NYU

Ungrateful for what? I subscribe to newsletter myself. I have no ill will towards Hunter Torn Quad, but I think the decision to transcribe Dave's newsletter word for word is a dubious one. Yeah, yeah. Must we have this conversation every single time someone posts the WON? I appreciate it. Many others appreciate it. HTQ, thanks.

ECW was a regional federation, so it needs to be treated like one. It needs to be introduced to the West Coast first, before it is going to get the response WWE wants. You wouldn't take Ring of Honor away from its Eastern Coast roots in New York and Philadelphia, bring it to the West Coast without explaining exactly what it is, and then stare in shock as the fans don't exactly know how to respond. ECW was not popular on the West Coast. The fans in California and Washington, among other states, need to be conditioned to care about this federation first before anything else. WWE should NOT be running ECW house shows and TV shows on the west coast for at least the first year of its development. Let the fans in that region grow accustomed to what the federation actually is. Initially, you need to localize it in the portion of the United States it was most popular. Once the West Coast fans become familiar with the product, THEN you carry it out there. You can blame WWE for running these storylines in the entirely wrong places, because they should have been better prepared. They knew when they planned to hold One Night Stand, so they should have taken care to place shows in towns that were actually familiar with ECW.

ECW wasn't big on the West Coast. They barely ran any shows there and they didn't focus on appealing to that population. It was an Eastern coast phenomenon that couldn't afford to venture out of that region too many times. So the fact that WWE continues to run all these ECW storylines in a portion of the country that held no connection to the federation in its glory days is counterproductive to building interest for both One Night Stand and the revival of the ECW brand. The real test now is going to be how the crowd responds in Pittsburgh. WWE needs to actually establish a fanbase in these Western coast towns -- to establish the ECW brand to these people that have never dealt with it closely before -- before they expect the federation to earn a huge crowd reaction and flowing cash.

ECW fans cheering for JOHN CENA over RVD? No. Not a chance.

WCW must have clone and gone to Kane, since now he has a quit.

Uh oh. Without Chave, Paul is sinking fast.

I don't think Daytripping ever walked into a fast-food restaurant with a NAMBLA shirt like he said he did. And I better be on your top 103 list to make up for squeaking out the win against me in the Best Poster Tournament.

So what about the Benoit/Malenko match at One Night Stand II?

I've heard a rumor about that: But then again, that might not be true...there's been a lot of rumors floating around tonight about who dies.

And I'm tired of his power trip too. Let's get him.

The Satanic Angel = New York Fox

....but instead, I'm here and I haven't cracked open a book yet. This can only lead to good, I'm sure. Discuss.

Besides the questions everyone is posing here, this is another one: Why the hell do we need to see John Cena vs. Edge again?! How many times are these two going to fight this year? Enough already.

It's a required class that takes attendance.

Well, I really shot myself in the foot this weekend. An entire semester of Political Psychology. Four months to read what must be a thousand pages of political science articles. Never did it. Four months to take notes in class on what he talked about. I drew pictures. Now, I have a final on Tuesday, and I'm sitting here trying to desperately skim through each article and write down the most important facts. With the final on Tuesday. And a research term paper for history due Monday morning as well. This is a disaster waiting to happen.

And I'm bitter about the Mets/Phillies series. A loss on Tuesday night that only happened because of Lo Duca and Heilman's mental errors. And a loss on Thursday night because of a rain-shortened five inning game. Not good.

Actually, the game wouldn't have been official since they never got to the bottom of the 5th. Yes they did. Even Trachsel's additional stalling, on top of his sluggish pitching pace to begin with, wasn't enough to keep the bottom of the 5th from finishing.

Can I assume you mean Hideki?

Whoa now. Not that I watch this show, but this quote or anything resembling it should never be uttered again.

