Been too long since our last mailbag! Let’s dive right in, shall we?
Our old pal Steve J kicks us off with…”Perhaps a little too early to ask, but when coming up with the Gooker Award nominees for this year, will you put the “John Cena heel turn” as a candidate and do you think it deserves to be? All in all I thought the start was great and his CM Punk reverse pipe bomb was also amazing, but the run went too short and not to mention Rock bailed & WWE didn’t seem to want to fully embrace it by keeping his attire and music the same. Personally I say yes, but it’s not something I’d pit the blame on Cena himself for. And I’d need a full list before I’d call it the winner too lol”
The Gooker voting is something that from year to year tends to be a different beast. Sometimes you get a handful of characters or storylines with nothing so much worse that it’s honestly up to just how folks feel in general when voting begins as to who ‘wins’. Sometimes there’s like two that are neck and neck. I don’t see either of those being the case this year, as my guess is the Cena heel turn (which definitely will be a candidate) runs away with it handily. Not that there aren’t other options of course, but when you have something that high profile that is literally dropped to the point it becomes an on-screen joke? Seems pretty clear to me. That said, there are still a couple months left and you never know what may happen.
Joseph chimes in with…”Nepotism has long been a controversial issue in many areas of life- how much of a boost do you think Randy Orton got from being the nephew of Barry O.?”
I see what you did there.
Arya W wants to know…”What are your thoughts of the 1991 heel Lex Luger run as World Champion? He was no Ric Flair, but especially given the circumstances I think he did a great job.”
I think the deck was so heavily stacked against Lex that there wasn’t much hope for that run. It also speaks volumes to the fact that you really, really need to think ahead when booking a title change, not just with the match where the swap is made, but what follows it. God bless Ron Simmons but I don’t think he was ready to be a high profile challenger at the time. And when HE won the belt, it was actually even worse as he got major PPV defenses against the likes of The Barbarian, who again, was a good wrestler but not the type of name needed to carry a PPV world title match.
Neil K asks…”If given the opportunity, would you ever consider hosting a Wrestlecrap movie marathon at a theater or drive-in with some of the movies you’ve inducted in the past?”
We attempted to do something like that at The Skyline Drive In this year with what they call Guiltless Pleasures. The idea was a night of wrestling movies, but the challenge of getting the rights to show them was overwhelming. It wound up being Ready to Rumble and a few other non-wrestling films. I was lobbying hard for the return to the big screen of Mr. Brell, but no such luck.
Thomas M ponders…”With the WrestleCrap carnival and the Crappy Awards having never gotten off the ground, what would you say is the biggest “what if..?” Of WrestleCrap?”
Ah the Crappy Awards…you know, I actually have pondered adding a new award to tag along with the Gooker at the end of each year, that being SQUASH of the YEAR. It would spotlight the greatest one-sided butt kicking of the prior 12 months. There aren’t a lot of those these days, so I think the voting may be rather thin…but what do you think? Let me know the in comments below.
Dustin N hits the entrance ramp for…”Favorite current “so bad, it’s good” entrance theme? I have to go with “On and On”-Pretty Deadly.”
And I ain’t talking about Val.
Chris S attempts to anger up my blood with…”Stephanie McMahon. Hall of Fame. And………..GO!!”
Ok, here’s the thing: I’ve said a million times how the WWE Hall of Fame is nothing more than another date on a calendar that the company fills in order to add more to their overflowing coffers. There’s no criteria to get in, other than the whims of Hunter and formerly Vince. The entire McMahon family getting in is Thanos-level inevitable. BUT…I know what it means to folks who work in wrestling to be in, to have that ring. It means more money for food on the table at autograph shows and other appearances. With that in mind, here’s an idea – why not take all the money that’s made on the Hall of Fame stuff and put it into a fund for wrestlers who gave their bodies to help build the company up to the money printing factory it is today? Not just “Hey Madusa, here’s the royalties off your shirt sales”, but rather take all the money from that one event and parcel it out to those in NEED of help. All those wrestler go-fund mes for medical needs? Why not take .00000001% of your income and help these folks out? Go to an autograph signing and see what this business has done to the bodies of some of these folks. It would be far less than a rounding error to provide benefits to those that helped build your company.
Christensen B plays well in this market with…”Where is mic check ?”
I believe you mean MIKE Check. Last I heard he was working the Goose Creek market on WHOO, the Owl, and was mooching off his daughter. I hear she’s a whiz kid with computers.
Mike M wraps things up with…”Could you retell the story about your d**th hoax?”
So strange, I’ve had a few friends ask me about that this week as well. Hope it’s not an omen. The story there is one night I was just sitting at home watching TV and the phone rings. Mrs. Deal picks up, and as I recall Wild B Brown, who immediately started telling her how sorry he was to hear about what happened to me. She was, as you would imagine, really confused. I vividly recall her saying, “No no, he’s right here next to me…you want to talk to him?” I was then told about Wikipedia proclaiming my demise, I think dying in a bathtub or something with neighbors finding me. Later I want to say it was changed to me choking on Fruity Pebbles. But much to everyone’s delight, I was still alive and well, even to this very day!
And on that happy note, I close up this mailbag. Keep sending those questions in and I’ll keep answering them!