cabbageboy

Good for Styles. For years I've always been baffled as to why people put up with Bradshaw's antics, regardless of his stroke with Vince. JBL is a typical bully, once someone stands up to him and kicks his ass then he's revealed as the punk he really is.

Predictions~! THURSDAY NIGHT GAME NO ONE CAN WATCH New Orleans at Chicago: This is a really tough call and the loser here is likely done. Both teams are 7-6 and flawed, so when in doubt go with the home team. The Bears can still maybe win the division. Chicago by 6. EARLY Tampa Bay at Atlanta: A few weeks ago I had Tampa pegged as taking 2 more losses, at Carolina and at Atlanta. Falcons are basically in a must win situation here. Atlanta by 7. Washington at Cincinnati: The Redskins have fallen back to earth really hard but still this is the Bengals here and they'll figure out some way to scratch out a win. Redskins by 4. Tennessee at Houston: Houston is playing really well right now but they have yet to truly knock off a major team. It'll be closer than the first game, but the Titans can't afford a loss here with the Steelers and Colts looming. Titans by 7. Detroit at Indianapolis: The Colts have a real shot at finishing 11-5, if not 12-4. Who knows if they will simply squash the hapless Lions or whether it will be another tight win. Colts by 10. Green Bay at Jacksonville: Here's a battle of two disappointing teams. The Jags just look DOA at this point and the Packers are at least competing in their losses, so I'll take Green Bay by 3. San Diego at Kansas City: The Chiefs constantly lose tough games, but yet the Chargers are the epitome of a team that can't win a close one this year. Still, SD is barely alive for the division. Chargers by 8. San Francisco at Miami: The Dolpins are actually in the driver's seat for the division but they still don't strike me as being worth a crap. Niners are playing well right now so I'll reluctantly take the upset. SF by 4. Buffalo at N.Y. Jets: The Bills are reeling right now and the Jets desperately need to get back on track after two bad losses. Jets by 9. Seattle at St. Louis: What did the world do to deserve this? I'll stand by the opinion that the Rams are the single worst team in the league, since they don't even compete most of the times. Seattle by 6. LATE Minnesota at Arizona: Hmm....this is tricky. The Cardinals clinched the division so will they just pack it in and gear up for later, or will they go all out to have a potential tiebreaker over the Vikings for playoff positioning? I'll say Cardinals by 7. New England at Oakland: Yes, the Pats struggled to barely win at Seattle last week but that's still a tough place to play. The Raiders are just flat out bad. Patriots survive again by 10. Pittsburgh at Baltimore: Oh yeah! Forget Cowboys/Giants, this is the game of the week. If you want physical, vicious football, this is the game. The NFL should harness the testosterone in this game and bottle it for mass consumption. Ravens by 3. Denver at Carolina: This is a seemingly easy pick with Denver traveling cross country and the Panthers being unbeaten at home. So why is it I am feeling a Panthers letdown here vs. a puzzling Broncos team? I'll take Denver in the shocker of the week by 1. SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL N.Y. Giants at Dallas: Honestly, I have no idea what to think of this. Giants are in the playoffs either way and have clinched the division, and can actually afford to lose here and still get home field. Dallas if they have any manhood left will find a way to win here. Cowboys by 3. FOOTBALL ON MONDAY NIGHT Cleveland at Philadelphia: Who on earth put the Browns in all these national games? Eagles are now back on track and rolling, and the Browns are down to Ken Dorsey at QB. Eagles by 21.

I knew who Thomas Jane was from Deep Blue Sea and also from playing Mickey Mantle in 61. Oh, and from Dreamcatcher as well. Let's face it, there's a glass ceiling on how good a Punisher movie is going to be. It's basically a comic style version of Death Wish. The 2004 Punisher is probably a better actual movie with a better cast and story, but the new one is more entertaining in a crap sort of way.

