iggymcfly

Actually, I really enjoyed the pre-strike era. A goal was something to get really excited about when it happened, but you still knew that you'd at least get one or two eventually. Watching the Senators play three playoff games against the Leafs and get one goal is just about as entertaining as going to the dentist and having him knock out all my teeth with a hammer.

Here are a couple of matches that I really liked that get ignored because of their undercards. 1. Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar HIAC- No Mercy 2002 At the time, this was an awesome match as Taker and Brock had a really good storyline going, and this just cemented Brock as an unstoppable heel. The way that Taker was willing to screw up his broken hand because he wanted to beat Brock so bad, and Brock still just destroyed him was really good. Of course, they completely ruined it on Smackdown by having Taker come out completely fine, and then giving Big Show credit for taking him out, but for a while it looked like they really had some. 2. Brock Lesnar vs. Big Show vs. Kurt Angle- Vengeance 2003 Speaking of nonstop action, this match had plenty of it. It seemed like every five minutes they pulled out a spot that I'd never seen before in my life. Also, the psychology was pretty good for a triple threat, as the guy would only stay down for a while if there had just been a huge spot hit first. Also, I really liked the finish. It would have been easy for them just to cop out and let Angle pin Show or do something similar to protect Brock, but instead they used the idea that Brock's back had been getting beat to shit the whole match and a simple Angle Slam was enough to pin him. Finally, a guilty pleasure of mine from around the same time: Kurt Angle vs. Big Show and TWGTT- 3 on 1 handicap match: Hardcore rules Yes, by their very nature, handicap matches break the bounds of logic, and completely bury the team involved, even if they win the match. However, for one guy beating up three guys, they made it look as realistic as possible,. They let Angle be smart enough to get the weapons and use those as equalizers so he could put oe guy down while he'd work on somebody else. Also, moving around the arena made it make more sense that he could get away from the lumbering Big Show. Really though, my inner Angle mark was just having an orgasm the whole match watching him destroy three guys, and then get the win on top of everything.

The appeal of Hogan/Warrior is obvious. Hogan had been the champion for the better part of six years, and everybody was starting to get sick of him. Just the very novelty of a face going in and beating him would be exciting enough to cloud everyone's vision at the time. However, I saw the match the other day, and the actual match is terrible. Just absolutely atrocious. They do the stupid test of strength and shit for about ten minutes just copying each other the whole way. Warrior pushes Hogan backwards. Hogan pushes Warrior backwards. Hogan throws Warrior down. Warrior throws Hogan down. Hogan throws Warrior into the corner. Warrior throws Hogan into the corner. It's honestly like a parody of 80s wrestling. Then, they do restholds for a solid ten minutes that are obviously leading nowhere. Finally, in the finish, Warrior's still stupid enough to walk right into Hogan's hulking up shit, he can't do anything about it, but then after he's already gotten hit by the big boot, he ducks out of the way of the legdrop. It was honestly such a shitty, boring match that it seems like it must have been a little bit of an anticlimax to the fans at the time. Short of blowing spots, you really couldn't have a worse match. It was just as dull, plain, and boring as it could possibly be. Not only is it not as good as Rock/Hogan; not only is it not as good as Goldberg/Hogan, it's not even as good as Vince/Hogan. I didn't watch wrestling back in the day, and I know that their main event wrestlers weren't exactly all about workrate, but Steiner/HHH is the only hyped modern-day PPV match that I can ever remember being as bad as Hogan vs. Warrior. The only thing that even came close to redeeming it was the finish, and the only real "innovation" there was that Hogan didn't win. If two wrestlers tried to work a match like that now, they'd get booed out of the building.

Rock lost to Benoit in a tag match because Brock Lesnar came out and distracted him. Then, just to make sure it didn't have any resonance, Rock beat him clean in a singles match two weeks later. Brock still got the first clean singles win, and the first clean win of any sort without a distraction since 1999. BTW, I don't hate Rocky at all. I like him, and I'd be happy if he took wrestling serious enough to run roughshod over the roster again. I just think it's funny that people bitch about HHH when he jobs 10 times more than Rock ever did as a full-time wrestler.

I'm sure the Show/Akebono match will be really entertaining. The important thing to remember is that it's only going to last five minutes tops, so two or three high spots should be more than enough to make it interesting.

Their non-conference record was 4-7. They have as good of a chance of getting an at-large bid as Illinois does of rejecting their NCAA bid to go to the NIT.

Brock didn't need Shawn Michaels, Ric Flair or Triple H to get to the top. hes done pretty well for himself riseing to the top on SmackDown!. Cena can do the same. No, Brock just needed to beat Hulk Hogan, The Rock, and the Undertaker. Honestly, the idea that Brock became established without beating top guys is ludicrous. Never in the history of wrestling has someone been fed so many big wins over such elite stars in such a short period of time. I think "ending" Hulk Hogan's career, getting the Rock's first clean job in over three years, and getting Undertaker's first clean job in over a year is a little bit more of a rub than beating HHH and Flair. Now, this doesn't mean Cena should jump to Raw, because he shouldn't. I'm just saying that you picked the worst possible example of someone getting over without beating top stars that you could have possibly made.

