RavishingRickRudo

In Vince's mind, you are only a true american if you are a member of the aryan race. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The irony is where the word "aryan" comes from.

Sheldon Benjamin, Lance Storm, Brock Lesnar.

Well they don't tell "the secrets" that would risk their jobs, only the ones that benefits them. That's why, while Meltzer is still the best source for news, you have to consider where HE gets his information from.

I think there's a league of black actors (Ice Cube, Mike Epps, Cedric the Entertainer, The Wayans, Morris Chestnut, Tommy Davidson, Jamie Foxx, Chris Rock, Gabrielle Union, Regina King, Anthony Anderson, Bill Belemy, Shemar Moore, and -of course- Tom Arnold, aka "The Black Pack") who get together every week and think of movie ideas that they can star in. Not that I mind seeing that fiiiiine Morris Chestnut do his thang in the movies....

I've seen the UFC events, and I liked em all, but the DVD bonus matches in particular are what I am interested in, plus any matches people want to pimp.

I was at a video retailer today and I saw a bunch of UFC and MMA dvd's on sale. UFC 46: Supernatural UFC 47: It's On UFC 48: Payback Extreme Challenge 1 and 2 (9 bucks) WEC 1 ( 14 bucks) KOTC: Pinnacle It's been a while since I've seen the UFC DVD's, and I'm looking for thoughts on all of them. Plus, there was a UFC display by the front counter... awesome!

I'll write the second installment after the draft so I know who is where.

YES! I popped huge for that as well.

It was such a bad match. When people pick up on that and why it was a bad match, then the (wrestling) world would be better for it. Wrestling matches need to have a purpose, and when they wrestle, there isn't any.

Benoit/Eddie had lots of time at Vengeance 2003 and they bit it. Time wasn't the issue, the issue was there was no story to the match. If there is no story, then they cannot really give any heat to the match. And those two together think they can just do some moves and think it's enough - it's not. They would have benefited from someone taking them aside and laying out a better structure to their match, rather than the shit they did. It's their own fault they had the opening sequence and immediately acted like they wrestled for 30 minutes after only 5. They should be smarter than that, but they're not. I think it's because we -as fans- don't hold them accountable. They should have been BOO'ED IMO by the fans after that match, but because they are Benoit and Guerrero, they got a polite applause. Rey/Nicho just sucked. Any more time would have just prolonged the pain. If they worked the house show circuit for a few months, then I wouldn't mind seeing what they could do together. But as it was, they were on two different pages and couldn't get anything going.

Aw fuck. Seriously, I love Benoit and am sorta neutral to Eddie right now since his heel turn (but for the most part love his work), but FUCK, their match sucked because they fucking suck together. The sooner people can come to terms with this (and JESUS there has been numerous matches that have proved this) the sooner the WWE can stop putting them together for no fucking reason like they did tonight. Watch their matches and then ask yourself "what is the point of this" and you will realize there is no point. Roadkill would have been crazy-over had they actually used him better, me thinks.

Did LOTC mention the 3 old ladies in our theatre tonight? Had to be all over 70. Fucked up. I don't think many people there that night were ECW fans, maybe about 50% (not nearly as many people as RR05 or SSer04) were fans, but in the end, I think most -if not all- were fans. Awesome/Tanaka was definitely the talk afterwards.

The Awesome/Tanaka match was 95% Tanaka and 5% Awesome. Awesome didn't even take the Diamond Dust, while Tanaka was dying on every single level.

The big lesson to be learned from this show simply won't be learned by the WWE or Vince McMahon. That is, fans want something different from what they've been getting for the past 5 years, they want variety, they want something real, they want a change of pace. There is a reason why he thinks his current style works and I see no reason why he'd change his mind now. If Vince McMahon, after a huge decline in ratings, earnings, and buyrates, hasn't learned that in the past 5 years, then he won't learn that from just one show. His brain can't compute that. He will write it off as a niche/nostalgic thing at best, and a "they paid to see what my WWE gusy would do" at most likely. Vince McMahon doesn't care about money, he cares about the pop. This could be good in that the Hammerstein ball room was hot all night, but then again he may (likely) write that off to being in a small venue with rabid fans.

Jericho/Storm = **3/4 - ***1/4 ... if they were given more time, it would have been much better. Smooth work, nice paybacks. Rey vs. Psi = *1/4 - just for the leg drop spot. Not good at all. Super Crazy/Guido/Tajiri - ** - Moonsault spot(s) were nice, bunch of fun spots, way too short though. Benoit vs. Guerrero - * - completely random, crap. Austin promo - Dud Angle promo - *** JBL promo - ***3/4 RVD promo - ****1/4 Heyman promo - ****1/2 Sabu/Rhyno - **1/4... good, but not memorable. Sabu didn't blow any spots, thus making this not a true ECW show. Tanaka/Awesome - **** - ****1/4 ... for the first time in a long time, a WWE match managed to get me emotionally involved in a match. From the first big table spot that Tanaka was nearly killed by to every other table spot afterwards, it was a great, visceral, story whose only flaw was that Awesome didn't bump for Tanaka and Tanaka didn't win with the roaring elbow. Dudleys vs. Dreamer/Sandman - ***1/2 - ***3/4 ... not so much because of the work done in the match, but everything surrounding it - from Sandmans entrance, to the flaming tables, to the BWO, to Beulah - just made it BIG TIME. Only ruined by Austins involvement at the end and the big shitty showdown.

This will change shit.

100 people have seen this show, or are the poll results inflated?

Tanaka/Balls happened a bunch of times, their most notable (for me) was their HH2000 match from Chicago. It was very similar to this match with Awesome, only hotter near falls and better pacing. It was a great match.

