Thursday, May 30, 2019

Twitter Request Line, Vol. 261

Who's gonna tell HIM not to drop ribaldry?
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:

Hoo boy. Yeah, I don't know who will do that, and honestly, I don't think I want to know how they're going to decide that. Of course, it won't be the first time a situation like this has come up, but if Chikara DOES act, it'll be the first time they did so in a timely manner. Remember when Tommy Dreamer said "shit" at King of Trios '10 after the Tag Gauntlet? Or when Feníx said "fuck" at Trios in '15? Yeah, perhaps Mike Quackenbush or someone else should've had conversations with them before coming into Chikara. I remember hearing about the hissy fit Quack allegedly had after Feníx dropped that f-bomb and thought "Did anyone think to have someone bilingual to relay the news to the dude?" But anyway, if Quack is scared of telling Steiner (and even now, Big Poppa Pump is intimidating), then he should probably just make it the prize of one of those famous Chikara raffles.

It's Shockwave the Robot, because he's a robot, duh.

Oh, you meant as in HEAVY METAL MUSIC. Ah, well, normally I would answer with either Aleister Black or Bugenhagen, but they both work for WWE, and how metal can you truly be if you're corporate? Please ignore the fact that I enjoy both of Metallica's post-Napster meltdown albums (St. Anger doesn't exist, and in fact, what is a St. Anger?). Even though he's in a metal band, it can't be Chris Jericho because you can't truly be metal if you exude Drunk Uncle Energy. The answer in this case is Oleg the Usurper. He's a big dude who loves to smash things, and he's got a medieval warlord gimmick. You know how much metal bands love that shit. Plus his name sounds like it would fit for a member of a metal band.

The happiest would be a Raptors win in any amount of games, and the team celebrating by everyone tweeting pictures of goatse at LeBron James for choosing to go to the Lakers instead of staying in the East and owning them. The saddest would be the Warriors sweeping with four blowouts, because man, they're too good that it's so boring if it's easy.

Now, how I think it'll shake out is tough. The Warriors are a true dynasty who were possibly a Draymond Green nutshot away from winning four titles in four years. That being said, their first title was almost not to be because Kawhi Leonard made it his mission to be a one-person-wrecking-machine. When he got hurt, the Spurs were done-zo. Who's the best player on the Raptors right now? You guessed it, it's Kawhi Leonard. Now, are the current Raptors as good as those Spurs teams? It's hard to tell, especially since the same team surrounded by DeMar DeRozan folded like a cheap card table when facing up against LeBron. The Warriors are a complete team that's greater than the sum of parts of any LeBron team. So I'll take the Warriors in six as my official call. This is the last title they win before Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant flee for different scenery and more money, and the Steph Curry/Green/Andre Iguodala Warriors go from prohibitive favorite in the league merely to probably Pacific Division winners with a conference finals ceiling, depending on what free agents they attract to replace the departed.

I WILL NEVER DO THE FANDANGO, YOU HEAR ME?

Oh okay fine (I'm sorry for missing that question in the past).

Squirrel Girl rules for what she represents, an eternally vigilant thorn in the side of misogynists who hate it whenever a female creator or even just a character does well. SG kicks the asses of every major Marvel cosmic baddie, from Thanos to Galactus, but you never see the action. And it's canon! If petulant manbabies hate it when Captain Marvel in the movies doesn't play by the rules they set, they shit their pants at SG comics telling the audience to take it on faith that she beat Thanos so bad that he wished that he never ever got horny for Lady Death. To me, that's A-plus trolling, and I respect the fuck out of it.

If they are, they aren't trying hard enough. Then again, one of the Usos got knocked for DUI, and that got them rewarded with contract extensions. Lio Rush is following the blueprint of how to get sent home from an uptight racist company, and he's not being fired. I'm afraid at what levels talent is going to have to go to to get out of that company. Is someone going to have to knock over a bank? Drive a car through a storefront? Stump for Bernie Sanders? Who knows. I'm not sure I want to see what the results of them trying would be though.

