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| Getting ready for their close up, Mr. DeVille? 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 140 characters can't restrain me, fool! If you don't know already, follow me @tholzerman, especially around Friday night after Smackdown, and wait for the call. Or don't wait for it actually. I'll try to get everything for this feature no matter when in the week you shoot me the Tweet. Anyway, here we go.
First up, @Thaliono has a double-shot of queries. First up, he has an actual song request.
First up, @Thaliono has a double-shot of queries. First up, he has an actual song request.
Yes, that is a fan singing "Don't Stop Believin'" with the Order of the Neo-Solar Temple at Conclave 2010. Thank you, @Thaliono.
His second question asks me about Chikara's absence being related to them preparing for their arrival on television.
This feels like wishful thinking. In an environment where fans are conditioning themselves not to get their hopes up for the return of the Chikara name altogether, it feels like a leap to suggest that they're in hibernation for a televised return. However, I've long believed that of all wrestling promotions, WWE included, that Chikara was the best fit for serialized, episodic TV. So if that is the case, and they are preparing for television, it's a long time coming. However, I think it's a realistic longshot.
@Jessico09 wants to know which Mr. Mister song I like better, "Kyrie" or "Broken Wings."
"Broken Wings" in a walk. "Kyrie" just reminds me of going to church.
Fellow staffer Shane Carnes asks what my favorite era in pro wrestling is.
It's the current one. I have nothing but love for the eras that made me a fan, both the late '80s/early '90s WWF and the Monday Night Wars/Attitude Era, but wrestling in the last four or five years has been something I can immerse myself into. I think critically and creatively about it. I watch way more of it now than I ever have. I digest matches differently. I follow so many more promotions and know so many more wrestlers. Right now is the greatest time to be a wrestling fan, and if you're not taking full advantage of it, well, what are you waiting for?
@mikepankowski posits this fantasy booking: Mark Henry vs. Sharknado.
How many sharks are in this specific Sharknado? Not that it matters; Henry still wins. But I need to know whether to accurately predict it as a squash or a certified HOSS FIGHT.
The folks at @GeekSoapBox want to know if Ric Flair's first run in the then-WWF was an expert-level display of trolling.
I think you're onto something. Not only were the examples noted to me on Twitter solid (irritating Roddy Piper, costing Hulk Hogan the WWF Championship, becoming the first user of photo manipulation to get under Randy Savage's skin), but his greatest act of trolling may have been on his way out. He lost to Mr. Perfect in a loser leaves town match, and everyone thought this was the moment that Curt Hennig would ascend to the WWF's main event scene. That was a big fat NOPE. Oh Ric Flair, the greatest of all-time, wrestler and troll. I buy it.
@OkoriWadsworth has a two-parter. First, what is my pick for the most underrated great feud of the modern era?
Defining modern-era as the post-national era, I'm going to go with Jake "The Snake" Roberts vs. "The Model" Rick Martel. The blowoff match was derided somewhat for its hokeyness, but I've noted before that I loved its psychology. Blinding someone, in this case Roberts, was the best use of Arrogance possible, and it used that incidence to let two awesome performers build a story from it.
Second, who is my favorite and least-favorite Avenger?
Favorite Avenger is totally Iron Man. While I would get into legit arguments with Tony Stark over political philosophy, there's no denying that he's got the best oeuvre. He's a supergenius who became a self-made superhero, even if he had the Marvel world's most lucrative trust fund to do it. He also quips the best, and if you're going to be a badass in a metallic exoskeleton, you should have a sense of humor about the whole thing.
Least favorite? Anyone who isn't in the core group, specifically the West Coast Avengers. Talk about diluting the product. If we're talking the core group (read, the movie version), it's probably Cap. I don't necessarily hate him, but he doesn't have the Viking aura of Thor, the dual-personality coolness of the Hulk, bow and arrow prowess of Hawkeye, or the total kick-ass nature of Black Widow that goes far beyond her callipygian form. He's definitely the corniest one of the group, but hey, the corniest Avenger is still better than the coolest civilian.
