The Tino Standard

Jake's entrance animations are DEAD ON, and the ECW PPV set in the Hammerstein Ballroom looks really, really good. Have they released pics of the WM9 arena yet?

<Finds a seat on the Cobie Smulders bandwagon> I absolutely love this show. Barney keeps getting better every week. I thought that character was too gimmicky in the pilot, but they've found a good balance. I think the Philadelphia airport episode was the turning point for him. Sucks that this coming Monday is a repeat, tho. Guess it'll give my friends a chance to watch the pilot and get on board.

Of course, the easy comeback to the guy yelling "This is why Smackdown sucks" is to say "Well, you DID pay us $40 sit there and say that."

I think there's also a very, very good receiver named T.O. Moss (maybe they spell it 'Maas', but you get the idea).

Who gives a shit if we get to see her half naked? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Bingo.

.) Mysterio and Christian - I'd like to see them each get an extra PPV pay day. 2.) Big Show - Kane sucks and I just don't feel like seeing Shawn Michaels get voted in two years in a row. 3.) Submission - Only if it marks the return of Triple H's INDIAN DEATH LOCK OF DOOM. 4.) Street Fight - There's really not a viable option here... At least this offers the chance for a botched spot. 5.) The Duder - Just for the fun he could have mocking Carlito. 6.) Leather - It would be something different.

If you like boxing at all, gotta give Greatest Heavyweights a shot. Great lineup of real former world champions, plus you can build up your own boxer and then take on a list of jobbers. The reigning champion in the game is basically Mike Tyson (I think his name was Dixon?). After you win the belt, you defend it against all the real studs. GH is also great for multiplayer.

Anybody else get the feeling that they're going to do something like have three people get fired next week? The promo for next week's show was talking about how it would be the biggest disaster on a task ever or something like that, leading to another 'boardroom first.'

If JR's illness and the "firing" on TV are merely a coincidence, then this post is moot, but if they did that retarded angle to write him out of storylines, knowing he'd be out because of his condition, then that's just stupid. Why do they feel the need to make a work out of the situation? When he had to take a leave in '99, they were honest about why he was gone (although the angle on his return was dumb). Seriously, in this case, if they knew he'd be taking time off to get this checked out and (hopefully) taken care of, why not just say that instead of humiliating him on TV in an angle?

Fascinating correlation. Hmmmmm....... I think the singlet suited him better, anyway. Slightly off-topic, but I wish the WWE would go back to the tradition that made holder of the IC belt an immediate contender for the World/Heavyweight championship belt. It elevates the title by putting a tremendous significance to it. If you hold the IC belt, you're less than 3 seconds, three heartbeats from the top spot. Right now, the IC belt is a second-tier belt, and HHH buried it even further this week by disparaging Flair for winning it. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> While the IC has been a good stepping stone for a lot of guys to get into the main event, holding the belt has never made somebody a de facto No. 1 contender. While IC champs have gotten World title shots, that No. 1 contender stip was more attached to the US title in WCW. I always thought it was kinda stupid anyway. Holding a championship should mean you're the best in your division, not just just a top challenger in another division. Of course, this would mean developing a quality second-tier division and they've shown a lack of ability to even solidify the TOP tier, but now I'm rambling.

It would certainly seem that at least a year ago, Cena/Orton was their hope for being the next generation's Austin/Rock or Rock/HHH. I couldn't help but think during the build to WM this year that everything Batista was doing was originally meant for Orton before they pulled the plug. That would include the showdown at the end of the Rumble. It could still become a great rivalry down the road, but a.) It's going to have happen naturally because they don't seem so hell-bent on forcing it on us anymore and b.) Orton is going to need to do some catching up because Cena (smark hatred aside) has passed him by on the depth chart.

Yes, he beat him at No Mercy '99 in a god-awful boring match, which I remember only because I was there.

Shelton's downfall began when he switched from the swank traditional wrestling singlet to the fruity biker shorts. Singlet: Beats Triple H, gets high profile spot on Raw. Biker shorts: Jobs left and right, disappears from Raw.

Price is Right "You lose" horn. YES.

Count me in. I, too, went the creative route with a team name: Tino.

Yeah, why not just do like, at the end of Raw, instead of ending with a cliffhanger like they usually do (I think), just have the last match end, have the lights at the stage turn off, and just show Ross saying that he's decided to call it quits after 20some years of announcing, it's been a pleasure, thanks for inviting me into your home each week, I wish Raw the best, so long, we'll see each other again on this long dusty trail of life. It doesn't have to be "YOU'RE FIIRED BLAARRRGH!!!" every damn time. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Like the WWE would do something that classy. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Having JR give some sort of retirement speech wouldn't make much sense if he's still going to be announcing on their Web site. Also, I don't understand the part about Lawler in the report. At one point, they say he's going to be let go. Then at another point, it says he'll join JR on the Web. Well, which is it?

