cabbageboy

As I said, Tyson Tomko. Carlito is mostly just like watching paint dry in the ring. Zero offense, nothing but the utmost basics like armbars and headlocks. He doesn't actively fuck up his spots or anything however. Tomko though? The man cannot hit basic stuff. I mean he can't even run the ropes or take a basic bump properly. Of the worst guys on the roster I'd go: 1. Tomko 2. Orlando Jordan (at least he doesn't miss everything he tries, but no charisma, no mic skills, not much in the ring). 3. Carlito (he's not the worst since he does have some charisma, and frankly it's too tough to call with Orlando). 4. Viscera. They give this guy a shot every 5 years or so as though time will magically make him not suck. He still sucks, has zero heat, no charisma, no skills. Never has. Anyone else have honorable mentions?

I watch OVW on and off and to be honest the style on OVW really isn't all that different from WWE. Nick Dinsmore never did a whole lot of dangerous stuff in his matches...it's just that he's now hampered with the stupid Eugene gimmick and can't wrestle a normal match. The one main example of someone in OVW doing something really cool was Brock doing the Shooting Star Press, which I saw in person. My jaw dropped. Of course, then he fucked up at WM doing the move and didn't do it again (not that I blame him). I think the most important aspect these guys need to learn is pacing. Keep things moving. Going out and doing headlocks is just tedious and boring, doing nothing but armbars is tedious. I've said that these guys need to sit down and watch hours of Steamboat footage. Nothing all that state of the art nowdays but there's no boring resting, everything is crisp, and most things have a purpose.

College football is nowhere near the level of the NFL. The level of play isn't as good, nor is the talent for obvious reasons (they aren't pros), but as someone who follows a team that until recently wasn't in the BCS (Louisville) I can tell you the inherent pointlessness of college football. Last year my team went 11-1 and the lone loss was a last min. affair at Miami. By year's end we were truly awesome and if there was a real tourney who knows what we could have done. But since we had that 1 loss and weren't in a BCS league, we didn't even get to a notable bowl game...just a pat on the head and sent down to Memphis for the god damn Liberty Bowl as usual. How about Utah and Auburn? Those teams both went undefeated and yet neither even got a shot at winning the national title...in favor of seeing Oklahoma tank a major bowl game. I don't know if either team could have beaten USC, but I'd like to think either could have stayed within 35 points. College football is the only sport where teams can go undefeated and not have shit to show for it. It's the single most political, arbitrary, BS filled sport.

They could get Mark Wahlberg and have him revert back to his Marky Mark persona...he might be willing to job in a rap battle to Cena. Scorpius, did Lawrence Taylor have all that much celeb appeal to offer? Wasn't he retired by 1995 anyway? As far as Canseco goes, given his steroid connection they shouldn't touch him with a 10 foot pole.

Wonder why they have yet to call up Ken Doane? Hell, he's better than Nick Nemeth. Nemeth isn't all that bad from what I've seen, he's mostly just generic and forgettable. I heard in the thread about CM Punk where HHH and Co. said his match seemed like someone simulating a wrestler rather than being a wrestler. That's a knock I have on most of the guys in OVW. Brent Albright seems like pretty much the best worker in OVW at the moment, but even his matches feature a bunch of things that he saw from the big time wrestlers on Raw. Doane shows promise as well, but the guy does a friggin RKO as a finisher.

Will they please stop with this Orlando Jordan shit? I got some amusement out of this originally, but after Benoit squashing him a couple times I thought "Ok this should be over now, let's have a REAL challenger for the US title now." Smackdown has an excellent list of US challengers: --Booker T. --Christian --Rey Rey --Ken Kennedy (if they want to push a newer guy, why not him instead of Jordan?) --Regal --Hell, even Bob Holly and Benoit could be a decent enough match. Again, why are they fucking around with this Orlando Jordan shit? Look, we've already established that this guy never, ever, EVER should win the title again so just drop it.

Actually no on Durst. Limp Bizkit did intro the Taker but they also had another god awful song on that PPV that kills precious time. And yes, the Miller Lite girls were also a horribly pointless waste of time (ahem, RVD and Kane on Heat for this)...but at least I'd rather look at them than Fred Durst. Argue that logic. And yes, I know there are white rappers. But the idea of two white guys doing a freestyle rap battle on a wrestling PPV is too lame for words.

Right. That's why few shitted on Kurt Angle being given the title in 2000. The guy was obviously a world class Olympic athlete and it made total sense that he could come in and dominate in the pros. Also, he had a natural ability to work the mic. The Rock is another example. In fact they used the fact that he was looked at as the Golden Boy during his heel title run in 1998-99...he so obviously hadn't paid his dues that it made him easy to hate, especially going against a grizzled veteran like Foley who had paid more dues than Rocky could ever imagine. One thing Masters has to do is move away from the full nelson. Right now it's the hook that's sorta working for him, but as my friend Ian said after the Michaels match "Masters is never going anywhere until he can put people away with a real move and not a friggin full nelson." On the carry scale I'd say Flair got more out of Carlito on Raw than Michaels got out of Masters....Flair had much less to work with.

