cabbageboy

I've been all for Heyman's booking of late and it's totally changed the fans and show around here. That said I am starting to see some problems on OVW: --The Bobby Lashley/Ken Doane angle. Unless Lashley is leaving OVW for good I can't see jobbing him to Doane. The entire point of the Lashley/Bolin Services angle is that Lashley could turn on them and kill Ken Doane at any point. Then you finally have him turn, have the match...and job him out? WTF? --Doane/Albright. I'm glad they aren't blowing this off with the absurd match with Doane using the brass knucks. If Albright wins the TV title next week I'll let this slide. Albright has been kinda buried in my view. When Heyman took over he had the OVW title and then since he jobbed that to Jeter and has also jobbed out in the TV title division. --The new interviewer, Robbie Dauber. This dude sucks, we want more Maria. These are for the most part trivial matters. If they get rid of Heyman, who are they going to replace him with? I'm from Louisville...I'll do it!

Here's one thing. U of L is NOT remotely a top 10 caliber team. After watching that awful exhibition against Bellarmine the other night (70-63 win over a division II school) U of L doesn't look like a tourney team this year. What's sad is that the pre conf. schedule is so crappy that we should be 7-0 and ranked highly when going into Rupp...where we're going to be massacred. I have to ask this question very seriously: Why is everyone sleeping on UK this year? Considering they have quite a bit back from an Elite 8 team there isn't any reason U of L should be ranked ahead of them (especially when we lost: Francisco Garcia, Larry O'Bannon, Ellis Myles, Otis George, etc.). It also helps UK in that seemingly everyone on their schedule is down: UNC is way down, IU is crap anyway, Kansas is somewhat down, U of L is insanely overrated at #8, and the SEC as a whole is a fucking farce. If UK loses more than 3 games this year I'd be shocked.

It's way too early to say Bama is going anywhere. They have to beat LSU, Auburn, and Georgia back to back to back most likely to even GET to the BCS. I wanna hear how Texas is more deserving if Bama runs through that shit undefeated, considering they are doing jobber squashes of OK St. and Baylor. Bama's main problem is that SEC games are just awful to watch: ugly, low scoring snoozers. It'll hurt them in terms of style points, considering that Texas owned TX Tech 52-17 while Bama staggers past Tennessee 6-3. And now....I am going to freak you guys out. Who says WVU is any sort of lock to make the BCS? They have an ambush waiting to happen in Tampa against USF. South Florida has winnable games vs. Cincy, Cuse, and UConn and if they win out they'll have one loss in conf. going into that WVU game (which was postponed due to Wilma). USF wins that one, they win the BE and go to the BCS. Mind you, I'm hoping that scenario doesn't happen and that WVU simply takes them down. But USF is a scary team at home, ask U of L about that. The only big problem is that SOUTH FUCKING FLORIDA going to the BCS will likely get the Big East stripped of its bid, whereas a 10-1 WVU would be a solid BCS team that no one would have a problem with.

I remember at the beginning of the season the biggest T.O. basher, Skip Bayless, said the following about him: Sure, he'll play well against Oakland to upstage Moss, and he'll try against the Falcons since he may want to go there, but around the 7th game he'll go into his act and sabotage the Eagles and their entire season.

Is there really any reason for Jericho to fuck with WWE anymore? The guy has other avenues in life, stuff that someone like Benoit doesn't have (unless Benoit starts a gangsta rap group or something). The guy's career has no real future hopes, he's not going to main event again, so what's the point? Why deal with guys like HHH constantly burying you?

What exactly were these dues Lesnar paid in 2002 when they first put the title on him? Either way I still think it was a mistake putting the title on him then. It gave him nothing to build to in his career. So over time he just thought "Is this all there is?" and then wanted to try the NFL. Besides, I hardly think Brock working with hurt ribs for a bit is akin to someone like Al Snow who worked the indies for 12 years before getting anywhere.

The truly idiotic thing about that is that HHH spent years trying to draw even a modicum of ANY type of heat while RVD showed up and got insanely over after ONE PPV. I don't think HHH ever used that as an excuse not to job though, he just said that bullshit in an interview somewhere. The real reason he didn't job to RVD and Kane was that "Those guys aren't on my level!" And with Booker it was "I'm going to job the title to Goldberg later on, so it'll cheapen his win if I lose now." Any time HHH puts over one of his posse (Batista, Flair) just remember these things.

