RedJed

I think most everyone from the cast of Lost can still do other side projects while still being under contract, man.

Does he just have one kid? It amazes me how much parents THINK a child needs, when realistically its just unofficial alimony in cases like this. The kid apparently needs half of what I earn in a year A MONTH. Huh. Granted, Rock makes enough where he can afford it and everything, but what kind of expectations are going to be on a child when they grow up when they are apparently costing their parents almost 25K a month? Thats uber duper cool though to see each of them invest into the kids future like that though with a trust fund. Good for them on that one.

Care to explain?

It's an alright parody for sure, but the script seemed a bit muddled and all over the place, got the impression is was a rush job of a film to just make a quick buck for the most part. I always thought it was fun to watch, but underrated? Nah, its just "there." Neither really bad, nor really great either. Calling Sly one of the underrated actors of our generation is ridiculous.

Cmon, lets stop getting our broad generalizations muddled with common sense here. The funeral was for a virtual nobody that, for whatever reason, nobody would even sign away his body for. The funeral was in a very urban and "who gives a fuck" area of wherever this was supposed to be. Jack even went so far as to break into the funeral home with ease. If we want to be REALISTIC, realistically nobody is going to care if so and so went to so and so's funeral. And the funeral director didn't know who Locke really was, so what's your point?

But even though Michael's role was small this season, it totally made sense and had purpose into what he did before he bailed from the island, and what he felt he needed to do to "make up" for abandoning the rest of the crew prior. Sure, I also would have liked to see more with him and Walt, but I think its' supposed to be bittersweet for a reason. Think of Michael as some sort of ass backwards prophet of sorts. Going back again to the Locke stuff, my assumption is he leaves the island because he knows it needs help, and somehow he finds out (more than likely via Richard) that this is what he MUST do to save the island.....leave, and only being able to return IF he brings back everyone who left AND he dies. Whether that means Walt and Desmond as well is completely up to speculation, but I would assume so. Keep in mind if Locke left via the Orchid (which seems totally what will happen since he moreless only knows about it, other than Ben) as Ben stated, he CANNOT return to the island. So this may explain why Locke PERHAPS kills himself, kind of a self fulfilling prophecy that he has to kill himself, to be able to return back to the island and then within such, become a spirit akin to Charlie, Jack's Dad, etc. That's the only way he can get back and help, of course with the rest of the crew. I would assume the Jeremy name tagged to Locke is in fact his real name in some capacity, or he changes it when he finds his real father? I could be way off there, but who knows. I'm still a little skeptical if Sayed actually kills Locke via some manipulation by Ben (who's main deal seems to be to get revenge on Whidmore by trying to locate Penny and killing her) or what occurs exactly there. Also, very curious where is this safe place Sayed tells Hurley they must go to. I'm thinking its all just bait by Ben to get what he wants, but we'll see.

After some looking up of things, I stand corrected, I guess that is Stan Kowalski after all. Damn, I always have pictured him (and seen him in pictures) completely differently. He looks nothing like he did even ten years ago. I actually thought, at first, this Big K was the same guy who was in ads throughout the years for Shakey's Pizza as the mafia guy. Weird. Did Gagne have some horrible secret over Kowalski's head for him to churn out these horrible segments show after show? Seriously, KK acts like he could give a fuck less he's even doing them and is more in it to put himself over, which makes no sense really. And then of course, given the fact they just don't call him by his famous name, and it's an creative snafu of pretty sizable proportions. I still have to watch last night's show entirely, but from the first part of it, it was already great fun with a front row ringside crowd consisting of what looked like an inbred family of six right out of a Troma movie, a few retarded people, and a depressed looking old CLOWN in full makeup and regalia right front in center of the hard cam. I'll comment more later on the show as there was already tons of highlights and I'm not even halfway through it.

I'm an hour in watching this late on DVR and actually its been really off the wall entertaining. Lots of really unintentionally humorous "in TNA only" things already they have done in just an hour. The latest so far in the show being James Storm apparently about to stab/attack Rhino with a sword found in a backstage prop room (?) in the lot or something is the best I can derive from that whole exchange. Also, ODB did a run-in on Angelina Love while eating fried chicken, I think. Prior to that, Angelina Love cut a promo about only puking when you're wanting to cut to 95 pounds. And way before that, Buh Buh Dudley cut a promo against an AJ Styles lifesize trading card in the center of the ring. Wowzar... I'll come up with a more cohesive list of whiskey tango foxtrot (WTF, and that doesnt necessarily mean bad, more entertaining in a hokey way) moments from this show later. Kong's squash this week was surprisingly even more vicious than last weeks. The angle that chick landed from the doctor bomb was brutal. Loving Booker T's gimmick here alot, and Nash must have wrote his own script against Cornette there, as some lines could have easily been taken out of context from previous private talks Nash probably had with Bischoff at one time or another.

