Thursday, May 16, 2019

Twitter Request Line, Vol. 259

Rhodes' AEW will be in good shape in a year, although decidedly without his wins/losses mattering shtick
Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein
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:

I was asked this question in a prior TweetBag with no real clarity of thought (and also with a longer timeframe), but now with the announcement of their landing on a prime cable television network with a streaming service to back it, I feel confident that All Elite Wrestling will be in a good spot next year. I feel like they'll surpass Ring of Honor pretty easily, since they have TNT and ROH has whatever godforsaken obscure network they're on now in addition to whatever Sinclair local stations they're on. They won't be close to WWE in terms of total revenue, but I can see them being culturally relevant and talked about as the "second-place" promotion.

Of course, I'm not entirely sold on Cody Rhodes' vision for a more wins/losses and stats based approach to storytelling. I think you can do sports build without delving into the "WE'RE REALLY REALLLLLL" territory. It's telling that ROH and EVOLVE both kinda dropped their "wins and losses MATTER" identities pretty quickly. The best way to make wins and losses matter isn't by having a standings matrix as much as it is by telling great stories where the wins and losses do matter, but I'm preaching to the choir. My point is, don't be surprised if AEW is both still around and doing well in a year but also having dropped that whole identity as well.

Protected user @earthdog asks:
What is your take on Uber? #TweetBag
Uber sucks shit. That's the short answer.

The long answer is also that Uber sucks shit, but here's why. In theory, a ridesharing app is a good idea, as long as that app is something that allows drivers to keep all of the proceeds. After all, the app itself, though vital to the process, does the least amount of heavy lifting. The onus for the upkeep of the car, security for unruly passengers, gas, and insurance is all on the driver. So unless the people behind the app decide that they're going to pay for all those incidental costs, they really have no right to anything outside of a nominal fee for usage of the app, which should probably be like one percent of the proceeds. For anyone who has ever used a ridesharing app, that is certainly not the case.

Tech ghouls think they're entitled to money for inventing something that's already been invented with an ear towards totally eliminating the labor that makes the early stages possible. Haven't you heard that Uber will only become profitable when it has self-driving cars? Yeah, that was the endgame all along. So no, I do not support Uber or Lyft or any other ridesharing app that looks to snooker the American workforce out of even more money.

So you're taking away Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, Big E, Andrade, Samoa Joe, and Aleister Black, eh? Oh fine. The layup selections are Braun Strowman (who skipped NXT), Ali (because you didn't say 205 Live counted), Xavier Woods, and Cesaro. Because you're allowing me to stock it, I'm eschewing Baron Corbin, who's a joke, and Bobby Lashley, who needs some retooling to be someone I'd want in this thing. Anyway, half the field is full, so I'm going to stock it with these four guys as well:
  • Shelton Benjamin - He's Mr. Money in the Bank without ever winning, and you know what, he's the perfect guy to guide the action
  • Zack Ryder - A gold watch opportunity, if you will (lol he's not winning)
  • Rusev - The fact that he's not a main event dude in WWE right now speaks to a lot of flaws, so give him the opportunity.
  • Keith Lee - He doesn't need the NXT Championship. He doesn't need NXT. Let him bask in the briefcase opportunity.
As for who wins, I'm deep in my bias here, but it's gotta be Cesaro, man. Don't let him leave WWE as "the best guy never to win the title."

I really don't know, because AEW just womping WWE in the ratings will lead McMahon to trying hard, and when he tries hard, bad things happen. Remember, he only really goes with good ideas that are not his, and nearly every boom period in WWE history under his watch has been by accident. Remember, he wanted to name Steve Austin "Chilly McFreeze," and Vince Russo — YES THAT VINCE RUSSO — had to talk him off the ledge and tell him to book an edgier, more realistic product. Of course, you can't give Russo too much credit, because *gestures broadly at the hundreds of awful midcard gimmicks that were scrapped after a month at the latest*. Anyway, him trying hard would make WWE even worse.

However, if he were Thanos'd off the planet, and assuming Kevin Dunn went with him because he's the Smithers to McMahon's Mr. Burns, I'm not sure if WWE gets better. I mean, everyone knows that WWE writers have a thankless job because McMahon vetoes everything to put his insane babble on, but I've seen some ideas from writers that they've pitched, and hoo boy, they were some of the most awful shit ever. Plus, anyone using NXT as an example that Paul Levesque would do better ignores that NXT's top story for the last two years was rambling and overly complex even considering that Tommaso Ciampa has been snakebitten with injury luck. Plus, he's already booking parts of the show now, and I'm not sure you can blindly attribute the good things to him and the bad things to Dear Father-in-Law.

So, what would be better? How about Vince McMahon dies AND AEW wallops WWE in the ratings. That might work.

First, allow me to give my review of Detective Pikachu. It rules. Hard. Go see it yesterday, even if you've never gotten any exposure to Pokémon in your life.

