candidate on the list. CIMA- The Dragon Gate influence is huge here, he's changed the way Japanese juniors are viewed as stars and influenced a great in ring style. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Posted October 18, 2017 Report Share Posted October 18, 2017 I've gone on about this before, but the ballot is just way too crowded. Dave models his HOF off of baseball, which gives voters 10 selections max. The problem is that Baseball's Hall ballot typically carries about 32 candidates. The Observer ballot has 74. So the ballot ends up in practice working out like baseball in 1945 where 95 different candidates got votes, 56 of them future Hall of Famers, and the Hall elected no one. If I had a vote, I would game the ballot. Pick a category where there is a need for more inductees (Mexico), and use all ten selections in that category. It makes it more likely to get someone inducted. Not ideal, but it's the way the system is designed. Brazos Cien Caras Karloff Lagarde Huracan Ramirez Los Misioneros Villano III Blue Panther L.A. Park Mistico/Carastico Dr. Wagner Jr. The top six are clear. The latter four I feel comfortable with as candidates, but I expressly choose based on their prior voting patterns. Panther in particular had 50% last year. Electing him clears him from the ballot. NON-WRESTLERS Jim Crockett Jr. Jimmy Hart Howard Finkel Don Owen Jerry Jarrett Crockett took a regional promotion and made it into a second national promotion. He failed in the end against Vince, but EVERYONE failed against Vince. Hart is the best managerial candidate. Finkel was the best ring announcer, and Jimmy Lennon being in creates a precident for inducting announcers. Owen promoted nearly 50 years successfully. Jarrett, he held up alongside Vince longer than any other promoter. With Heyman in and others like Hisashi Shinma, I don't think the promoting bar is particularly high. ------------- All that said, thoughts on the ballot/candidates themselves... HISTORICAL There are a few candidates I really like in this group. Mr. Wrestling II should be in and others like Morales, Wright, Torres I wouldn't go out of my way to push, but they would look right in a Hall of Fame. The trouble to me is if you had to rank this group 1-20, you would have a hard time coming to a consensus on the middle 15. That really makes it hard for any individual candidate to garner support. MODERN What would the Hall look like if you broke it down by decade of birth? Unknown: 1 (Francisco Flores) 1840s: 1 1850s: 1 1860s: 2 1870s: 5 1880s: 4 1890s: 11 1900s: 16 1910s: 21 1920s: 32 1930s: 22 1940s: 28 1950s: 31 1960s: 37 1970s: 9 1980s: 2 There's a spike in the 1920s (television golden era) and the 1960s had the most Hall of Famers born. It seems to me that either a lot more candidates from the current era will get elected, or wrestling fell off a cliff. Business-wise wrestling faltered, but is the quality of wrestler that much lower? I would suggest that Edge, Orton, Punk, Stratus and Styles may need to be evaluated by a different standard. JAPAN Not knowledgeable enough, except to say that the Sharpes should be in. How many tag teams would the Hall of Fame have ideally? MEXICO See above. Mexico is underrepresented, they need more inductees. MISCELLANEOUS Almost impossible to set a standard. King Curtis is in. Which of these guys were better? Lewin and Arion were good enough in their prime to also headline MSG. EUROPE Big Daddy. He was 47 years old when he became a star babyface in the UK. How many wrestlers are in the Hall of Fame who were shit wrestlers in their 40s? Was Daddy that much worse than Dick the Bruiser, or the Sheik? Or Martin Karadagian? When you've chosen the star of Titans of the Ring it's hard to hold realism against Big Daddy. From the rest, I'm inclined to like Otto Wanz for the same reasons. Star value trumps workrate to me as a (theoretical) voter. Pallo is probably most deserving of the rest. NON-WRESTLERS See above. The only bookers in the Hall of Fame are those who were also main event wrestlers, so I see little hope for George Scott, Blears, etc. There are no writers in so that makes life tough for Apter and Weston. I can see a case for Apter but I'd rather see the actual workers in first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Boricua Posted October 18, 2017 Report Share Posted October 18, 2017 Dave's lobbying pretty hard on the board for Big Daddy to not be inducted. Says only North Americans who never saw him in context in Britain think he should be in. I find that very difficult to believe. Big Daddy is the only wrestler I think most people here over the age of 35 have heard of other than Hulk Hogan. As opposed to North Americans who I'm not sure saw him in context lobbying for him not to go in? With Don Owen, he ran smaller buildings, but didn't he own them? Did that yield a better profit for him? I fi were running a business and could make more with less people I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Which of the non-wrestlers are modern and which are historical? I always get confused with that a vote for a non-wrestler counts as a vote in the specific era pool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Liska Posted October 18, 2017 Report Share Posted October 18, 2017 I really want Jerry Jarrett in this thing. When you combine the financial succes with artistic success, it's such a no brainer to me. Maybe Lance's passing will remind people of how special that TV show was and the numbers it did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted October 18, 2017 Report Share Posted October 18, 2017 IIRC one of the issues with Jerry Jarrett getting in was him having a bad rep for being a poor payoff guy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Liska Posted October 18, 2017 Report Share Posted October 18, 2017 IIRC one of the issues with Jerry Jarrett getting