.png)
For the last three autumns, I have written about the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame and the ballot and when the results come out around late November/early December I'll write about them and forensically analyse the percentages for the third year running.
It's a role that I've enjoyed. It has gotten me a guest spot on Voices of Wrestling annual ballot look on their Patreon, Dave Meltzer, the founder and proprietor of the Observer and it's Hall of Fame has retweeted my work and praised it, which is still a moment that is unfathomable to me. Also, to have people that I respect greatly DM to praise me on my work means a lot.
It's fair to say that I like the Observer Hall of Fame. I like the debate it generates in the month of October. I enjoy doing the research and learning about names I had little knowledge of before. The Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame got me into a deep dive into Central European wrestling in the 60’s while looking at the career of Jose Tarres.
But also in my years of looking at the Observer Hall of Fame, I have realised that while the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame isn't broken, if you put it under a MOT, it might have more ticks in the orange column than you might want it to have.
But to talk about the Observer Hall of Fame, we need to talk another Hall of Fame of one of the 4 big sports in the USA.
The Baseball Hall of Fame is the place that symbolises the pantheon of “America's Favourite Pastime”. It's where your career in the Major League gets showcased in Cooperstown where the physical HOF complex was built.
The Baseball Writers' Association of America is the group that votes for who gets inducted. The rules of induction see players on a final ballot typically including 25–40 candidates with each writer that may vote for up to 10 players; until the late 1950s, voters were advised to cast votes for the maximum 10 candidates. Any player named on 75% or more of all ballots cast is elected. A player who is named on fewer than 5% of ballots is dropped from future elections.
Sound familiar?
Yes, the Observer Hall of Fame was based on the Baseball Hall of Fame but if you think the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame has faults, the Baseball version is doing the Usher “Watch This” meme before the of the first syllable of you saying the word fault
Voters have consistently bar one person (Mariano Rivera) in the Baseball HOF’s history failed to unanimously induct a player in the first year on the battle no matter who it is. Even Willie Mays got 93%. Writers have refused to vote for any player that played in the era where steroids were prevalent with one refusing to vote for Mike Piazza, a man accused but not proved to have taken steroids because he had acne, which is a side effect of taking steroids (I guess I was taking steroids when I was 14 then) and of course the biggest current controversy of the Baseball Hall of Fame, the question of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemons and their inability to get inducted thanks to their association with PED’s.
Without turning this into a “should Barry and Roger be inducted in the Baseball HOF” debate (although I do find it hypocritical that the commissioner of the steroid era, Bud Selig, got inducted at the first attempt) the fact that issues like this and the ones mentioned in the previous paragraph show that put under a MOT, the Baseball Hall of Fame, a fail is very obvious. You can see countless videos on YouTube and articles on the Internet about the failures of the Baseball HOF.
But what of the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame. While it isn't the recognised industry HOF with a lack of induction ceremony or physical award, to many it is the pantheon for this thing we all love (is it obvious I'm one of those people) and October in the smart fan circle once again was the season to be all debatey about the who gets inducted so it's obvious that the institution that Dave Meltzer thought up on a plane heading to Japan to cover the 1996 G1 is doing alright but what does it need to do make sure it does end up like the basket case that the Baseball HOF has become.
The Ballot and it's size
93 names make up the ballot for the 2024 edition of the Observer HOF. Compare that to the 79 that made up the ballot in 2019 and it looks big and bigger than it should but when you look at the ballot in 2020 and the fact it was 100 names that were on the ballot that year, this isn’t a freak occurrence. In 2020, there were 25 new names on said ballot with 12 of them finishing under the 10% line.
A friend once told me that the point of history is to learn from it but with the 21 new or returning names on this years ballot and what percentage of those are taken off the ballot being one of the intriguing points of the results to come, if the final percentage is 50% or more it’s a sign that Dave hasn’t learnt from history.
