Greetings, salutations and how the hell are you, my friends.  I’m Doug and this is pro wrestling’s most eclectic column, always infamous, the one and only “Tossing Salt – Worldwide News”.  As you may or may not have noticed, today is Wednesday which means I’m running a day behind.  No excuses except for inept slackness on my part, but I’m here now to get the party started and get things right. So let’s do this, shall we?

 

 

Word is that Trish Stratus will be inducting Lita into the WWE Hall of Fame.  Good call, but I want kind of wanting to see Matt Hardy and Edge have the honors.  

 

What’s up with the “Razor Ramon” tag for Scott Hall and his induction announcement?  I understand copyright and all of that, but “Razor” had a great career before the WWE in the AWA and after the WWE in WCW, and both companies and their histories are part of the WWE Universe now.  “Razor” is Scott Hall and he deserves the recognition and honor. I just don’t get that whole “name” thing.

 

Tony Schiavone was spotted at WWE Headquarters. I’d like to see Tony brought in and used on the Network.  He used to be a great announcer and probably could be again.  I hope that Scott Hudson and Bob Caudle are brought in at some point too.  Shame to have that talent just wasting away and not being called upon to help with the NWA / WCW projects.

 

Nobody is talking or thinking about CM Punk anymore.  That just makes me more sure than ever that by SummerSlam at the latest, he’ll be back.  Punk versus Daniel Bryan for the WWE World Championship as the main event of Wrestlemania 31?  I could see it.

 

I finally broke down and got the WWE Network.  I’m happy.

 

I still want to see Disco Inferno as part of Wrestlemania XXX.  No, I’m not going to shut up or give up on that idea.  Fandango was quoted on RAW as saying that he “hates disco”.  If that isn’t an opening to bring in Disco Inferno for a short run, I don’t know what is.  Book it, Vince.

 

I love old-school wrestling and old-school wrestling fans.  Big shout out to the fans and folks at ACW (American Championship Wrestling).  Isn’t it about time for a Laurinburg show again?  

 

William Regal belongs on the main WWE roster not only wrestling, but doing the commentary with Cole and JBL.  No offense to Lawler, but a few months calling the action at NXT would be good for him (and us). And Regal is better at this point and time.

 

The Undertaker needs to lay off a little bit with the mascara. 

 

Did you see that bump that Brock took, head first, on the casket at RAW?  That was scary, but he seemed to shake it off and be okay.  It’d be a shame if he was injured and had to miss Wrestlemania and the match against Taker.  Yeah, I’m actually interested in seeing that match now. Paul Heyman has done his job well.

 

Batista’s pants split as he speared Randy Orton on RAW on Monday night. Have to love “Live TV” and if that wasn’t a sign that this whole Batista run for the gold is a mistake, I don’t know what it.  

 

Nobody throws out a slap like Stephanie McMahon.

 

Let’s move on…

 

 

A look at last week as HHH takes out Daniel Bryan and The “Yes!” movement.  Here is Stephanie.  She loves her some HHH.  Here is Randy Orton.  He’s keeping his title at WM XXX.  Here is Batista.  He’s going to beat everyone and win title. Insult to Steph.  Steph with the slap.  Spear by Batista to Orton and Dave’s pants split.  Gotta love live TV. Christian wins a Fatal-4Way over Dolph, Del Rio and Sheamus. He’s fighting Big E on Tuesday night for the IC title.  The Wyatts speak.  Awesome as always.  Sin Cara has Scooby Doo in his corner (yes, I said Scooby Doo) as he squashes Damien Sandow.  How the mighty have fallen.  We look back at Smackdown as Kane has his friends and associates set up The Shield so that he and the New Age Outlaws can destroy them.  Los Matadores defeated Rybaxel when The Shield provided a distraction.  The Shield destroyed Rybaxel. Believe in The Shield.  And payback is a bitch.  HHH talks to Michael Cole and this is now the “Reality Era”.  HHH says he’s going to end Daniel Bryan, The “Yes!” movement and win WWE title at Wrestlemania XXX.  Cody Rhodes defeated Fandango after Summer badly faked an injury and Fandango was distracted.  Goldust likes to dance.  Movie plug for “Sabotage” and stars Arnold and Paul.  Hulk Hogan is here too.  Here comes The Miz.  He gets punked.  Love live The Terminator and Hulkamania, brutha!  Big Show squashes Titus O’Neil.  What’s the point?  Cena is looking in the mirror and is jumpy.  The Shield talk to The Authority.  No hard feelings and they’ll talk later.  It’s The Shield versus Real Americans later in the night.  Super-Cena and Luke Harper have a fantastic match that ends when the lights go out.  We see Cena tied in the ropes and wearing the goat mask.  Follow The Buzzards.  AJ Lee walks away from a match with Naomi.  EXCUSE ME!  Vickie Guerrero makes an Invitational Challenge for Wrestlemania where AJ is facing essentially the entire WWE Diva Roster for her title.  Ouch!  Razor Ramon is going into the WWE Hall of Fame.  I call him Scott Hall.  Really good match as The Real Americans learn to believe in The Shield.  Cesaro eats announce table.  WE THE PEOPLE! (but the Shield still wins.)  Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar are here. They call out The Undertaker, but get Druids carrying a coffin to the ring. Brock looks inside, but no Taker.  Paul and Brock are frustrated.  The casket open and we get vintage Taker.  Taker and Brock fight.  Brock flees to fight another day (in two weeks at Wrestlemania XXX).  The end.  And that’s how to recap Monday Night RAW.

