strummer

Well, it was only against the Mariners (repeats that in head 500 times to somehow ease the pain) Oh yeah, Aaron Heilman still sucks

Um, minor point, why was Trish in her underwear? Not that I'm complaining or anything as she looked UBER hot. That is supposed to get her over a heel? I think the entire male audience had a collective orgasm, that was the best I have ever seen her look. But again, what about that angle called for her to be in her underwear? LOL It was so random and was blatant T and A for the sake of T and A.

Here is the complete recap of the conference call from Buck Woodward of PWInsider: "WWE held a conference call today to discuss the company's financial figures for the first quarter of the year, which were released this morning. You can see the financial figures by clicking here. It was pointed out that there were four PPV events in this quarter, as opposed to only two PPV events in this quarter for last year, due to the way the events fell on the calendar. In a prepared statement, WWE Chief Executive Officer Linda McMahon put over the value of the tape library WWE possesses, mentioning the success of the Chris Benoit DVD set, and stated that WWE expects the Eddie Guerrero and "Rise And Fall Of ECW" DVD to do well for the company. She later put over the success of Ric Flair's DVD release and book. Linda's statement also mentioned WWE 24/7, and that the company expects a big demand for "classic" merchandise and releases. Linda stated that WWE Films will have a combined budget of $20 million dollars for their first two feature projects. The "Taboo Tuesday" PPV in October will be an "interactive" event, with fans being able to vote on "events" that will take place during the show, via WWE.com. Following a review of the figures, there was a brief Question & Answer session with WWE Chief Executive Officer Linda McMahon, WWE Chief Financial Officer Phil Livingston, and WWE Vice President of Investor Relations Michelle Goldstein. Here are highlights from the Q&A: - Linda talked about how their acquisition of tape libraries allows them to put out DVD releases on wrestlers like Chris Benoit and include footage from throughout their career, something no other group was ever able to do before. She also talked about the success of "classic" action figures and toys, and how they are looking to create more DVDs that take advantage of the tape library. - There is nothing specific planned for The Rock, although he will continue to make "occasional appearances" on the shows, but he is not returning to the active roster at this time. - There are plans to do more overseas TV productions (like the upcoming UK tour which will culminate in Raw and Smackdown tapings) in the future. - Linda said the release for "The Rise And Fall Of ECW" DVD is now set for November. - McMahon said that the live events are "dragging a bit" domestically, but that they are still profitable for the company. - The video-on-demand that WWE has introduced online is just a "soft launch" test for future ideas. There are also plans for an online "fantasy" game for WWE. - WWE is still in negotiations with Spike TV for when their contract expires. The conference call only lasted thirty minutes, with the Q&A only lasting ten minutes or so. Shockingly, there were no questions about the recent television ratings, future plans for talent (outside of the Rock), the increased Pay-per-view schedule for next year, or any other product related questions."

A rare full schedule of games on a Monday. The Mets and Expos play home games tonight despite both being on the West Coast on Sunday. That almost never happens, the East coast teams almost always seem to get an off day in between. Aaron Heilman makes his first start of the year tonight for the Mets after his horrific rookie season last year. I think the Phils are going to be pumped up to face the Astros tonight after what Houston did to them last week. Lidle/Clemens tonight.

Siena College, Loudonville, New York. I can't believe there have been 3 major league players that went to Siena! We're a basketball school. (and we have never had an NBA player) Tim Christman Billy Harrell Gary Holle

Dramatic game (although featuring sloppy defense and horrid relief pitching) in SF today as the Mets win 11-9. Dustin Mohr drops a pop up by Todd Zeile in the 12th when he loses it in the sun, giving the Mets 2 gift runs. Mets blew 3 separate leads in the game, including one in the 8th and one in the 10th. I'll say this, for pretty much his entire career, the Mets have handled Barry Bonds pretty well (especially at Shea), well that is over now as he has reached base 9 out of 10 times in the series, including going 4-4 today. If the Mets were actually in a pennant race, this would have been one of the games of the year, but it really only affects the Giants. I don't expect a carry over, as Matt Ginter pitches tomorrow and will no doubt be slaughtered by the Giants potent lineup.

