Thursday, October 26, 2017

Twitter Request Line, Vol. 210

Hashimoto was taken from the world too soon, but that just means he'd clean up in heaven's G1
Screengrab via YouTube
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:

I don't think enough G1/World League/International Wrestling Grand Prix alumni are dead to do a full 20, so I'll stretch it out to include honored guests too, I suppose. I'll keep it to people whose careers are in my purview as a wrestling fan. All of these wrestlers are either Japanese or have competed in Japan.

Block A: Bam Bam Bigelow, Bison Smith, Bruiser Brody, Chyna, Dusty Rhodes, Eddie Guerrero, Giant Baba, Road Warrior Hawk, Shinya Hashimoto, and Yokozuna

Block B: Andre the Giant, "Dr. Death" Steve Williams, Gary Albright, Hayabusa, Jumbo Tsuruta, Mitsuharu Misawa, Owen Hart, Rick Rude, Terry Gordy, Umaga

You didn't ask me to book it, but I'll give you a final match between Misawa and Hashimoto anyway. One of the Four Pillars of Heaven vs. one of the Three Musketeers. I can't pass up that opportunity. Sorry, Andre.

It should be Clash of the Champions, probably, or some other World Championship Wrestling property. WWE already has the right idea using Starrcade to drum up nostalgia in the South of Thanksgiving nights spent digesting turkey while watching terribly booked wrestling that'll just be undone the next week. Why not make that the nostalgia pay-per-view? The company's using the name, and maybe Godfather Cody Rhodes will feel like the upgrade in setting would be a good enough ring-kiss to satisf... oh shit, my eyes just rolled typing that last clause so hard they popped out of my head.

Because God is not real, and anyone willingly watching WWE in 2017, myself and yourself included, do not deserve nice things.

Too many content creators/authors/showrunners/wrestling writers confuse the issue and think "narrative integrity" and "OH SHIT MAGIC N SHIT" is a choice they have to make rather than the former being something every story should have and the latter being setting or a dressing. If you have a bad enough story, you can hopefully make bank by turning up fantasy elements to 11. It's what Michael Bay has built his entire career around. Now, why do they think it's a Boolean choice? I have no idea. Persons can be intelligent, but people are dumb, especially people with money, tunnel vision, and inability to see why people like things before mass-copying that thing.

If I'm going to use other name NXT call-ups as an example, the answer is probably never. The main roster has punted on Shinsuke Nakamura, Bayley, possibly Sami Zayn too, and thanks to injuries, probably The Revival. You might like the Zayn heel turn, but it's embedded with god-awful meta storytelling and runs counter to the legendary arc that he and his NXT storytellers built before coming up. You have high hopes for Asuka. I have high hopes for Asuka. That means she'll be jobbing to Alicia Fox on Main Event within two months.

But if I'm going against my gut feeling on this and pretend that Vince McMahon and the RAW writers will keep her important as her foreboding and her name and her streak, then she should probably truck Alexa Bliss at the Royal Rumble, WrestleMania at the latest. Then WWE can start to build to someone beating her at SummerSlam at the earliest. But that takes into account WWE doing right by a name NXT call-up and well I'm not ready to give that company the benefit of the doubt.