Talk:The Mighty Don't Kneel

Deletion nomination reasons
This tag team has no substantive coverage outside of Japan, and even within Japan it appears promotional only. Plenty of unsubstantiated claims without sources in the article. To this end this fails WP:N and WP:GNG. Neither have been established. 101.172.213.65 (talk) 05:21, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Membership of TMDK and related matters
I feel sorely tempted to revert the last edit from Ribbon Salminen but I don't want to get involved in the edit war, so I felt that a discussion was needed here to nut this out.

Firstly, I feel that after noting the sources that Ribbon Salminen has used to prove membership that he is not truly aware of the definition "stable". Per the link here;
 * A team of three or more wrestlers, usually heels, who generally share common motives, allies and adversaries within a storyline (or through multiple storylines).

Now it would appear from the sources that this is a very divided "stable" at best. Why for example aren't all six members working at NOAH? It seems that Jonah Rock and Slex have only made fleeting appearances with them compared to Nicholls and Haste, and Elliot Sexton and Marcius Pitt have not appeared there at all. That's suspect to start with, and I think that is where 203 actually may have a point. That is, if that was the idea. I hardly think the edit summary reference to Stephanie McMahon and DX is valid. Also, when was the last time Nicholls and Haste worked for Explosive Pro Wrestling where the article claims the "stable" was first formed? This "stable" is fractured at best, to the point that I don't think it's a stable at all. The only regular members seem to be Nicholls and Haste. I would like an explanation for this and I think some sources for this explanation should be incorporated into the article. Simple pointing to one indirect mention in an article (as is the case with Sexton and Pitt) just doesn't cut the mustard as they say. BerleT (talk) 04:41, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
 * There is no concrete definition of what is or isn't a stable, for example how many days per year they have to be together to be considered an "official" stable. Haste and Nicholls clearly are together all year round and the four guys in Australia also seem to be together as a group. (Just a side note: how are Nicholls and Haste any more regular members of the group than the other four? How would you define which is the real TMDK?) And whenever one of the four guys based in Australia travels to Japan (so far only Rock and Slex), they're immediately billed as "TMDK"; Noah adopts the stable history created in EPW and doesn't do a storyline where, for example, Rock betrays another stable and joins TMDK in Noah as he already did in EPW. I don't know how often Haste and Nicholls work for EPW since the promotion's website is pretty new and doesn't have a result history, but Haste did work the promotion last November, teaming with Pitt as TMDK. The source for Rock and Pitt's title win specifically calls them "stablemates" of Haste and Nicholls and TMDK a "faction". Sure, the stable is divided into two groups, but whenever they interact with each other whether in Australia or Japan, they work together as any "regular" stable with "common motives, allies and adversaries within a storyline".リボン・サルミネン (Ribbon Salminen) (talk) 06:07, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

I know a little bit about TMDK, but my knowledge isn't sourced so I can't add it to the article. But I think it's worth throwing into the pot after the AfD failed and the issues that BerleT has spoken of. For starters, Slex is not based at EPW and never has been. He's Victorian (EPW is Western Australia) so it's not accurate to suggest that the four outside of Haste and Nicholls are together as a group. The only regular right now in EPW is Pitt, and when I was there at a show a little under 12 months ago his membership of TMDK was not mentioned once during his promo. He concentrated on the war against William Darcy. Yeah I know that's not much even if it was sourced, but it's just one example I'm sure. So it's not two distinct groups. It's far more murky than that. Pitt's recent tag team title win with Rock was virtually impromptu, in that it was Rock's return to the promotion after a long absence. I see the reference to TMDK as simply good historical continuity. To my knowledge (and this is important) all six have NEVER worked the one show together. Mikey and Shane are the most visible because they regularly team together.

Side note - I'm removing the redlinks for Mikey Nicholls. His article was deleted by AfD six years ago, and it can only come back when the issues that caused the deletion are resolved. The correct procedure is to create an article in one's own sandbox and then refer it to WP:AFC making sure you mention the AfD. 58.165.7.185 (talk) 07:37, 5 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Just a note. I was going to edit infobox to putting Haste and Nicholls as full members and the others as associate members but the infobox used presumably doesn't have that option. Given the fractured state of the stable and the fact that it seems that Haste and Nicholls have been the ones doing the majority of the work as such I think that would be the best solution to this issue. Note that I am the 58 IP - power went off overnight and rebooted my modem. 121.214.28.96 (talk) 23:54, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Notability
The sources provided so far do not prove notability. Discuss. 58.165.7.185 (talk) 08:25, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

I'll start by quoting what I said in the AfD discussion;
 * Notability not established. Champions in one promotion and winning one award that is not well known outside of the area does not make a case and not enough evidence to prove any international standing per BerleT. Needs to do a lot more to pass WP:GNG. Agree with Ribbon about the quality of the article as well. Little coverage in English, which also goes to notability.

