Thursday, October 8, 2015

Twitter Request Line, Vol. 141

That's what my son's costume looks like, only in red instead of purple
Photo via Radio Disney
It's Twitter Request Line time, everyone! I take to Twitter to get questions about issues in wrestling, past and present, and answer them on here because 140 characters can't restrain me, fool! If you don't know already, follow me @tholzerman, and wait for the call on Wednesday to ask your questions. Hash-tag your questions #TweetBag, and look for the bag to drop Thursday afternoon (most of the time). Without further ado, here are your questions and my answers!

TJ's new gimmick is that he's pretending to be a dragon, so obviously, he will be a dragon for Halloween. In fact, Amanda and I bought him a slick, black dragon costume that kinda looks like the one Maleficent turns into in Sleeping Beauty. I believe Josie will be Supergirl, but I'm not sure if that's just going to be for when she goes to daycare or if we're going to be wheeling her around the neighborhood in that costume. As for me, I was going to go as a bitter wrestling writer/nerd, but as it turns out, I'm one of those every day. So I'm honestly not sure what I'm going to go as. I may improvise, I may be lazy and just wear my Jigsaw (Chikara wrestler, not horror villain) mask, or I might feel frisky at the last minute and put something together. I'm open to suggestion, by the way.

If you're going to be the son of a HYDRA bigwig who did macabre experiments on people, you'd better have those creepy, cold eyes:

Look at them; the white part is minuscule compared to the rest of it. They're so beady and naturally off-putting. I can't wait to see what hijinks he gets himself into with Agent May's ex-husband.

  1. Bruno Sammartino, Ivan Koloff, Pedro Morales - The three earliest WWE Champions who are still alive. My, the stories they'd have. I'd take the risk on them going full old-man "BACK IN MY DAY" just to hear them dish.
  2. Ric Flair, Tully Blanchard, Arn Anderson - The three essential Horsemen would also have some great stories, and at least two of the three have daughters who are tearing up the wrestling world. Maybe Anderson can legally adopt Scott Dawson and have a third with a kid in the mix?
  3. Triple H, Stephanie McMahon, Kurt Angle - I just wanna see them sweat explaining how the backstage mood was when Angle was storyline trying to woo McMahon away from Trips.

This one's hard because NXT is always in so much flux from year to year. Look at last year's September 11 card and Takeover: Respect; a grand total of three superstars were on both (Bayley, Tyler Breeze, Baron Corbin). Injuries and flux to the main roster are big threats that always loom overhead. So, while the players now look locked in to a long term spot in the brand, who knows if Apollo Crews will get fast-tracked to the main roster, if Sami Zayn will skip NXT and head right to a program with Kevin Owens when he recovers, or which big ticket wrestlers now will be called up or even sent down? But if I had to guess:

NXT Championship Match
Hideo Itami (c) vs. Apollo Crews - Itami comes back and takes the title from Finn Bálor after the latter makes his expected heel turn. Crews wins the title here, and Itami heads to the main roster.

NXT Women's Championship Match
Bayley (c) vs. Dana Brooke - Honestly, it's a mistake not fast-tracking Brooke to the title program now, but at the same time, she doesn't seem like she's going anywhere and could use the time to get more over.

Loser Leaves NXT
Finn Bálor vs. Samoa Joe - The long-awaited culmination in their feud that will start sometime probably tonight during the next tapings should happen Mania weekend. Bálor should win, but Joe would win for reasons I don't care to get into right now.

NXT Tag Team Championship Match
Shoot Nation (Chad Gable and Jason Jordan) (c) vs. #Grapplefuck (Biff Busick and Angelo Dawkins) - This one's for purely selfish reasons.

Asuka vs. Emma

Tyler Breeze vs. Rich Swann

The Vaudevillains, Enzo Amore, and Colin Cassady vs. the Dubstep Cowboys, Dash, and Dawson - The standard undercard is a standard undercard.

Now, of course, watch the NXT weekend card be totally different and NOT a branded Takeover event.

My favorite bread for a sandwich is the hard-crusted Italian long roll, with or without sesame seeds. The contrasting textures make it pleasing to the palate, and it's sturdy enough to hold the innards without disintegrating. As for favorite sandwich, it's hard because so many different things are sandwiches, including hot dogs. But I'd say in the most technical term, my favorite sandwich is the cheeseburger. I'm not even sure it's close.

