cabbageboy

What, no Dominic Rhodes? I don't know if the Patriots are really an elite team at this point. They are losing way too many guys. I mean good grief, they damn near lost at home to the BILLS, if not for JP Losman being a moron and getting a safety. Yeah, they can still sneak by uninspired teams like Buffalo and the Jets, but I don't think they are a serious threat. They can win the division, but is it that hard to beat out the Jets, Bills, and Dante Culpepper? Speaking of Culpepper, it's interesting that so many people slept on the Vikings. They were mostly terrible with Culpepper last year, but they were something like 6-2 with Brad Johnson. I took a look at their schedule and I'm thinking with some luck they can go about 11-5.

It also helped that WCW had a huge roster of jobbers to feed to Goldberg to get him over. In WWE I don't think the roster was so big that they could feed a bunch of guys to him to get him over. Instead he came out of the gate, rusty, against major stars like The Rock and Jericho. The WWE audience had been taught for years to ridicule Goldberg (remember Gillberg?) and now suddenly were supposed to cheer him against The Rock? It doesn't work that way. I've always found it amusing that the obvious reasons to sign Goldberg were to job him to Austin and then have a match with Lesnar where they job him and send him packing. He never faced Austin and actually got the win over Lesnar. In between he actually got a clean win over The Rock, Chris Jericho, and won the title from HHH. People say Goldberg got buried by WWE, but he only really lost 2 matches that I can recall (Elimination Chamber and then at Armageddon 2003).

I think some of it is that most people stayed tuned initially because they thought RVD would come back and simply challenge the Big Show and get the belt back. RVD came back, attacked Angle and Sabu (his best friend), jobbed a ladder match....and hasn't done much else. Let's face it, The Big Show has never been able to sustain anyone's interest as world champion longer than a couple of months. His longest run was in WCW 10 years ago, and nobody cared about his reign per se since the NWO angle was starting. Also, I think people are fed up with all the guest stars. There's no legit reason as to why all these Raw and SD guys keep showing up on ECW. They just....do.

Unless the first game is a huge aberration the Packers didn't look like they could beat anybody. When did you ever think you'd see the Saints go to Lambeau and be favored? I watched some of that Bears game on Sunday and it was downright depressing.

When you have to resort to beating up a crippled kid to get over as a heel, doesn't that say something? Not saying I didn't enjoy him beating up Gowen, since Zach was a total waste of space.

I won't argue that Lesnar was a better actual in ring wrestler or had more amateur skills. That's obvious. But Lesnar never really got THAT over as either a heel or face in my book, beyond just "Oh, this guy is a big dude that's getting pushed hard." As said above, he had a dorky Howdy Doody look that made him seem like Bob Backlund on steroids. Lesnar hardly had some hugely dominant undefeated streak. He went from April 2002 to November 2002 (where he lost to Show) and in that time he lost several matches to RVD via DQ. Brock never had "The Streak" per se. Ironically enough I think in the long run Lesnar was booked STRONGER than Goldberg. Goldberg was booked into oblivion after he lost to Nash and never really got another serious shot at the title on PPV. Lesnar's loss to the Big Show was something that set up his face turn and led to him chasing Angle and the title at WM.

Isn't it interesting that WCW had all these guys in like 1992-93 and couldn't find a way to make a dime? One problem WCW always had in my view is that guys simply vanished with little rhyme or reason. Just because those guys were on the roster doesn't mean that they were DOING anything on a week to week basis. WCW had such a large roster that it was impossible to put everyone on the main show. If you watched Nitro you wouldn't really grasp the whole story taking place on Saturday Night, since several guys from Sat. Night didn't make Nitro on a weekly basis. If there's one thing WWE has always had on WCW it is that largely since Raw debuted they feature the guys you want to see on a weekly basis and build to the PPV accordingly. WCW arbitrarily tossed guys onto PPVs with little TV build, and it produced matches that didn't have much heat or frame of reference.

Oh, and Holly believes a well known liar like Heyman? They can't shoot a brief bit in the back after that where Holly confronts RVD about these alleged remarks, then Rob tells him to fuck off? It's like an insta feud where they can't be bothered to think up an actual storyline, but shouldn't the top face on the show have something more than an insta feud?

Oh Jesus, they finally jobbed an ECW guy out to one of these guest stars. I won't come down too hard on it this time since SD isn't even on here until the CW debut, so this ECW show will be a chance to see Booker. That said, what is with this shit with Hardcore Holly? Have they ever explained why he hates RVD so much or why he would constantly run in on his matches? It's not yet on "Worst Feud of the Year" level, but they are making entirely too much out of a 2nd rate mini feud. Why not just have an extreme rules match, RVD destroys Holly, end of story? There's nothing to prolong here.

I always thought WCW had too many guys, even during the not so peak years. What they had on TV was too hard to boil down into a 3 hour PPV card...too many guys who had been on TV were forgotten. I think the WWF in the 1980s was somewhat like this as well, but at least then you could tell some guys were there to kill time. I think if anything a somewhat thin roster works well. Enough guys to keep things fresh on top and not be too repetitive, but not so many that things are impossible to follow. I think the WWF circa 1997-98 was a good example of this, as was ECW on a more threadbare level.

What exactly is the issue with Sabu and Big Show at this point? Show has beaten him pretty bad every time they've faced (aside from the one Sabu DQ). This is the problem with not having a PPV soon and having a thin roster of top guys.

Nah, RVD/Holly won't mean shit in the short or long run. It's just a placeholder mini feud until RVD gets back to facing Show for the title. They'll do an Extreme Rules match soon, RVD will kill him dead, and that will be that. Then Holly can feud with Sabu in the battle of guys who got jobbed out. I doubt Punk will beat RVD anytime soon. They can book RVD going to Detroit for WM as a homecoming of sorts, so I don't see him jobbing there.

