10 FIERCEST Online Wrestling Rivalries
Twitter tiffs and podcast blasts.
You have probably entered into a heated wrestling debate today on Twitter already.
You might have resolved not to. You've got better things to do. And when was the last time anybody changed their mind, and willingly made themselves look inferior, on a virtual platform that exists to present the most superior version of themselves? It's all a waste of time, and yet.
And yet.
It's exponentially less harrowing to become irate at a terrible wrestling take than, say, to work out exactly what's happening with Brexit. Staring into the awful eyes of Jacob Rees-Mogg is just too much - how can somebody who doesn't f*ck shaft us so viciously, so repeatedly? - and so, instead, you take issue with the take that Finn Bálor is overrated. He isn't, you hack, he just appears on RAW. Everybody fades on RAW.
It's not just us; Twitter is used as brand-building platform by non-wrestlers and long-retired wrestlers alike, with their dim memories converging with fierce working instincts to create a secondary battleground beyond the squared circle. Therein lies a certain, albeit exhausting fascination: Who is on the right side of history? Who is lying, and could it just possibly be the old-school carny promoter?
And who would win, if this thing ever made it to pay-per-view...?
10. David Bixenspan Vs. Bryan Alvarez
In corner stands David Bixenspan, wrestling journalism's deep-diving version of Spotlight. 'Bix' is deeply knowledgeable, fastidious in his research, and boasts compelling insights into the rotten business and immense artistry of the industry. He is also, and he must know this because he often plays coy on Twitter, the teensiest bit f*cking insufferable.
In the other stands the golden-voiced Bryan Alvarez, a now-glorified wrestling journalist who has long abandoned his old, once-superb Figure Four Weekly newsletter because he, and these are Bixenspan's words, "has the attention span of a dying goldfish and hasn’t cared about his job since the merger made it that he basically never had to give a sh*t again because Dave & the Observer’s name value would carry him forever."
Not ours: the Bryan and Vinny Show is hilarious on purpose, and Bryan and Dave Meltzer's verbal exchanges, as they take literally that which should not be taken literally, are unintentionally hilarious.
The "beef" stems from Bix's tenure writing Figure Four Weekly; he has claimed in the years since that he was demoted from this paid position and replaced by some guy who did it for a free subscription. The dynamic of it is fascinating, too; Bix is relentless in his assault, and yet Alvarez just no-sells the whole thing. All of Wrestling Twitter waits, with baited breath, for Alvarez to sound off. Bryan Alvarez is that little Yakuza guy from the Simpsons Homer just knows is going to do something good. Or, to use a more accurate Simpsons analogy:
In corner stands Frank Grimes; in the other, Homer.
Who Would Win: Alvarez, a semi-retired wrestler and first-degree black belt in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, would absolutely smash Bix's face in. That he hasn't suggests we should receive with a degree of hypocrisy any Observer complaint that WWE doesn't pay its talent enough.