Protected user @earthdog asks:
The Rock N Roll Express in the 80s represented youth culture standing against the establishment? What do they represent now in 2019? FOLLOW UP" If you were to craft a new tag team to be the 2019 Rock N Roll Express rival's what would that tag team represent
They represent nostalgia trying to fit into the current scene of 2019. They are still beloved by a wrestling fandom that by and large still holds onto the past, but they're still active because they have medical bills and prescriptions to pay for they still feel like they have something to add. They, even more than Terry Funk, whose aura is ageless and transcends eras, are the avatars of not throwing away something just because it's old.

Their rivals would then be those who want to kill the past, taking directly from Kylo Ren's entire reason for being in The Last Jedi. Simple enough, but the RRX isn't exactly a team that screams nuance.

I think you answered your own question there. WWE has toned down the curse words and what not in the wake of [REDACTED] but it's still the same cruel, sexist, racist program it's always been. But it's now a nice kind of bigoted so that people will pay money to put their names on it as sponsors. GO figure.

Now that Game of Thrones is over, the only thing I'm doing really is playing Dead Cells on Switch. It's a fantastic game, with replay value after you clear it the first time, like I have. If you like hack'n'slash adventure games with power ups and swords, you'll love this. I'd also recommend Hollow Knight to that end. I completed that one months ago, but it's so good that I will preach its gospel to anyone who'll listen. Oh, and also Agents of SHIELD too, which got a Friday death slot, but at least it also was renewed for one more season after this. I dunno, putting a show on Friday nights is a death knell. It really takes a lot of the juice away from it, y'know?

It's Sasha Banks. It's always been Sasha Banks. WWE is not going to give her what she needs, which is room to spread her wings. She, more than anyone else except possibly Sami Zayn, was teased with the yoke of the spotlight in NXT, and when she got to main, it was Charlotte Flair that got to graduate to main event status on the reg and not the both of them. AEW will give her a shot to carry the weight. She'll either be the first Women's Champion, or she will be in the mix for it with Nyla Rose, Britt Baker, and Kylie Rae. She will get the chance to close shows, whether on TNT or on the special supercards. And she'll get a chance to prove that she is the best thing this business has to offer, male, female, or otherwise on that stage. If she comes back to WWE? Well, I'm not so sure about that.

Phase 4 is tricky because it seems like it's already mapped out with Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3, the Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and Dr. Strange sequels scheduled, The Eternals and Shang Chi, and POSSIBLY the third Spider-Man movie. That fourth phase seems kinda robust from here, which leaves little room for Marvel/Disney's newest acquisitions, the Fantastic Four and mutants galore. Everything seems so plotted out and yet the direction is unknown. What everyone DOES know is that time travel is in play, Iron Man and Black Widow are dead, Captain America is old, and it's now a multiverse. So that plays HEAVILY into Avengers 5: I'M STILL ALIVE having a main antagonist of Kang the Conqueror. How does the MCU get there from where it will be after the end of Spider-Man: Far from Home? Well, that I don't know. I figure the Hulk and possibly Thor will play in, plus at least some of the players with active movies.

Now, what do I want to happen? I want them to start sprinkling in new characters into these movies. Rather than doing a hard reboot of the X-Men and F4 franchises, I'd love to see just place random characters from those spheres into already planned movies, like Storm in Black Panther 2, Dr. Doom in Avengers 5, or Deadpool in one of the Spidey movies. I also want to see a New Asgardians movie starring Tessa Thompson and Taika Watiti that explores a minor Thor villain without bringing ol' beer belly back to Earth. Speaking of Thor, Chris Hemsworth has two movies left on his contract, which means Guardians 3 and possibly Thor 4, which hopefully would explore more of the Multiverse, especially interacting with elseworlds Loki, Odin, and Frigga. Finally, just let Vincent D'Onofrio play Wilson Fisk in whatever Sinister Six shit you have planned for Spidey 3. Hell, bring in Charlie Cox as Daredevil and Elden Henson as Foggy and Deborah Ann Woll as Karen. I loved that fucking show so much, and I hate to see that PERFECT cast go to waste.
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,