Tossing Salt Presents:
Ultimate Wrestling Q&A
Daniel Bryan, Nick Aldis, Indy Sensations & More
September 3, 2021
DougMaynard.com

A long-time reader and old friend, Brother Marshall from Johnson City, TN, sent me many awesome and incredible questions. Just like Wrestlemania is now two nights long in order to get all the matches in, it’s going to take me two columns to answer them all and give them the respect and love due. So that’s what we’re going to do. It’s a very special edition of the Ultimate Wrestling Q&A. This is Part 1 of 2, and it all begins right now. Let’s do this.

If you could bend time and space, pulling wrestlers from past and present in their prime to create the greatest wrestling match of all time and, who would be in it, what kind of match would it be, and what would the stipulation be?

This is a tough one because there are so many great wrestlers that I’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy over the past forty-plus years and so many who are damn good in so many ways, trying to pick just two names for one match is nearly impossible. But what the hell, we can do it. No stipulation because the truly great performers didn’t need smoke and mirrors to make the matches great. So it’s one fall with a sixty-minute time limit. A title on the line is a good thing so forget the absolute “no-stipulation” comment I just made. It’s for the NWA World Championship. As for who the two competitors are, we’ll just play it safe with the two greatest in-ring performers of all-time in most people’s eyes, Ric Flair, in his prime, versus The Heartbreak Kid, Shawn Michaels. Yes, it’s been done before, but we never had a rematch and to be honest, Flair was a bit past it when that match happened and HBK had to carry the Nature Boy through parts of the match. Ric in his prime versus HBK at his best though, that would have been beyond comparison to any other match ever seen. So there you go.

If you had access to any wrestler from any promotion, any era available for a super card what would be your mid-card title match, tag title match, women’s title match, and finally your world title match?

For the World Championship, I’d have Ric Flair defending against HBK Shawn Michaels, as noted in the question above. My mid-card title match would be the United States Championship with Roddy Piper defending against Arn Anderson. James J. Dillon would be in Arn’s corner. For the tag team titles, it would be Jim Cornette’s Midnight Express, Bobby Eaton & Stan Lane defending the NWA World Tag Team Championship against Rick Steamboat & Jay Youngblood. And finally, for the Women’s Championship Match, it would be Asuka defending her title versus Mickie James & Lisa “Ivory” Moretti in a triple-threat match.

Would you like to see Bryan Danielson come in as a Heel? Or would you rather he challenge Omega/team up with Punk to start his pending AEW run?

Having the American Dragon come in as a heel would be fun and interesting to see, but the fans would shit all over it immediately. Bryan is much loved by the wrestling fans and is going to be cheered regardless of whatever AEW tries to do, much like Punk was when he made his debut. Better to bring him in as a face and lets the fans have their moment before Danielson does any kind of change to heel status. Hell, let him and Punk wrestle each other as two faces with respect looking for a great match, then have Omega and his All Elite allies get involved and we could have a Punk/Danielson alliance versus Omega and friends. That would rock.

I don’t have a lot of familiarity with today’s Indy scene. Is there anyone you think is relatively unknown that could make a huge splash in the industry?

There is a young man currently performing on the NC Indy scene who just turned 18 years old and has already been in the ring for two years. A second-generation star, Sammy Love is rapidly becoming a must-see talent who gets better and better with each performance. Het gets it and it shows in every move, match, and promo. He’s a prodigy to be sure and even though college is in his immediate future, the guy shows an in-ring presence and maturity well beyond his actual experience level. There is no limit to what the future might hold for this kid. If he stays with wrestling, he’s going to be a top star one day for one of the major companies. Remember the name of Sammy Love. You’re going to be hearing it for many years to come.

Wrestling diversity is on the rise. From competitors to match stips to genres. Wrestling has mainstream appeal with GLOW and Heels. Is this the greatest time to be a fan of wrestling?

The greatest time to be a wrestling fan, for me, was the mid-to-late ’90s and the Monday Night Wars. WCW was damn good. WWE was damn good. ECW was damn good. And there were Indy shows everywhere and while some weren’t all that, many of them were, you guessed it, damn good. And now, it’s kind of a resurgence and things keep picking up and getting better and better. It’s pretty damn good as well, but nothing beats that original time frame and run for me. When we were flipping back and forth every Monday night between TNT and the USA Network, that was the best of times. And now, it’s Act II. Gotta love it!

Do you think that Nick Aldis will turn up at All Out now he’s dropped the 10 pounds of gold?

With the current open-door policies of AEW, Impact Wrestling, AAA, and the NWA, anything is possible, and seeing Nick Aldis popping up at All Out to make a challenge to Kenny Omega, or Christian Cage for that matter, would make for some exciting moments. I don’t think it will happen since I believe Aldis will be focusing more on getting back the NWA World Championship from Trevor Murdoch, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility and I certainly wouldn’t complain if it does happen. Aldis was a great NWA Champion and if anyone truly deserves the description as being “All Elite”, Aldis would be the one.

And there you go. My thanks for reading. Any comments, thoughts, or questions, please feel free to drop me a line and we’ll talk a bit. My thanks again to Brother Marshall for these questions. I’ll get to the rest of them later today most likely or tomorrow at the latest. Until the next time, take care of yourself and stay good. I’ll see you at the matches.

Ubuntu!