I'm a wuss when it comes to horror (although the "Hardhome" episode of Game of Thrones was a lot like a horror movie and I loved that...) so my default answer is Shaun of the Dead. Sorry. As for monster-themed wrestler, UltraMantis Black is a horror movie villain come to life, even if he turned out to be damn likable during his career.

A big reason why NXT has been so great, outside of the stellar Takeover specials and the relateable personalities and phenomenal wrestling and the fanservice, is that it is not oversaturated. However, I think most of that has to do with the relative sparsity of those Takeover specials and the limitation of its weekly programming to one hour a week. It showed that at least for one night in Brooklyn, it could play to a monster crowd. I feel it could do so again Mania weekend, but I see where WWE might want most of the focus to be on the actual main WrestleMania card. Either way, you're on the right train of thought, just maybe you got off at a station before or after the right one.

Photo Credit: WWE.com
He got soft.

For a general idea, as always, hit up the Chikara tag here on TWB. For a more in-depth look, check out The Chikara Special, which has reviews of mostly every show, up to date for this season up to right before Trios.

Batting first, and playing centerfield, Ricochet. He is fast, has great cardio, and can save more than a few runs playing the largest part of the outfield.

Batting second, and playing shortstop, Rich Swann. Think Ozzie Smith, only with a little more power.

Batting third, and playing leftfield, Apollo Crews. Crews seems like the complete athlete, a guy who can do a lot of other stuff including the obvious hitting for power.

Batting fourth, and playing rightfield, Brock Lesnar. Of course, the cleanup hitter has to be Lesnar, the most powerful guy in the world.

Batting fifth, and playing first base, Braun Strowman. I picture him as an Adam Dunn type, with too much power to leave on the bench, but not enough of anything else to do more than bat at the end of the power part of the lineup and stick at first.

Batting sixth, and playing third base, Jack Evans. He's super flexible and agile, which is a plus for a defensive third baseman.

Batting seventh, and catching, Kalisto. His knees aren't shot yet, and he seems like a guy who is sharp enough to handle a pitching staff.

Batting eighth, and playing second base, Dasher Hatfield. Talk about having veteran leadership on the field...

Batting ninth and pitching, Bray Wyatt. He's got the quirky personality that you need to be a starting pitcher, and he's thrown a few things in his life to great success.

I got the number at 70, which might seem high, but I'm bullish on one of these teams. I estimate 30 wins for the Flyers, which will put them out of the playoffs. They're not approaching a playoff contender yet, but they're not too far away. The Sixers though, they can win 40 games. Obviously, the team is still a work in progress, but it's hard not to be excited with another year of Nerlens Noel, a promising rookie in Jahlil Okafor, and some solid pieces around the perimeter, including the newly acquired Nik Stauskas. The East is still pretty weak, especially the Atlantic Division; 40 wins and the eighth seed are not too far out of the picture for the Sixers.

My predictions, which will more than likely be wrong, have the Blue Jays taking out the Cardinals in the World Series. So I'm going to ride with that call until both teams lose spectacularly, which will be great if I'm wrong about the Cardinals. Anyway, the best ringside guest would definitely be the Dodgers, if only because Yasiel Puig and Jimmy Rollins would definitely be up for participating in antics.

The best match in Halloween Havoc history is also one of the best wrestling matches of all-time, regardless of qualifier. Rey Misterio, Jr. vs. Eddie Guerrero, mask vs. WCW Cruiserweight Championship, runs away with the field, but that's the boring answer. Second place daps need to go to Goldberg vs. Diamond Dallas Page in 1998. Goldberg didn't really have the rep for good matches at the time, but he and Page laid out a compelling story that helped humanize Goldberg a bit and put over DDP as a big-time contender.

As for the worst... well, so many shitty matches have happened at Halloween Havoc that they all blur together. I'll have to take a pass on that part.

*extremely Jeff Hardy voice* Drugs, man.

