Thursday, August 24, 2017

Twitter Request Line, Vol. 201

Wouldn't a Torres return be awesome?
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:


  1. Eve Torres - Just like Dave Batista, Torres left WWE as soon as she got really good, both as a character and even as a worker. She has no incentive to come back, as she's pretty successful in the world of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu and has gotten her foot in the door in Hollywood, but man, one more run of her posing over fallen opponents and even incorporating some of her MMA into matches would be fun as shit.
  2. Chris Masters - Masters is in Global Force Wrestling right now which is both good and a shame, good because he's still active and a shame because GFW is kind of a shithole. Either way, he was the MVP of Superstars before he left, and I think he could work some cool matches, especially against the new generation of hosses like, I don't know, BRAUUUN STROWMAN.
  3. Mike Knox - Speaking of Strowman, Knox may feel redundant with Monster Among Men around, but tell me you wouldn't lose your shit to see him cross-bodying people as the last gatekeeper before you got to Strowman on your mission chart.
  4. Kharma - Before any of you Twitter fuckos start rambling off about her age or mental disposition, she still could give some pop in the ring. Besides, WWE never got around to giving her a proper run in the ring. Hell, her only match was in the actual Royal Rumble. She has Bella Twins to mash, remember?
  5. Ted DiBiase, Jr. - Just to show all you nerds that the wrong guy from Legacy got the big push.


Five matches, no repeats on wrestlers or titles. Let's do it:

NXT World Championship: Neville (c) vs. Sami Zayn, NXT Takeover: R-Evolution - The problem here is that Takeovers are usually events stacked to the gills in title matches, but also that the NXT Title has rarely ever been a standout match on the show. The exception was at R-Evolution, when Neville and Zayn had the best NXT Championship match ever, but it also takes Zayn's matches against Cesaro at ArRIVAL and Shinsuke Nakamura at Takeover: Orlando off the table. Still, I'll take this match over other notch-below title matches like Bobby Roode/Hideo Itami or Kevin Owens/Finn Bálor that were good but not "put on a mixtape" good, even if that means two of the other greatest matches in NXT history get left out.

NXT World Women's Championship: Sasha Banks (c) vs. Bayley, NXT Takeover: Brooklyn - Conversely, how do you pick a Women's Championship match to put on this mixtape when the fairer sex has a far stronger resume? Banks' run with the title alone gives you the Fatal Fourway match where she won and an outstanding defense against Becky Lynch. However, the match that should've main evented the first Brooklyn show is on an excruciatingly short list of "best NXT matches" ever and "best WWE women's matches ever," so it makes the grade.

NXT World Tag Team Championships: The Revival (c) vs. #DIY, NXT Takeover: Brooklyn II - What Banks/Bayley the year before was to NXT women, this match was to NXT tags. It was the culmination of The Revival's bid to be called the best tag team in the world, but while most people thought American Alpha would be their best rivals, Johnny Wrestling and The Psycho Killer turned out to be more than game.

WWE United Kingdom Championship: Tyler Bate (c) vs. Pete Dunne, NXT Takeover: Chicago - While it was only my second favorite match on the show (showing you how goddamn loaded and incredible that Chicago card was), Bate and Dunne showed everyone what the British lads could do in the ring, and it was more than deserving of all the hype it received.

Jushin "Thunder" Liger vs. Tyler Breeze, NXT Takeover: Brooklyn - Liger in a WWE ring, including Breeze, one of NXT's unsung heroes, and the fact that this match was actually really goddamn good all figure into its inclusion in the tape.

Honestly, not including Zayn/Cesaro IV, which is for my money the best match in the company in the '10s that didn't involve Daniel Bryan or The Shield is painful, but it goes to show how big a sucking chest wound the main title is. It's not even that the matches have been bad per se, it's just they're almost always getting outshone by the women, the tags, the Brits or even the undercard. It also goes to show how integral Sami Zayn was to NXT as a brand. Neither he nor NXT has been the same since he left. I dunno. That's my list and I'm sticking to it though.

I'm not really all that familiar with the CWF scene, so I'll stab in the dark and say Cody Rhodes because God is real and hates us all.

As much as I love all things cow-related, I will always go back to the porterhouse. On one side of the bone, you got the most tender cut of meat known to man, the filet mignon. On the other, a juicy, fatty New York strip. All you need to do is salt and pepper it before grilling it, and it's golden. Of course, you can do so much more to it, and good lord, many high-end restaurants do. It's heavenly eating.

Very carefully.

Okay, so sarcasm aside, going from the best kind of steak to the frozen kinds you find in the dollar store is a bit jarring, but hey, you can probably still get some kind of use out of those tough cuts of meat. If you're going to eat it as a steak, you're going to want to jack up the flavor to compensate for the texture. Use of rubs, sauces, and other accouterments are going to be your friend. Otherwise, I'd suggest slowly braising or even grinding it up and making some kind of burger or meatloaf out of it. Hey, no one says you have to eat those steaks as steaks, right? Either way, protein is protein, and you have infinite means of cooking things at your disposal. Take advantage of them.