in was him having a bad rep for being a poor payoff guy. That will hurt with the old wrestlers vote but shouldn't matter otherwise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted October 18, 2017 Report Share Posted October 18, 2017 Dave's lobbying pretty hard on the board for Big Daddy to not be inducted. Says only North Americans who never saw him in context in Britain think he should be in. I find that very difficult to believe. Big Daddy is the only wrestler I think most people here over the age of 35 have heard of other than Hulk Hogan. As opposed to North Americans who I'm not sure saw him in context lobbying for him not to go in? To my knowledge, there are no North Americans with ballots who vote in the Europe category solely to vote against Daddy, while there are several who do that for him. Other European wrestlers end up getting screwed because the ones who vote for him and only him drive down everyone else's percentages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimmas Posted October 18, 2017 Report Share Posted October 18, 2017 If I had a ballot post. I FOLLOWED THE MODERN PERFORMERS IN U.S/CANADA CANDIDATES Junkyard Dog I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN JAPAN CANDIDATES Akira Taue I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN MEXICO CANDIDATES Brazo de Oro & Brazo de Plata & El Brazo Sangre Chicana Cien Caras Blue Panther Huracan Ramirez El Signo & El Texano & Negro Navarro Villano III Dr. Wagner Jr. NON-WRESTLERS Bill Apter Jimmy Hart Jerry Jarrett Don Owen Stanley Weston Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eduardo Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 IIRC one of the issues with Jerry Jarrett getting in was him having a bad rep for being a poor payoff guy. Pretty ironic considering that Paul Heyman committed wage theft for years and how lightly that is treated in the WON and among internet circles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 So if Junkyard Dog ever gets voted in, what are the odds his HOF bio is just Dave calling him a fat tub of shit for 3 pages? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Liska Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 So if Junkyard Dog ever gets voted in, what are the odds his HOF bio is just Dave calling him a fat tub of shit for 3 pages? Dave actually shared an odd story on the Observer board about how JYD thought the Junkfood Dog name was funny and would crack up about it when he saw a friend of Dave and he would bring it up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fando Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 Dave's JYD obit that made the Tributes book is one of his best pieces Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 IIRC one of the issues with Jerry Jarrett getting in was him having a bad rep for being a poor payoff guy. And yet Paul Heyman got in as a promoter. *Oh I see someone beat me to it but it's worth saying twice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 Not excusing it but one difference is that Heyman frequently was broke and trying to handwave it away, Jarrett had the money and seemingly just didn't want to pay guys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 Not excusing it but one difference is that Heyman frequently was broke and trying to handwave it away, Jarrett had the money and seemingly just didn't want to pay guys. Doesn't one of those things make someone a better promoter than the other? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eduardo Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 If you can't pay your workers, don't contract them for work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 Well not paying guys makes both kinda shitty IMO. Paul was in a place where his company needed TV and PPV revenue to compete that Jerry never really was. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeg Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 I FOLLOWED THE HISTORICAL PERFORMERS ERA CANDIDATES Red Bastien June Byers Wild Bull Curry Cowboy Bob Ellis Don Fargo Pepper Gomez Archie "Mongolian Stomper" Gouldie Chavo Guerrero Sr. Dick Hutton Rocky Johnson Sputnik Monroe Pedro Morales Blackjack Mulligan George Steele John Tolos Enrique Torres Von Brauners & Saul Weingeroff Johnny "Mr. Wrestling II" Walker Tim "Mr. Wrestling" Woods Bearcat Wright I FOLLOWED THE MODERN PERFORMERS IN U.S/CANADA CANDIDATES Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson w/J.J. Dillon Junkyard Dog Edge Bill Goldberg Curt Hennig Randy Orton C.M. Punk Sgt. Slaughter Trish Stratus A.J. Styles Kerry Von Erich Ultimate Warrior I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN JAPAN CANDIDATES Jun Akiyama Cima Yoshiaki Fujiwara Hayabusa Kota Ibushi Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan Yuji Nagata Tetsuya Naito Mike & Ben Sharpe Minoru Suzuki Kiyoshi Tamura Akira Taue I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN MEXICO CANDIDATES Brazo de Oro & Brazo de Plata & El Brazo Caristico/Mistico Sangre Chicana Cien Caras Ultimo Guerrero Ruben Juarez Karloff Lagarde Blue Panther L.A. Park Huracan Ramirez El Signo & El Texano & Negro Navarro Vampiro Villano III Dr. Wagner Jr. I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND/PACIFIC ISLANDS/AFRICA CANDIDATES Spyros Arion Johnny Barend Domenic DeNucci Killer Karl Kox Mark Lewin Mario Milano Steve Rickard I FOLLOWED WRESTLING IN EUROPE Big Daddy Horst Hoffman Billy Joyce Kendo Nagasaki Jackie Pallo Rollerball Mark Rocco Johny Saint Ricky Starr Otto Wanz NON-WRESTLERS Bill Apter Lord James Blears Dave Brown Chyna Jim Crockett Jr. Jim Crockett Sr. Gary Hart Jimmy Hart Howard Finkel Ed Francis Jerry Jarrett Larry Matysik Don Owen George Scott Stanley Weston heres my how my ballot is shaping up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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