Thursday, April 11, 2019

Twitter Request Line, Vol. 254

Finally, a place for all the shitty people!
Photo Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, via the National Science Foundation
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:

Ooh, I like ejecting odious people into the cold death of space! The fact that it would be into this black hole that scientists were able to photograph is even better since I'm guessing at least part of my list is part of the throbbing Luddite throng asking what the big deal about photographing an object bigger than the solar system and more massive than the fucking Milky Way galaxy for the first time while using the entire planet as a radio telescope. I want to rip those people new assholes, all of them. They're probably flat earthers or anti-vaxxers or both too. I blame people dismissing that I Fucking Love Science Facebook page and going full contrarian on it. I digress. My list:

  • Vince McMahon - I mean, I don't need a specific reason to want to launch him into the supergravity of a black hole, but him being so hard to work with that caused Robert Evans and Road Dogg to quit creative feels like it's the blood that refreshes the tree of liberty, replace blood with ammunition and tree of liberty to my eternal list of grievances with his wrinkled ass. Now, you might say "TH, Road Dogg sucked as a writer," and you'd probably be right. However, in the grand scheme of things, would you rather have Road Dogg with a sane and reasonable editor or Vince McMahon overseeing and overriding a team of the most creative writers he could get? Exactly.
  • Triple H - I mean, you know I have a longstanding grudge against Uncle Paul, but did you hear Rhea Ripley's going to miss eight weeks with a foot injury, one she aggravated working Axxess? Compound that with his signing off on Tommaso Ciampa working Smackdown aggravating a neck injury that he probably should've gotten fixed before it led to the need for surgery that kept him out of Takeover: New York, and maybe this asshole isn't the "good cop" you all think he is.
  • Donald Trump - Just because he's third on this list doesn't mean I want him in that black hole any less than anyone else on it. This isn't numbered for a reason.
  • Dan Crenshaw - Maybe it just sticks in my craw that this one-eyed asshole is the guy Saturday Night Live decided to bend the knee to, but for a freshman representative, he sure has a real long list of shit on his ledger, from baselessly stoking outrage at Rep. Ilhan Omar to being elected to Congress despite being a known bigot who even moderated an Islamophobic Facebook group.
  • Ben Shapiro - Oh, the littlest fascist doesn't like being called fascist? Well, when you go after every single group the rest of your fascist buddies go after except for one (1), then maybe you are a fascist.
  • Donald Trump, Jr. - Maybe in the time where you and your dad get ripped apart by insanely strong gravitational forces, he can finally learn to love you.
  • Paul Heyman - I'm still not over him stiffing the ECW roster, successfully convincing them it wasn't his fault, and then cutting the same goddamn promo every week while a certain section of Twitter praises him for being the best mic man ever despite not even being in the top 25 in my view. No one who pulls off that level of grift deserves to be a folk hero.
  • Nigel Farage - Not that I don't think the concept of the nation of Great Britain/the United Kingdom deserves the humiliation Brexit is giving them after centuries of being the shittiest imperialist shits this side of Rome, but a lot of really good Britons who don't deserve to have to ration their toilet paper in advance of a shortage are going to face the blunt end of this shit. If I can't get Farage on a rocket to that black hole post haste, he deserves to be in stocks for the rest of his miserable days.
  • Alessandra Mussolini - If Hitler had procreated, no one in their right minds would give his grandspawn any airtime. Why is anyone allowing the same for his Italian equivalent?
  • Brett Kavanagh - I could have put a lot of other people in this last spot, but man, the temper tantrum he threw in front of Congress was some embarrassing shit, and he STILL got confirmed. I should throw all the GOP Senators on here, but I'm limited to ten. Put this asshole on the rocket as a warning to everyone who supported him.

Every once in awhile, WWE gets something right to the point where people convince themselves the company is worth the Avogadro's number of hours they put into it. Lynch's coronation is one of those moments, but they're so few and far between that maybe everyone viewing the company, myself included, should probably all agree to quit watching. We won't though. Well, I probably won't completely. I'm infected. But yeah, nearly any other time would be akin to retiring after, say, a Willie Mays-on-the-Mets season.

Oh god no, she's far too current for Vince McMahon or, as his WrestleMania entrance suggests, Paul Levesque to have on their radar. Instead, look for Wyatt to get a racist lil' buddy courtesy of Jeff Dunham! As for how excited I am, well, I think I'm more excited to die of whatever plague rot from rising ocean levels brought about by climate change will bring about than whatever the fuck Pony Boy is gonna do next.

You're asking the wrong person, as the only other show I saw from this past weekend has been Bloodsport. It was a good show, despite Josh Barnett's fuckery! If you just want matches, I'd go with Hideki Suzuki vs. Timothy Thatcher and Jonathan Gresham vs. Masashi Takeda as your picks. I'm also going to try to go through all that I missed that I'll be able to with my remaining 31 FITE credits and my 90-day trial membership to Independent Wrestling TV, which will include Chikara, Black Label Pro, Absolute Intense Wrestling, and two of the three shows among both Joey Janela Spring Break, SHIMMER, and the Orange Cassidy Produce (hell, I might drop $30 and get the other two as well!). But I can't recommend more to follow your heart and see what appeals to you. The promotions I listed are the ones trying to do something different from the norm, but hey, maybe you'll go for the stuff EVOLVE did. That Westside XTreme Wrestling show wasn't well-reviewed, but maybe you'll like it. I heard really good things about Kaiju Big Battel, DDT, and STARDOM as well. So while I'm a big fat nothingburger in terms of help here, I say that sometimes diving blind into something is worth it. I dove blind two years ago into the first Spring Break and last year into the first Bloodsport. It paid off well.