Given that Diesel is pretty much the worst-drawing Champion of all-time, it's easy to say putting the strap on him was worse in retrospect, but at the same time, he was somewhat over when he won the belt, and when I was a kid, I marked like hell when I heard he won it. That being said, even looking at not going with a Dean Ambrose/Kevin Owens feud, Diesel is still worse because I don't necessarily trust WWE Creative or Vince McMahon to allow those two have the transformative, business boosting feud that they could definitely have. Besides, WWE can always go BACK to that well in the future. You can't unbook Diesel as Champ.

I have a hard, hard time dealing with recency bias, so I want to scream out and say JON STEWART, JON STEWART. And truth be told, it was an incredible appearance even if by accident. But the best celebrity appearance is probably still Mike Tyson as the guest referee in the Steve Austin/Shawn Michaels WrestleMania XIV main event. It really did feel like the start of something big for Austin, and Tyson dropping Michaels was a spectacle.

If you're not dressing one of your kids up as Maleficent, then I just don't know what else to tell you. C'mon, get your head in the game.

I still hold a candle for the Mean Street Posse, but now that Chikara actually went out and got the Blue World Order for this past year's tourney, that would seem small potatoes in comparison, wouldn't it? Anyway, the first team that comes to my mind is the Three Man Band, but Heath Slater is still gainfully employed by WWE. So with that in mind, the next best, realistic choice is, and hear me out on this, Team Extreme. Matt Hardy. Jeff Hardy. Lita. Of course, that's all contingent on the bad blood between Matt and Lita being in the past, but holy crap, wouldn't you think that team wouldn't bring the house down? And if the bad blood is too much, then maybe Chikara inquires to New Japan Pro Wrestling on bringing a CHAOS-branded team featuring Tomohiro Ishii, Gedo, and either Kazuchika Okada or Shinsuke Nakamura over. But either way, could you imagine?

USE KEYS, because I am a simple man who uses the tools given to me and not really all that concerned whether those keys trigger a booby tra...

/is electrocuted when the wrong key is put in the hole

It depends, actually. I like guys who traverse both worlds, but I don't think it's for everyone. For example, Cesaro as one who can exist on both planes is a rockin' idea if Creative has no ideas for him on the main roster. He can be the special attraction boss who gives the NXT guys fits, even if he can't string together big wins against dudes higher on the card than him on the main roster. But if you've got something going on major in either continuity, I'd rather you'd be kept separate.


  1. Shoo-fly: I AM PENNSYLVANIA AS FUCK.
  2. Apple: Nothing better than a warm, sweet, spicy apple pie.
  3. Dutch/French Apple Pie: Whatever the kind of apple pie is with the streusel/crumbles on top is still fine, but sometimes it gets in the way.
  4. Pumpkin: Who cares if the basic folk of the world have co-opted the spices? It's still a fine pie.
  5. Chocolate Mousse Pie: Chocolate is utilized in better ways in other desserts, but I can't hate here.
  6. Lemon Meringue: To be honest, the meringue brings it down, but lemon curd in a pie is NIIIICE.
  7. Coconut Cream: Eh, I guess it's okay.
  8. Cherry: I hate cherries.

N/A: Pecan pie, sweet potato pie. I need a kindly Southerner to give me a hand on these.
I am not above eating fast food from time to time, even if I know it's not exactly the best for me. However, I haven't gotten a chance to hit up Burger King yet because 1) BK is not my first choice when it comes to fast food burgers (Sonic is number one, Wendy's after that), 2) I've been packing my lunch all this week, and 3) the "green poop" story has been kind of a gross intro into the burger. However, it does have a flavor profile I would enjoy. Maybe I'll try one between now and when they're taken off the menu.


Photo Credit: WWE.com

As I noted above, I really do think the Sixers can contend for the playoffs in a weak division/conference. But the Knicks have Carmelo Anthony, and if any league can see one player making a huge difference, it's the NBA. I don't know, put me down for the homer pick and say that the Sixers will have a better record than the Knicks, but it's not a slam dunk in either direction.

Kevin Owens is the Intercontinental Champion. Zayn will probably end up coming back sometime around WrestleMania. It is the easiest feud WWE could ever put together. Don't even waste Zayn's time with NXT. Don't even waste NXT's time with Zayn. He needs to go wherever Owens is.
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