All I can say is thank god we have a new college basketball thread. The other one was more than ready to die.

OK, I'm drunk, but I've known who I want for a while: That's right, Carlos Guillen, mother fuckers!

That also makes way more sense on why the office would want to end the relationship. Banging another wrestler's girlfriend while he's injured is kind of fucked up.

Disclaimer: The following is somewhat of a long, rambling mess. I am not responsible if you decide to read the whole thing, and then are sorry you wasted ten minutes of your life. Anyway, I had a vision about the tournament while I was in the shower today. The 1 seeds will be Illinois, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Oklahoma State. Wake's going to lose their chance when they lose to NC State in the ACC quarters or Duke in the ACC semis (have a feeling it's going to be NC State). Since they seed the ones, Illinois (1) will be across from Oklahoma State (4) while Carolina (2) will be across from Kentucky (3). Boston College, after making it to the finals of the ACC tournament will either shame the committee into getting the worst 2 seed, or will get the best 3 seed. Either way, they'll be across from Louisville in Illinois's bracket. Meanwhile, the other 2 seeds will be Duke, Wake Forest, and Kansas. Since the ACC teams can't be in Carolina's bracket, Kansas will be the two seed there, and since the committee doesn't seem to follow the rankings all that much, I say they give Duke the preferential 2 seed in OK State's bracket, while Wake will be in with Kentucky. Meanwhile, Georgia Tech is going to win the ACC tournament. (They'll beat Maryland in the 4/5 game, knock off a UNC team that will totally be overlooking them, and beat a Duke team in the final that's too thin to win three games in three nights.) As such, they'll get a 4 seed outside of Carolina's bracket, and probably not in either the best or worst bracket either. As such, they'll be in Kentucky's bracket. Gonzaga's another middling 4 seed, and they'll be placed in Carolina's bracket. Now, there's two things we all know. Kentucky is absolutely ripe for an upset, and Gonzaga has to beat a high seed at some point in the tourney. The Zags have stepped it up in big neutral court games this year with wins over Oklahoma State and Georgia Tech, while Kentucky's coasted through a season in the most overrated conference in the country. As such, Gonzaga will get way up, shoot lights out, and play their best game of the season in a 2 point win over Carolina. Meanwhile, GT will return to their old form against an overrated Kentucky team, and beat the Wildcats by four. Kansas and Wake are both teams that could easily slip to the three seeds in their respective brackets, but even if they don't they won't make it to the Final Four. Over the course of the season, Kansas showed themselves to be slightly inferior to Oklahoma State, and only beat GT at home in OT because BJ Elder got hurt. Meanwhile, Gonzaga beat a healthy GT team on a neutral court and beat Oklahoma State on the road. Ramped up as they will be, Gonzaga would definitely beat Kansas in an Elite Eight game should it come to that. Meanwhile, Georgia Tech beat Wake when BJ Elder was out of the lineup, and should be able to do it at a neutral site if he's healthy. He was still a little tentative when they played at Wake, and GT almost pulled out the game anyway. However, out of Georgia Tech and Gonzaga, only one team's guaranteed a spot in the Final Four. That's because, it's impossible to tell at this point where Pittsburgh will be seeded. If they get in one of the upper brackets, they'll be methodically beaten by either Illinois or Duke. However, their slowdown style presents enormous matchup problems for both Georgia Tech and Gonzaga. If they get in either one of those bottom brackets, they'll probably go to the Final Four. Just for the heck of it, I'll say that after losing to Notre Dame this weekend, and then Boston College in the Big East semis, Pittsburgh gets a 6 seed in the Carolina/Gonzaga/Kansas bracket, where they proceed to beat the 3 seed, outplay Kansas, and frustrate Gonzaga en route to the Final Four. The other brackets will be a little less interesting as Boston College will get a rather easy draw to the Elite Eight where they'll get mowed down by Illinois, and Duke will end up knocking off Oklahoma State in an epic clash of 1 and 2 seeds. This leaves our Final Four as Illinois, Duke, Georgia Tech, and Pittsburgh. Much like last year, with the Duke/UConn game, the Illinois/Duke game will be considered the de facto national championship. It will be a physical game, but the Illini won't even need to make Williams foul out this time, because they basically have JJ Reddick x3 in their backcourt, and should grind out a nine or ten point victory. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh's slowdown style will work well against Georgia Tech, even though they have a propensity to pull out low-scoring games in the tournament. Since I already said that Pittsburgh's style should be able to beat GT, let's say that Jarrett Jack hits a layup to take the lead with 0.8 seconds left, but then Antonio Graves hits a miracle three from halfcourt to send the Panthers to the championship game. In that game, Illinois will expose every one of Pittsburgh's weaknesses and finish the blowout that UConn quit on halfway through against GT last year. Final score: Illinois 82 Pittsburgh 50 Addendum: The 3 seed that beats Wake and loses to GT will probably be UConn in some sweet revenge, while I'm guessing that the 3 seed that gets beaten by Pittsburgh will be Washington. Arizona will be the last 3 seed and they'll be lucky to make it to the second round.

