Jingus

Dammit, stop shooting down my conjecture with your facts! Okay, POINT STILL STANDS: a 7'1" guy, with a congenital glandular disorder which raged unchecked for at least a couple decades, has a natural tendency towards being pudgy, spending his life on the road eating whatever unhealthy food that was available late at night after the shows were over, plagued with numerous injuries, maybe having used various standard wrestling drugs, too large to perform typical cardiovascular workouts, now entering into middle age. That guy is not going to be slender or svelte.

Honestly? Yeah, I think he probably would. Or would at least lose it pretty soon, and not the belt back anytime in the near future. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic about Vince's sanity on that one. But you can sure as hell bet that he wouldn't still be champion when he walked into court to face the charges and possibly be found guilty. TNA has done pretty much nothing whatsoever to even attempt any sort of damage control or to punish Angle in any way. It's basically, "Drunk driving charge? WHAT drunk driving charge?" and continuing onward with Angle being pushed as the number one star like nothing happened.

::wikipedia check:: Yeah, you're right. Weird. Why was I thinking Andre died at 36 instead? Still, the point stands, Big Show looks and moves infinitely better than Andre did at the same age.

Fair enough, since I often do that just to amuse myself. However, in this case, TNA could've easily made up some bullshit reasons to make it all work. Just say that AJ and Christian have been forced to work together, and have been explicitly ordered to play nice and cooperate or else they'll be punished or something. You could have the announcers explain it on commentary, or the wrestlers do it in a promo, or Jim Cornette makes a ruling, or whatever. Two possible excuses for that one. 1: Tomko is "his own man" and refuses to take part in the TNA stable wars. 2: Tomko still hates the Steiners from their feud a couple months back. How is that different from anything they do on Impact? Say he's fulfilling his last TNA commitment, since he was already booked on the show and Japan insisted he still had to show up. Since Daniels lost the match, they could say that he's depressed over being wished the best in his future endeavours and he's not his normal self. Anything but MORE fucking "comedic" skits. Could even the Abyss match. Since he jobbed, say he's distracted and off his game because he just found out that Paul Bearer is his father.

Sort of like the storyline where Lady Shiva told Batgirl that they would fight one year later. (With the added pressure being that Shiva was almost certainly going to kill the overmatched Batgirl.) I agree, Show did shockingly good in ECW. He had a really good match with Kane, which I thought was impossible, since the two of them have some kind of bizarre anti-chemistry where they usually end up having the absolute worst, most boring matches either guy ever has. As to the people bitching about the weight? Come on. Show has the same condition as Andre did, and is the same age now as Andre was when he died. Yet Big Show always looked much more in shape than Andre ever did. Hell, he's a 500 pound guy with an abnormal growth condition and multiple chronic injuries, who was (relatively) bumping his ass off all last year, constantly getting knocked off the apron through a table and shit like that. It's not like he can just hop on the treadmill and burn off the weight like a normal guy.

Did anyone else see this? Considering that it's only available on Dish network channel #9407, I might indeed be the only one. The show was hosted by two random guys I didn't know. Let's call them Fat Joey Styles and Some Beach Bum. They did some unfunny standup segments in between matches, and were forgettable on commentary. Lots of "WOW, he just crushed him with that big tornado ddt!" type yelling. The production values were tolerable, about the same as ROH. First match was between Ikuto Hidaka, a talented but nondescript Japanese junior I recall from a few ECW shows, and some indy guy called TJ Perkins. They did a fairly standard indy highspot match (as opposed to a "fucking insane indy highspot match on meth" like Jack Evans/Matt Sydal from the first episode of WSX). Even ended with a rollup. Nothing to complain about, nothing to care about either. Five million guys ran in at the end for a big brawl for no apparent reason, including our only glimpse of NWA world champ Adam Pearce. They kept showing the same graphic advertising local NWA shows in different places. No matter what show was being plugged, they kept the same two blurry photos down in the corner: one of a guy in goofy sunglasses, one of a ghey-looking tag team in matching pink shorts. Was not impressive. Then we had some Pro Wrestling Guerrila guys with Joey Ryan and Machine Gun vs. Zokre and Phoenix Star. This was a flag match, American vs. Mexican flag, and the Americans were the heels. In America! (This show was taped in Vegas in front of a majority Hispanic crowd.) Despite the fact that it was a flag match, they kept going for pinfalls, which was never explained to my satisfaction. Okay action, but several shaky parts and blown spots. Eventually the luchafaces went over. Joey Ryan looks more like a 70s porn star than anyone who actually starred in porn in the 70s. His macho mustache must be seen to be believed, it's awesome. They showed a graphic of Awesome Kong, noting that she's the NWA woman's champion. Huh. I thought TNA and the NWA weren't on speaking terms. No actual footage of her, though. Some Puerto Rican guy called Ricky Vega squashed a white dude. It was so quick, they literally showed the whole thing again in instant replays. Whatever. I take a moment to notice that godDAMN that's a big crowd out there. This must've been that one Las Vegas show which drew like three thousand people. Main event: El Hijo del Santo and Rey Mysterio Senior vs. Psichosis and Blue Demon Junior. This is from some show in Houston, according to the commentators. That's kind of annoying, how they take random matches from random shows and barely even try to give you any backstory on them. This was your standard lucha tag match, although it was kinda odd to see these guys in a regular 4-man tag and actually tagging in & out American-stylez. Then they took a commercial break during the match, for the first time, which was an odd thing to do in only your main event, which seemed no longer than the other matches. They came back to the match, a couple minutes of action, and... ANOTHER commercial break. With five minutes left to go in the show. What the fuck?! I changed the channel for maybe two minutes, and when I came back I guess the show had ended in that time, so I don't know who won or how. I didn't really care. The matches were okay, the production values were better than expected, and the commentary team didn't actively piss me off. I'll watch it again next week. But that's about the strongest I can say for it, the storylines and general organization really need some work.

