Hope everyone is having an awesome week! Mine is spectacular as RD Jr. is home from college for the first time ever and we are having a great time together. With that said, I may or may not be around for WrestleDream tonight, which looks like another good AEW PPV in a long string of them. Plus it may be the end of Danielson’s full-time career. Could see it going either way honestly, but I think it is time to finally pay off the whole “this company isn’t yours” storyline. It’s been intriguing, but can they do the most challenging part and stick the landing? We’ll find out. Onto the mailbag!
Craig B kicks us off with…”What was the stupidest championship in wrestling history?”
I always thought the WWF Hardcore title was idiotic, and then led to the even more 24/7 championship which was even worse. The issue with titles now is there are so many of them they are completely irrelevant. I don’t mean to go old man shouting at clouds here, but seriously, I can’t name like half of the championships in AEW these days, let alone who may hold them! WWE isn’t as bad, but still, just too much and when you water things down the belts mean absolutely nothing. Sometimes less is more and that’s definitely the case with wrestling belts.
Z D. wants to know…”I am not sure how familiar you are with Joe Hendry’s parodies, but is that the closest we will ever get to weird al being a wrestler?”
I like Joe Hendry a lot, think he’s very talented and has an amazing theme song. But let’s not get carried away! Al is Al and there’s no one that will ever reach that pinnacle!
Sean B asks…”What is your favorite Squash of the week featuring Stan Hansen? Mine is his Squash with Sid as his tag team partner.”
Agreed. Although I may watch another one this week that chances my mind. I will forever kick myself for not enjoying the greatness of Stan in his prime, just a blind spot in my history that is unforgivable.
Jospeh grosses me out with…”Have you tried the Little Debbie gingerbread cookies?”
No no no, a thousand times no. Why would I ruin nature’s perfect food (the cookie) with something so disgusting as gingerbread? Even Mrs. Deal, who makes the best cookies on planet earth (eat your heart out Crumbl!), can’t work magic on those. Hard pass on anything gingerbread. Gross.
Dustin N ponders…”Who was the worst 2nd-generation wrestler: Erik Watts, David Flair or George Gulas?”
I never really saw a lot of George Gulas, so out of that last we’d just be talking Erik Watts and David Flair. God bless David, but he was just horrible. Watts threw a bad dropkick that became the earliest version of a meme imaginable, but he was nowhere near as bad as David was.
Robert R wants to know…”What’s the worst pinball machine you’ve ever played and why?”
There are very few machines I can’t find some enjoyment in, so that’s a tough call. I guess I’d probably go Austin Powers because I LOVE that theme and the machine is horrible. So it’s a double whammy for me. Also, I was playing the new Avatar machine last night up at Wizard’s World, and it did remind me of something I despise in pinball and that is a lower playfield. I’ve never played one of those I like, it always just seems to take away any fun I’m having when things go in the basement so to speak. You can pretty much lump every lower playfield pin together and they’re the worst. 🙂
Arya W gives us this one…”Do you think it’s a cop out to say the Invasion failed because they didn’t have the top names? Yeah, Booker, DDP and RVD weren’t at the level of Hogan, but they were no worse than Hall and Nash in May 1996 and WCW managed to pop a territory with those three and 30 midcarders in one super group.”
That had nothing to do with it. The reason the invasion failed is because Vince would never allow WCW/ECW to appear as equals with the WWF. This despite the fact HE OWNED THEM ALL! This should have been a storyline that lasted for a couple years, and you could have slowly brought in all those other guys they didn’t bring in originally. Let it play out, let the story happen over time, and when someone’s old Turner contract ran out, bring them in to replenish the invaders. Think of it this way – if Vince was doing Star Wars and his heroes the rebels triumphed, his sequel wouldn’t have been The Empire Strikes Back, it would have been The Rebels Win Again. Which sounds idiotic but so was the invasion. There was never any threat, which is why it didn’t work. It’s the very basics of storytelling.
Mike M wraps us up with…”How did you get connected with Bryan Alvarez to write your book?”
It was, and it’s bizarre still to this day to write this, Penthouse magazine of all things! Bryan wrote a wrestling column for the magazine and interviewed me very early on for it. I was a Figure Four subscriber, I loved how he wrote and his opinions were nearly always identical to mine. So when the first book came out and ECW Press wanted a sequel, we settled on it being about the end of WCW. I knew I’d need help with that so I reached back out to Bryan and we hit it off and did the book. To this day I’m still blessed to call him my friend. We almost never discuss wrestling any more, instead just talk our families and what the kids are doing. Death of WCW changed my life in many ways, but let me tell you the best thing that came out of that book was our friendship.
Well, that’s a sappy way to end the mailbag, but a good one! Keep those questions coming my way!