hey Wai + John! hope you guys are good as you near the end of this mammoth mailbag (or the start if I missed the cut-off)
what’s your go-to order when it comes to Carribean food? I’m based in London so the community is an important part of the city, and I envision it being the same, or more so, in your neck of the woods! hopefully someone hears this question and tries roti for the first time, it’ll change your life.
thanks for all the great work
Did Otis have the worst calendar year for a “prospective” wrestler in WWE history?
Is there any backstage “heat” that we’re unaware of or was this truly a case of Roman Reigns coming back stomping out an entire MITB run? When you think about his calendar year to me it feels like a millionaire who blows all their money, but the story wasn’t told in that fashion on TV.
It’s easy to make fun of the Thunderdome era, and I certainly grew tired of it. But what, if anything, do you guys think WWE could have done differently during the worst of the pandemic lockdown? They could have gone the wrestlers-in-stands-with-masks route, but obviously, that was not necessarily the safest option for performers or the crowd. Should have they have done socially distanced outdoor shows a la AEW? Just done shows without any crowd or piped-in noise? Or was the Thunderdome the best of a bad situation?
I apologize if this has been asked before but how does Nielsen gather demographic statistics? How do they know who is watching? Are specific members of a household not allowed to share the TV (connected to the box) with, say, their spouse or children or do they have log into an individual account before each person watches something? It’s something I’ve always been curious about when I hear demographic numbers. Thanks in advance and thanks for all you do.
-Suren (in Portland)
Roy from Rhode Island
Hi John & Wai,
As two people in long-term relationships (congrats on the wedding, Wai), what have you found to be the keys to ensuring they are and remain healthy and mutually fulfilling, broadly speaking? John, how much has becoming parents affected this?
To end this on a less heavy note, where were your first dates with your significant others?
A post was merged into an existing topic: REWIND-A-RAW 8/2/21: Flair vs. A.S.H., Goldberg, Bray Wyatt
Aram from Denmark.
As a feedback to your answer from last month. No, I never have doubted anyone of you were biased. It was more on how you stayed neutral or in reviewing something crossed your minds that “oh, I cant give this a pass because I would never give another company a pass on this type of booking”
And my question for this month is if the TNA style of booking had been around now. Which modern TV series would they have been inspired from now like they did back in 2010s with Sons of Anarchy and Dexter.
Could we see gimmicks based on Better Call Saul, Stranger Things, Succession,The Boys, Wandavision and what could actually work if it were up to you?
Thanks for the great work and for chatting about Carribean food on the last episode! I hope everyone has a nice can of Ting, maybe some sorrell afterwards.
After listening to WH’s Long and Winding Royal Road, I remembered how Jun Akiyama was a real hot prospect - a Super Rookie if you will! What current wrestlers early in their careers do you think are true Super Rookies, where the upside is so obvious early on? For instance, when I saw Utami Hayashishita debut in 2018, it was undeniable to me that she was the real deal.
Thanks as always!
As the POST Wrestling Archivist, I feel I have some self-imposed responsibilities and one of those is to continually highlight John’s impression abilities. For those who don’t know, I have an audio file of the Top 170 John Pollock impressions that is now 4 years old. I have noted all the impressions John has done in those 4 years and will eventually make an updated list. I thought it would be fun for Wai to give John a little quiz on impressions he has or has not done. So John, have you or have you not done impressions for the following individuals? Wai, the answers are below.
1.No
2.Yes
3.Yes
4. Yes
5.No
6.Yes
7.Yes
8.Yes
9.No
10.Yes
Favorite Pixar movie?
Branavan From Ajax: Hello guys my question this month is what is your your personal histories and memories of Pride FC? (How’d you get into it reactions to it ending etc) Apologies if this has been asked before.
Off the top, I need to shout out the Post Profile on Wai, it brought tears to my eyes, you could feel all the love in the work.
I was hoping you could help me out in understanding Stardom a bit better. Started watching for the Cinderella tournament, and I haven’t been able to find an answer to why all the women in Queen’s Quest bring masks to the ring like Io does. Could you please explain the significance? Thanks.
With the increased focus on America for NJPW, do you think that gaijin will travel less to Japan now that working for NJPW in America is a possibility?
I was surprised to see that the Strong Openweight Championship wasnt defended on the Resurgence show. Was there a reason why?
I’m in my mid 30s and whenever pro wrestling gets mentioned around coworkers/friends there’s a singular thread of when they stopped watching (so around 2002/2003):
I’ve since accepted that must be the legit reason for people my age no longer watching wrestling and frankly the ramifications are huge as I only got back in thanks to the original podcast helping me know what the storylines were nearly a decade ago. I too left after The Rock left.
Is this a sound theory or do you two have other thoughts of why wrestling started taking its dive from the mainstream eyes?
Do you think if AEW, NJPW, and Impact did a PPV called Forbidden Door, could they fill a stadium such as Jacksonville?
Imran from Huddersfield
John and Wai… What would be your Mastermind topic?
If you don’t get Mastermind in Canada it’s basically a quiz show where - at least for one round - contestants answer questions on a very specific topic of their chosing… such as a sports team of a certain era, or the movies of specific director, or a particular season of a TV show.
Lucas from Milwaukee
Is Tim Hortons really as good as Canadians make it seem?
Rod from England
AEW have been open about doing a UK ppv and if not for covid would likely have already happened.
When it does, how do you think the mid afternoon broadcast will be received by North American audiences.
Ross from Stamford:
I have been living in Stamford, Connecticut now for four years. My question for John is, do you have any insight about why WWE settled on Stamford to be their home base? Although it’s close to New York City, there are no arenas here and it’s also not particularly near any airports.
In Bill Hanstock’s recent unauthorized history of WWE he mentions the McMahons settled on Connecticut because the area would be the “last place on earth people would expect a wrestling company” but other than that I can’t find a lot of other information about it.
Saeed from vancouver:
Apologies if this was asked before,
do you see Raw and Smackdown ending the brand split again in the future or will they stay separate shows?
For me I liked when stars showed up on both shows, plus I feel like them having more stars to play with would be a benefit and we wouldn’t have lack luster rematches that we have been seeing every week. They made it work back then when I believe raw was on TNN / Spike tv and smackdown was on UPN. Thoughts?
Thank you! and keep up the amazing work!