Thursday, November 2, 2017

Twitter Request Line, Vol. 211

LU wrestlers like Prince Puma (Ricochet) should go anywhere except WWE
Photo via Pro Wrestling Sheet
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:

The truth is most of them already have homes outside of Lucha Underground, which makes the fantasy booking a bit more restrictive. The only promotions that probably were verboten were WWE and the New Japan/Ring of Honor/Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre bloc that acts as the worldwide de facto number two. Obviously, one would want to see Penta El Zero M and Rey Feníx get a shot on a bigger stage, but right now, they're about the hottest act on the American indies. El Hijo del Fantasma (King Cuerno) is already lighting up Impact Wrestling, which remains in the weirdest place right now. Ricochet already does NJPW, and he's probably going to WWE when he can in mid-January. Sexy Star is absolutely radioactive, and Mil Muertes is, well, really old. Everyone else is an indie player, so they're back in the pool where they started. But honestly, I hope no one involved in Lucha Underground goes to WWE, because WWE won't understand what made them great in the first place. If the question is "should," then they should all form some kind of collective or hell, maybe even take over the National Wrestling Alliance and intimidate Billy Corgan into money mark figurehead status. I just want a haven for special wrestlers to be able to go and thrive, y'know?

When speaking of steak sides, one should probably hold themselves to a steakhouse standard. What would I order if I were getting this at, say, Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steakhouse or Ruth's Chris? With that in mind...

  1. Potatoes au gratin - You only really see these bad boys at steakhouses anymore, and I don't know why. Potatoes and cheese go together like rumors of backstage heat and Enzo Amore. I don't know why, but the cheesy potatoes feel quintessential to a steak dinner.
  2. Creamed spinach - Most people think of a steakhouse dinner and say "Hey, you gotta have a baked potato and creamed spinach with that." Only one of those sides is right. I've had some creamed spinaches that tasted funny with the herbs, but mostly, this is the right vegetable to have on the side.
  3. Mushrooms - Of course, mushrooms and beef go together like rumors of backstage heat and Lana, although I hesitate to call mushrooms a side. They're more of a topper, but hey, why let semantics get in the way of a good complement to a steak dinner, right?
  4. Asparagus - Asparagus is the GOAT vegetable anyway when cooked on its own. It doesn't need anything more than butter, salt, and maybe pepper anyway. It's worth the funny-smelling urine.
  5. Mashed potatoes - Mashed potatoes are more of a diner side than a steak side, but honestly, when judging steak and potatoes, you have to consider mashed, especially if you're doing it at home rather than going out. Plus, mashed potatoes are so versatile with the add-ins: heavy cream, sour cream, cheese, chives, scallions, bacon, garlic.
  6. Caramelized onions - Again, more of an accouterments than a side dish, onions with beef are a natural pairing like rumors of backstage heat and... you know what, I'm going to retire that comparison for now.
  7. Wedge salad - Again, this is more of an appetizer, but when I think steak dinner, I think of the wedge of iceberg lettuce with the hard-boiled egg, bacon, and bleu cheese dressing. Oh man, so good.
  8. Onion rings - I prefer the caramelized onions over the rings because rings, especially steakhouse rings, tend to be underseasoned. But hey, I'm not knocking it, especially those big rings you get served right on top of your meat.
  9. Getting run over by a truck
  10. Baked potato - Look, I've eaten my share of baked potatoes, and they're a chore once you get by the top layer with all the butter and sour cream. Anything you can do with a baked potato you can do 20 times better with mashed potatoes with better texture and distribution of flavor. Baked potatoes feel like a vestige from a time before the French smacked the British upside the head and told them to cook good, eh.

After that, well, you start getting into esoteric sides, and really, anything can be a side dish for a great steak. Food is infinite. But as for the classic sides, well, that ranking is about as good as I can think of.

King of the Ring had quite a few prolific runners-up: The Rock in 1999, Rob van Dam in 2002, CM Punk in 2008, Neville in 2015. However, I'll take Mankind in 1997 over all of them, one because that would have been a feel-good underdog story instead of another attempt at jump-starting Triple H, and well, I hate Triple H. But hey, Mick Foley got his big moment in the sun when he won the WWE Championship after Tony Schiavone dismissively said "that'll put butts in the seats" on Nitro so maybe it was for the best.

Eh, who cares if I did. Let me do another one.

