Hektik

Yeah, that was good win. Padres beat the Yankees 10-2. Otsuka is definetly a good pitcher but I was realy impressed by the pitching of Adam Eaton. He got off to a slow start this season but has really stepped it up in his last two starts. San Diego now has sole possesion of 1st place in the NL West. I would like them to start pulling ahead of the other teams in the west but they can't seem to shake the Dodgers.

TNA Impact Spoilers from Orlando by Blair Russell The first two matches were taped for Xplosion... 1. "Irish" Pat Kenney & Shark Boy defeated Johnny Swinger-Glen Gilberti (w/ Trinity); eh, this wasn't that good, as some things looked off/were screwed up, including Trinity's huracanrana on Kenney. 2. Hector Garza, Chris Sabin, and Elix Skipper defeated Roderick Strong, Alex Shelley, and Michael Shane. This was quite good, and it could be argued that this was the best match at the tapings. The Impact! tapings start here... 3. Kid Kash (w/ Dallas) defeated The Amazing Red in a decent bout. A vingette with Dusty Rhodes appears (as the judge for the X Divsion bout in case it goes the 10 minute time limit), and Vince Russo asks him for some assistance. 4. AJ Styles defeated Frankie Kazarian to retain the X Division title in a good bout; afterwards, Kid Kash and Dallas attacked Styles. 5. 3 Live Krew defeated The Naturals and David Young in what was basically a squash. After the bout, Jeff Jarrett came out and mentioned how he was "king of the mountain", but then Rhodes came out and said that at TNA's 2nd anniversary show, he would have to defend his title against Ron Killings. 6. Monty Brown defeated Sonny Siaki in another bout that was basically a squash. 7. Team Canada defeated Team Mexico in a six man tag after Scott D'Amore interfered. This was alright, but it looked like that once again, these guys just did not work well together. In a bout that was a non-televised main event: 8. Sabu defeated Abyss (w/ Goldylocks) after Raven provided unintended distraction. This was a slow-paced match that just wasn't that good, and Sabu screwed up his attempt at the triple jump moonsault too. While this wasn't as good as the debut show, it still should look fine for TV.

Your trying to compare Davey Boy winning the Intercontanental title to Shawn winning the World title. Shawn was going to be expected to carry the WWE, Davey was just going to be a lame duck IC champion. Bret was leaving after WM 12 and nobody was sure if he was going to come back, so he put Shawn over and let him have his moment. As far as him being bitter and talking about overtimes, you have to remember one thing, it's a work. Your taking something written in WWF magazine as truth.

No it wouldn't, it would be a self serving move by Bret. It would have put the focus on Bret and would have taken heat away from Shawn. Hogan did that at WM 6 as a way of putting himself over Warrior despite jobbing cleanly. It is those kind of subtle moves that HHH and HBK are doing to Benoit.

What are you talking about? Bret jobbed cleanly and left so he could let Shawn have his moment. He didn't try to steal the spotlight like Hogan did to Warrior at WM 6.

It might just be Eddy turning heel for the night. He is the veteran in the match, he can make that call. He probably came out and saw the majority of the crowd was not behind him so he took the heel role. I mean saying blank country sucks sounds like a basic generic heel insult.

Whats the matter, you don't want to see them play a good team like the Padres. But your right, the Padres and the Yankees don't have much of a history except that they faced each other in the World Series. Hey, David Wells will be pitching against the Yankees on Sunday so there might be something for you there.

1)Austin vs Rock-WM 17 17)Flair vs Steamboat-Chi-Town Rumble 25)Austin vs Angle-Summerslam '01 24)Austin vs Benoit-Smackdown 5/01 4)Bret vs Austin-WM 13 45)Blanchard vs Magnum TA-Starcade '85 5)Bret vs Owen-WM 10 21)Bret vs Perfect-Summerslam '91 3)Rey vs Eddie-Halloween Havoc '97 15)Bret vs Owen-Summerslam '94 27)Eddie/Barr v. Octagon/Santo-WWC 42)Bret vs Bulldog-Summerslam '92 22)10 Man Tag-Canadian Stampede 39)Flair vs Windham-Worldwide 1/20/87 51)Rey/Edge vs Angle/Benoit-No Mercy '02 2)Bret vs Austin-Survivor Series '96

Edge, although they are both average wrestlers. Edge reminds me of Sting, a limited average worker who could be carried to good match. Christian reminds you of a late 80s/early 90s jobber, which wouldn't matter if he was a great worker, but he is not a great worker. He is like Edge, average. The only difference is that Edge is a more carriable wrestler. Keep in mind that I am going by 2002 Edge so I may have to wait and see what he does against a better worker.

