EVIL~! alkeiper

Hogan at Wrestlemanias 2-3.

I enjoyed the show. I watched it with a friend so between us it was only $25 apiece. A few thoughts. Money In the Bank: Completely entertaining throughout, with two truly memorable spots (Jeff/Edge and Kennedy/Hornswaggle). I'm surprised not many people made reference to Bundy at WM III, since it seemed like a callback to that moment. I don't think Kennedy is big enough to become the world champion yet, but he will be. There is just some aura about him. Khali/Kane: Khali is extremely limited in the ring. That said, they gave these guys five minutes, they did not blow anything and Kane's bodyslam was another memorable moment. This really was not a bad match by any stretch. Like it or not, Khali is special. I do think Kane should get a title run after he comes back from surgery. Benoit/MVP: It's tough to get the crowd into a new character like MVP for 20-25 minutes, so I don't have an issue with the length. As I'll talk about later, sometimes you lose out by stretching matches as long as you can. MVP was made to look like a legitimate wrestler who can hang in the upper card, so mission accomplished. Undertaker/Batista: Not much to add on this, both guys did a great job. I do think it is silly to complain about match placement. Does it really matter in the long run? ECW Originals/New Breed: Sometimes you have a wrestler who can't hide his enthusiasm. DDP at WM XVIII and Tommy Dreamer this year. I wouldn't call this match a letdown but there was far less going on than I expected. Did Kevin Thorn even get tagged in? Umaga/Lashley: This was the disappointment of the night, IMO. Let's review Lashley's win for a second. Umaga had Lashley beat with the help of Shane McMahon. Austin pulls out Shane, and then stuns Umaga. So Lashley has Austin's help. Vince got hosed. Umaga didn't have any more help than Lashley did. The only entertaining part of this was Umaga twice nailing Austin. Ashley/Melina: I've stated before that Ashley is the most useless female wrestler in recent memory. She's not interesting and the fans responded accordingly. Cena/Michaels: Honestly, I didn't think about Cena not selling the leg until after the match. The last ten minutes had me and my friend on the edge of our seats, and to suggest the match was bad is ludicrous. The match did illustrate one problem I have with WWE main events/big matches these days. The first 10-15 minutes are entirely useless. The going method isn't to build a great match from start to finish, it's to design a memorable close, decide how long the match is and then bridge the gap to that point in the match. At least that is my impression. As for the Cena hate, get over it. Your favorites will not always win. The object of wrestling is not to apportion wins and losses based on workrate. Slick and co. Dancing: In past Wrestlemanias they would bring out the divas, waste 10-15 minutes in the ring. They confined this to five minutes and honestly, it was really, really funny. Trump/Boogeyman: Was anyone else waiting for Jim Cornette to come in and slap Trump? Just wanted to add that. Overall I give the show 4/5. It had a few memorable moments and it was never really boring. If parts were crap, at least they were entertaining crap.

Sheepherders/Victory vs. Fantastics/Taylor (Barbed Wire Cage) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQFnonzYv0E

Travis Buck has made the A's opening day roster.

I gotta say, I'm really enjoying this show so far.

Pointless, but that was really funny.

Taking a different theme with this. What if the WWF held Wrestlemania in 1984? There's little doubt it would draw big, as WWF was regularly drawing sellout at MSG with 5,000 more for closed circuit next door at the time every month. WWF Championship Match Hulk Hogan © vs. Big John Studd Hulk Hogan's first big challenge as champion, facing the always dangerous Studd. Pinning Studd would kill his future value though in bouts with Hogan and Andre the Giant, so we would want a DQ finish with Hogan retaining. WWF Intercontinental Championship Match Tito Santana © vs. Magnificent Muraco Santana won the title in February of 1984. Here he retains clean with Greg Valentine interfering afterwards, setting up the hot Santana/Valentine feud. WWF World Tag Team Championship Match Rocky Johnson/Tony Atlas © vs. Adrian Adonis/Dick Murdoch Adonis/Murdoch won the championship in April. We'll just bump up the title change by a month. Andre the Giant/Jimmy Snuka vs. Roddy Piper/David Schultz WWF ran a match where Andre left with injury, but was disqualified coming back later in the match. I'd run a similar scenario, establishing Piper/Schultz as credible heels. Sgt. Slaughter vs. The Iron Sheik This feud kicked off in February. I would book a standard one-on-one match, ending in a double countout with both wrestlers brawling to the back, setting up future matches with stipulations. Bob Backlund/Ivan Putski vs. Wild Samoans Backlund's swan song. Wendi Richter vs. Velvet McIntyre Richter debuts in the WWE and beats McIntyre in a short match, establishing her as a Womens' title contender. WWF Junior Heavyweight Championship Match Dynamite Kid © vs. Davey Boy Smith Dynamite won the title in Japan in February, and this gives him a showcase. Hey, this is fantasy booking after all. Eight matches, two of which (Dynamite/Smith and Sheik/Slaughter) with the potential to be very good, and some important angles booked. There would need to be celebrity involvement of course, but someone else can worry about that. I would fit the debut of Cyndi Lauper in there somewhere.

