Dangerous A

I'd like to think Panda and Co. have a legal department that might be able to fight off laughable things like TNA not being able to refer to their people as "wrestling superstars".

Matt is dead. Even with the cage win at Unforgiven, his credibility has been killed since the Summerslam ending and the subsequent follow up. Buh-bye, Matt. Nice knowing you. Side note, this Angelic Diablo character has wrestlecrap written all over it.

WWE isn't going to disintegrate the brands unless they absolutely have to i.e. SD getting cancelled by UPN. WWE is not trying to get off UPN despite UPN telling WWE ixnay on the Hassan character and being booted to Friday nights. WWE's UPN deal is the only TV deal where they get right's fees as well as ad revenue. The reason the USA deal was seen as a bad deal for WWE is because even though they get TV for the next 5 years, they get ZERO in ad revenue. All that ad rev goes into USA's pocket. It's a loss of around $20-$25 million a year for WWE starting yesterday. At least with UPN, they get ad rev and the show fee. However, ad rev is going to be down because of the move to Friday because when they were on thursday, a lot of movie companies would advertise specifically on SD because movies traditionally open on Friday and they could get a buzz going the night before. Now, that may not be the case as much and since pro wrestling still carries the stigma that low income folk watch and not high income people (not a stigma really, it's a fact) advertisers aren't kicking down WWE's door to put commercials on their show. It's another big reason they have to start paying attention more to creative storylines and selling ppv's on Raw because ppv revenue is going to become more important to them now that Raw gets zero in ad rev.

0.8 at 11pm on Saturday is a decent rating for the timeslot. The scary thing is that the Jarrett/AMW/Nash/Team 3-D segment was the highest rated, which means for the forseeable future, Jarrett and Co. aren't going anywhere, but also lends credence to the theory that you do need a few people with recognizability out there, at least at first. As has been pointed out through this thread, the keys are going to be if they can A) sustain or even build on .8 and B) if they can garner more PPV buys with national exposure. Point A is important if they hope to get out of their current graveyard TV slot and Point B is important to them from the business standpoint because, like WWE, they don't get any ad revenue from their shows.

My beloved Redskins perfect record is in serious jeopardy. Only way I see us winning is if Jake Plummer gets in one of his stupid days and makes some costly mistakes. Still, our defense is good enough to keep us in games, it's our offense that worries me.

Crawl on ESPN also has Amare Stoudamire signing a 5 year extention with the Suns.

IMO, I think it was 2002 about the time where they put the title on Hogan which seemed like a good idea at the time but in hindsight was not. Add in the brand split and that was when WWE started it's downward spiral for me.

I come home from work and walk into Austin and the McMahons segment. Dumbest fucking thing I've seen in wrestling in a long while. Just dumb as shit. The whole thing just reeked of contrived shitiness.

Really? Because the statistics I show have him playing 81 games in 00-01, 77 games in 01-02, 81 games in 02-03, and 85 games (he eeked out extra games because of the mid season trade from ATL to POR). Last year was the first year he was held below 70 games (actual games last year was 54)

WWE didn't really give Spike much to be proud of the last 5 years except bad storylines, offensive angles, and downward spiraling ratings.

I could give two shits about ever seeing HTM again on TV because he is irrelevant (just like most of the guys you'll see tonight coming back for "homecoming" except the ones with drawing power) but I do respect him for not bending over and taking one in the ass from Vince, especially since he's able to smell the bad deal Vince and Co. are giving the so-called "legends".

raz, you're forgetting NWA/WCW jobbers for life Randy and Bill Mulkey and Thunderfoots I and II.

Since WWE owns WCW, might as well bring back the nostalgia WCW acts as well. I am requesting appearances from Laser-Tron, The New Breed, and PN News.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry, to vomit or shit myself?

Actually, if HBK hasn't interjected himself in the ME scene come Mania time, I could see him angling to get an interpromotional match with Eddie. However, I could also see JBL angling to get Eddie's spot in the above scenario.

You're pretty much spot on with stuff. The goal of not being a total WWE clone is what this first episode seemed to pull off. The pacing of the show was good. A couple of things... -Raven's bit was lame. He gave weak looking trash can shots and the entire scene came off like Raven could give two shits. Then again, the guy just lost the title to Jarrett for no good reason other than Jarrett (and depending on who you believe, Spike) wanted the belt back in time for TV. Now, Raven isn't even competing at BFG and we get Nash. Speaking of Nash.. -The Nash/Jarrett/AMW/3-D bit was good. While I'm not a big fan of the former Dudleys, they came off as fresh since they haven't been on mainstream tv in close to a year. Even the Jarrett-Nash stuff wasn't awful, the problem is it was Jarrett and Nash. -Monty Brown has a future in this business and has a look that is marketable and a legit athletic background. However, it did seem he was trying a bit much with his promo. Believe it or not, I think he needs to dial it down just a half notch. -The promo packages are outstanding. They rival just about any of the WWE produced ones and in a lot of cases, are better. Now we just need to kick back and wait for the numbers.

RRR has some good points regarding the ROH fans and Loss has about as perfect a take as you'll get, but Spiff does make case about WWE Canadian fans basically doing a lot of what we are criticizing the ROH fans for (although Canadian fans aren't the complaint, it's ROH fans) Surprised TNA fans weren't mentioned because they are marks for themselves as well.

Double post

Question about River... Spoilers (sort of) During the climactic stretch, River sees Simon injured and goes into "River the Barbarian" mode. She did this earlier in the film after seeing the cartoon that triggered her to act this way and Simon used the safe word to put her in check. After being triggered, could River control when she could go buckwild? Or did the cartoon make her into sort of a mindless weapon taking out everything in sight whereas at the end when she was tearing up the Reavers, that was her in weapon mode, but she was in control?

DA's Dirty Dawgs selects... F Shareef Abdur-Rahim I was surprised he'd be on the board this high. He's an injury risk since he scared off the Nets, but I still have to take this chance.

I think the suck from the NFC East the last several years sans the Eagles has transferred to the NFC North. NFC West isn't much better except Seattle is better than their 2-2 record indicates.

Yes, but it'll probrably be jobbing for one of the "legends",

Serenity needs to kill in international box office and DVD sales to the point where movie execs believe that they may have built up newer fans through that to green light another movie IMO.

That really sucks that Serenity pretty much tanked. (I was expecting at least $15-$20 mil opening) and I think they'll have a hard time reaching that $80 mil mark. Really, really sucks because I just wrapped up the DVD's a week ago and loved the movie and now it looks like the end.

The best thing about Jimmy Jacobs is his ROH theme song. I'm a huge mark for "The Touch". Sorry.