strummer

Just re-watched the 2nd disc of the Flair DVD (Steamboat and Funk programs) and noticed something about Steamboat. When Steamboat is introduced as Eddie Gilbert's mystery partner, Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone practically have an orgasm. Ross and Schiavone put Ricky over HUGE. Flair and Windham act petrified of him and JJ Dillon was going crazy on the outside. At one point, the announcer's call him a "God of wrestling". Ricky pins Flair clean and the announcers act like it was just a mere formality. It was funny to me to see this because of how Ricky was treated in the WWF from 85-88. In the WWF, he was treated as just another wrestler, albeit a talented and popular one, but not a huge star. I could never imagine Gorilla Monsoon or Vince screaming like that when Steamboat came out to wrestle. Ricky was put over more in 10 minutes in the NWA than he was in nearly 4 years with the WWF. If I would have saw this when I was a 10 year old mark, I would have been like "Why are they going crazy over Steamboat, he just lost to Kamala in the WWF, he doesn't have a chance against Flair" Just wanted to point out that this was one of the greatest debuts (or returns) of a wrestler I have ever seen, Steamboat was put over as a deity, and was practically a top guy from the start. To bad Steamboat did not draw well, but it wasn't the fault of the announcers or the wrestlers, as they put him over as an uber wrestling machine. This is how you introduce a guy.

They showed a stat tonight on YES, something around 45% of the Cubs runs this year have come off the home run ball, tops in the majors. That is really an unbelievable stat.

so Heyman is added back to the SD creative team and now he is feuding with Michael Cole?

Smackdown Non Title JBL v Charlie Haas WWE Tag Team Title Match London and Kidman v Kenzo Suzuki and Renee Dupree Rey Mysterio, Harcore Holly, and RVD v The Dudleys Paul Heyman v Funaki Lumberjack Match. Eddy Guerrero v Kurt Angle

Trish is one of the best on Raw in delivering Gewirtz's corny, sexual innuendo laced lines. So is Christian, Jericho and Edge used to be. Obviously Gewirtz loves Trish as she has been getting a ton of backstage vignettes lately.

NY Giants: Probably going to be a real long season. 6-10 is the best I can see them being. Strengths: Carlos Emmons and Barret Green are actually linebackers that have speed, which quite frankly the Giants have never really had. Hopefully, the middle of the field will be defended better, as the Giants have been atrocious in recent years in defending the middle of the field. Still have talented skill position players. Hilliard had a rough year last season, averaging barely over 10 yards a catch. He needs to rebound. Tim Carter could help the team as a speed receiver, if he could actually hold on to the ball. Hopefully Toomer is his usual self, no one has got more receptions over 40 yards the last couple of years than Amani Toomer. Dayne could get some playing time to change the pace and hopefully Barber can hold on to the ball. If Shockey remains healthy, they could do some damage offensively Fassell is gone. No more blatant favoritism by the Fass. Coughlin could add maybe 1 or 2 wins on to this team that they wouldn't have gotten with fassel. Weaknesses Offensive line: Worst in the league, can't pass block at all, which is scary with Warner back there. Won't be able to use their weapons if the QB isn't protected. Secondary: Shaun Williams and Omar Stoudmeire are painfully average safeties. Peterson/Allen are overrated and overpaid Defensive Line should be much worse, they have 2 run stopping only players with Hand and Robbins, so pressure must come from Strahan and Umeiyura or it won't come at all. Tim Lewis at Defensive Coord. The Steelers have been pathetic in pass defense the past couple of years under Lewis. The secondary got lit up in the preseason Kevin Gilbride as QB coach/ offensive consultant. Has ruined more careers than astro turf. Special teams still shaky. Terrible kickoff coverage and no return game at all Still turn over the ball way too much. Worst turnover ratio in the league last year. Turn the ball over way too much and cause no turnovers at all defensively. The Giants organization has basically come out and said they think they will be a bad team this year and are looking towards the future with Manning. Looks like a lost season. 6 wins is the absolute most