Crack journalist Ken Borsuk also has a layered question. Is the "Snickers" comment from John Cena's promo an encapsulation of everything wrong with him, and does that mean we're going to get the same ol', same ol' when Mark Henry wrestles him for the title tomorrow?
Cena's awful promo "skills" and the overbearing dread of him beating Henry Sunday are totally related. The proof, at least to me, is in Grown Ups 2. Look at its Rotten Tomatoes page. It's got a 7% among the critics, but 90% of audiences liked it. People like me are the critics. I hate using broad generalizations, because there are folks within the subset of dialogue that cohabitates the meta-fan community who love John Cena. But I think you have a far greater probability of finding people who despise Cena and his preacher voice one moment, lowest common denominator appealing comedic voice the next persona. I don't know if it's truly a 93/7 split like the critics on GU2, but I'd bet the numbers are similar.
The kicker (I don't wanna call it a problem, because it's only a problem for us, folks who are the subset within a subset) is that the audience at large, while again are probably not along the lines of a 90/10 split, represent the audience of GU2. They eat that shit up, so when the lead up to a match features Cena getting the verbal better of an opponent, they are conditioned and tend to love it when the payoff is Cena getting the physical better too. Those people who love Cena far outnumber the people who hate him, even if the voices in the arena seem to indicate otherwise.
I know getting down to specifics may destroy the general arguments above, but it feels like WWE operates on that principle. Now, Henry actually getting to look like he's in Cena's head is an improvement and will soften the blow if Cena happens to win tomorrow. Who knows, maybe the narrative is shifting to something that's more pleasing on a compromise level to everyone. But that's my general read on the situation.
@GayWrestlingFan poses the question Wrestling Is... what?
CHIKARAF, or CHIKARA!, depending on what you read Fun! as.
Okay, okay, it's clear that Chikara isn't dead and Wrestling Is isn't going to be the full replacement. But I do think it's going to play into the reformation of the company as a whole. But given that everything is just such an evolving dynamic right now, I don't even want to speculate.
Finally, @chudleycannons asks if there's a torneo cibernetico featuring the forces of Titor against Chikara, who would fight for the latter?
Why don't we take a look at the entire match? Titor's eight are just as intriguing as Chikara's. On the Titor side, their captain would be the man who captained a team last cibernetico... Eddie Kingston. Growing more and more warped and twisted by the hold of the Grand Championship (remember, he didn't have his hardware sold off like Jigsaw and The Shard had), Kingston feels more and more alienated from the fans who used to support him. Not knowing that it was his own fault in the first way, he completely forsakes them to reinforce the ranks of his corporate backers. The Champion of a company that never runs a show will remain the Champion forever, right?
His legion would be pretty predictable. Max Smashmaster, Blaster McMassive, Flex Rumblecrunch, Arctic Rescue Ant, Orbit Adventure Ant, Missile Assault Ant, and deviANT are clearly the agents and mercenaries of evil. They all have debuted since the crackdown on Chikara started. The Champion needs an army? The Champion has the best army money can buy.
There's only one choice to lead the opposition. IT's not UltraMantis Black, Mike Quackenbush, Soldier Ant, Hallowicked, or even Archibald Peck. It's Icarus. He's the rightful Chikara Grand Champion. Search your feelings; you know it to be true. Notice, everyone else has been passive to let Chikara wither away into our memories. Icarus? Well, he's going to invade the Palmer Center a week from today in defiance of the cancellation notice.
His army will consist of those wronged by Titor. That laundry list is long and includes Quack, Colony mk. 2 (original Colony includes Worker Ant instead of Green Ant, and I don't think the tentacles reach that far back), Sugar Dunkerton, Dasher Hatfield, Jigsaw, The Shard, Chuck Taylor, Johnny Gargano, Archibald Peck, even Tim Donst. That's more than seven. So, keeping with the theme of being united against a common foe despite alignment, here are my backers for Icarus: Mike Quackenbush, Soldier Ant, Fire Ant, Green Ant, Sugar Dunkerton, Dasher Hatfield... and Tim Donst. Donst is the trickiest member of the team because his reasons for despising Titor are purely selfish. One could even argue that he's the co-prime suspect in who beat the crap out of Wink Vavasseur to cause his cataclysmic shutdown of the company (Peck is the other, because duh).
