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Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame

AOD

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In the spirit of the WWE Hall of Fame, and my post in that thread, I created this thread for people to suggest other inductees to an industry wide HOF.

To review, here are my suggestions:

Lou Thesz: Led the National Wrestling Alliance during it's reign as the "big times" in the industry. Multi-time NWA World Champion, and trainer to many who are already in the WWE Hall of Fame, and others who belong in the Hall.

Billy Robinson: See above. Robinson and Thesz both helped bring the industry to it's first big peak in the fifties. Robinson, likewise, is also responsible for the training of many of the now legendary people we've already been inducting into the HOF.

Bruiser Brody: One of the first men to exemplify "hardcore" wrestling. A brawler in the truest sense of the word, his matches were always brutal, yet entertaining.

Antonio Inoki: Japan's "Hulk Hogan" and "Vince McMahon" rolled into one. He's so popular in his own county, he was elected to serve in their government. With Giant Baba, helped Japanese wrestling explode, leading to the huge industry that exists today. Still owner/CEO of All Japan Pro Wrestling.

Jyushin "Thunder" Lyger: Without Lyger, many of the smaller wrestlers around the world would be doing high cross bodys and missle dropkicks as their main offence. Between himself and Ultimo Dragon, the "cruiserweight" or "junior heavyweight" styles of wrestling gained many different moves that are now standard.

Ultimo Dragon: See above. Holder of 12 titles simultaneously, including the original WWF Junior Heavyweight Title (as part of the J Crown).

Gory Guerrero: Responsible for not only former WWE Champion Eddie, and multi-time WWE Cruiserweight Champion Chavo (grandfather and great-grandfather, respectively) but for many moves used by some of the current legends of lucha libre wrestling.

Hayabusa: Package Mick Foley into a cruiserweight's body, and you have the incredible Hayabusa. The only man who could truly give Jyushin Lyger a run for his money at both of their peaks. Hayabusa (or "H" as he was later known, without the mask) helped bring Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling (FMW) to the forefront of Japanese professional wrestling.

Ted Turner: (yes, Ted Turner) ... if Ted Turner had never bought Jim Crockett Promotions and turned it into WCW, we wouldn't have had the Monday Night Wars that helped spur the industry's boom in the mid to late 90s. His bank account was responsible for allowing WCW to sign many of it's top stars.

Paul Heyman: (Moh, Derek, John, don't say it) ... Paul Heyman helped usher in the "Attitude" era of wrestling with Extreme Championship Wrestling. Almost every major star in this business over the last 10 years spent at least some time in ECW. An amazing eye for talent, and a creative genius to rival Vince McMahon (maybe that's why Vince keeps firing him, then hiring him back) helped usher in some of today's household names.

I also agree with Derek's suggestion of the Road Warriors/Legion of Doom, who are arguably the most successful tag team in the history of professional wrestling, The Dudley's included. Not measured by titles alone, The Road Warriors defined tag team wrestling. Which brings me to my last suggestion ...

The Midnight Express and The Rock and Roll Express: Both teams deserve to be inducted for the same reason. Many of this era's most successful tag teams (America's Most Wanted, Edge and Christian, The Hardy Boyz, The Rockers, The Dudley Boyz, The Hart Foundation) learned tag team chemistry from these two teams. Never in the history of professional wrestling, with the sole exception of the Road Warriors/LOD, have teams worked as well together.
 

SamuelRoundtree

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Well, you do bring up some interesting points as far as your inductions go. Some of your inductions into a "Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame" are warranted. Some of them on the other hand should be inducted for other reasons.

First off, Hayabusa and Bruiser Brody, while accomplished in their respective territories were victimized by their surroundings. Bruiser Brody did have great matches against people like Abdullah and the original Sheik, but had extreme difficulty in adapting to other styles. The true greats of the industry were able to have great matches/feuds with different people crossing different style boundaries. Hayabusa comes from a land where you could find things like "C-4" in the dictionary. Most japanese wrestlers aside from Liger and Dragon have that "need to bleed" mentality which takes away from the quality of their actual matches. To support my theory, see Mick Foley. He claims his best match was against HBK at Mind Games. He rarely mentions the King of the Death match tournament in areas outside of the books.

Next, Ted Turner. In my opinion him and his wallet belong in the celebrity wing of the HOF. Creatively, he offered NOTHING to the Monday Night Wars. People like Bischoff, Dusty and the others with the hands on ability, helped create the Monday Night Wars. I believe the one thing that would have made the Monday Night Wars better would have been the Crocketts. They ran the promotion in a McMahon-esque type of vain. The Great American Bash wasn't just a one night PPV. It was a series of shows that put the NWA/WCW on the map. Those shows gave fans what they wanted on a broader scale. While Bischoff turned the volume to 11, Crockett had more speakers. I believe if the Crocketts had the finances to work with a guy like Eric Bischoff, WCW may still be alive.

Finally,so this rant doesn't go longer than it has to. I have to discuss Paul E.

The illegitmate love child of professional wrestling offered a great on screen personality. Paul E. Dangerously was probably one of the top 10 talkers in NWA/WCW for a long time. Even back in the AWA, Paul had great on screen presence. The problem is Paul Heyman represents everything we as "smart, informed wrestling fans" think we are capable of. He could book a card well and come up with some good ideas. The problem was he didn't have that "X" factor that puts him over the top. Yes, a good portion of today's superstars did spend time in ECW, Paul couldn't give them the opportunity to grow characters like Vince or even Eric did. The only person I can think of that took the time to develop a strong character might have been Austin. The only reason Austin left their for Stanford is that his personality was bigger than the bingo hall. GIve credit to Paul for being the 3rd option. But in some ways ECW was almost a jacked-up OVW. While Paul does offer a lot to the business, I do not see him ever being in a Hall of Fame.

For the record, there is essentially a pro wrestling hall of fame in New Jersey, it's not recognized as such, but Cauliflower Alley acts as such.

Just my opinion Adam, that's all...
 

TD_Walker

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Just a note about Inoki and his serving in public office.

Atsushi Onita and Hiroshi Hase also served.


James
 

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