 

And moving on to those immortal words of everyone.  It must be that thing we call…

 

 

I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I don’t do drugs. My addiction is wrestling.’ – CM Punk

 

‘Showing off is what you do when your are simply better than everybody else.’ – Dolph Ziggler 

 

‘If Mr.McMahon dies, do you think the mourners will outnumber the cheering section?’ – Jerry “The King” Lawler 

 

‘If Shakespeare was alive today, he’d be writing wrestling shows.’ – Chris Jericho

 

And now, it’s time to check that old mailbag and a few questions from the wonderful world of Facebook.  

 

 

 

Managers come and go and most managers, especially in wrestling tend to switch clients like the rest of us switch underwear or socks or like Sunny switches bed partners, but occasionally, you’ll find that one manager and one person or team that are together through thick and thin and where you see one, you’ll see the other.  And while some names come to mind like Paul Ellering and The Road Warriors, Bobby Heenan and Nick Bockwinkle, Jimmy Hart and Hulk Hogan, etc.  My favorite and the one I’ve always liked the best has to be Jim Cornette and The Midnight Express.  A great tag team with a great talker – the perfect combination.  They go together like peanut butter and jelly, or good chili and trips to the bathroom.  It just doesn’t get much better in my eyes.

 

 

Larry Zbyszko – Right after the Bruno / Zbyszko wars in 1981, there was no hotter heel in the WWF than Zbyszko and he was the perfect person to take the WWF title from Bob Backlund and bring in the fans.  Promoters Vince Sr. and Vince Jr. didn’t agree and Zbyszko ended up going to Georgia and the AWA instead.  Talk about money lost – it was that day.

 

Ted DiBiase – Forget about the whole “buying the title from Andre” stuff.  If ever a wrestler was on fire and deserving of a title run in his own right, the “Million Dollar Man” was it.  A great wrestler, a great talker, and the fans hated him.  The money he and Hogan could have made.  They did a good run, but a title switch would have been even so much better.

 

Roddy Piper – Piper was so hot in his early WWF days that it can be argued that he didn’t “need the title”, and I agree.  But it would have been nice to see Piper get a brief run and watch Hogan try to get it back.  Piper didn’t need the belt, but he did deserve it.

 

Greg Valentine – There was an angle in the WWF in the early 80’s where Valentine and Bob Backlund wrestled and the ending had controversy and Valentine was declared the winner even though Backlund won. The belt was “held up” until they had a rematch a month later at Madison Square Garden.  It was a great angle for the time and gave great heat to both men and their feud.  But imagine the heat if Valentine won the rematch and became the WWF Champion?  It would have been a short run because Greg is not really the flashiest or most charismatic guy in the business, but he’s solid and capable and people respect (and fear) him.  And he would have been a breath of fresh air for all of the non-Backlund fans in the WWF, of which there was many. It’s money left on the table and not, in my mind, the best decision of Vince Sr. to book  things as they happen.  Greg deserved better.

 

Matt Hardy – I know I’ll get some heat for this, but Matt was, until the crap went down with Edge and Lita, a good talent and the right person at the right time in the WWE. He was hot and on fire and even though he did get runs with the United States and ECW titles, a brief run with the WWE title would have been the right thing to do. If Edge can be justified as a billion-time champion for the company, why not Matt?  Just saying.

 

 

Ric Flair, because he’s one of the best of all time, he’s a true legend, and he’d make me look like a milllion bucks and a major star even though I have less wrestling ability than the average broomstick or most WWE Divas on the first day of wrestling school.  

 

 

I think that anyone who reads my RAW recaps or any of my material can easily answer this one.  He’s the former WCW TV Champion and the man who always says that, “It’s your duty to shake your booty!”.  All together now kids… The Disco Inferno.  

 

 

Just have the fans take a look at any match with Wahoo McDaniel fighting Ric Flair and they’ll end up saying “I know wrestling is fake, but that shit right there is real!”.  For the beauty and science of wrestling and matches that you can’t help get involved in, whether you like it or not, would be The Midnight Express versus The Rock & Roll Express.  Yeah, I think Wahoo versus Flair and then The Rock & Rollers versus The Midnights.  Watching those feuds would convert even the biggest skeptics.

