iggymcfly

I don't know about that. I think the problem might be that the product's just been shitty for the last 2 years or so. I actually just quit watching Raw again myself. HBK was the only thing that was remotely interesting after the roster shakeup and what did they do? They jobbed him to a 52 year old and turned him face. With football to occupy myself with, I don't really see any reason whatsoever to watch Raw right now.

Thursday Oregon at Houston Friday Arizona at Utah Saturday Bowling Green at Wisconsin (toughest pick of the week) Rutgers at Illinois Duke at East Carolina Air Force at Washington Boise State at Georgia Notre Dame at Pittsburgh Texas A&M at Clemson Georgia Tech at Auburn (Hate myself for this one, but I can't help it.) UTEP at New Mexico State Sunday West Virginia at Syracuse Tulane at Southern Miss Virginia Tech at N.C. State Monday Miami at Florida State Tiebreak Question #1: How many total points will be scored in the Arizona/Utah game? 51 Tiebreak Question #2: How many yards passing will Oregon's Kellen Clemens have against Houston? 281

Oh come on now. Sure, he's probably in no condition to wrestle a match, but to say it's impossible for him to come out and give HBK a chair shot and a sharpshooter is ridiculous. If he can take "soft bumps", then what's to stop him from doing something that involves no bumps? I'm not saying that Bret's coming back at Summerslam or any time for that matter, and I'm not saying he can wrestle a match, but to act like you know for a fact that there's no way Bret could come back for anything doesn't make sense. You don't know Bret Hart. You don't know what he's physically capable of. You don't know exactly how severe his stroke was. You don't know what Bret Hart does and doesn't want to do with the WWE. Stop pretending like you do.

I actually don't mind the title changing hands a decent amount as long as it's the same guys at the top. For instance, in 1998 and 1999, the WWF title went: Austin-Kane-Austin-vacant-Rock-Foley-Rock-Foley-Rock-Austin in the span of about seven months, but it didn't hurt the title because you still knew that the guys who held the title were at the absolute pinnacle and that there were a bunch of guys on the roster that weren't in their league. However, in 2002, when they were passing the title around, it seemed like any novelty act that popped a crowd could be given the biggest title in the business on a moment's notice. It was actually a surprise when the title didn't change hands on a PPV. I think the idea that anyone can win the title is a lot worse than the idea that two top guys might wrestle with different results on different nights. The long title run can work if it's done so that the guy with the reign is really presented as being that much better than the rest of the roster that he's just near undefeatable. For instance, Austin in 2001 and Brock in 2002 had the aura that they were just the best wrestler in the world. However, when someone like JBL gets that kind of reign, I think it actually hurts the belt more than it helps it, because everyone sees that the title reign is just a prop, and that they're only winning their matches to prop them up to an artifical level that no one believes they belong at.

I think that basically what you're noticing is that the Raw side of the card is built up well, but the Smackdown side sucks donkey balls. I'm going back to school this week, so it's not really going to be convenient for me to see the PPV, but I am really interested to see what happens with Hogan and Michaels. The way I see it, right now, Michaels is as over as anyone's been in quite a while. Face, heel, whatever, the people are interested in him. He really needs to just follow through with all the shit that he's been saying, superkick Hogan during the hulk up, and then pin the old bastard clean. With the reactions he's been getting, he could carry Raw for a while, and the interest in a Cena/HBK match would be off the charts. The only acceptable way for HBK to lose is if Bret Hart does come back and "screw" him out of the match. Short of that, Shawn needs to win, period.

I'm pretty sure that's what they want you to think. The whole point of this Bret stuff is to plant a little "what if" seed in your mind for the PPV, maybe spurring a couple extra last-second buys. In reality, I'm pretty sure the finish is just going to be HBK going over clean with the superkick.

The only good part about that segment was how they had to keep changing camera angles to avoid showing the sign that said "the champ is queer".

What Shelton hate? All I ever hear on these forums is how they need to push the guy. Shelton should be the top face. HBK needs to put over Shelton. Shelton's the future of Raw. Shelton's actually good on the mic if you give him time. Shelton's the best worker on Raw. Honestly, the Shelton "hate" is just a natural reaction to the 2000 smarks that are fighting each other to suck his cock.

