Thursday, January 19, 2017

Twitter Request Line, Vol. 175

I posit that yes, they should have let John Cena spit with Wiz Khalifa
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:

Honestly, no matter how much John Cena warned and warned the world not to let it happen, I think it was good. It was an adequate weapons test for the rest of the hip-hop community, in that if any of those ruffians got ideas, Cena and Khalifa would be there to show them who was boss. But this raises a bigger question anyway. Who are "they" and why do they have so much influence on reality? Why did "they" call Vader Vader? I HAVE NEVER GOTTEN A SATISFACTORY ANSWER GODDAMMIT.

So, two men remain in the ring, jockeying for position and trying to take each other out. One is up against the ropes and the other comes charging in with a lariat and connects. However, the momentum takes them both over the top rope, and replays are unable to discern who hits the floor first. You say, this has been done already. Hello, Bret Hart and Lex Luger did this finish first in advance of WrestleMania X. Instead, as they both hit the floor, the countdown clock heads to zero with the crowd counting along, and number 30 comes down, enters the ring, and wins by default. The Royal Rumble winner with the least amount of drama ever would carry so much narrative potential that I'm shocked WWE hasn't done this at least twice yet.

Right now, the likeliness seems a bit low, if just because I'm not sure how many of the prospective voters will have seen those matches. A large swath of TWB 100 voters watch Chikara, but another large swath have seemingly fallen out of practice, so who knows. That being said, a wrestler making it on the list despite working a limited number of eligible matches in a year isn't unheard of. Brock Lesnar has made the list. That being said, I would put the likelihood at something like 20 percent right now.

I have trusted The Process since Sam Hinkie's first draft, and I will continue to trust it until all the major players from Hinkie's tenure (or, like Ben Simmons, were only nominally drafted by Bryan Colangelo and were really fruits of the work Hinkie put in) are retired or traded without any real measurable results. The Process so far has yielded four solid-at-least NBA rotation players: Embiid, Nerlens Noel, Dario Saric, and Robert Covington. Additionally, TJ McConnell seems like he can be a solid backup, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot and Furkan Korkmaz have promise, and oh yeah, a guy named Ben Simmons is due to come back at any time. Oh, and the team still has potential top five picks incoming from the Kings and Lakers, moves that Hinkie made. Is The Process perfect? No, no team or general manager can cop to making perfect moves all the time. The timetable for contention was put off a year because the Lakers took D'Angelo Russell and Hinkie mistakenly took Jahlil Okafor instead of Kristaps Porzingis or Justise Winslow or Devin Booker. The Michael Carter-Williams pick was a miss despite his early accolades, but he at least got value for him. Even though Hinkie is gone, his Process has put the Sixers in position to contend sooner rather than later. Unless the whole thing falls apart in a grand spectacle, this Process has been a net good and will at the very least get the Sixers close to a title.

Protected User @adamsgroove asks:
#TweetBag What's on your personal non wrestling bucket list?
Honestly, the only thing I have on my bucket list is to dance with my daughter at her wedding should she choose to get married. In the absence of nuptials, I just wanna live long enough to see my kids grow up and be happy and healthy on their own. Anything else that happens will happen, and I will make memories from them. The best times in my life so far have been mostly unexpected anyway.