But everyone loves a good redemption story. Donst has run afoul of fans of Chikara ever since he started abusing Hydra, running him away from the company. He's also firmly in the middle of this hurricane. He has to be won over.
His second question asks me about Chikara's absence being related to them preparing for their arrival on television.
This feels like wishful thinking. In an environment where fans are conditioning themselves not to get their hopes up for the return of the Chikara name altogether, it feels like a leap to suggest that they're in hibernation for a televised return. However, I've long believed that of all wrestling promotions, WWE included, that Chikara was the best fit for serialized, episodic TV. So if that is the case, and they are preparing for television, it's a long time coming. However, I think it's a realistic longshot.
@Jessico09 wants to know which Mr. Mister song I like better, "Kyrie" or "Broken Wings."
"Broken Wings" in a walk. "Kyrie" just reminds me of going to church.
Fellow staffer Shane Carnes asks what my favorite era in pro wrestling is.
It's the current one. I have nothing but love for the eras that made me a fan, both the late '80s/early '90s WWF and the Monday Night Wars/Attitude Era, but wrestling in the last four or five years has been something I can immerse myself into. I think critically and creatively about it. I watch way more of it now than I ever have. I digest matches differently. I follow so many more promotions and know so many more wrestlers. Right now is the greatest time to be a wrestling fan, and if you're not taking full advantage of it, well, what are you waiting for?
@mikepankowski posits this fantasy booking: Mark Henry vs. Sharknado.
How many sharks are in this specific Sharknado? Not that it matters; Henry still wins. But I need to know whether to accurately predict it as a squash or a certified HOSS FIGHT.
The folks at @GeekSoapBox want to know if Ric Flair's first run in the then-WWF was an expert-level display of trolling.
I think you're onto something. Not only were the examples noted to me on Twitter solid (irritating Roddy Piper, costing Hulk Hogan the WWF Championship, becoming the first user of photo manipulation to get under Randy Savage's skin), but his greatest act of trolling may have been on his way out. He lost to Mr. Perfect in a loser leaves town match, and everyone thought this was the moment that Curt Hennig would ascend to the WWF's main event scene. That was a big fat NOPE. Oh Ric Flair, the greatest of all-time, wrestler and troll. I buy it.
@OkoriWadsworth has a two-parter. First, what is my pick for the most underrated great feud of the modern era?
Defining modern-era as the post-national era, I'm going to go with Jake "The Snake" Roberts vs. "The Model" Rick Martel. The blowoff match was derided somewhat for its hokeyness, but I've noted before that I loved its psychology. Blinding someone, in this case Roberts, was the best use of Arrogance possible, and it used that incidence to let two awesome performers build a story from it.
Second, who is my favorite and least-favorite Avenger?
Favorite Avenger is totally Iron Man. While I would get into legit arguments with Tony Stark over political philosophy, there's no denying that he's got the best oeuvre. He's a supergenius who became a self-made superhero, even if he had the Marvel world's most lucrative trust fund to do it. He also quips the best, and if you're going to be a badass in a metallic exoskeleton, you should have a sense of humor about the whole thing.
Least favorite? Anyone who isn't in the core group, specifically the West Coast Avengers. Talk about diluting the product. If we're talking the core group (read, the movie version), it's probably Cap. I don't necessarily hate him, but he doesn't have the Viking aura of Thor, the dual-personality coolness of the Hulk, bow and arrow prowess of Hawkeye, or the total kick-ass nature of Black Widow that goes far beyond her callipygian form. He's definitely the corniest one of the group, but hey, the corniest Avenger is still better than the coolest civilian.
Crack journalist Ken Borsuk also has a layered question. Is the "Snickers" comment from John Cena's promo an encapsulation of everything wrong with him, and does that mean we're going to get the same ol', same ol' when Mark Henry wrestles him for the title tomorrow?
