iggymcfly
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Posts posted by iggymcfly
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I like how RVD returns for no reason.The thread asked what would happen if I was in charge of Raw. The reason I would bring RVD back if I was in charge is because everyone on Raw bores me in their current roles, and RVD doesn't. Also, both times that he's been well booked for more than a couple months (summer/fall 2001 and spring/summer 2006), he's been extremely over, moreso than any face has been on Raw since he left. Cena's over in his own way, but I want a traditional face champion, one that's cheered by males 18-35 in addition to children and women. That's supposed to be the WWE's target demographic, and they've been left too long without someone they can cheer for. I think a lot of them are just turning off the product completely for that very reason.
You know, there's really no reason that RVD isn't in the WWE right now in the first place other than that the bookers don't like him and won't find anything for him to do in the main event. Well, I could definitely find something for him to do in the main event, and if I offered him a 6-month title reign starting a month after he came back, I'm sure RVD would be more than happy to wrestle on Raw every week.
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So, you want Cena to come back, win the title at WM but lose it clean one month later?He's already in the title match. I didn't pick that. And yes, I think it should be possible to win the title at WM and lose it at Backlash. If not, Backlash is just a boring throwaway PPV every year.
Then you want Cena to turn heel, when the current dynamic is going great guns and needs no adjustment?First off, tell me how many legitimate main event heels there are on Raw right now. I count one (Randy Orton). That means a heel turn for someone is very necessary within the next 6 months or so especially if we bring back another main event face. I haven't watched Raw since Cena came back, but I read the results on PWTorch last night, and they said that Cena's still getting booed by half the crowd. If that's the case, I think that would make him a prime candidate to be the one that turns.
And then you want to recreate the Fingerpoke of Doom, one of the most monumentally retarded angles WCW ever did, just for a one-week title reign?It's not for a one-week title reign, it's to have Cena turn on Jeff Hardy, advance Hardy's character in a meaningful way and give him the feud that will turn him into a true main eventer. Also, I didn't mean it literally has to be a fingerpoke, just that he gets Kennedy to lay down for him. The reason the fingerpoke angle was such a failure in WCW was that they used it with established main eventers and therefore it devalued the title that Nash wouldn't care if he could keep it. If Kennedy knows that he'd probably lose to Cena in a rematch anyway, that's a different story. I'm not married to that part though. I was thinking that alternately, he could refuse to lie down and Hardy could cost Cena the title in the rematch. Makes it kinda tough to deal with the title match at the next PPV though. Also, it might work a little better using someone further down the card than Kennedy, maybe someone already in Cena's stable. If anything, I'm trying to recreate the Orton/Evolution angle where Hardy thinks he's getting his big chance and then he gets turned on by his own stable.
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OK, if I'm actually running the company, here's what I'd do.
(Disclaimer: Don't remember the actual PPV schedule right now so the months might not match up perfectly.)
Cena wins at Wrestlemania pinning HHH.
Orton comes out with an injury the next night and says he can't wrestle for up to a month. Cena cuts a cocky opening promo about how he's the champ again, and he's beaten everyone the company has to offer. RVD comes back, interrupts and says he beat him the only time they wrestled one-on-one, challenges him to a title match at Backlash.
Orton gets healthy in time for Backlash, but Regal says the title match is already booked and it's too late for him to get a rematch. He faces HHH at Backlash and loses by DQ.
RVD wins the title cleanly over Cena at Backlash. Defends against HHH the following month, then after 2 months of bitching about how he never got his rematch, Orton faces RVD and RVD beats him cleanly as well. At Summerslam, Jeff Hardy cashes is his MITB shot in a ladder match vs. RVD. RVD wins cleanly. They do a respect angle afterwards and shake hands.
At Unforgiven, Cena faces RVD after not losing cleanly since WM. He hits the FU twice, RVD kicks out each time. Then, he "accidentally" knocks out the ref in a really obvious fashion. RVD hits the spin kick leading into the 5-star while he's distracted. 2nd ref comes out, but too much time has elapsed and Cena kicks out. Cena "accidentally" knocks out the 2nd ref, gets the chain (which he's conveniently started wearing to the ring again), and hits RVD several times. RVD does a massive blade job, Cena hits another F-U, and the 1st ref counts the pinfall for Cena.
