Time to open up the mail bag once more! As always, feel free to join the fun by sending in your queries rightchere.
With all that out of the way…
Rik writes (as opposed to rolls):
Same usual Belgian guy Again. I’ve been following AEW from the start, with a lot of stuff being available on free on YouTube. They got a lot of talent into the company the first years and pushed them against the veterans. However, some of that talent looked set to go for the main event and now seems to be going to midcard. A few examples: Orange Cassidy and Jungle Boy (stuck in midcard feuds). Others, like PAC, are hardly on the show.
Is AEW stuck in the “WCW-mode” where you sign every available name and then don’t know what to do with them?
Kind regards from Belgium (don’t forget that Ataki vs Haku match )
As someone who has spent years documenting the demise of WCW, let’s not get crazy here. While I do wish they would spend more time on their homegrown talent so to speak, not everyone can be a main eventer. I was going also going to say not everyone can be a champion, but since they currently have approximately 47 different title belts, I am not sure that’s the case.
With that said, I think the company has issues more pressing than underutilizing talent. For instance, I’m not opposed to blood or profanity to kick up a wrestling show, but when every single show features at least one (and more often than not two) blood baths, we’re getting into Sheik in Detroit territory. That level of overkill leads something to something that should be impactful becoming a running joke (and in fact Punk made that joke on Dynamite this week).
Of course this week the big question is why would Tony move the PPV main event, Mox vs Punk, up to a Dynamite show? There are lots of theories out there (my personal view: Punk is hurt and can’t do an actual match, so we’re going to get a big angle to set up All Out and beyond…likely featuring the return of MJF). Sounds like there’s also lots of backstage drama which is never a good thing. That I think was inevitable giving the amount of creative freedom the crew is now accustomed to having.
All I can really say is I hope Tony read Death of WCW and in specific remembers the disaster of giving away Hogan vs. Goldberg for free with no real plan other than to pop a one week rating. I do believe he is smarter than that, but we will see I reckons.
To that end, I urge y’all to head to old man social media (aka, my Facebook) as I do running commentary on Dynamite every Wednesday night. If you really want to get my thoughts on AEW (and trust me, they ain’t all positive), I urge you to join us.
I am writing to you as I have been thinking about the moveset of Kurt Angle a lot recently and feel that a discussion of his workrate during his TNA run is long overdue. Henceforth, my question to you is this:
Which entrance theme features the best vocal performance from a Rougeau brother: All American Boys or I’m The Mountie?
Keep crappin’ and trash-baggin’,
That’s like asking who a parent who his favorite child is.
Fortunately for you, I only have one child and I am able to answer such a query.
All American Boys, of course.
Wilson F writes: I keep harkening back to a very funny article about bootleg WWE wrestling figures. I distinctly recall the names Harry Badface and Baddy Policeman for some reason. Could you do me a solid and repost this article? It would make my day, definitely would make me smile. Might’ve came from the Somebody Bought This archives and probably posted around 2008 or 2009?. As for a question, which was your favorite bootleg WWF figure from that series?
Ah yes, definitely found it in the archives. Holy crap there is a TON of stuff in there even I have forgotten. Anyways, here you go:
Fellow Crapper ChipsGravy writes: “Dear RD and Brad Brakestown.
Recently I had my 35th birthday. Cause for much celebration you may say. Well you don’t know what horror my friends bestow on me as gifts. So it was with trepedation that I approached this particular present. Surely nothing, nothing coud top my Noel from hear’say doll. I was wrong…
I opened the wrapping and was greeted with some American wrestlers. Oh theres, Hogan and Jake and oh what was his name again I thought to myself. This present wasn’t so bad. I turned over the package. I couldn’t believe it.
Turns out it wasn’t Hulk Hogan at all. It was King Joe. And the wrestler I mistakingly took for Jake the Snake..Wrong! It is in fact Harry Badface.
And who could forget my personal favourite, Baddy Policeman. Ray Traylor must be turning in his grave!”
RD: “Wrestling needs a Baddy Policeman.
I mean, NEEDS a Baddy Policeman right now!”
As for my personal favorite bootleg figure, would have to be this (Not) Lance Storm, featuring cross-eyed Chris Benoit on the card.
First of all, idk how many fans have reached out to you that are from South America or Chile, as is my case (so forgive me if I’m not grammatically correct). Been a loyal-ish crapper since late 2014. And whenever I need a good laugh out of rasslin’, I just go and check the site or the archives. My question is, what is a contentious topic that makes you sense ‘this is wrestlecrap’ and yet you or Art don’t write about it because other people would totally disagree with you? Or the other way around, people begging you to induct something that you don’t feel is worthy?
Wow, it’s like the international edition of the mailbag, I totally dig it.
I, for one, have never shied away from inducting something because, well, I came up with the idea of WrestleCrap to begin with, so I figure if I think it’s WrestleCrap, it by default IS WrestleCrap. I think a lot of folks get very concerned on the actual merits and if something “qualifies”, but more often than not I just want to write something I think – THINK – folks might find funny. So that’s a bigger qualifier to me than anything else.
With all that said, there are things I find to be total Crap others don’t. I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve argued with people about whether the original Double J character or IRS was WrestleCrap. I think what happens more often than not is folks look at the skills of the performer vs. the character itself. You won’t hear me bag on Jeff Jarrett or honestly Mike Rotundo as wrestlers, no no. But a country musician who wants to use professional wrestling to boost his album up the charts? An evil tax man?
I’ll die on that crappy hill.
That’s it for this week, but please, get those questions in! Feel free to ask about anything you want, the stupider the better honestly. Maybe if they’re good enough we can even make them AWARD WINNING, PRIZE WINNING as well. 😉