iggymcfly

29. His gay haircut. 30. The way he wears his hat. 31. His lack of acting ability. 32. His gross over-reliance on those terrible facial expressions. 33. The fact that he's still a babyface. 34. He hasn't used more than six moves in a match in the last eight months.

Wow, I bet on Seattle and I didn't think the officiating was that bad at all. Didn't even realize there was a controversy until hours later. The offensive pass interference was called in a situation where it usually wouldn't be but the fact is that it was the right call. The receiver got open by pushing off; therefore, it's offensive PI. And the Roethlisberger TD really looked like a score to me too. His hand was over the goal line by about two or three inches, so we have to assume the ball was too. If I was the referee, I would have called that a score as well. The Hasselbeck penalty on the INT was ridiculous as it's not even in the rule book, and there might have been a couple dodgy holding calls here and there, but overall, I think the "questionable plays" were just isolated mistakes, not a systematic bias against Seattle. Oh, and if you want an example of a fixed game, I can give you one. The Monday Night game a few years ago where Peyton Manning's Colts made a 21 point comeback in the last 2:00. Vanderjagt missed the field goal that was supposed to win it, so after the play was already over, the refs threw a flag, and said "uh................ leaping". If that rule was in the rulebook before the game (which I'm not even sure it was), it was only there to cover the NFL's ass in case a game they wanted to fix went wrong on the last play. The player didn't even land on a lineman anyway, but it's so hard to see what happens on the line from the camera angles the NFL uses that no one would say conclusively that he didn't. *- I'm not sure the comeback was exactly 21 points, but it was something like that and you get the idea.

I'm pretty sure it was to build up HHH's credibility as a legitimate champion since they were finalizing the brand split, and Smackdown was getting the real WWE Champion. At least if HHH wins a #1 contender's match, they can say that Brock Lesnar refused to defend the title against the top challenger and give the Raw World title some justification for existing.

The RPI is inherently biased against teams that play in tough conferences since it only looks at record, opponents' record, and opponents' opponents' record. It doesn't rate the opponents individually. The Sagarin rankings are much more accurate, and they have Florida State at #30 right now. If they played in the Pac-Ten, they'd a lock to make the NCAA tournament.

Because it would've been impossible for them to book Edge/Cena in the main, even though they actually have a backstory and all that jazz. Tell me exactly how Edge/Cena would be a good main event for Wrestlemania when they just faced each other at New Year's Revolution and then again at the Royal Rumble.

I still think Duke's the best team in the country, but I'll agree that they're nothing special in terms of an all-time team at this point. Paulus is just such a huge, glaring weakness. He's always making bad turnovers and missing easy shots in big games. Put a Top 50 point guard on that Duke team, and they're a cinch to win the title.

When I saw this, I was thinking you were rating the triple cage match from that silly "Ready to Rumble" movie, before I remembered that David Arquette actually competed as WCW Champion. God, talk about fucked up booking.

OK, I've got a breaking point with this stuff. I've been a good smark since I started posting in the WWE folder regularly again (pretty much since NYR), but the HHHaters are driving me crazy and forcing me into Hunter defender mode. The fact is that he hasn't been anywhere near the title since he put Batista over 3 PPVs in a row last year. This "HHH doesn't job" and "HHH hurts the company" stuff is ridiculous. Cena didn't get the belt back because HHH wanted to main event Wrestlemania; he got the belt back because he's the only main event face they have on Raw who's not a washed-up bible thumper or a crazy old man. They don't have the balls to pencil RVD in for the main event of WM before he even re-debuts, so Cena's pretty much their only choice. This isn't a political move; it's a "WWE creative is too scared too think outside the box" move.

I saw it and it was great. As the guy spends more time in the wild, he slowly goes batshit crazy, until he decides that the bears are his best friends in the world and that he hates human society. I only wish I could have seen him get eaten.

I'd have to side more with Y2Jerk on this one. I mean it was an amusing diversion for a couple hours, but nowhere near the "great" category. Probably 2 1/2 stars or so. Also, Rene Zellwegger turned in one of the most wooden clunky performances I've seen in a lead role in a long time. Oh, and it's a joke that Paul Giamatti got nominated for best supporting actor. I absolutely loved him in Sideways, but the Cinderella Man role was about as basic, cookie-cutter of a role as you can get. I mean, how hard can it be to play the standup manager? To be fair though, I don't think Gyllenhaal was any better in Brokeback. I know it's the "in" movie to get nominations this year, but I wasn't impressed with his performance at all.

