2013 Pro Wrestling Thread

Vince and Bruno have been at odds for years, I think back to the steroid trial. Actually, Bruno has vowed not to be a part of anything WWE; I think he has been asked to join the HOF, but is adamant he won't accept it.

 

It goes way back even before the steroid trial. Supposedly after his first title reign, Bruno didn't want the belt back because he liked the easier schedule. Bruno also turned down an opportunity in the late 60s to unify the WWWF belt with the NWA title by beating Thesz, because it would have cost him one of the two days off he had each month. Business was down with Morales as champion, so Vince Sr. asked Bruno to hold the belt again, and promised it would only be for a year so he could groom another champion.

Bruno agreed, but shows were drawing again and Vince Sr. didn't want to end the run, so it ended up being three years despite Bruno constantly wanting to drop the belt, especially after Hansen hurt his neck. Finally, Bruno gave an ultimatum, Vince Sr. agreed, set his sights on Backlund, then decided to groom Bob for a year and had Graham win the belt. So that was one thing that pissed Bruno off.

Then there was the whole thing with the Zbyszko storyline, which Larry goes into fun detail in his book. Bruno, and later Larry, played hardball with the Vinces over money with it.

Then Vince Jr. promised Bruno that he would give David a big push, if Bruno came out of retirement to bolster the non-Hogan shows. Bruno agreed, but David never got the push, and Bruno felt majorly slighted.

After that came the steroids stuff, which disgusted Bruno who hated Vince by the time the trial began. And Bruno hated how Vince made the industry into a more hokey style.

 

But just like Bonds, Clemens and Sosa in baseball, what they did was within the rules at the time.

 

Even if you assume the Ultimate Warrior was clean, which seems like a silly thing to do, he was only champion from April 1990 to January 1991. From there, he retired Savage and had a feud with the Undertaker, but by October 1991 he was gone from the company. He returned in April 1992 to save Hogan from Sid Justice and Papa Shango, but was gone again by November 1992.

Since he debuted in October 1987, that's a pretty short run, at least considering at the time weekly TV and PPVs were so much less frequent. Also, the rumor was that business was tanking with Warrior as champion instead of Hogan, which is why the belt was taken off him and moved to Sgt. Slaughter and then back to Hogan. If anything, he's probably only famous in the way that Buster Douglas was famous, in that he beat the most unstoppable force in their business at the time but then petered out.

 

So Taz is with the Aces & Eights ... riveting.

 

Even if you view him as a flash in the pan (which he probably was), if you look at the Hall of Fame as a way to tell the history of the WWE and wrestling in general, Ultimate Warrior certainly has a place there.
Hell, if Koko B. Ware is a hall of famer, the Ultimate Warrior ought to be.

 

At what point, though, does the Hall of Fame just become a place for anybody who worked, say five great years, or 10 good years, or 20 years with some staying power? Not trying to knock the value of a long career, because it is every bit as difficult to reach WWE as it is to reach the highest level in professional sports, but do you devalue your hall of fame by opening the doors to mid-carders and wrestlers who never actually worked a day for your company?

(And yes, the fact that there is no physical hall of fame lends no credence to that point. WWE really should just develop a physical hall at or near Titan Towers, make it a sort of tourist magnet, like the ESPN campus but with more public access. Charge $20 or $30 to get in, have a museum ... Actually, how has Vince not moved forward with this idea?)

 

Koko B. Ware's induction should never be compared to anyone else's, for the same reason Pete Rose's shouldn't.

They're what makes the WWE Hall of Fame a joke. And comparing anyone to them makes those people a joke.

Warrior? No. He wasn't around long enough, on top long enough, horrible interview (one of the worst ever), and a cancer in the locker room.

 

OHB: No idea why there isn't a physical Hall of Fame yet, great point. WWE wastes plenty of money on things like Linda McMahon's campaign runs and that 24/7 TV network they keep trying to get off the ground, but they don't have a couple million for a Hall of Fame? It would probably pay for itself after five years.

 

Shane said in an interview before he left (so maybe 2008ish) that they had been keeping and indexing memorabilia in case they ever had a physical Hall, which they hoped to do someday.

The challenge is probably location and then overhead cost....employees and upkeep and so forth. Should pay for itself but then WWF New York failed....I imagine they'll build an HOF when they next "boom" cycle hits.

 

If anything, I think the other sports Hall of Fames have proven that you should just build it somewhere where the real estate is cheap, and the people will come. Also, you could probably then spin the event off from Wrestlemania, and get two "guaranteed sellout" events instead of one. (i.e. Have a Hall of Fame ceremony a week or two or even months after Mania that will sell out with a small wrestling event to accompany it, and the night before Mania, just switch that to some other event, maybe a "State of the Industry" speech and night with Vince, Triple H, Stephanie, etc.)

 

The thing also with a physical HOF is, for wrestling, is there really isn't much that you can display. A lot of pictures, wrestler plaques, some old robes and trunks, a stuffed Frankie, the odd bent steel chair.

Although one cool idea would be to build a Hell in a Cell, and let fans stand at the top (with a railing) and look down at a sample Spanish announcers table so they can see how far Foley fell. Either that, or put a ton of pads around it and let people throw themselves off