With 7 of the 21 being inserted into Modern US/Canada, making into a section that has 22 which to be fair is less than the 29 it has been on occasion since US/Canada got split into Modern and Historical, it’s understandable why this is the case. New entrants into any Hall of Fame ballot in any sport are always likely to come from those that had just entered eligibility, which in this case is 15 years from their debut and in The Usos, Samoa Joe, Bray Wyatt, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn and Cody Rhodes, they are names which peak curiosity in how they place in history from Cody finishing his story to The Usos stake as the best working tag team in WWE history to SamiKO being the best independent workers in America for a period of time. But is the mass of humanity in Modern US creating a logjam that ensures that we haven’t had an induction from the Modern/US category (if we’re not counting Non-Wrestlers) since AJ Styles in 2017. While the reason for the 6 years of drought from Modern US/Canada might due to other things (we’ll talk about that in the next two sections) the fact that 10 people in the 10-30% range on the ballot from Modern US/Canada means that the amount of options of options for voters can be seen as hindrance to people getting inducted from that category.
It could be worse though. 15 out of the 20 names in Historical are in the 10-30% range. When you hear the words clutter in association with the ballot, it’s association with Modern US/Canada inadvertently ignores Historical and with a total of 46 names in that 10-30 range from all buckets in the ballot but more than 50% of those names coming from US/Canada, things fell very static from both US/Canada groups compared to the sections away from the west.
Bad voting
As mentioned at the top of the article, bad voting is a prominent feature of the Baseball HOF and unfortunately it's threatening to become a feature of the Observer HOF.
The most obvious cases of this come in the induction and non-induction of Bill Apter and Stanley Weston.
Bill Apter, the famous editor of PWI most famous quote is “don't call them the Apter mags”, only just ahead of him going on Talk Is Jericho and telling him that Chris Benoit and his family were murdered by outside forces (even Chris Jericho thought that was a conspiracy theory too far)
The reason that Bill asks us not to call them the Apter mags is that Apter was just working for Stanley Weston and his empire of magazines which as well as other wrestling mags such as Wrestling Revenue also included boxing magazines with Stanley eventually buying The Ring in the eighties.
Bill’s voice and personality was a driving factor of his voteshare getting over the 60% threshold but Stanley Weston’s back catalogue and his pioneering contribution to what was the biggest form of wrestling media until the newsletter explosion in the late 80s is undeniable. Heck, Stanley is in the Boxing Hall of Fame. So why is it that Stanley Weston’s voteshare has gone down in the years after Bill’s induction.
Anyone who understands the history of wrestling media will understand that it just seems weird that Stanley’s percentage has gone down. It's like if Larry Matyisck got inducted and Sam Muchnick didn't and Sam gets a decrease in voteshare in the years after Larry is inducted. (credit to Ethan Tyler for the comparison on VoW Hall of Fame special)
Whether Stanley Weston should be a Observer Hall of Famer is the base of a good debate about the role of wrestling media in the history of pro wrestling but to have the brains behind the empire not in and the face in and the brains less likely every year to get in is just weird.
One quirk of the Observer Hall of Fame is that unlike the Pro Football, Baseball or NASCAR Hall of Fames, there isn't a period of time between a players retirement and an entry to the ballot, 5 years in the three cases I mentioned above.
Obviously with wrestling being wrestling, retirement is as uncertain as me looking at a menu at an Italian restaurant and with wrestlers deciding to long into their lives before actually calling it a day, the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame understandably cedes away from the “5 year rule” Had Meltzer stuck with what Baseball does, Ric Flair would have entered the ballot in 2016, Terry Funk in 2022 and Jerry Lawler would only entered in 2029 which feels weird in all 3 cases who were in Dave’s original handpicked class in 1996 but the quirk of the Observer HOF being able to induct active acts has its flaws.
The last person to be inducted from the Modern US/Canada section was AJ Styles in 2017. Since then Japan and Mexico have had 11 inducted from their sections, seven from Non-Wrestlers, two from International and Historical have inducted 3 (with all three being last year) and while of the 34 inducted from 2018 onwards, 12 are still active, the likes of Yuji Nagata and Jun Akiyama are in the twilight of their career. Kota Ibushi was thought to be done as a full–time wrestler when voted in in 2022, Mistico, Ultimo Guerrero, La Parka and Blue Panther are products of the Mexican Block and Kenny Omega/Kazuchika Okada are Top 10 wrestlers of all time. Gedo is the mastermind of one of the great eras of NJPW and Tomohiro Ishii is Ishii. But why has Modern US/Canada failed to produce any inductees, especially people that are active.