I'm really looking forward to the draft, primarily to just see how Smackdown is handled from it. The show is in desperate need for new talent. Unfortunately, I have a small fear we're just going to see the brand downgraded more than it is now after it. That can be an ok thing if it gives the company a middle ground show to really heavily emphasize in ring work more than the other brands with legitmately strong workers that are floundering in the middle of the cards littering the scene. I'm sure it would never sell anyway, but I'd throw all the tag teams (merge the tag belts), women, and high flyers (finally create an X division knockoff) on Smackdown exclusively and just revolve the show around those divisions exclusively with the WHC feud of the moment and those workers in such feud, have ECW be the "breeding ground" where new talent is brought in and grown along with featuring ECW Champion and their program (with the ECW title just always being have to be defended in Extreme Rules to differentiate the brand), and Raw has the main eventers, established draws and upper card singles guys, with of course keeping the WWE title picture heavy on that show, but also prominently featuring the US/IC titles as well. It's almost a way to force the company to tighten up their focus a little bit more, as my whole point of all of this is that Smackdown has little to no individuality or real reason to tune in anymore. We already know and expect that on Monday nights, if WWE has a big angle, match, announcement, etc, planned, it will be on Raw versus Smackdown just because. And in ECW I know to expect them to start most of their guys right there and establish them a bit (see: Colin Delaney and Kofi) so with that said, what exactly is the purpose of Smackdown (to us, the fans, I mean)? Every week is pretty much forgettable and nothing groundbreaking happens on these shows. Can you see this shit keeping us glued to the TV if they flipped flopped with the Raw timeslot for a few weeks? At least I can still usually make it through Raw without falling asleep, but the booking of Smackdown, more weeks than not, is just downright dull and drab. Hardly anyone from the brand is really pushed strongly in relative nature to the entire company. Guys like MVP, Edge, etc, just flounder here and aren't really reaching their purpose in the company on a show like this. Oh wait, we get Santino and Cousin Sal coming up, oh boy!

I heard tickets were sold out, is that true? That was actually around the time I was thinking about rolling out to San Diego anyway(!!!) I don't know man. I'll have extra cash since that's days before my birthday. We're fucking going, no matter what! I'm sure it's going to be something else. I went to it waaaaay back in, shit, 96 or 95 (it was the year of the Death of Superman issue and the subsequent branches of Steel, Superboy, etc, occured.) and I was uber impressed at everything even back then. Can't even imagine what its' like now. Highlights included tons of TV and film presentation/panelists I can't even count, booths and freebies a plenty, and my perennial highlight, meeting Lloyd Kaufmann of Troma Films during a screening of Sgt. Kabukiman, NYPD. Oh it will be on! Tickets may turn out to be a premium, but I'm all for it. Gotta catch a lucha show in TJ this time around too.

I heard tickets were sold out, is that true? That was actually around the time I was thinking about rolling out to San Diego anyway(!!!)

Side note to those who arent' aware - in relation to the website marketing on the show tonight mentioned earlier, that same weekend in San Diego is the annual Comic Con, which I would assume will debut the new season's trailer, perhaps. If you go to the website, you enter your email and I would bet that once that date comes around, a trailer link will be sent to everyone on that mailing list or something like that.

And the crowd at what appeared to look like the Mid South Coliseum was really anemic looking to say the least. There was tons of second row ringside seats even opened up there. Maybe this wasnt in Memphis but it sure looked like it. Yeah, it was really weird that they just threw in a good three minute clip from that match in there, as well as a short Lance Russell interview with Lawler (or was it Hennig, fuck I can't even remember and that was only last night lol). Big K is Killer Kowalski? Noooooo way, that's not correct. I guess I haven't seen a shit-ton of old matches with him, but enough to recall him being much more stockier, built (even in his later years), and whatnot. That's asinine to not even credit his own name/persona in these segments that air every week with him if it was, even Verne Gagne wouldn't be this dense. The guy sounds NOTHING like KK to my recollection either. Either I'm thinking of a completely different guy I'm equating with KK or I don't know what. Kowalski also could cut a hell of a promo and this guy is basically reading from cue cards and sounding like he's half baked most of the time. Blatantly tagged from the DVDR board, this is a shot of Mike Tenay and Dave Meltzer during the Choshu/Saito v. jobbers match from a few days back. Can someone say DAMN! Mikey Tenay and Davey Meltz 20 Years Younger~~~~RAWK ON!!!