Have they really? Shelton Benjamin's whole focus right now is his black stereotype mama, whereas Viscera's still got the creepy stalker/rapist type thing going on. Orlando Jordan's going to get gimmick death with a bisexual angle. The only black wrestlers that have gotten decent pushes have been Lashley and Henry. I put the "Black Thunder team" on Heat because I figure that they're basically a joke anyway with the way they've been booked, and they might as well just stick with the theme. As for Lashley, I told you that I wanted to move both sets of tag titles to Smackdown, and I just figured that it would be good to fill out the "big man match" with two big guys to go up against Kane and Show. Finlay in the US Title match was actually more of an afterthought than Lashley was. Back on Finlay, I actually really like the idea of a tweener midcard champion that beats the shit out of everyone. I think WWE's been way too static with the face/heel roles, so as long as the match has decent heat, (which I'd think it would with Finlay winning the title in a quick, brutal brawl), there should really be no problems. I've only caught bits and pieces of Smackdown lately, so I'll admit I don't have that good of a feel for their undercard. I do think that my card would sell WM well though. Finally, as for Hogan, I'd think there has to be some leeway there. Obviously, he won't take a clean loss, but if he gets to kick out of an RKO and go down to outside interference, I'd hope he might be open to wrestling one of the top three matches on the card.

That is by far the stupidest card, I've seen so far. Lashley and Boogeyman? Yeah ok that makes perfect sense. Black Thunder? WTF? Dumbest tag team I've ever heard of. Let's just end Shelton's career. All are you make all the black guys tag with each other? And you do know they MNM and "Black Thunder" are on different shows, same with Lashley + Boogeyman and Big Show + Kane. Fit Finley Vs. Booker T? That would be complete heatless, as both are heels and doing a good job as heels. And no one wants to see HHH Vs. Angle, as they can produce good matches againest each other. I'm glad your not a booker. I think he's a pretty good booker. That's a great card. Cena/Rock, although VERY unrealistic, would draw a ton of buys. Taker/Rey and Orton/Hogan would make for interesting storylines, and the rest of the card is pretty solid. Thanks. The top of the card is where I was putting in most of the thought anyway. By the time I got to the lower midcarders, I was just trying to get a few decent matches to fill things out. I was thinking that a couple weeks from now, they could have Vince announce a "huge" announcement for the end of Raw regarding Wrestlemania, with the wrestlers thinking it was the Raw main event slot. Then, in a tag match at the end of the show, HHH could selfishly tag in after Edge had the match won, and Pedigree both men and his own partner, trying to impress Vince who would then tease giving Trips the shot before announcing that he'd already promised it to someone else. (Cue the Rock's music.) Then, Rock could turn Cena heel just by feuding with him leading into the Mania match. After a ten or fifteen minute match where Cena's booed unmercifully, he hits the F-U, but Rock kicks out. Then, Cena goes for his chain, but Rock ducks it, hits the Rock Bottom and pins him cleanly for the title. Then, ideally Rock could stay around for another month or two, work a program with HHH (who'd feel slighted about missing the Mania slot), and transition the title back to him until RVD was ready to use his MITB title shot. As for Rey/Taker, I wouldn't have either man turn, but Taker would work a little bit heelish as the unbeatable monster up against the heroic underdog. I'd have the match go about twenty minutes with lots of offense for Rey, with some good believable near-falls before Taker ultimately pulls out the clean win. In the Orton/Hogan match, I'd have Orton go over as strong as Hogan would possibly allow. If that means that the entire Smackdown roster interferes for Orton, then so be it. He needs to go over Hogan somehow. It's a little too soon to run Orton/Taker again, but they can always throw Orton into a multi-man match if they want him to get the title. Personally, I'd probably just keep the belt on Taker at that point until they're ready to run a Taker/Batista program that could culminate somewhere around Summerslam.