I think Mel was given a lot of negative press for making this movie. Nobody in America should be hated for just making a movie. They should not attack Mel Gibson, they should attack the bad movie that he made. Halfway through the The Passion I found myself yawning and bored. There were people in the theatre who were crying including a few children. I couldn't believe that there parents took them to this movie. To someone like me, who is not religious, it got very mind numbing and boring. What annoys me is people saying that "christianity is back." All it takes for people to reaffirm their faith is to watch an actor get crucified in a movie. That says a lot about christians and just reinforces my views on many of them.

Well, fans are under the impression that Shawn Michaels is a legend. Most didn't even watch Michaels during his original run. It was the WWE propaganda machine that force fed this idea to the newer fans to the point where it is now widely accepted. My point is if you say something enough times people will start believing it. If they promoted Benoit better it might do better. I think it could do good if they release it in Canada the same day as in the US. I think most fans, even casual, want to see older matches from places other than the WWE. That will have to be one of this DVDs selling points.

Well, Benoit will get his chance to headline a PPV on his own at Vengeance. HHH and Michaels will most likely not be wrestling at the PPV. Meltzer reports that it will be Benoit/Edge headlining the event. You almost get the feeling that it is a way to bury both Benoit and Edge if the buyrate comes in low. Benoit is going to have to be treated as the top star on Raw if they want this PPV to do good. Edge dosen't seem to have gotten over as big as many people thought, so turn him heel and send him back to Smackdown after his match with Benoit. While they're at it turn Chris Jericho back to a heel and send him to Smackdown to feud Eddy.

Raw is better than Smackdown because the WWE wants it to be better. Shame on the WWE for letting Smackdown get this bad. They took Chris Benoit, Edge, and Shelton Benjamin and gave them prominent roles on Raw. Smackdown got stale acts in return like RVD and the Dudleys. Vince will never let Smackdown get better than Raw because of his emotional attachment to Monday night wrestling. That does not make sense because Smackdown is available in more homes and is on a broadcast network. More people watch Smackdown because of this. They are at a point where they need to start throwing stuff at the wall and see what sticks. Call up a new batch of OVW wrestlers and give them a push, they can't do any worse than Mark Jindrak.

So you're saying Vince / Steph was the main event of No Mercy last year? Yes, just like McMahon/Gowen was the main event for Vengeance. The Hogan/Rock and Hogan/McMahon matches main evented WM 18 and 19. At Bad Blood it won't matter if Benoit/Kane goes on last because the HHH/Michaels ego fuck will get the most promotion going into the event. It doesn't matter what goes on last, its what gets the most promotion going into the event.

Nash/Michaels wasn't even the main event on that PPV, it was Lawrence Taylor/Bam Bam Bigelow. It got the most hype going in to the event and even went on last.

Well, I'm probably the biggest Padre fan here. While I'm on that subject, here are some corrections to some earlier posts. Adam Eaton is not injured only Wells and Peavy. Wells is not that big of a deal because he should return next weekend. Peavy is the biggest blow because he will be out 2 to 3 weeks. Before his injury he had the lowest ERA in the league. The worst pitcher on the starting rotation is Ismael Valdez who was horrible in his last two starts after he was impressive in his first three. Luckily the padres have called up some good pitchers from AAA including Justin Germano who has won his first two starts, one of them being in Coors Field. The pitcher with the worst luck is Sterling Hitchcock who injured his groin after coming back from rehabbing his rib. Depth has helped the starting rotation of the Padres. On the other side the bullpen has been great with Scott Linebrink, Rod Beck, Akinori Otsuka, and Trevor Hoffman.