Great game for Lowry, as the Mets continue their winless streak against teams above .500. Ray Durham busts out of his huge slump and kills the Mets tonight. Odd stat, the Mets have not won a regular season night game in SF since 1999. Looks like an easy sweep for SF as they get to face Matt Ginter on Sunday and with Glavine pitching tomorrow, the Mets are a lock to be shut out. Edit: The Mets have not beaten a team currently over .500 since July 4th (against the Yankees)

If someone would have told me in 1999 that there would be a pro-Big Show thread on a wrestling message board, there would have been no way I would believe it. For those not around on the net in 99-2000, he probably was the most hated wrestler in WWE by Smarks. After reading Herb Kunze's weekly "Tidbits" I would actually feel sorry for Show, as Herb would slaughter the poor guy. He has improved and can have good matches with the right people, but as people have been saying, they have to make his matches a big deal.

So now Angle, Luger, HHH, and Jericho are on Steamboat's level? And Steamboat didn't have a HOF career? Wrestling style - Steamboat leagues ahead of Angle. Great matches - Steamboat > Angle x10 Add business to a company... - I would actually say that both did, but moreso Steamboat's program with Flair in 89 than anything Angle did. Anyway, I just don't think that's a good comparison at all. The Flair/Steamboat 89 program did not draw at all. They did better business in their program 10 years earlier.