ECW's world champions largely sucked though. The TV title holders are a virtual who's who of wrestling, but Heyman always had the world title on guys who weren't exactly having good matches or anything. Hell, ECW did its best business in 1998 when Shane Douglas was an MIA world champion that never wrestled. That's how little the ECW world champion meant. Here's the criteria for being considered a world title in my book: --Is the show on national TV? --Do they have PPVs all over the country? --Does the champion occasionally defend overseas? TNA clearly qualifies on all 3 counts.

This is fine with me. I mentioned a while back that there's nothing wrong with LAX going into singles action for a while, since guys can only be tag champs so many times. They can still be friends and be aligned.

This was a big Raw tonight for me since it was the first show from Insight on the new USA HD channel. It was a bit frustrating to see SD in HD while Raw was standard for the past year, so thankfully now Raw looks equally terrific (if not better). The matches tonight were fine and I didn't even really mind HHH/Batista being a bait and switch since it made zero sense to give that match away on free TV with no recent build. Batista losing there is curious since I'd think Orton almost needs to win at the PPV to set him up as the yearly Rumble challenger. Yet tonight Orton and Co. kinda needed the win in their first teaming. But wow, the Slammy awards showed a shocking amount of good taste. I was quite surprised that deserving people won at almost every turn. Jericho should have won and did, Punk's MITB cash in was the OMG moment I would have picked, Beth as Diva was logical, Miz/Morrison as tag team was the only choice, Edge/Vickie as couple. It's a bit scary how heel dominated these awards were and also that I was glad that the heels won. It's weird because I've never been one of these contrarian types that cheers heels for the sake of it, but this time all of the heels are the most deserving.

Lawler was the AWA champ, and I am going to include it. Was the AWA title ever stripped of world title status? Two guys I am unsure of are Windham and Rude. Rude won the WCW Intl. world title, but I am unsure of how to consider that. For instance can we toss out Rude's title run and yet count the various post brand split champs in WWE? Or Windham's NWA title run? This is easy to me: Davey Boy Smith. Bulldog won almost every other title he ever went for aside from the WWF (or WCW) world title. Won multiple tag titles. IC champ in 1992. First European champ in 1997. Got some DQ and non title wins over Vader in 1993 era WCW, but never quite won the world title from him. Actually had the title in his hands in 1996 during that crappy HBK feud, but never was technically the champ. There's also Piper to consider, but for the most part Piper was more of a mic worker than a great wrestler. Still, he should have gotten the title from Hogan in 1996-97 even if it was to job it back.

Harley, UK has a good offense? They were like 100 or so in offense in Div. 1. I won't try and predict every bowl game, but here are some early BCS game predictions: Title game: Florida vs. Oklahoma. We all know the deal. It's OU. It's a national title game. OU hasn't scored less than 35 this year, so that is likely what they get here. Florida 52-35. Rose Bowl: USC vs. Penn State. Best BCS game and the only one I can actually say I am looking forward to seeing. The Big 10 has been a bit underrated this year so for whatever reason I'll say Penn St. wins this thing 28-27. Sugar Bowl: Alabama vs. Utah. Every year there is that one team that has their dreams crushed and winds up tanking in a bowl game. With Nick Saban at the helm, I don't think that is Bama. That said Utah seems like a legit team so Bama will have to bring it. Alabama 20-16. Orange Bowl: Cincy vs. Virginia Tech. This may well be the most useless major bowl in history, especially when there are fun undercard bowls like Boise/TCU. Having seen Cincy a few times this year I feel safe in saying they aren't any good, so by default I'll take VT 24-14. That said, can the ACC please put forth a serious BCS team instead of 4 loss FSU or VT teams? Fiesta Bowl: Remember the part about a team that gets screwed and tanks a bowl game? I think that Texas will be really deflated here and OSU will be happy to get what is an unwarranted BCS game. Buckeyes 35-31.

Nah, this Punisher is a flop. It will be there for the mandatory 2 weeks and then be gone. The 2004 Punisher was easier to market since Thomas Jane was at least somewhat known from Deep Blue Sea if nothing else, and Travolta was the villain. But yeah the TV spots and trailers are hysterically awful. Lines like "Someone has to punish the corrupt" and "I wish I could get my hands on God!" are just...bad.