In my research for my pieces looking at the ballot over the years, listening to others talk about the ballot on various podcasts/articles, a theme of “it’s too early to judge them” comes across from people. The question that comes with statements like that are “is it really too early to judge the Young Bucks after 15 years of a back catalogue of matches”
While the “it’s too early to judge” culture might have come from Shinsuke Nakamura’s induction in 2015 and the years after which saw Shinsuke barely get past third gear after his move to WWE, should others be punished for that feeling that Nakamura was inducted too early?
While the framework of HOF season has and always will be about debate and what makes a bad candidate for one person might be “should be a Hall of Famer” for another, I'm almost a firm believer that with the privilege of getting a Hall of Fame vote comes the great responsibility associated with it. I think that was what Peter Parker was getting at with his mission statement of being Spider-Man and it's irresponsible to look at people that have had Hall of Fame careers by the time they hit the 15 year Mark of their career and go “is it too early?”
While it's completely understandable why voters shy away from selecting wrestlers from the Mexico category because their pool of knowledge hasn't reached the Lucha scene with its array of archival footage only just expanding thanks to the likes of Roy Lucier and in that case, they don't want to spoil the vote share of that category, hence why the Mexican Block being the Mexican Block is so vital for the Observer HOF, if they are being good voters then people that vote in a category without researching can be classified as bad ones.
Voters that vote for a wrestler based solely on what they achieved in the category they are in can also be classified as bad voters. It can be easily argued that what got Kenny Omega over the line in terms of induction in 2020 was that he took part in a MOTY in that year in a promotion that was outside the jurisdiction of the Japan category he was in and if he had managed to not get above the threshold that year his 2021 in AEW and Impact would have catapulted over that line so to solely judge him for the work he did in Japan would have been an act of negligence which thankfully was avoided because they are more good voters than bad. But those bad voters seem stuck in one particular voting bucket.
Retired Wrestlers
I’ll lay my cards on the table, I think the Young Bucks should get inducted into the Hall of Fame (was that obvious from the previous chapter) In my Ballot review, I went to the lengths to state that due to precedent that I believe that the Jacksons would get inducted. In the week after the article escaped from my Google Docs, I was told that I was being optimistic in that belief and those people telling me that were pro-Bucks people.
So why is there so much pessimism about the Bucks and their chances?
The voting masses are separated by four sections. Historians, Reporters, Active Wrestlers and Retired Wrestlers. As the headline of this chapter gives away, we are going to talk about Retired Wrestlers.
When looking at the results of the 2023 HOF the Bucks were conspicuous by their absence in the Retired Wrestlers rankings while being in the Top 30 for the other three. I’m guessing the reason Retired Wrestlers didn’t feature The Young Bucks was that those Retired Wrestlers don’t feel it’s too early to judge active wrestlers
Oh
While it’s easy to mock the fact that Randy Orton was No.1 in the placings for Retired Wrestlers last year it’s when you scroll down and see that only one act that had a career from 1986 onwards in that Top 30 had never wrestled in WWE which is Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima (I’m a Tencozy guy but really?)
In 2022, only one Mexico candidate placed with Retired Wrestlers which was Mistico.
In 2021, 26 of the Top 30 in Retired Wrestlers came in Historical and Modern US/Canada and one of the 4 that wasn’t was Kazuchika Okada who ranked first in all 4 voting sections, the only time in the 17 years that the 4 voting bases placings were published.
In 2020, while Kenny Omega ranked 8th amongst Historians, 1st in Reporters and 7th in Active Wrestlers, he didn’t place in Retired Wrestler while Stephanie McMahon placed in 29th
In those last 4 years, Randy Orton placed in the top 12 in Retired Wrestlers each year.
The feeling from Retired Wrestlers is that you only be a made man when it comes to the Observer HOF if you have made it in New York and with two acts with completely different trajectories in their careers in Roman Reigns and The Young Bucks in the fifties in percentage voteshare and Reigns having ranked in the Top 20 in all 4 voting categories, when someone told me that “Reigns is getting in” in my DM’s post my Ballot review article, you think that person slipped into my DM’s is going to be right on a second look at the stats even though Roman has wrestled less matches than Paul Walter Hauser in the last 12 months and the only people who would consider Reigns to a better candidate to be a Top 100 wrestler of all time and had contributed more to wrestling in the last 15 years than Matt and Nick Jackson are Roman SZNs, people who would like to spend hours of their week listening to Jim Cornette, people who like wrestlers from Chicago and Retired Wresters obviously.