 

 

In other words, what wrestler is so annoying, so disgusting, so whatever that I would just like to see gone forever and have no respect for in any way, shape or form.  A few names come to mind of people I don’t like, but in general, I have a lot of respect for any man or woman who steps in that ring and follows their dreams, so I wouldn’t attempt bodily harm or anything more than a dirty look at most of them.  But I have no respect for anyone who hurts children and thus, my pick would be Buck “Rock & Roll” Zumhofe.  I respect what he did in the ring, but as recent news items have revealed, he’s not worthy of any kind of respect on a real, human basis.  He’s one guy I would have no hesistation to “kick in the baby maker”… repeatedly.  

 

And now, time for some more words of wisdom from those great minds we all know and love…

 

 

“Paul Heyman could shit a better wrestling format in his sleep than Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara could do if they worked on it for twenty years.’ – Jim Cornette

 

‘Picking out Vince Russo’s faults could be a full-time job for somebody.’ – Jim Cornette

 

‘I spent my life – all my life – learning to wrestle. It’s the only means of livelihood I’ve ever had and, uh, the only gimmick that I have in wrestling is wrestling.’ – Lou Thesz

 

‘We’re the greatest athletes in the world without a doubt.’ – Hulk Hogan

 

‘No great success comes without risk.’ – Dixie Carter

 

And finally, let’s do that thing where I describe a person and you guess who.  I think we call it…

 

 

Last week, I asked you this.  

 

I wrestled for thirty years, starting off in California and Texas, eventually moving to the Georgia area and the Carolinas, but am probably known for my attempts to start a wrestling union than my in-ring activities.  I’m also known for my mouth and promo ability, which was a running, shuck-jive style that was quickly “stolen” by guys like Dusty Rhodes.  I am also famous for my claims that I was constantly being held back by promoters due to racism and being blacklisted and even went on some talk shows to air my dirty laundry in public.  I did manage to hold several titles in my career, including my last belt, a tag team title in the Georgia territory, where my then-partner used our tag team break-up as the basis to turn heel and begin to work with his “family”, which in turn eventually led to the forming of an extremely well known faction.  My last match was on a pay-per-view in 1993 as part of a “Legends Match”.  Who Am I?

 

And the answer was none other than Claude Patterson, better known as Thunderbolt Patterson.  Patterson was infamous for his cries to unionize pro wrestling, even back as early as the mid-seventies.  He had an appearance on the “Morton Downey Jr. Show” where he made many claims about how he was blacklisted in pro wrestling and about racism behind the scenes.  His last major title was the Georgia National Tag Team Championship along with Ole Anderson and Ole used their loss and the break-up of the team, along with the arrival of Arn Anderson into the area to act as a reason to turn heel and join Arn in a tag team partnership, which would eventually lead to Ole and Arn becoming part of the original Four Horsemen.  Thunderbolt’s last match was at Slamboree 93 where he teamed with Brad Armstrong to defeat Ivan Koloff and Baron Von Raschke.

 

Correctly answering were:  My former tag team partner, Mr. Russell Jackson, “The Boss” Bob Magee, “Bama Boy” Chad Burttram, A man we know only as “Joey”, and “The Icon” Ryan Springer.  Great job, my friends.  Well done indeed.  And now, for a newbie.

 

I began wrestling in the 1960’s in my native Canada and gained early success as a masked man who was determined to “keep wrestling scientific”, but that ended when I was unmasked by the legendary Sheik.  Eventually, I moved to the Carolinas where I was briefly managed by the original Nature Boy Buddy Rogers and had success as both a singles and tag team wrestler, winning all of the regional titles at some point and also carrying the Canadian Championship as well.  I also had some success in the Central States region, but then I moved to the Mid-South region and totally changed my gimmick and character and never looked back.  I went from the well-respected and extremely scientific grappler to a wild and demented man with a partially shaved head, face paint and a crazy, far-away look in my eyes as I destroyed my opponents.  I had a high-profile run in the WWF, but best moments were probably in the Mid-South region and World Class territories.  I’ve been managed by such names as Bobby Heenan, Jimmy Hart, Sunshine, Dark Journey and Percy Pringle. My picture was featured in Sports Illustrated in a 1985 article about professional wrestling.  I retired in the late 1990’s, but came back to wrestling in 2004.  My last match was in 2007.  I wrote a book in 2006.  Who Am I?

 

Think you know the answer? Talk to me at Doug28352@yahoo.com or else inbox me at Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/saltpalace.  Add me.  

 

And I guess with that, I’m going to close this bad mama-jama up. It’s nearly 6:00am and my eyelids are getting very heavy.  Thank you for reading and I’ll be back tomorrow with that “Wrestling Fact Or Fiction” column that I do sometimes.  And I may have an all question column up this weekend too.  No promises, but as of now, it’s what I have planned so keep an eye out, okay?  Have a great day and I’ll catch you on the flip side.  Take it sleazy.

 

Ubuntu!