Three thoughts: 1) I love how the strike zone was markedly different for the Mets than it was for the Phillies. Plain as day, to the point that Keith Hernandez, Ron Darling, and Gary Cohen couldn't help but call him out on it several times. High balls count as strikes against Kaz Matsui. Pitches over the plate don't count for Heilman. It could be a case of sour grapes, but it certainly seemed obvious to me there was something wrong with the home umpire. 2) The Bobby Abreu celebration is unwarranted. I know Al is going to call me out over this, but come on. He won the game on an error. Let's save the party for a time that calls for it. 3) You can tell which players on the Mets don't know the fundamentals of baseball. Aaron Heilman trying to field a ball that clearly belongs to Lo Duca? Lo Duca turning to tag out the runner at home very prematurely, letting a ball nicely thrown to him fall out of his grasp? These mental mistakes really cost them tonight. It's amazing. Delgado is truly carrying the team at this point.

It's amazing. Lo Duca is an even worse defensive catcher than Piazza was.

The Da Vinci Code is a big release that isn't a sequel or a remake. But even that film is just based off a book. Besides that, I can't really think of any.

Smackdown looks exactly the same for the PS3 as it is for the PS2. Besides updated polygon models, they're exactly the same. I haven't seen one reanimated move yet. The collision is still faulty, the sounds are exactly the same. I don't get what they've done besides make the crowd look more realistic and add the whole balcony setup. Right now, Wii is getting all my attention. Smackdown vs. Raw 2007 has done nothing to fix that.

Isn't anybody actually famous going to die soon?

As others have said, although this show was definitely promo-heavy, it had the feel of a big-time show that's setting up major storylines for the future. I liked Axel addressing the Living Anglelously mess in his opening promo. I also thought it was clever to address the missing PRL/AJ Flaire match in storyline fashion. I'm a huge mark for the Christian Wright/Bohemoth combination. I have to figure KC has a thesaurus ready when he writes Christian's promos. I'm also excited to see Wright/Bohemoth getting a tag title shot at Syndicated. I'm going to predict now that they won't win, but I would love it if they did. Perhaps my second favorite team ever behind Chicks Over Dicks. Cool Rodez promo. I liked Maria attacking him afterwards -- flashbacks to the WWE Hardcore 24/7 thing, for sure. I just really hope this isn't the end to the whole Alix/Rodez/Krista Love-and-Hate Triangle. I liked Peter Knight rationalizing that Alfdogg hasn't beaten him in a fair fight one-on-one yet. It's always good for the heel to actually believe in his own heart that whatever cause he is fighting for is the correct one -- which is clearly what Knight is doing here. It sets up the feud nicely for the big blowoff at School's Out. I'm definitely interested in the whole SWF Invasion idea so far. I'll admit it -- I had absolutely no idea that was coming at Living Anglelously. Didn't predict the partners. Didn't predict the wild ending. That unpredictability continued this week with all the tension in the ring. From the tension between Zack and Bloodshed/Blank...and the tension between Zack's Alliance/Jackson & O'Hara....this feud is getting more intriguing by the week. But hey, if these new SWF guys want to leave some type of feedback too in the near future, I wouldn't have a problem with that. So yeah. I really really liked Hoff's promo. I actually loved his interaction with Jackie, showing how much Hoff has changed since he came back into the federation. And I like how he always plays nice and friendly with a jobber before going out into the ring and destroying them -- he did it with Igor at one point. And he did it with Jarvo last night. And "Aw, thanks, mate! That's kanga-riffic!" wins my Line of the Night award. I thought my segment was amazing. But pssh. That goes without saying. Watts giving up his presidency caught me by surprise, as did Axel suddenly losing his spot as General Manager. I was impressed with the way PK spaced those segments here. By putting the Axel announcement immediately after the Watts one, he gave this real sense of anarchy and urgency to the matter. Suddenly, for the first time in a long time, nobody's in charge of the OAOAST. I'm excited to see where that goes from here. Hoff vs. Jarvo Aussie -- Short and sweet. Put Hoff over as a monster and showed America > Australia forever. Cool beatdown to close out the show with Zack and Jackson/O'Hara. I can only imagine the retaliation the SWF superstars are going to come back with next week. I have a feeling Bloodshed's actions at Living Anglelously are going to pale in comparison to what happens next Thursday. Syndicated looks like it's going to be a STACKED show. Main Event of Drek Stone & Hoff vs. Black T in a steel cage. Christian Wright & Bohemoth vs. The Heavenly Rockers for the Tag Team Titles. The return of the Love Shack. And anything else I forgot to put here or I don't know about yet. Looks like it's going to be a lot of fun.