Danville_Wrestling

The worst part as a poster elaborated on in the RAW thread is that they have nothing that will spike the ratings (unless you think HHH's return is going to do that). I wish I had a camera in WWE headquarters to see what kind of stuff went on when they got that rating number. I'll admit that they have lost me as a fan of RAW for now just due to bad storylines and bad booking. The last RAW I watched was many months ago when Big Dick Johnson came out and molested Eric Bischoff.

Wow, a 2.5. Haven't seen a RAW rating like that in a while. Reminds me of looking at the old PWI magazines and seeing how RAW and Nitro would go head-to-head. I've been waiting to see the ratings go that low just to see if there will be ANY type of creative shake up within the company but who am I kidding. Any chance the shareholders might be bitching about that soon?

I believe the answer to this is that the Royal Mounted Police got pissed off at the WWF that the Mountie was a heel character and it made them look bad. I believe this led to actual legal action against the WWF by the Mounties union/their representatives and as a result the Quebecers theme music became "We're not the Mounties..." instead of the Mountie theme "I'm the Mountie..." as a jab at them. Interestingly enough, I read last night about the Quebecers on Wikipedia and it says that Men on a Mission weren't supposed to win the belts from the Quebecers on the UK tour. What happened was that Mabel accidentally pinned Pierre because Pierre got stunned when Mabel fell on him. That kinda cleared up why that small title change occurred to me since it always appeared weird that the WWF would have MoM win the belts off TV.

I miss how the Saturday's of my youth used to be wrestling nearly all day long. WCW Pro Wrestling came on TBS at 9:05, WWF Mania w/Todd Petengill & that Stephanie lady for a while aired at 10:00, then Smokey Mountain Wrestling aired on the local WB network at 2:00, followed by USWA at 3:00, WCW Worldwide came on WB at 4:00, and then WCW Saturday Night aired from 6:05-8:05. WWF Superstars then aired in my area around 11:00 PM but its time slot changed and sometimes happened on Sunday at 11:00. Can't forget ECW coming @ 2:00 AM either. Then on Sunday's you still had some decent action with the WWF Action Zone at 12:00 and WCW Main Event at 6:05 or so. My weekends from 1995 to 1997 (when the Smokey Mountain and USWA programs went dead) totally revolved around wrestling.

I remember as a young kid just catching wrestling randomly on TV but my parents did not encourage it so I kinda forgot about it until 3rd grade. My first serious exposure to wrestling was just before WrestleMania XI in March 1995. I remember the first Monday Night Raw I ever watched had an opening matchup of the Blu Brothers vs. the Headshrinkers. I remember the other matches that night were Barry Horowitz vs. Jeff Jarrett for the IC belt and then Bret Hart vs. Jerry Lawler (who had Bull Nakano with him). I just remember getting really hooked on the product after that show and I didn't miss a RAW until after WrestleMania X-7 when the product just started getting worse and worse. My parents eventually relented and let me rent an old school tape a week from the video store. I remember the first tape I ever rented was Royal Rumble 1991 and when the video store sold their old tapes I bought it (just to own a piece of nostalgic history for myself) and WrestleMania X. My videostore was pretty good about the tapes as they had nearly all the WrestleMania's, got all the new In Your House tapes in, etc. It was just a goldmine of old footage. Then of course I bought a ton of action figures and got a subscription to WWF Magazine (which I had until they renamed it Smackdown! Magazine and then I cancelled my subscription). Those WWF Magazines when Russo was writing them were entertaining as hell as a kid even if they are a bit corny looking at them now. At least the stories were fun and Keith Elliot Greenberg wrote hella good reviews of the pay-per-views that were blow-by-blow. By the end of getting those magazines they just had some big damn pictures and a sentence about the match. That ticked me off to no end.

Don't know who by, but I believe it was "The Great Gates of Kiev" You are correct. One of my favorite themes of all time.

