iggymcfly

I watched Impact for only the second time today, and god was it awful. NOTHING entertained me. People are right that they really can't afford to put on shows this bad, when it's the only exposure most people have to the product. I obviously don't know as much about the product as a whole as most of the people on here, but as a new viewer I think I can say what they really need to change if they want to hook people with Impact. 1. Don't let any non-TNA talent wrestle. Ever. If you really want to have a squash, just use existing TNA lower-card wrestlers. The idea is to get people familiar with the wrestlers, so even if somebody continually loses, at least people will know who they are. All these new indy wrestlers coming in every week does nothing but make everyone on the show feel interchangeable, to the point that the show becomes incredibly repetitive and dull. 2. Do more non-wrestling segments. Again, you're trying to make the audience care about the wrestlers, so please, just do something to let us see what their character is. Raven's supposed to be good on the mic. Let him talk for a while. Or do a basic angle where he or Sabu puts the other one through a table or something. The only way the Impact audience learns anything about the characters right now is through the announcers' commentary or their "six points of impact" which shows one character for 30 seconds each show. 3. Try to show at least one segment that people really want to see. Again, the placement on the card of the people they show isn't all that important. But give at least one hot main event match, or one good angle where the result is treated as moderately important, and the action is entertaining. You have to give the people a reason to tune in next week before you'll ever get them to tune in to a PPV.

It's very true that they should have set up opponents for Benoit better, and the two 20-man battle royals were really weak. It works fine once a year at the Rumble, but when you use it to determine every title shot, it just negates the importance of all the other matches they use in between. I really think that the reason just put the Battle Royal on before the Iron Man match with no buildup was that they were hoping no one would notice they'd just done it two months ago. However, being that desperate for heels to face Benoit is less a HHH/Benoit issue than a face/heel issue. The WWE continually emasculates all their heels, rarely if ever letting them get clean wins over the faces. I think they do this because they're hoping to happen on the next "big star" to carry the company, but they really just bring the whole product down. Back when the WWF was at its heyday, you'd always have at least a couple heels that would win cleanly much more often than they would lose. Kane, Undertaker, and HHH all played the monster heel role when the company was at it's peak. Even in recent times, you'd usually get one as Brock and Angle have both had runs of blowing through the roster. Now, you get a clean win out of Evolution or La Res once in a blue moon, and the rest of the time, the heels are cheating or losing every match. The WWE has a serious dearth of credible heels, and they're really not making any attempts to fix it.

That's a good point, in totally disproving what RRR was saying. If you compare it to the Austin/Hart feud, they both have a decisive winner at WM. Benoit made HHH submit clean in the middle of the ring (even if HBK was involved in the match), and Hart made Austin submit clean in the middle of the ring (even if Austin did pass out from the pain instead of tapping). They continued feuding after the Mania match, and Austin being better on the mic got more time to speak, even if Bret was still regarded as the better wrestler. The only real difference was that since Austin was the less established star at the time, he actually got a victory as the feud progressed (by DQ at Revenge of the Taker), and he ended up getting credit for taking Bret out. Meanwhile, since Benoit is less established in this feud, Trips has been doing everything he can to put Benoit over, even if it means that he doesn't get a token victory to protect his heat. As for RRR, I've got to give out some props for the analogy of Chris Benoit as the captain of the chessclub; I can totally see that. Besides, who's to say that being the god of the IWC is less dorky than the captain of the chessclub anyway. And, for whether he's a HHH or Benoit fanboy, the answer is obvious. Neither one. He's a HHHater, pure and simple.

The reason that WCW lagged behind WWF in 98-99 had nothing to do with them trying to strike a balance between wrestling and sports entertainment segments, and had everything to do with most of the segments of both types being terrible. It was always the exact same shit. You'd have Hogan or Nash or Luger or someone in the middle of the ring. They'd cut a generic two-minute "I'm gonna kick you BUTT, (opponent's name)" promo, except they'd stretch into 15 minutes by pausing 40 seconds every time they said two words. It made 1999 Triple-uh H-uh look like the guy on the radio reading the side effects for Viagra. When you put this against Austin, DX, and the original Corporation cutting some of the best promos the industry has ever seen, in the tightest angles ever seen from a wrestling promotion, WCW really had no chance. And the "better wrestling" may have been there in patches, but the average fan tuning in to watch a WCW match saw a big steaming load of crap. WCW main event style was this: Heel punches opponent knocking him into the corner, then heel taunts fans for 30 seconds while opponent lays in corner, then when the heel finally works his way back over to the corner, he's shocked to see that the face has awakened. The face then does a two move comeback, after which he either lays down or plays to the fans himself. And I don't even want to talk about Thunder. There were at least 5 or 6 terribly blown spots a show that exposed the business and broke kayfabe. 1998-1999 WWF may have emphasized the angles at the expense of the actual wrestling, but at least they did a good job with what they were trying to do. WCW was lost without any direction, and for the most part they just did everything badly.

