The Tino Standard

Let's see, Raw is getting stale and you-know-wHHHo just won the title for the billionth time (with no signs of a short reign in sight). Coincidence?

LMAO.

The way they are promoting it, I'd say it's more reality than scripted. They hammered us over the head with "this isn't fiction, this is our LIFE" or something to that effect for the last month. Is it possible they just shot a reality show on film instead of the typical video?

After watching Raw, I think it's pretty clear to see where this is going... They hammered us over the head with the fact that Orton CANNOT get the title shot at Taboo Tuesday. Triple H is going to keep ducking him for months. This, of course, leads to Orton being left with only one way to get a shot at the title- winning the Royal Rumble. He will win the Rumble, then go on an 'epic' 2+ month feud with Triple H, culminating with Orton 'overcoming all odds' to win the belt at Wrestlemania. In the meantime, so that there are 4 challengers, Shelton Benjamin will probably get Orton's spot in the Taboo Tuesday fan poll. Triple H needs to get jobs back from both Benoit and Benjamin. They could go with the 'plucky underdog gets a shot in the spotlight and comes THISclose to winning the title' route with Benjamin. But because Benoit has gone over Triple H on a more consistent and convincing basis, my money is on the Crippler doing the J-O-B at Taboo Tuesday, as that is probably a bigger priority on HHH's list. There, I just saved you from needing to watch the next 6 months of Raw. You're welcome.

I just watched the tape and quite frankly, I really don't understand why everybody is making a big deal about this. Kane was doing an interview from a remote location and basically made a euphism for the fact that he's going to kick Gene Snitsky's ass for causing his wife to have a miscarriage. This whole debate is stupid.

Actually, it was more "The baby won't be the only one who dies" and Kane was refering to Gene Snisky. Well, if that was the case, then I think we're stretching a little bit for indignation.

Wouldn't work now. How are you going to hype a match on Raw when Heat was taped in the same venue the hour before that Raw went on the air? Starting something major on Raw and finishing it on Heat worked when Heat was live every other week. But with them going to tape now for Heat every week, that doesn't fly. And no, Heat is not important enough to go live with it every week now. The cost of doing a live show is astronomical in comparison with tape.

I don't get to watch the show until I get home from work in a little bit, but I'm confused here... - Someone in the segment said "The baby wasn't the only one to die here." - It was a scripted line, but the writers completely forgot about Owen Hart. - Who was the other one to 'die' that the interviewee was refering to if it wasn't Owen?

Gene Snisky, the guy who gave Kane the chairshot last week, causing him to fall on Lita, creating a miscarriage. They did an interview with Snisky (what you see in the picture), where he basically claimed it wasn't his fault and that he was just there to 'do a job.'

Stacie J. fucked up. All she had to do was look around the room and figure out what was going on. The rest of Apex sensed that she might be on the ropes so they all ganged up on her to save their own asses. A couple of the girls were saying they were scared for their LIVES during the first task. Gimme a fucking break. They were laughing at her. As soon as they realized they had a way to save their own tails, they blew things way out of proportion. All she basically had to do was call them on the carpet for this and ask why they weren't all screaming about this when it ACTUALLY HAPPENED two weeks ago.

Anybody that has been to a PPV in the last few years... Do you know if they sell the promotional poster at the actual event? I'm probably going to SurSer and if this is for sale, I'm buying without a second thought.

Valets don't get wrestlers over, and they couldn't pull off a true MANAGER role. Well, Torrie couldn't. Dawn showed promise of being able to pull it off when she started...but then she inexplicably began drooling over Vince and became a Smackdown "Diva" with no real explanation given. They paired Torrie with Kidman on camera before...despite the fact they were engaged then and are married now, they have as much on-air chemistry as oil and water. Even knowing those two were dating, it was almost impossible to believe it based on the way they acted. The closest I think they got it right with Torrie was when she was with Tajiri. Then they screwed that up with that stereotypical abusive Japanese guy crap, with her rebelling by wanting to strip down to her undies. GURLPOWR!! The only decent female manager WWE's had in a long time was Sunny, and they don't seem interested in finding another woman like that, thinking looking good is good enough. EDIT: Okay, there's Trish, but that was an accident on WWE's part, and I don't really think of her as a manager. The women's division is more viable now than it was in the days of Miss Elizabeth and Sensational Sherri. Now, if you're a woman who isn't afraid to get involved, you're a full time wrestler, not somebody's valet. Having said that, there's no reason for them not to be taking the non-wrestling women that clutter the roster and have them paired with somebody. You won't get a midcarder over just by putting him with a piece of eye candy, but at least the diva would be doing SOMETHING to warrant a paycheck.

