Thursday, May 9, 2019

Twitter Request Line, Vol. 258

Did Bliss' instant cash-in help freshen up Money in the Bank?
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 280 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:

On one hand, absence makes the heart grow fonder. The fact that both briefcases were burned before Thanksgiving has given the audience a reason to look forward to whoever wins them this time around. Fans haven't had the Sword of Damocles hanging over proceedings, so it's fresh. On the other hand, well, WWE's creative rot is settling in again like it has for most of the last decade outside of a few spurts. WrestleMania was great, but everything after has felt like throwing shit against the wall in an attempt to please the whims of a septuagenarian, which is never the recipe for success. So I'm not sure it's redeemed completely, but it does feel fresher than it has in the past. That doesn't at all answer the question of how many people are gonna watch it live, since Vince McMahon and his crack team of schedulers didn't take into consideration that maybe putting its fifth (or fourth depending on your feelings for Survivor Series) biggest pay-per-view/Network event on opposite the series finale of Game of Thrones wasn't such a good idea. That's a totally different conversation though.

IN order to undertake this task, I will first have to identify the members of the main event. I am not counting part-timers or McMahons, even though they're really the only main event people according to Vince McMahon. I'm going with full-time wrestlers at this point. So, by my estimation, the main event of WWE is...
Becky Lynch, Seth Rollins, the New Day, Roman Reigns, Drew McIntyre, Charlotte Flair, Alexa Bliss, Daniel Bryan, AJ Styles, Randy Orton, Rey Mysterio, Asuka, Braun Strowman, Baron Corbin, Bobby Lashley, Jeff Hardy
All of New Day is included here because they are powerful as a cohesive unit even as the individuals achieve singles success. And now, the rankings

18. Randy Orton - Because he sees Pokémon as a child's endeavor, he neglects his charges and sees them as a burden. He is the asshole who leaves his Charmander out in the rain on a rock to wait for him even though that sweet fire lizard is loyal to him.

17. Daniel Bryan - No doubt Bryan loves Pokémon and uses them as companions, but in battle, he utilizes exclusively Grass-types and only to annoy his opponents. He's the guy who poisons or paralyzes your whole team and spams Leech Seed, but for however annoying he is to face, he rarely wins.

16. Seth Rollins - He'd be too busy crossfit training with them to teach them good moves. A bunch of swole Machoke and Gurdurr going into battle whose best moves are like Karate Chop and Tackle? Yeah, they're getting iced.

15. Braun Strowman - Strowman also trains with his Pokémon, but he never gets around to battling because he's always fighting them himself. His Pokémon are stronger no doubt, but he never makes it to the battles out of fatigue or recovery.

14. Big E - Much like Bryan, he doesn't take battle as seriously as he does companionship, or in this case, a canvas for humor. That being said, his strategy of sending out 6 Pokémon that all know Explosion is a little more effective than Bryan's.

13. Baron Corbin - The ultimate tryhard ne'er-do-well, Corbin has a bunch of level 100 Pokémon, but he never bothered to catch any that weren't in his general vicinity. While his Pidgeot/Raticate/Butterfree/Bibarel/male Combee/Fearow lineup is bulky compared to the rest of their species, well, uh.

12. Jeff Hardy - Although he's more interested in seeing which Pokémon have psychotropic qualities than battling, his nephew King Maxel has given him enough skills to get by.

11. Drew McIntyre - He's got a good eye for team-building in theory, but he's the guy who insists he can make Slaking work in a battle because it hits really hard. McIntyre doesn't really like speed, which is why he gets trucked more often than not.

10. AJ Styles - His children are savvy enough to guide him through the low-level battles, but he often loses his temper when he starts to fall behind. He's also likely to get disqualified for using slurs against his opponents.

9. Charlotte Flair - She favors elegant and gaudy Pokémon, which is fine when she sends out Sylveon and Milotic, but her achilles heel is always getting caught with Furfrou and Vivillon out at the wrong times.

8. Rey Mysterio - A trainer since the Red/Blue days, Mysterio knows the ins and outs of battle, and has even adapted from generation to generation. However, he's always falling victim to status ailments, never knowing how properly to deal with them.

7. Bobby Lashley - Surprisingly adept at battling, Lashley has all the tools to win. However, he gets cocky at the wrong time, like having his Mega Garchomp using Outrage without knowing if his opponent has a Fairy-type waiting to switch in for the kill.

6. Roman Reigns - Reigns trains true to his nickname, which is good when he gets to use Arcanine but bad when he's stuck with Stoutland.

5. Kofi Kingston - Like Styles, Kingston has the benefit of children able to get him through plus teaming with the overall best in the company from time to time. While he only wins the big competitions once in awhile, he's a perennial contender with a lot of fan-favorite Pokémon like Charizard and Pikachu.

4. Becky Lynch - Even though her trash talking does her in from time to time, Lynch's Fire-based teams compete well against the others as Fire-type attacks do well against most other typings.