The problematic aspect of overhauling Cena's gimmick is that the whole rap thing is what he's primarily known for. If he drops the rapper act what's he going to do? Initially he was really bland and heatless. I think what we are seeing in the grand picture is that in some form the fans have turned on all the OVW prospects that are brought up and given world titles without really paying any dues. I'd say it happened a bit with Lesnar (as that WM XX match would show, though it was a different circumstance). It definitely happened with Orton last year, and now it's happening to Cena. Batista has for the most part escaped this, I'd think due to him having paid some dues in the form of having a shitty initial gimmick (Deacon Batista?), then studying under Flair and HHH in the background for a while, etc.

I don't think they can just fire Styles over some silly shit he might say on the air. They're gonna have to live and bear it, because frankly there isn't any other option out there worth a damn (unless they want to bring Ross back). Announcing changes are needed from time to time to keep things from getting TOO stale. I was intrigued in 2001 when I saw Heyman show up on Raw.

The reason Miami didn't have much hype or respect this year is that until tonight they had done nothing to earn it. They layed an egg vs. FSU in the opener and mostly have squashed jobbers since (and also just barely escaped Clemson). The best win they had was over the thrilling Big 12 north leaders Colorado, who ain't shit. I was one of the ones thinking Va Tech would beat them down tonight and this result flat out stunned me. I guess Marcus isn't as good as his brother after all, huh? Anyway after today's games we can pretty much boil it down to USC/Texas. I do wonder what would happen if Bama runs the table, but they are kind of a struggling team and would have to go through LSU, Auburn, and likely Georgia in the SEC title game. In other words it's not very likely.

Bad Moon Rising by Creedence. I guess maybe due to the John Fogerty CD being released recently?

Here's a lesser known WTF moment. On the 24/7 recently I saw an MSG house show from 91. There was a match with Steamboat vs. Smash and Smash had a sleeper applied. The ref raises Steamboat's arm 3 times and then...nothing. Then he raised it a FOURTH time and Steamboat kept his arm up. Even Gorilla Monsoon was baffled as to how to call it.

I haven't seen Taboo Tuesday yet but Joey had toned his over the top antics down a bit on the ECW PPV. He would still say OH MY GOD but it was more toned down and not high pitched. In fact after the ONS PPV I thought they might sign Styles. The writing was on the wall then. I thought they might bring in Styles for Smackdown rather than Raw and get rid of Michael Cole, thus teaming Styles with Taz.

The main problem is that Kurt Angle has never shown any ability to stay over as a face. It's weird really. Angle has sort of a smarmy natural quality about him that makes his character so easy to boo, but he is so excellent in the ring that he gets cheered. It's like certain elements of the fanbase cheer for Angle no matter what he does, but he's also never been terribly effective as an outright face. The only time I can think of where the crowd turned on Shawn all that bad was at Survivor Series 96, where most of the crowd cheered on Sid of all people. It should be noted that Sid was NOT a clear cut heel in that feud but instead both guys were tenuous buddies that had some problems. Sid had actually been a face for his 1996 run and drifted into tweener status before going full heel. Cena is getting booed against guys who are flat out heels and not meant to get any cheers whatsoever. Fans cheered fucking JERICHO over this man. My God, fans weren't even cheering for Jericho when he was fighting Shelton for the IC title. Jericho was a nice option for Cena in theory because he had no heat or credibility so he wouldn't overshadow the champ...but could at least carry him to a solid match. You can't keep pushing a guy because he's popular with teenage girls. What kind of fanbase is that? Teenage girls simply move on to other things after a point. The 18+ crowd actually (gasp) pays for tickets, buys PPVs, and are long term fans of the shows.

More than anything I think TNA needs to actually run some shows. You know, tour and stuff. Cause right now these guys mostly seem like local guys out of Orlando. They need to book some house shows, maybe tape TV somewhere else. It's hard to develop serious fans when the only areas you've ever run are Nashville and Orlando.

Let me explain myself in regards to Cena turning heel. Look, he's already getting booed, but really there is no storyline reason for him to turn heel on anyone. He's got the title, he's still doing just fine in the storyline. There has to be a reason for a heel turn, and mainly the reason is that he has to lose the title and feel like the fans have turned on him. Then bam, he goes out and cuts a bitter interview, goes full blown heel, and he'll be a lot fresher. I think some of it is also fan frustration over how stale the top of the card is. People overall don't really want a guy holding the title forever anymore. Even a title change or two during a feud would be good.

