Cheech Tremendous

Wrestling fans might not be the sharpest knives in the drawer, but I think they can figure out where Smackdown is if it's not on CW one Friday night. In my market it's channel 13 and CW is 12. Is moving up the dial one channel going to really cause them to lose 75% of their audience? I can't believe I'm even dignifying this notion with a response.

I'm willing to give it a try Kamala. Feel free to start the thread yourself and explain what you hope to get out of it. I'd love to see what you have in mind. Seems like an interesting venture.

So I guess no one has *anything* to say about Carlito? I guess this disproves KKC's theory that things that suck are more fun and interesting to discuss than things that are good.

I get to watch Manny Ramirez 162 times a year. I know what bad left field defense looks like. Which sort of brings me back to my original point. Is the defensive downgrade from Dunn to a pitcher so sever that you couldn't try it once in a while to take the platoon advantage?

It's left field. You don't have to be that competent to stand out there and catch the ball. Probably not a good idea to do it all the time, but I hardly think that the defensive downgrade from the standard LF to a pitcher is that big of a deal.

MyNetwork TV is in just as many homes as their current network. Why would they lose 75% of their audience? That's preposterous.

Here's the thing. We'd love to have someone type up Observer notes, but the fact still remains that it is premium content (and it costs a considerable amount of money). It's kind of a lot to ask other posters to not only pay for the product, but spend their free time transcribing it for dozens of others who didn't pay anything. I've asked a couple of people. We'll see what happens.

I remember reading about that in The Book and the authors saying that no one had really tried it in the majors. Interesting.

New one -

Correct. And he's not a mod. Oh wait scratch that.

Yes, this another one of those thread ideas that we are throwing out there in an effort to improve discussion in the folder. The idea behind this thread is to analyze and a discuss an active member of the WWE roster. Now, for this week's victim. Carlito Name: Carlito Height: 5'10" Weight: 220 Age: 29 WWE Debut: 2004 Accomplishments : WWE I-C champ, WWE U.S. Champ Background: This former star of Puerto Rico debuted in 2004, winning the US title from John Cena in his first televised bout. He has bounced around the fed since then, with stints on both Raw and Smackdown. He was pushed to near main event status in early 2006, but was on the chopping block by late 2007. Carlito's position in the company appears to be safe at the moment due to his crossover appeal. However, his work ethic and attitude will probably prevent him from ever fulfilling his once promising future. Discuss the contributions of Carlito to the WWE roster during his four year stint. How do view him as a worker? As a potential draw? What is your favorite Carlito match? What is Carlito's future upside and what will he contribute to the company in the next year?

If Batista/Shawn is a one or two month post-Mania feud to keep two main eventers busy, then no, there is no need for Flair. However, if you go down the path of a blood feud between the two, with one guy eventually going heel, it necessitates the involvement of the man responsible for it all. I envision a several month feud between the two that eventually evolves to the point where one of the guys gets out of hand... takes things too far. Logically, Flair has to show up. He can't sit idly by while two of his best friends fight over him. Then you do the Batista turn or what have you. We know WWE and how they do things, but I think they have six months worth of material here if they work it right. They could even logically transition the thing to HHH/Batista and have next year's Mania main event in the bag.

Good call, Dandy, but could you be a little more specific?

This make sense, and you don't have to use Flair getting crushed by Batista to make it effective. Use it as a "piggyback" to start a feud, than turn it in to something personal between Batista and Michaels. But you kind of do have to bring Flair in. Batista and Shawn are going to feud because Batista wants to stand up for Flair and punish Shawn for retiring his friend and mentor. If Batista takes things too far, it is logical that Flair will have to do or say something down the road. That's the logical conclusion. In storyline terms, Flair has already forgiven Shawn for defeating him, but Batista hasn't. There's conflict there and that's what's going to sell this feud should they see it as something long-term.

That's a fantastic way of describing it. Out of everything that's going on in the company right now, I'm most interested in what they do with Shawn and Batista. I don't care if they're both main eventers or on different shows or this other nonsense that is being used to downplay a potential feud. I want to see what happens because we need a logical conclusion to what was started in the Flair storyline. Shawn retired Batista's friend and mentor and Batista is pissed about it. The question of what he will do next makes for compelling television. This is simple booking, and it's a storyline that should engage people. Or at least that's my feeling.

So we are roughly one week into this new ownership. I hope that Dandy and I have made some positive changes to the folder. We are aware that this is a work in progress and I assure that we'll keep plugging away. We've noticed that the folder is usually busy on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays (and sometimes Sunday with PPV) for the tv show threads. We're trying to add some new mid-week discussion topics that posters can look forward to. TSM Town Hall, for the time being, is going to be new every Wednesday. However, we still need ideas for Thursday and the weekends. Our first idea is WWE Profile, which will examine a new wrestler each week and give us a chance to reflect on their past contributions and speculate on how they should be used for the future. Does that sound like something you'd want to see? Please send any other ideas that you might have. We really want your feedback on how to continually improve the folder.

So what do we make of this LA Times article that says that Favre's agent was quietly poking his head around the league to see if any teams were interested in trading for Favre? The agent denied the story but the writer is standing by his sources. Apparently Brett hasn't filed his retirement papers yet, but this just a non-story, right?

In what way does Batista attacking Flair tarnish the retirement storyline in any way? I'm not advocating that Flair return to the ring or become an active part of the feud, but a program between Batista and Shawn that is built on Flair would probably require his interaction at some point later on down the road. If Flair pops in six months from now and Batista beats him down, that doesn't hurt what they did on Monday for Ric at all. It would actually make him more sympathetic. Batista would just look like a massive dick by beating up a retired legend coming there to talk some sense to him.

I don't see the issue in having Flair be a part of future storylines or even having phsycial encounters. Was it wrong to have Orton punk out Harley Race? What about Edge beating up Michael Hayes? As far as I know, Flair's still under contract and it doesn't hurt anyone to have him around to help sell the product. It's not like he has to get in the ring to sell a storyline split from Batista.

They could probably work this storyline for 3-6 months without ever having to bring Flair back in the mix. Batista goes after Shawn for retiring his mentor. They do the face/face respect thing for a while until ultimately Batista loses his cool and goes heel on Shawn. Flair comes back to try to talk sense into Batista, Batista lays him out and bam, mega heel.

Here's an interesting note that sort of went under the radar yesterday. Kevin Youkilis set the major league record for consecutive games without an error by a 1B. The streak is 194 games and counting.

Courtesy wwe.com

Here ya go...

I haven't been here because no one is guessing. And Treble is correct. The last mystery poster was AnnieEclectic. Also, since becoming a moderator I started receiving so many PMs that it's hard to find the ones about Guess the Poster.

It hasn't happened yet, and I have no intention of letting it happen. I've already deleted one Enigma thread and I have no qualms about doing it again.