The Tino Standard

I, too, am curious to see how well Survivor Series does. Raw last week at Gund did substantially better than the SmackDown show in March, but they still only had about 7,000 people there. InVasion (the last Cleveland PPV) drew roughly 17,000. I could see Survivor Series doing somewhere around 12-15,000, but I'd be stunned if it sells out.

I don't know if it's because i'm used to using the PUTRID offense of the Ohio Bobcats on NCAA, but the passing on Madden is striking me as shockingly easy. I'm playing with the Browns and I'm throwing for almost 300 yards a half without breaking a sweat. I almost feel guilty about getting away with some of the bullshit passes I've completed.

Anybody here tape the show? PM me. I had to work tonight and I'd love to see this "crowd from hell" before the WWE waters it down in the DVD release.

The WWE Style might be a little tedious at times, but the fact of the matter is that it is way more realistic than the crap you'll find in indies or TNA right now. Do I wish they'd open it up a little more from time to time? Sure. Do I wish wrestlers could have a little more variety? Absolutely. But I'll take the realism of the WWE Style over a garbage spotfest any day.

Funny you should mention that... I'm fairly certain that I heard that this is the first time since 1964 that all three of those teams weren't in the preseason Top 25. For the record, I think preseason football rankings are a joke, topped only by preseason awards (Pre-Season All-American = Winner of popularity contest). They are pure speculation and hype. There's a reason the BCS rankings don't come out until midway through the season. The travesty is that the BCS is formulated through polls like this that start in the preseason.

Watching obscure sports once every 4 years has a certain appeal. Badmiten Table Tennis Field Hockey Rowing Absolutely. And the way they were talking during the opening ceremonies, it seems like they're trying to push badminton as the cult favorite that curling became during the last Winter Games. A lot of these sports are things that I'd never watch on a regular basis, but they're good as a novelty act every four years. I think that's a big reason why the Olympics are still the juggernaut event that they are.

Watching obscure sports once every 4 years has a certain appeal. Badmiten Table Tennis Field Hockey Rowing Absolutely. And the way they were talking during the opening ceremonies, it seems like they're trying to push badminton as the cult favorite that curling became during the last Winter Games. A lot of these sports are things that I'd never watch on a regular basis, but they're good as a novelty act every four years. I think that's a big reason why the Olympics are still the juggernaut event that they are.

But with a TV, you could....... you know, watch TV.

I thought they should've had the Dream Job winner paired up with George Grande. Do I think that highly of the Dream Job guy? No, but I thought it would be cool to see the evolution of the show from the first ever anchor to the newest guy, sharing the same set. Having said that, I thought they did a really cool thing by having a highlight package of Tom Mees, introduced by Berman and Grande, with narration by Bob Ley. The Charley Steiner-Bob Ley show was the winner for me this week, but on the whole, the Old School Week concept was 100x better than the "Music in Sports" lame-ass gimmick they had at the beginning of the month.

I picked up Madden yesterday and was blown away by the sheer speed of it. That might sound dumb to some of you, but I haven't played Madden in a couple years (sticking with just NCAA in the meantime). It used to be the college game played a lot faster, and while it has stayed the same speed, I think they put Madden in overdrive since I've been away from it. The Hit Stick seems like a nice idea, but the game moves so fast right now, I'm lucky to just be able to keep up with the play.

I think the idea is that they have one current employee on the ESPN roster working with one "Old School" anchor every night. In some cases, you get a classic pairing like Charley Steiner and Bob Ley, and in others, you get a total mismatch (see tonight's pairing of Stewey Scott and Gayle Gardner). The Steiner/Ley episode was hilarious. I always loved Steiner's SportsCenter commercials, but I never remember him being that funny on the show itself. Not to mention the fact that Bob Ley even showed some personality. That whole show was tremendous. Big props for showing the clip of Steiner at Wimbledon, fighting another reporter... "Don't point your finger at me, Mister!"

Damn it, I was all set to be content with my copy of NCAA... Now, I'm hearing lots of good stuff about this year's Madden here, plus the collector's edition is only going to be around for a limited time... I might be conned into dropping 60 bucks on this after all.

