Special Wednesday morning mailbag this week! First chance I’ve had to even mention going to Dynamite last week in Fishers, which is a nice suburb of northern Indianapolis. In fact, they probably should have just said it was Indianapolis on TV, as literally zero people would ever say the show was from Fishers, unless they were being paid to do so. Which I assume they were. Hey, take a buck if you can get it I guess. Also loved that they were plugging it was the first wrestling event ever in the new arena, which considering the building is like three weeks old (!!!!) isn’t high praise. What is worthy of note though is that the crowd for the show was absolutely on fire. So much fun being at matches were folks are excited to be there, as it just makes it all so much more fun. The show itself was really good, which again was nice to see after a few weeks of subpar AEW shows with way too much heel heat. Oh, and this just in – The Outrunners were ridiculously over. I’d tell Tony it’s time to play the hot and and push them to the absolute moon, but if he won’t do that with Will Ospreay I don’t have a lot of hope for Turbo and Truth. Enough of my rambling – let’s see what y’all have to say this week…
Matt P kicks us off with…”I was just watching the first Summerslam. I can’t believe Hogan and Savage came out for their tag match together, and to Savage’s music no less! I’ve never heard this mentioned anywhere. I’m so in shock I don’t know how to make a question out of this so I’ll just say thanks for the crap!”
You are very welcome. Still weird for me to think that come April 1, we will be celebrating 25 years of this silly site. Honestly, that’s somehow less weird than Hogan actually giving someone else anything resembling a rub, but still. Also, I should note I had a dream the other night that the Hulkster actually hosted a call in radio show where gave life advice to folks. That could actually still happen, and I have to believe that folks who still listen to THE RADIO would be in Hulk’s target demo. License to print money, and they can have that idea for free as I would so want it to happen.
Dustin N wants to know…”Have you ever thought of doing an induction on the insane amount of cage matches in WCW 2000? Speaking of WCW in 2000, FUNB Hulk Hogan needs to be inducted, with special attention to a string of the most obvious blade jobs in history.”
Oh man, FUNB Hulk Hogan was something I had totally bleached from my brain. Adding it to the list (and hoping that Art says he’ll take it on so I don’t have to).
Joseph asks…”Did you enjoy Captain EO when it was active?”
You know, it’s funny, I am pretty sure I never saw it during its initial run. When it came back a decade or so ago, I was able to experience it and it was so delightfully weird that I really came to adore it. I wound up getting a poster of it and mounting it, had it in our old “Disney room” at the house until we started changing that over to a more classic game room. These days the poster is hanging up at Rupert’s Arcade, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen folks just staring at it and either a) looking completely baffled having no idea what it is or b) smiling and laughing knowing EXACTLY what it is. So yeah, I love it.
Rob N ponders…”Any odd Christmas traditions in the RD Reynolds household?”
Too many to name! Probably the oddest though was that at my Dad’s old house, he had an wide open living room with a second story where the entire family would hang stockings. When it was time to give folks the stockings, the kids would go up there and toss them to the folks below. After my Dad passed away, we moved the family Christmas party to our house but sadly we didn’t have the same setup. Everyone was sad until I came up with a way to continue the tradition: everyone stands in our drive way, I open the second story window, and literally THROW the stockings at them below! This is not a joke, we literally do it every single year. Love it when new folks move into the neighborhood and have zero idea what is happening – we often see them trying to hide as they look at their windows in utter disbelief. What can I say? I’m part of a very weird family (and I love it)!
Bryan B wants to know…”How much Kroger’s Christmas cookies ice cream have you had so far this season?”
I am guessing you are referring to United Dairy Farmer’s Santa’s Cookies, which is the my ice cream of choice for the holidays. I’ve not had any yet, but I did polish off a box of Little Debbie’s North Pole Nutty Bars this evening. Time to get on the exercise bike!
Jarvis G brings up a very valid point…”Growing up with Pro Wrestling Illustrated (PWI), I was always bothered that they start the voting in early-November for their early-January publishing (even though I still voted). It meant some awesome matches were missed for the PWI Match of the Year awards. Did this ever bug you? It’s as bad as when media starts saying, “…of the year,” or “…2024 on review…” when the year isn’t over yet.”
You will note from the very first time we had Gooker nominees, they were always from January 1 to December 31. And honestly, it’s probably due to the PWI voting window you mention. Drove me crazy too. Mrs. Deal, get Bill Apter on the line!
Jeremy W asks…”Would you ever considering reviewing an episode of Prime Time Wrestling every week? So many amazing things to cover. Gorilla and Bobby’s antics on location, Roddy Piper hosting and then beating up Bobby Heenan at Christmas etc. Even some of the non-Gorilla/Bobby moments stand out. I distinctly remember some ham and egger facing Barry Horowitz and Gorilla/Lord Alfred absolutely burying the guy the whole time. He won too.”
I’ve had a lot of folks ask me about doing a podcast again, and I always say no. This, however, is an intriguing idea. Back when Bobby was still alive, I wanted to do a book of the Prime Time Wrestling Chronicles detailing every show of the Heenan-Monsoon era. And I STILL need to go to Tony Packo’s and see if Gorilla and Bobby’s buns are on the wall. RD Jr. goes to school in Toledo, I have zero excuses to not make this pilgrimage!
And with that, I shall wrap up the mailbag for the week. Expect to see the schedule get back to normal in the very near future, and yes, the annual Christmas induction will be arriving in less than two weeks! In the meantime, keep sending in those questions rightchere!