I didn't see this show so it may have been better than it sounds from the results, but wow from reading about it the shows sounds like crap. I thought Angle promised a former world champion...so where does Al Snow fit into this? I don't recall anything other than the hardcore title he ever held. Did he win the tag titles with Foley at some point? And if so, that to me isn't being a world champion since "world champion" to me means singles titles. What is with Eric Young being the catalyst for doing these tournaments for belts anyway? I didn't really want him to win the X title but nearly anything is better than it being on Bashir for another day.

And now let's check the predictions: Oakland at San Diego: Well, I said in the last week's thread that I am not picking the Chargers again in a major game. This however doesn't qualify as a major game. Chargers by 7. (Ended up being a lot easier than this. No shock though. 1 for 1) Jacksonville at Chicago: Wow, the Jags look done at this point. The Bears are still somewhat in the division race so they really need to win this one at home. Chicago by 10. (Yep, the Jags look totally done at this point and the Bears just did what they should have. 2 for 2) Minnesota at Detroit: A while back I thought this might be the week where the Lions finally got the win. However the Vikings are playing well right now so there's no way. Vikings by 14. (Frerotte went down in this one, Vikings still managed to claw their way to a win. Not a cover, but 3 for 3) Houston at Green Bay: I'll be honest, I have no idea. Houston looks terrific at times and awful other times...ditto Green Bay. Still, should the Packers lose to a 5-7 team at Lambeau? Packers by 5. (Green Bay is a frustrating team, and why aren't the Texans in the playoff hunt? They seem better than their record. 3 for 4) Cleveland at Tennessee: With the Browns down to a 3rd stringer at QB this one should be very, very ugly. Titans by 21. (It wasn't quite as bad as it could have been, but easy enough. 4 for 5) Cincinnati at Indianapolis: The Colts have weathered the storm and now are rewarded with 2 weeks of Cincy and Detroit. So what will they do? Win by 4! (Hey, the Colts finally squashed a really crappy team! 5 for 6) Atlanta at New Orleans: Saints are tough at home but the Falcons need this win to stay in the playoff hunt. Should be an entertaining, high scoring game. ATL by 3. (This was a really tough call and could have gone either way. This loss might doom the Falcons when all is said and done. 5 for 7) Philadelphia at NY Giants: This is basically do or die for the Eagles, but the Arizona game was more of an exception than the norm for these guys. Regardless of Plaxico's antics, Giants by 7. (It was do or die for Philly and they win to survive for another week. Giants looked a bit distracted here. 5 for 8) NY Jets at San Francisco: It wouldn't shock me if the Jets went out west and tanked here, but after last week's meltdown against Denver they should get it back on track. Jets by 8. (The Jets are just baffling in terms of sucking on the west coast. WTF? 5 for 9) New England at Seattle: Seattle is still tough at home sometimes but if the Pats have any postseason hopes they need to win this one. NE by 7. (Seattle is still tough at home but solid teams should find a way to win there. The Pats did. 6 for 10) Kansas City at Denver: Chiefs somehow beat the Broncos the first time around, but there's no way it can happen twice. Right? Broncos by 9. (Broncos struggled for a while but won it in the end. They keep the dream alive of another epic vs. Indy in the playoffs. 7 for 11) Miami vs. Buffalo (at Toronto): Not sure what is up with Trent Edwards this week, but the Dolphins are still contending so they need this. However, this is still Miami playing in freezing Toronto so I'll reluctantly take the Bills by 3. (I don't even know exactly what I predicted for this one, I think I later changed this to Miami upon finding out it was in a dome in Toronto. Since I said this initially though, I'll live with it. 7 for 12) St. Louis at Arizona: If the Cardinals haven't clinched yet, they will after this one. Arizona by 13. (Basically just a beatdown as the Rams may well be the worst team in the league at this point in terms of bothering to compete. Yes even Detroit is trying. 8 for 13) Dallas at Pittsburgh: Game of the day by far. Steelers D is just terrific and this just seems like a game where Romo will screw it up. Steelers by 6. (Called this one almost to the point, even including the part where Romo blew it. 9 for 14) SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL Washington at Baltimore: Some are hyping this as a big game, but the Redskins are borderline done at this point. Ravens will lay the hammer down here to set up the epic rematch with the Steelers. Ravens by 10. (Ravens are just a bad ass team, like them a lot. Great D of course, physical running game, improving young QB. Looking forward to the Steelers rematch. 10 for 15)