VELOCITY (1) Heidenreich beat Funaki.: Heidenreich looked sloppy. Funaki got a surprisingly decent pop but Heidenreich wouldn't sell for him. Heidenreich ended it at about the 3 minute mark with a sidewalk slam (2) Booker T beat Shannon Moore. Big pop for Booker T in this match. Booker opened with a variety of kicks. Moore took control and tried to end it with a twist of fate, which he of course missed. Booker ended it with a bookend at about the 4 minute mark. (3) Mark Jindrak beat Mabel Starr (sp?) There was very little reaction to this match. Both had little offensive moves beyond your standard punches and kicks. Jindrak thankfully ended the pain with a decent looking back suplex which he turned into a sidewalk slam (4) Charlee Haas beat Akio Both received a decent pop. Akio was surprisingly sloppy looking throughout. He worked Haas leg and eventually took Haas down with a good looking missile drop kick from the top rope. Haas kicked out and won the match with a turn around cross body off of the top rope. (5) Billy "Ass Man" Gunn beat Doug Basham (w/Danny Basham). Gunn didn't get the pop he seems to get in some house shows. Gunn goes on the offensive leading to the proverbial Basham switch. The biggest pop for the Velocity show came with a head on collision which of course led to the dramatic 8 count. Gunn finished off with A.J. Styles's "Styles Clash" after a second attempt at a switch between the twins. SMACKDOWN Tazz got a nice pop, but I expected much more. Opening Segment: JBL came out (after about four minutes of music) in one of the best visuals for TV. He was wearing a massive neck brace with his 10 gallon hat perched about 1 foot off of his head. It took him and Orlando 5 minutes to get to the ring. He had a decent interview where he addressed not pinning the Undertaker much to his dismay but that was all the Dead Man's fault. He accused the Undertaker of not passing the torch and said, "the Undertaker is very mean." One of the best lines came when he not only complained about being slammed into the car and the pain, but of the heat of the hood which burned him. He said the Undertaker would never get a rematch. Along the way he slammed Canada for not going to Iraq and got his cheap heat. Of course the led to the Undertaker coming out to the biggest pop of the night. JBL comically escaped with help from Jordan, but Orlando returned to help his boss. One punch and a choke slam later, the Undertaker was left with the belt in the ring. This ? hour segment (I kid you not and pray it will be edited by at least 1/2 ) was over. IT was funny, but way too long. (1) Spike Dudley beat Scotty 2 Hotty to retain the Cruiserweight Title. Spike was quickly thrown over the top to the floor. Scotty quickly went for the worm but was stopped by Bubba. After some offense from Spike he then went up top for the double stomp but missed it. After some distraction and a quick counter by Spike he finished it with his top rope bulldog. The triple team then ensued ending with Spike nailing Scotty in the head with the belt. Raw Recap John Cena Interview: This was to hype next week's second match between him and Booker T. Spike got involved and said that Cena had no gold to back his words. Spike then landed a low blow, which then led to a beatdown by all three Dudley's and Spike saying, "Can you see me now?" (2) Chavo Guerrero Jr. & Jamie Noble beat Billy Kidman & Paul London in a non title match. The match started quickly with London and Noble putting a display of nice technical wrestling and counter wrestling. London then took it to both men before Chavo took control. Chavo missed a weak looking springing leg drop. Kidman finally gets in the match to a nice pop and quickly pulled off an amazing looking fireman's carry into a neckbreaker on Noble. Kidman goes up looking for the Shooting Star but is knocked out of the ring. Chavo then scores the pin after reversing a pinfall attempt by London and by holding the ropes. A very good eight minute match, but the crowd was pretty quiet for this match. Teddy long announces that Cena will fight D-Von later on. Torrie, Jackie and Norma Lee come out and shoot t-shirts in a segment that seemed to be taped. It was a complete waste of time but it resulted in the 2nd biggest pop of the night thus far (hence why we have a diva search... sigh) Interview Segment Two: Eddie Guerrero Comes to the ring to a massive pop. He calls out Angle who get the "You Suck" chants. He challenges Angle to a match tonight but Kurt refused saying why when he beat Eddie at SummerSlam. Eddie agrees that he was outwrestled for the first time he can remember, but reminds Kurt he holds a pinfall on him from WMXX. He says he respects Kurt and says that they are the only two that love the business. He wants to shake Kurt's hand but Kurt says you can't trust a cheat and liar. After about a 5 minute delay Angle agrees, and of course Eddie attacks him, leading to Luther storming the ring. Before the two can take on Eddie, Rey Mysterio comes to the ring and cleans house. Again, this was entertaining, but 1 and ? hours in, and we have 2 matches. (3) John Cena beat D-Von with Booker calling the match at ringside. Cena comes out to a big pop. The match opens in typical brawling style. D-Von gains control but can't string more than 2 moves together without Cena taking back control. About 5 minutes in the match is over with an FU from Cena, which led to a stare down with Booker. A short and disappointing match. (4) Rob Van Dam beat Renee Dupree. This was probably the best match of the night. Both start off with pinning moves back and forth, which ends with a good ovation. Renee took control and worked on submission (rest) holds. RVD counters with a heel kick and a superkick which led to a running moonsault. The best move of the night came with a beautiful German suplex by RVD on Renee which he held for a two count. It looked a lot more high impact than Angle's version. RVD then went for the rolling thunder but Dupree got his legs up. After some brief offense by Dupree Rob went to the top but was caught by Dupree in a big superplex. Dupee then did his dance, which allowed RVD to recover and end the match with the Five Star Frog Splash. After the match RVD was attacked by Suzuki who came out with a female manager. After some brawling moves Suzuki (at least who I think he is) put a claw on RVD and then through him backwards into the mat to KO him. A very entertaining ten minute match and a nice twist at the end. Teddy Long Makes a "Major Announcement." Teddy comes to the ring and shows a promo of a superstar he has resigned. Of course it is the Big Show. We see a video of some of the Big Shows moments from years past. He also announces the 2nd match between Booker and Cena for next week and that Heidenreich will get his tryout next week. (5) Eddie Guerrero & Rey Mysterio beat Kurt Angle & Luther. Surprisingly, this match didn't get the response that it should have. It was a good match, but by no means a classic, or up to the standards of either Eddie or Angle. The match begins with Luther beating down on Eddie. Eddie regained control and brought in Rey. Eddie does a nice spot where he picks up his partner in what appears to be an atomic drop and throws him into Luther so that Mysterio hit a drop kick. Luther quickly regains control of the smaller Rey and Luther got out of the ring (thank God as he is a horrible looking worker). Angle gets some brief offense in before Rey took control with a head scissors. Eddie is tagged in and quickly begins to pummel Kurt. Eddie went for his 3 suplex combo but is denied the third by Luther. Luther comes in, does some kicks and leaves us again. Angle then begins to go after Eddie's leg. Luther will do the same, with Eddie selling the leg lock as though he was shot. This goes on for about 5 minutes until Angle decides to show us a different move with the overhead belly to belly suplex. Angle and Eddie eventually collide heads, which will allow Rey into the match. Rey hit 3 very nice flying moves (head scissors, flying sitdown etc.) before the ref is taken out by Luther accidentally. Rey then hit a 619 on Angle, who was outside of the ring. Rey flew around the post to hit this impressive looking move. Rey sets Luther up for the regular 619 but as he spins Angle plastered him with a steel chair. Eddie finds a chair and chases out Angle to the back. Luther goes for the powerbomb (once he figured out where the camera was) but Eddie returns in time to hit the low blow. Eddie is tagged in and hits his 3 suplexes. Rey then hits the 619 allowing Eddie to hit the frog splash (once Luther moved 2-3 times to get into position) for the pin. After the match Kurt returns out and has a bucket of paint, which he pours on Eddie's car, much to the dismay of Eddie. This is where the taping will end. After the show, we got ten minutes of Eddie looking upset and a bizarre bit where Eddie and Rey spread paint across each other's chests. Both leave and so do the few remaining fans. Credit: The Torch

