Cheech Tremendous

The writing's on the wall in Phoenix. Every indication is that Suns are thisclose to blowing up the whole team. Amare could be had today in the right trade and Shaq's a goner if they can find someone to take on that salary. That run is over in Phoenix.

I'm with Krankor on this one: ESPN Fantasy is total shit.

Has anyone heard Dennis Wilson's Pacific Ocean Blue? I've heard that it was the best solo effort from any of the members of the band. It was finally released on CD last year and I was thinking of checking it out. However, my Beach Boys appreciation has always been limited outside of Pet Sounds.

Oh my, I totally forgot that he was dead. There was a two or three year stretch where there were so many 80s stars that died that I totally lost track of them.

Axl seems more coherent in this interview than he has at any other time in the past fifteen years, but it does seem like he's woefully out of touch with the record industry and how he and GNR are viewed now by the general population. Blaming record companies or media coverage for the problems that Chinese Democracy had just seems a bit childish in hindsight. The best thing for Axl to do now is go on a summer tour and get another album out in the fall. He's too much of a sideshow act to be taken seriously in this current role. His goal should be returning to the actual music and distancing himself from 10-year-old feuds and an album that was good, but not great.

Bam Bam Bigelow's first WWF run was so screwed up. It was obvious that they wanted to push him big time, but they really misfired with the delivery. The formula at the time would have suggested that they put him in feud with Hogan, but I guess the thinking was that they didn't want him to be the flavor of the month fat fuck challenger. Putting him with Oliver Humperdink was a bad move. Even as a five year old mark I didn't get why this badass dude with flame tattoos on his goddamn head was monkeying around with a fat, gay leprechaun. The free agent angle was great in the sense that it made him seem special, but he should have spurned all offers and remained a lone wolf. He could have spent the next year running through the talents represented by the other heel managers. One of the old internet rumors that existed back in the RSPW days was that in the original plans for WMIV he was going to go the finals and lose to Dibiase. That one's been debunked over the years, but he was pushed hard enough that I could actually buy it. That's how much he meant in 1988 and he never regained it after his early career injuries. The second WWF run was a joke and the less said the better. He was a mid-card heel programmed in go-nowhere feuds. He probably could have meant something had he been programmed right away in a top slot. There's no reason to think that he couldn't have been the WWF's version of Vader in 1993. He had the look and ringwork necessary to be a main event heel. WCW screwed up his return by not capitalizing on the Goldberg feud, but what else is new? He never meant much again, but I had a soft spot for the Jersey Triad. I don't know what he's up to now, but it's odd he never got another chance post-WCW. Overall, it's too bad that he never got a role commensurate with his talent. A decent career overall, but a lot of missed opportunities.

Todd Haley is taking the Chiefs job. Info can be found at any of the major sports sites.

Mo Williams got snubbed again. It's not that Ray Allen isn't deserving, but Williams, as a PG from a top-tier team, was such an obvious replacement for Jameer Nelson. It's quite odd that Cleveland is only sending one All-Star this year. Good point. I think the Lakers are still the best in the West, but it's going to be tough to get past San Antonio. The Lakers might not have won that series last year with a healthy Ginobli and SA has only gotten better this season. Regardless, the finals in both conferences are going to be epic this year.

Two nice performances by the Lakers against the the Celtics, but they were still regular season games; they don't mean that much. In a seven game series, I'd still take Boston or Cleveland over LA, but it's still very early to be making these sort of prognostications.

Can a mod just close this? I think everyone made their point.

They were waiting for their contracts to expire. Hogan, Hall, Nash, Goldberg, Sting, Flair, etc. were all on huge deals with massive guarantees. I think we talking million dollar range on a lot of those guys. The WWF waited until the contracts expired or they accepted buyouts from Time Warner before bringing them in. That would have been a lot of extra dough to fork over for a wrestling angle that was already doing big business.

Week 4 updates Congrats to Still Fly who has pulled way ahead in both total pounds and loss %. That's quite the impressive weight loss for four weeks. KOAB gets this week's award for most erratic weight. He's had a 24-pound swing from peak to trough. That's insane. Overall, it appears that the Super Bowl was a rough go for this week. Also, if I don't get updates from Kinetic, Pbone or Cyber Mark by next week, I'm dropping them.

I've been known to hang with both crews. They say it's because I swing a mean sack of doorknobs.

