cabbageboy

For those who have seen the Shea Stadium show on 24/7 you'll know that Cole can be quite an amusing announcer when he isn't being fed all of these lines by Vince. The truly hideous aspect of this is Vince is ranting at the announcers and telling them how to call matches, when he himself was one of the worst announcers ever.

Thing is with Piper and Dusty in 2006 wouldn't that storyline have worked either way? I know they assumed fans would want a Dusty/Flair teaming, but why would fans vote for a guy who was Flair's mortal enemy for years over a guy who has been a close friend of Flair's for decades (Piper) and is a bigger WWE star to boot? With Matt Hardy beating out JBL in 2005, why would that shock anyone in WWE? I know they were pushing JBL in that crossover storyline with Raw, but a heel Bradshaw teaming with face Rey didn't make any sense. Especially not when you have an exciting babyface teaming like Matt/Rey for fans to vote for. And no, I don't really think the voting is rigged because there's nothing critical to rig. What is there to rig?

You know, with Halloween being next week I think Saw V has a better shot of retaining some audience than it would otherwise, unless everyone is out trick or treating. After that though....not so good.

Early Tampa Bay at Dallas: I am utterly baffled as to how Dallas is favored by 7 or so in this game. I don't care if Romo is healthy or who they have, Tampa is going to beat that ass. Bucs by 10. (Okay, so Dallas' D at least showed up. 0 for 1) Washington at Detroit: Redskins struggle but usually get the job done. Detroit can't buy a win. Washington by 7. Something like 20-13. (The Redskins sorta struggled, and then got the job done. 1 for 2) Buffalo at Miami: First division test for the Bills and the Dolphins are now reeling a bit after a decent start. Bills by 8. (Bills do not pass that first division test on the road. 1 for 3) St. Louis at New England: Pats looked excellent stomping the Broncos, but have injuries now out the wazoo. Rams look solid now with Haslett, but I can't see them winning here. NE by 6. (Maybe with Jackson this would have gone differently. 2 for 4) San Diego at New Orleans @ Wembley Stadium: Who knows with this bizarre London game, but the Saints don't have Reggie Bush so the Chargers should win this handily. SD by 12. (I just keep picking the Chargers and they keep losing. Blah. 2 for 5) Kansas City at NY Jets: Okay, the Jets just lost to the Raiders so they can't possibly afford a loss to the usually hopeless Chiefs. Jets by 10. (Favre tried to blow this game, but couldn't in the end. 3 for 6) Atlanta at Philadelphia: This should be a fun game. Falcons could really impress with a road win here, but if Westbrook is healthy I think the Eagles hang on. Philly by 4. (Philly won a bit easier than this. 4 for 7) Oakland at Baltimore: Raiders got a nice OT win over the Jets, but this year the stat of west coast teams going east is not good at all (0-9). Ravens by 14. (Pretty much nailed this one. 5 for 8) Arizona at Carolina: See the above stat. Cardinals are a good home team, but they aren't going to win this one in Carolina. Panthers by 13. (Ended up way closer than I expected. 6 for 9) Late Cleveland at Jacksonville: This actually should be a close game, since the Jags know nothing else. That said, I can't see the Browns winning this. Jags by 3. (Wow, look at the resurgent Browns with the nice road win! 6 for 10) Cincinnati at Houston: The Bengals really, really suck and it's only getting worse with Palmer ailing. Houston is getting on track after a rough start. Texans by 14. (This is just getting bad for the Bengals now...they might be the worst in the league, even worse than Detroit. 7 for 11) NY Giants at Pittsburgh: Easily the game of the day. Steelers have already gone through some wars this year while the Giants have played mediocre teams for the most part. Steelers by 5. (Big win for the G-Men on the road today. 7 for 12) Seattle at San Francisco: Niners just fired Nolan, so who knows how they react. I think they come out strong this time and smack the weak Seahawks. SF by 9. (Okay so they came out anything but strong against Seattle. 7 for 13) Wow, what a crappy week of predictions.

