The Tino Standard

Listening to that one JR/King clip reminds me of how much I miss the old Raw theme song.

Does anybody else almost get the impression Kevin Kelly was somewhat happy about being fired from the WWE? I'm not necessarily saying happy to be fired, but instead, happy to have a reason to be out of the company. Judging by what he said in that interview, he didn't like an awful lot of things going on there and for him to be out isn't the end of the world. And yeah, Rock's Hollywood career now has little if any connection to wrestling. Considering he's had only one successful leading role, how well this movie performs will mean a lot to his career. But the state of wrestling will have little to do with it. He's on his own now.

Michael Cole as an announcer. I used to absolutely despise his work, but since he's been paired with Tazz full time on SmackDown, the two of them together have made a REALLY good announcing team. Cole finds a way to maintain balance between CALLING THE MATCH IN THE RING and setting up stories for the rest of the night. Tazz plays off both well.

The same reason the ref didn't count Jericho out when Christian was on top of Jericho for about 15 seconds! Yeah, I wondered about that too. But anyway, about the Kane-Shane match... would people in here be nearly as pissed off about that finish if after Shane's fall, Kane went over and chokeslammed him on the stage to get the win THAT way? I'm just curious where the line is drawn here.

Not sure if this was mentioned in the PPV thread, but can somebody explain to me why when Shane took all that time to climb up the scaffolding, why wasn't the referee counting Kane out? He was "out cold" and flat on his back for an eternity.

Yeah, baby... BROWNS, bah gawd, BROWNS! Nice come-from-behind win, but I still say offensive coordinator Bruce Arians should be updating his resume. Their playbook absolutely blows. If it weren't for the defense showing some serious pride this week and not allowing a touchdown, we'd be pissed off about an 0-3 team right now. As for the Niners, not a nice day for you. You don't score a touchdown with two shots from inside the 1-yard line, you blow a 12-point lead at home in the fourth AND your stadium gets taken over by the West Coast Dawg Pound. Ouch.

I picked up the last half of the show absolutely problem-free. Thanks!

As much as I despise Rodney Mack, and while I have no idea of the validity of Keller's story, I can confidently say that if Mack and Helms got into a scrap, Mack would beat the shit out of him. There are no "hurri-powers" in real life... biotch.

I guess it's a neat idea and could work, given some of the people they've got lined up. But seriously, aren't people's attention spans already short enough? I heard from a professor on campus that he talks on a subject in lecture for no longer than 12 min and 30 because that's how long we've been trained to tune into something... i.e., the time between commercial breaks. A sad commentary on the state of things.

I think he meant like when Brock would grab the rope (which should get a release of the hold), only to have Angle pull him away. I don't really understand the rationale behind that either. I interpreted the rule to be if you just touch the rope, you don't get the hold broken. But once you grab the rope or have a limb clearly breaking the plane of the ropes, it should be a break.

That Survivor Series set is hella-lame. I mean, if that's what it actually looked like, fine... But as far as realism goes, that set blows. Guess we can look forward to the WMXX set looking like shit in next year's game.

Those Rock pics... Anybody pimp-slapping HHH is a friend of mine ;-)

Bingo. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Dr. X... Did he hail from Parts Unknown?

I'm kinda torn on this. On the one hand, that match had SO much more potential. It seemed like the psychology was off and at times, they were holding back (injury related perhaps?). I think holding back is a byproduct of not being sure how to pace yourself for a 60-minute match. Neither of those guys had wrestled that long before. I think back to when I ran cross country. I didn't know how to pace myself for races at first, but by senior year, I knew exactly when to kick it in and when to pace myself. I just wonder that if these guys got another crack at an Ironman Match if they wouldn't do some things different. I'd rate that match last night 3 1/2 stars. 60 minutes, no outside interference, decisive finish and some semblence of a storyline (even if I didn't like what that story was), and some decent wrestling (not enough, but some nonetheless) = 3 1/2 for me. So yeah, I had hoped for a lot more out of that match, especially after not reading the spoilers and just hearing "MOTY CANDIDATE!" a lot. But I don't want to get too negative about that show at all. We got two title changes, an Ironman and an AWESOME tag title match... ON FREE TV. No bullshit promos in the ring, just a couple minimal skits backstage. That's a hell of a lot to get on a free show. They just have to be careful with that because if people know they'll get shows that big in an "off month" for that brand (like this month, where SD has no PPV, but Raw does), then people might realize, "Hey, I don't need to buy a brand PPV because they'll deliver the same thing next month on free TV." That's a fine line to walk.

The "escape to win" rule wouldn't be so bad if two things were fixed: 1. Don't allow pinfall victories either. Only way to win is to get out. That's how it used to be in the blue bar cage days. Why no pinfalls? Because climbing out when you apparently aren't good enough to get a pin makes you look like a pussy. Making climbing out the ONLY way to win changes the perspective... like a ladder match. 2. Lock the goddamn door. I absolutely HATE watching someone start climbing over the cage when they can WALK OUT THE DOOR. Lock the damn thing and make them earn it by climbing.

They did that in the last game. Honestly, I don't see the point. He's openly stated that he WANTS people to chant "You suck!" at him and that's when he's a FACE. Either way, people chant it during his entrance. Use one theme for Angle and save the space on the game for a decent CAW theme (what a concept).

Maybe they'll even include the "Bizarro World Angle" outfit... the black singlet he wore at WM a couple years ago. Wasn't my personal favorite, but I know there are a lot of people that like it. Anyway, I just hope they find some way to include the velour jumpsuit.

Wall Street is an AWESOME movie. Get that.

Not soon enough.

Think this will affect booking plans if he was slated to win the title on Thursday?

I saw in a copy of Entertainment Weekly about a month ago that some company released a PS2 controller that looks exactly like an old NES controller (with a few more buttons obviously). I still haven't found any stores that carry it, though.

The injuries on both sides and the fact that everybody pretty much KNEW the ending (because of the circumstances) pretty much killed off that match's hopes of being a true classic. Under a normal situation, that match would be considered spectular. I think it was great, but it really lost something, given outside factors.

Raiders.

I pretty much go with the exact same criteria of JHawk. Also, if the HBK-Jericho match from Wrestlemania had ended when Jericho caught Michaels in the Walls, that match would've come off 10x better. Recycling the same roll-up pinfall used in the HBK-HHH match at SummerSlam 02 completely wrecked the WM match for me.