Tanaka is worth signing. However, his appeal comes from taking a shit kicking, giving a shit kicking and tons of big moves and near falls. Which doesn't translate to jerkin RAW or workin Heat.

I think it was the closest facsimile to ECW that the WWE could have done. But in the end, it was a WWE show. It felt like "WWE presents ECW". Hmm, maybe it was the constant shots of the WWE wrestlers that did that? Again, I blame that on the production guys. The constant crowd shots, the WWE themes, and Austin finishing it off didn't help much either. Think about it this way, if Joey Styles weren't announcing, I think the sentiment would have been much, much different. I lot of this shows appeal rested on him announcing, rather than Cole or JR.

The Bischoff stuff is one of the things I really didn't like on the PPV. Um, hi? Steve Austin was the guy who basically put you out of business, sure have a drink with him! The WWE owns you, and when Vince bought ECW it ended ECW. Then he said Steph owned it. EC DUB! Every time they insulted Bischoff, I was like "Vince did the same thing!" and groaned. For me, the total negatives outweighed the total positives of this show. But the positives were so fucking huge that I ended up really enjoying it.

It was "there is no point to this match" bad. Which is the trend with the WWE and Benoit/Guerrero. Their matches go like this - sequences for the first few minutes, then they go straight to the finish and act tired after 5 minutes. There is no "content", there is little pacing, it's just random moves. Jericho/Storm was similar, but they were able to get more from it by doing some neat counter wrestling and throwing in some payback spots. Most of the matches were way too short. The 3 way dance should have gotten more time. There was no need for Sabu/Rhyno. Rey/Psi just sucked and no amount of time would have changed the fact that they had no chemistry - which is an amazing thing to consider. RVD's promo, and JBL's promo were great. But it wasn't until Awesome/Tanaka that the show really got going. Before then, it was pretty disjointed where they built momentum and then lost it. Awesome/Tanaka, as expected because they had nothing to lose, blew the roof off the place. Heymans promo was fucking amazing. Those were the two main reasons I bought this PPV - Awesome/Tanaka and Paul Heyman, and it delivered in spades. The main event was great (ENTER SANDMAN!!!) until Austin came out, which pretty much ruined the finish. Overall, good show, it wasn't 100% genuine ECW (gah WWE production!), but it was enough for me tonight and certainly more "real" than the shit the WWE has been kicking out for years now. It was something a lil different, and certainly a change of pace, which we'll probably never get again.

To finish it off... Ultimately, it comes down to advertisers. If the UFC can attract big money, then the networks will follow suit.

And why isn't it covered on ESPN? Well, for the first time sports viewer - which would be the vast majority of the audience - MMA would come off as "different" at best, and barbaric at worst. A UFC fight, for example, will have guys wearing tiny gloves rather than the big red boxing gloves, they will be fighting in a cage rather than a ring, and guys will be hitting each other on the ground. And then a PRIDE fight, while being in a ring, would have guys kicking each other when they're down. This is a pretty big mental leap for lots of people. As a wrestling fan, it was easy for me to transition into watching MMA because I accepted submissions and striking a downed opponent, but a lot of people see that as "unsportsmanlike" and "cheating". To go back to the poker reference, I always knew how to play one form of poker - 5 card stud - which, in this case, would be like boxing. Texas Hold'em was very difficult to grasp for me at first because I only knew this one form of poker and to learn another meant I had to let go of the old one. The rules of boxing say "once someone is knocked down you must let him up", whereas in MMA once someone is down you get right on them and finish the fight. In boxing, you see hundreds of punches thrown in a round, whereas in MMA you see punches thrown, few landing, and of those that do land, many end the fight. Throw in kicking, knees and elbows, and it becomes a different animal, but since it's similar to boxing, the same view exists. Boxing is more 'glamourous' where as MMA is mostly 'down and dirty'. They come off differently on TV to someone who is unfamiliar.

It's all about having names. If an MMA guy blew up on the national stage as a name, then there would be a buzz around him and the dominoes would fall accordingly. Poker got a big boost from Rounders where Johnny Chan cameo'd. I love that movie, and for the longest time knew dick about (Hold'em) poker, but I knew who Johnny Chan was and every time poker was on and he was playing I'd stop and take a look. It was only a matter of time before I saw him enough times to get a feel for the game and those playing it. Chris Moneymakers win put it way over the top as it gave poker an "everyman's" feel, where "someone like you" could win. TWSOP got a spot on TV and made the best of it, good announcing, good characters, good structure and editing, good education. I think these two/three elements are important in _anything_ getting popular - to be recognizable and relatable. That's why, I think, Forrest Griffin is so popular - he got recognition from The Ultimate Fighter, and he's a down-to-earth, funny, guy that you could easily have a drink with. But it took YEARS (decades, even) for Poker to blow up to where it is right now, and it's been like that for stuff like Skateboarding and other "underground" phenomenons. It takes many pieces to put together a "mainstream" puzzle. I think coverage by sports journalists and outlets would be the biggest step towards mainstream acceptance, where the results of UFC shows are highlighted on Sports Centre. But that's unlikely for another 5-10 years. An MMA movie would be another step in the right direction (a good movie, though, a Rounders-like one that intellectualizes it and has interesting characters, rather than a Rocky III-esque flick that just plays up the stereotypes), and I believe a UFC movie is already in development. Right now, the UFC's TV deal with SPIKE is a big step in the right direction. They are where poker was three or four years ago. They have TV coverage, they have some recognizable names, they just need to turn it up a notch.