Well, as far as Piper goes let's face it. The guy had about 2 good years as a heel in the WWF from 1984-86. He never won any titles (aside from an IC cup of coffee in 1992) in the WWF and never had many good matches either. Cryme Tyme is hilarious but having seen Da Beast and Neighborhoodie in OVW I can safely say they suck bad in the ring. They should have put them on ECW and let them do Gangstas style violent brawls.

What is the point of putting the title back on Cena? I'm guessing it is this stupid shit of putting it back on him due to The Marine coming out, but why does that mean the movie will make more money? The stupidest aspect is that it looks like they are going with Batista vs. Finlay on SD, so what exactly is Booker going to do? Bringing Cena over to SD at least gives Booker a new guy to feud with. Either way I expect Edge to get the belt back once The Marine fades away. Cause lord knows HHH will want it back at some point, and Edge is the only logical job boy.

U of L vs. WVU was also in the 3:30 block last year during the ND/USC game. It's amazing how overlooked that game was considering it had the most BCS impact of any game that day.

Oh joy, let's just job Sabu out to the Show one more time. Is this ever going to just blow off so they can put the belt back on RVD where it belongs? Instead RVD is dicking around with Bob Holly when nobody remotely thinks Holly would have a shot in a hardcore match with Van Dam.

I never thought much about the Seahawks until this past year, aside from really liking their old jerseys a lot. But what do people have against them? Basically I think it comes down to them seeming like a fluke last year. The times I saw them they were beaten down for 58 minutes by the Cowboys, only to tie it late and then get a gift Drew Bledsoe INT. I saw them against the Giants as well, and the Giants flat out had them beat THREE different times only to have Jay Feeley fuck up and miss FGs. Also, let's face it: Any of the AFC playoff teams could beat down the Seahawks. They lost the Super Bowl to the #6 seed Steelers. They lost the opener to the #5 seed Jacksonville. Both of these were double digit losses. In fact, the JAX game was one of the only two games the Seahawks had on the road against a winning team....and they lost both times (the other was an OT loss to Washington). Compare this to the Colts for instance who went on the road and beat playoff teams like Jacksonville, Cincinnati, New England, etc. Add in some ultra weak looking wins against the uninspiring likes of the Titans and Niners and people got skeptical about the Seahawks. They're a 9-7 or 10-6 team that had a very weak schedule, heavy on major games at home, and it wouldn't shock me to see them drift back down to that 10-6 level.

Monty Brown comes off as a goofy comedy act masquerading as a vicious killer though. Maybe it's due to his absurd promos? There are all sorts of typical big men given a lame undefeated push (think Umaga right now) that never get over to any degree. Goldberg definitely had something. He had a good setup move and finisher, and also exuded in ring charisma and intensity. And of course things added over time like his music and the entrance with the guards got him mega over. That said, I too enjoyed Nash ending his streak. But I've given my thoughts on that in other threads.

Edge losing and going to SD on a technicality makes no sense. What is he going to do on SD? There's already a heel world champion. I don't put HHH/HBK in the discussion of guys suddenly teaming that were previously feuding. It was built for a while, with them not being quite sure about each other, etc.

Isn't FL Atlantic Howard Schnellenberger's awful team? How the mighty have fallen. Well, U of L has a huge one next week vs. Miami. I don't care that Michael Bush is hurt, or whatever injuries there are. This one's at home, so there's no reason not to beat them down. If we can pick up that win then there's Kansas St. after that (which a few weeks ago I mentioned as a trap game). That said, beat Miami and it's likely smooth sailing until the epic Nov. 2 game against WVU.

The odd aspect of these Carlito tag matches is that they never try to explain why he's suddenly teaming with a guy that he screwed over. Back in the spring Carlito tagged with RVD with no explanation as to why these guys suddenly were friendly. Now it's Cena. At least Cena and Carlito feuded a while ago, so they could at least mend fences. But why don't they SHOW this on TV? Just one brief bit in the back like this: Carlito: "Carlito is sorry he had you stabbed in a nightclub, John." Cena: "It's okay, homey. Jesus got released a long time ago. Let's go beat Edge and Orton's asses." Is that hard to do?

Honestly, I have long since forgotten Raven getting a title shot. He got so bogged down in that Zbyzsko crap and his own health problems that he's off the radar. It was never going anywhere of note anyway, it was just the lame screwjob mechanism to get the belt off Raven and onto JJ again so they could debut on Spike. Raven has been so buried that I haven't even been asking myself "Gee, what happened to Raven getting a title shot?"

Yeah, I have to admit the Colts worried me tonight. That was a shaky win that could have been more impressive if they had any semblance of a running game. What baffles me is that they would even consider starting Dominic Rhodes without a hint of irony or second thought. I didn't even think getting rid of James was a bad idea if they draft a good RB and start him immediately, but to start Rhodes at all? The Colts' D was also sad tonight. Tiki Barber ran roughshod all over them, and it was only the Giants' miscues and the refs that kept the Giants from winning. Is there a team right now with a worse running game than Indy?

This is taking me back to elementary school. Who didn't play Oregon Trail and Number Munchers? If I recall the game was screwed up at my school and it would prevent you from ever finishing the game. I could get to maybe the Snake River and then the game would screw up. I'm baffled that elementary schools now try to teach kids all this stuff like typing and spreadsheets. It's funny because to me computer lab time is just time to have fun and play Oregon Trail, Number Munchers, or that one other hunting/wildlife game where I'd always get eaten by the Osprey. What was that game?

Yeah but it's still 30 days without really getting paid, right? That alone is stupid.