They have it in virtually every locker room in professional sports. It serves a purpose.

Don't you get Comcast anyway? It's useless to bitch about the Phillies being on national tv because it gets blacked out anyway. (And I get PISSED when they're on Fox because I don't get Fox Philly and Fox in SWB picks the Yankee games.)

Looks pretty good, but I have to believe there's a better pitching talent than Clay Condrey on the free agent market.

God damnit. We don't have municipal sewage.

I really think Edge's winning streak is overblown. It's not a story unless it approaches Undertaker's and by that time, Undertaker will be retired. I'd have no qualms about ending it here. If you want to build something out of it, have Edge vs. Undertaker at WM XXIV with Edge saying, "my streak is gone so I'm going to end your's."

Minnesota has plenty of pitching. Rochester is opening the season with a starting four of Matt Garza, Kevin Slowey, Glen Perkins and Scott Baker. They've won 90+ games four of the last five years and they didn't really lose any serious pieces, IMO. Nothing that can't be replaced to some extent. Along with Santana, they're returning their entire starting lineup. I picked Alex Gordon as the RotY frontrunner. Pitchers are more unpredictable than hitters, and a pitcher won't win the Rookie of the Year award unless they either own a sterling win/loss record or hold a closing job. Gordon has the starting job from the outset and that helps. That also works against Homer Bailey, whom will likely start in the minors. Chris Young has a great shot at a 20/20 season in Arizona. I assume you have Pittsburgh last in the Central. You left out the Rockies in the west.

A few surprising developments from Tampa. Elijah Dukes has made the team as their starting center fielder (moving Rocco Baldelli to DH). B.J. Upton earned the second base job, moving Jorge Cantu to Durham. I think BJ Upton could be in line for a huge season. Remember he stole 57 bases across two levels last year.

Final Spring Training game of the year on ESPN right now, St. Louis vs. Cleveland.

On ECW, the Dreamer/Cactus/Raven stuff is leading up to Cactus vs. Dreamer at their next show, which was the "fire chair" incident. It'll be interesting to see how Joey Styles and Taz introduce the show. The incident was edited out of the match and never mentioned on ECW tv.

Really, the fun thing about it all is first they have to say, "black latinos don't count."

Both spellings would pass muster with an editor.

The long awaited projections. Not necessarily who I think will win, but the prohibitive favorites. AL East: Yankees AL Central: Twins AL West: Angels AL wild card: Red Sox NL East: Mets NL Central: Cardinals NL West: Dodgers NL wild card: Phillies AL MVP: Alex Rodriguez AL Cy Young: Johan Santana AL Rookie of the Year: Alex Gordon AL Manager of the Year: Mike Scioscia NL MVP: Albert Pujols NL Cy Young: Carlos Zambrano NL Rookie of the Year: Chris Young NL Manager of the Year: Tony LaRussa

Kenny Rogers is out for half a season due to surgery for blood clots.

This might be the stupidest thing ever. They seemingly forgot to mention that he struck out 180(!) times last year. Strikeouts mean nothing. They are the same as any other out. Why can't they figure this out? It's not that difficult. Oh, and he wasn't exactly "toiling" away in the minors. He was mashing the ball with an OPS of 900 or something like that. Well the truly silly thing is that along with those 151 Ks, he hit .304! Toiling doesn't mean failing though.

I think the problem with the White Sox as far as PECOTA is concerned is that they have all of their fifth starter candidates performing badly. I'd be curious to see what their projection would look like if they replaced their fifth starter with a pitcher with an ERA around 5 or so. The last time they lost 90 games was 1989, and I don't see how this club can fall that far, that fast. Especially if they don't show patience if Scott Podsednik and Juan Uribe fail to produce.

A-Rod didn't really hurt the Rangers. What hurt them is that they routinely finished at or near the bottom of the league in runs allowed. So either A-Rod's poor fielding at shortstop kept them in the toilet, or they lost in spite of Rodriguez, not because. Did the contract hurt the Rangers? When they gave $65 million to Chan Ho Park in spite of his mediocre road statistics, it is hard to cry poverty. Bottom line is that the Rangers got a great player, but failed to add enough secondary talent to take advantage. As for Rodriguez in New York, it amazes me that some good players like him, Pat Burrell, Adam Dunn, etc. catch so much flack for the failures of their teams. To blame your best players is self-defeating.

Kmart did the same thing last year, firing a great deal of their full-time staff and replacing them with part-timers. It was one of the most disgusting tactics I've ever witnessed.

Whiteside had a .278 OBP in AAA last year, and J.R. House is not a notable defensive catcher. Ultimately though, it's silly to fret about the moves your organization makes at a minor league level.