Hawkius Maximus

I don't even think TNA could pop a good rating right now. It's not like they HOLD BACK on doing big matches on Impact as it is.

I don't know if it's in there word for word, but Dave's confirmed that their buyrates are about at that level. He's talked about it. Even going as far as to tell a TNA fan on the radio show "Oh...You're not going to like this" when the subject was broached. It's bad.

Can someone pitch to me a HDTV that I could find for about 400 dollars? While I've stayed somewhat knowledgeable about HDTV's despite not owning one, this is for my mother and she...she has no idea WTF she's looking for. While I can help her, it would be more logical to get the advice of the people in this thread. She's aiming for upper 20's, lower 30's if she can. That'll be a tight fit, I can see online as nothing in that scale from a reputatable brand for that size seems to be near that range. All she'll be aiming to do is watching TV and DVD's. So that's all she really needs. As long as it'd look as good as a CRT she should be happy. I don't even know if she has plans to get HD programming, or a Bluray or anything. She'll sort that out later.

The key to remember here, is it's not like TNA ALWAYS did PPV's this low. They weren't setting the world on fire, but they weren't doing this bad on every PPV. This is recent. Fuck ratings. PPV buys is where you see the loyalty and interest in the company. TNA has *none* right now. And watching the TV, is there any question why? This company, if it wasn't already, has become the single worst produced weekly episodic wrestling show in history of mainstream wrestling. Illogical booking is everywhere. All the faces are killed dead. None of the storylines make sense or are being progressed with sense. Wrestlers have quite litterally given up hope causing ECW to look like an upgrade. They fired a guy who had been with them for years, had their most iconic finisher, and worked hard every show. They bring up a "monster", and then book him bad and then immediately start jobbing him. They give away big matches every show to zero rating spikes and then they turn around and main event a PPV with TEAM 3D fighting for the title. Not two weeks later with ZERO BUILD they give away Sting/Angle in an Empty Arena Match. I hope they die and anyone worth a damn that still cares (IE not anyone in the MEM outside of Angle) goes to WWE or ROH.

If UFC ends up having to refund all those tickets, you probably will never see a UFC in Montreal. Dana White won't forget it. He's as vindictive as Vince McMahon and seemingly not quite as forgiving. He'll hold it against that commission for years. It's one thing for a commission to not let them hold shows ahead of time, but to be this far into it and the commission be saying stuff like that. Yeah. He's not going to be happy at all.

I don't even know what to say from that article. I get the feeling BJ Penn's going to go through life from now on and at various times randomly scream "GREASER!" and then try to somehow connect it the current situation he's in.

There's actually a good chance Sapp/Kimbo could happen. Sapp needs paydays (He was pretty much supposed to get beaten by Kinniku Mantaro...but...Sapp decided to train) and what do you do with Kimbo if your not going to do superfight OMG insane fights? He's not at a level where he'd even hurt Alistair Overeem. On paper, Sapp should destroy Kimbo though. He's done more in his career, he's had more fights, won against big names but this is the same Sapp who pretty much just...STOPPED training for a long time, and looked to not want to fight anymore in the ring. The Jan Nortje fight springs to mind. If Sapp were to come in having actually god forbid trained and stopped prostituting himself for whatever money people threw at him, Kimbo Slice would most likely be murdered with SAPP HAMMAHS.

Manhoef is an awesome fighter to watch. There aren't many fighters left in MMA that are like him. He is so incredibly one dimensional. Standing, he's a monster. Despite the size difference, he can hang with WGP level K-1 fighters. He's strong as an ox and even someone like Remy Bonjasky has problems dropping him. However, that's all he's got. If the fight turns into any kind of grappling match he's done.

It'll be interesting to see how UFC handles this. Usually when a UFC fighter tests positive for something, if they are a relatively big name, UFC will go to bat for them and either defend them (Sean Sherk) or whitewash it and treat it like it never happened outside of the odd Rogan mention (just about everyone else). However, this is Karo. No matter how much UFC likes him, he hasn't looked good in his last few fights. He looked poor here. He hadn't fought for awhile. He has mental issues. And he failed the drug test with three different forms of painkiller in his system. I'm interested to see if they'll release him, try to get him some help (because he obviously needs it), or just act like it's never happened. Any of the three are equally valid with UFC and how they operate.

I'm amazed this didn't happen sooner. Half of his posts in this forum were some equivalent of "fuck you for disagreeing with me". And/or "I m s0 drunkzs right nowz". Sometimes at the same time. Even though we lost EHME, I'm sure a Sherdogger will find this place and make roost.

MOTY. You can't beat Muta (The demon) dragging Esperanza (The Cyborg) to hell in order to save his son (Bono-chan).