That is by far the stupidest card, I've seen so far. Lashley and Boogeyman? Yeah ok that makes perfect sense. Black Thunder? WTF? Dumbest tag team I've ever heard of. Let's just end Shelton's career. All are you make all the black guys tag with each other? And you do know they MNM and "Black Thunder" are on different shows, same with Lashley + Boogeyman and Big Show + Kane. Fit Finley Vs. Booker T? That would be complete heatless, as both are heels and doing a good job as heels. And no one wants to see HHH Vs. Angle, as they can produce good matches againest each other. I'm glad your not a booker. I figured that since there are no tag teams on Raw, they might as well just move both sets of tag titles over to Smackdown and unify them later. If they give a Raw team a shot at Smackdown's tag titles and a Smackdown team a shot at Raw's tag titles, then it seems fair. I'll admit that I haven't watched Smackdown a lot lately, but I thought I read that Finlay was getting face pops even after debuting as a heel, so I thought that maybe they could turn him tweener and put him against Booker. If he's over as a heel, you could easily change that to Booker vs. Lashley, let MNM beat Show and Kane outright, and then put Henry vs. Boogeyman on the pre-show.

I don't know exactly what the situation is with The Rock, but I doubt it's impossible to get him to come back for a while if they throw a lot of money out there. Doom wasn't exactly a big hit, and I think he could use some positive exposure right now. Anyway, here's a card that's WM-worthy: World Title John Cena © vs. The Rock Randy Orton vs. Hulk Hogan WWE Title Undertaker © vs. Rey Mysterio Triple H vs. Kurt Angle Shawn Michaels vs. Shane McMahon (Special guest referee: Vince McMahon) MITB 2: Hardcore Elimination match Rob Van Dam vs. Carlito vs. Edge vs. Matt Hardy vs. Chris Benoit vs. JBL Ric Flair vs. Mick Foley World Tag Team Titles Big Show and Kane © vs. Lashley and Boogeyman US Title Booker T © vs. Fit Finlay Sunday Night Heat: WWE Tag Team Titles MNM © vs. Black Thunder (Shelton and Viscera)

I agree actually. Edge/RVD on the Raw side is much more palatable than anything involving John Cena. However, I still haven't seen anything that looks like a real WM main event in even the possible bookings. I mean for comparison's sake, HHH/Jericho was considered a gigantic disappointment as a WM main event due to the lack of heat, but are any of these matchups really even as good of a main event as that? None of this "feels like Wrestlemania" to me. Honestly, I don't think they could put on a Wrestlemania card with their current roster that wouldn't feel like a disappointment somehow. The only way they could make WM a success at this point would be to shell out big bucks and bring Rock or Lesnar back for a few months. The Rock vs. John Cena? That feels like a Wrestlemania main event. Brock Lesnar vs. The Undertaker? Absolutely. HHH vs. Cena? Angle vs. Orton? Edge vs. Michaels vs. HHH? Mysterio vs. Angle? Not so much. Actually, just the thought of Rock/Cena at Mania is making me hard. Those marks would turn on Cena so fast that he'd never even know what him.

That NIU game is going to be huge for Bucknell. They're kind of borderline right now, and playing in the Patriot League, they don't get any real chance to show their worth. This is about their only real chance this season to leap into the Top 25. Honestly, with their resume, I'd think getting into the NCAAs would be a given either way, but this will definitely give them a great chance to get some national respect. I have to say, I'm actually really interested in that game. Bucknell's been in the "close" list on my Top 25 forever, and I've ben dying to see what they'd do against a good team. Northern Iowa should be a perfect test for them.

To be fair, I don't think HHH really had the final say here. He may have pushed for Edge to lose to Cena, but the real reason that Cena has the belt right now is that Vince decreed from on high that Cena shall be the face of the future, and as such, Vince will continue to cram Cena down our throats until we accept him.

Honestly, if they really want Orton to go to Wrestlemania instead of Mysterio there are reasonable ways to do it. They should have just got Orton to goad Mysterio into a stipulation match like Last Man Standing or something, and then when they get there, he and his dad could use the match as an excuse to really assault Rey, maybe hit him with a truck or drop him from a forkilft or just beat the shit out of him with gimmicked baseball bats until he has "broken ribs". Then, using the clause that if the RR winner's unable to go to Mania, the second to last survivor goes, Orton can get the title shot that way without making Rey look like a jackass. Also, that allows more heat on the WM match because Angle's avenging the despicable thing that Orton did to Rey, and trying to stop him from winning the title that way. Down the line, this would also leave the door open to continue the Orton/Mysterio feud with even more heat. Honestly though, this "hapless innocent babyface gets outsmarted by the mean conniving heel" shit doesn't help anyone. At least if the heel's going to outsmart the face, don't make it something that an eight year old could see through. It's kinda funny that the two people that could draw huge against Hogan, (Orton and Cena), are both getting put into title matches where they won't draw for shit.