Stevenson is the closest Punisher to the comics too. He at least looks and seems like The Punisher. The TV ads definitely sucked for this one, since it is a fairly amusing violent flick. As far as Lionsgate goes, being #7 is basically the glass ceiling for them. They can't really match studios like Warner Bros., Paramount, Columbia, Universal, Disney, and Fox. The only way Lionsgate would catch any of them is if one had a monumentally horrid year. Lionsgate is today's Cannon. Considering Quantum of Solace opened at 67 million does anyone else think that movie has had lethargic word of mouth considering it's going to have to stagger to match Casino Royale's 167 million (domestic)? I thought Q of S might be as high as #3 worldwide this year but I can't see it now.

My problem with the 1989 Punisher and the 2004 Punisher is the same thing: Neither Lundgren or Jane seem anything like Frank Castle to me. Especially Dolph, who ran around the sewers naked and seemed wasted most of the film, and didn't even have the skull shirt at any point. The 2004 Punisher was okay but I couldn't take Travolta seriously as a villain and there were just too many changes from the comic. The Punisher is a total NYC type comic, the violent side of town at that. In the movie...Tampa? Having been to the Tampa/St. Pete area it never really struck me as a crime ridden nightmare world. And I do like Thomas Jane in some stuff but he seems like a pretty boy dying his hair and trying to act tough. The ideal Punisher would have been Stallone if they had done a Punisher movie in the late 70s or early 80s (before his egomania got out of hand), though Stevenson looks the best of the guys who actually have been Castle.

Yeah, and maybe it's just my personal experience but did wrestling truly start booming on the net around the time of the Montreal Screwjob? It was coincidental on my part, since that was my first semester of college and I would surf the net at times between classes in the computer lab. Survivor Series happened to be the first major WWF PPV while I was in college and since I didn't order shows at that point I got on the net to find out the results. Then I found out what happened in the main event and was in utter shock. From that point I just had to know more and found a bunch of websites.

TNA would be in bigger trouble if guys like Styles, Joe, etc. all left for WWE. To the average fan guys like Christian and Angle are WWE guys anyway. If I'm Vince honestly I wouldn't bother with Angle at this point. The guy is a ticking time bomb health wise. Going to TNA was the best thing for him to make money and work fewer dates. It is imperative that they use these departing guys to put over the Frontline and do a decisive blowoff to the Main Event Mafia angle, or at least one where the MEM loses and gets pissed and tosses Angle, Sting, etc. and recruits new members.

I wondered about that too, but Bulldog was on the show against Vader. It was really just Bret that didn't show up, since Owen and Anvil did a run in. Some of this could have been that the show was simply taped that week and they had little else for the Harts to do, or it also could have been the obvious backstage nightmare with Bret and Vince that led to their reduced role. I had forgotten how badly this Survivor Series card had been hyped. The only things on the show that had any real build at all are Bret/Shawn and maybe Kane/Mankind. The rest is filler.

Check out this bit from Eric Crawford of the Louisville Courier-Journal: I asked U of L coach Steve Kragthorpe about his future at U of L, and he said, "I'm here for the long haul." He added, "If I were going to leave, I'd have left last year."

I recall that Jarrett interview that they mentioned on this Raw. He called HHH nothing but a tag along who was leeching off of HBK's heat. Surreal stuff for back then. Now it's a typical TNA show, haha. In reality the WWF basically was just phoning the rest of the year in and then obviously went with Austin winning the Rumble, brought in Tyson for WM, and the rest is history.