Yeah this is just about over. It's tough to win a World Series when your 3-4 hitters are like 0-30 or something absurd. 10-2 tonight and tomorrow the Rays have to face Hamels. I will say this though: The Phillies better finish it tomorrow night. Cause if the Rays somehow get to Hamels or just win a tough 3-2 type game then it heads back to Tampa and the Phillies would be left with Myers and Moyer for 6 and 7 (unless Hamels came back on short rest).

I didn't see the show tonight but that main event sounded like it was overbooked to hell. I still think that somehow Jericho will bitch to Adamle and get the decision overturned since from what it sounded like Batista hit Austin with a spear, and thus could have been DQed. I'd be interested in hearing exactly why Cena vs. Batista II at WM is such an awesome match. Let's face it.....everyone with half a brain (and some without even that) flat out know 100% that Cena is winning that match since he jobbed in the first meeting. It has zero drama. What does it say when it might be improved by Orton being involved in a 3 way?

Why would any ratings have Iowa at #10? They aren't that good. They might give Penn St. a game, but with it being hyped as a trap game I would think Penn St. would be ready. Minnesota is a dark horse to run the table as crazy as it sounds. They are 7-1 right now and have one road game left vs. a mediocre Wisconsin, with home games that are winnable vs. Northwestern, Michigan, and Iowa. Maybe they run that table and end up 11-1 so they can get maimed 55-10 in the Rose Bowl by USC, though I do think OSU would still have a tiebreaker over them for 2nd place in the Big 10.

Tito always ruled to me, I was sad that he became a total JTTS later in his career. But then the first match I ever saw was Strike Force vs. two masked jobbers on a Sunday morning show. As a kid I never understood why Harley Race was supposed to be any good. I thought he was an old man that was fat and didn't do a hell of a lot out there, but this was his later WWF stint as The King. I even knew he was a former NWA world champion and had no idea WHY. That said, he's a guy you have to watch a lot and then you pick up on more of what he does. I actually agree on Cactus, at least his WCW era work. Until ECW made the whole hardcore thing "cool" I never thought guys who did this style were any good. Just brawlers who couldn't really wrestle in the ring. Cactus fighting all over the building wasn't really good wrestling per se.

Yay, U of L actually managed to win a substantial conf. game today vs. USF. I actually thought that one could happen though, given USF's constant struggles at Papa John's. The Big East is such a total ass conference...who knows who will come out of it? I'd say the U of L vs. WVU winner in a few weeks might have the best shot. And yes, thank you Penn State.

I would assume the Supreme Fighting Machine gimmick was an early UFC style gimmick but the thing is it was 1995 and very few people were all that into UFC. I had never heard of it at all until Shamrock showed up in the WWF.

Even though HHH/UT was an obvious DQ with Big Show doing a run in, I question putting this on free TV at all. Especially free TV with zero build at all, just tossed on there. My brother missed the opening of the show and once he saw those two guys in the ring at the end was like "Wait up...HHH and The Undertaker are wrestling each other NOW? Why haven't they mentioned this more?" That said, Khali rules. He's perhaps getting this close to being the next Fat Chick Thriller, but unlike Mike Awesome has the curious amount of charisma and ability to handle comedy to make it work. Keep him as a face and eventually have him stand up to the Big Show and Vicki.

I don't think the season itself needs to be shortened, it's mostly the playoffs are entirely too long. I have to admit unless the World Series is incredibly compelling I tend to lose interest by the time it arrives. It doesn't help that all of the various playoff rounds seem to produce lame World Series matchups.

Yeah I think the Titans can get past the Colts and Packers at home, but if they just salvage a split in those Chicago and Jacksonville road games they'll be doing good.

I haven't seen this yet but I did take a look at Wikipedia for a synopsis. From the sound of some of it I think the writers and director must have seen the Karloff/Lugosi movie The Raven, not to mention The Pit and the Pendulum with Vincent Price.

Hell, this show at least was trying to do something, anything, important. It might have been goofy, it might have felt rushed, it might have been too full of itself, but at least the show moves and isn't dull. So on that level it was at least better than Raw from this week.