MVP Baseball 2005 is a really fun game. It's hard to hit HR's (at least for me) but that can be tweaked with adjusting some of the sliders for power/contact. You can play 120 seasons in dynasty and if you have a max drive (or go buy one) you can download the 2007 rosters into the game bringing it up to date. The only thing that sucks is you can't adjust the length of the season so you have to do 162 games. I basically play the division games/any series I feel is significant and then sim the rest. One of the few sports EA got right was baseball, its a shame they don't have that license anymore.

Yea I was chuckling hysterically at a lot of those trade ideas during the pre-game.

Yea absolutley. I just rented 2007 instead of buying a copy and am glad I did. It's amazing how they are unable to get any of the ladder match type AI/physics correct. I remember in 2006 that it was impossible to do ladder matches because you could never keep your opponent down long enough. However, the Smackdown v. Raw series has the same problem with EA and its non-Madden type games: they know they have a niche market out there that will make the game a top seller regardless of how much work they put into it. I also feel that the series puts too much emphasis on graphics and not on gameplay. It's not that graphics aren't important to me BUT graphics without gameplay equates to one crappy gaming experience. I am interested to see what legends have been put into this year's game, though. I imagine we'll still get Austin, Rock, and Bret but I'm praying for them not to do something stupid like give us three versions of Hillbilly Jim or something like that.

Everyone forgets that during that 2003 season that the Red Sox blew out the Marlins by something like 20 runs in a game at Fenway or something along those lines. I'm not saying that automatically equates to a World Series victory but that's just something I always laugh about when imagining Boston-Florida in the World Series.

Not if they don't fix the tag team AI where its nearly impossible to get pins because your CPU partner doesn't try to fight off the other CPU guy. That gets annoying REAL fast and forces you to have to do texas tornado-style tag team matches if you want them for fantasy booking/just to have a fun match.

Wasn't this the name of Jean Pierre LaFitte's finisher where he did a somersault legdrop or something off the top rope onto his opponent? That might be where they are getting that move name from.

And Padraig Harrington is your British Open champion. Nice to see him get a major title because I've always been a fan of Harrington but Sergio really let this one get away from him today. This was Sergio's best chance in his career to come away with a major and he couldn't pull it off. I'm definitely thinking he's going to be climbing the list of "best golfer never to win a major championship" shortly if he isn't already #1 in many people's books.

Went to see the Lexington Legends (Astros Single A affiliate tonight) and you guys on the board were right, they sure do suck. They lost 6-1 to the Lake County Captains or something like that and couldn't hit the broad side of a barn for much of the game. Coupled with giving way too many walks to the other team and the screaming kids sitting a row behind me this game was absolutley awful. Nothing good to report on at all.

Just in 2004, when he lost to Todd "Alright!" Hamilton, who, incidentally, pumped my gas this afternoon. Even though Mickelson lost that tournament to Hamilton it wasn't necessarily a choke job. Ernie Els lost that tournament by missing a birdie putt on the last hole of regulation and then somehow losing the 4-hole playoff which to this day just baffles me.

Looks like I've made a good move starting Sergio Garcia in my fantasy golf pool right now. The guy always plays well in Europe but has been truly lackluster in the U.S. (especially in the major tournaments aside from his 2nd @ the PLAYERS) over the last several years. I've always felt that if Garcia played the European Tour more than the PGA Tour he'd have much better career results (but probably not as much in career earnings).