I heard that interview on M + MD, and the author did not come off well. He kept saying the playoffs allow for random occurences and you can't control or predict them. Francessa said that you can control them, if you have a dominant bullpen like the Yankees do. Francessa's basic answer to Moneyball is Marianno Rivera. The A's never win in the playoffs because their bullpen has always performed poorly,basically they don't have a Rivera. I agree with most of the Moneyball philosophy, but the author did not have a response to that, he said "Yes, Rivera is a great relief pitcher". He did not come off well in defending the A's lack of post season success.

It's going to be a weird situation with HHH. HHH was on top in 2000 and the WWF drew HUGE MONEY then. I think it was Meltzer or Keller that said in 2000, HHH made more money (for this one year) than Hall, Nash, and Shawn combined . But it was only one year. Does that get him in the HOF? One UNBELIEVABLE year and a couple subpar ones. He just missed out this year, so it will be interesting down the line.

With that aside, people wouldn't take Meltzer seriously at all if those names weren't in. Not that they do in the first place.....but there are people that would affect. Thus the reason why he wouldn't do it. Kido, true, but I almost thought that Dave was trying to run a campaign to keep Backlund OUT. Meltzer has personally attacked Bob, basically calling him an illiterate bumpkin. IMO, he has tried to humiliate Backlund, by constantly mentioning that Bob couldn't read or write unil he was over 40 yrs. old. I don't know what Backlund did to Dave, but Meltzer seems to have something personal against him. It's one thing to call a guy an overrated worker, but to basically call him a moron over and over again, for years on end, is a bit far. If the voters only voted the way Dave wanted, Backlund would have never got in. So maybe they voted Angle in because they thought he was great for a short period of time, like Sandy Koufax in baseball

As far as people getting voted in because Meltzer loves them, there are a lot of people on that list that Meltzer HATES, such as Hogan, Dusty Rhodes, Undertaker and to a lesser extent Vince Jr. And Dave HATES Backlund with a passion, probably more than any other wrestler (with the possible exception of Hogan) There is no way Dave would want Backlund in the Hall, but he got in.