Hate on Markus as much as you want (right down to the dopey spellng of his name), but it's hard to argue with results: When he was project manager, his team won. When he wasn't, they lost. Not only that, but when they were going down, he specifically pointed out some key problems, but was ignored, and those things ended up costing them the task.

A ratings point worth of fans can't change the channel on their television? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Oh, absolutely a ratings point worth of fans can change the channel on their TV... right over to Monday Night Football on ABC or something else that was airing that day. Not every person watching wrestling is a die-hard fan. In fact, in that '98-'00 range, you were probably in the height of casual viewers. Casual viewers don't go on wrestling message boards. They barely visit WWE.com. So when you have an underpublicized move to a new network, it's quite possible that those casual viewers, the ones who watch wrasslin' if it's on (but don't really care if it's not), don't get the memo about the move. They turn on USA on Monday at 9, don't see wrestling and figure it's not on that night. Boom, they DO change the channel- to something other than Raw's new station. And that is how you get a ratings drop of a full point in one week. See, it's not that hard. You're WAY too high up on the horse for a guy with an argument filled with so many strawmen. Look before you leap next time, junior.

The change in networks had zero to do with ratings going down. WWE like to use that as an excuse, but it simply isn't true. And a 4.4 is at the lower end of acceptable, given the kind of push and 'effort' that went into Raw. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Over the long haul, I agree that it had little if anything to do with the ratings drop. But how do you account for the ratings dropping an entire point (which, at that time would be about 20 percent of their audience) and never getting back to that USA rating again? Sure, it stayed low because the product sucked, but when they jumped to TNN, lawsuits prevented a lot of promotion being done. As a result, I can remember an awful lot of people in college who normally watched wrestling asking me on Tuesday why Raw wasn't on the night before. Long term effect? No. Short term? Absolutely.

Considering they DROPPED at least a full point the last time they jumped networks, I would think getting the rating to go UP, let alone this much, would be considered a good sign.

Yeah, just one difference: Vince actually got the job done. And history is written by the winners.

Got the privilege of watching the first 4 hours of this season's 24. Since the season priemer airs this Sunday night on Fox and I hadn't seen a 24 thread for this year, here ya go. A few random thoughts... - William Devane is pretty cool as Sec. of Defense James Heller. Just don't try to picture Donald Rumsfeld, Heller's real life counterpart, doing some of the things you see Heller doing. - Driscoll, the new boss of CTU, is your typical anti-Jack Bauer, stubborn, arrogant bitch type. What's especially aggravating is that she basically battles with Jack on every single thing he says or proposes simply because HE's the one that said it. The stubborn, defiant act wears really thin after a while to the point it seems forced. - The first three hours are strong, but by hour 4, you get the feeling they realized 'Oh shit, we better slow down or we're going to run out of things to do before the day is over.' - There are some good action sequences, and they waste little time getting Jack into "vintage, ass-kicking Jack Bauer" mode, which is A-OK with me. - Chloe has done almost a complete about-face turn. Whereas last year she was quirky and difficult and annoying, this year she's still somewhat quirky, but definitely a more tolerable character. All in all, I really like the way this season has started off. I'm looking forward to seeing hour 5, but it's going to be a pisser having to wait a week and a half, especially after getting the first 4 eps. early. Enjoy.

Striker could've avoided all headaches with his Warrior parody if he'd have said "ICOPRO" instead.

There's just really not much to choose from here. Unless there's a match late in the year that comes out of nowhere to blow everybody away, the MOTY is going to be one of those "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king" type of deals. It's indicative of the whole year for the company. Everything has just been ... there. I can think of worse years for storylines and worse years for match quality, but when you put those two things together, this has been one of the most non-descript years of WWE TV in a long, long time. It shouldn't be that way either, and I'm not just saying that because WWE is the only big company left. Hot runs for a company work like dynasties for a pro sports franchise. You can ride out the same talent through a series of good years, then you'll go into a down cycle developing new talent before heading into your next dynasty. WWE rode a good wave of talent from late '97 to early '01. After that, the upper card was pretty much flushed out. Austin and Rock were done within a year and the Undertaker became a part-time special attraction. Angle has bounced in and out of things over the last few years with injuries. The only real constant has been Triple H. Assuming that the rebuilding began somewhere late '01 or early '02, WWE should really be reaping the benefits at this point with its next wave of established main eventers. What we've gotten instead, tho, has been a series of flashes in the pan (Goldberg, Lesnar, Orton, Guerrero, Benoit and now Cena and Batista). Now that they're giving mind-boggling uber-pushes to Carlito and Masters, that trend doesn't seem like it's changing. At some point, you've got to figure out who your top guys are, play to their strengths and go with it. They seem to have had more patience with Batista and Cena (which I'm not arguing with). But the net result of all this shuffling has been yet another year of turnover and lots of forgettable matches as a result.

Back to the original post: Yes, that is the worst blade job ever. Dumb ass. Don't expect any calls from Stanford, Conn., any time soon.