Tossing Salt Presents:
Ultimate Wrestling Q&A
EC3, The Draft, My Wrestling Background & More
May 5, 2023
DougMaynard.com

It’s only 9:00 am and my nerves are already shot to hell. Does anyone want a dog or two cats? sighs Let’s talk wrestling. It’s the Ultimate Wrestling Q&A. Let’s do this.

Big Poppa Pump Scott Steiner versus Harley Race. Who wins?

With both men in their primes, this would be an epic encounter and one hell of a good match, the stuff from which legends are born. Harley would win of course, but after about an hour with Big Poppa Pump, he’d know he’d been in a good fight.

EC3 says that he sent Tony Khan an e-mail after the infamous blow-up with CM Punk & The Elite, but never heard anything back. Thoughts?

Tony Khan is a billionaire who runs three different companies and sport-franchises and ECW is wondering why Tony never messaged him back after he sent an e-mail. Tony probably has hundreds of e-mails every day and unless you’re someone who he speaks to regularly or can make him lots of money, EC3’s e-mail probably went straight to spam and Tony never saw or read it. EC3 may like to control his narrative, but he’s not a big enough name or talent to draw the attention of a billionaire wrestling mark with so many things on his plate already. It’s amazing to me that this is even a story because, in truth, it’s not.

Yes or no. Does AEW need CM Punk?

Like him or not, when Punk was on AEW TV, the ratings were over a million every week and the live shows were constantly selling out. Since he’s been gone, the TV shows are averaging about 800,000 views a week, and arenas that were seating 15,000 fans are drawing crowds of 4,500 to 5,000 fans at most. Punk = fans = money. It’s just how it is, so does AEW need Punk? I would say a definite yes.

In your opinion, who was the best National Heavyweight Champion?

It’s been so long since the original form of that title existed, I had to go to Wikipedia to remember who was the National Champion, who was the Georgia Champion which was the belt it replaced, and who the top guys then actually were. And based on the list I found and from what I remember from those days of World Championship Wrestling, the best National Heavyweight Champion would be either 3-time Champion The Masked Superstar or 3-time Champion Larry Zbyszko. Both men had great runs with the belt and were great wrestlers.

How about if Russian &Iranian heels battling it out: Nikolai Volkoff and Iron Sheik vs Ivan and Nikita Koloff? Besides the audience, who wins?

This would be an epic match to be sure. As for who wins, neither Nikolai nor The Sheik could match the power of Nikita. The Koloffs would win.

If AEW completely sold out Wembley, would that worry higher-ups in WWE?

I don’t think WWE would care. They sold out the event, Clash at the Castle, very quickly and have been on a great run of every PPV and television taping selling out with record crowds. If AEW was consistent in its box-office appeal, that might be another story, but on the domestic front, in the U.S., the AEW audience is shrinking weekly. I’m sure WWE will be watching and taking notes, but as for being worried about the big picture of things, I just don’t see it.

So what did you think of the WWE Draft this past week? Any surprises? Thoughts?

It was kind of boring to me, to be honest. No big changes in the rosters. No groups or factions were broken up. It was just a lot of cameos of past stars reading off names from cue cards and nothing more. It was just another show and not what I was expecting.

Do you think WWE should do a PPV in Hawaii?

No, I don’t. The logistics would be terrible. The time zones would make this difficult for the North American market because Hawaii is 6 hours behind Eastern time. In comparison, London England is 5 hours AHEAD Eastern Standard Time and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is 7 hours AHEAD. So, those two markets could do a show at 7 or 8:00 their time and it would be consumed by the Eastern crowd in the early afternoon. A house show or two while traveling on an international tour is probably the best that Hawaii can expect.

With factions like Imperium, The Bloodline, The Judgement Day, etc., should WWE create a Six-Man (Trios) Championship?

It’s an interesting idea and I can see the arguments for adding another title, but I would say no. There are too many titles in the company already and one more, just to have another belt, doesn’t make sense to me. It would be more confusing than anything else. At least I think so.

I just found you on Twitter & love the site, especially all the wrestling posts. What’s your background in wrestling? Have you ever wrestled? What qualifies you to answer questions about wrestling?

Thanks for the support and I’m glad you like the site. My background? To start, I’m a fan like you. I’ve been a fan of pro wrestling for over 45 years, having been watching since I was literally in diapers. I’ve never actually wrestled, but I’ve been to hundreds of live shows, was a roommate to a great talent named Mike Youngblood for a couple of years, and have helped out many guys with storylines, promos, etc. I’ve been in the ring playing around with several wrestlers so I’ve taken a slam, a flying body press, and many a chop where the handprint was on my chest for hours afterward. And my background includes recapping RAW, Sunday Night Heat, and Smackdown for a site called The Wrestling Informer, as well as covering international wrestling and writing my column called Tossing Salt – Worldwide News. I worked for Wrestle-Zone.Co.UK for over ten years as a columnist and also did show recaps and reviews for Lords of Pain, PWBTS.com, and PWInsider. And of course here at my site, I do The Ultimate Wrestling Q&A and Wrestling Fact or Fiction columns, as well as PPV prediction columns and recaps. So my background is that I’m a guy who knows the business, loves the business and loves to write about the business known as professional wrestling.

And there you go. My thanks for reading. Comments, thoughts, and any questions are welcome and appreciated. And with that, it’s time to wrap things up and go get breakfast. Take care and be well, my friends. Watch out for foreign objects and I’ll see you at the matches.

Ubuntu!