Just John

Maybe I'm just not paying close enough attention, but I haven't seen Marion flop. He seems like the only guy that plays traditional defense. And while I don't condone the jersey pulling, the flopping really doesn't bother me that much. Sure, it's not really an ethical defensive strategy, but if the rules allow it, what can you do? I don't like the hack-a-whoever strategy either, but the rules let you do it, so whatever.

I think the WM 20 match gets overrated because of non-match related factors. Benoit finally winning the title and the scene with Eddie at the end of the show was amazing (def. one of the top moments in wrestling), but the match itself is a different story. Now, I think the match is decent, and if you're going to list 32 top WWE matches for Chris Benoit, you should probably include it somewhere. However, that somewhere wouldn't be near the top for me. All in all, it was a pretty generic 3-way with only a couple innovative spots. The fact that Shawn Michaels was thrown in and that he and HHH got several minutes to themselves to continue their "epic" feud hurts the match quite a bit, in my opinion. The final tapout sequence was really good, but I don't think the rest is that special.

I would laugh if he came back to WWE and cut a promo saying how he wasn't performing well on the big stage, so he had to go to the minor leagues for a bit and improve his game.

Eventually this had to happen. No way Phoenix was gonna keep missing good looks like in Games 2-3. I expect Game 5 to be a war, with Steve Nash leading the Suns to victory.

Christian is/was a very overrated and boring singles wrestler Edge and Randy Orton are underrated as wrestlers JBL is not the best heel in the company and never was Rey Mysterio deserved a world title run, though it was poorly booked Though it's not WWE-related, I would like to say Misawa/Kobashi 1/20/97 was quite disappointing to me.

I don't think the Mavs would have an answer for Shaq who seems to have stepped into a time warp in the last week. If, and that's a big if, the Heat finish off the Pistons, I see them beating the Mavs, but not the Suns. The Suns run too much for Shaq to be effective.

Benoit's in so many good matches, it's unbelievable. He's not even affected in the slightest by the limitations of the WWE style. He just adapts and continues to put on great matches. My favorites: 1) vs. Angle (Royal Rumble 03) 2) vs. Jericho (Royal Rumble 01) 3) vs. Jericho (Backlash 2000) I'm also very impressed that you listed Match #2 with Booker during their most recent rivalry. The ending of that match was fantastic with Benoit nearly killing himself as he threw himself back first off the apron to sell a failed attempt at a German. Then he instinctively gets back in the ring and delivers another desperation suplex before Booker finishes him off with the scissors kick to the back of the head.

I'll just continue to watch them at restaurants and/or download matches I want the next day. The only shows I've bought legit in the past 3 years are the WM's. I've yet to see a single brand show worth $35.

The Suns are going to need to rebound if they want to win. Dallas was killing them in the 2nd half on the boards again. Phoenix got hosed on the 24 second violation non-call (though the ref was nice enough to give them a "my bad" apparently), but that's just a small indicator of a much bigger problem.

I still badly want PHX/MIA in the Finals. It would've been better last year when everyone was kicking up a fuss about Shaq being the real MVP or whatever, but it'd still be a fun series now. I think Phoenix would win in 6 because they'd have a game where they missed their shots (like Game 2 vs. Dallas) or Wade would take over. Miami's got enough guys that can hit the perimeter shots to hang with Phoenix for a while. Either way, if Nash or Wade could get a trophy, I'd be happy.

^Interesting theory^

How many guys are on the SD active roster now? Like 12? Benoit's absence will probably take some serious wind out of their sails, though. He's been one of the biggest reasons for SD's midcard success recently.

He didn't even bother to mention he had beaten Angle as well? And then they made Benoit act all angry about it which furthers the illusion that JBL's bad for using Eddie's name to piss off his friends. And I agree about Rey, though that doesn't make the heat any less cheap. Rey's getting lots of cheap face heat too. It DOES matter how it's portrayed. Do you think 99% of people watching the show interpreted it like you? Probably not, because that's not what they were trying to show. They're trying to get the fans to boo JBL because he mocks Eddie. That is cheap heat. It sort of reminds me of the Hassan terrorist incident a year ago, when there were some who said that it was just a standard wrestling sneak attack, though WWE's clear intent was to make it look like a terrorist attack. You can spin anything you want, but I'd say this is a pretty cut-and-dry example of cheap heat. I can understand this, and I'll give you the breif re-visitation of the Mexican ass-kicked back over the border (which I found quite funny). Although, that is such a small percentage of time spent bashing Mexicans, I don't know if you can call it a gimmick. Maybe you can, but that still doesn't make it any less racist. JBL didn't go over as decisively as HHH, but again that's not the point. The point is he still made lots of racist comments that get excused, but HHH's didn't. Hassan's terrorist attack fit his gimmick of "stereotypical bitter America-hating Arab," but that doesn't make it acceptable.