By "our time", I pretty much meant post-Invasion; I wasn't trying to put it over Rock/Austin. The actual question to Flair referred to wrestlers that are still active today, and Rock and Austin are both pretty much retired. As for Flair's comments, Flair did not say that HHH and HBK were the greatest wrestlers today, he said that they already had the greatest match you could have with today's wrestlers. I can't prove he was talking about the SS 2002 match, but I'm almost positive that he was, as that match was the only one of their feud memorable enough to be lionized in such a fashion. Also, if you actually read his comments on Foley, what he says is that his very good wrestling skills will always be overshadowed by his two big bumps off the HIAC, meaning he will be "remembered as nothing more than a glorified stuntman." Flair certainly wasn't personally dismissing Foley's career on that basis. Now, back to the match, HHH/HBK was absolutely the highlight/drawing point of SS 2002. The feud had been built up perfectly to that point, it was HBK's return match, and the crowd was so into it that there was a huge hangover for the Brock/Rock match. They turned on Rock to keep themselves entertained, but Rock/Brock came off almost like HHH/Jericho from WM X-8 in that it just couldn't follow the match that came before it. Just because HHH and HBK dragged on their feud a little bit too long over the next year and a half doesn't mean it wasn't perfect at that point. And yes, the actual match was at the same level. If HBK's selling broke kayfabe, it was only in the same way that any wrestler will lay on the mat for 10 seconds after taking a finisher, and still ultimately be able to kick out with the added weight of a wrestler on top of them. The crowd was completely into the match and suspended their disbelief from start to finish. Finally, if you want to say that Flair's a little biased, that's one thing. But dismissing him as a senile, old asshole who knows nothing about wrestling anymore is just plain silly. He spent twenty years at the zenith of wrestling, and he's still passing that knowledge on today. Sure, he may not have the reflexes or physical skill to perform like he once did, but that doesn't mean he can't recognize a good match when he sees it.

Geez, if Benoit's getting buried now, I'd hate to see what people would have to say about The Rock back in 2000. He needed Austin to beat HHH at Backlash, lost his Ironman match to HHH even with Undertaker trying to help him, and then he only won the title back when he pinned Vince. I can't believe he ever got over with the way they treated him. As for Benoit not getting as much TV time as HHH, it's not that he's treated as less important, it's just that he has a different gimmick. HHH is a big blowhard who is obsessively insecure, and "needs" the title so people will think he is important. Thus, he is costantly running off at the mouth about how he's the greatest, but he still can't beat Benoit one on one. Meanwhile, Benoit is just a really intense, technically sound wrestler, who lets his actions do the talking. He's not going to cut a lot of long-winded promos about how great he is, but he always backs it up in the ring, making HHH, HBK, and Kane tap out whenever he really needs to. Not only does he beat all the best on Raw, he makes them all submit. They've really given Benoit the god push since Royal Rumble, and it's worked out pretty well for them. Aside from Eugene's on again/off again reactions that stem from small snippets of great writing among the crap, Benoit really is the most over face on Raw. Jericho always gets the cult hero pop in Canada, but on their normal US shows, Benoit does get thee biggest pop of the night. Oh, and one last thing for the smarks that are bitching out there. I challenge you to find any main event level feud in WWF/WWE history where one man beat another four major matches in a row. It just doesn't get that onesided in normal WWE feuds. The only thing approaching that kind of dominance would be something like Undertaker vs. The FBI.