The changing metrics
The criteria for what a voter thinks should be a Hall of Fame includes "historical significance, ability to attract viewers, and wrestling ability”
In the case of people from historical, it is easy to decipher who had the “ability to attract viewers” from live gates, and PPV numbers from the 80s and early 90s as per the time frame of Historical which goes up to the period 30 years before the year of voting as per the Meltzer rules.
But the further we get away from 1994 timewise in this case, the metrics for “ability to attract viewers” has changed wholesale for those situated in the Modern US/Canada bucket.
For WWE, PPV’s are dead with the now-decade existence of the WWE Network/Peacock platform that PPV’s (I'm not calling them PLE’s) now live on. The WWE brand is now the attraction at the arena box office rather than specific people, one of the effects of WWE’s attempt to be the Kleenex of pro wrestling. But you can say the same for not only AEW as seen with the attendance number at Wembley Stadium in 2023 but also indie groups like GCW who filled the Hammerstein Ballroom on their initials (and could do it again second time around with their next visit to the Korakuen of American Wrestling) and in the biggest change from modern day and Historical is television ratings.
While the discourse about TV ratings were juiced up by the Monday Night War (did you know that WCW beat WWE on Monday nights for 83 weeks straight?) it has become a new metric to judge box office in a world where house shows are dwindling and PPV’s are a rarer commodity.
While researching whether or not a tv ratings line goes up when associated with a wrestler is very industrious, in an ever changing world of business metrics, I believe that ratings need to be used to look at modern day candidates on the ballot.
Historical Significance is also a criteria which is difficult to judge a Modern wrestler by. A case for Becky Lynch is that she was part of a Women’s Revolution which saw women main event WrestleMania in 2019 but Historians say that you can’t judge a President/Prime Minister until 20-30 years after they left office, there is an argument to say that you should not judge a wrestler’s historical significance until the same timeframe has elapsed after their most significant contribution to the business unless it was wrestling world changing moment
P.S Tony Khan would enter the ballot in 2034
How not to fail the MOT
With the ticks in the orange column dissected, what should Dave Meltzer do to prevent the Hall of Fame he started and has curated to be as treasured as it is from becoming a shell of what it currently is?
First off regarding ballot size. Dave has to be the bad guy (duh). Dave gets emails galore from voters asking if he can put ________ onto the ballot and while Dave obviously doesn't say yes to every one (hence why Chris Hero isn't on the ballot) he has to disappoint more people.
Dave Meltzer needs to somehow cut the ballot down to 80-90 and make the categories more even.
The rule in which acts that have spent 15 years on the ballot need to get 50%+ of the voteshare to stay on the ballot needs to be extended in my opinion. In order to get rid of deadweight on the ballot, I think acts that have spent 10 years on the ballot would need to get 30% or more to stay on the ballot. Heck, anyone who spends 5 years on the ballot would need to get 20% or more to stay on the ballot if I was to be very strict about this
While it feels very “the rules are simple” about this idea I have, if you want to declutter, you need to be aggressive in that declutter. Well, that’s what the tips on decluttering tells me.
Also, as mentioned above, Dave needs to limit the number of people put onto the ballot. Let’s say a maximum of 10 a year gets added with a maximum of 5 newbies in Modern US/Canada, and 2 in other categories. Wrestlers that are reintroduced to the ballot after previously having been relegated after receiving less than 10% can only be reintroduced after 5 years in the “wilderness” except if that act had sadly passed away or retired then they can be allowed in less than five years after being taken off the ballot.
All in all, the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame is a gateway drug to absorbing wrestling history but to be an institution in the future, Dave needs to look at how the present and future shapes the wrestling world which will have a knock on effect on the HOF. Hopefully Dave reads this and while he won’t agree with everything I write, I would hope he takes some bits on board. Maybe he even QT’s my article.
Ok, that’s me being very optimistic.