Now the article standard has improved, but that hasn't solved the problem. WP:GNG requires substantial independent sourcing. Out of the 30 sources that have been used at the time of this comment, 20 of them aren't independent (17 from NOAH and 3 from Explosive Pro Wrestling). Most of the others are only there to prove that they wrestled elsewhere, and one match each only. There are only four independent sources for the NOAH work and I would hardly call that substantive. So their notability even within Japan is at best questionable. Within NOAH they might be, but notability is not inherited as BerleT pointed out in the AfD discussion. There are many instances of wrestlers who gain notability within one notable promotion, but do virtually nothing elsewhere thereby invalidating their claim to notability. The only exceptions to this rule are WWE and maybe TNA. 58.165.7.185 (talk) 11:23, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I see that Ribbon must have seen my comments and he has found another five independent sources in Japan and two from the US although the latter only go again to simply proving US work - adding another promotion and giving a second ROH match. It doesn't really help, because it only shows the bulk of work in NOAH. And it's hard to judge the quality of the sources given that I don't speak or read Japanese. Where's the back up from Wrestling Observer for instance? They cover NOAH from what I saw of the note, although I do admit that a lot of their material is for members only. Who else in the US (that qualifies as a reliable source under WP:PW's MOS) covers NOAH? 58.165.7.185 (talk) 21:27, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
 * It's not really fair to expect sources from PWTorch, PWInsider or from any American sites since they really don't cover Japanese wrestling, much less Japanese wrestling not involving American wrestlers. They spend 95% of their time in Japan, so it's Japanese you're going to get. Admittedly Haste and Nicholls aren't that big in the States, but the world and Wikipedia don't revolve around the U.S. and their "notability" doesn't require them to ever make it in that bit of land. Japan is one of the bigger professional wrestling markets and Noah one of its biggest promotions. To me the thing that pushes TMDK over the edge and makes them worth an article is not the GHC title, but the Tokyo Sports award. I can't even give a U.S. equivalent of the award, since it's so much bigger than for example a PWI or WON award. Tokyo Sports is a major sports magazine (not just pro wrestling) and has been giving out the award for 40 years. The promotions themselves think of the awards as a big deal and celebrate the winners on their own websites:here's a New Japan article about their success in the 2013 awards (stub version in English) and here's Noah's article on the award ceremony. TMDK are by no means kings of Japanese professional wrestling, but they have been recognized as one of its top acts by an independent organization and that should count for something.リボン・サルミネン (Ribbon Salminen) (talk) 22:41, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
 * There must be some site that is English (it doesn't have to be US) that covers Japanese wrestling. It's known in the US - indeed some of the businesses biggest names make a big deal out of working in Japan. I find it hard to believe that there isn't one.
 * You said; Noah one of its biggest promotions. True, but irrelevant - because as stated before, notability is not inherited. The team must stand on it's own without any reliance on the promotion they work for. As far as this Tokyo Sports award is concerned, if it's so big in Japanese sport how come it doesn't have an article here? Is it not notable enough? On that basis alone both PWI and Wrestling Observer beat it up and big time, and PWI has been giving out awards for even longer than 40 years. What the promotions think about the awards is also irrelevant to the issue because that's a case of WP:COI so it can't be used on that basis. This team may have been recognised by an independent organisation as "good", but that does not make a cast iron case for notability. Either there needs to be more independent evidence, or this team has to do more to gain a pass on WP:GNG in my opinion. 58.165.7.185 (talk) 06:49, 8 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Their notability was recently boosted with a cameo and win at fellow Japanese company NJPW's Wrestle Kingdom 9. They were two of the three NOAH representers at WK9, the other person being the heavyweight champion. NJPW is the second largest wrestling company in the world, and the largest in Japan. Wrestle Kingdom 9 was shown on in Japan and American pay-per-view as well as worldwide on the Flipps application. starship.paint  ~ ¡ Olé !  09:02, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Fantastic that Mikey and Shane were not only there but they went over as well. Tried to watch the show on a live stream but it was terrible. The official GFW stream didn't work. I hope GFW put out their version with JR and Striker in commentary on DVD. Curse of Fenric (talk) 05:42, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

WWE or not to WWE
This article needs to be rewritten to properly frame TMDK in it's current form as the australian wrestling stable, not just 2 of the members' brief NXT stint. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.167.174.225 (talk) 04:49, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Team is defunct
Just to back up my edit just now, the team of Shane Thorne and Brendan Vink is not The Mighty. WWE never ever called them that and sources are needed to prove that they were in fact called The Mighty as Thorne and Miller were. As long as such a source is not provided this article end when Miller returned to Australia in 2018. It is irrelevant that Vink/Sexton was a member of the old stable given that as far as WWE were concerned there were only two. Addicted4517 (talk) 08:56, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Split
I have a suggestion. Split the article. One article, TMDK where we talk about the stable. Then, TM-61, focusing on the tag team Thorne-Nicholls. --HHH Pedrigree (talk) 09:09, 13 September 2023 (UTC)