Welcome to this week's Q-and-A-Palooza, as I field questions from all over the wrestling Internet and try not to be too sarcastic about it. Let's dive right in!
Do you regret not having a wrestling theme for your wedding? What would your wrestling wedding look like? (items to get you started: Wrestlemania VI carts to bring you down the aisle; a separate Crucial Crew area at the church; theme song when you are introduced at the reception)
[REDACTED]
I don't regret it one bit because if I pushed for one, I would be single and living in my on squalor in an apartment somewhere near West Chester. I.E. my wife wouldn't have gone for it anyway. If I did have a wrestling themed wedding though, I probably would have gotten things catered by Hulk Hogan's Pastamania for one. I would have come out in a $200 dollar shirt and the People's Eyebrow painted on my face, while my groomsmen would have been The Big Bossman and the Mean Street Posse. I could have gone Horsemen, but I would have been stealing Gregg Gethard's mojo since he either talked about coming out as Flair or he actually did it. Not sure at this point.
Aaaanyway, our first dance would have been to "With My Baby Tonight", and instead of throwing the bouquet and the garter, the women would have had a Bra and Panties match, and the men a hardcore rules battle royale, although no chairshots to the head. Your Crucial Crew idea is good. I would love them to have chanted "This is marriage!" after we said "I do." Also, they would have made everyone else look good on the dancefloor. Finally, I'd have definitely bladed for the wedding photos.
After the jump...The next couple of questions come from KoppoKick:
1) When are you going to take the plunge and review a live TNA PPV on your blog?
When they string together more than one good show in a row and get me stoked to actually buy a PPV. I won't buy a PPV that is built primarily on Eric Bischoff, Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair getting heat on each other. Still, Monday night gave some hope that things might have been changing. I hope that it wasn't a blip and it's really change, but I'm not going to be all battered girlfriend when it comes to TNA. I'll believe it when I see it.
2) Do you think April 19th will be remembered as a turning point in the Monday Night Wars?
If TNA pulls ahead at any point, yeah, it definitely will. RAW had a chance to do something memorable and they came out with the same stale booking decisions and lame comedy. TNA... well, it still wasn't as good as the average RAW, but they made headway and actually put on a decent show. Again, I'm not going to proclaim anything until I see that they're actually getting it, but hey, stranger things have happened, y'know?
Two from Dylan Hales:
1) Give your thoughts on IRWG.
To tell you the truth, I haven't sought out any of the stuff you were recommending, although it's on my list. I want to give authentic lucha another chance because I kinda wrote it off awhile ago, so I'll start getting into it soon.
2) Will you start doing podcasts?
You're not the first person to ask this. Justin Henry from the Camel Clutch Blog actually asked me a few weeks ago, and I kinda brushed it off. I mean, I like blogging, and I like dissemenating opinions. Would podcasting be in my future? Maybe, but I have a lot of things going against me. I'd need a million takes because I have a slight stuttering problem, can lose my train of thought pretty easily and often just stop mid-sentence because I can't find the word I'm looking for. You can hide that blogging. You can't really hide that podcasting. Then again, you never know. Perry Saturn got over by talking like a stroke victim on mescaline. I can probably become an adequate podcaster if that's the case.
Next up, some questions from Robert Lamb:
1) Please review an entire Juggalo Championshit Wrestling show.
No.
Seriously, no. I'd rather cut myself several times, immediately get into a tub filled with battery acid, get my eyelids superglued open while watching a mash-up of the English Patient and One Night in Chyna and listening to nothing but yaks bellowing during mating season than even watch one of their wrestling shows. I have better things to do, like figuring out fuckin' magnets and how they work.
2) Would professional baseball be entertaining if all the bats were rapped in barbed wire?
Only if the batters were allowed to carry the bats with them on the basepaths. But then the fielders would have to have steel chairs, and you get into all kinds of gray areas.
3) Is TNA too bloody?