Section 108, Row 5. Opposite the main cameras but off a little to the right of them. You? And I pretty much agree that as the diva segments increased, the crowd was getting more and more pissed. I bought cheap seats. Sat in row 29 of section 101 (just to the right of being directly opposite the TitanTron). But actually, after the first segment of Raw, we jumped over a section and sat in the auxillary media area that's used for Cavs games. In the corner, they have three or four rows of tables set up with folding chairs. Way more spacious, plus you have somewhere to set your beer down. Big upgrade.

MillenniumMan, where were you sitting? I was there tonight too. A few thoughts... Seemed like the crowd grew increasingly irritated by the diva challenge thing as the show went on. The ice cream pitch went over HORRIBLY because the first girl blew everybody else away, with the rest just stumbling over themselves. I haven't been to a live event in more than 2 years, but it just seemed like WAY too much down time. Only 4 matches (one of which was a 2-minute challenge). They could've done the Lita/Matt dialogue in the ring. People don't pay money to come to the arena and watch a big screen TV. Speaking of Lita/Matt... That was one of the lamest contract signings ever. Where was the classic heel cheapshot/total beatdown? Evolution's entrance is AWESOME live. Crowd was lukewarm for most stuff, but as soon as Motorhead starting playing, WOW. They should buy a slingshot or something for the t-shirts during commercials. The t-shirt gun is lame. It only reaches 1/3 of the arena. I think it pissed people off more than anything else.

To a degree, what Cornette was angry about makes sense, but the way he explained it according to this article, it seems like he's coming off all wrong. How many times do you hear about guys acting like prima donnas and being locker room cancers... Now, you have a guy trying to be down to earth and the promoters are telling him to be more stand-offish. I'm sorry, but NOBODY should be acting like they're holier than thou when they're working a minor league circuit.

Survivor Series comes home to Cleveland! Same day as Browns-Steelers at Browns Stadium!

OK, I know this isn't Dynasty-related per se, but I have to throw this in... Has anybody ever gone back to a replay to see where a penalty was called on someone from your team? Outside the pass intereference and offsides/false start calls, everything else is TOTAL BULLSHIT. I got called for a clipping penalty on a kickoff return. I went to the replay and saw that the guy penalized DIDN'T EVEN TOUCH ANYONE until after the play was over. I made a nice 3rd-and-14 conversion later in the day, but had it wiped out by a horrendous holding call. Just lame.

Everything you said just made 100 percent perfect sense. And that's probably exactly why they'll try to turn Regal heel between now and then. For some asinine reason, WWE has this obsession with trying to control audience reactions to the degree that they'll turn a guy heel in his hometown just to control the audience reaction. To them, it almost seems like they'd rather get that small heel heat rather than a monstrous face pop just because THEY CAUSED that heel heat, rather than the spontaneous face reaction. Any time you see someone get a reaction that "isn't in the script," they bend over backwards to try to account for it. It's almost embarassing. A couple things that spring to mind are that Highlight Reel segment with Michaels and Jericho in Montreal last year and how at certain times when a heel wrestler is in his hometown, they'll have him cut a generic "this town sucks" promo during a commercial so when they come back on air, it seems like he's naturally getting booed.

I'm in my second season with my alma mater, Ohio University. This year's team has to be the worst football team I've ever played with on any football game EVER. Just AWFUL to the point that playing the game is borderline not even fun anymore.

How long is the actual race? If it's any more than a mile or two, no amount of training in a week is going to help you much.

Actually, I thought it might have been more believable for Regal to have no reaction at all- as in eyes closed, out cold. The man just got worked over with a sledgehammer. For the sake of 'pro rasslin,' I'm willing to believe the sledge shots didn't kill him, but they could have at least made him unconscious.

Did Regal have a welt above his left eye? It kinda looked like it, but I couldn't tell for sure. Also, I loved how after all the extreme violence, at the end, HHH just walks up Regal on the stretcher and casually just tips him over for good measure. The way he did it just had "total dick move" written all over it.

Hey, save that for next week. I've got good seats for that show.

Don Nelson gets my vote to coach Team Ugly.

Like Al said, the last time Tyson did business with the WWE, it turned out pretty damn good for both parties. They used him in a way that made him look like a million bucks, so it benefited him. And I think it goes without saying how well the WWE did after WM14. I'm not saying that was all because of Tyson, but he definitely got some casual fan interest buys for the PPV, and once they put on a good show there, a lot of people stuck with the product for a long while after that.