Thursday, June 7, 2018

Twitter Request Line, Vol. 238

Why give McMahon money instead of make your own wrestling? It's all about the overhead.
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:

In theory, yes, they could. Two billion dollars is a lot of money, enough money to get together the means to record a wrestling show and pay a certain crop of free agents with name cache (CM Punk, Ryback, etc.) to spring a national (international?) wrestling promotion from scratch. That being said, the reason why people don't do it is because of that one word that prohibits so many people from starting promotions and what keeps many fledgling promotions from being profitable — overhead. WWE being an established company for so long has so much overhead amortized into its operation that it can operate at a high level without much problem. It can absorb so many expenses that a neophytic promotion, even one with extremely lucrative backing like one owned by the people at FOX, or theoretically Disney or Comcast or even someone new to the game like Amazon, Microsoft, or hell, let's get silly, Lockheed-Martin, just can't. Add that into the fact that WWE is its own company and others would just be subsidiaries, and you get why the barriers to starting a new promotion at a high level are so tough to overcome, even for rich assholes like Rupert Murdoch. Now, I'm not saying it's impossible for these bourgeois dickheads to start wrestling on their own. You gotta think like them. Would they rather budget $2 billion for a wrestling promotion that may or may  not be successful and that could run over budget, or would they rather lock in that price to let Vince McMahon's ass do it? Because most people who are filthy rich are intractable cowards, they will do the latter each time.

As someone raised on good ol' Philly tap water and sweetened carbonated sodas, I don't really see the point. It feels like someone thought seltzer water was too spicy so they toned it down a scosh. I can see why people like it, I guess. You like the sensation carbonation leaves on your throat. I still like soda for that reason. But again, over the years, I've associated that feeling with sweetness, whether natural or lately, artificial (luv u, Coke Vanilla Zero). Water needs to be smooth and refreshing, and if I get the sting of the bubbles, it's gotta come with sugar or some kind of sweet facsimile.

"Watching Grunge legdrop New Jack through a press table..." 1996 was a wild year, but it wasn't 2010s wild where wrestling references were cool to make, even for avowed nerd rockers Weezer. The fact that they stuck a reference to wrestling on the lead singer of their sophomore album AND that it was ECW maybe a year or so before ECW really went supernova was not only surprising, but hella cool.

"I'm tired of lettin' people down."



And hey, watch the match too, it's pretty good!



MR. FANTASTIC - Mike Quackenbush: So he can't physically stretch his body, but his mastery of lucha libre holds and transitions is the closest facsimile one can get. He's also intelligent and wizened, so he fits the mold of the team's leader to a tee.

THE INVISIBLE WOMAN - Becky Lynch: Sue Storm's ability carries great utility, and she can turn invisible. Lynch is perhaps the most technically gifted member of the Smackdown women's roster save Asuka, and the booking team treats her like she's invisible for long stretches of time. Perfect fit.

THE THING - Ryback: Impossibly muscular to the point of almost seeming like he's covered in rocks and incredibly short-tempered? I think that fits Mr. Tweet 'n Delete to a tee, don't you?

THE HUMAN TORCH - Will Ospreay: You need someone who can do incredible physical feats of aerial attack and who's also cocky and off-putting enough to match Johnny Storm's hubris. Luckily, Ospreay fits all of those to be a good Torch, and I can definitely see him irritating the everloving shit out of Ryback.

It's been awhile since I've seen it, but sometimes, the obvious, cliche answer is that way for a reason, right? Shawn Michaels vs. Mankind at In Your House: Mind Games has to be at the top of most people's lists, and it's probably at the top of mine too. While I'm not as high on Michaels' work as others, he was up to his billing here against a Mick Foley who was pretty much unfuckwithable in terms of integrating character work into his matches at that time.

Of course, the best match to happen in Philadelphia for any promotion in my estimation is embedded above. I really like that match!

It was a classic retelling of The Tortoise and the Hare, so OF COURSE it was a work. OPEN YOUR EYES, SHEEPLE.

69, because it'll be nice to have LeBron James on the Sixers taking up his old number.
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