Styles

Batista is from DC, we love the big lug.

Didn't intend to start a debate, but you decided to use subtlety to express your support for guys who are (literally) party shills, so I thought I'd just rub your face in it and run. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I think your guy was there too, re-read my report, he might have been the guy in front of me!!!

I cry tears of joy when I think of how many of our tax dollars Ed Gillespie lobbied for Enron. Truly the best money we EVER spent. Mehlman has yet to do anything terrible, I'll give him that. And both guys looked pained to be there, if they're anything like the other celebs at the shows (such as a pro sports team or something) they just arrive for their segment then leave. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> OK, Jobber, let's not turn this political, I don't post about politics here anymore. It was just to comment on the crowd's reaction to them as well as my own.

Kids cheer for who they're supposed to and get their parents to spend lots of money on shit. Plus they can be hooked as fan when they're young. They're exactly who WWE wants to go after from a business standpoint. I agree it's really annoying though. At Summerslam it was as evident as ever where all the kiddies and women were nuts for Cena and all the guys were totally against him and for Jericho.

Has more to do with Hogan who is huge and unflexible, and Shawn is much smaller. It's hard to put on.

Live Report: -Benoit got a huge pop for his 1 minute win. It was awesome and the crowd loved it. -The Eddy/Vicky thing went on too long and the crowd was chanting "We Want Wrestling". -Hardy/Edge was ridiculous, but I guess we should have expected it. Lots of "We Want Matt" chants when Edge came out and Lita got the slut and crackwhore chants. Big pop for the spear through the ropes. Crowd hated the finish, they didn't get what happened and even those who did hated that it happened this way. Total burial. -Rey/Eddie was great. Crowd was pretty split and there were several Eddie chants and big pops for both guys when they hit big moves. I was sitting in the section right above Dominick btw. Some of those bumps looked brutal especially the run up the ladder spot where the ladder fell on top of a falling Rey. Eddy appeared to hurt his leg or ankle on one of the final ladder bumps and seemed to be throwing a fit over it for real but continued on. Big pop for the finish actually with a lot of people yelling "push him off" when Vicky came out. -Angle was mamothly over and the crowd HATED Eugene. Big "You Suck" chants for Angle's entrance but it was out of respect. I should mention at this point that the guy sitting in front of me, had to have been one of Eugene's types if you know what I mean, an older guy who clearly did not believe wrestling was fake. Everytime me or my friend would make a smark comment or cheer for a heel he'd snap back around and correct us or CHANT REALLY LOUDLY AND OBNOXIOUSLY for the face. It was awful. So anyway, as we're cheering for Angle he asks why we're cheering for such an evil bastard, and I had had enough and snapped back "because wrestling is fake, and Angle is an olympic gold medalist and Eugene is a retard". That shut him up. For a while at least. HUGE fucking pop for the ankle lock and the medal presentation. -Vince in the limo got a big pop. I of course popped for Ken Mehlman and Ed Gillespie when they were shown (didn't know they were fans!) but the majority of the crowd booed. Oh well, that's expected. -Taker's entrance really is awesome live and the crowd loved it but for most of the match they were pretty quiet, I think burned out from popping for Angle. Orton actually appeared to be the favorite and there was a big "RKO" chant in the beginning and a pop for when he won. Crowd didn't seem to get that it was Bob Orton in the makeup. -Cena/Jericho might have been match of the night live. Jericho clearly had his fans (me) and Cena his haters (me again). This made for a great atmosphere. All the kids (and the retard in front of me who might have popped a blood vessel and/or a vocal cord BELLOWING for Cena everytime we'd chant for Jericho) were cheering for Cena but a large part of the crowd was for Jericho. The highlight was the mamoth dueling chants towards the end where neither side wanted to give ground, it just kept getting louder. The pop when Jericho pulled him back into the center was mammoth too. The kiddies took over for the pin though. -I caught 2 JBL 100 dollar bills from the ceiling. I think most of the crowd totally missed him coming out because we were crained upwards trying to catch some dollars! Batista got a big pop as expected on his entrance but otherwise wasn't as over as I would have expected. I think the crowd was really burnt out after the vocal battle that was Cena/Jericho. Guardrail spot and the powerbombs got over big though. -OK, I thought at least SOME of the crowd would have cheered for Michaels and booed Hogan since they were so pro Angle and Jericho but boy was I wrong. Hogan is the man. I don't know what to say, he'll be 80 years old main eventing WM50 and getting mammoth reactions. Shawn had no hope. Not one HBK chant. Except for some slow spots in the beginning (a boring chant!) this was as good as you could expect. Shawn was bumping like a madman, flipping around diving around and just being the man but the crowd was going nuts for Hogan's offense on him. The ref bump/sharpshooter spot worked like they thought it would with everyone crained towards the entrance and chanting "We Want Bret" but I knew he wasn't there. Superkick got a big pop, the Hulk Up was deafening though. Hogan probably bled the most I've ever seen him bleed. Post match when Shawn went for a handshake the crowd was booing and didn't trust him but after Hogan encouraged cheers they cheered him. His posing routine went on for a while and I'll admit it was hard not to smile and get into it. This guy is one of a kind. Austin better just stay far away. Overall a good show. I'm thinking it might not have been the greatest show on TV since there were no blow away matches but nothing actively sucked either (well the Hardy finish was an abomination) and the crowd was really hot. I'm tired of that Seether song though that they were blasting throughout the arena every other second.