In between Unforgiven and Survivor Series, Cena picks up a heel valet. RVD starts tagging with Jeff Hardy in some matches against Cena and heel opponents. At Survivor Series, Cena faces RVD in a no-DQ rematch for the title. RVD goes up for the 5-star when Cena looks to be beat and the valet interferes. RVD kicks her off, but not before Cena gets up. RVD hops down before Cena can attack him. The valet reaches for a chair, but in the meantime, Jeff Hardy runs down to the ring. He takes the chair away from the valet and chases her out of the ring. Then, when RVD regains the upper hand and goes back up for another 5-star this time with a chair on Cena, Hardy cracks RVD with his chair, knocking him off the turnbuckle. Cena gets up, F-Us RVD on the other chair and gets the pinfall.
The next night, RVD comes out and calls out Hardy to ask why he turned on him. Cena comes out instead and says that he took an out an insurance policy on his title. Jeff Hardy signed a contract with him whereby as long as Cena holds on to the title for 6 months, Hardy will receive $1,000,000 and a shot at the title.
Cena starts a stable with Hardy and the valet, adding other new members in what they call the "New Breed". Cena beats HBK and HHH with help from his stable, then after RVD wins the Royal Rumble, he beats him at Wretlemania as well. Just when the 6 months are almost over, Cena faces Mr. Kennedy for the title on an episode of Raw. Mr. Kennedy gets a small package at about the 3:00 mark and wins the title. When Jeff Hardy comes to the ring shocked, Cena gives him an F-U and then shakes hands with Kennedy.
Kennedy drops back the title with a fingerpoke of doom the next week and Cena gets on the mic. He says "unlike you Jeff Hardy, Mr. Kennedy was smart enough to get his money up front". For simply making sure that I regain the title and don't have to pay anything out to you, he's getting $250,000 cold hard cash.
Hardy beats Kennedy at Backlash, and wins a #1 contender's match at JD while Cena faces whatever new and upcoming faces have been developed. Then at Summerslam 2009, Hardy beats Cena cleanly for the title.
Wow, that was long. Guess I got a little out of control there.
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The thing is that Undertaker was an established multi-time world champion that was super super over. Thus, the fans were interested enough in what he was doing that the story could play out over several months without the fans losing interest and feel like it was building to something epically important. The fact that it was executed perfectly helped too.
Abyss is I guess technically a main-eventer in TNA, but people just aren't that interested in him. The storyline felt like a rehash of Kane/Undertaker from the start, no one really took Judas Mesias seriously as someone that could actually beat Abyss, and so they just made it a one month deal. Sometimes, you have to recognize your limitations.
That's actually another thing the WWE's doing wrong right now as they keep trying to make a lot of feuds into some epic that lasts 3-6 months when they obviously don't have the legs to do so. Feuds like Cena/Edge and DX vs. Vince should just be a one or two month program and then be finished. In order to make a feud last longer than 3 months, you need an amazingly well-written storyline and you need two workers that are tremendously over with the audience. If you don't have that, you just shoot yourself in the foot by stretching it out.
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BTW, in addition to faces and heels randomly facing off with no reasoning behind the match, another one of my pet peeves about the WWE is that when they have an angle for the main event instead of a match like the "wedding vow renewal ceremony", the face and the heel never interact for more than about 15 seconds and then the heel leaves the ring and the face always just stands there like a jackass like he really accomplished something because he got the heel to leave the ring. No matter how personal the conflict's supposed to be, he never chases him out of the ring. It drives me crazy.
That was another reason I liked TNA's main event segment tonight. Joe and Nash were pissed and they actually acted like it. They beat the shit out of Angle for a solid 3 minutes and then didn't leave until they'd stripped him down to his underwear and thoroughly embarrassed him. They acted like real people and didn't follow the stupid random formula that the WWE uses to make their shows less interesting.
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I can certainly appreciate a good match, but that's what PPVs are for. You can't really expect to base the television around 25 minute technical classics every week. Smackdown did that for about 8 months in 2002 and 2003, but that's the only time it's ever worked in the history of wrestling. What you're supposed to do with television is have a lot of quick entertaining segments that fit between commercial breaks that get the fans into the storylines and build toward the PPV. It's a two-part process. I'm not saying there should never be long involved matches on TV, but when it happens, it's a bonus. You just can't expect it to happen week in and week out.