Wow, pretty amazing finale. More blown away than I've been at the end of any Lost season so far. Two big things that jumped out to me......regarding Locke particularly.... 1) At some point, he obviously goes back to the Orchid and teleports himself off the island and into the "real world", probably in order to save everyone who is left there, in whatever is happening there. Problem with this theory is, like Ben said, Locke supposedly CAN'T return to the island, correct? Once you go in the Orchid, you are essentially not allowed to return. That is, unless you're dead? All in all, it makes you wonder if Ben just has some big plan behind it all. 2) Sayed claimed Jeremy Whathisname (Locke) committed suicide a few days before and they need to get somewhere safe. Hmmm....again, rather confused about what this means and where they are going with it. Did Sayed kill Locke? Was this as a duty of Ben? With those things said, keep in mind Ben is borderline batshit crazy to kill Widmore's daughter (Penny) for revenge. I'm thinking that Ben is finding a way for the O6 to locate Desmond once again to lead Ben to Penny. Consider that there was nothing discussed about the whereabouts of Desmond and Penny (and what a great scene THAT was when they reunited by the way) after the rest left Penny's boat. I'm thinking both of them, and Jeff Fahey's character essentially either go in hiding or somehow, someway, find their way back TO the island for safety's sake. And who knows what happened to the small raft that Farraday was on as well when the island shift occured. Chances are they are ok, but who knows. And the story with Charlotte, damn. Otherwise, thats all I got for now, but I'm sure plenty more thoughts will abound in my head later after a second viewing.

That last episode really made me think what the fuck Will was thinking with his behaviour. Sure, there's a breaking point for everyone, but was he just trying to bait Greg to hit him or something? As much of a tool Greg is, that was really just stepping to his level with what Will and Dave were doing to him. He lost alot of integrity pulling that shit, rubbing a guys dead father in the mix is just classless and really is shittier than anything Greg has said or done to anyone. I dont know who's idea really it was for "anger management classes" for Will and Dave, but I thought that was a bunch of needless shit, IMO. They were just being immature and probably have drunk/hungover or some shit. They portrayed it that it was the girls who maybe pushed for it, but it could have just been the producers. And for all the shit one could say about Brianna, she actually was the only sane one of the bunch when all of that shit hit with Greg, Will, Dave, etc. That surprised me, given that she really always seems to be into situations and dynamics within the house selfishly. Anyway it seemed after that, everyone in the house took a step back and got some perspective on the situation. Well, again except Greg, who thinks resolving conflict and "wiping the slate clean" with Will means he needs to trumpet that he's the "real victim" of everything (wow, talk about immature). So just when you think people on this show are, ya know, learning, growing up, etc.......then comes the end of the show. It's really too bad that, at least through the way they directed this episode, it appeared that initially everyone in the house was supportive and understanding of anything Joey needs upon returning back home, but as soon as they got more feedback of what is possibly to be expected and whatnot regarding THEIR drinking patterns, we get deuchebag Greg rolling his eyes at the suggestions, Brianna being defiant (after initially getting emotional about Joey's sobriety) about not being able to go out EVERY NIGHT? (omg she can't "network!!!") and Dave and Kim kind of being wishy washy and naive to the real situation that will occur when Joey returns. I actually feel real bad for Joey at this point, as its clear upon the previews that more than likely, nobody except perhaps Sarah and maybe if he's lucky, Will, will even support his sobriety whatsoever, and that will either make him relapse or outright leave the show. It's just sad because they will probably take a look at this experience years later and wonder what the fuck were they thinking, first using the excuse that going out to parties everynight generates for them a huge amount of networking contacts to be noticed in Hollywood (which appears to not be working, not so shockingly) and secondly, not being understanding of a roomates' sobriety when they were the ones in the first place who really pushed for him to go into rehab. I can't wait for the reunion special for this season to see what everyone has really gotten out of the show.

