Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bobby Shane


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Mkdw talk 06:46, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Bobby Shane

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

No significant independent coverage to meet WP:GNG and winning some pro wrestling state titles fails WP:NSPORTS. Mdtemp (talk) 15:54, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Martial arts-related deletion discussions. Peter Rehse 16:17, 3 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete As per nominator.Peter Rehse 16:21, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Wrestling-related deletion discussions. North America1000 18:05, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. North America1000 18:05, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions. North America1000 18:05, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep - This is a great example of how a quick Google search can prevent unnecessary AfDs. Among book results, Wrestling at the Chase has a chapter on "Two St. Louis Favorites...Joe Millich and Bobby Shane," The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Heels devotes pages 209-212 to Shane, and Jerry Lawler mentions in It's Good to Be the King...Sometimes that Bobby Shane gave him his gimmick (literally--"King" Bobby Shane was leaving for Australia, and he gave Lawler the nickname and wardrobe so that he didn't have to put it in storage). That, plus the coverage of the plane crash that killed him, which was a huge news story for the wrestling world, definitely demonstrates notability. GaryColemanFan (talk) 02:39, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep The article is fine, tells everything the man has done in his time and deleting a dead man's article is very disrespectful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.214.94.65 (talk) 18:20, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment The PWHoF book provides one source with significant coverage, but my search didn't significant coverage in other sources since I don't believe the coverage of his death in a plane crash counts (WP:NOTNEWS).  The "deleting a dead man's article is very disrespectful" argument carries no weight in proving notability.  I haven't voted yet because I'm waiting to see if some other coverage can be provided to show he meets WP:GNG. Papaursa (talk) 19:29, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — UY Scuti Talk  20:12, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep per GaryColemanFan. Seems fairly notable. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 22:46, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep Wow, I find myself in agreement with ! You need to enter this date in the annals of Great Wikipedia Milestones!  Ahem, anyway...yes, we're talking about someone whose notability revolves around a 2–3 year body of work in a particular U.S. state.  If you can't grasp that, then I don't know what to tell you.  He was on the verge of becoming a big star in professional wrestling at the time of his death.  A further explanation is hampered by the lack of appropriate context in the article, mainly in multiple strictly incidental mentions of a St. Louis connection.  If he was from St. Louis and his name was Schoenberger, I would figure that he was of relation to Joe Schoenberger, who worked as a referee for St. Louis wrestling promoter Sam Muchnick for decades.  If so, and he came into the business with ties to Muchnick, he was highly likely to have been pushed to the moon in any case.  That's not WP:CRYSTAL, that's the way the business worked back then;  you kept family around because they were more likely to be loyal to you and do your bidding.  The push that promoter Nick Gulas gave to his son around this same time has often been cited as a contributing factor to the demise of his promotion.  Other factors figure in: the territorial nature of wrestling booking offices and promotions, the bias promoters and occasionally even fans had against local boys, and the fact that full-time wrestlers worked 300–350 matches per year, almost always in a different city or town every night.  Adding these up, he wouldn't have had much of a chance of making it in the business by working the undercard at Kiel Auditorium once every three weeks.  Like almost every wrestler who was successful back then, he hit the road, and Florida and Georgia were hotbeds of wrestling at the time.  Numerous sources, albeit mostly wrestling-centric, point to Championship Wrestling from Florida (where Shane established his rising star) as having set the standard for territorial-era wrestling promotions, and that promoter Eddie Graham had his hand in the operations of territories in other parts of the United States.  Many of these same sources point out that in the years before the Tampa Bay Buccaneers started playing, wrestling was THE hot ticket in the Tampa Bay area.  WWE has on numerous occasions acknowledged the legacy of CWF, a promotion that the nominator appears to be dismissing as a "local yokel" operation.  So, putting the comment "winning some pro wrestling state titles" in proper perspective: state titles in professional wrestling at one time usually were controlled or supervised by state athletic commissions.  In modern times, however, these titles mostly existed to preserve the kayfabe illusion of some official sanction and oversight.  The state where I live, Alaska, had a state title, but it's unclear whether such sanction existed in its early history, Alaska being a territory at the time and not having an athletic commission until statehood.  Sandor Szabo became a booker in Los Angeles and proceeded to book himself as the Alaska champion by touring the territory X number of times per year throughout the 1950s and into the early 1960s.  