Al

The Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame is (I believe) 25 years into a career. I don't think that is an unreasonable alternative. The only problem is that it would cause a gap in time between guys who were inducted early and guys who would have to wait. Maybe that would be helped by focusing on '60s-80s stars who were overlooked.

A lot of times it is good to wait because you really need perspective on a wrestler's career. From a publicity standpoint it also helps to stretch out your inductees a bit. It is generally bad for a Hall of Fame to go a year or several years without inductees. It absolutely kills interest.

I feel like Andre the Giant is possibly in the discussion somewhere. Worked more sparingly so he doesn't qualify as a consistent draw. But his numbers working alongside Hogan are virtually untouchable.

Well there's one guy he's mentioned a couple times, forget his name though.

Specifically, check out the table on the left: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/foot...+Top+Stories%29 Besides the NFL strike, the competition from the USFL blew up the salary structure as players saw how much more valuable they would be on an open market. The median NFL salary increased fivefold from 1980-90. The top stars almost always made more in football than wrestling, at least as long as data existed. But in the '80s the least of the NFL players started making more than top wrestlers. That really killed wrestling's athlete pool, IMO.

Yeah, I was just thinking that myself.

The closest guy is Vader, but he probably isn't a Hall of Famer without his accomplishments in Japan.

I don't think the decades were altogether that different. In 1970s WWWF, former '60s stars like Killer Kowalski, Gorilla Monsoon, Baron Scicluna, and Bobo Brazil jobbed often to newer stars. In the '80s it was Chief Strongbow, Ivan Putski. In the '90s it was Tito Santana. This decade it was Goldust. It's a natural progression of wrestling.

Fred Blassie's autobiography talks about the match. He was Ali's "manager" for the match.

I'm sold on Patera as a candidate.

The Fingerpoke of Doom was certainly memorable. Nash as a candidate is interesting, because he was hugely influential if nothing else. Hall is a big NO primarily because he became such a liability in a hurry.

Valentine and Beefcake first teamed in January '85, though it appears to be more of a thrown together tag than a steady feud. Beefcake was already being managed by Johnny Valiant then. In February of '85, Valentine picked up Jimmy Hart as a manager. Valentine and Beefcake started teaming regularly shortly after Wrestlemania, with Hart managing Valentine and Valiant managing Beefcake (hence "Dream Team"). At some point Hart was dropped from the group. Couldn't help but notice this result while looking through Graham's site: WWF IC Champion Greg Valentine (w/ Jimmy Hart) defeated Jim Londos via submission with the figure-4 A jobber named Jim Londos? That's some chutzpa.

I think the independent contractor stuff is a non-starter, honestly. A healthy portion of the Republican party regards job benefits as "job killing regulations." It seems like every corporation tries to squeeze as much as it can from its workforce and no one bats an eye.

Last I checked, Tom Corbett was still governor of Pennsylvania

From what I understand, politics in Minnesota is far different from in the Northeast. Minnesota also elected Al Franken to its Senate.

Here in Pennsylvania, Tom Smith spent $17 million of his own money on a Senate race and fell nine percent short.

Once a month is too often. Bi-annual would work better, IMO.

Bobby Heenan. The problem is that you can't run a heel of that type in the ring very often.

I'm probably in a minority in thinking their biggest problem is not their booking, but simply that they lost a LOT of top level talent. Austin and Rock retired, Undertaker is virtually tired, Triple H is semi-retired (actually, that makes it better), Batista is gone, Eddie Guerrero died, etc. Wrestling simply hasn't produced the top level talent to replace them. Now, a lot of that does fall on WWE's shoulders. But there's no one else right now really producing top talent in wrestling, and you just can't replace someone of Steve Austin's caliber.

Then obviously my previous source had incomplete information.

I didn't vote in the poll, but if I had an argument for the '70s it's that most of the footage I haven't seen, and it's therefore fresh.

Something I noticed about Sting. His first NWA title run was generally considered a failure, as I understand it. Here is a record of Sting's opponents in 1990. http://www.wrestling-titles.com/nwa/world/...atches1990.html 31 defenses against Ric Flair, one against Sid Vicious and one against Al Perez as the Black Scorpion. I don't know all the details, but how in the hell can someone draw when they're programmed for five months against an opponent whose money match was already blown off on PPV?

Oddly I wasn't really aware of that aspect of Blatnick. I just knew him as the early UFC announcer, and from there as former Olympic Gold medalist. He beat Hodgkin's disease to win a gold medal. Even though I stopped following UFC after about show 15, Blatnick's story stuck with me.

I just got this book in the mail today. I love Oliver and Johnson's series of books. It's fantastic to read in depth about wrestlers and territories that weren't well known.

In 1985 there were far less places to work than in say, 1978. And the financial incentive to work WWF was so much better than other promotions, for the most part. As far as which was better, the main event/one place guys probably made the most money. But there are only a few of those spots available. So for a wrestler who doesn't have that steady spot but can make money in Japan, that's obviously a better course of action for them. Some guys like Abdullah couldn't work one place for an extended period of time without losing their aura. Terry Funk is a case of someone who probably wasn't comfortable wrestling full time at that stage.