As for other genre films, I am confident in saying that I think any of them could work as long as you didn't run down the path of modeling a movie out of the trainer lifestyle mold of the main RPGs/anime. I think if you want to see a movie about a trainer, you'd be better served to watch those animated movies featuring Ash Ketchum. If they stay away from that mold, they could have an incredibly successful live-action thing going. The world of Pokémon is as expansive and diverse as you could ever want it to be. You could do a ghost story movie centered around Giratina or just plain old Ghost-types in a haunted house or even having Mimikyu bother Pikachu. You could do a Godzilla-style kaiju movie involving any of the behemoth legendary/mythical monsters from the various games, like Dialga vs. Palkia or Groudon vs. Kyogre. You could adapt Pokémon Mystery Dungeon into a treasure-hunting Indiana Jones-type movie. Hell, if they even wanted to, they could do a Must Love Dogs-style rom-com with Pokémon in the dog role. The possibilities are endless.

Honestly, I'm not sure it would look so different right now given how packed a WWE schedule looks like. Wrestlers have at least one if not two-or-three television dates a week, and then they work at least two house shows. No matter how much in love with the business you are, you don't work for six or seven straight days a week. These wrestlers need downtime. That being said, I could see a wrestler not booked on a pay-per-view or where creative "had nothing for them" taking dates in other companies. But I feel like that would be rare, and even with the freedom of being "independent" that brass would have a list of no-go promotions. So if, say, Tyler Breeze wanted to flex his muscle while being relegated to Main Event duty, he couldn't haul off and take dates with say, New Japan Pro Wrestling. The life might have a few opportunities like with Jushin Liger working that odd Takeover or Minoru Suzuki getting DDT or Game Changer Wrestling gigs every once in awhile, but because of how overreaching WWE is, I'm not sure it would change too much.

First, thank you for your kindness, and I'm not too sad about the loss given that Kawhi Leonard's shot needed like four separate miracles, one per bounce, to go in. Still, it's a lot better than losing to the Celtics even if it was a sweep, y'know? Anyway, before the playoffs began, I said that my brain told me it was going to be Warriors/Raptors in the final. It's a lot easier to pencil in the Dubs into their spot because they won game one of their series with Portland convincingly. The Bucks/Raptors series is a bit harder to call, because it's hard to deny Milwaukee with the way Giannis Antetokounmpo has been playing this year. I feel like if Antetokounmpo or Leonard faltered, the Bucks' supporting staff would be more likely to pick the team up than the Raptors, and that kinda bore out in game one of their series, when the Bucks came back after Leonard went cold in the fourth quarter.

That being said, I think people are sleeping on how much of a game-changing force Leonard can be. I think he's got a few more virtuoso performances in him to get the Raps to the Finals, where they'll take the Warriors to six games at least. I still wanna say the Warriors win the whole thing, but to be fair, that Raptors team, even with guys like Kyle Lowry and Marc Gasol disappearing from big spots at times, feels way more complete than either of the LeBron James-led Cavs teams that the Dubs beat in the last two years. I could be wrong here.

Don't take this as tacit admission that I'm rooting for the Raptors though. I would be happy if Milwaukee won, and I think that me often being wrong at these things should give Bucks fans some solace for their team going forward. Really, anyone but Golden State, but even if they do win, well, at least it's not the fucking Celtics.

The best option for the short-term is probably Joey Janela, mainly because he's already proven to be a big name through his GCW produce shows and his ability to channel his inner crazy like no other. He'll wrestle anyone in any style. Longer term, I think, as long as she doesn't get signed, Allie Kat might be the one to hold the torch. She's got an incredible gimmick, is a good worker, and will wrestle men or women. Maybe the indies need someone who will show the world that gender is a work and a wrestler is a wrestler no matter what genitalia they have or what gender they identify as.

Pro wrestling story is easy. The Summer of Punk II: Punk Harder, ends with CM Punk giving Triple H 15 of his shitty Go 2 Sleeps, putting Alberto del Rio in a wood chipper, and headlining WrestleMania by defeating The Rock clean as a whistle in the middle of the ring while John Cena makes sour faces on the outside of the ring.

For a movie, I would redo Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. I wouldn't really change the story too much, but I would probably doctor the script to take George Lucas' bitter divorcee stank off it and give a much more hopeful tenor to Anakin's and Padme's budding romance. Oh, and the the battle at the pit on Geonosis would have been choreographed by the same people who do Tony Jaa movies. Also Jango Fett would be Tony Jaa.

I'm going to out myself again as a food FRAUD by saying I've never had Jarritos. Having said that and thus being unable to gauge that combo against my favorite, I would say that a juicy cheeseburger and an ice cold pilsner-style beer is pretty hard to beat for me. Pilsners are refreshing, and the crispness and lighter flavor help cut through the burger's fat. That's my go-to.

Honestly, I'm a bit worried that he'll go stir crazy enough to tweet himself out of a job, or worse, into a Vince McMahon-directed comedy gimmick that only serves to get rubes to laugh at him and not with him. But without that fear in mind, yes, his Twitter lately has been magnificent, although I'm worried he'll catch a beating from Becky Lynch's dad for going too far into horny territory over her mom. I guess all the great comics have to blur some lines if not cross them.
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