If I were to guess, I'd say the reason the Vikings signed Lesnar is that they realized there was a chance he could not only develop into a decent player down the road with all his physical tools, but also has the chancer to contribute this year on special teams. I mean really, what do you have to do on kickoff? Stay in your lane, run quickly down the field and hit someone. Well, Brock's as fast as they come for a man his size, and I sure wouldn't want to block him when he's had 40 or 50 yards to get a head of steam. As far as drawing crowds go, this isn't baseball or hockey or soccer or something. This is the NFL. The Vikings already sell out every game at exorbitant prices, and will continue to do so, unless they somehow manage to start out 0-11, or decide that they're moving to Los Angeles next year. The last thing the NFL needs to do is sign a "draw" as a special attraction.

Good point on the "This is your life" segment. I like entertainment over wrestling much more than the typical smark, and when the segment aired I wasn't really a smark at all. Yet I still remember being embarassed to be a wrestling fan during that segment, and thinking it was one of the dumbest, most boring segments I'd ever seen. Stuff like Rock telling stories about how he gave his football coach a DDT when he wouldn't let him do wrestling moves on the field. Riiiight. Great idea.

One more thing I really liked tonight that I forgot to mention was how Orton didn't run in with Batista and Flair to help HHH. The same thing happened at Vengeance when Orton didn't run in because he was upset about losing his IC belt. Not only does this set up tension for a possible HHH/Orton feud down the road; it also keeps Orton from being a part of HHH's defeat. Thus, when he faces Benoit on his own, he is a fresh competitor to be vanquished rather than part of the crew that got bowled over by Eugene and allowed Benoit to retain his title.

While it's unlikely, don't completely count out the possibility of HHH and Eugene main eventing Summerslam. Actually, Kurt and Eddie would probably have more heat than the title matches as well. While it would kind of make sense to have Taker winning the title be the main event, it just seems kind of bush league to have JBL main event the 2nd biggest PPV of the year, especially after they've gone out of their way to show that Smackdown's the second-rate show. The safe move is to just put Benoit and Orton out there, but they could still go in a number of different directions with the main event.

Well, I recorded the show, and just finished watching it a little bit ago. (After the show, I turned on the internet, read this entire thread, and now I'm posting. Anyway, I thought the Iron Man match was really good, better than the HHH/Benoit match at Vengeance due to the finishing sequence, and better than WM due to the match story and foundation. While the beginning of the match did drag a little, the story was still strong, everything was done crisply, and the match really picked up as it went on. The storyline was great, as HHH managed to pick up a few falls of Benoit, but then Benoit locked in the sharpshooter for a good two minutes, and really wore HHH down. He exhausted him to the point that he could easily get the crossface as well, and he really had HHH beat. At this point, Evolution also realizes that HHH is beat and comes down to help. Eugene then neutralizes their interference, giving HHH a chairshot equal to the one Benoit kicked out of after getting nailed by HHH. This allowed Benoit to win the match, which he deserved to as the stronger man. The finishing sequence was very well done, and it certainly did not make Benoit look weak. Also, the fact that other falls were counted made the middle part of the match seem important, rather than overshadowed by the interference. All in all, I'd give the match ****1/4-****1/2. It was definitely the TV match of the year, and a strong candidate to be the MOTY bar-none.

It seems like after the Iron Man match tonight, they will have exhausted all the stipulation matches that HHH and Benoit can fight in that would draw well at Summerslam. The rumored main event is HHH vs. Edge which would be kind of weak for such a big PPV, considering the limited chase for HHH (a few weeks of a reign), and the limited overness of Edge, (he's got booed twice against Orton now.) I say the best way to do Summerslam would be for HHH to win the belt tonight, after Eugene screws up and gets Benoit DQ'ed. Then, when Benoit points out his rematch clause, Bischoff makes a six-man elimination tag match for Summerslam, with Benoit, Eugene, and Edge vs. Orton, Batista, and HHH. The stipulation would be that if Evolution wins the match, HHH retains the title no matter what, and the man who gains the last pinfall for Evolution wins the IC belt. Meanwhile if the faces win the match, Edge retains no matter what, and the man who gains the last pinfall wins the World Title from HHH. It would resolve the greater Evolution feud, (remember Edge said he wanted to take down all of Evolution, even though Benoit already had the World Title), and it would be a good way to build tension between Orton and HHH or Benoit and Edge, or even a turn when the match comes around. The six-man tag with two titles on the line, just seems like a fresher idea than what's been on Raw lately, and there's a ton of different finishes that could set up Unforgiven.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/9235143.htm?1c There's a real link, that describes the situation a little better. It's because they actually had an affair first that they let it go that way, but it still sets a terrible precedent. I don't think a sperm donor should ever be held accountable, unless they planned to raise the child together from the start.