Sure. That's why he only started saying that when feuding with Benoit and Rey. He was using Eddie to get under the skin of Eddie's friends. That's cheap heat at the expense of Eddie. They were friends in real life, not kayfabe. And it is portrayed as JBL mocking Eddie. Why do you think Cole bitches about it? WWE is trying to show that JBL is a bad guy because he's making fun of Eddie. Only when he's feuding with Mexicans. I never see him making a scene about it when he's feuding with a white guy. Which would explain his long term partnership with Orlando Jordan. Always gets beaten? I assume you mean post 10-month title reign, where Eddie never did get any real revenge on him. I'm not going to defend HHH squashing Booker or anything else about that feud. The point I was making was that a lot of HHH's comments were very similar to JBL's comments, but one is frowned upon, while the other has lots of spin put on it to make into "great heel work."

I agree with stars getting star treatment in every sport, but I think it's a bigger deal in basketball because no other sport has a "fouling out" rule. The inconsistancy on personal foul calls is worse than the inconsistency on traveling.

Maybe he wasn't as blunt as "Eddie's in hell," but he said things like "I'm going to beat you just like I beat Eddie." If you think that's designed to do anything except get heat by putting himself over a dead guy, then I don't know what to tell you. Not to mention him doing the 3 amigos and Eddie shuffle/chest pound taunt. Whenever he feuds with a Mexican, it's always "You people this, you people that" with JBL. That's how it all got started when he feuded with Eddie and that's pretty much what he's doing now. I find some of it funny and don't take it too seriously, but some of JBL's stuff a lot more blatantly racist than HHH's feud with Booker T that he got so much flack for. The hypocrisy is astounding. He's a fine heel and I enjoy him when he's feuding with white guys, because then he doesn't resort to the cheap, racism heat that he doesn't need.

Cheesy and cheap? That's putting it mildly. All of JBL's heat from the Rey feud came from insulting Mexicans and Eddie Guerrero. Of course, if HHH or Orton were to either insult a certain race or Eddie, then they're the worst people in the world.

Remember guys, it's just his SD career that's over. I'd say the Raw GM theory is looking very possible, especially since WWE.com has announced that the GM will in fact be named on Monday.

After some review, I think Unforgiven 03 deserves more hate. That show had nothing redeemable. Michaels/Orton and 3-way were passable at best. The only thing I liked was that Kane hooking Shane's nads to a car battery made the video package for their match. And I disocovered a positive for Fall Brawl 98: Scott Hall busted out the "Whiskey-sip Abdominal Stretch" during his otherwise awful match with Konnan. That spot was hilarious to me for some reason.

Well, with back to back wins against JBL (combined with the clean win on Orton), it looks like Rey's title run might be close to escaping "worst ever" territory. That Khali squash, though... *shakes head* That sucks that Johnny Ace finally got that damn leprachaun on tv. Luckily, Finlay saved the segment with his "this is so stupid" looks and working a little stiff on the midget. Why can't he just kill it like he did to those midgets a few months ago? I like how L/K look as a team. Too bad there's no competition. I don't understand why JBL had to be jobbed out throughout the show. Can SD really afford a lack of credible ME'ers now? I really do not like the looks of the impending Mark Henry push. Note to Vince: If you give him the title now, he's still a waste of money. Booker T is great. Hopefully he gets the title push instead.

Not a bad showing for Phoenix, even if it looks like they're going to lose. They did a good job getting the shots they wanted again, they just weren't going down. Sometimes they get victimized by their own style, but I still like how they look this series.

Suns are getting killed on the boards at bad times. Game's not over by a long shot, though. And we also got our announcer felatio on Crawford complete with a video package.

Unfortunately not. Hence my curiosity about what the live reactions would be.

Wasn't Dick Bavetta the guy at the center of Spurs/Mavs Game 7 controversy? I'm not sure if his hard-on for close games is better or worse than Joey Crawford making at least one tech per game while making a big scene in the process leading the announcers verbally felating him saying things like "And that's why you don't mess with a great official like Joey Crawford."

I don't know. Detroit has a tendency to go on heinous scoring droughts over the course of a game, some lasting over 5 minutes. Of course, Miami has looked awful so far, so they may not take advantage if Detroit does in fact go into a slump. The good news is I just discovered the NHL playoffs are on INHD, so I can check into this boring game during commercials.