DrVenkman PhD

I think after their brief fling of calling it "Quiznation" as part of the "Playmania Block" with that awful 100 Winners show, it's back to a cutdown schedule and only called Playmania again. I hate it when I tune in on a night I'm still awake and that man is hosting.

I thought nothing at all of the guys wrestling between brands (someone asked in the Comments thread why that didn't get it's own) but yeah, I went over to WWE.com to look something up and saw that story. While I don't like jumping to conclusions (I stand still, the conclusions jump to me), my first thought was it's being set up to take over Velocity's old spot on WWE.com. Hopefully this means the next time I go to a SmackDown taping in Detroit, it will be the old "do a dark match, tape 4 matches in a row, short break, tape SmackDown" forumla and not the "do a dark match, tape SmackDown, wait for 10pm so ECW can start, run live until 11 which means sitting through non-match segments that add extra commercial breaks, then re-tape the main event" 4 hour marathon sessions.

Yep, re-checked it and July 19, 1993 - with Shawn as the champ - is the match available on 24/7 Online. Guess I'll have to re-watch it without distracting myself.

SF IV eh... this isn't April 1st. !!!

Re: FF VIII "review drama". They (understandably so looking back) gave a less than expected score to the game while the other mags praised it. While this was a fine point and all (and I think it angered some readers, resulting in negative letters) where I began to question whether the magazine was being "hardcore" or just having a different opinion than the mainstream mags just for the hell of it was when they said Turok 3 was better than Perfect Dark (or some similar comparison). I believe they did similar things with other games when comparing them to FF VIII. Guess I could dig through some of the old GameFans someday and check it out.

Meowth makes his Pokeball debut.

I still wish the so-called 1993 MOTYC between him and Jannetty was on there but I'm not going to complain. For clarification, because I've seen a Raw match between them on 24/7 Online that seemed underwhelming after the hype (though I thought the same thing about watching Flair/Steamboat from Chi-Town Rumble online too until I watched it on the 80s DVD and loved it... I tend to multi-task while the vidwindow is running), is the match that got the rave reviews the one where Marty wins the belt (which I haven't seen at all) or the one where Shawn wins it back?

Loving it. What I love most here is the majority of these matches come from TV or PPVs I don't own. Assuming that AWA match with Roberts and Somers is the same one from Shawn's DVD, and that I get this before any of the Rumble collections, I own a grand total of two of these matches already and a lot of these I haven't seen in TV quality in years, or at all. Kudos to the people behind this for not just taking the best of the already owned 2003 DVD and adding a few new bells to it (looking at you, new Rey DVD!)

I'm guessing it's coming next week and not just missing on your systems (though I'm not holding my breath on getting it on Cogeco) because: 1. Next week's selection is pretty baron. 2. PYBO's seem to come on during the last week of the month's schedule.

Shouldnt this have its own thread? Not really. People are barely commenting on it here. We don't even make OAO SmackDown threads anymore, people just comment in the spoilers thread... and if THAT goes more than 2 pages, it's a "busy week". The story is also pretty straight forward in what it's reporting and there isn't much to discuss. The brands have been mixing it up so much over the past year anyway.

I admit I don't follow the goings on very closely, but wasn't Nash's deal (after that X-Division burial) to just be an alleged comedy figure, either as a mentor or a psychiatrist (?) and not an active main eventer?

I'm glad my updates came through at 12am exactly (actually they were there at 11:58!). I couldn't wait to watch the Hart family reunion - I FF'd through the show (I also didn't remember that Owen/Bulldog was a full match) just to see that segment, then went to sleep. It's funny - I know Bret and Owen's "family issues" were a fabricated storyline but 10.5 years later it feels just as good to see their on screen characters hug and make up as it did in 1997.

