The Tino Standard

I wouldn't be surprised if they go no-decision tonight in the main event and don't crown a champion. This is the kind of thing that they love dragging out as much as possible so they can sucker people into buying the next PPV.

I don't think they have time to come up with something completely new. And as much as I hope they would break out the pre-spinner version of the title, the picture on the main page of WWE.com would lead me to believe the spinner is here to stay. I dunno, though. I just can't ever see HHH wearing a belt that spins.

I'm not much of a fan of the Cena character, but this sucks. A 13-month title reign and THAT is how it ends? It's bad enough when shorter reigns like the ones by Taker, Edge and Batista get cut short, but after all this time of wondering how they were finally going to take the belt off Cena, this is totally deflating. On the other hand, it's kinda crazy to realize I witnessed the longest title reign in 20 years end and I didn't even know it as it unfolded. As for who gets the belt now, I can't see Jericho getting the title because if he's supposedly still doing a book tour and just making himself available for wrestling on Mondays, they're not going to have a part-time WWE champion. If Orton can't get the belt out of this, he's never getting it.

Fun show to be at tonight. Crowd was way more into it tonight than it has been for other WWE events here in recent years. Big cheering section for Randy Orton all night. We were all kinda wondering why the show ended early and why we didn't get the advertised dark match tag team main event, but the Cena injury would explain that. Two Ron Simmons notes: 1. He already did the "DAMN" thing during the Heat taping, so when he did it again on Raw, it's not surprising it didn't get as much of a pop. 2. When we were leaving the arena, there was a huge crowd in the concourse. Turns out Simmons was standing in the middle of the crowd signing autographs for everybody. Pretty cool.

Even God has Cena nuff.

Anybody happen to check OnlineOnslaught.com? Apparently, it has been "lionjacked."

Don't get me wrong, that stuff was all terrible. But really, it's all a case of bad booking. And no matter how bad your booking is, in no way can you make a sane argument that it's a worse scenario for a company than having a former world champion murder his family and hang himself, have your "wellness policy" shredded once it comes under public scrutiny and then have to suspend 11 wrestlers (many of them in top angles) and fire a couple more, not to mention having three former champions decide they're so fed up with things, they'd rather just quit. The product quality in 2007 isn't great, but there have been worse years in that department. From a long-range business standpoint, though, I can't think of a more damaging year. This stuff probably won't sink the company, but it is definitely going to haunt WWE for a while.

I saw Torrie Wilson in person in 2004, and she was absolutely phenomenal. As for the HD, I'm all for it. I'm really surprised USA hasn't gone to HD yet, especially considering their competition - TNT (already has it) and TBS (will have it Sept. 1).

They better work really, really hard to get Orton over as a heel if they don't want another bizarro crowd situation at SummerSlam. Crowd was up on its feet last night in anticipation of the RKO, and his pinfall got a pretty good pop. I think people were even chanting for Orton after he punted Dusty Rhodes' head. Orton's character and ring work right now are highly entertaining, and I think he's a great foil for Cena. It's just a shame he is, by all accounts, such an immature, undeserving prick outside the ring.

If they give Orton the belt, they might as well go and take a dump on the rest of the locker room while they're at it. What kind of a message does it send to make Orton the No. 1 man in the company? Think about how many times he's supposed to have been in title programs and possible Mania main events but has blown it by doing stupid, reckless shit outside of the arena. He finally doesn't do anything stupid for a few months, and now all is forgiven? Fuck that.

They absolutely did not know it was over. A few years ago, I saw an interview with the woman who played Mrs. Arnold, and she was pissed it ended like it did, because they had no idea that was happening. They were smiling and waving at the parade, and then she saw the episode and how it had the ending narration dubbed on, and she was like "WTF?"

If WWE actually does get sued over this, knowing their *STELLAR* legal dept., they're f'd.