Ive been sick as hell this week and finally got a chance to catch up on these shows on DVR from the past few weeks. WOW, talk about a fun trip through nostaligia land. I grew up primarily on the AWA as a kid (being from MN of course). Between Saturday mornings on the local independant station and then weekdays on ESPN, and I think perhaps another AWA show sometime in the week, it was alot of it all the time. Now ironically enough, 99 percent of this stuff on these shows I have no recollection of. Just some random thoughts.... Who the fuck is this Big K guy anyway that has these really markish commentaries on each show, talking about how great Bad Company and DDP are? He was in a tag team called Murder Inc? Why can't I remember this? This guy is pure unintentional humor though. Speaking of DDP and Badd Company, they are just plastered like crazy over each show it seems. It was fun to see Page's first shows in wrestling, and even more particularly, his first promo when Larry Nelson even didn't know why he was coming out to the ring. Seems like every week we get a DDP promo with the tag team behind some cheesy lit pink backdrop. And we also regularly get a Soldad Ustinov/ Tijo Khan promo, and a Wahoo McDaniel short promo. BTW, did Tijo Khan wrestle for anyone else AFTER the AWA? Same with Rocky Mountain Thunder, who is greener than green. That squash killing of the Surfer that was posted here already was just about the funniest shit I've seen in a long time. Speaking of Nelson, poor guy, at this stage in the game he just doesnt seem to give two fucks about the product at all. At least before, he'd be a little more animated towards things. The roster, at this point in 88 comes across so anemic, its like watching the same handful of guys each week, with a mixture of international guys (which is what keeps me interested). So it seems that these shows are actually being presented in order finally, and we're around June of 88, right? I cannot wait for the shit that is 1989 through 1991, I used to go to all of the AWA shows after they broke back away from Memphis and started on their own again. Near the end, they taped TV every week in Rochester, MN and these tapings were just absolutely horrid. 4-5 hours of just horrendous stuff each week was being taped. I think they were only charging $5 a person and even at that rate, I don't think they even got in 100 total during most of these shows. I remember that they would actually try to charge, I think $10 for ringside, and nobody would even bother paying an extra $5, so in no time flat during each taping, the ring announcer (who I think was actually Bischoff?) would ask everyone who was sitting in the lower level seats to move up to ringside for free. This would have been just before the Team Challenge Series started, and then they also kept taping shows during that TCS period, which I attended as well. Memories included seeing a really burned out looking Wendy Richter (I believe it was her at least) bringing 20 something guys into the locker room, a starting Yokozuna, then known as Kokina Maximus tearing my autograph program in half when he walked back from the ring after a match, and an intoxicated Johnny Valient telling me to "fuck off and never think this sport is anything special" when I tried to ask him how he got from WWF to AWA. I guess I hit a nerve, I was only 10-11 years old so I didn't know any better. If they just keep airing these shows in sequence to the last shows ever of the AWA, that will be something else.

That's all I think I need to say as well, as it appears lots of what were the major parts of the book were covered here already, or are posted over at DVDR anyway. A few additions to things already posted though.... *The WCW "self mutilation" note - that was in response to potentially Bill Busch forcing Benoit to stay in WCW when Sullivan briefly took power again when Russo got demoted/released from creative. Benoit was so fed up with the politics of the company (and bit his tongue so long as a company guy) that he threatened casually to a WCW employee that if they don't let him go, he'll go ahead and walk out to the ring, bash both of his fists in the ringposts, and sit out until as long as it takes for them to heal. So it had nothing to do with a particular angle. Within this same situation, Benoit's true "out" to get released from WCW when Busch was hemming and hawing about not letting him go since they DID give him the belt at Souled Out (over Sid) was that Mike Graham, who was aligned heavily with Sullivan at the time, pretty much confronted Benoit, asked what was going on, said he "heard" that Benoit mentioned he wanted Graham released along with Sullivan in order for him to stay in WCW (which wasn't true) and when Benoit denied such an accusation, Graham told him it's good he didn't try to get him released or else he would have had to cut his throat and kill him. If Benoit wouldnt have gotten his way and have gotten his full release from WCW, he was intending to file a lawsuit against the company for the comments from Graham. There's a TON of other WCW craziness in this book, which alot wasn't in Death of WCW, etc. I never really knew that apparently (and this is moreless all heresay) that Benoit and Nancy never hooked up at all until Sullivan's maniacal out of control shit on Nancy got to it's breaking point, when Sullivan beat the living shit out of Nancy over in Japan for thinking they were sleeping with each other, but apparently they werent --- yet. What probably was already reported before, but I just wasnt aware of, was just how drugged/drinking heavily Nancy was doing near the end there as well. And the detail in which they covered how many of this pill and that pill both Nancy and Chris were on near the end there was mind boggling. Ironically enough, "Dr." Astin got the full court smackdown today in regards to the illegal prescriptions. I'm sure he's going to probably never see the light of day, given the circumstances. On a side note, I didn't really finish this book thinking, "Wow, the McMahon's are really pieces of shit" that much, much less than I expected to. Some of the sources used against the McMahons (in particularly Dan Madigan) came across less than credible in my eyes and more jaded in a way towards the company. I do think the shit regarding Lagana has to be 110 percent true though, given the hush hush nature of the situation of his firing (I recall an excuse being used that he was "leaking info to the sheets" or something like that). The reality of that was that he was sexually harrassing/provoking not just women in developmental, but guys on the current roster. The guy who ratted him out finally (apparently this has been happening privately for awhile but nobody was confident enough that they wouldn't lose their job if they told the company about Lagana's behaviour) was Kevin Thorn, which explains why he's been inexplicably off TV for months now.