The last couple years, the WWE's just been booking Raw like it's a house show every week. The matches are all faces and heels randomly facing off just because their faces or heels and the matches have no reason behind them and there's no consequence to their results. Take Samoa Joe and Nash against Christian and Tomko as an example of how a main TV storyline should be booked. They had two segments to establish why the match was taking place and it also made sense with Joe having a previous grievance with the Angle Alliance. Then, the results of the match led toward Joe taking personal offense at the pinfall loss Angle made him suffer and ramped up the restart of the Joe/Angle feud to a personal level. Then, Joe avenged himself on Angle at the end of the night. That's a story that builds throughout the show and makes you feel like something was accomplished that week without waiting two months for some type of conclusion. If it was the WWE, they just would have just announced the match at the start of the show, Nash would have pinned Joe to end it, and it never would have been mentioned again. The match would have felt meaningless.
Also, I want to say that this little "real wrestling fan" thing is really lame. Yes, good matches can be entertaining, but they're not the be all and end all of professional wrestling. If all you're into is watching a well-simulated fight, you should stick to MMA where they don't have to simulate it because it's real. The point of professional wrestling is that the characters and the storylines are supposed to work with the matches and build up interest in the outcomes. You should judge each segment on its own merits and entertainment value instead of just being "more wrestling = good", "less wrestling = bad". There was only one segment I'd classify as boring tonight (the NASCAR interview) and one more that was mediocre (the women's match). Every other segment kept me interested and entertained so I'd say that's a pretty good show.
Edit: I realize that Impact first aired 3 days ago. I didn't get around to watching it off my DVR until this afternoon though.
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I can't believe that the actual TNA fans never like Impact. I love it. Seriously, this is what wrestling is supposed to be; this is why I started watching wrestling 10 years ago. Every match on the show has some kind of storyline and is legitimately interesting. Even the Eric Young/Rellik match had a couple segments to set it up so you cared what happened. There are a couple things that are supposed to be taken seriously (Tomko turning on Christian, Joe going after Angle), and the rest of the show is just over-the-top entertainment.
Also, I loved the main event angle. It was nice to see the faces actually outsmart the heels for once and the whole thing was fast-paced, entertaining, and creative. And AJ Styles is so great as a comedic character that he can make anything fun to watch. There were a couple things you could nitpick about the show like the stuff with the NASCAR drivers was horrible and ODB's character is completely obnoxious, but the rest of the show was super entertaining. As a complete start-to-finish show, this was better than at least any Raw in the last year.
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I wasn't trying to say that TNA's lack of main event faces was all on a lack of talent. In the Impact thread, I wrote a whole paragraph specifically about how badly TNA books its faces. My point was that the general format of the show is fine, the midcard is great, and they don't need to turn Impact into a freaking house show. All they need is to take a couple of characters that can act cool by themselves, get out of their way, and push them to the top.
It's kind of frustrating, because the heels consistently deliver hilarious lines, and have well-written, fleshed out characters. The bookers are also great at getting the heels heat in the ring. (See how well Awesome Kong has been protected, even with a couple of losses.) It just puzzles me how they fail so miserably trying to get the faces over.
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Since I already talked about how much I liked the Angle/Nagata match in the other thread, I want to give my one criticism now. The timing of the commercial break was just fucking awful. That was the most realistic near submission that Nagata got on Angle the whole match and so when that was just glossed over with a commercial break, it made the final holds feel just a little bit anti-climactic like they shouldn't really end the match. Still an extremely enjoyable match to watch overall though.
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No spoiler thread for the Tokyo Dome show? Guess not.
Anyway, between the Christian/Joe/Styles match and the Angle/Nagata match, I feel like I got a hell of a night of wrestling. Without having an in-depth knowledge of the situation, I thought that Angle would definitely be jobbing the IWGP title back so it was a surprise to see him retain in another pretty damn good match.
I only watch TNA and WWE about an hour each every month anymore, but the hour I spend on TNA is always about 5x as enjoyable as when I turn that other crap on. The only reason I watch the WWE ever is that they have so much damn programming time that I end up happening across it more, whereas TNA's still just short of destination viewing so I usually don't watch unless I happen to notice that it's on.
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A better comparison would be if something happened to Cena pre-injury. Angle is far and away the biggest star in TNA. No one else is even close. RVD was maybe the #3 guy in WWE star-power wise and about #15 in terms of backstage pull when they took the title off of him.
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Hardly ever post here any more, but I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed the main event. Christian and AJ Styles had great chemistry and did quite a bit despite not having all that much time. The fact that the main event ended in a clean pinfall off of a logical progression of moves in the ring was nice too.
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I didn't watch much of the game, but OMG the numbers on Armanti Edwards tonight were ridiculous. 14/16 for 192 yards with 3 TD and 0 INT through the air and then 31 carries for 313 yards and 4 TDs on the ground. Yes, the QB ran for over 300 yards in one game.