And here is where I stopped reading. Apparently, somebody has distorted vision when looking back on HHH's TREMENDOUS face run to the title in early 2002. What a draw.

I've never had much of a problem with Applebee's (then again, I don't have kids, so that part of the equation is a non-factor for me). I like the taste of the riblets, but for the life of me, I don't understand why they make them with all those little pain in the ass bones in them. Just make them boneless, and they'll have a gold mine. Also, I have to give big ups to their carry out service. I placed an order on the phone, drove there and my order was delivered to me in my car all within 15 minutes. I figured no way they'd get it done that quick, so when they did, I actually got into work early.

All those points are true, but it doesn't change their fundamental problem: Every time they have a heel get over, they turn him face and have him completely change his act to do 'what a babyface should do.' The character becomes generic, vanilla, milquetoast babyface No. 138 and then they wonder why that wrestler's heat magically disappears.

Great points, Loss. The fact is, people now don't cheer for the same things and ideals they did when the general "heel/babyface" formula developed in the days of territorial wrestling. Fans are smarter and edgier now. WWE has two problems: Hollywood writers that don't understand the basic principles of pro wrestling, and agents that are former wrestlers who are TOO hung up on thos principles. The result is that you have guys get over as heels because they do things that appeal to the modern crowd. The bookers see these guys getting cheered, so they try to capitalize by turning them face. But once the wrestlers turn face, they magically turned into watered-down, generic babyfaces, and they stop doing everything that got them over in the first place. You'd think they'd understand this, especially considering their biggest draw of the modern era, Stone Cold Steve Austin, worked best as a face by doing all heelish things.

OK, update... I think I was given some bad information on Tazz. I took some information from someone I believed to be a reliable source and didn't do my homework. After causing a stir on here, I went back and did some digging. Nowhere was I able to find the concrete proof I was in search of. In short, I'm not 100% sure that I'm wrong, but I'm also not 100% sure I'm right, and in this case, anything less than 100% certainty isn't good enough. If I had to take a guess, the "Tazz is a sex offender" story I got probably spun from one of the yarns posted here about the tanning bed incident (or something similar) and got embellished along the way until it reached the nonsensical version I got. In short, I messed up. I'm pulling my original line that started this minor fiasco, and I hope all of you fine TSMers will disregard it as the unsubstantiated BS that it is when it is quoted in subsequent posts.

EDIT: Post removed.

Taking a dumb, totally unnecessary risk is from here-on known as "pulling a Bradford." The Asian chick is dead in the water now... The whole reason she brought Bradford in was to gang up on Stacie J. Now, Bradford (a guy called the best in the room at that point) is fired and their team is stuck with Stacie. The Asian is gonna be raked over the coals for letting that happen.

When looking at highlight length and placement on SportsCenter for Bonds vs. Ichiro, you should probably factor in the Giants are playing for the postseason while the Mariners are playing to get the season out of the way so they can start playing golf.

"When I die, I don't want any WWF superstars at my funeral... No... When I die, I wanna go strrrrrrraight to HELL!" For me, I don't think Vince will ever top that. tho every time he struts to the ring with his patented Raped Duck Walk comes pretty close.

Ugh, I've had it. I'm playing my buddy in Madden. I can move the ball up and down the field and put up plenty of points. But my defense just plain sucks. I cannot make a stop. It is embarassing. Every scheme I try to run, he's got an out. Blitz from the outside? He's got an outlet receiver. Blitz inside? He's got a wideout or a tight end crossing over the middle. Don't blitz at all? He sits back in the pocket all day and finds a guy because my front four get zero pass rush. I should be winning these games, but my albatross of a defense is just KILLING ME. For those of you with Madden, any suggestions of defensive schemes or techniques you use, especially against human opponents?

The way Eugene was completely and thoroughly squashed last night, not to mention injured, it seemed like the character was written out for quite a while. Later in the show, JR even made a comment about how "it appears Eugene's career is over." You'd have to think they saw the negative sentiment toward Eugene growing with the booing growing louder each week... So did they just write out Eugene temporarily or pull the plug on him completely? And if, in fact, Eugene is done, then what do you do with Nick Dinsmore?

Three-way tie for me: Savage-Flair, WM8 Austin-Hart, WM13 Austin-Rock, WM17 Honorable mention: Austin-HHH, NWO '01 (2 of 3 falls) Those four are just have everything I want in a wrestling match.

Shit, if I'm getting a blowjob as my dying wish, I'm going after a pornstar. I mean, if this is the last (or in this kid's case, ONLY) blow job you're gonna get, why not call on a professional? And if you're worried about getting a disease, don't be. You're dying anyway, so sit back and enjoy.