No, he owned Turner Broadcasting which included TBS, TNT, CNN, Cartoon Network, and Home Video distribution. Turner Broadcasting merged with Time Warner in 1996 and Ted Turner was given a seat on the board. Ted Turner never wanted AOL Time Warner to sell WCW and was mad when they sold it to Vince.

By March 2001, Turner was no longer the owner of WCW. He lost power when he merged with Time Warner in '96, so neither McMahon could buy the company from him.

Excerpts from the 5/24 Wrestling Observer Newsletter The deal with FSN is that even though the network dosen't have staggered feeds, the show will air at 3 p.m. every Friday starting on 6/4 on every timezone, so it will be at 3 p.m. Central, Mountain, and West Coast FSN affiliates. Company officials had to be scared to death when word got out that Max Kellerman's heavily pushed debut of his new show on FSN at 6 p.m. on 5/10 drew a 0.08 national rating. Wrestlers and all performers were told that they will get the same pay for television as they got for PPV. TV is being shot at Universal Studios in Orlando every Thursday night starting at 7 p.m., which seems to make everyone happy and enthusiastic, as it is clear Panda is right now willing to spend money. they will tape several dark matches, which will air either for DVD releases or the Xplosion show (which will be continued), before shooting a one-hour live to tape show. As things stand, the big wigs like Jarrett, Russo, Mantel, etc. will fly on a small charter on Wednesday night and start preparing for the show. The wrestlers will fly out commercial the first thing Thursday morning so they can get in late Thursday morning. Company officials were trying to sell people on the horrid time slot with the idea that FSN network officials have such low expectations that this is just a way on and soon, if the ratings are strong, they'll get on prime time. The problem with prime time on FSN is that it means it's always pre-empted by local sports. Even if they get the improved Sunday morning slot. the WWE on Sunday Mornings on a mid level network is only doing a 0.5-0.7, so what can TNA do on a network with far less viwership? Even if the argument is that Experience is a "B" show for WWE as opposed to the only show, the fact was, ECW, far more popular than TNA, never in any week ever outrated even the lowest rated "C" show for WWF or WCW. Even if it does a 0.3 (which would be about 240,000 homes), and FSN officials should be thrilled, what will it mean for PPV growth? ECW averaged 0.9 at a time when wrestling was far hotter, and they ended up having an overall revenue decline over the course of the year from the previous year, when they had no national outlet (this isn't that TV hurt them, but that they lost key pieces of talent during that year). The whole key for TV is to get buys up to 25,000 per week so it can be profitable. Then again, 25,000 is not such a ridiculous number that if they present a good product they may mot be able to get it. But with a bad product, it has no chance, since WCW was down around 55,000 buys at the end of monthly shows when they had four hours of prime time wrestlind that hit 2 million homes twice a week. They look to be phasing out the NWA name, because they don't own it. They have set up a new tnawrestling website domain name and on their current nwatna.com website, all the NWA references are gone except for a small NWA logo and the belts being called NWA world heavyweight and NWA world tag team, but references to the product are now called "TNA Wrestling." Jimmy Hart, who is now affiliated with the group, was on a radio show hinting about Hulk Hogan, which is probably the second worst thing they could do. They were also hinting about Ultimate Warrior coming in, which is the worst thing they could do. There is no point in bringing up any names unless they have signed commitments, because the company has been burned so many times by verbal commitments from guys out of the past, that push come to shove, really don't want to be associated with what is, in their mind, a minor league product. They were even hinting Austin's name, and while you never say never, Austin never has anything good to say about Jeff or Jerry Jarrett and I'd be more shocked to see Austin come in here than to see Bruno Sammartino wrestle Bret Hart in the main event of next year's Wrestlemania. Jeff Jarret was on the Best Damn Sorts Show, and instead of putting over the talent he had, showed clips of Brian Urlacher (okay,I'd have brought that clip), the Tennessee Titans (that was two years ago) and talked about Hogan. As long as you talk about guys you don't have as bigger stars than the guys you do have, the guys you do have will never be stars, which is key to the company getting over. The company is also said to be making new ring outfits for everyone. The wrestlers were also told to dress up coming to the building for shows from this point forward. There is a mentality that old timers have, and there may be some truth to it, and that is people won't pay to see people like themselves, so to be a star, you have to dress like a star and stay away from being buddies with the fans. You should be nice to the fans, but idea of drinking beer with them after the show in the parking lot isn't a good idea.