GSP/Hughes and Ace/Lindland is already being planned for December. I highly doubt they do 3 title matches on one show, so I think Chuck/Randy III gets pushed back to February.

The first round was ok with Joe owning but round 2 and 3 got progressively worse with Lindland's boring lay on top of his opponent offense.

I went 8-0 on my predictions! No MOTYC but a fun overall night. Quick thoughts: -Irving's flying knee was awesome and is up against Yves Edwards spinning kick as my favorite KO of the year. -Lindland/Doerkson was so boring. I hope Ace finishes him quickly. -St. Pierre is amazing. I knew he'd win but not that dominating. Trigg is done, unless he learns to defend a choke. -What's up with Diego's new look? impressive win but not exactly top competition. -Oh ye of little faith. The cardinal rule: Never underestimate Randy Couture. Great win, nice submission finish. Can't wait for Couture/Liddell III. -Sylvia is BACK~! I always loved Tim, and am glad to see him with a big victory. That high kick was brutal. The problem is the heaviweight division is still the love triangle of Arlovski, Sylvia and Mir (if he ever comes back). -I don't know if I'm more impressed with Lidell or Horn! Horn's strategy was obviously get Chuck on the ground but Chuck would have none of it, even after brutal knockdowns where he could have finished. How Jeremy is still amongst the living after those brutal combinations I will never know. That's a pretty scary finish with the guy cowering in the corner and telling the ref he can't see. Hope he's ok, but don't think Dana will bring him back since he was only brought back to lose to Chuck. -Next show's looking a little weak. They need to get Arlovski some real competition, Buentello is going to be murderized. Forrest/Friedman could be fun but doesn't scream marquee fight. -I wonder if they bring in Quinton Jackson first, or do the Couture rematch first?

Looking forward to it. Will be ordering since UFC never puts on bad PPVs. Seriously, even those who thought the live Spike special was bad, their PPVs are way better and there's no 10 minute Coq Rock commercials. Pre-Lims: James Irvin over Terry Martin via KO, Rd1. Trevor Prangley over Travis Lutter via submission, Rd2. Matt Lindland over Joe Doerksen via unanimous decision. Live Card: George St. Pierre over Frank Trigg via TKO, Rd 3. Diego Sanchez over Brian Gassaway via submission, Rd 1. Randy Couture over Mike Van Arsdale via split decision Tim Sylvia over Tra Telligman via KO, RD 1. Light-Heavyweight Title: Chuck Liddell over Jeremy Horn via KO. Rd 2.

My team is like my real life team, The Orioles, free falling with no end in sight. I've plunged down to 14th, and with every move I make it seems to get worse. Guess I'm playing for draft picks now.

I can't believe people are actually discussing this one. I'm going to the show and would love nothing more than to get excited about the Hitman making his return but I know there's 99.9% chance of it happening. If WWE was going to do it they would have had him come out on RAW in Montreal for the mammoth pop, work the angle and have a huge final boost for Summerslam. As mentioned they'd be insane to have him show without promoting it, even for a week. As is, he hates Hogan and Michaels and would not want to work angles with him, he can't get physical because of the stroke and he's said he's only done the DVD so he could have control over the content and stop WWE from releasing a hatchet job on him. Around Hall of Fame time maybe, but he's not coming back now.

