The Tino Standard

What if somebody gets cut open hard way? Lets hope Steph has her period. That might be the most disturbing thing I've ever read in here. Good lord.

I'd love to see them bore the crowd to tears with an awful match and immediately as the bell sounds at the end of it, police storm the ring and arrest them both. That would get a pop from the crowd for sure.

By one way or another, entering this year, I had seen every PPV live since SummerSlam 96. That streak was snapped when I didn't watch Backlash. Also, I only caught about half of Unforgiven on the computer (and I'm glad I didn't waste a full three hours on that).

Bill Simmons' column last week explains things perfectly as we head into Game 7 tonight... "I'm convinced that a Cubs-Red Sox World Series would be the biggest sporting event of my lifetime, just because everyone in the country would be interested to see who won (even people who don't care about sports). On the flip side, a Cubs-Yankees series would be the closest thing we will ever have to another "USA-USSR 1980 Olympic Hockey Game." With the Yankees being Russia, of course. Who wouldn't root for the Cubs in that series, other than the loathsome Yankee fans? Would any team galvanize the country like the Cubs against the Yankees? I hope we never find out ... but still. And if the Marlins are involved ... I mean ... isn't this why they created officials like Dick Bavetta, for situations like this? "

Apparently, a long time ago, a Chicagoan wanted to take a billy goat into a tavern and was denied. In return, he put a curse on the Cubs that they would never win another World series. Now THAT'S a curse. You're half-right. A tavern owner brought his billy goat to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs. Because of the obvious odor a goat has, fans around it complained and the guy (and his goat) were ejected. Bitter at being kicked out of the stadium, the tavern owner put a curse on the Cubs and it's held up ever since. As for tonight... sweet merciful Christ. I've grown up a die-hard Cleveland sports fan. Browns/Elway, Cavs/Jordan and Indians/$#@%ing Marlins... That loss tonight- about the only loss more painful I've ever endured was Game 7 against the Fish. My roommate is from Chicago... I think I'm going to make sure he doesn't pick up any sharp objects or make any dashes towards the balcony tonight....

Good point, but that still doesn't stop this from being a shitty PPV poster. Some of the better ones have actually been worth getting to display (example- I loved the WM X-7 poster), but Shane-o-Mac Series? Nope, sorry.

I actually don't have as much of a problem with Test as most people. I think this kinda sucks, especially because I thought a Steiner-Test heel tag team might have worked out (and the Raw tag division NEEDS some teams badly right now).

Bingo. THIS is exactly why Abe "Knuckleball" Schwartz failed to get over.

Who cares about doing suplexes, actual wrestling moves and executing other impressive feats of athleticism that people might enjoy? It's all about PACING and TELLING A STORY IN THE RING. This ain't ballet, bah gawd.

Yeah, and he'll be in front of crowds about the same size as he saw in the Manhattan Center too.

That's exactly what I was wondering.

I wish the dining halls at my school had Mean Gene burgers. Those "burgers" (and I use that term loosely) were some of the worst-tasting crap I've ever seen on a plate. Bleh.

I think they had Fink wearing a toupee with Sy Sperling (Hair Club for Men guy) at WM X. Also, with the incident at SummerSlam 98, when he got his revenge on Jarrett, I will admit to laughing my ass off at Finkel doing crotch chops with DX, yelling "Suck it!" As for his angle with Jericho, Y2J convinced Fink he was a "warrior," so I think Fink went out to the Ultimate Warrior's music and tried to beat up Chimel, but got his ass beat as a result.

Wrestlemania XIX drew one of the worst WM buyrates ever. SummerSlam this year drew its worst buyrate since 1996.

I know about Rocker's tirade in Sports Illustrated, but what did Linda Cohn say?

Rock's entrance is swank.

That is absolutely great. I wish they did more stuff like that.

Get your ass off your shoulders!

Our Lady Peace played the Benoit theme song second in their set in Cleveland back in August and it was AWESOME live.

If I'm reading that correctly, I think he means Steph's jumblies. Maybe it's just me, but it's sad that it needed to be explained. It's STEPH, what the hell do you think that meant? Well, I got it right away, but given how the rest of this thread has been a discussion of how big the wrestlers are, I think I'm in the minority.

If I'm reading that correctly, I think he means Steph's jumblies.

They've just scaled back so many other things, that I think this would be just one more way they'd be giving a less-than-their-best-effort product. Matches have been scaled back in terms of what wrestlers can do. No variety, fewer high risks. It's all about "pacing" and "telling a story," which is are nice ideals. I totally agree with trying to get rid of "spot-to-spot" wrestling matches that make no sense, but unfortunately, there are few, if any, wrestlers that understand actual psychology in matches. The result is a bunch of slow, boring stuff that is getting pretty boring. - They've split the wrestlers between brands, cutting possible matchups in half. You now only see guys once a week. - They've split PPVs (yet still charge full price). Putting on jobber matches would do nothing to establish somebody as a threat. Winning matches against those guys would do nothing to establish credibility. It would just fill up the show with even more non-suspense than it has now (which is too much to begin with). Trust me, if they started putting on jobber matches to build up guys like Orton and that type, a bunch of fanboys for low-card guys who get little TV time would be whining about jobbers taking up TV time while their precious diamond in the rough is off TV altogether.

I can't believe they haven't started doing this already. They've scaled back what they offer us in just about every other aspect of the product since they bought out all their competition. Why not scale back the amount of top-flight performers on their show by filling in spots with jobbers? I know people like to wax nostalgic about the good ol' days of Wrestling Challenge and Superstars, but those matches SUCKED. It was basically a big-name guy using a string of signature moves (this is where Bret Hart's Five Moves of Doom originated), mixed with 30 seconds of token jobber offense, then the name wrestler's finisher. Every match, every week. Oh, and you got Sean Mooney doing the "Update" and maybe a Brother Love Show. Count me out for going back to those days. The modern format gets more ratings, so that's why they won't go back to the old way? YES. EXACTLY. Do we remember what ratings are designed to indicate? That's right- they measure what people are watching, hence, what they're interested in seeing. The vast, vast majority of the public has no desire to go back to jobber shows, and quite frankly, I'm with them. Iron Mike Sharpe can go work elsewhere, thank you very much.

I LOVED this match and it was the primary reason I bought the Stone Cold "What?" DVD last year. In the context of the storyline, the type of match they put on was perfect, they added in some psychology and my favorite part was that they absolutely got after it for about 40 minutes. As I recall, there was very little in the way of resting/holding back (or as WWE officials like to call it: "pacing"). Those guys went all-out. That match and the X-Seven match were two of my top 5 all time. In fact, I'm going to watch the NWO match on DVD right now.

It would be real hard for them to cover it up this time. Imagine all the fuzzy screen we'd see covering both the belt...AND the WWF logo!!! Didn't they eventually replace the NWA World Title belt with the WWF World Tag Title belt after a while? I could've sworn that the belt under the blue dot wasn't always the old NWA belt. -=Mike Flair sold the World Heavyweight Title belt back to NWA/WCW for like $75,000. Because the WWF wasn't done running the angle of Flair being "the REAL world's champion," they needed a way for him to parade around with a different belt. Thus, they decided to have the infamous Jack Tunney declare that Flair's belt "wouldn't be recognized" by the WWF and that it would be censored on TV. The real reason was because Flair was carrying around tag belts and I-C belts the whole time, which would've been obvious on television. And for the record, that cover? ... WOOOOOOOOOO! And I'm pretty sure the pic on the BG right is from the NWA days, not the Rumble 92.