Cena's awful promo "skills" and the overbearing dread of him beating Henry Sunday are totally related. The proof, at least to me, is in Grown Ups 2. Look at its Rotten Tomatoes page. It's got a 7% among the critics, but 90% of audiences liked it. People like me are the critics. I hate using broad generalizations, because there are folks within the subset of dialogue that cohabitates the meta-fan community who love John Cena. But I think you have a far greater probability of finding people who despise Cena and his preacher voice one moment, lowest common denominator appealing comedic voice the next persona. I don't know if it's truly a 93/7 split like the critics on GU2, but I'd bet the numbers are similar.
The kicker (I don't wanna call it a problem, because it's only a problem for us, folks who are the subset within a subset) is that the audience at large, while again are probably not along the lines of a 90/10 split, represent the audience of GU2. They eat that shit up, so when the lead up to a match features Cena getting the verbal better of an opponent, they are conditioned and tend to love it when the payoff is Cena getting the physical better too. Those people who love Cena far outnumber the people who hate him, even if the voices in the arena seem to indicate otherwise.
I know getting down to specifics may destroy the general arguments above, but it feels like WWE operates on that principle. Now, Henry actually getting to look like he's in Cena's head is an improvement and will soften the blow if Cena happens to win tomorrow. Who knows, maybe the narrative is shifting to something that's more pleasing on a compromise level to everyone. But that's my general read on the situation.
@GayWrestlingFan poses the question Wrestling Is... what?
CHIKARAF, or CHIKARA!, depending on what you read Fun! as.
Okay, okay, it's clear that Chikara isn't dead and Wrestling Is isn't going to be the full replacement. But I do think it's going to play into the reformation of the company as a whole. But given that everything is just such an evolving dynamic right now, I don't even want to speculate.
Finally, @chudleycannons asks if there's a torneo cibernetico featuring the forces of Titor against Chikara, who would fight for the latter?
Why don't we take a look at the entire match? Titor's eight are just as intriguing as Chikara's. On the Titor side, their captain would be the man who captained a team last cibernetico... Eddie Kingston. Growing more and more warped and twisted by the hold of the Grand Championship (remember, he didn't have his hardware sold off like Jigsaw and The Shard had), Kingston feels more and more alienated from the fans who used to support him. Not knowing that it was his own fault in the first way, he completely forsakes them to reinforce the ranks of his corporate backers. The Champion of a company that never runs a show will remain the Champion forever, right?
His legion would be pretty predictable. Max Smashmaster, Blaster McMassive, Flex Rumblecrunch, Arctic Rescue Ant, Orbit Adventure Ant, Missile Assault Ant, and deviANT are clearly the agents and mercenaries of evil. They all have debuted since the crackdown on Chikara started. The Champion needs an army? The Champion has the best army money can buy.
There's only one choice to lead the opposition. IT's not UltraMantis Black, Mike Quackenbush, Soldier Ant, Hallowicked, or even Archibald Peck. It's Icarus. He's the rightful Chikara Grand Champion. Search your feelings; you know it to be true. Notice, everyone else has been passive to let Chikara wither away into our memories. Icarus? Well, he's going to invade the Palmer Center a week from today in defiance of the cancellation notice.
His army will consist of those wronged by Titor. That laundry list is long and includes Quack, Colony mk. 2 (original Colony includes Worker Ant instead of Green Ant, and I don't think the tentacles reach that far back), Sugar Dunkerton, Dasher Hatfield, Jigsaw, The Shard, Chuck Taylor, Johnny Gargano, Archibald Peck, even Tim Donst. That's more than seven. So, keeping with the theme of being united against a common foe despite alignment, here are my backers for Icarus: Mike Quackenbush, Soldier Ant, Fire Ant, Green Ant, Sugar Dunkerton, Dasher Hatfield... and Tim Donst. Donst is the trickiest member of the team because his reasons for despising Titor are purely selfish. One could even argue that he's the co-prime suspect in who beat the crap out of Wink Vavasseur to cause his cataclysmic shutdown of the company (Peck is the other, because duh).
But everyone loves a good redemption story. Donst has run afoul of fans of Chikara ever since he started abusing Hydra, running him away from the company. He's also firmly in the middle of this hurricane. He has to be won over.