I didn't really react to the tag title change since I assumed a Dusty Finish was coming due to Larry Z. counting the pin. I guess since he was a ref at the upcoming PPV he was allowed to count a pin? The more perplexing moment was that US title match. DDP actually pinned Hennig before Flair entered the ring, yet the ref apparently gave Hennig the belt back for....some reason. I do recall DDP winning the US title at Starrcade though. Was that finish botched?

I enjoyed this show for the most part even if some aspects of the booking made zero sense (not that this is unusual). They did get the belt off Taylor at long last and back on Kong....even had Raisha bury Wilde on the mic before the match. This is fine by me, set up a Saeed vs. Taylor feud and go with Kong vs. Roxxi for the belt. The Main Event Mafia is already an amusing faction and I have to wonder if this will end up like the Millionaire's Club all over again with the established guys being cheered over the young guys, who in this scenario are supposed to be the faces. How can anyone hate Booker with his chants of "RESPECT!" and his cornball DiBiase inspired belt? That said, why did they job out Velvet Sky to Christy Hemme tonight? That was baffling. As was jobbing Machismo in about 2 mins. to the dead end Bashir. This terrorist bullshit is such a 2004-05 gimmick, yet they actually put a belt on this guy and have put him over most of the X Division.

A few weeks back I said in an NFL thread that the Jaguars would be the team most likely to make a nice little run in the next month or so. It's not that they are amazingly good, but consider this schedule from now until the end of November: Cleveland (2-4) at Cincy (0-7) at Detroit (0-6) Tennessee (6-0) Minnesota (3-4) I'd say Jacksonville has a real shot at winning 4 of 5 there. Maybe a 2nd loss to the Titans, or maybe some bizarre slip against a bad team. They should head into December at 7-4. However, December could be more of a problem as they travel to Houston (always a tough one), to Chicago (I'd say that one is a loss), get the Colts again who will want payback, Packers, and finish at Baltimore. In other words Jacksonville seems like the definition of a 10-6 wild card team.

I listened closely but it seemed like Doherty and Pritchard overlap at times to the point where I didn't think it was possible it could be the same guy without studio overdubbing. Did they ever actually show the announcers sitting there so we knew that there were 3 people? I think it's hilarious that Sam Houston show only drew 2000 people with Hogan vs. DiBiase as the main event.

I had a blast watching this show. Some of the action was actually quite good (Chavo/Fujinami, main event, IC and tag title matches) while the bad matches were made truly hilarious by the Foley and Cole commentary. I wish they would do joke commentary more often for these crappy old school shows from the 70s and early 80s that had plodding wrestling. Call me crazy but I didn't think Goulet/Hangman was nearly as bad as they were acting. In fact I'd say it was better than the first two matches on the show, Patterson/Kamata (more of an angle than match though), and maybe even Inoki/Sharpe. I did record the show, so it's a fun addition to the wrestling collection.

That costume contest will be aces if Katie Lea busts out her OVW costume and dresses up as Catwoman. Meow!

This isn't a real big deal, not like changing from WWF to WWE level big. But it's just another slightly annoying bit of business that frustrates fans. I already loathe and detest the term "sports entertainment" so if they just call them entertainers it might actually be an improvement.

I echo the DiBiase remarks. He shows promise but he's such a vanilla, bland wrestler right now that is no different from a dozen other guys. Why not go with a variation of the Million Dollar Man gimmick, with him as a spoiled brat. Have him throw money around, use the seasonal residence gimmick, give him a manservant, drive around in sports cars.

I can't see how Jericho will win this match even in a screwy pinfall type way. I see either Austin or Michaels screwing Jericho over and the next night Adamle will be forced to overturn the decision. As far as Batista goes, you know what really needs to happen? He needs to get beat down by a group of heels. Just something to show us that this guy isn't infallible, that he can be taken down. It seems like no one ever gets any heat on the guy.

Yeah I would rather see a