That's probably what I'd do...The only drawing fight they'd have is Le/Lawler, but if Le has no interest in fighting then there's no point. Might as well just say "X is champion". Antonio Silva/Alistair Overeem would be interesting, but it can't happen. And neither have any name power whatsoever in America. I'd think Overeem would knock the big man dead, but it wouldn't draw. It'll be really interesting what Strikeforce does with Overeem, if anything. He hasn't fought for them in a little over a year, and he's got a great deal with DREAM going. Even if DREAM failed, you know K-1 wants him to Kickbox after murdering Badr Hari. On top of that, there's more and more interest in seeing Overeem against Fedor to hardcores then just about any possible fight left for Fedor outside of UFC. Barnett probably ranks higher, but that's about it. Fedor won't fight in Strikeforce, so they only way that'd happen is in Affliction if they're still alive by that point. I still can't figure out who the hell Frank will fight on this show. I think there's gonna end up being a scramble when Strikeforce realizes they don't have anyone. They could start looking into a Gracie, or floating deals to Tito to see if he bites on any (Strikeforce won't pay him what he's demanding though). Unless they shoot right into like...Frank/Lawler. Which wouldn't be the worst fight they could do. Frank would have a chance with Lawler, and if Lawler beat Frank...So what? Lawler's known. That'd be fine.

Too. Many. Fucking. GP's. The whole idea of the Grand Prix tournament in PRIDE originally was it was a one off super event. Then it was once a year. That's *FINE*. One big tournament a year, running virtually half the year and you run events as normal. Now we've had what...two DREAM GP's (Or is it more?), Sengoku ran like two, and now DREAM is running another for a division just created. Too goddamn much. GP Overload is not the solution for the MMA crisis in Japan.

The only way this fight happens is if GSP and Penn both lose to their challengers. Right now, it's just pride of these two causing them to say this shit. GSP is feeling insulted over the vaselinegate, and Penn just had his pride absolutely ripped to shreds. Of course he's gonna want a rematch to prove himself. You generally don't take an assbeating like that and don't want revenge. Rich Franklin wanted that rematch with Anderson Silva to prove himself. He doesn't want a third match now. UFC will not make this fight unless neither has anywhere to go in a year or so. Dana has said he does not believe vaseline had any impact on the fight, and thinks Penn didn't have a shot watching it take place. There's also the fact that after the grubbing GSP gave Penn, that you have to be worried about Penn's health. It could have been worse, but it's not like Penn wasn't beaten heavily. Do you really want to see a second time around of that?

From what I know, as of right now, Cung Le is all but retired. He's decided that at his age, while he can fight to a high level, it'd be much smarter to concentrate on his acting gigs that he could do for years. Cung Le may be a good/great fighter right now, but who knows in a few years. By then, he may not get acting jobs, and when you're washed up in fighting, you're washed up. Atleast in acting, even if it's just C/B stuff, he can get paydays. Cung Le's the Strikeforce Middleweight champion. Robbie Lawler is the Elite XC Middleweight champion. I have no idea how they're gonna rectify that if Cung Le has no interest in MMA. I guess just say Lawler's the Strikeforce champion. It'll also be interesting to see what they do with the Strikeforce/Elite HW titles. Silva's been suspended from fighting in the US for awhile, and Overeem's the Strikeforce HW champ. I guess just go with Overeem. If Overeem can pass drug tests that is... Why Strikeforce has "US titles" I have no fucking idea. Hopefully they don't import the idea of secondary division titles to this deal.

If the Wii was more then a gimmick, I'd just say neither 360 nor the PS3. That's not to say I don't love my 360. I sold my Wii off, so that says something, but there's no real variety to the 360, and looking at the PS3 it's the same issue. The days of a developer going out there with a shoe string budget and really creating something special are gone. Gaming is like the movie industry now. Occasionally something "new" comes out, but it's very much just continual rehashes of the same gameplay ideas and formulas or storyline elements. Shooters are the big thing for both systems. And you'll notice, a large majority of the exclusives mentioned in this thread are shooters. Or some variation (like third person, still makes it a shooter). That's the big thing now. A high quality, big budget, testosterone driven shooting game. The main fundamental reason for that is because the PC industry merged into the mainstream gaming industry and brought along its most popular type of games. Sadly, they left the PC RPG industry in the back burner. We won't be seeing anything the level of stuff like "Planescape Torment" on the 360 or PS3. Or really any form of PC game innovation beyond "Shoot everything". Let’s look at my limited, but lovingly crafted 360 library shall we? Halo 3 - Shooter, sequel Skate - Original control schemed skateboarding game Skate 2 - its sequel. Fallout 3 - Sequel to a PC franchise Call of Duty - Shooter series (had two of them, sold one) GTA 4 - Sandbox shooting sequel Smackdown 2009 - Sequel Marvel Ultimate Alliance - Sequel Oblivion - Sequel NCAA - Sequel These are just the games I've acquired or purchased over the span of my 360. Had others, but this is what I got right now. Virtually every single game I personally own right now is either a sequel or a shooter base. The only game that isn't, Skate, got a sequel. Innovation in this generation is virtually gone. Sure, there are titles out there every so often. But they don't become hits really. And if they do, they're sure to produce sequels to grab more money. Let’s look at my favorite 360 game. Mass Effect. It's an RPG! A third person shooting RPG filled with testosterone and honestly not much in the way of subtlety. There are no real layers to anyone beyond your decision to encourage or discourage their thought patterns. The games touted "game changing decisions" are few and far between, nor are they that severe. Supposedly you're supposed to wait for the, yes, sequel to see the fruits of your choices. Mass Effect is like...beginning PC RPG's for the console people. There's far more complexity and depth to many PC RPGs, many made by Bioware. Doesn't make it a bad game. Just means it's broken literally no new ground whatsoever. But it comes off as such because it's new for consoles. This has been the same thing for many games over the last few years, like Halo. Wasn't revolutionary unless you consider a PC shooter on a console revolutionary. It had been already done for years on PCs. Better even. On the flipside, the PS3 and 360 have more uses then gaming, which is really what I use my 360 for, more often then not. I believe both are capable of streaming from your PC to the system. This is easily the best feature you have to enable yourself. Watching TV shows, movies, events, what have you without any of the hassle just by simply downloading them and streaming to the 360 is a joy. PS3 has Blu-ray, but that would probably only matter if you have a TV that can watch it. As for 360 failures, they are a problem. However, Microsoft does not charge you a single cent to fix the Red Ring of Death, should you get it. So there's no point in worrying about it. It'll never cost you a dime. My advice would be to get a 360 since it's the #1 system, but don't go into it thinking you'll relive the glory days, because you won't. Because that era of gaming is dead.