Here you go, from the first page of the thread.

Someone around here has that picture in their sig, it can't be that hard. Put the work in and follow the rules, people.

This would scare the fuck out of the players' association, because if the owners weren't competing with each other, it wouldn't even matter if there was a salary cap or not. The players would be in essence, negotiating directly with the league for their value as entertainment draws. If they didn't like the offer they got, their only real choice would be to go back to Europe or not play hockey..

Actually, he didn't. The RVD/HHH match was title vs. title and when HHH won the IC Title, he just unified it into his World Title and it was promptly forgotten about.

They can't send Orton to Smackdown. He's the absolute perfect opponent for Batista right now. They've already got a built-in storyline where Orton resents that Batista could get the job done where he couldn't, and also holds natural resentment from when Batista destroyed him when he was getting kicked out of Evolution. Just the fact that they had two new guys in the main event that were both credible as a champion and a threat to the championship, that hadn't been jobbed out in 100 different ways would be a great step for the business. If anyone should go over to Smackdown, it should be HBK. He's already played the Evolution feud to death, he's had a crappy feud with Kane, and now after feuding with Edge, he really has nothing else to do on Raw. Either as a face who can actually wrestle and cut a promo, or as a new clever heel, I think he'd be great on Smackdown. As for someone to move from Smackdown to Raw, I think Big Show would be great. Kane and Snitsky are absolute jokes right now, and Raw could use a big man that can stand up to Batista. I don't think Batista actually could demon bomb or even give a decent spinebuster to Big Show, so it would be interesting to see a PPV match, where they work around that with a storyline that with his finishing moves cut off, he has to use his whole arsenal to pin the Big Show. I'd be partial to a superplex and big splash for the finish myself.

When they get down to where there's just one championship game left, they make up the bracket both ways, what they'll do if one team wins, and what they'll do if the other team wins, so they have it all ready to give to CBS as soon as the game's over. However, if one team makes a big "statement" maybe winning by 30 or something, they don't really get any extra credit because the committee's already decided what they're doing.

I don't think that it's necessary to job HHH out in 5 minutes. Batista is not Goldberg. The man can actually work a good match, and doesn't need to rely on gimmickry to get over. I say that they should give the fans as good of a match as they can for the man event of WM, and milk the fact that the fans always believe HHH has a chance to win, no matter how unlikely it seems. Backlash has a chance to sell really well as long as they keep HHH fairly strong, so I don't see any reason to jeopardize that. The deciding factor on how well Batista gets over will be his first feud after he's done with HHH. If they can get a hot feud with a jealous Orton going into Bad Blood, and then keep Batista as the focus going into a multi-man match at Summerslam, I think Batista will be in fantastic shape.

Who the fuck bought WM XX for Lesnar/Goldberg? The fans had to make up chants just to stay awake during the damn match. It's true that the idea of WM XX sold better than the actual matches, but I think if there was any match that people bought the show to see, it was the Triple Threat match for the title. I know that at the bar I went to, the marks were crazy for Benoit, way moreso than I thought they'd be. I was probably the only one there that wasn't into Benoit winning.

If anyone's interested enough to turn on ESPN, Georgia Tech's up 4 at Wake with 12 minutes left in a possible Final Four prev......... Nah, just kidding, we all know Wake won't make the Final Four.

You win sir. Although, if Eddie Guerrero had a gay twin, I'm sure he'd look awfully similar.

All right, I've been trying to avoid taking him, but I can't help it anymore. Give me the guy on the right.

OK, now we're moving. My new ace is: Oliver Perez

I think the mere fact that Hassan did fuck up the finish enough to ruin his own undefeated streak is enough that he should be depushed a little bit. I don't think he should get put over Benoit under any circumstances now. And when JR tried to sell it like Hassan hit the ring bell, and then immediately hammered that Hassan hadn't been pinned or submitted after the match, it was obvious that the finish got screwed up. The thing that amazes me is that he didn't even try to hit Benoit with the ring bell. It just looked like he was retarded in there. I'm sure that Vince probably wasn't in attendance due to his injury, but if he was there or someone with similar power, I think that the thing to do would have been to have Benoit just pin Hassan off the headbutt, and move Hassan straight back to the midcard.

It's not wrestling. You don't keep the championship on a DQ