I always found that Victor Newman thing interesting considering the whole McMahon schtick on TV is basically a dead up ripoff of the Newmans on Y and R. You have Victor as the philandering, ruthless father who runs a business empire. His much put upon wife is kinda like Linda (though hotter), and Nick and Victoria Newman are Shane and Steph. Hell, I forget which came first but Victoria Newman was kidnapped by some dude on that show around the time Steph was kidnapped by UT on Raw.

Nah, that NWO had no prayer of drawing money. The concept was dead by 2000 anyway and I doubt guys like Bret Hart even wanted to be associated with the NWO.

No, they need to get the title off Cena at Survivor Series. It outta be apparent by this point that he desperately needs to drop the title and probably turn heel soon after. The Diesel comparison isn't a good one really because I think Nash could have actually drawn money if he was used as a monster heel rather than a watered down face with no personality. I mean he was put in positions that made no sense, such as him being the face vs. the heel Shawn at WM 11. You have a guy 7 ft. tall and 300 lbs. that's the FACE going against a heel that is all of 220 lbs. Note that after WM they didn't repeat this again and had Diesel dick around with Sid and Mabel, then a heel turned British Bulldog (who had zero heat as a heel at that point). Nash's big problem was that he simply wasn't all that over when they put the title on him, not as a face anyway (Bret, Shawn, UT, hell even Bulldog and Luger were more popular). He did a bizarre face turn at Survivor Series 94 and then just won the title immediately with no build. It was like...HUH?? Thing is I don't recall there ever being a major backlash against Diesel in 1995 since he mostly didn't wrestle anyone decent that the fans would have preferred. Nobody wanted to see Sid or Mabel, etc. win the title. So yeah that strategy worked in terms of the fans not turning on Nash, but it also didn't draw a dime. Cena is actually a lot, lot worse. This guy did have a major build to the title and is in theory supposed to be ultra popular. I'm not really that shocked that fans are turning on him. People thought I was nuts a few months ago when I made the offhand statement "If Cena wrestled RVD that Van Dam would get more of the crowd." Anyone think that sounds insane now? I knew Cena was in big trouble as champ at SS when the crowd seemed to be more for Jericho than him. This is a totally heatless, jobbed out Jericho we're talking about here...a guy who hadn't even done anything to get a title shot. Cena dropping the title has to happen pretty soon though. He's not worth having it for a whole year. If HHH is saying stuff like "He isn't in my league" maybe, just maybe HHH is right this time.

Yeah, it doesn't really matter that WVU isn't going to lose a conf. game because they already won the only one that mattered against U of L. In essence the South FL debacle was just a weird fluke, it really meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. We're going to win out most likely so it's the WVU loss that keeps it from being a 6-1 league tie (U of L getting the head to head tiebreaker) and instead we'll end up 5-2. It's sickening because I fucking KNOW that WVU isn't as good. On a neutral site U of L beats them by 2 TDs. At Papa John's stadium we beat them by 4 TDs. You know the only bowl game I'd enjoy seeing us in? Maybe vs. Notre Dame should they not get in the BCS.

I thought it was insane when Nitro tried to compete with Raw. I actually think that it would be more beneficial for TNA to do this than it was for WCW. WCW already had a fanbase and pretty solid ratings on Saturday Nights. They didn't really HAVE to go to Mondays. TNA if nothing else can get people to flip back and forth from Raw to their show on Monday and it would actually boost their ratings considerably. Hell they'd easily do better than a 0.8.

The Dudleys in TNA as Team 3D is actually a good thing. Let's face it, if anyone ever needed to be repackaged and given a fresh act it is the Duds. The only problem is that having watched them tonight they are still just doing their usual WWE formula tag spots rather than coming up with some different stuff in TNA.

Jack Bauer, you do realize that U of L is going to absolutely murder Rutgers next week I hope? I'm talking name the score 65-10 type beatdown. Hell, we squashed Pitt 42-20 tonight and didn't really play all that well. Isn't it nice of the Cardinals to stomp the rest of the Big East for WVU and thus insure that no one can even finish within 2 games of them? I am so bitter about this.