Been too long since the last mailbag, so let’s jump right in and see what y’all have built up over the last few weeks!
Andrew L kicks us off with…”What color is your mailbag?”
See, this is the type of high quality question I love. It makes you step back, stroke the beard a bit, think, before finally realizing you have no answer whatsoever to give. My favorite color is black and white, so I will go with that. I realize that is two colors, but they go together in my world. Hence the mailbag is black and white.
David S appears to have a price with…”Where would you rank Ted Dibiase as an all-time heel?”
I’m not a big fan of “ranking” things – that’s one reason why we did the WrestleCrap Book of Lists! years back in fact, just to mock the entire concept of such things. That said, I loved me some Million Dollar Man.
I always thought the Million Dollar Belt was stupid, but come on – he walked into a jewelry store, wearing a cape (!!!!), and screamed “I’m HERE!” You honestly can’t get much more diabolical than that!
Craig B asks…”Do you have any fond memories of either the Hardcore title or the 24/7 championship, and if so, let’s hear them!”
Only thing I really remember was when Crash Holly was running around an arcade and landed in a ball pit. That happened right? Maybe I should relive it by inducting it?
Ralph A ponders…”Who would win between “The measuring stick” Kevin Nash and “The Ruler” Oba Femi?”
Was that really a gimmick Nash had that I don’t remember? I know he had a ton of terrible nicknames before finally settling on Big Sexy. To this day I still believe DIESEL to be a stupid name for the guy as well, guessing not a lot of other folks agree with me there.
Dustin N wants to tag out with…”Who is the best tag team to never win a championship, and why is it the Faces of Fear?”
Although they kinda sorta ‘won’ them, I still find it super weird that the Rockers never held the WWF tag belts for an actual reign. A heel Rougeau Brothers run would also have been a lot of fun.
Nick S consults Chat GPT for…”How long do you think it will before a promotion tries to run under the gimmick of being the 1st Pro Wrestling promotion booked entirely by AI?”
There seems to be a mighty backlash against AI currently, so yeah, someone in this dumb business will probably be stupid enough to promote a show that way within the next year or so.
Josh G is looking for a golden oldie…”What is a Wrestlemania match from the Golden or New Gen era that wasn’t great, but was a favorite of yours?”
It wasn’t WrestleMania, but there was a Ronnie Garvin-Greg Valentine match I think at like a Royal Rumble that was a million times better than I ever expected going in and I would watch it a lot. I think just because it was two guys who had zero issue hitting each other super hard. I was never a Valentine fan but this one is quite great. Well worth going out of you way to check out for sure.
Simon OM wants to know…”What wrestler with a submission only finish could have potentially changed his career the most with an impact finisher?”
I really would have loved to have seen Bret have a finisher he could just pull out of nowhere.
Matt H has a suggestion: “When are you going to induct those stupid Dean Douglas report card segments from 1995? They featured Shane Douglas going by the name Dean Douglas giving grades to wrestlers based on how good their matches were and Summerslam 1995 had some as well.”
Would this week be soon enough? 🙂
Jarvis G is ready to go trick or treating already: “Has the family decided on Halloween costumes yet this year? Wife is being Dolly Parton and I’m going to be Sagat from The Street Fighter.”
I was gearing up for this to be the year Mrs. Deal and I went as The Bride and Frankenstein’s Monster, but apparently we’re doing some Dungeon Crawler Carl thing I guess? I dunno, she’s into it, I can wait another year.
Arya W raps: “When do you think the Max Caster situation blows over? I say a year, but I also say Billy Corgan probably doesn’t care and would book him tomorrow if he was willing to pay whatever Max’s fee is.”
The thing I will never understand about Max is how does no one EVER check what he’s going to say before he goes out before a live crowd? You’d think by this point promoters would at least be savvy enough to force him to clear his raps.
Jeremy W asks…”I know you have pitched Waylon Mercy as an example of an unfortunate lost opportunity. But I submit to you that the greatest lost opportunity of a similar gimmick is Sean O’Haire’s devils advocate gimmick. Why has someone not tried to run with this in the nearly 25 years since? I STILL watch those ‘I’m not telling you anything that you don’t already know’ promos today.”
I thought that was a fascinating character to be sure. I probably should induct it with a deep dive, as it would be fun to bring it out of the mothballs for us all to enjoy again.
Mike M asks the question I know a lot of folks have asked…”I’ve noticed some “engagement” type posts from the site lately. Is WrestleCrap under new management?”
The Trolla Corporation is trying something new to help pay for the ever rising hosting costs of the site so yeah, we’re throwing it out there and seeing if it can assist in covering site costs. As always, we will see what happens there.
Andy Goss wraps us up with one of the best questions ever: “Given that the Black Scorpion main evented Starrcade, is there a chance that (had the award or an equivalent existed in 1990) the Gooker doesn’t even win the Gooker?”
Blade isn’t here to argue it with me, but I still think I’m going Gooker. But holy smokes, what a year 1990 was. How did any of us ever stick through such a ridiculous time as wrestling fans? I am sure a lot of folks jumped off the bandwagon at that point, but I think in some weird way it made me love wrestling even more. As I’ve said before – give me something great, give me something terrible, I just don’t want something in the middle.
That’s it for this week! Feel free to send in questions as always rightchere!