God, am I the only one that started laughing uncontrollably when they realized that The 7 Word Bandit had 7 posts and The 1 Word Bandit had one post. I probably am. Just something about a gimmick well done; it does my heart good.

I agree with everything you said except that the WVU game wasn't at home. If it's in the state of Oklahoma, it's a home game. It's no different than when the Cougars play home games in Spokane over Christmas. And the Big Ten is ridiculously close right now. If I were to name the best team right now, I'd have to give the edge to Illinois, but right now Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Michigan are all tied for first with Ohio State, Michigan State, and Indiana only a game back.

They got consideration. They moved on to my close list and I basically have them at #27 right now. However, they also lost to Nebraska and Missouri, and when they played West Virginia, they got raped by 24 at home. Oh, and outside of Texas, they haven't beaten a ranked team all year. At this point, I'd think of them more as a Marquette kind of team that managed one big win then a consistent contender. They just don't have as good of an all-around resume as a team like Indiana or Northern Iowa.

Here's the AP Top 25 since that's out as well. Week 13 AP Top 25 1. Connecticut (65) 18-1 1,793 2. Duke (7) 19-1 1,727 3. Memphis 19-2 1,638 4. Villanova 15-2 1,548 5. Gonzaga 17-3 1,465 6. Illinois 19-2 1,414 7. Texas 17-3 1,355 8. Florida 18-2 1,287 9. Pittsburgh 17-1 1,284 10. George Washington 16-1 1,050 11. West Virginia 15-4 1,013 12. Michigan State 16-5 933 13. Tennessee 14-3 827 14. UCLA 17-4 797 15. Boston College 16-4 639 16. Washington 16-4 630 17. Georgetown 14-4 599 18. N.C. State 16-4 529 19. Oklahoma 13-4 471 20. Ohio State 14-3 464 21. Michigan 15-3 440 22. Indiana 12-5 289 23. Iowa 16-5 288 24. LSU 14-5 269 25. Northern Iowa 19-3 184 Michigan's way too low at 21, as they look like they might be the best team in the Big Ten right now. I didn't expect the AP to put them up at 11 where I had them, but they should at least be in the 15-17 range. No way on earth should they be behind a team like Boston College who hasn't beaten a Top 25 team all year long, and who was three points away from getting swept by Georgia Tech.

From the buildup so far this looks to be the worst WrestleMania ever. We have an unover face in Cena defending the WWE title in the ME against HHH who's going to be cheered but who won't turn face. Then, we have Angle who won a battle royal to win the World Title against Orton who lost to Taker at Armageddon and couldn't win the RR from #30. My question is with all the mistakes made thus far, is Wrestlemania even salvagable? If you were given the book tomorrow and had to deal with Cena's title reign version 2.0, a Hogan that wouldn't play ball unless he looks like a million bucks, a JBL that just got buried by the Boogeyman, and a HHH that's going to want to at the very least be in a high-profile match, could you make an intriguing WrestleMania card? I'm not asking for every single undercard match, but I'm just wondering how you'd do the buildup with the title pictures et al, to at least get three or four matches that people will pay to see and that will make it feel like Wrestlemania.

There wasn't a new thread yet, so I figured I'd just form one and put my rankings in there. DragonLordKaiba can always just add the RPI and conference standings later on. Anyways, here are the new rankings. Iggy's Rankings for January 30, 2005 (previous week's rankings in parenthesis) Duke 19-1 (1) Memphis 19-2 (3) Connecticut 18-1 (4) Illinois 19-2 (7) Texas 17-3 (2) Gonzaga 17-3 (8) Villanova 15-2 (6) Pittsburgh 17-1 (10) Tennessee 14-3 (14) Florida 18-2 (5) Michigan 15-3 (21) Michigan State 16-5 (11) George Washington 16-1 (17) West Virginia 15-4 (13) Ohio State 14-3 (16) Georgetown 14-4 (18) UCLA 17-4 (19) Iowa 16-5 (20) NC State 16-4 (15) Wisconsin 15-5 (24) LSU 14-5 (25) Washington 16-4 (9) Northern Iowa 19-3 (NR) Indiana 12-5 (12) Boston College 16-4 (NR) Dropped out: Maryland (22), Syracuse (23) Close: Bucknell, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Syracuse, Iona