they first used the Events Center on WWF TV the weekend after WrestleMania 4 in 1988. Gene Okerlund hosted these for about 2 months, and the Sean Mooney took over and did them until 93 (not sure if anyone did them after this) Heenan left the WWF in December 93, I believe the actual reason was he wanted to spend more time or be close with his daughter or something. Not sure about Gene Okerlund, but the last time I saw him was SummerSlam 93 Craig DeGeorge did the Event Center in 1987 for a while. Craig disappeared around the time of WM 4 (he did the build up for it on the Event Center), I have no idea why he was fired. I believe Mooney debuted at WM 4 or shortly afterwards, and eventually did the event center for the next 4/5 years. that wasn't the Events Center, you are either referring to the "Update" and "Special Report" segments or the backstage interviews with wrestlers (which is what the Events Center replaced) You're right. I think the segment I was referring to was "WWF Spotlight". Event Center was when they hyped House Shows with generic promos from the wrestlers. I swear to God Warlord got more time in this segment than he did on regular TV

While watching Raw tonight, it entered my mind that Benoit seems more over after he lost the belt than when he had the title. He got a huge pop tonight, and the crowd was with him all the way. The Raw after SS he was also way over.

I feel bad for a national audience to have to listen to the idiotic Dave O'Brien. He does the Met games for WPIX. He knows NOTHING about baseball

4-2 Red Sox, Zito finally taken out

Red Sox take the lead 3-2.

A politics-free Cornette is godly... OVW has been the best wrestling show on TV for the last couple years. He also got more out of the OVW guys on the WWE roster than WWE has, by far, since he knows how to mask weaknesses. Agreed. Cornette combined his old-school mentality with long-term booking and booking AROUND the weaknesses of his talent to put together a show which, for the most part, is top notch. Batista isn't very good in the ring? Have him mainly wrestle squashes against two cruisers and/or do run-ins. Horshu sucks in the ring? Make him Johnny Ace's spokesperson in OVW and have him cut promos to the effect of "Anyone who goes against me will NEVER make it in the WWE". Brock Lesnar has no charisma and Sheldon Benjamin looks too skinny to be taken seriously? Make them a tag team so that they cover each other's weaknesses. In all fairness, in his first few months in the company, Batista did squash cruiserweights and various midcarders all the time. He didn't get over in the slightest, I guess OVW fans and WWE fans are different. So I don't know how WWE has "exposed" Batista. He got to take out Goldberg, dominate Shawn Michaels for 10 minutes (before jobbing, but he got a lot of offense in) and was portrayed as a monster. How is that different than how Cornette booked him? And Luther is starting to talk more and more on SD. I'm sure that will only increase with his program with Eddy

When Cornette was on WOL once, he said he wrote 1 or 2 months worth of OVW TV in about an hour.

they first used the Events Center on WWF TV the weekend after WrestleMania 4 in 1988. Gene Okerlund hosted these for about 2 months, and the Sean Mooney took over and did them until 93 (not sure if anyone did them after this) Heenan left the WWF in December 93, I believe the actual reason was he wanted to spend more time or be close with his daughter or something. Not sure about Gene Okerlund, but the last time I saw him was SummerSlam 93 Craig DeGeorge did the Event Center in 1987 for a while. Craig disappeared around the time of WM 4 (he did the build up for it on the Event Center), I have no idea why he was fired. I believe Mooney debuted at WM 4 or shortly afterwards, and eventually did the event center for the next 4/5 years.

The same Heyman that pushed the Gangstas, that had men beat up women all the time, that had Stevie Richards hinting he was gay to get heel heat All the women in ECW were portrayed as goldiggers who went where the belt and money were (Francine, Missy, Electra) or sexpots (Beulah, Missy, Kimona) who deep down really just wanted to have sex with everyone (men and women). Dawn was portrayed as a typical hot looking clueless ditz. The FBI didn't play on ethnic stereotypes? (even if it was lighhearted) I don't know if you were being sarcastic, but Heyman is just like all other promoters in this regard

I'm not so sure about Cornette. The last time he was head writer/booker business was not exactly on fire. I'm sure a lot of his ideas got shot down by Vince, but what he did was not exactly world breaking in 96/97. The last show he booked, the infamous "South Africa" Raw was so bad he was fired right after and Russo was promoted to head booker. And as Cornette said in his shoot interview, Vince and him have totally different viewpoints about what wrestling is and neither are willing to give an inch. It would be the same situation as Heyman. Vince has never worked well with promoters who prefer wrestling over entertainment, Watts for a cup of coffee in 95, Cornette in 96-97, and Heyman in 2002-2003. The one positive example I can think of was George Scott in the mid 80s. I believe that Scott was responsible for the booking of the Orndorff/Hogan feud that sold out the Big Event in Toronto and drew huge money nation wide. Scott was the one who convinced Vince that all that matters is the main event and the undercard is just filler. But since then, Vince has even gone further on the entertainment side, so I doubt he would ever hire a "wrestling booker", it would probably be just more Hollywood types.