Yes. When you get juice every other match, it takes the specialness away from juicing when it would normally happen in a blowoff match or to accentuate the brutality of a hardcore match or a grudge match.
4) Is WWE not bloody enough?
It certainly isn't. The no-blood policy is asinine, especially when they now stop matches to fix hardway juice. It's a combat "sport". Breaking the skin is going to happen, and to pretend it doesn't just so that Linda McMahon can satisfy a few hypocritical voters is pretty stupid in my book. Blood happens. If you don't want it to happen, start working amateur bouts and see how well that goes over.
5) What is the best scaffold match ever?
I have to defer to the readership on that one because I never saw a scaffold match :(
Two from Kevin Fisher:
1) If you could sneak a peek at 1 male wrestler in the locker room shower, who would it be?
Shelton Benjamin, just to see if that bulge in his pants was real or not.
2) If you could choose any two wrestling personalities to make an adult video, who would they be?
Velvet Sky and Madison Rayne. Duh.
Who do think will accept Brodie Lee's open challenge on night two of this years King Of Trios?
beatrice (Chikara 101 Poster)
I was thinking it would have been Daisuke Sekimoto, but then Big Japan had to go and win their first round match. I think Hallowicked is going to step up to tell you the truth, although I wouldn't be surprised to see Christopher Daniels (who's sticking around for the whole thing and is taking on EDDIE KINGSTON Night 3) or even Eddie Kingston take the mantel.
In Drawing Heat the Hard Way, Larry Matysik expressed doubts about how well the WWE will do after MacMahon passes on, because of no longer having someone with Vince's drive and passion helming the company, along with possibly having people he's hurt and double-crossed over the years looking for posthumous revenge on him by going after Stephinie, Triple H and the entire company. How well do you think the WWE will weather Vince's passing (which, I hasten to add, I hope is not for a good long while)?
jharper (Chikara 101 Poster)
For as much shit as I give Triple H as an egomaniacal douchebag of a wrestler, I think he has a good mind for the business, a good grounding in history and the respect of the locker room that the transition will be fine.
Who, in wrestling today, given money was no object, would have the savvy to run a promotion that could take the WWE off it's pedastal? What style of product would they bring to the table? Who would be the ten pivotal signings they would need to make (not signed to the WWE) they would need to make to be competitive?
J. Leslie Voss
Money being no object being the key term, I'm going to go with the no-brainer answer and say Paul Heyman. Lance Storm's another answer that could work. The style could vary just as long as it was a true alternative to the WWE. Blatantly imitating them gets you nowhere, just ask TNA, who finally is getting it. AS for the 10 signings... well, I don't know if this is assuming TNA goes under or not, but I'd say that Claudio Castagnoli, Chris Hero, Austin Aries, Colt Cabana, Mike Knox, Shelton Benjamin, Charlie Haas, Christopher Daniels, Davey Richards and Necro Butcher would be a good start, I'd say.
Tom, how do you feel about TNA spending the last two months building "The Pope" D'Angelo Dinero/Elijah Burke up to be the man to dethrone AJ and take the World Championship from him only to pull the rug out from under him and give the belt to Rob Van Dam(Personally, I'm furious.)? Considering the fact that Van Dam won the championship in what was practically a random bout with no storyline attached to it, do you think that TNA really gives a damn what the fans want? Am I wrong in assuming they don't have a clue?
Matt Glass
I think you are wrong in this case. Pope is going to have plenty of time to develop into a steady main event face, but TNA is in a prickly position right now. They have the task of competing with the juggernaut on Monday nights, and they needed a spark to get people to notice them. Putting the title on Pope? People might say "who?" unless they're familiar with the product. However, putting the title on RVD? It might bring back some old time fans. Then, you get the opportunity to build Pope up again to a bigger audience and his eventual win feels bigger.
