Friday, January 6, 2017

Twitter Request Line, Vol. 173

Could New Day participate in a wholly mutated cibernetico?
Photo Credit: WWE.com
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:

A torneo cibernetico is a match with very specific rules that lucha purists (hell, even lucha greenhorns like myself) might balk at calling such a bastardized set up by its name. But you could do an elimination rules four-corners trios match, with or without the set batting order, and make it for the WWE Inter-brand Trios Championship. Personally, I liked my idea of RAW having the Trios Championships and Smackdown having the Tag Team Titles as reflections on their runtimes, but that ship has sailed.

Twitter, you say? Easy. It's Michael Pornman (RIP Tom Bro Dude) (don't click through if you don't wanna see a bare ass).

Protected user @bee_tee_ess asks:
Any thoughts on the Snuka decision?
Oh, do I.

I'm not surprised that courts found the elderly Jimmy Snuka unfit to stand trial and dismissed charges against him, to be honest. If he lasted this long evading charges, then he was never going to serve a day in jail, not at age 73 with claims of dementia. Of course, the whole situation doesn't have to be shocking to stink to high heaven. Basically, Nancy Argentino will not get justice for her murder because Vince McMahon wanted to continue to make money off Snuka. McMahon obfuscated and obstructed justice for so long using his wealth and influence, and he basically won via attrition. It's the same way Peter Thiel used Hulk Hogan to destroy Gawker and fire a nuclear bomb at the First Amendment. They had money and could appeal and appeal and appeal far longer than anyone with normal means could. Wealth buys justice, and thus America can never truthfully call itself the land of the free. The time has come for the socialist rev... hey what are you doing, come back! Come back! I promise I'll stop talking about leftist politics here! I'll leave it on my Medium! PLEASE!

Wrestling criticism is still not in a good place, even though it's getting better. But it seems like even the better places in the writing world, people still love them some star ratings. I get that people wanna put an easy marker on what they thought about matches, but the cacophony around them now, especially Dave Meltzer's, is just too goddamn loud. It's not just the egg avatar low follower sock puppet accounts that he loves to reply to almost exclusively either. Otherwise reasonable people are having aneurysms because he gave the elusive and rare sixth star to Kenny Omega vs. Kazuchika Okada from WrestleKingdom. I mean, he's one guy. His opinion on match criticism isn't sacred. It's better than Joe Blow's, but most people who watch closely and analyze as they watch have opinions that are just as studied and valid. Wrestling is not an objective science, but an art viewed through lenses. Star ratings feel like they're an excuse not to discuss what happens and only try to give some kind of hollow opinion. Even worse, Meltzer's star ratings feel like bickering over religious dogma, with an obtuse man with problematic opinions at the center (even if he's a well-read/traveled historian and journalist).

Is mayonnaise a culinary trend? Or is that just a staple that I think is disgusting except when used in like potato salad?

Anyway, I think people should be allowed to eat the way they want to in peace as long as it's not grossly impinging on something important like, y'know, the environment or other people's rights. But two food trends in particular annoy the living piss out of me. The first is the whole "gluten free" movement. Foods without gluten do need to be available for people with celiac disease, which is a real illness with real complications, and people who have "gluten sensitivity," which is NOT REAL, just make it harder for people with celiac to function, either because new-age bozos who think gluten hurts their tum-tum buy all the specialty shit up (even though several every day foods like rice, grass-fed meats, and anything that isn't made or processed with wheat are naturally gluten free) or because the OTHER people who hate the gluten free movement are only concerned with being mad at young people all the time, and thus will flame celiac victims unnecessarily. If you aren't celiac, you can eat gluten.

The second is the backlash against genetically modified organisms sold as food, or GMOs. People have been eating GMOs for decades, ever since Gregor Mendel started selectively breeding pea plants in the '50s. The 1850s, that is. Hell, it even goes further back than that because farmers have been selectively breeding livestock since the beginning of civilization. GMO food is mostly perfectly fine, and in many cases, genetically modifying seeds and animals is beneficial to mass amounts of people worldwide. But again, you get suburban liberal pearl clutchers who think that evil corporations are genetically experimenting on food to make it less flavorful (because god forbid that demographic uses seasoning) or less nutritious, and thus, angry mobs rise up against GMOs. Part of the "evil corporation" thing is true, but not for what most think. Monsanto Corporation is fucking vile, but like most corporations, it's less for mad science and more for patenting seeds, pushing smaller farmers out of business, and basically trying to run a monopoly on the world food scene. Basically, capitalism is ev... OKAY OKAY I KNOW I PROMISED NO MORE PINKO PROPAGANDA HERE BUT IT'S TRUE.

It's hard to predict a tournament when the participants won't start to be announced on Monday, but I'll offer a few now. You'll see some current Chikara stars (Crummels/DeFarge, Dez Poloton, Crawfish Trio etc.), some new debuts from the Wrestle Factory, some young wrestlers from other local promotions like House of Glory or Pro Wrestling Magic. As for an early winner, gimme Officer Warren Barksdale.

Protected user @LUtang_secret asks:
"some review as they watch, some review after it is finished" Which are you? Can you tell by reading what someone else ism
I'm a mixture of both. I form opinions during the show, and I write those opinions down, but sometimes I change my mind after rumination. Review has to be a fluid process, and you have to allow yourself to think and change your mind. This process should take place long after the review is written. Always look for a new angle, even if you think you've exhausted them all.

I'll tell you who doesn't like short shorts, Michael Pornman. He doesn't like any shorts.
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