With Lincoln you have to take into consideration that the only reason the Radical Republicans dominated the Johnson administration was their sweep of elections in 1866 which gave them a two-thirds majority in Congress and the ability to overrule every veto that Johnson put against their various civil rights bills. With Lincoln still in control he would have had a lenient Reconstruction plan. In fact, Lincoln's plan I believe was the so-called "10 percent plan" which said that only ten percent of the people in each southern state had to repledge allegiance to the U.S. in exchange for getting their state government back off the ground. There were other conditions but it was a VERY lenient plan. No doubt this would have pissed off the Radical Republicans BUT I think they fail to win the 1866 election in the way they did against Johnson for two reasons: #1-Lincoln's speaking skills were WAY better than Johnson and Johnson's lack to passion on the stump didn't endear him to voters when he campaigned versus Radicals in '66 and #2-Lincoln was a more shrewd politician. You have to remember, Johnson never had much formal schooling, was taught to read/write by his wife, and wasn't even close to being even an upper tier politician during his era. All of these factors combined lead me to believe that Lincoln's plan would have succeeded over the Radicals which then opens up a whole new case of worms. Do we still get the 14th and 15th amendments to the constitution added without the Radicals? Do we get any future civil rights bills that were passed during the Radical Reconstruction period? Without federal troops in the South, does the "redemption" period occur far sooner and black politicians who initially reaped the benefits of protection in the South never come into power? Better yet, by having these newly Democratic states being reintroduced into the Union, do the Republicans still continue their dominance of the White House which occurred post-Johnson with Grant, Hayes, James Garfield, and Chester Arthur or does a Democratic candidate such as Samuel J. Tilden (who was robbed of the presidency versus Hayes in 1876) break that dominance and what impacts does that have on the country? Definitely more questions than answers.

So are the hook & ladder and statue of liberty plays in this years game?

That was some funny shit. I also remember him being a hockey coach and teaching a goalie how to play dirty by jabbing opponents below the belt with his stick.

Magglio Ordonez is beating the Twins by himself right now driving in all three runs with a one out double in the 4th and a solo home run in the 6th. Tigers currently lead 3-1. Update: Tigers ended up holding on to win 3-2. The Twins main enemy tonight was leaving runners stranded as they left the bases loaded twice in the game in the fifth and sixth innings. The Twins outhit the Tigers 10-6 and still lost. The game was pretty entertaining with loads of pitching changes by the Tigers and Jim Leyland getting thrown out of the game in the 9th inning. Johan Santana picked up the loss but did everything he could to keep the Twins in it by going eight innings and throwing 118 pitches (89 were strikes). However, the game took a toll on both teams. Torii Hunter went out in the 4th inning with an apparent hamstring injury he suffered when beating out a double play. The Tigers then proceeded to lose both of their left field players as Craig Monroe left with a reported back injury after the top of the 5th inning and then lost Marcus Thames (who they moved from 1st to left field after the Monroe injury) in the bottom of the eighth when he suffered a leg injury after making a miraculous catch that ended the inning and possibly saved a run. Omar Infante finished the game for the Tigers in right field. Also, I really like Pat Neshek as a Twins reliever. His delivery is pretty hard to follow and he's got some nice stuff on the mound. He struck out three (albeit surrendering a hit) to keep the Tigers grounded in the ninth after Santana left.

Count me back in. Hopefully this time I can close the deal and win the championship.

Thanks for the feedback. With the Legends being a Single-A club I never expect to see too much but the game I went to last year went to extra innings after the Legends hit a game tying home run with two outs (they ended up losing) so needless to say it was exciting. Considering that the Legends are 12-14 in the second half of A ball so far I agree that their team isn't very talented.

So I take it you have a problem with Flair's 16 title reigns as well? No because Flair could work. My initial comment should have read "a guy who just chops and screams...."

I'm going to see the Lexington Legends play Saturday night (they are a Single A affiliate for the Astros). Anyone have any prospects to recommend I keep an eye on when I'm down there? Who else is watching Twins-Tigers game 2 tonight? Looks like its going to be Andrew Miller vs. Johan Santana.

About damn time. Thanks to my location I couldn't watch the game on mlbtv due to blackout restrictions but I may watch the wrap-up video on the mlb website later, it looked like a very strategic game from a quick glance at the box score. Good to see Phillips do well. Too bad Weathers had to blow that save in the 10th or the game could've ended much sooner. Ross was his crappy self @ catcher with him going 0-for-6 but what the hell, we won the game and got the sweep so maybe there is hope we won't finish in the cellar of the NL Central division after all.