She's a real piece of work, ie she's one to talk about "character." I think what that appeared to be, more than anything was 1) a cheap way to get heat for Bradshaw and 2) some sort of off the wall "fuck you for fucking us" the company does to guys who are in the doghouse. Bradshaw basically did the same squash style shoot-type match with the Highlander guy who was on TNA that one week. Or it could be more than it was done to Smith to give him some tough love of sorts, as the company would not like to see him go down the same path of his father. In any regard, Harry is not anywhere near ready for a push anyway, be it his drug test failure had occured or not.

Heres the match from Japan that Kurt royally screwed up his neck again during. Granted, it wasn't his fault at all here. The injury occurs right after the 4:00 mark.

Get off your OWN high horse, man. Read the book first and you'll see the guy isn't "anti pro wrestling" or whatever you're trying to say, just simply throwing out the very real hardships, hypocrisies, and codependent situations and idiosyncrasies of the business. I dont see any agenda here than trying to help people understand about Benoit in general, and the reality of what pro wrestling really is alot of times (more particularly for the workers themselves and families of those workers). If you're going to criticize an author for throwing generalizations and judgemental thoughts, take a look first and what you are saying. It's pretty ironic. And for the record, I really read this book ad nauseum today/tonight and to say Heyman is either a main source for the information in this book and/or is being treated with bias is not true whatsoever. I'll get into it later but he didn't really wear kid gloves regarding Paul Heyman, much less anyone else in the business that probably rightfully deserved to be called out on their shit.

There's some pretty scathing shit on Dynamite Kid in the beginning of the book I'll mention later that I have never heard about. One example was a practice Kid did in Stampede days where he would actually kick a guy in the head when he was trying to blade, as a sort of rib. Thus, the guy would do a serious and deep cut to his forehead. Needless to say, I'm reading through this really slow, I'm only on chapter two right now.

Sounds like there is some old school wrestling carny talk in there. Yeah, and I'm sure if someone takes the time, we can more than likely figure out whats even being said. My assumption from that recording is that the family thinks the phone lines are actually being tapped, or possibly will be? I just wish both mom and dad would just let their son grow up a bit, still be a bit supportive, but let him sit in jail and realize what the fuck he's done. Instead they are constantly reassuring him that he didn't do anything wrong, that they got a bunch of stuff for him to make money off of this after he gets out, etc. Its just sick as hell.

I actually really enjoyed the Diary flick, I thought it portrayed an interesting message with the media all over, everyone connected to this and that, etc. The acting wasn't completely phenominal by any means, but it wasnt any better or worse than, say, Cloverfield. I'll even go so far as to say I liked it much more than Land, but not nearly as much as the previous first three of the Dead series. I thought that some of the ways they branched different cameras and such into the film was creative enough, and I didn't see any real issues with effects and stuff, I thought that was all pretty well done. And I am sure the intention wasn't to try to "branch" the other Dead films into this one much at all, in fact I don't think there was any sort of connection whatsoever to them. This is kind of like starting fresh in a way, assuming that there was never any "real" zombie outbreak ever, prior until it occured in the beginning of this film. If we took all of our pre-notions of the other Dead films out of relating it to this one, I think it would hold up very much on its' own. Or if Romero had no part in this, I think it would be getting alot more praise also. On another note, apparently they are making a sequal to the Dawn of the Dead remake, taking off right after the survivors come off the boat they left the vicinity from in the remake. I'll see if I can find news on it, I read about it somewhere last week.

I don't know why, but I think Booker on his own for the most part would better fit him, given his no nonsense take no shit gimmick he's doin right now. Angle aligned with Tomko and 3D would work, though.

I havent finished Ring of Hell, after I'm done with it, I will probably agree with you.