The Triple-H angle. You know... any of them. (Specifically, any of the ones involving heel champion HHH and any babyface not named Batista or Benoit.) Any time we stumble upon what I call a Non-Fan Argument moment. That's any time you're watching wrestling, and something really stupid happens just as someone you know, friend, family, or whoever, who isn't a wrestling fan walks in and happens to see it. These moments can be most Divas segments, the Kiss My Ass club, retarded midgets, lame backstage comedy, and anything involving a camera pointed at Viscera or Snitsky. All these moments inevitably end in an argument between you and the non-fan about Why Do You Watch That Stupid Fake Crap.

"I am a babyface. Now let me remove my shirt, for no apparent reason. Oh noes, underneath I happen to be wearing the official t-shirt of a heel faction! Now I am heel 4 Life!"

Oh sweet jesus monkey fuck, when will TNA do anything right? Granted, Angle-Nagata is the one match I wanted to see the most. But it must be some kind of blasphemy for an American company to go to Japan, the country where workrate and actual wrestling matches matter more than anywhere else, and STILL come home with exactly one match and a whole shitload of skits to make up the majority of the program. Every time they do something right, and this TNA/NJPW feud had lots of potential, TNA finds a way to fuck itself in the ass and then wonder why it didn't get a reach-around. GODDAMNIT this company sucks.

Not necessarily. Orton gets away with a lot of shit, but the two cases aren't good comparisons. Randy Orton: is at least temporarily punished after his indiscretions, and none of them became publicly well-known. He was supposed to win the title at Wrestlemania 22, at least according to Meltzer and others. Then he walked around the locker room smoking a joint, and ended up getting pinned to start the title reign of the smallest world champ in history. Kurt Angle: got arrested for DUI, with every news outlet in the country doing a story about it. Supposedly had prescription pills in his mouth when the officers confronted him at his house. Is still up on charges. Looks incredibly guilty. Yet TNA has kept him as their heavyweight champion for this entire time. EDIT: actually, I'm partly wrong. Sting beat Angle for the belt at the next PPV, but Angle won it back the next month and has had it ever since. A better comparison would be Rob Van Dam. After he got popped, the very next week he instantly got pinned in consecutive matches to lose both of his titles, was suspended for a month, and never even got near the titles again. He's the only other heavyweight champion who was arrested for something like this while he was still champion. What does that say about TNA when they're actually LESS strict about this kind of stuff than the WWE is?

If he did indeed help obtain/launder money for terrorists while pretending to "bridge the gap between Christian and Muslim communities worldwide", then he was an asshole posing as a nice guy. That kind of shittiness crosses all party lines. I got a chuckle out of terrorists getting money that was snuck in by supposedly being sent to orphanages that they own.

Paul has a bunch of really... interesting ideas for the economy. A lot of radical "completely change and/or eliminate this list of 127 government agencies" type stuff. Huckabee I dunno about. But did anyone else catch his recent comments about wanting to amend the Constitution in favor of Biblical law? I hope he just cut his own campaign's throat if he really meant that.

Nightwing already answered this in the best way possible:

So you missed the part about "EVERY American presidential election has been completely rigged"? Come on. Trust me, any article that mentions the "Bilderberg group" as a world-controlling Illuminati in all seriousness is a piece of fiction.