From the Observer Spoiler report: "It was announced that Tough Enough will return this fall on Smackdown with the winner getting $1,000,000." $1,000,000!!! Jesus Christ, that is what the top guys make. We joke about the Diva search,but this has to KILL morale. I can't believe they are giving that big of a contract. This pisses me off more than the damn Diva thing.

Elbow inflammation for Zambrano. He had this injury in Tampa before the Mets traded for him. Well, look at the bright side, we have... uh Matt Ginter

Well the Mets are in SF this weekend, hopefully they can help the Cubs out. Emphasis on the word hopefully. The Mets have beat the Giants eight straight times, I think SF is due. And the Mets will have to face Schmidt, so it doesn't look that promising.

If the Giants hold on to win tonight (up 5-4 in the 7th), they will take over the wild card lead in the NL. I can't stand the Giants, take Schmidt and Bonds off that team and they win 65 games. They are a 2 man team. Hopefully the Cubs can get their act together and take the wild card spot.

Dream a Little Dream is really not that bad of a movie. I loved that movie as a kid. I can't imagine Jason Robards agreeing to do a Corey Feldman movie, but he did, oh and let's not forget Harry Dean Stanton!!

They did not get dominant reigns like Hogan, HHH, or Yokozuna did. Bret did a humiliating job to a green Yokozuna in 93 and was shifted right back to the midcard for a year. Vince did not have faith in Bret because of his size. Even when Vince said "I'm sorrry" to Bret at WM 10 with the world title victory, he still was portrayed as a vulnerable champion. And guess what, Bret did another humiliating job to Bob Backland in 94 (a guy Nash beat in 10 seconds that Bret couldn't beat in 35 minutes) and... was shifted right back to the midcard for a year. Bret and Shawn were constantly portrayed as underdogs and had to bump around like pinballs for the big guys like Yoko, Nash, Sid, Undertaker, Vader. Even in Shawn's 96 run as champ, they played it off as he "survived" his matches more than he "won them convincingly". Compare those to HHH's and Hogans' run on top with clean victory after clean victory and no trips down to the midcard.

Going on what Zsasz just said, deep down Vince is just not a big fan of Jericho. Vince would never push someone with Jericho's look as a dominant champion, NEVER in a million years. Jericho is not Vince's ideal wrestler, he doesn't have huge muscles, isn't really tall and doesn't do impressive "power moves" and yell and grunt in the ring. It comes down to this, if Jericho looked like Batista, he would have been booked better, all HHH politics aside. Vince will never give a smaller wrestler a proper run on top, he thinks the fans wouldn't buy it and no one could convince him otherwise

Mike DeJean with the Orioles: 6.13 ERA 1.94 WHIP 8.17K/9 Mike DeJean with Mets: 1.59 ERA 1.24 WHIP 11K/9 Should take DeJean off that list and put on Stanton, and David Weathers for that matter!

As a Mets fan, there has been no worse relief pitcher this year than Mike Stanton. Period. Stanton makes Farnsworth look like Bruce Sutter circa 1978.

That is not necessarily true. Rock/Hogan from WM 18 was not a great match, but the crowd cheered big time for it. Same for Hogan/Andre, etc. Good matches don't always have great reactions and bad matches don't always have bad reactions.

I really liked Angle/Eddy and I'm suprised to see that many on the net were disappointed with it. It was different from any WWE match in a long long time. It wasn't just about throwing a million suplexes and doing a ton of false finishes. From the get go, both guys went for the kill, they used their finishers AND the other man's finishers and did desperate counters to try and survive, like the raking the face and the knee to the groin to get out of the ankle lock. The match showed that the two were so familar with each other that they had to go for suprises and desperate, yet well calculated moves to win. It played of the WM match with the loose boot and it showed Angle needed to be smarter to win this time, as he couldn't let Eddy Cheat to win (at least that is how a took the loose boot deal). Angle's selling of his ankle was good, for awhile, and then he sort of forgot it near the end of the match. This match told a very unique story, one that hasn't been seen in the WWE in a long, long time, if ever. I think it was better than their WM match.