NintendoLogic

Yeah, Austin had plenty of great matches in 2001 alone. He wasn't a standout singles wrestler in WCW at all.

Cena has a history of wrapping himself in the overness of others to shield himself from the crowd's wrath. It really pissed me off when he name-dropped Eddy Guerrero in Chicago some time ago to get the crowd off his back.

At least he was properly embarrassed and apologetic when confronted with the error. Just kidding:

This sounds horrifying.

So why didn't New York experience the same decline in business that other parts of the country experienced? Was the WWWF title just that over? Or did Backlund bring something to the table? Or was it Bruno still being in the de facto main event? I'm not trying to be a smartass, I'm genuinely curious as to what people think. I wasn't talking about Dory.

Wasn't business down in a lot of areas in the late 70s?

Human nature. Which is why public ballots should be mandatory for things like this-to disincentivize that kind of behavior. If you're unwilling or unable to defend your selections (or non-selections), you have no business having a ballot.

Bad Influence did the same thing a couple of months ago. But it happened in TNA, so it didn't really happen.

I've always had it set to EST, and it's never been an issue until today. I just had to set it to Kaliningrad time.

Never.

I've decided that it's time to expand my US wrestling horizons beyond WWE. As far as WWE's biggest competition goes, TNA is a dumpster fire and ROH has been strip-mined of anything of value, so they're out of the question. Fortunately, there are plenty of indy promotions with TV that upload their shows onto Youtube or whatever. The only problem is that there are so many, I don't quite know where to begin. I've heard good things about Traditional Championship Wrestling and Championship Wrestling From Hollywood. What else is worth checking out? Again, I'm looking for complete episodes, not just clips of matches and promos.

Better than Backlund: Owen, Pillman, Austin, Bret, Jumbo, Tito, Tully, Regal Backlund is better: Angle, Race, Rude, Hall I could go either way on HHH. I will admit that I might not be giving Backlund a fair shake because I have such a visceral negative reaction to him. The way he walks with his ass sticking out and his "whoa-oa-oa" bullshit annoy the hell out of me.

People really thought Bryan was going over at HIAC?

So wrestlers voted for Angle because he won a gold medal and sucked up to the right people? Are you guys serious?

Can't it be that they genuinely think Angle is a historically great worker? Why do we have to bend over backwards to come up with alternate explanations?

Looks like it was Angle's peers who really put him over the top. How should this be interpreted?

Someone on this board has to have a copy of the 2004 HOF issue of the Observer. I want to get to the bottom of this.

He was over enough to win BOSJ.

Seems like an easy way to test this hypothesis would be to look at the vote totals. Did Angle do significantly better among current and former wrestlers than among reporters and historians? Also, for the record, Angle got in with exactly the bare minimum of necessary votes in 2004. I don't know where this notion that he got elected in a cakewalk came from. Old wrestlers always talk up Angle. Always. It always bugs me when Bret does it, since it's pretty hypocritical relative to his comments about Flair. I'm looking for data, not anecdotes.

Seems like an easy way to test this hypothesis would be to look at the vote totals. Did Angle do significantly better among current and former wrestlers than among reporters and historians? Also, for the record, Angle got in with exactly the bare minimum of necessary votes in 2004. I don't know where this notion that he got elected in a cakewalk came from.

Not at all. I'm trying to make an apples to apples comparison. I think both guys are elite workers, and I would grade their peak output as roughly equal. In that case, you have to draw the line further down, and I think versatility is as good a place as any. And yes, I recognize that I'm an outlier when it comes to Dandy's brawling abilities.

By this rationale, Ultimo Dragon was a better worker than El Dandy. Only if you thought they were roughly equal in every other respect. I don't really consider getting over in more places reflective of versatility. El Dandy displayed an amazing versatility just within lucha libre. It's not just getting over in more places. It's getting over in places with completely different styles. Black Tiger is pretty far removed from Latino Heat. It should be noted that I consider Dandy to be a rather mediocre brawler. Why didn't Tanahashi main event TNA ppvs? This might be a legitimate question if AJ Styles was a main eventer in New Japan.

Could Dandy have gotten over as a New Japan junior or a WWE main event heavyweight? For that matter, why couldn't he make it past jobber status in WCW?

I don't know if this is a fair comparison because of the huge disparity in available footage. It's much easier to poke holes in Eddy's work because there's so much of him on tape. Dandy's career isn't nearly as well documented. That aside, I'll go with Eddy due to his ability to get over in a wider variety of environments incorporating a wider variety of styles.

Does anyone doubt that Angle would've gotten in as soon as he was eligible under the new criteria?