Tossing Salt Presents:
Ultimate Wrestling Q&A
Lacey Evans, CM Punk, Val Venis vs Cornette & More
March 24, 2023
DougMaynard.com

Let’s talk about professional wrestling. It’s the Ultimate Wrestling Q&A. Let’s do this.

Who was better: Shawn Michaels or Stone Cold?

Shawn was the better in-ring performer to be sure, but Stone Cold Steve Austin ended up being the bigger and better character. No one can take away from the in-ring legacy that HBK has left, but when you talk about big names and whooping ass, Stone Cold is the first name that comes to mind for most.

Is Bray Wyatt even relevant at all?

He’s Bray Wyatt so of course he’s relevant. It’s just that the flame has dimmed a bit and might need a little gas tossed onto the fire to kick things back up a notch. But Bray is a top guy and so long as he’s involved in professional wrestling, he will always be relevant to any conversation about WWE and professional wrestling.

Why has every version of Lacey Evans in the WWE failed so far?

I disagree with that statement. The first version of Lacey Evans that we saw, as the Sassy Blonde Lady, that version worked and was over. When the WWE started tweaking and changing the character, putting her in a relationship with Ric Flair, that’s when she started going downhill and everything since has been bombed. Lacey is a good performer and was impressive until WWE forgot about the old cliche where if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Lacey wasn’t broken until they tried to fix her. It’s bad creativity and Vince being Vince that have caused the problems. Nothing else.

Where is Shinsuke Nakamura? He seems to have vanished from WWE ever since doing the match with Muta in Japan. Why?

I’m sure that Shinsuke has been sitting in catering wondering the same thing. He’s a talented performer who never fails to deliver in the ring, but he’s just been lost in the shuffle as of late for WWE. Maybe after Mania, someone will remember that Shinsuke is part of the roster and could have some great matches with GUNTHER, Theory, Corbin, etc. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Shinsuke as part of the WWE, but the only question is when we’ll see him again and what’s next.

So Val Venis challenged Jim Cornette to a political debate on the podcasts and Cornette blocked him. Thoughts?

Evidently, Jim doesn’t think that Val Venis is important enough or worth his time and maybe also realizes that podcasts are not the place for political discussions. All these debates, if they were to happen, would be giving a rub to Venis and doing absolutely nothing to help/benefit Cornette. All it would do is expose the worst parts of Cornette, amplifying his liberal political views, and nothing else. It’s a no-win for Cornette so why bother?

CM Punk did an Instagram post and claims that Tony Khan & Moxley wanted him to work a squash match even though he wasn’t cleared to wrestle. He also called Meltzer and Jericho liars. Thoughts?

In the now-deleted post, Punk spoke about how Khan wanted him to wrestle on TV even though he wasn’t medically cleared to wrestle. A bad call by Tony to be sure. It’s Punk fighting back after everyone has been taking shot after shot at him, including Meltzer and Jericho, and not bothering to respond or comment. Now, he’s calling them out and the AEW audience is freaking out. I guess the truth that Tony doesn’t care about the well-being of his performers and wants them to work even though they’re not medically cleared hurts. I believe Punk and what he’s saying. I think Tony is a hypocrite and Jericho will say anything to be on the “right side” of things depending on whatever way the wind is blowing. It’s going to be interesting to see where things go from here. We’ll just have to keep our eyes open.

What did you think of El Hijo Del Vikingo and his “dream match” against Kenny Omega on Dynamite?

I didn’t see it nor do I care to go back and watch it on YouTube. I read the reviews and it was supposedly a good match with lots of flippy stuff going on and Vikingo being impressive before eating a loss to Omega as expected. And then the entire match was buried by an angle with Hangman Page & Don Callis to take over the segment and be the highlight of the night. I wouldn’t call that a “dream match” by anyone’s standards.

Hulk Hogan & Harley Race versus Bruiser Brodie & Randy Savage. Who wins?

Harley and Hogan on the same team? Brodie & Savage as partners? Mee thinks that whoever is coming up with these fantasy matches needs to lay off the bottle or blunt for a while. This is one fantasy match that, given who the participants are, could never happen. But if it did happen, it would be interesting to watch and see who “accidentally potatoes” their partner first in the heat of the moment and how long it takes to go from a match to a shoot. Not long, I would think. Race and Hogan would win.

22 years ago, WWE bought out WCW and ECW and then buried both companies and put them on the shelf? Should WWE (Vince) have kept all three companies running as separate companies and promotions?

It would have been interesting to see Vince try and keep all three companies running and independent of each other, but in reality, it never could have happened. Vince’s contract with the USA Network at the time had a no-compete clause and running wrestling on other networks, be it the Turner Networks or anywhere else, with WCW or ECW, would have violated that clause and led to major lawsuits and problems for Vince and the WWE. Also, Vince was stretched out enough with one company, much less trying to run three of them, and his ego/controlling personality, wouldn’t have allowed him to cede control of either company to anyone else. What if the company was successful and became more popular than WWE? Vince wouldn’t have been able to stand it. It’s an interesting thought, but it never would have or could have happened. It would have been fun to see though.

Jeff Jarrett recently said that fans had “unrealistic expectations” for Ric Flair’s last match. Agree or disagree?

I’ll agree to a point that we expected Ric to do better than he did in this match, but we also expected Flair to be sober, to have at least some conditioning so that he wouldn’t be gassed immediately and be passing out during the match, and for the match to be booked differently where Ric could get a few shots in, mostly stay on the apron, and then come in for the finish to send the fans home happy. None of that happened either. The match was the absolute shits and Flair only has himself to blame. Don’t blame the fans for expecting more when Flair was the one making the bad decisions and not taking the match as seriously as he should have. Jeff is just trying to rewrite history here and deflect the problems and issues. Nothing more.

And there you go. My thanks for reading. Comments, thoughts, and any questions you may have are welcome and appreciated. I’m always looking forward to interacting with you, my loyal readers. And with that being said, it’s time to wrap things up. Take care and be well, my friends. Keep your eyes open for foreign objects and I’ll see you at the matches. Until the next time, be good.

Ubuntu!