3. Asuka - A gamer through and through, you know Asuka knows her way around a 'Dex. That being said, she tends to get DQed from time to time for exploding limousines as distractions.

2. Alexa Bliss - You know that Bliss knows every rule in the book, exploits them to her advantage, and knows every cheat in the book to get away with. She's a ruthless, effective, and annoying villain to excellent results.

1. Xavier Woods - You didn't think anyone else would be here, right? Woods' acumen is probably matched by no one in the locker room, and you know his OU team would make him the unchallenged WWE Pokémon League Champion.

I've only seen gifs, but it's a brilliant take on a wrestling character that I'm not sure has happened before. The disconnect is figuring out how to get from the Firefly Fun House to the actual ring. I'm sure you can get there, maybe by having him do a live version to be interrupted by a childless wrestler who hates fun. That scenario is probably best. Knowing how WWE handles non-traditional gimmicks, I expect them to add a billion different hoops and hurdles to the transition and to fuck it up like it has fucked up Wyatt's entire main-roster career to date. But this beginning is fun.

Honestly, the closest answer I got for this is Great Balls of Fire, which is less an entendre for something more ominous and more a creaky old man thinking the pop culture of 60 years prior is still relevant today. A Tribute to Homicide really is the first show name that I can think of that an outsider would look at and think it was more sinister than it let on. Of course, my brain is swiss cheese, and I may be forgetting some sexually salacious show name, but if you wanna go that route, nothing tops the Submission Sorority and how a simple google search of the name would've proven it to be a baaaaaaad idea.

1. Kyle O'Reilly - Undisputed best of the Undisputed Era. Best wrestler, best aesthetic, air guitar with title makes him indelibly cool. I will be taking no debate on this.

2. Bobby Fish - He helped mold O'Reilly into the person he is today, plus he has an incredible EEEEVIL moustache.

3. Adam Cole - BAYBAY

4. Roderick Strong - He's a great worker, and his story is inspirational, but man the first thing I think of when I see him is "SHITTY LITTLE BOOTS!" so...

Honorable Mention: Taynara Conti - Why they didn't make her a permanent member of the group to terrorize the women's division, I'll never know.

It'll never happen because McMahon doesn't appreciate what he has in Sasha Banks, and I doubt Ronda Rousey will come back to WWE to team with her other three running buddies, but Horsewomen vs. Horsewomen is a feud that writes itself, and all eight of them are at least passable in the ring. Just put an agent for the match who understands why those War Games matches had to be so violent to be important, and it'll be the best match they've ever run.

Wrestling is full of incredibly shitty people that it's unimaginable for anyone to wield the divine weapon of Thor. Look at the people who can wield it in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (comics are too deep and out of my depth):
  • Thor - Weapon for whom it was allegedly made, god of thunder, Prince of Asgard
  • Hela - Goddess of death who may not have been worthy by traditional metrics, but she's hella (sorry) powerful so maybe her pure might overrides worth? Or maybe the rules were changed after Odin threw her in the cosmic klink. I dunno. Gonna ignore her for now.
  • Vision - A cyborg born without any bad baggage, so of course he was worthy as a rasa tabula.
  • Captain America - The worst thing he ever did was not tell Tony Stark that his BFF killed his parents, which was done out of protection. Lying to protect doesn't make someone unworthy, it seems, and the rest of his ledger is SQUEAKY clean.
So, on that corollary, the four wrestlers whom I think could wield Mjolnir...
  • Thor: Erik/Ray Rowe - He likes Vikings, looks like one, and seems like a decent enough dude, knock on wood. Remember, Thor wasn't perfect either, because worthy doesn't mean flawless.
  • Hela: Terry Funk - He's so old he may as well be Asgardian. I don't know what kind of person he is, but if he's powerful enough to stay this long, he could wield and destroy Mjolnir, no problem.
  • Vision: Shockwave the Robot - Duh
  • Captain America: Zack Sabre, Jr. - He's a leftist who seems to be a decent guy whose personal life I don't want to pry into to find out, which is what makes him the analogue to Steve Rogers in this. Wrestling is so fucked.
1. Buzzer-beating three pointer - While a walk-off donger is majestic, the deadline shot feels more chaotic, more fluid, mainly because basketball play, even out of a timeout set piece, is such a living organism. The action consumes your attention, and you're not really spending as much time on the anticipation as much as you are just following play. It's more sudden.

2. Walk-off home run - But naturally, the game-ending bomb is still incredible because even with the anticipation of each pitch, you're still not sure if the odds are going to be in your favor. A pitch will get contacted 80 percent of the time, but only 25 percent of the time is it going to land for a hit. An even smaller percentage will go far enough to count for a homer. That's excitement, baybay.

3. Disco Demolition/Dime Beer Night - When a game ends in a White-person riot over something stupid, things get really exciting for a much different reason!
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