I agree completely about Orton/Batista. They set that match up perfectly with Batista taking out Orton and they really should have gone right back to it on Orton's return. All you had to do was have Orton give Batista a huge bloody beatdown backstage for his return, and presto, you have a hot main event for Summerslam. This Orton/Taker shit's a lot less interesting and could easily be held off on until a later date. The Batista/JBL feud meanwhile, is just downright awful, and has no business main eventing a top PPV. Even if Orton made his return by attacking Batista and then was told by Teddy Long that the Undertaker defeated him at Wrestlemania, and so he would have to beat the Undertaker to earn a shot at Batista, I could buy it. That way, Orton/Batista's still the blood feud, and Orton/Taker has another dimension in that Orton feels he's still playing for what the Undertaker did at Wrestlemania. The way it is now though, we have a terrible (Smackdown side of) Summerslam leading into another lackluster PPV at Unforgiven with a bunch of boring Smackdown's in between. I think that really, the creative team took the worst possible option in this case. And I really disagree with the idea that every feud needs to go 2 PPVs now to make for a decent number of challengers. At this point, I'd rather see Orton/Batista go three PPVs than see JBL in the main event again. If I had the book on Smackdown, I probably would have had Orton win the title at Summerslam, then make the Orton/Batista rematch at the next PPV with Batista winning. From there, they'd have the choice of going with round three for a blowoff, or going directly to something like Batista/Eddie. Shit, with Survivor Series coming up, they could even put the champion in a ten-man tag if they wanted to.

I'd have to say Duke/Carolina as #1. It's the only true regional rivalry that generates huge interest on a national scale. Seriously, they play 2-3 times a year, and every time it is the number 1 sports story in the country. Yanks/Red Sox has intense feelings, but it's not a rivalry in the traditional sense of the word. It's more like the Red Sox have always hated the Yankees because they were the best in their division, and now they're happy that they beat them. Back nine or ten years ago, when the Orioles were battling with the Yankees for first in the East and then taking them on in the playoffs, I think you would have been hard-pressed to find Yankees fans who considered the Red Sox their blood rivals.

I'm not saying that the Heisman should necessarily go to the best NFL prospect. Obviously, it should go to the best college player. However, if the Heisman Trophy winner isn't one of the most 250 talented players graduating that year as determined by the best evaluators in the world, (the NFL), is he really the best player? More likely he's just an above average player who was in the right place at the right time.

Just be glad that he didn't get the Heisman last year. I mean if the second ever back to back Heisman winner couldn't even make an NFL roster, I don't think the Heisman Trophy would ever mean anything again.

Plus, he's not even that interesting. It would take about three monts of a top-level push before he got as stale as Rikishi. In fact, I'm sick of him already. I don't want to see Helms on my TV again until he has a new gimmick.

If I was booking Raw, you know who I'd have Shawn Michaels make into a star? Shawn Michaels. Honestly, I can't think of anyone that I'd rather see carry the program as champion right now. Kurt Angle's been my favorite wrestler for over three years now, but when I saw the Angle/Cena poster circulating the net, my first reaction was "fuck, why aren't they having HBK follow up the Hogan match with a title shot." If we're looking long-term, I would like to see HBK put over RVD at some point, since he needs to be the face to carry Raw for the next couple years, but I think to do it properly, Shawn should have at least three or four months with the title first.

Um, why do they need to waste more potential feuds by having more star vs. star matches each week? It's not like they need to beat Thunder in the ratings anymore. I'd prefer they had more jobber matches instead of killing guys' heat with even-steven booking where wins are irrelevant. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Oh geez. I don't know. Maybe so people want to WATCH THE SHOWS. If people can't stand to sit through Raw or Smackdown, what do you think the likelihood is that they'll buy the PPV? I'd say it's about zero.

Because it's their last chance to ever see themselves on the news.

That was a pretty good bit by Bret. Jericho's fake win was probably the best written angle I've ever seen What exactly happened in the PowerTrip vs Y2J/Benoit match? It seems to get mentioned a lot, but is that because all the smarks were just happy to see HHH get hurt? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Not at all. Actually, HHH was still a smark favorite at the time. It wasn't until his face run that people started to turn on him. The thing that's really remarkable about the quad tear match though, is that it was the first really great twenty minute that the WWF gave away on free TV. It actually ushered in that whole era where TV main events are complex long-lasting affairs, rather than eight minutes of punches and kicks followed by a finisher.