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There wasn't really an active college football thread so I figured I'd give this it's own thread.
Can we please get rid of the clause that all former winners get a vote?
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Sagarin ratings are out:
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College Football 2007 through games of December 1 Saturday the BCS uses the ELO_CHESS from here
HOME ADVANTAGE= 2.59 RATING W L SCHEDL(RANK) VS top 10 | VS top 30 | ELO_CHESS | PREDICTOR
1 Oklahoma A = 92.58 11 2 70.34( 59) 2 0 | 3 1 | 89.47 3 | 96.27 1
2 Ohio State A = 91.32 11 1 70.32( 60) 0 0 | 2 1 | 89.01 4 | 93.64 3
3 Kansas A = 90.29 11 1 65.42( 88) 0 1 | 0 1 | 88.72 5 | 91.60 6
4 Florida A = 90.22 9 3 75.74( 9) 0 2 | 2 3 | 86.26 12 | 95.52 2
5 Virginia Tech A = 89.69 11 2 73.00( 36) 0 1 | 2 2 | 93.11 1 | 86.82 11
6 LSU A = 89.47 11 2 74.86( 21) 2 0 | 4 2 | 91.09 2 | 87.73 8
7 West Virginia A = 89.34 10 2 72.71( 42) 0 0 | 2 1 | 86.38 11 | 92.64 4
8 Southern California A = 88.22 10 2 73.66( 32) 0 0 | 2 1 | 86.78 9 | 89.36 7
9 Missouri A = 87.98 11 2 74.77( 24) 1 2 | 3 2 | 88.58 6 | 87.04 10
10 Georgia A = 86.70 10 2 74.14( 30) 1 0 | 3 1 | 88.28 7 | 84.97 14
....and this is the first year that the "no margin of victory" clause for the computers causes the best team to be left out of the title game. Oklahoma's the best team in the country and if the computers were allowed to factor in that they decimated Missouri along with most of the Big XII South while LSU won 5 games by a TD or less, it would be enough for OU to pass LSU despite the Tigers being #2 in the polls. As is, the 2nd and 4th best teams will battle it out for the crystal ball with the 4th best having home advantage while the best team in the nation plays either a team from their own conference or an also-ran from the Pac-Ten.
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OK, here's my top 25 after the Hawaii game. I ended up vaulting them way up my rankings the last couple weeks, but I couldn't justify having them below a WVU team that lost to Pitt at home.
(Previous week's ranking in parenthesis)
1. Oklahoma 11-2 (5)
2. Ohio State 11-1 (3)
3. USC 10-2 (4)
4. LSU 11-2 (7)
5. Missouri 11-2 (1)
6. Kansas 11-1 (6)
7. Georgia 10-2 (8)
8. Florida 9-3 (9)
9. Virginia Tech 11-2 (10)
10. Arizona State 10-2 (11)
11. Hawaii 12-0 (16)
12. West Virginia 10-2 (2)
13. South Florida 9-3 (14)
14. Illinois 9-3 (15)
15. Tennessee 9-4 (13)
16. Cincinnati 9-3 (17)
17. Auburn 8-4 (18)
18. Boston College 10-3 (12)
19. Arkansas 8-4 (20)
20. Texas 9-3 (21)
21. Oregon State 8-4 (26)
22. Texas Tech 8-4 (22)
23. BYU 10-2 (23)
24. Wisconsin 9-3 (24)
25. Oregon 8-4 (19)
Close: Clemson, Kentucky, Michigan, Virginia, Connecticut, Boise State, UCLA
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Oklahoma and USC have both had worse injury problems than LSU and both have been playing better football at the end of the year. Oklahoma > USC > LSU > Missouri > Georgia in terms of who's deserving to play for the title.
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LSU's getting a huge push from ESPN/ABC. Honestly, I think without that, we'd be looking at Ohio State/Georgia, but all the voters that haven't watched football all year should be talked around pretty easily. Yeah, I think LSU probably does get it now, but it's still going to be really close, as the computers will have Georgia ahead of them.
Oklahoma's clearly the best team in the country though. Missouri would be the undisputed #1 if they'd only had to play the Sooners once and OU's beating them for the second time, this time in an utter demolition. They only lost to Texas Tech because their QB was hurt and are playing much much better football than LSU right now.
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Sorry for not doing the tier system this week. My thought process was really "no way West Virginia loses, why even bother".