What was the story behind Owen and Bret? Eric Angle was gotten rid of while Kurt was still with the company. Vince was not high on Owen. Anyone could see this as he was basically a JTTS all of 92 and for most of 93. Owen was very prideful and wanted to have good matches and refused to work with "certain" people (ie bad workers who he would have bad matches with) I think this pissed Vince off. Furthermore, Bruce Hart was going to get the push against Bret in 93, but Bret stepped in and said Bruce sucked and made a power play for Owen. Oh and David Flair was released while Ric was still in the company.

There was an incident with NWA champion Jeff Jarrett this past Sunday 8/29 at the Nashville Airport. According to Nashville Airport's Manager of Public Affairs and Communications Kelly Watson, Jarrett was called back to his luggage by security after what was described to me as a "clear pipe" was found in his bag. Jarrett denied knowing how the pipe ended up in his luggage. The paraphernalia was confiscated. Jarrett was not detained and was allowed to continue on with his travels, which I believe was to Las Vegas for the launch of the TNA T-shirts with new licensee Liquid Blue. After the story originally broke on Trent Van Drisse's Mid-Southern Wrestling board (and was independently confirmed by PWInsider.com), we made several attempts to contact Jarrett for comment but they have gone unreturned thus far. Jarrett is scheduled to headline this Wednesday's final TNA weekly PPV, main-eventing against Jeff Hardy. From PWI, Mike Johnson

Yankees starting to rally, Lopez stays in the game Edit: Lofton swings at a 2-0 pitch and flies to shallow left

Gavin Floyd is a lock to win his first major league game. Rumor out of NY media is that Howe is definitely getting fired after the season. Thank God, I know there have been a ton of injuries, but any manager that bats Gerald Williams 6th in the order clearly has no clue.

George has his sites set on Beltran. Whatever they can may not be enough. Yeah, wouldn't want to go find some pitching since yours is so top notch and the single reason the Yanks will be getting into the playoffs. We can do both. Clement, Pavano and Beltran. Problems solved. True AS, but the Yankees have always had trouble with bringing NL pitchers to Yankee Stadium. Ed Whitson, Andy Hawkins, Terry Mulholland, Rick Rhoden, Vasquez (to an extent), Leiber (also to an extent), even Lee Smith They have had much more success staying within the AL Key, Abbot, Mussina, Clemens, Wells, Cone

As far as announcers, there is no worse homer than Skip Carey of the Braves. This guy goes out of his way to make fun of the other team's players. He never says anything remotely negative about the Braves and uses terms like "We won" We're Playing well" .His father and his son are MUCH better announcers than he is. Pete Van Wieren is tremendous IMO, calls it down the middle, praises the other team, criticizes the Braves, etc., he is the anti-Skip Carey. Michael Kay finishes a close second behind Carey, but he will occassionally praise the other team, but often makes excuses if the Yankees lose, like they had no travel day or they played an "emotional rollercoaster" the night before . As far as announcer/team feuds. Davey Johnson got Howie Rose fired from WFAN because he didn't like his criticism of the team. Rose went to cover Hockey before finally returning to the Mets in 1996 Bobby Valentine got Tim McCarver fired in 98 from WROW because McCarver did not like Bobby's "unique" managerial style. Hopefully someone can get Ted Robinson fired, but that is just my wishful thinking

-Edge will miss about six weeks of action due to a grain/abductor muscle tear. He will not need surgery. Credit: Torch I guess Christian gets Edge's spot, so disregard the blowoff to their feud in the cage 4 months ago

I don't remember that at all, can you explain the gimmick?

Something tells me the Marlins are going to make a serious run at the WC, hopefully the Cubs (when they finally play again) will cool them off.