Friday, June 17, 2016

Twitter Request Line, Vol. 160

The Big Dog ain't going away anytime soon
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 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!

lol hell be flippn burgs at mickey ds lol i post at wreddit

No, in all seriousness, the Reigns experiment isn't ending anytime soon, nor should it. He's not getting universal cheers, but at this stage in the game, I doubt WWE cares whether or not he's universally loved by crowds. Everyone reacts to him, and a loud arena isn't as important as where those noises are split. So I expect Reigns either to be in the title hunt on whatever brand he's on or in a major angle with someone else of equal or slightly lesser importance than him.

I wracked my brain to find an answer to this, and the closest I've come was when Stephanie McMahon and Triple H first started out as The Authority. Their troll games were on point, and they still were bringing the fire on the mic. But that lasted so short that I'm not sure it counts for real. Other than that, I hate very few people in wrestling, and a lot of it is tied to their personae on camera.

First, the tourney is called the HOSSMOOT. Secondly, HOSSMOOT will only contain the beefiest, burliest, STRONGEST LADS IN THE LAND. I will fill most of the field with LARGE MEN WHOM I HAVE SEEN, and the rest with LARGE MEN WHOM I HAVE NOT SEEN BUT WOULD LIKE TO SEE:

  1. THE RYBACK
  2. KEITH LEE
  3. BLASTER MCMASSIVE
  4. MAX SMASHMASTER
  5. FLEX RUMBLECRUNCH
  6. RUSEV
  7. TOMOHIRO ISHII
  8. DAISUKE SEKIMOTO
  9. MIL MUERTES
  10. JEFF COBB
  11. MOOSE
  12. KONGO KONG
  13. BRIAN CAGE
  14. YUJI OKOBAYASHI
  15. SHEAMUS
  16. JOCK SAMSON
  17. CESARO
  18. BIG E
  19. NIA JAX (who says women can't wield the power of HOSS?)
  20. RAYMOND ROWE
  21. WAR BEARD HANSON
  22. OLEG THE USURPER
  23. MURDER-ONE
  24. BIG CASS
  25. BAD LUCK FALE
  26. BIG VAN VADER (if he can stop having his pissy Twitter war with Will Ospreay for one goddamn second)
  27. BIG DAMO O'CONNOR
  28. BIG DADDY WALTER
  29. CYRUS THE DESTROYER
  30. ZEUS (the All Japan dude, not Tiny Lister)
  31. DAVE MASTIFF
  32. AKEBONO

YES, I CAN FEEL THE HOSSDOM FLOWING THROUGH MY VEINS ALREADY. LET'S DO THIS NOW! NOW! NOW I SAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY!!

I'm a wrestling junkie, so I will probably try to watch both if I can. Although if one brand is really struggling, and their special event is on the same day as a trenchant episode of Game of Thrones, say, then yeah, I'd go with the other option.

The tournament is getting closer, but only three teams have been announced: Team Sendai Girls (Meiko Satomura, Dash Chisako, Cassandra Miyagi), Team SHIMMER (Crazy Mary Dobson, Madison Eagles, Candice LeRae), and The Original Divas Revolution (Mickie James, Jazz, Lisa Marie Varon). That number feels small for this time of year. I'm not sure how many more guest teams are going to be in either. However, I think that the Challenge of the Immortals being over points to some classic teams getting back together. Pending more kidnappings from Nazmaldun's forces, the following are the 13 teams left that I'd like to see in:

  • The Colony (Fire, Silver, and Worker Ants)
  • The Gentleman's Club (Chuck Taylor™, Drew Gulak, Swamp Monster)
  • The Batiri (Obariyon, Kodama, Kobald)
  • The Nightmare Warriors (Hallowicked, Frightmare, Icarus)
  • Team FIST (Johnny Gargano, Gran Akuma, Stewie Scrivens/whatever the former Chuck Taylor will be called by then)
  • Colony Pinxtreme Force (Arctic Rescue Ant, Missile Assault Man, Pinkie Sanchez/Pink Ant[?])
  • Royal Army (Princess Kimber Lee, Oleg the Usurper, The Estonian Thunder Frog)
  • The Throwbacks (Dasher Hatfield, Sugar Dunkerton, Mr. Touchdown)
  • BDK (Jakob Hammermeier, Jaka, Evil Heidi Lovelace) (a turn's coming, I feel it)
  • The United Nations (Juan Francisco de Coronado, Proletariat Boar of Moldova, Prakash Sabar)
  • The Osirian Portal (Ophidian, Amasis, Argus)
  • Team UK (Trent Seven, Tyler Bate, Nixon Newell)
  • The Elite (Matt Jackson, Nick Jackson, Kenny Omega)

Hey, a boy can dream, right? Some of those selections are slam dunks, some are tenuous at best (like the Royal Army or Lovelace in the BDK), and others are damn implausible (Sugar Dunkerton, Team FIST). But this isn't a list of teams I *think* are going to be at Trios, it's a list of teams I want there. So boom.

Nakamura's barely been there yet, has been in the most buzzed about NXT (or even WWE) match of the year to date, and hasn't been claimed to weekly live television yet. So what if he's had to slum it against Alex Riley or Elias Sampson? What do you think he was doing in all those six-man filler tags on NJPW house shows? WWE and New Japan Pro Wrestling have far different ways of making use of their wrestlers between big matches, and that's okay. When Nakamura is wrestling Dolph Ziggler every week on Smackdown to negative heat, then I'd say his potential's been wasted. For now, people still go bonkers when he comes out, and he's still a mythical quantity when it comes to the main WWE narrative. He's fine.


  • The Miz - Fuck movies, this guy should be providing the heat for a match with the threat that he's going to get the briefcase for a second time. He'd get the crowd pumping, and every time he'd try to get the briefcase, it'd give Bryan Alvarez heart palpitations. Win/win.
  • Rusev - Rusev is WWE's best total package right now, and I will fight you if you disagree. I'm so disappointed he's in a program with relatively heatless Titus O'Neil instead of in a big match like this. RUSEV CRUSH.
  • Finn Bálor - He's done with NXT. Done I say. Get him into this match post-haste and forget about anything else he could do in NXT outside of wrestling Nakamura.
  • Zack Ryder - I'm still salty that his WrestleMania moment was effectively undone the next night. He should be nowhere near winning the briefcase, obviously, but he's got beef with The Miz, and the teases of him winning the match after his ladder match win at Mania would get great crowd reactions
  • Kalisto - This match needs someone to do the crazy flippy-do spots, and I'm here for him to pop the eyeballs out of their heads.
  • Big E - New Day is Freebird-Ruling the Tag Titles anyway, so the group can spare one guy for the ladder match. Why not Big E, who is everything Vince McMahon wants in a top guy except for white?
  • Baron Corbin - Get him out of that goddamn heatless feud with Ziggler and put him in a match where he can throw dudes around and act surly as shit between ladder spots, please.

Cena's probably been at that point for awhile, to be honest, but I can't know for sure without being backstage in WWE or having ins with Cena or his inner circle. That being said, of course Styles has a shot of winning on Sunday because WWE would be dumb not to stretch this feud out until SummerSlam. Styles/Cena is not a match that one throws on the midcard of a minor event just to have Cena go over with no fanfare. If Cena goes over, the Club will come out and continue the feud. But Styles can and probably will win with big shenanigans. And hey, even if Styles wins without shenanigans, a la Kevin Owens, the feud will continue because Cena, the character, is a giant pissbaby who won't rest until he's beaten anyone who has a win over him.
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