Uh, what about Bradshaw. I think he fills the quotient of "shocking" shitty champions that aren't anywhere near over enough to hold the belt. As for what should happen with the title, I think at this point, they should just let HHH win the belt on Raw Monday. There are no heels outside of Evolution that have any credibility right now, and if HHH loses to Benoit for the fourth time in a row in a major match, his credibility will be pretty much done too.

Isn't the impartial GM role exactly what Stephanie did for close to a year. She was always talking about trying to book good matches in the interest of fairness, and she didn't really pander to the faces or the heels. If I were going to guess, I'd say that they wouldn't want to put someone at GM that's already been there since they're trying to be fresh, so they'll either put Shane in, leave it empty for a while, or get somebody off the wall in the "elections."

Actually, if you really want to be fair, the NL should get the All-Star game at least 16 out of every 30 years since they have 16 of the 30 teams. And that would only serve the purpose of giving every club an equal chance to get an all-star game, and each team an equal chance to get homefield. It wouldn't even begin to neutralize the advantage of having to get by 15 teams to make the series instead of 13.

Well, I just saw the second hour of the show, but it was really good. The JBL/Taker segment was good, the Mysterio/D-Von match was a good change of pace, and the final segment with Vince bringing Angle back as a wrestler was fucking gold. Taker winning the title, Angle coming back, and even the Dudleyz/cruisers feud has me interested enough that I might start watching Smackdown again every week. Of course, after Summerslam, I'll be back in Pullman, and I won't get UPN anyway, but the show could easily turn back to shit by then anyways, so I'm not too worried.

1999 was way better than 2004. All the storylines made sense and were very compelling, (at least up until Russo left; Big Show's reign was horrible). True, if you go purely on the star ratings of the matches, 2004 was better. But Raw and Smackdown were just so much more interesting in '99 that it doesn't even compare. I'd take Austin on an embalming table (even though that was actually '98) over Paul Bearer in a concrete crypt, or Kane's history being pissed, shit, and vomited on anyday. The very best periods of wrestling in the WWF/E were the second half of '98, and 2001 up until the Rock left, but '99 was way closer to the "right" way to do things than 2004.

Booker T should just retire. He's not good in the ring, he's not good on the mic, and there's absolutely nothing fresh about him anymore. They've done everything they could with him character-wise and he's just gonna linger in the midcard until he finally goes. He could maybe announce he's retiring, and say he wants to win the WWE Title before he goes, leading to one last decent face run out of pity, but that's about it. As for RVD, in his current character which he's been playing for three years, he's stale as shit, and not close to making World Championship level. However, if he had a good turn, he could easily move to the top of the card and become a World Champion. If he just does some lame "I hate the fans and babyfaces now" shit, it won't work, and he'll lose any chance to progress. But if they did a hot angle with him and Heyman destroying the WWE or something similar in gravity, (turning on Kane and joining Evolution would have worked last year), he could easily be a solid world champion.

Maybe they liked the show up until then, and they thought the Diva Search was so stupid that they tuned out, and never tuned back in. Of course, staying tuned for Jericho is perfectly plausible as well. He actually kept it from sucking as bad as it could have.

Well, the Ironman match is going on at the beginning of the show for a reason. I'm pretty sure that they know Benoit and HHH can't headline another PPV, and they want to be able to start the Summerslam ME feud on the second half of Raw. Obviously, HHH/Edge is the logical ME, with Benoit maybe feuding with Batista while he waits to get back to the title. Still though, it doesn't seem that exciting to me to see Edge "finally" ending HHH's three-week title reign as a main event of Summerslam, so I say they'd be better off letting Trips win, and then doing the Elimination Chamber, with Edge trying to shut down Evolution, Benoit trying to get his title back, HHH looking to retain, Batista and Orton kind of watching his back, but also wanting the belt for themselves, and maybe Eugene or Jericho thrown in on top. Even with that though, Kane/HBK would be the only major supporting match, and the IC Champ would be inside the EC. I don't know. I still can't see any one scenario that quite makes sense, as the Raw side of Summerslam. I guess I'll just have to tune in live at 9, 8 central, and see where they go with this. Oh, and as for the actual Iron Man match, I'm psyched. Barring a ridiculously overbooked finish, I think this should be the MOTY right here. I'd certainly like to see a clean finish, but if I were to guess, I'd say they probably do the Rock/HHH finish where Eugene (Undertaker) comes out and attacks Benoit (The Rock), giving HHH (HHH) the final victory by DQ.

