cabbageboy

I think he does a swanton as well but haven't seen it much on OVW. Anyway I can think of a match for WM that would be a much bigger draw than Batista/Orton: Batista vs. UT. It'd have all sorts of intrigue: Can Batista retain and end the streak? Can UT get that one last title run? It has more appeal to me than "Evolution also rans explode!"

It'd be fun to see Dean Hill on Raw but he really just falls in the same "redneck southern announcer" category as JR so there's no way. Hell, I'd also enjoy seeing Kenny Bolin on Raw as a heel manager but such things are never meant to be. To be honest I think they might just go with Coach and King for a while as a 2 man team. I dislike the 3 man booth anyway. The main problem with this angle is that it's just that: an angle. Now they have made Ross into a sympathetic figure and thus he'll get an outpouring of support from the fans. It happened before when they tried Michael Cole as lead announcer and he sucked, and it is bound to happen again. It has to be someone who is either extremely credible to the fans as an announcer (Styles) or a guy like Foley or Jericho who is a well respected wrestler with mic skills. If it's just a Josh Matthews/Todd Grisham/Steve Romero pretty boy with no substance, the fans will shit all over it.

They haven't had a ***** match since 1996? Um, in 1997 they had a couple in the first HIAC and also Bret/Austin from WM. There have been several **** type matches this year alone, and it's really the stuff that's been mentioned already (Angle/Shawn WM, Money in the Bank, Edge/Matt from the last Raw PPV, I dare say even the Cena/JBL I Quit).

Russo was right on that one. I remember the Edge promos and wondered "Who is this guy? What is he all about?" It was quite effective. With Val you got a good idea of what he was all about and then made up your mind whether you liked him or not. I think we've concluded here that: 1. If you have short, mysterious vignettes then it leads to the crowd digging the guy and he becomes a face. 2. The more talking in the promos, the more the chance that the guy will be a heel since it is easier to convey the heel persona verbally.

Well, it helps when you have the Houston Texans in the division who can't win a game.

You know why the 94 Rumble match was so negative in the grand scheme of things? Every time UT is in a casket match I keep thinking in the back of my mind that 10 jobbers will come out and beat down UT and cost him the match. It makes you wonder: Why wouldn't a UT opponent do this (besides it being really lame)?

I'd put the Benoit WCW match on there since it's notable but otherwise he didn't do that much there. Maybe one with Flair was ok but I didn't see Souled Out 98. Is that Hakushi a KOTR match or was it the awesome match I saw in person on a Raw from 1995? I didn't even know Bret was in the 1995 KOTR tourney.

Everyone always defends Farnsworth by pointing out all the times he doesn't fuck up. That's not the point with Farns. The majority of his appearances are without incident, but when he fucks up it's something of biblical proportions. Last year I swear he sent the Cubs reeling into a downward spiral they never recovered from in a couple of games vs. the Cardinals. Games where the Cubs were up like 8-3 and he would walk everyone, give up homers to So Taguchi and shit like that. What's sad is that back when the Braves got Farnsworth I DEFENDED IT. I rationalized if anyone could make something of this bum, it'd have to be Leo Mazzone and Bobby Cox. When he started racking up saves I thought he might be over his Cubs shittiness, but my brother had it pegged right: "When the Braves get in the playoffs, Farnsworth will do something to kill them." He's just a doomed, jinxed player. The sort of guy with a dark cloud over his head. Any team with Farnsworth is doomed.

The Colts better beat the crap out of the jobbers on the schedule because after the bye week it gets a lot tougher, what with NE on the road, Steelers, Chargers, Cincy, Seattle. Sigh, why do I sense the Colts first loss being the Patriots? And just wondering but why do teams just let Brady and Vinatieri constantly do this shit to them (Steelers recently, Falcons today)? I'd think someone would just flat out do a cheap shot and take Brady out or take out Vinatieri's legs after a point. Honestly, why can no one stop this lame "Patriots get tied by ______ and then go down and get a game winning FG" formula? It's so repetitive and tiresome.

Serenity seems like it was highly mismarketed. I think I saw maybe a couple of trailers for it and it didn't look like much, so I never worried about going to see it. Having never seen the TV show it's based on, I really didn't know anything about it. Why is everyone so shocked that it is tanking? It's a movie based on a cancelled TV series, that doesn't have anyone of note in it, and the marketing wasn't anything to write home about.