If you think thats bad, check out this article from WWE.com They're comparing Michaels/HHH to Hogan/Andre. I guess there are some similarties except for one thing, Hogan/Andre actually drew some money.

Well, here is what he had to say in this weeks Observer.

An Excerpt From The Wrestling Observer: The WWE is seemingly changed directions when it comes to some characters and has more plans to get wilder with new characters. As it turns out, the Eugene character is going to be portrayed in the manner suggested here a few weeks ago. The character looks to be a simple man, who actually is a great wrestler after a great television vignette where William Regal was attempting to teach him and then stretch him, and he wound up stretching the teacher. The other major change is that the Hirohito name has been dropped. After word got out in Japan after the first vignette aired, the fear among those who heard about it was that it would a very negative image in the country. The Hirohito character was scheduled for a huge push at first, apparently to be the top heel on the Raw side aside from the Evolution group. Vignettes for Hirohito haven't aired in the past two weeks. The character is still in line for a major push, although not at the level first planned which was right near the top of the cards immediately. He is still expected to debut on 5/10 in San Jose, possibly with the name Kenzo. He will have an entourage consisting of a manager/bodyguard type, as well as a woman who comes to ringside with him. Kensuke Sasaki won't be coming to San Jose on 5/10 for the debut as we talked about last week. Ultimately, he wasn't going to come full time to the U.S. for a bodyguard role. Instead, the bodyguard role is going to Ken Yasuda, who is an American of Japanese ancestry who is a 5-10, 265 pound bodybuilder who apparently can speak both Japanese and English. He had a very brief period of training with UPW as a wrestler. He's said to be a good looking guy who has some acting and stunt work backround. The woman character will be Suzuki's wife, Hiroko, 29, who moved to New York with him. She has a unique backround which includes working from 1998 to 2000 as an anchor woman on a local news station in Fukushima, Japan, and after that, did some television acting, before marrying Suzuki last year. There are some wilder angles planned both for new characters and exisisting characters, including a more outlandish reprise of the old Papa Shango character in a new role for Booker T which is supposed to come out of his Undertaker program. It's interesting to see so many new characters based on previous stars like Mordecai (early Undertaker and clearly being groomed for him), Tyson Tomko (early Kevin "Diesel" Nash), Rene Dupree (Rick Martel), and Eugene of late at a time when so much emphasis had been placed on a more serious real great wrestlers with real names battling it out with ultimate quest of getting the belt. Between that, and putting the cruiserweight title on Jacqueline, much of the new ideas are eerily reminiscent of the Vince Russo WCW.

This is true, you can not just throw Japanese wrestlers out there and expect them to draw. You can make it work if you do a promational blitz. You can get casual wrestling fans to believe anything if you say it enough. The WWE is good at doing this, just look at there track record when it comes to propaganda. In WWE land, Shawn Michaels is a legend who carried the WWE from Hulkamania to the Attitude era. Bret Hart is a greedy Canadian traitor who single handedly killed WCW. There were 93,000 fans at WM 3 and HHH is on the same level as Steve Austin. I could go on but I think I'll stop there. If the WWE were to use wrestlers from NJPW, they would need go all out. They would need to make a huge mock press conference for TV and make many desire videos. They would need to tell the fans that this is huge and New Japan is the Japanese equivilant of WWE. They would need to say that it a privilege to be seeing these highly skilled wrestlers in the United States. If you treat something like a big deal, the fans are going to treat it as a big deal. With that said I don't think the story is true. It would be to much work on the WWE's part without any clear understanding of what the WWE would gain.

Bad news for the Padres. Somehow I don't think he injured his hand in an accident at home. I'm thinking it's probably a much more interesting story.

I would love for Rey to become a cocky rudo. He can form a stable with Chavo, Juventud, and Shocker (the last two are wrestlers WWE would have to sign). They would all be managed by Chavo Classic and their main goal would be to make Eddy's life a living hell.