Okay, I haven't said a huge amount about the current pathetic state of U of L's football program in these threads this season, but here goes. This is absolutely embarrassing, seeing a program that only 2 years ago was a FG from playing for a national title now not even try and lose 63-14 on national TV to the same team. Steve Kragthorpe was never an especially inspiring hire, but the sheer swiftness of U of L's decline is jarring. I figured maybe the Cards would get 1 more good year with Brohm still there before the rebuilding and/or decline began, but U of L didn't even make a bowl. Think about that: 12-1 to 6-6 in one year with some of the same personnel. Losing to Syracuse back to back years. Have an abysmal kicking game that makes FGs all but impossible and thus lose seemingly any close game. Seriously, take a look at what has happened to Hunter Cantwell this year. Under Petrino, Cantwell got in a few games when Brohm was hurt (including the Gator Bowl vs. Va Tech). He looked pretty solid in 2006 in a couple of starts. But look at how horribly he has regressed this year. In every game the TV announcers harp on Cantwell's bizarre windup throwing motion, yet at no point has this been corrected during the season. Hopefully this inept coaching hasn't totally ruined any pro chances for Cantwell, since maybe a real QB coach could fix his mechanics. Ron English should leave while he can. Eastern Michigan wants him to be head coach? Take the job, man. This situation here is about to get really ugly. Bear in mind as well that stadium expansion is going to begin soon so unless the team improves we'll likely see 20,000 people in a 60,000 seat Papa John's Cardinal Stadium on TV. Tonight has to be the final straw. Tom Jurich has to fire Steve Kragthorpe after this fiasco, at least he better if U of L wants to have any football fans left. I defy anyone to name another coach who has done a worse job in the past 2 years than this buffoon. It would be less insulting if Kragthrope didn't try and blame all of his problems on Bobby Petrino and the so called "mess" he left. Yeah, the guy left you a 12-1 Orange Bowl team. All coaches should inherit such a mess!

In retrospect there's some fun on these late 97 Raw shows but at the time you could tell something was just...wrong. I didn't even follow wrestling on the net until the Montreal Screwjob, but even before that things just didn't seem right at all in the WWF.

I have to say that the 11-3-97 Raw is pretty dire stuff. Bret doesn't even show up on it, and I was looking forward to it being his last WWF Raw appearance, but not to be. There wasn't much in the way of decent wrestling on the show, but at least they seemed serious about getting Shamrock over at the time. He got visual tap outs on both Bret and Shawn in back to back weeks.

Yeah that was a match I'm sure Russo had to have seen that influenced his later work. And since Raven didn't lose the belt all that stuff really ended up meaning nada.

I recall Swagger when he was in OVW and he didn't do much for me, but he was just doing a bland Oklahoma wrestler gimmick and not much else. His current work on ECW is quite a bit more impressive. Liked his hardcore match with Dreamer.

Rikishi's heel turn in late 2000 was one of the all time worst heel turns ever, going along with Tatanka in 1994. The jury is out on how much his face run had left, but it certainly had a lot left when he turned heel. The problem at the end is what could the WWF do with Rikishi long term? He was too much of a comedy act to put the world title on, he didn't fit the classic IC champion mold, and Too Cool were the tag team of that group. I remember seeing Too Cool/Rikishi vs. Edge/Christian/Angle as the opener for Judgment Day 2000 and the crowd at the arena went crazy for that match. Thing is, the guys on the heel side all worked well together and also as singles wrestlers, whereas the same can't be said for the Too Cool/Kishi side.

The Miz could never be a decent face I don't think, since he just seems to be inherently annoying. Morrison I don't know about. He seems a more natural heel since he has that cocky swagger but I haven't seen the fire that someone like Edge had at some points as a face. When these guys first teamed I thought it was ideal. Miz has more on the mic, but wasn't a great wrestler. Morrison was an exciting wrestler, but he's just hideous on the mic (remember his promo with Melina trashing Foley, or his early solo interviews on ECW). Put them together and they improved a bit in those areas, and if they talk enough smack about people at some point they backed some of it up by sheer force of willpower.