I like Kennedy a lot but he's not ready to headline WM yet. We need to see him in an extended match, maybe hang in the US division for a while. His act is amusing but right now a bit one note, to main event he'd need to move beyond just announcing himself.

Why did the Braves trade for Kyle Farnsworth? Is there any way anyone can defend that acquisition at this point? I wasn't initially watching this game, just tracking the score while watching football and since it was 6-1 I didn't feel much need to turn it on. Then I saw it jump to 6-5 quickly, and then I just KNEW that Farnsworth had given up the grand slam. But why leave him in for the 9th? The 8th ought to have shown clearly that he's horrible. I fucking hate the Astros. Hopefully they have nothing left after this game and the Cardinals will just sweep them.

Batista/Eddie Winner: I'm going on a limb and saying Eddie...I think this is his birthday. You can't job a man out on his birthday in his home state...can you?? JBL/Rey Winner: JBL, because God hates me. Benoit/OJ/Booker T/Christian Winner: No more Jordan....please! Benoit will own everyone. Kennedy/Holly Winner: Kennedy. As I said Holly winning here makes zero sense. MNM/LOD & Christy Winner: LOD & Christy...why not just do a tag title match? Nunzio/Juventud Winner: Juventud. This could be pretty decent, but it has no build. Lashley/Dean Winner: Lashley in a squash. Undertaker/Ortons Winner: Undertaker. Having UT lose a casket match to both would be kinda strange.

Here is what I mean. Imagine for a moment you have never seen TNA and you decide to watch this show from last night. Here's the impression the show would make: "Oh joy, more Canadian heels. Who are these Team Canada guys and why should I care?" "Oh hell no, did I just see the Road Dogg doing his old act from 7 years ago? Is that friggin Konnan? This is just my DREAM team. The black dude seemed kinda cool, wasn't he on the WWF a long time ago?" "Who are these 3 high flying guys? They seem pretty cool but I don't know them or what they're all about. Oh shit, that one guy is Shawn Michaels's cousin? Why hasn't Vince signed him as a favor?" "These guys have Jeff Jarrett as the world champion? And Kevin Nash is his #1 contender? This is a joke....right?" "Shane Douglas and Larry Zbyzsko are still alive?" "This Abyss guy seems pretty cool in a Kane or Mankind sort of way, right down to his freaky manager." Anyway, this Impact show is loads better than the FSN show I tried to watch a couple of times. That show was so forgettable and bland that I mostly forgot it was on. Their PPV coming up does sound like a strong card though, so I might give it a chance.

I did wonder about this aspect. A lot of these guys are in TNA at the moment (Raven, Rhino, Dudleys, Sabu, I think Lynn)....so who exactly is going to wrestle on this show? I want some Dean Malenko. I demand some Dean Malenko. And yeah, CanadianChick is right about RVD needing to headline this PPV. Though honestly I have no clue who he would wrestle if all the logical ECW opponents for him are contracted elsewhere.

I don't think you can really build around Rey, not in a world title situation anyway. He's simply too small, it's not feasible that he could hold the heavyweight title. As far as Kennedy goes, he's a joker and amusing but he's not a JOKE. There's a difference there. At least he hasn't been jobbed out and buried the way most of the Smackdown heels have been. With Orton, he's someone who I literally can't see myself caring about no matter what he does. That's how bad they fucked his career up last year in Sept. until WM. He could beat UT and I'd yawn. He could win the title from Batista and I'd yawn. He could beat up legends, turn on his dad, beat up stunt grannies....and still wouldn't have any heat. I'll put it another way. If there was still a WCW then Orton would have been released and gone there after WM. He was buried that badly. Without any competition though he's still around and they still think they can seriously push him and have people care, but the crowd reaction is more of an apathetic "Are you still here?"

Ohio St. should not be in the top 10 at 3-2. And yes I know those 2 losses were to unbeaten Texas and Penn St. and both were close. That said, they haven't beaten anyone notable.

Let me take a look at the SEC/Penn St. thing that Mike mentioned: Georgia--Yeah, they look like one of the two best in the SEC and could likely beat Penn St. home or away. Florida--I might have said they would beat Penn St. until Bama completely exposed them. If this one was at Happy Valley, PSU wins...in the Swamp, Gators. Tennessee--Tennessee is shitty. I've seen little about this team that screams out "This is a top level team." LSU--They LOST to that bleh Tenn. team after being up 24-7. I don't think we'll know how good or bad LSU is this whole season due to Katrina though, so this one is a ?. Alabama--I think Bama would likely beat Penn St., yes. Auburn--Auburn isn't near the team they were last year. As far as South Carolina goes....dude, they were tied with UK until UK's RB decided to start fumbling every possession yesterday. The Gamecocks aren't much.

