The Tino Standard

Worked out fine? Two years after Lesnar became the youngest champion in company history, he's not even on the roster anymore. He's making $85,000 to be on an NFL team practice squad. The fact of the matter is they handed everything to Lesnar way too fast. He was a guy that didn't seem to take pro wrestling too seriously and certainly didn't give a shit about associating any prestiege to winning championships. Handing him the world championship 4 months after he debuted did NOTHING to help that. I, for one, think he'd have been a lot more appreciative of what it takes to be a world champion if he had to earn his stripes and get legitimately over with the fans to the point where they were begging for him to be the champion (think Austin in '98). Now, I'm not saying Orton would end up the same way if he's given the belt too soon. But I do think to say that after making Lesnar the world champion too early everything turned out "fine for the WWE" is a bit off.

Here's another Madden classic... During the final Super Bowl he did with Pat Summerall, I think it was the Rams-Patriots... Madden: "Now, ya see, the key to playing good defense is to tackle the guy with the football." Thanks, John.

WWF Attitude. I wasn't overly thrilled with War Zone the year before, but everything I heard led me to be extremely excited for Attitude. The fact that it got pushed back two or three times just heightened the expectations. Then, I finally got and...

That sounds an awful lot like the Ready to Rumble cage that was used in WCW about 10-12 yrs later, no?

I still laugh about the fact that heading into WM, there were actually people thinking Bart Gunn could beat Butterbean. BWAH HA HA HA HA HA

And here I got all excited thinking I was coming into a thread discussing the ORIGINAL Transformers movie... Bastards.

Hey, there's nothing wrong with a little cheap heat now and then. Shit, Flair's notorious for it when he's in heel mode... "You shut your mouth, fat boy!"

Parking Lot Brawl sounds like a match made more to please video game programmers than it is for people actually buying the game. We want realism and things that we actually see on TV. They want to create a match that has a bunch of interactive things that go BOOM, despite the fact that parking lot brawls rarely, if ever, happen anymore on TV. That blurring effect on submissions sounds like they're trying to adapt the "stadium noise shakes the screen" concept from NCAA '05. I will say that looking at that picture of Evolution, the character models look unbelievably good.

The new features seem pretty nice, but this game is a lot harder than I remember last year's being... It probably doesn't help that my alma mater, Ohio University, absolutely fucking sucks in this game. I know full well we've had a shitty team in real life, but at least in past years, I was able to get them out of the cellar on the game. This year is gonna be a bitch. One thing that I thought was awesome was when my friend was playing at Florida... He was playing at Florida and he scored a TD. He then did the extreme celebration by the player. That player then mocked the crowd with a 'gator chomp' arm motion, followed by a big throat slash or something like that. Flagged 15 yds but SO worth it.

I know I'm nit-picking here, but what about the Christmas Smackdown in Iraq just 7 months ago?

I wouldn't miss Juany or Kedrick Brown at all, but losing Eric Williams would hurt. He's a true pro. I felt like that trade that sent Ricky Davis to Boston last year was a steal for the Cavs.

IIRC, Albert Belle was on that show once. FEEL the charisma on screen!

Why would Miami be dumb for getting Shaq? He'd be happy to be out of LA, and he'd be motivated to stick it to everybody that said he's fading fast. Plus, all the good centers are in the West. He'd run roughshod over the East for a good 3-4 years.

The Cavs front office is a collection of fucking idiots to take the risk they did and they are getting exactly what they deserve. Jim Paxson should be gut-and-quartered on Public Square tomorrow for this. This whole thing was the dumbest front office move in the history of Cleveland sports (and trust me, that covers a lot of ground). I'm so fucking pissed off about this. Growing up in Cleveland, I was a big Cavs fan. I just graduated college, I'm back in C-town, and I was really looking forward to that group making a playoff run this year (and the next few years). Now, they're royally fucked. And trust me, it was going to be next to impossible to keep LeBron here before. Now, he's probably already packing his bags for his next destination, even with 3 years left on his rookie contract. God, this is so Cleveland.

His gimmick might be tremendous, but nobody is buying (nor will they any time soon), if for no other reason than it is freaking BRADSHAW. Contrary to what Vince might hope, wrestling fans' memories aren't THAT short. You can't just take a guy that was a crappy HOSS~ that floundered in the midcard as a redneck, card-playing, beer drinking tag team wrestler then magically turn him into JR Ewing and expect people to buy into that. Sure, maybe Bradshaw is trying to be better in the ring, but nobody is going to ever buy into him. It just won't happen.

I think Eddie is S.O.L. as far as the title goes. He gets his rematch on free TV, which is more or less doomsday if he hopes to get the belt back. Word has it that the WWE title match at SummerSlam is JBL vs. the Undertaker, which seems to leave Eddie out of the loop. If I had to take a guess, somebody will have a half-baked reason to cost Eddie his title rematch, which will then lead to a non-title feud for him down the card. And yes, that will mean that fucking Bradshaw would have gone 3-0 vs. Eddie Guerrero in title matches in the span of about 8 weeks. I just threw up in my mouth.

We developed a term at school known as "the Whoopi Factor," meaning pretty much anything and everything Whoopi Goldberg is in goes down the shitter simply because of its association with her. For that reason alone, I think Whoopi has to get my vote here.

Dueling pitchers throwing perfect games into extra innings? In a video game no less? What parallel universe are you in?

One thing that I noticed Benoit did in the championship match was a subtle, but VERY nice touch... After Kane broke out of the crossface, Benoit went back to work on Kane's shoulder. He threw him shoulder-first into the ringpost, then went for another German. But instead of delivering it straight over his head, he leaned left and dropped Kane right on the injured shoulder, then rolled over and slapped on the crossface for the win. I think the modified German went right past everybody, but that was a damn fine piece of paying attention to detail. Now THAT is a world's champion I can cheer for.

Well, I'm probably in the minority on this, but I thought Lita looked quite fetching this evening. Sue me.

Back in the 80s, MSG might have been able to cram in 22,000 people, but there's no way in hell that happens now. The building only holds around 18,000 for basketball, and with elaborate sets for PPVs blocking off seats, you can figure on a similar amount for wrestling. That WM21 press release might have said Staples is smaller, but I guarantee you they find a way to fit more people.

Marty Jannetty might be able to make a Rockers reunion with Shawn Michaels on Raw... If he can get out of the match he's scheduled for at Laura's Rollerskating Emporium in Painesville, Ohio next weekend.

I'm pretty sure that guy featured on the "I'm a gamer" episode was this dude that is only known as "Fatal1ty" or something like that. And if I'm not mistaken, SportsCenter did a big feature on him a couple weeks ago.

JR Bremer was LETHAL from 3-point range for me on NBA Live... Maybe the Charlotte front office plays lots of video games.

I loved the wedding one, where the guy freaks out on the limo driver for being an hour late: "I WILL GUT YOU LIKE A FUCKING FISH." Yikes.