The trouble's pretty variable depending on the discipline of your team. For example, with Washington State, I went through the whole season, and the only trouble I had was a couple players who had to be suspended a quarter each for grades. Then, when I did the offseason, I saw that their default budget setting was 31% recruiting, 30% training, 39% discipline. If you're getting in all that trouble, they must have the default discipline setting too low for them. Oh, and BTW, the Griz are tight. I'm doing the Cougars for my dynasty, because that's where I'm going to school, and I like leaving the teams in their real conferences, but I'm Missoula born and bred. If they had an option to do a I-AA schedule though, I'd totally start a dynasty with the Griz. It would be kinda tight if you could go through the I-AA ranks until you got an offer to move up to I-A from a major conference. Oh, and is if anyone actually cares, I finished my first season 7-5 with a win in the Emerald Bowl, but I had the #5 recruiting class in the country, and this year's gonna be better.

I remember when I saw the Butterfly Effect in theatres last winter; I thought it was a really good movie, but there were a couple things that bothered me. One of them was the ending. It just didn't seem to fit, that after all that, and the talk about how you couldn't fix the past, that he'd just fix everything, and everyone would be happy. When I saw that the DVD had an alternate ending, I was happy to see it, and I rented it as soon as they had a copy in the video store. Well, it turns out, that it doesn't have an alternate ending. It just shows the movie, as the director originally made it, with a couple of scenes that were taken out, and the original ending. It doesn't even have an option to show the shitty ending that they showed in theatres. In this version, when Evan is in the psych ward, and goes to watch the home movie, it turns out to be a movie of his birth, whereby he realizes that the only way to save Kaily is to strangle himself, so that he is stillborn, and Kaily and Tommy never decide to stay with their father. It makes sense, as according to the increasing cerebral hemmorhaging that is killing him, he should be dying anyway, and it makes it a significant scene to flash back to in the opening scene of the movie, which they already do. There is also, a later cut scene where he and his mother go visit a palm reader who tells Evan that he has no lifeline, and he should have never been born. His mother freaks out, and tells him that she had two stillborn babies before him, and always considered him a miracle. Apparently, after the initial screenings, they decided that a baby killing itself was too sad of an ending, and they should change it to some stupid sappy thing, where he sends Kaily away as a kid, and everyone just turns out happy. This really undercuts the movie, and makes the ending just feel hollow, like something was wrong. I really wish they wouldn't buckle to pressure, and would just let the director follow his vision, in making a movie and then let the chips fall where they may, in regard to the audience Anyway, the Butterfly Effect is a great movie, especially now, and I highly recommend anyone who hasn't seen it, or even who saw it in theatres and kind of liked it, to pick up the DVD. I would also like to hear comments from anyone who has seen both endings, and has an opinion comparing the two. Edit: Be careful. I was looking on the internet, and I guess it all depends on which side you play the disc on. One side has the director's cut, with the well-done, reasonable ending, and one side has the theatrical cut, with the stupid sappy one. The menus don't clearly state where you are, so be careful that you play the right side if you rent it.

I didn't think it was too bad, but then again, I always TiVo Raw instead of watching it live. If I had to sit through all those diva search segments in their entirety, I might start to lose my sanity.

Edge's storyline is that Evolution's been running wild, ruining Raw, and he's got to do anything he can to stop them. To that end, the cheating to get a victory is just his way of evening the odds; it makes perfect sense. However, he's still kind of boring on the promos, and people seem to like Orton a little better, so Edge is still getting booed as often as he gets cheered which leaves a major gap as far as him being THE top face on Raw. Also, does anyone have any idea what the main event could be next week. I mean, if they're leading off Raw with the Iron Man Match, how the hell will they follow that up?