I understand the frustration, but you can't do too much too soon. Pope is over with the Impact Zone, but that's such a small, skewed number of fans. They'll cheer for the Insane Clown Posse if they come out and claim THERE'S ALL KINDS OF MAGIC UP IN THIS BITCH. The thing is building a bigger audience, one that'll actually pay to see the product. Lead with what they know and let them get to love what's new.
James Varga with a bunch of questions:
1) Do you think that Pope will turn heel after the RVD title win?
No, and I certainly hope TNA isn't considering it.
2) Will the Pope go back to WWE after basically being built up to the main event level only to have some former WWE guy win the title instead of him?
Simmer down. A wrestler has to win in a match and a wrestler has to lose. It's life. Pope basically came in from being a midcarder on the WWE's midcard show and then got this huge push upon entry into TNA. For them not to put the title on him now isn't the end of the world. Remember how Steve Austin's first title program went after WM13? He lost. Didn't hurt his credibility. Same with plenty of other successful wrestlers.
Fans don't know patience anymore. I'm guilty of impatience myself from time to time, but I know most of the time that losing one program isn't the end of the world.
3) Will TNA botch Samoa Joe up once again?
Dunno, but with Russo gone, things are looking up. I guess it just matters whether Hogan, who likes Joe, wins out over Bischoff, who doesn't like him.
4) If you were running WWE, what changes would you make to the current RAW and Smackdown storylines?
For one, I'd be booking Jack Swagger a whole hell of a lot differently. He wouldn't necessarily have to go over Orton clean, but I would have had him do something that would have built Orton up as a challenger rather than having Orton pin him clean twice in two weeks. The tag match, fine, but I would have booked Swagger to have walked out of the singles match once he felt the momentum really shift in Orton's favor. And there's no fucking way I'd have had him lose clean to John Fucking Morrison. Unacceptable. I also probably would have put him over Undertaker.
Other than that, they seem to have things under control, I suppose.
5) Best match featuring the Hart family?
Involving just members of the Hart Family against each other, or in any capacity? How about a top five:
1 - Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin, WrestleMania 13
2 - Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart, WrestleMania 10
3 - Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart, Steel Cage, SummerSlam '94
4 - Bret Hart vs. Davey Boy Smith, SummerSlam '92
5 - Bret Hart vs. He Who Shall Not Be Named, the Owen Hart Nitro
That's a lot of Bret Hart!
6) Worst gimmick characters of all time?
Thurman "Sparky" Plugg. Z Gangster. Booty Man. Abe "Knuckleball" Schwartz. Xanta Klaus. I could go on for days.
7) Will Bischoff get over as a face?
I don't know, but if I had my way, Eric Bischoff would be over someone's house watching Impact instead of writing and booking it.
Why are you a Chikaratard?
Formspringer 1
Because it entertains me. Why are you such a polesniffer?
Wouldn't a half hour Saturday Morning Chikara cartoon be AWESOME and... dare I say it, mainstream enough to get over? An American M.U.S.C.L.E.!
Formspringer 2
Saturday morning cartoon? I am intrigued and wish to subscribe to your newsletter, sir. It might get over, especially given the plentiful amounts of colorful and outrageous gimmicks contained within.
Whatever happened to Reckless Youth? In MY youth, I always confused him for Mike Quackenbush.
Formspringer 3
I think he had to retire due to injury. Not sure though. I remember when Youth was one of the big indie stars back at the turn of this century. But hey, at least he helped give us Chikara before he had to retire.
Quackenbush should merge Chikara with RoH and book Honor. Yes or no?
Formspringer 4
Hell. No. They're two different products. Chikara is great because it has a comedic element that's so over-the-top that a lot of ROH fans who don't "get" Chikara might not get it. I'm sure there's a good bit of overlap, but Chikara is comedic lucha libre and ROH is "serious" puroresu-influenced indie athlete-wrestling. The two shall not mix.
Photo Credit: TNAWrestling.com
Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!