Just about every argument for bringing those guys in has started with the caveat "if booked properly." I think we all know that's a pipe dream. That was Steph's first year in charge and creative was just awful. They fucked up everything they touched for years. The original invasion could have worked too if booked properly. It's all about selling a storyline. Hall and Nash couldn't draw flies to shit in WWF, but they were the biggest stars in the world when they jumped to WCW because of how they were booked. The Invasion was a failure because of politics and total ineptitude in the front office, not because it was Booker instead of Hogan.

Jeter can also hang at SS even if he's terrible defensively. Nomar can't play short, or any other position on the diamond at this point in his career. That significantly drops his value even if he was healthy enough to get 400 at bats. The bat isn't good enough to carry him at DH, so where exactly does he fit in?

WWE really hadn't run a friend turns on Hogan angle since Savage in '89, had they? Besides, when Bruno was champion they did it all the time and hardly ever faced a backlash. When did they do the Fred Ottman turn? Wasn't that in late 1990 or early 1991? Not sure if that counts as a Hogan turn or not. Regardless, copying the Savage angle just two years later with Warrior in his place seems a little lazy. It might have worked, but I don't see it being a match that could draw 100,000. Not in 1991 after the Golden Era had basically ended.

I don't think so. The most likely scenario is Warrior turning heel and the whole "friend turns on Hogan" schtick was really overplayed at that point. Going face/face again would have been equally challenging, especially when the entire crowd knew that Hogan was getting the belt back. I guess maybe it could have worked with proper booking, and it was probably the plan in the spring of '90, but there were viable reasons why that wasn't on the table by the time Mania VII came around. Doesn't mean that what they ended up with was better, though. In hindsight, everything looks better than what we got.

Isn't that exactly what happened? Bischoff tried to negotiate a sale at $600 million one year prior; Vince bought it for $2.5 million.

You can get whatever you want in the omelet. I don't even remember what I had in mine. The throwing up was about 50% from the egg and 50% due to the copious amounts of alcohol I had before hand.

Didn't the Invasion PPV do like 750,000 buys? That's really good for a PPV built around DDP and Booker T. as invaders. How many more buys could they have realistically gotten by bringing in the big guns? Those were the days when hitting a million buys would have been the absolute max. Given the contracts that Hogan, Hall, Nash, Flair and Goldberg were on, I just don't think it would have been feasible to bring them in. You are talking upwards of maybe $10 million in contracts for what? 250,000 buys? That doesn't pencil out. The argument is that the Invasion would have had more legs with WCW stars. I don't buy it. Booking killed the invasion storyline more than anything, and I don't see that being any different with a bunch of primadonnas backstage. You have to remember that the biggest selling point was essentially seeing WCW stars fight the WWF. That novelty wears off once you see these guys on television week after week. Eventually they brought in those guys and they usually popped one big buyrate before fading back into the pack. I can't see that being different if you brought them all in at once. You have to consider the law of diminishing marginal returns when talking about the invasion. Each additional star added would have brought just a few more extra buys. I just don't see it as a financially feasible, even though it's what I (and most of you) really wanted to see.

Oops, my bad. I'll go back and fix.

I miss the old days of videos on MTV and VH1, but you can't fault their business model. Those trashy reality shows do monster ratings and on the whole, it has made both stations far more profitable and popular. As a supporter of good taste, I'd like to see the music back, but even I know that it wasn't a "bad" move for them. The problem is VH1 and MTV kept the original names of the stations when they got away from showing music. Had they used entirely different names for their channels I think they'd avoid a lot of this backlash.

Excellent point, Bob. All my life I've heard how overrated Ryan was because of the Ks and no-hitters but lackluster numbers otherwise. Those people do have a point, but he was still an above-average pitcher for more than 20 years with the occasional lights-out performance. Al hit it on the head: good pitcher with HOF credentials, but not one of the all-time greats. Jeter over A-Rod would be a laughable choice. The only thing that Jeter is better at is banging models. Important, yes, but not enough to outweigh the on-the-field stuff.

This is the best draft ever!

I was 191 last night. That's a four pound gain from last week, but that was artificially low due to a stomach virus that sapped me of all my fluids. Overall, a total of four pounds lost in four weeks is about where I want to be. I'll update the excel chart and get it posted this evening. I was thinking we'd go one more month. That would be 8 weeks total. Does that sound reasonable to everyone?