This is pretty big news. Strikeforce has been run well, and given their roster mixed with the Elite XC guys plus the TV deals, there is a lot of potential here. Frank's fight to launch the new deal will probably end up being a big one. The only two I can think of right off the top of my head are Ken Shamrock and Tito Ortiz. They may want to build to Ken (and Ken might not be able to fight since he has a bout this month I believe), and Tito would probably demand an absolutely insane contract. I dunno who else you could plunk in there to get immediate interest unless you go the Gracie route again.

Why not? They want the bailout. They can learn to keep their own personal greed in check to get it. Greed is the root for all the problems in the economy. It's the right move to have the government try to check it if they want money.

It depends on what people think of Chuck now. In this recent huge surge of UFC hitting a new level of popularity, Chuck hasn't been a factor. He's probably not even in the top three most popular UFC fighters now. Chuck's drawing power will be the test there. Shogun has none. The next four months or so are going to be a wasteland of non-drawing shows until we hit Brock/Mir. If UFC can maintain this level of excitement and popularity, then we'll know that this level isn't some type of fluke. Gonna be interesting.

I know this is common sense. However, if your company is on the verge of dying, perhaps you shouldn't be paying yourself a million dollars. Seems like the exact opposite of "good business" there.

That was Bryan Alvarez's opinion. He talked about pulling rubber guard on an assistant instructor in BJJ. The instructor proceeded to posture up to defend it. Alvarez's legs slid down. But, ya know, BJ Penn's life was in danger.

Actually, no. There's statements that say Jackson did what Nurse did as well at least once. His cornering is at risk as well. And if Nevada says someone is banned, they are *banned* from the rest of the commission states. UFC won't allow anyone to corner who Nevada has banned.

I felt bad for Bonnar. Jones had flaws, but I don't think Bonnar gameplanned to be suplexed (The Double Underhook suplex doesn't get enough love), have the guy throw fucking diving leg sweeps, or to be blasted in the head with a spinning back elbow. Kinda takes you out of your element when your not sure what the fuck the guy's gonna do.

More people watch these shows then order the PPV's. If anything, this is the perfect use for the shows. You'll get a bare minimum of probably a 1.1 (I believe this is the lowest they've done for a live show), but I wouldn't be surprised if due to the upswing of UFC interest they pop a 1.5 to 2.0 for this show even without a good main event. You get all these people to see these new guys, and build them up. Then when they are put on a PPV main card in a top match you get far more interest in them due to higher exposure.

The idea that that gif "proves" the greasing is fucking hilarious. Nurse (I think that's his name) comes up after the round, places his hand on GSP's shoulder and back as a soothing gesture, and the vaseline jar touches GSP's shoulder. There's no rubbing. There's no motions unless you wanna say he was touching him with vaseline so he could THEN spread it. But you wouldn't get much on GSP doing that anyway, so why the fuck bother? The whole thing is stupid. The NSAC say GSP only had trace amounts on his back. Not enough to influence the fight to any large degree. If they thought that, they'd have already acted and you wouldn't have Dana and Lorenzo actively trying to get the commission to act. They *WANT* the cornermen that were responsible banned from cornering, even if it is Greg Jackson that did it. People need to get off this "OMG CHEATER" thing and be logical for once. It was a mistake. A mistake that will probably end up with Phil Nurse and Greg Jackson banned from cornering FOR LIFE. Think about how that's going to change everything. Rashad, Jardine, GSP, they won't have their trainer in their corner anymore. That's huge.