Thursday, January 18, 2018

Twitter Request Line, Vol. 220

It's time for him to come home
Photo Credit: Lee South/ImpactWrestling.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:

The last time he was in WWE, Bobby Lashley was, well, kinda bad. But then he decided he wanted to do MMA, and TNA would let him work a part-time schedule, and according to people whom I trust on these things, he got good. He just left TNA, err, I mean Impact Wrestling. He won't be able to come back for the Rumble, but imagine if the two companies somehow negotiated a buyout to let him appear. Then his muscular baby-lookin' ass came back as a surprise entry in the Rumble match. And he didn't win, but afterwards, he started calling out Brock Lesnar, who would have been fresh off losing the Universal Championship to Braun Strowman, who is the real money for Roman Reigns in the Mania main event anyway. Imagine how much better the top of that Mania card, along with AJ Styles vs. Shinsuke Nakamura, John Cena vs. someone who isn't the Undertaker, Charlotte Flair vs. Becky Lynch, and Asuka vs. like, I don't know, Bull Nakano? If you're gonna get a part-timer or a special attraction to work Mania, how about an interesting one and not the fucking Rock or whatever. That's a WrestleMania I'd get really excited for. But hey, what do I know?

Look, Hannibal didn't lose the Carthaginian Wars because he was a dumbass. Rome outspent his ass and was fighting on its home turf. You gotta do a pincer attack. Five guys on one side of the hall, five on the other side, and bam, you have them trapped.

That on a long enough timeline, every single Royal Rumble winner would be deceased! Oh, you wanted a fun fact, not a soul-crushingly cynical one. Sorry, it's been one of those decades so far. Anyway, my favorite fun fact is basically everything surrounding Mick Foley's tripartite run in the 1998 Royal Rumble, which will probably never be duplicated because that seems to be the one angle that WWE has never and probably never will recreate due to issues of rights for various characters and the fact anyone it rebrands nowadays probably wouldn't be popular enough to warrant having more than one entry in the match. Unless you think Bray Wyatt and Husky Harris making an appearance each in a Rumble match might happen, but at the same time, I doubt Vince McMahon has that kind of self-awareness.

1. The Great Muta
2. Yoshihiro Tajiri
3. MsChif
4. SANADA

I'm unable to rank any other users before then, because, well it'd just be disingenuous.

GILLIGAN: Bo Dallas - His last NXT character feels close enough to Gilligan that I think he could make a good goofy ne'er-do-well with a heart of gold.

THE SKIPPER: William Regal - While Regal isn't as gruff as Alan Hale, Jr., he hits a lot of the other notes that make the character work.

GINGER: Eva Marie - A glamorous moviestar look with all-about-me attitude? The role was made for Ms. All Red Everything.

THE PROFESSOR: Xavier Woods - You need smart, but not snooty smart like, say, Lanny Poffo. Woods not only has the real life bona fides of his PhD, but he can do harebrained schemes and the exasperation at their failures like portrayed on the show.

MARY-ANNE: Bayley - Bayley can bring that spunky, can-do attitude to the Mary-Anne role, although it comes with the biggest caveat of the casting, whether or not she and Dallas can pull off the same flirtatious chemistry that Bob Denver and Dawn Wells had.

THE HOWELLS: Vince and Linda McMahon - In this reboot, the Howells are killed and eaten in the pilot because no one likes them.

Very carefully.

Seriously though, I'd probably just put Rocky Romero in charge of everything, as he's the best link between New Japan and the West who also isn't on a high touring schedule. You want a similar atmosphere to the Japanese dojo, but you also want to make things accessible for potential American recruits. Romero feels like the guy who can hit both.