I heard Daniel Bryan may have gotten hurt at Mania. I don't know the severity, but I do know that before that situation popped up, he was advertised for title matches within a month, so he was probably the plan. But since I'm not too hasty to see Kingston get a token run, I would follow up from the After Mania TV shows and have him wrestle Sheamus and/or Cesaro at the next pay-per-view, which I heard is Money in the Bank. Not only would either opponent be a good match for him, it would give him a nice defense before he dropped it back to Bryan in, say, May. I know Kingston is too beautiful to be a long-term Champion in WWE, but that doesn't mean he has to be one-and-done in terms of defenses.

Protected user @earthdog asks:
How are the local Phillies fans feeling about the hot start? Follow Up, what is the % chance the Phillies break my heart this year.
Any malaise you hear about the Phillies is nationally from bitter DC journalists who didn't care about the Nationals until they found out they could posit some righteous indignation over Bryce Harper leaving. People in town are downright ECSTATIC over the team's start, that 15-1 stinker of a loss last night notwithstanding. Harper and other additions to the team like Jean Segura, Andrew McCutchen, and JT Realmuto all have injected some life, and Rhys Hoskins has kept up his hot pace from his first season-plus in the league. That being said, the team is pretty thin in pitching, and with Aaron Nola having a rough start, it might not bode well for the team this year. So yeah, the chances they break your heart are a bit bigger than I'd like to admit. Still, it should be a really fun year.

Not really a match, but when Chikara reopened after the combined forces beat back The Flood after they ruined the end of the Heidi Lovelace/Joe Pittman match, I got some tears in my eyes. I guess the closest I got to a match was also Chikara, the main event of High Noon, Mike Quackenbush vs. Eddie Kingston. I'm going to level with you though; I probably would've cried at a lot of events if not for my prescription to escitalopram. That shit has kept me from crying at some funerals. It's strong shit.

First off, WrestleMania should not be two days, one day of Mania is too much! But if it were to be two days:
DAY ONE - SMACKDOWN MANIA
  • Main Event - WWE World Heavyweight Championship Match - Daniel Bryan (c) vs. Kofi Kingston
  • Smackdown Women's Championship - Asuka (c) vs. Sonya DeVille
  • United States Championship - Samoa Joe (c) vs. Rey Mysterio
  • Smackdown Tag Team Championship - The Usos (c) vs. Ricochet and Aleister Black vs. The Bar vs. Shinsuke Nakamura and Rusev
  • Cruiserweight Championship - Buddy Murphy (c) vs. Tony Nese
  • The Miz vs. Shane McMahon
  • Randy Orton vs. AJ Styles
  • Andre the Giant Battle Royale - Braun Strowman vs. Michael Che vs. Colin Jost vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Matt Hardy vs. Curtis Axel vs. Lince Dorado vs. Tyler Breeze vs. EC3 vs. Shelton Benjamin vs. Bo Dallas vs. Heath Slater vs. Titus O'Neil vs. No Way Jose vs. Karl Anderson vs. Rhyno vs. Bobby Roode vs. Gran Metalik vs. Kalisto vs. Chad Gable vs. Konnor vs. Viktor vs. Luke Gallows vs. Otis vs. Tucker vs. Jinder Mahal vs. Luke Harper vs. Ali vs. Apollo Crews vs. Andrade

DAY TWO - RAW MANIA
  • Main Event - RAW Women's Championship Match - Ronda Rousey (c) vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Becky Lynch
  • Universal Championship - Brock Lesnar (c) vs. Seth Rollins
  • Intercontinental Championship - Bobby Lashley vs. Finn Bálor
  • RAW Tag Team Championships - The Revival (c) vs. The Edgeheads
  • Women's Tag Team Championships - Sasha Banks and Bayley (c) vs. the Iiconics vs. Pin-Up Strong vs. Nia Jax and Tamina Snuka
  • Triple H vs. Batista
  • Roman Reigns vs. Drew McIntyre
  • Women's Battle Royale - Carmella vs. Naomi vs. Mandy Rose vs. Ruby Riott vs. Sarah Logan vs. Maria Kanellis vs. Nikki Cross vs. Kairi Sane vs. Io Shirai vs. Lacey Evans vs. Ember Moon vs. Candice LeRae vs. Zelina Vega vs. Lana vs. Liv Morgan vs. Mickie James vs. Dana Brooke vs. Kacy Catanzaro vs. Toni Storm vs. Piper Niven
Boom, and no need for preshow matches in front of a half-empty stadium!

I think stuff like RAW and Lucha Underground, for example, is scripted television by its very definition that it's on television and has a script. That being said, I've always considered wrestling to be something between scripted TV and live sports. It's way too much of its own animal to be considered against, say, Game of Thrones or what have you. Besides, I'm not sure what, if anything, from WWE could be considered for an Emmy. RAW and Smackdown are mostly garbage television in terms of angles and are redeemable for the wrestling. Lucha Underground may be a different animal, but still.

Judging by reactions on Twitter Dot Com whenever the topic is brought up, the most underrated pizza topping is the pineapple. I've long extolled the fruit associated with Pacific islands and its virtues on people, but folks just won't listen. It's almost like they have ignored the last two decades of Food Network telling everyone sweet and savory belong together. Then again, Food Network is perhaps the most bougie channel on TV, so I may not have to blame them. Anyway, pineapple belongs on pizza, and furthermore, it's ten times better paired with bacon than it is with ham.

The most overrated pizza topping is probably the green pepper. Green peppers suck. Let them grow on the damn plant until they develop sugars and turn a much redder or yellower color, thanks.
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