Predicted match order and card. I'll be there live so hopefully it's a good show. Looks like it should be. Angle over Eugene Benoit over Jordan Edge over Hardy Undertaker over Orton Cena over Jericho Mysterio over Guerrero Hogan over Michaels Batista over Layfield

From Sherdog: Can't say I blame them. Dana wanted to make Mir/Arlovski for October and with Mir requesting even more time, it was getting ridiculous to have a lame duck champion in Arlovski. When Mir is ready to return I'm sure he'll get a shot at the belt. That or he'll be erased from history. UFC is funny like that...

This week's issue is really good, the Iron Shiek story was tremendous.

The last one's not horrible, in that it doesn't scream "WRESTLING SHIRT", although doesn't really stand out in any way that makes you want to buy it. The first 3 are just awful. I wouldn't even wear those at a wrestling show.

Yeah, that really makes me want to watch. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Come on, with Russo booking, the possibilities for fun gimmick matches are endless!

It's nice that Bruce says this and then trashes the American fans and says how they don't want to tour here.

Welterweight Bout Pete Spratt vs. Josh Koscheck Koscheck, TKO, Rd1 Middleweight Bout Pete Sell vs. Nate Quarry Quarry, KO, Rd1 Light Heavyweight Bout Sam Hoger vs. Stephan Bonnar Bonnar, decision 30-27 Middleweight Bout Patrick Cote vs. Chris Leben Cote, KO, Rd2 Middleweight Bout Nathan Marquardt vs. Ivan Salaverry Salaverry, tapout submission, RD1 Should be a fun show. Can't wait!

Yup, and since Borash (along with Dave Sahadi who's also friends with Russo and working on it with him) are in charge of TNA's production and website, the similarities in graphics are expected. The talent are similar since a lot of the top indy talent is in TNA and many of them are Christians (notably AJ Styles).

At the next PPV, Hard Justice, they opened with a 10 bell salute and a tribute to Candido with a picture of him and his boots in an empty ring. Later on in the show, The Naturals did an out of character interview sit down with Mike Tenay about Candido meant for them and their careers (although at the end teased an angle saying they had a new mentor, who'd end up being Jimmy Hart), and in their match basically turned face, even though they were against AMW who were of course faces. The fans chanted for Candido at the beginning of the match and they came out with his trademark towel and place d it on a chair at ringside before the match. They also won with their feet on the ropes on a rollup which was another tribute to Candido. Hope that helps.

So I went to Ozzfest last week mostly to just see Sabbath and MAIDEN, 2 of my favorite bands and really didn't know much about or care much about the second stage bands. But I went, and even was up on the railing for most of the day. While most of the bands just blended together power chords and screaming, the one band that jumped out at me was Trivium. The best part about these guys is they're all early 20s, and have incredible musical talent, and I can see them breaking out like Metallica as the future of metal. Anyone else familiar with the band and agree with me?

That's interesting you should mention Austin Aries. Don West in an interview recently was asked who he'd like to see come to TNA and his answer was Austin Aries and the Dudleys (say what you will about him but at least he has more wrestling knowledge than all the WWE's B guys combined). And of course his broadcast partner, Mike Tenay is on the booking committee so I wouldn't be shocked to see Aries brought in. I agree about Homicide. He'd have to tone down his act and interviews a bit to fly on a national television show but he'd be a blast as a top heel challenging Raven.

TNA is just so awesome, for every goof they make (i.e. allowing Jeff Jarrett to be in main events) they do something cool like this. I remember WCW in 2000 did a Nitro where fans could vote on who would get a World title shot in the main event of the show (I can't remember who the champ was probably Steiner or Booker), and throughout the show they were doing updates and it was legit and there was a groundswell on Lance Storm's website to get him to win. Sting ended up winning which was obvious but Storm was second and almost won the thing. Anyway, back to this, this is a cool idea. Who do you think some of the "indy superstars" will be? How many aren't with TNA already? I guess CM Punk is out.