Marketed properly, a Phantasio gimmick could work as an over midcard act. I marked out seeing him throw some web or whatever out of nowhere. Cole and Tazz's commentary during Rico/Haas is pretty cool too. This "July 16, 1995" date for the Berserker/Shango vs Warrior/Undertaker (!!) tag match is obviously wrong. "Balls, it was more fun working with you than it was with Ernest The Cat Miller"

I'm watching Raw #4 on 24/7 Online right now. That's one interesting promo by Beefcake about how crappy his life was. I also love how - for once - Rob Bartlet is 100% correct about something (he reminds Savage that he knocked Yokozuna off his feet - which if memory serves is totally correct, he did so with an axe handle AFTER Yokozuna charged and hit the turnbuckles) but Savage and Vince have to backtrack and be all "uh.. no he didn't! Yokozuna has never been off his feet but Hacksaw Jim Duggan is going to try!"

And GSN has Shandi Finnessey!

This has nothing to do with Season 4 but I was pointed to it by World's Worst Man and quite amused by it:

Heenan got a great laugh out of me when, commenting on the action figures for Murraco and Santana being matched up, he said "that's the top of a wedding cake in San Fransisco". Sivi Afa doing a rana to no reaction as a transition move in 1987 was something else.

Yeah, I admit I Bsichoffed the joke thinking maybe no one saw it the first time, but at least time I did it as the sub-point to my post (the 40M subscribers to a wrestling channel being a bit high being the main point I was going for). And yes, Marv needs to get over it.

Contact the BBB anyway. That's very poor treatment, though it sounds like you're exaggerating / generalizing their response (I hope you are, anyway).

I was reading the wikipedia entry for GameFan magazine (productive day at work today...) and was amused by this: Probably one of the most well-known (and most likely only) controversies in Gamefan's history was an issue in where a piece of written work, which contained several deogratory comments about Japanese people was leaked in an issue of Gamefan (naming them "Japs", a racial profanity that was used to insult Japanese descendants and Japanese-Americans during the years of World War II), taking the place of one of the paragraphs of one of the sports games reviews. Gamefan editor Dave Halverson published a letter in the next issue of the magazine explaining the origin and intentions of the offensive article. Halverson claimed that the article was an attempt to sabotage the magazine aimed at alienating its Japanese audience and fanbase. Halverson's claims were supported by the article itself: the article discussed a Namco flight-simulator rather than College Football '96 (which was the topic of the article) and was extremely poorly written. Halverson published the following apology: August 18, 1995 GameFan, more so than any other American title covering the gaming industry, has been the greatest proponent of the Japanese market and culture. This is a known fact in the industry and among gamers. We are also the fastest growing gaming magazine on the market, despite the fact that our cover price is 20% higher than that of our competitors. We are thought of by readers of all gaming titles as the magazine with the highest production quality and editorial integrity. For these reasons, we are the constant target of our competitors. Our September issue was the aim of sabotage. The intention was to include language in our issue offensive to the Japanese to damage relationships and set our friends against us. During the production process, text containing various profanities and language offensive to the Japanese culture was woven throughout the text of the issue. We were able to remove the majority of the language. Despite our efforts, one paragraph contained within an editorial made it through the production process. By the time we discovered this, some of the copies were already distributed to retail outlets. Unfortunately, because our production process largely involves digitized information on disk and it travels through the hands of several outside sources, it is subject to this type of manipulation. We were caught with our guard down, never having expected such an outrageous act. We have put safeguards in place to insure that this will never occur again. The action was undoubtedly directed to harm GameFan. We ask that you accept our deepest apologies for any offense that it may have caused. Please consider that the persons responsible for this action intended not only an offense against the Japanese, but against GameFan. This type of motive and behavior should not be condoned. Carefully consider the circumstances and our integrity and help us maintain it by not reacting against GameFan, but together with GameFan. Sincerely, Dave Halverson Editor In Chief, GameFan Magazine

Good call.

WWE.com makes the MMA aspect sound like an exciting choice for the fans (even going as far as calling it "the sweet science") so maybe my first instinct that they wanted to parlay this into some sort of UFC bashing was incorrect.

In case it's lost in internet translation, my prediction was not serious. If it were Balls or Dreamer, you'd think they'd just say so, but "mystery partner" adds intrigue. Rule of thumb though, anyone worth advertising as a major name would usually be advertised as such, not a question mark.

It said "Go J" last week too but no one but me seemed to notice. Doesn't matter what we saw versus what's there anyway, it's Jericho anyway.

Probably Jericho or Colt Cabana.