WWE Championship Match
Bret Hart (c) vs. Shawn Michaels, Survivor Series 1997 - Controversial, I know. It's not the best match, but it had the best atmosphere, at least by historical standards.

Big Show, Dolph Ziggler, Erick Rowan, John Cena, and Ryback vs. Kane, Luke Harper, Mark Henry, Rusev, and Seth Rollins, Survivor Series 2014 - Even though the results kinda didn't matter and it was a full-on schmozz, man, what a fun elimination match that one was. Sting appearing was just wild, man. Wild. It was also the last time Ziggler was relevant and actually good, so that's a thing.

I'm gonna level with you, I don't really have many fond memories of Survivor Series for match quality, so I'm just gonna go with matches that looked cool and fit the criteria (no repeat wrestlers, no repeat titles).

Aja Kong, Bertha Faye, Lioness Asuka, and Tomoko Watanabe vs. Alundra Blayze, Chaparita Asari, Kyoko Inoue, and Sakie Hasegawa, Survivor Series 1995

Mr. Perfect and Randy Savage vs. Razor Ramon and Ric Flair, Survivor Series 1992

World Heavyweight Championship Match
Batista (c) vs. The Undertaker, Hell in a Cell, Survivor Series 2007

Yeah, I got nothin' else. Sorry.

I think it's because the industry, whether it wants to admit it or not, follows WWE trends, and outside of a hot period between TLC 2012 and the end of The Shield, trios matches were never a thing WWE did with regularity, especially recently. The MO is and has always been doing singles matches, sometimes over and over again, to advance feuds rather than shoving a bunch of guys in trios, relevos atomicos, or even ten-man tags to get a bunch of people in front of crowds and let them do their coolest shit without having to work long matches. I feel like the indies don't do it often outside of Chikara because that means promoters will have to pay even MORE people to be on the show. Wrestling in America probably needs an overhaul that starts at the top, but I do think six-man tags would do a lot of good for everyone.

Someone on Twitter may have joked that the "LGBTQ+ stories" that Stephanie McMahon promised are actually what the Fashion Files are, and my cynical nature tends to believe that. I doubt WWE will actually follow through with anything overt, because as much of its window-dressing, self-congratulatory activism might cause them to shoehorn a gay character in, everyone in that front office that matters still votes Republican. So while they'll celebrate the next person to publicly come out of the closet or somehow highlight Sonya Deville's queerness when she becomes a bigger star, I doubt the company will ever recognize whether a character is gay or not.

Very carefully.

I keed, I keed. I think the only thing you really need is a guideline of criteria to put someone in and adherence to it. In that case, both the WWE and WON Halls of Fame are valid. Vince McMahon's criteria are that he really has none, that it's just an honor he feels like giving out. Think about it; has McMahon or anyone in WWE specified what it takes to get into the Hall outside of McMahon thinking you'll be a draw or that he wanted to honor you? Explain why his father's old limousine driver was in the second class. Conversely, Dave Meltzer has set up his Hall of Fame well. He has guidelines, rules, and he has a cadre of voters who all interpret those things differently, but at least in theory interpret them rather than making up their own. Of course, I don't wanna see them argue about it on Twitter non-stop like it's on the same level as making foreign policy, but you know what, you do you. I'll do me. Wherever your bliss is, chase it, even if that means arguing for hours on a podcast whether Big Daddy deserves representation in the WON Hall of Fame.

As much as I loved ECW back in the day and how fondly I look upon it now, it has done unquestionable damage on today's wrestling. The worked-shoots that everyone loves weren't invented by Vince Russo, oh no. I wouldn't say Paul Heyman invented them either (Memphis, baby), but he sure as hell popularized them in '90s wrestling. It also gave rise to the idea that for wrestling to be relevant, it had to pander to "adults," read, the lowest common denominator. Wrestling for kids was seen as a vestige of Vince McMahon's cartoon wrestling, especially at the height of its cornball excess in the "New Generation" era. Instead of making people think that wrestling was bad because ti was badly executed, it gave a generation of fans and promoters the idea that wrestling was bad when it was colorful. While the New Generation was shitty, ECW is why I can tolerate guys like Mike Quackenbush worshipping at its altar and making it better quality now.

While those two reasons are the big death blows ECW made on modern wrestling, the most annoying is that it loosed Bubba Dudley as an elder statesman. Holy shit, the world did not need him spouting off at the mouth. What a fucking loser.
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