Nope. More people watch Smackdown, by far. Remember, Raw is only available on cable, while Smackdown is broadcasted on free tv. why are they 1 to 2 ratings points less than Raw every week if that is the case? Do the ratings points come from people who tune in via cable?? How could you tell if someone was watching a television show via broadcast only? I don't really know...that was a legit question on my part, not the usual smart ass remark one would fire off oh so wittingly in this folder. I'm pretty sure the scale for broadcast ratings and cable ratings (the number of households that equal a ratings point) are different.

To fair, they also gave a huge ovation to an obviously ailing Gorilla Monsoon at WM15. Yes, Philly fans can be assholes, but I think they're pretty genuine too. And when they give a 10-bell salute as part of a ridiculous wrestling angle, it's no wonder the Philly fans are going to shit on it. Good for them.

It airs 8 p.m. Mondays on CBS. They give it a fair amount of promotion during other programming, but they've also gone long stretches of the year without new episodes, which I think has turned some people off. That's more a problem of trying to stretch 22 episodes from September to May than disrespect for the show, though.

I don't really pay attention to Smackdown a whole lot. Can somebody explain how MVP keeps getting US title shots? He's jobbed cleanly two PPVs in a row and now he gets a THIRD shot? Hardly seems fair to Benoit.

But they didn't really do much with the relationship to show WHY Ted and Robin didn't work. I can remember the episode where Robin's sister comes to visit and they stumble into saying "I love you," and there was the episode where they were going to move in together (but backed out at the last minute) and not a whole lot else. The rest of the season pretty much floated along aimlessly for those two. I remember an interview with the writers of the show after the season 1 finale, where they said the premise of season 2 would be, "What happens AFTER 'happily ever after?' " Apparently, the answer is, "Not much." Hard to get attached to or care about a storyline when they don't really develop it at all.

I'm so disappointed by what is going on. They have a bad guy (Cheng) who has spanned over three seasons, and yet he's not even the main focus anymore. They've got a teaser for next week with Jack finally getting his hands on Cheng, only to have Cheng tell him, "You're too late." Too late for WHAT? After all he's done to torment Jack the last three years, the real payoff should be seeing Cheng take a bullet between the eyes. Anything after that should be gravy. Not the other way around, which is exactly what they're setting up.

Interesting season finale with some good writing, leaving me somewhat hopeful they can get back on track next year. They kinda screwed themselves this year by A) putting Marshall and Lily back together so quickly (it was like they were almost never broken up) and by putting Ted and Robin together and making them the B story most of the season. The biggest problem with that was that there was no real A story. The whole point of the show is Ted finding his "One", and when you spend an entire year of him dating somebody who you know ISN'T that person, then what's the point. They were directionless most of the season, with a few entertaining stand-alone episodes along the way. Now, Marshall and Lily can go back to B story status, while Ted can get back on his search (and wow, they really hammered home the fact that Robin isn't actually the mom tonight... interesting to see how she's used going forward). And with Barney coming on so strong as a character this year playing wing man, that should be solid. Disappointing sophomore season, but just enough good stuff in the finale for me to not lose all hope.

"From the team that brought you 'Snake Eyes' " is NOT a selling point. That movie fucking sucked out loud.

Headline for Edge's title win on WWE.com: "Pittsburgh Stealer" As somebody who designs pages in a newspaper for a living, I've gotta say that's pretty clever.

http://www.wrestlingobserver.com/wo/news/h...t.asp?aID=19417 Not a lot of detail here, but Kennedy jobs to Matt Hardy and a Batista-Undertaker cage match for next week is announced.

HBO.com's recap of the episode says Hesh's wife died of a stroke. Make of that what you will.

Believe it or not, HIMYM finally has a new episode tonight (first of three straight weeks to close out the season). Considering the Price is Right and HIMYM are two of my favorite shows, this is like a match made in heaven. Great clip of Barney spinning the wheel is available now on TV.com.

The thing with Lesnar's SSP at Wrestlemania XIX was that if he had gone to the opposite corner of the ring (near side, on the right) instead of the corner he did go to, he probably would've been fine. When went to the far corner on the left, got on top of the ropes and realized how far away Angle was, there was a brief "Oh shit" look on his face before he jumped. Considering the awful landing he had, it's amazing they were able to piece together the serviceable finish they did.