I did look through the BCS rankings earlier in the week though, and it looks like Georgia is the clear favorite to get in if Missouri loses (about 80%) with an outside shot that they get passed by either LSU or Oklahoma. No one else has a legitimate shot.
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That was really a crazy episode. When it ended, I thought that next week had to be the season finale because so much happened, it seems like they have to finish up the season. I have no idea how they get in another 3 episodes at this pace.
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Know why I give McFadden the Heisman over Tebow in a very close vote? He beat LSU in Baton Rouge and Tebow didn't quite get that done. This isn't to say that Tebow won't win it next year, cause he would be a heavy favorite.Iggy, USC is #4 in your top 25? They are likely the weakest of the 2 loss teams not named Boise.
How do you figure? Beating Arizona State on the road by 20 is as good of a win as any 2-loss team in the country has and is about even to what Oklahoma did beating Missouri at home. They also beat another borderline Top 25 team in Oregon State by 3 TDs and haven't had a bad game in over a month. Also, their 2nd loss is the most excusable of anyone as there's not one team in the country right now that could beat a healthy Oregon team on the road.
Comparing them to say Oklahoma:
loss to Stanford at home is a little worse than a loss to Colorado on the road
loss to Oregon on the road is a little better than a road loss to Texas Tech without their starting QB
win over ASU on the road by 20 is equal to win over Mizzou at home by 10
win over OSU by 21 is a little better than a 7 point neutral-site win over Texas
So, they're so close as to barely be differentiable, but I give a slight edge to USC as they had injuries throughout the balance of the season that they've recovered from whereas Oklahoma's one major injury is already accounted for in the TTU loss. It's close enough though that I'd push Oklahoma ahead of USC if they beat Missouri.
Comparing them to LSU is less close. While they had the blowout over Virginia Tech in September, since then LSU hasn't had one really impressive game. Since October, the only teams they've beaten by double digits are Ole Miss and La. Tech and even the Ole Miss game was still in doubt in the 4th quarter. And they haven't won a road game against a team with a winning record since the opener against MSU. Basically, the SEC schedule was set up prefectly for them and they started playing consistently mediocre football down the stretch while USC improved to championship level as soon as they got healthy. If these ratings were purely on who I think would win on a neutral field, USC would probably be #1 in the country.
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Musberger alternates. I heard him call Daniel by both names multiple times.
Also, here's the way I see the Heisman race at this point:
1. Tim Tebow (best player in the country by far)
2. Pat White (he's been running the ball almost as well as McFadden and has been throwing great as well)
3. Darren McFadden (he's the best back in the country, but it's not slam-dunk enough to put him ahead of this year's crop of QBs.
4. Chase Daniel (has had a huge year, but hasn't been as good throwing the ball as Tebow, let alone running)
5. Michael Crabtree (still has sick numbers)
Honorable Mention: Dennis Dixon (he missed too many games to win, but OMG did Oregon fall apart without him)
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Here's my new Top 25:
(Previous week's ranking in parenthesis)
1. Missouri 11-1 (3)
2. West Virginia 10-1 (4)
3. Ohio State 11-1 (5)
4. USC 9-2 (8)
5. Oklahoma 10-2 (11)
6. Kansas 11-1 (2)
7. LSU 10-2 (1)
8. Georgia 10-2 (7)
9. Florida 9-3 (9)
10. Virginia Tech 10-2 (10)
11. Arizona State 10-2 (6)
12. Boston College 10-2 (13)
13. Tennessee 9-3 (15)
14. South Florida 9-3 (14)
15. Illinois 9-3 (16)
16. Hawaii 11-0 (24)
17. Cincinnati 9-3 (18)
18. Auburn 8-4 (19)
19. Oregon 8-3 (12)
20. Arkansas 8-4 (12)
21. Texas 9-3 (17)
22. Texas Tech 8-4 (25)
23. BYU 10-2 (29)
24. Wisconsin 9-3 (26)
25. Clemson 9-3 (27)
Close: Oregon State, UCLA, Kentucky, Michigan, Virginia, Connecticut, Boise State
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Here's a copy of the I-A playoff picture:
Do all the TNA fans here read Impact spoilers?
in TNA Wrestling
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It kinda seems like it with all the attention for the thread each week coming when the spoilers are released and not when the show happens. I kind of wonder if this isn't part of the reason that people dislike Russo's booking so much. It's kind of predicated on "what's going to happen next" and buildup to make you interested in the result of a match rather than a lot of time spent on the execution. Might be an idea to try avoiding the spoilers until Thursday and see if the show starts to grow on you a little.