Shawn isn't trying to get face heat on Hogan. He's just trying to keep the feud interesting. The fact is, Hogan's not going to show up on Raw every week. When Shawn's out there cutting a promo by himself, he needs to do something to keep the fans interested, especially if Hogan/HBK is the match they're banking on to sell Summerslam. If he just did the same old cookie cutter face/heel stuff they usually do, this match wouldn't have anywhere near the interest that it does now. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they changed the storyline a little bit because of the response Matt got when he came back and "shot" on Edge. If you remember right, that first night on Piper's Pit, Shawn was his same old, stoic, boring, self, and the feud was just fading into oblivion. I think they decided that they'd take a cue from the Matt/Edge feud, and try to give both of their big matches for Summerslam a "real" feeling to them.

For the record, I go to a Pac Ten school, and my favorite team outside of that is in the ACC. When it comes to the SEC, I just respect how they play football.

You are either dumb or blinded, I can't decide which. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Come on. I said I was only really qualified for the Top 10 or so. I checked into the major conference teams during the summer, but I don't really know anything about who's coming back for Boise State other than Zabransky. They could easily be a team in the 16-20 range, I just put them in there as a rough guess.

Florida's had talent for years. The only problem has been the Chris Leak has underachieved because he didn't do well in Zook's offense. Then, presto! Urban Meyer comes in, a man known for taking other people's talented quarterbacks and taking them to heights they've never seen. Honestly, he was made for this job. As for Tennessee, they're certainly look solid on paper, and their offense is nearly as talented as Florida's. However, Jason Allen's the only really good cover guy in their whole secondary, and I really could see the new spread Gator offense tearing it apart. Their front seven's probably better than Florida's, but on the whole I'd give the edge to the Gators. I know you like Phillip Fullmer, but I really don't think he's capable of what Urban Meyer is. He was in charge of the Vols squad that shouldn't have beaten Zook last year, whereas Meyer's coming in to turn around a bunch of underachievers. When you look at the improvement from last year to this year, I have to give Florida the edge.

Whoa! Too many responses at once! I guess the most fun one to respond too would be Porter's: Where's Oklahoma? They definitely deserve to be there. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> 11. Iowa 12. Alabama 13. Georgia 14. Oklahoma 15. Florida State 16. Louisville 17. Texas A&M 18. Arizona State 19. Purdue 20. Utah 21. Cal 22. Georgia Tech 23. Minnesota 24. Texas Tech 25. Boise State

I'd probably put Florida at #3 too. They have one of the most talented teams in the country, and Urban Meyer has made a living off of taking other people's talented teams and making them into short-term winners. The idea that anyone else is the favorite in the SEC, let alone the SEC East seems foreign to me. I'm not especially good at preseason rankings, but if I did some, they'd go about like this. 1. USC 2. Michigan 3. Florida 4. Texas 5. LSU 6. Virginia Tech 7. Miami 8. Tennessee 9. Ohio State 10. Auburn

I already assumed that the custody match would happen, but good god. Even for Smackdown, that looks like an AWFUL show. Like worst Smackdown ever caliber. Do they not realize that they've already main evented three shows with Christian vs. Batista in the last month? And it's a squash every single time. I mean do they really think that JBL/Batista has enough heat that JBL coming out after the match constitutes a main event segment? And the other stuff looks so boring that it's hardly worth mentioning. In addition to the Batista pseudo squash, there are actually three legitimate squash matches on the show. (Animal and Hawk vs. jobbers, Orton vs. Kamala, and Benoit vs. Simon Dean.) Someone needs to tell the booking crew that it's not 1989.

The thing is that if the fans did turn on Cena, they'd turn on him in a feud by cheering a heel that he was facing. If that does happen, the way to do it is just go with the double turn and let the cheered heel become the top face. I'd say that at this point, the only guys capable of making the crowd react in that manner are HBK, Angle, and maybe HHH. Actually, if HBK kept the cool edge that he has as a heel, I could see him being a much more effective face than he was in his previous run. However, logically, there's no way that the WWE can take the belt off of Cena right now, unless it's just a quick fluke run and the heel jobs it right back. Until RVD's healthy and built up for a few months in the midcard, there just aren't any other faces capable of main eventing a PPV on Raw right now.