Working with my buddy at the Skyline Drive In to potentially do a theme night of guilty pleasure wrestling movies, probably with some local matches and maybe a legend or two coming in to do signings. I mean, I will be there too of course but I don’t really consider “RD Reynolds” and “legend” as things that go together. Regardless, pondering what those movies should be! He has the ability to show three or even four movies back to back between sundown and sunrise, so what oh what could those choice films be? Would think Ready to Rumble, probably a Hogan film, possibly Grunt? What y’all think we should do? Again, nothing is set in stone but it’s definitely being discussed and we’d love to see some of our fellow Crappers head out for it. To the mailbag!
Charles B kicks us off with…”With the year half over, what is your personal match of the year so far?”
If you mean my favorite match, it’s either Ospreay vs. Fletcher or Ospreay vs. Hangman. If you mean what I think was the most memorable, I’d go Toni vs. Mariah Hollywood ending. That thing was great and I don’t know how they can ever top it in terms of storyline build and climax.
Aaron M hits the power button for…”Was there ever a branded wrestling console game that was better than good ol’ generic NES Pro Wrestling?”
For the NES? No way. I’d honestly argue there were no good branded wrestling games for ANY system until we got to the N64 glory days with WCW vs. nWo World Tour and all those follow ups. The 8-bit and 16-bit WWF and WCW were hot garbage. To be fair, most licensed stuff in any genre was, and I will throw in stuff that folks love like Super Star Wars and the like as they were just platforms with Luke Skywalker doing 720 summersaults through never ending side scroll levels that had zero to do with the films. Hot take and I know I just made a lot of folks reading this VERY mad.
Anthony C stays with the vids with…”TMNT arcade game or Simpsons arcade?”
I’d go Simpsons just because it’s a franchise I enjoy, but honestly the best of that era from Konami is Sunset Riders (or maybe Moo Mesa, but I’ve barely played it).
And Sean B keeps us in the arcade for…”If the video game OutRun got a movie adaptation, who would you cast in it?”
Oh man, I can totally see it being like Tom Holland or Ryan Reynolds or one of the current ‘it’ guys as the driver, which I think would be a miss. The challenge is I think an unknown would sink it as well. Just give me Margot Robbie (or her older superior version Jaime Pressly) in the passenger seat and all is good as long as you’re blaring Magical Sound Shower to the masses.
SPEAKING OF OUTRUN, James B continues with…”Your Holy grail of arcade games?”
OutRun 2. I have four of them linked at Rupert’s (along with a Sega Race TV, Daytona 2s, and Hydro Thunders):
There’s actually a super deluxe version of those where you have two people per ‘car’, each with steering wheels. There’s a button you can press to switch who is driving, or if one guy crashes you automatically switch. It’s absurdly fun and I’ve only seen it once. THAT would be my personal arcade grail.
Mike M asks…”What’s the strangest work-related story you have?”
I worked for a printing company for 27 years and the owner is one of my favorite people ever. He was a bit crazy, which I think you have to be to actually own a successful business. It operated out of a turn of the century firehouse, which was neat to look at from the outside but inside it was a TURN OF THE CENTURY FIREHOUSE, which led to a million issues, not the least of which was on the second floor it would get nuclear hot in the summer. We told him constantly we needed better AC as the computers were literally malfunctioning due to the heat (as were the people!) and pointed out daily there was a window where we could just put in a small unit. He ignored us for weeks. Then one day, completely out of the blue, he walks into our office and screams, “My God! It’s so hot in here!” like it was all brand new to him. He then immediately decided we needed to get some air in the room and we were like, yes, finally, he’s going to get us an air conditioner. NO NO. His plan was to literally SMASH OPEN THE WINDOW WITH A HAMMER. In fact, he told his son to go get a hammer so he could do it! I was watching on in awe, thrilled to see the utter chaos that was about to happen. Sadly, a co-worker convinced him that smashing the window with a hammer was an inferior option to actually installing an ac unit in the window properly. I’ve never forgiven my co-worker for that.
Yeah, that.
Ryan S wants to know…”With the recent vault add of Fur Face, what other weird gimmicks should surface? I would like to see the Mad Monk attack Typhoon, wrestle 2 heel squashes then the next night attacks Papa Shango and wrestle the Brooklyn Brawler as a face.”
I have to believe there is more Phantasio out there that is in the vault. I refuse to believe there was only one match. Even if it’s just backstage stuff where Vince is pitching the magic wedgie finish, that’s gold. Gold Jerry!
Andy M is going commercial with…”So WWE has a lot of ads these days, makes me wonder what was a sponsor back in the 90’s that youd call a favorite?”
It’s a cop out, but I absolutely LOVED Lord Alfred plugging stuff back in the day.
I mean, there’s a reason he was always on WrestleCrap Radio. Funny story about that btw – we actually had a character for a short time that was the Ghost of Lord Alfred Hayes, and his daughter found out about that and contacted us. Truth is stranger than fiction I always say. Kinda surprised Long John Silver’s never reached out to us…hmm.
Craig B asks…”What’s your favorite championship belt of all time, strictly for its design?”
I know it’s everyone’s answer but it’s mine too – I love the old winged eagle. And before anyone asks, worst belt would have to be…you know what, I think I’ll do worst wrestling championship belts as this week’s induction. So give your suggestions in the comments section below!
Now THAT’s a way to end a column! You can also send your suggestions rightchere!