Cheech Tremendous

As a Red Sox fan, I absolutely love this deal.

Monumentally bad trade for the Reds. If I was a fan of that team, I would be seriosuly pissed as this takes them out of the running this year and handicaps them a bit in the future as well. Has bullpen help gotten so scarce that it now takes a starting RF and SS (who are both young and relatively inexpensive) to get some arms? I've seriously underestimated Jim Bowden. Not only has he secured a great young bat for the future, he can now justify moving Alfonso Soriano if a good deal comes his way.

The very fact that Vince kept Superfly from spending his life in prison for murder should end this discussion.

With each day that passes, it looks more and more like Soriano won't be traded. He is saying that he wants to play in DC. It'll be a hard-sell for that new ownership group if they get rid of their best player just like that. If he is traded, the Yanks are a likely destination. They would probably ask for Hughes though and Cashman is not going to do that. It'll be interesting if the Tampa group backs that deal though.

This will only convince Vince to keep going in his own direction Good. Last night's show was the first entire wrestling program I've made it though in almost two years.

Two points. One, Will Carroll is not the best of sources. Second, if he was hurt, what the heck was he doing playing 19 innings? That's the problem. It's not that he missed the All-Star game due to injury. It's that the injury wasn't bad enough to keep him from any other game. From the way the Sox have been stumbling over themselves since Carroll's article, it seems like he was at least in the ballpark on his claims. Tito has made reference to Manny's knee for weeks now, so the likelihood that something is wrong is very good. You make a decent point about the All-Star game, but here's how I feel about it. He seemingly has an injury that can be played on, but each day of work makes it that much worse. Why take on the risk for the All-Star game when it could hurt your team later on in the pennant race? He's been to All-Star games before, but right now rest is what's best. It doesn't bother me, but I can see how it would for some people.

To Tim McCarver, Buster Olney, Bud Selig, Woody Paige and whoever else has been saying that Manny Ramirez should have been forced to play or have his All-Star privileges revoked, it is now being reported by Baseball Prospectus that he has a torn meniscus. For now he will try to play on it, but could miss 2-4 weeks if surgery is required.

After last night, I've totally bought into the idea of Ric Flair being the "Terry Funk" of the new ECW, the legend who can still hang with the young guys by pulling out every trick in the book. He's got the respect factor, can work an excellent hardcore match that allows him to hide his weaknesses and lends an air of credibility. I don't see any harm in booking him as a focal point of the promotion for 6-12 months.

Hey CanadianChris, just saw your quote. My jaw dropped when he wrote that today. I seriously thought it was a typo or something. He better be careful or the Sons of Sam Horn guys are going to take his posting privileges away.

Bill Plaschke should just keep his big mouth shut. Ripping the trade at the time was bad enough, but at least a good number of people had finally forgotten that he said anything. Now he's bringing it back up? I think you already touched on the main points, but how could he still be complaining about getting Brad Penny (who just started the All-Star game)? Choi sort of looks like a lost cause at this point, but the potential was there before he got jerked around (his number one PECOTA comp was David Ortiz, if I remember correctly).

Sounds like Dwayne Wade and Carmelo Anthony are taking the Lebron deal with their respective teams. Sounds like the summer after the '09-'10 season could be something to behold.

Ken Kennedy and Super Crazy had an awful match a couple weeks back. Supposedly Kennedy was burying Crazy to the entire lockerroom, blaming him for the bad match. It put a lot of heat on Kennedy because he is essentially a rookie and Crazy is a well-respected worker.

Morgan Ensberg's job security is in question? He has an OBP of .390 and is slugging .500. He is third on the team in VORP, just a fraction behind Mike Lamb. He has to be in the lineup everyday for this team.

You are not in the minority. I love those two films, and they may be my two favorites of the series. I am going to rewatch Clerks this week though.

He is batting .253/.307/.308 - that's not really major league quality, especially for a team competing for the postseason. If Florida offers anything of value, they should consider it.

I can't link to the article. Can someone summarize please? I love bashing some Plaschke.

Even though that is meant to be a joke and it sounds like a total incoherent mess, it would actually make fantatastic television. At least it's a hell of a lot more interesting than whatever we are going to get.

That's actually a reasonable quote by Stevie Richards, and I kind of sort of agree with him. Let's face the facts: ECW died 5 years ago. It can't just up and start out of nowhere and be what it once was. Vince McMahon has a vision of the way things should be. Paul has his. So does Kevin Dunn. There are a lot of people that have power in that company who are trying to make this thing work. No one wants to outright bury ECW, and it's unrealistic to think Vince would just let Heyman do his own thing with McMahon money. It's going to take time to get everyone on the same page. Will it work? Maybe. Will it be a representative of ECW should be? It's hard to tell. Tonight's show was well done. Anyone who doesn't think that the Flair-Show match would have been eaten up by an old ECW crowd is kidding themselves and you're missing the point of what ECW offered. The internet has romanticized the old ECW into a promotion full of the world's best workers and hour long Malenko-Benoit matches. The old ECW got by with WCW/WWF castoffs, former stars and eastern independent nobodies and they did it by booking to individual strengths and creating characters and angles that people could invest in. It was a product that embodied something different than the big two. Heyman would have loved the opportunity to book Flair or the Big Show. Do I love the new ECW? No, not really. Does it have potential? Sure. They have one hour of television a week to build a product from nothing. Give it six months to find a niche, establish the new stars and build its first angles and then let's see where things are.

Super Crazy... and the rest of the Smackdown lockerroom.

In my opinion, the league that has the better record in interleague should get home field advantage, but that sort of takes the fun out of All-Star game.

The Mets are being penalized because they will be the reps of a weaker league (should they make the series).

It may not be ideal, but do you have a better solution? The team with the better record gets it. Yeah but 100 wins in the NL is not the same as 100 in the AL. They aren't playing the same teams.

It may not be ideal, but do you have a better solution? Alternate every year. How is that any more fair than having the winner of the All-Star game determine it?

It may not be ideal, but do you have a better solution?

A TBS with no WCW AND no Braves! Say it ain't so.