Tossing Salt Presents:
Ultimate Wrestling Q&A
Bob Backlund, Tozawa, Marty Scurll & More
May 3, 2022
DougMaynard.com

Causing more trouble than a leaked Supreme Court brief, it’s the Ultimate Wrestling Q&A. Are you ready? Let’s do this.

If you could book a gauntlet style match with eight teams, from any era, and in their primes, who would your teams be and who would win?

Eight teams? How about The Midnight Express (Lane & Eaton) versus The Enforcers (Arn & Zbyszko) versus The Hart Foundation (Bret & Neidhart) versus The Usos (Jimmy & Jey) versus The Road Warriors (Animal & Hawk) versus Rick Steamboat & Jay Youngblood versus Paul Jones & Masked Superstar versus FTR. And the winnning team would be, The Midnight Express with Jim Cornette.

If Hogan hadn’t come along when he did, would Iron Sheik have held the title longer?

No, I don’t think so. Iron Sheik was merely meant to be a transitional champion and if Hogan hadn’t been available, I suspect that Backlund would have held the title for a while longer. Either that or some other baby-face who was available would have been the next champ, taking the title from Iron Sheik.

Which version of Bob Backlund do you like more: 70s Champ or 90s heel?

Definitely the Mr. Backlund character that Bob evolved to in his return to the WWF in the ’90s. As Champion, Bob was a good wrestler, but boring as hell. Watching paint dry was more exciting than a WWWF Champion Backlund match or promo, but when he returned, he was exciting, fun to watch, and unpredictable. A great character to be sure.

Dark Side of the Ring has NOT been cancelled. What topics would you like to see them feature in Season 4?

Right off the top of my head, I’d go with Black Saturday, The Rise and Fall of GLOW, The WWF Ringboy Scandal, Jerry Lawler’s sell of Memphis Wrestling, the death of Brian Christopher, and The American Love Machine Art Barr.

Isn’t Akiro Tozawa a world class wrestler? Why does he never wrestle?

WWE learned that Tozawa can do comedy and thus, decided to use him with the 24/7 Title craziness instead of allowing him to do what he does best, have great matches. It sucks, but in the long run, it’s probably better this way. He doens’t have as much wear and tear on the body and to be honest, if he was just another wrestler, he probably wouldn’t have made it through all the roster cuts over the past couple of years. He’s like R-Truth, another excellent wrestler, but he’s been typecast into comedy instead. I’m sure he’s laughing all the way to the bank though so even though it sucks, no worries, right?

What’s a classic gimmick or story from long ago you’d love to see brought back?

As a way to establish someone as a strong heel, I’d like to see someone, maybe Baron Corbin or maybe Bobby Roode, “injure someone”, and then, come in wearing a t-shirt, much like Greg Valentine did with Wahoo McDaniel & Jay Strongbow, saying, “I broke (insert name) leg!” It’s simple, but so effective and a classic assclown heel move. I want to see someone do that.

Marty Scurll. Do you think Marty will ever be able to appear anywhere in a major promotion ever again?

This one, I’m not sure. Scurll is a good wrestler, a good talker, and actually was a good booker with ROH before allegations in the “SpeakingOut Movement” came out and his career was cut short pretty quickly. While the allegations against Scurll, which he admits are true, were not illegal, they still come across as sleazy and look bad for Scurll. With WWE being a publicly traded company, I’m pretty sure that they wouldn’t touch him. AEW or Impact are more likely, but I really doubt that will happen for Scurll either. Unless it’s for Japan or overseas, I think the idea of Scurll as a big, top star in the United States is pretty much non-existent.

And there you go. My thanks for reading. Comments, thoughts, and any questions are welcome and appreciated. Until the next time, stay safe and be good. I’ll see you at the matches.

Ubuntu!