Hey snuffbox: despite the fact that you and I disagree on pretty much every issue and seem to generally react to each other in a highly catalystic manner, let us both stop in our petty bickering for just one shining moment as we gaze with awe upon the post by Narcoleptic Jumper, and nod in unison as each says to the other, "At least you're not THAT guy."

What? No, flat wrong. There's all kinds of shit which is illegal in America but not elsewhere, yet which the government is still more than willing to go after people for. I agree that it's obviously a political move, by those in both governments who don't take kindly to the legalization movement. But still, he did break the law, and he knew it when he did it. There's no way a crusader like that hasn't memorized every cannabis-related law on the books.

Except that I DIDN'T SAY HE WAS RACIST you blind fucking troll. I said, if he didn't approve of those statements then it means he didn't write, edit, or even read his own newsletter which was published under his byline. That, plus claiming to be unable to remember any names of anyone who might've possibly written it, just sounds like sloppy leadership to me.

Even if he didn't write them, the newsletters point towards some negative conclusions. Either he approved of the racist material, or he wasn't even reading his own newsletter with his name on it to notice that his underlings were repeatedly writing some nasty stuff which was attributed to him. His complete unwillingness or inability to even try to guess who actually wrote the stuff is also suspicious at the very least. It gives off an image of a guy who isn't paying attention and either doesn't have a good memory or will lie to keep his accquaintances out of trouble.

Nice prediction. Could you see Vince keeping his most important championship on someone who's up on charges for driving drunk?

I can't believe I just read that whole thing. If I wasn't already agnostic, that list would be enough to make me so. What really concerns me is that all those quotes mean one of two things: 1. these people are the most sadistic trolls in history, and spend all their waking hours coming up with shit that batty Or 2. these people really are that fanatical, ignorant, brainwashed, and possibly just completely insane. Either one is disturbing. My experience on Da Net make me hope for #1, but my experience with growing up in the Church Of Christ down in the South make me unfortunately lean towards #2 as being the most likely.

Still, the point remains: is there a good example of an angle where someone in a division which is "lower" than the standard Havyweights dominates the division, crushes all possible competition, and then got "promoted" into the main event? TNA has fucked that one up more than once, both AJ and Joe come to mind, while I can't think of any examples of a similar thing that actually made money. (And no, Stone Cold throwing the Intercontinental belt into the river doesn't count.)

Sexist bullshit.

Except for sell illegal drugs. I think weed should be legalized, but until that happens, don't whine about being arrested and punished for something you already knew was against the law. You can't do stuff like that and then expect authorities not to investigate you very closely.

Personally, not only do I not mind intergender matches, I wish there were more of them. Much like the "big guy will ALWAYS beat a little guy" myth, the old "man will ALWAYS beat a woman" bullshit is nothing but a fabrication to keep the status quo. I understand why Spike would be jittery about man-on-woman violence, when it's portrayed as a big strong dude mercilessly beating the shit out of a helpless femme. But what's wrong with portraying this as a competition between athletes of equal ability? Gail Kim wouldn't be any more overmatched against the men than, say, Amazing Red or someone like that. And Awesome Kong is actually bigger than most of the men on the roster. I've never understood the thinking that a man would "look weak" by getting beaten up by a scary amazon, whether it was Chyna back then or Kong now. That being said, I think Lance's specific scenario there isn't a good one. The old "worker in an undercard division destroys all their competition, and then tries to step up to the next level" deal has been done before, and failed miserably. Like the time that Jushin Liger tore through the entire New Japan cruiserweight division, in 1999 I think, in an attempt to build him up... only to see him get beaten by the heavyweights in the eventual blowoff matches, which just made everyone look like shit.

Key points: 1. Man, fucking sucks for those two. Especially since you know they've had lots of sex. And imagine just trying to explain to everybody why your marriage just suddenly ended out of nowhere. 2. Don't they require genetic testing in order for people to get married these days? That would've caught this. 3. How the hell is in-vitro fertilization involved in this case? The article never specified, it just randomly jumped from one subject to another. 4. Why are nonmarried women and lesbians barred from getting fertility treatment in the first place? 5. I do agree that adopted children really do have a right to know who their parents are/were. I've never heard a good argument otherwise... unless it's something like "you were born from your daddy/granddad raping your mommy/sister when she was twelve". That could prove fairly traumatic. But if the kid wants to know, I think they should know. Will there? This seems awfully one-in-a-billion type odds to me.