I'm glad the ECW PPV did better than originally thought. It's hard to get people to buy a PPV when there are no matches announced and the only isssue is a vague angle about some WWE invaders disrupting the show. If they do it again next year I think they should at least have one notable main event announced and the rest of the card can be the ECW nostalgia.

U of L put an absolute assrape on UNC today 69-14. You know, after the past two weeks I am still in shock at that South Florida game. What the fuck happened there? Anyway, next week is the definition of must win at WVU. No way should U of L start the shitty Big East at 0-2. Win there and running the table and finishing 10-1 looks feasible, and if that happens the USF result will probably go down and the single weirdest game result of the year. As far as Penn St. goes, hell right now I'd take them over most of the SEC aside from Georgia and maybe Bama. Anyone wanting to take Notre Dame next week over USC?

The Dudleys aren't really shitty, they are more just so into doing their formula tag match at this point that they can't do much else (aside from the crazed ECW PPV brawl with Dreamer/Sandman, but Heyman booked that chaos). One problem is that everything on this show feels insanely rushed, like they desperately need 2 hours. I just feel like I'm settled in and then BAM, show over. I also don't feel like I know any of these guys, aside from our hero Jarrett. I haven't watched much TNA stuff in the past two years or so, since they used to do the Wed. PPVs. I remember some of these guys (Siaki, Sabin, Daniels, etc) but half of these guys are faceless cruiser types that I have never heard of. They have a real problem with this: I feel as though I'd been dropped in the middle of a movie, I have no idea who some of these guys are and they don't really tell me. Who are these Team Canada guys? They didn't even get mentioned onscreen by name. People on this thread have pimped Austin Aries, but to me he just seemed like...some guy. That's my major problem from what I've seen thus far. A lot of the show is "Random X division guy fights another Random X guy, they flip around a lot, someone wins, but there is no real issue." If I had zero exposure to this fed before I wouldn't even have a concrete idea of what the X division is or what precise value the X title has. I'm thinking about just taping this show and watching OVW at 11:00. To be honest, OVW is a better show. The in ring action isn't anywhere near as flashy but I think most anyone could watch an episode and see 1. Who the major players are on the show and what their goals are (beyond just whoever has the title), 2. Who is feuding with who and why. Last, TNA has entirely too much of a late era WCW vibe to it. From seeing Larry Z. to Shane Douglas interviewing people, to Mike Tenay to the main event scene of Nash/Jarrett, the whole thing seems like WCW with a bunch of white boy cruisers replacing the luchadores. Do you guys realize Jarrett/Nash was the main event of Great American Bash 2000? How do the TNA bookers sleep at night knowing this stuff?

Having Kennedy job out to Holly is so counterproductive, surely they aren't that stupid. And NO, NO, NO...no more shit with Orlando Jordan. Make him tap like a bitch and send him to the internet Velocity where he belongs. Or don't have him involved in the decision and send him to Velocity. They cannot under any circumstance put a major title on Jordan ever again. Never. I dunno what to think of the JBL/Rey match. Personally I think jobbing anyone out to JBL is a complete waste of time, but it wouldn't shock me if he won.

I am not saying I hate Orton or anything, in fact he really inspires zero feelings one way or the other. And yes I know he's still young but you only get 1 chance to make a big impression in the main event scene. His first title run was such a debacle on so many levels that I don't think he'll ever really recover. Most of it wasn't really his fault, he was booked terribly. But after seeing 1. HHH squash him repeatedly. 2. UT own him at WM and making him look foolish most of the time since and 3. Batista squashing him the night after WM my attitude towards Orton is "Are you still here?"

I'd personally be more offended at the Dusty Finish than I would a DQ. The last thing they need to do is start having a Dusty Finish all the time. And yes, I know Orton is likely going to get the title at some point....but it's a total waste of time. To me, Orton is an ill fated experiment. He had his chance, they fucked it all up, time to move on.

There was one. It was on the Smackdown before the Six Pack Challenge thing at Unforgiven 1999, where HHH had to win 3/5 matches or something like that to be a participant in the 6 pack. One of the matches was the handicapped casket match against Mideon and Viscera....and HHH JOBBED, baby!