The title was infrequently resurrected over the decades by independent promotions drawing in the low hundreds.  Based on that, you can safely assume that this particular state title is non-notable.  You can't say the same thing about the NWA Missouri Heavyweight Championship, which under Muchnick was a major championship in the world of professional wrestling.  Same with Florida and Georgia.  The holders of these titles were occasionally but not usually in main events, but they weren't wrestling twenty minutes in the opening match to warm up the crowd night after night, either.  A television championship may be a different story, as those wrestlers tended to work lower on the cards than other champions, but holding that championship also meant that they were featured by the promotion to some extent.  Finally, the plane crash which took his life has often been mentioned in the same context as the plane crash that same year involving Ric Flair and Johnny Valentine.  It makes sense, as the business was exploding in the mid 1970s, in spite of nearly non-existent mainstream exposure.  Some of the boys were making real money for the first time in their lives, and took to flying between dates, obviously because of the convenience factor over driving.  Other sources not mentioned in this discussion imply that Buddy Colt, the pilot, was very popular among his fellow wrestlers mainly because he had a pilot's license and a plane. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions  01:22, 11 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Comments A two-three year body of work in a particular state does not confer notability nor does he was about to make it big but he dies.  Tragic yes - notable no.  What surprises me is the length and detail of the last vote - considering the lack of detail and references in the article itself.Peter Rehse (talk) 10:18, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * So what you're really saying is that I'm disappointing you by not eagerly playing dog in a game of go fetch? The autobiography of Bill Watts, The Cowboy and the Cross, discusses the aforementioned glory days of CWF in rather considerable detail.  Watts mentions Shane, his rising star and his untimely death in the context of these events.  Unfortunately, I don't have my copy handy, so I can't provide specific quotes.  In response to "What surprises me is the length and detail of the last vote - considering the lack of detail and references in the article itself" – if you haven't taken the opportunity to peruse WT:PW discussions, I've been pointing out for years that certain historical topics are bound to fall outside of the notice of modern-day wrestling website writers, most of whom are in the business of pushing "news" and not necessarily interested in the bigger picture.  Sometimes, information on these topics are hard to find on the Internet in general.  This bias towards reflecting whatever one finds lying around on the Internet is why we're missing a bunch of articles on people who were real stars in this business, featured by promoters and who drew lots of paying customers night after night, in favor of articles on modern-day "notable wrestlers" whose notability mostly depends upon the promotions they work for, and whose articles resemble yet another social media site for the article subject rather than anything remotely resembling an encyclopedia entry.  This "everything is bullshit unless and until you prove otherwise to me" attitude is pushing us further away from being encyclopedic, as of course certain topics are going to be over-represented on the Internet while certain other topics are going to be lacking.  In this case, I'm pretty sure that's why book sources have been mentioned to such a great extent. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions  11:23, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Relisted per my above comment – Davey 2010 Talk 00:45, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment I'm seeing a lot of passion and WP:ILIKEIT, but not much significant independent coverage. Passing mentions are not enough nor is some news reporting on a plane crash.Mdtemp (talk) 18:49, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep - Prominent figure, notable figure in wrestling and death. Nomination was too early, more work needs to be done however and replacing sources. From the Tampa Bay Area, the man was probably notable around here especially at his time off death.  A dog 104  Talk to me 03:27, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep As a member of the Pro Wrestling Wikiproject, I can testify to the fact that it is a rare day when GaryColemanFan and RadioKAOS can agree on something. A quick google search should have found enough sources to prevent this from coming to AfD.LM2000 (talk) 01:39, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment - Well I was gonna close as Keep but I'm with here - I'm seeing lots of walls of text and lots of "This subject has google results" yet not one person here has even bothered to supply any sources to corfirm he's indeed notable so unless someone does it's gonna be left open and could end up being deleted, I'm all for WP:IAR but if 6 !voters here can't provide sod all then I don't see why it should be closed as Keep. – Davey 2010 Talk 00:41, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, – Davey 2010 Talk 00:45, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep - I'll be that one person. Screw Google results and check out Newspapers.com. If anyone has access through the Wikipedia library - as I do - you can see a ton of press back in the 1970s. Being that he died in 1975, there will not be as much press about him in recent times. So, he meets WP:GNG based on the press from Newspapers.com, there is this, and numerous books as well. --CNMall41 (talk) 01:12, 18 November 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.