What I mean is, a guy has to pay the dues. On the Greatest Stars of the 80s DVD Orndorff had a great quote: "Pay your dues and learn your craft." There is a reason why guys in their 20s haven't usually been given world titles. They are green, inexperienced, and haven't paid the dues. Ever since Lesnar it seems WWE flat out wants to find some green rookie, put the world title on him (or push him beyond what he's ready for or what the fans accept). I said it at the time it was a terrible decision to shoot their load with Lesnar simply because at that age most fans realized he hadn't paid his dues and giving him so much at a young age gave him nowhere to go but down. Same thing happened with Orton although on a more massive scale that I don't think his career has really recovered from--and may never recover from. For instance, look at how successful Austin's title chase and win were. One key reason is that he had flat out paid his dues and learned his craft...he'd been shit on by WCW and Bischoff, he'd worked his way up the WWF ranks, and now by God he was READY for that heavyweight title. On other levels guys like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels had paid their dues in tag teams and worked their way up for years, worked the IC division and the midcard, and then finally got the push. Hell, even Hogan spent about 4-5 years finding a character that fans connected with before getting the title (although Gagne's inept booking in the AWA delayed that). Hell, I watched Hogan vs. Ted DiBiase from a 1979 MSG show and lord did they suck back then, with Hogan doing a dreary heel Narcissist act and DiBiase as a bland face. Then I saw a 1988 Boston Gardens match and it was stunning to see how much those guys had improved, how much more at home they were in their later personas, the effortless command of the crowd. My point is, someone like Chris Masters isn't that bad for this stage of his career. Hell, if he can get to where Luger was at his peak then he'll be doing well for himself. But right now it's blatant to the fans that he really hasn't paid any dues, hasn't mastered his craft, and doesn't deserve any sort of major spot on Raw.

Actually I thought the match last night was Carlito's best to date. And that's mostly due to Flair carrying him like he did his son David 5 years ago. So in a roundabout way I am comparing Carlito to David Flair. I wouldn't mind Carlito if he just stuck to his Cabana, was a manager, and wrestled on occasion. But to seriously push this guy as a wrestler capable of winning major titles? He's got no skills. I haven't said he's the worst guy on the roster...hell I haven't even said Orlando Jordan was the worst guy on the roster (and you guys know how I feel about him). The worst guy on the roster is.... Tyson Tomko.

Hell, using stale, out of style acts is nothing new for Vince. Witness the Limp Bizkit WM 19 performance that eats up precious PPV airtime that could have gone to the Kane/RVD tag match. As far as the rap battle....two white guy engaging in a freestyle battle?

Am I the only one who actually liked the Warrior? Sure his interviews were coked out and bizarre, that was part of the appeal, haha. And I think he's better than Goldberg ring wise. Anyone want to name a Goldberg match better than Warrior/Macho from WM 7? They really go over the Shango feud, huh? That's...great.

I thought at WM 19 Cena just challenged whatever rapper wanted to accept. He just tossed out various names, but of course no one seriously thought of accepting.

You know what's sad? I actually had a similar idea watching Raw the other night. That said my idea was for a harmless mini feud with Cena being attacked by Cade and Murdoch, and they could do a West TX Rednecks act opposing Cena's rapper. Either way if they go with the tag match with Eminem it's WCW circa 1997-98 (celeb tag) or with my idea it's WCW 1999.

Eminem in a tag match with John Cena, eh? If this is true could there be a possibility of someone else being in the WWE title match? Celeb tag matches....it gets more like WCW every day.

The interesting thing about WVU is that I can't see them losing too many conference games, though admittedly 3 games (one that was a jobber squash of Wofford) may not be a good sample yet. The VA Tech game will be a good barometer for them. Fact is, the Big East and BCS need U of L to win the conf. and hopefully go undefeated. An also ran like WVU (and let's face it, that's what they are) going to the BCS only reinforces the notion of the Big East being a joke.

Carlito won't be shit for one major reason: The guy has NO physique. I mean seriously, he looks like a Saturday morning jobber on a Superstars show from 1988. If he can talk, fine, make him Masters's manager and let him do the talking and Masters can do the wrestling. Or they can tag. He's much more Johnny Polo circa 1993-94 than he is The Rock (or even Razor Ramon). Carlito is a far worse worker than Chris Masters. He has no believable offense, no finisher, nothing that would make you say "This guy could win this match." Even if he turned face the only thing he could do is suddenly develop a clue on how to sell in dramatic fashion (a la Michaels) because him beating the shit out of someone is absurd. Sure, he had a pretty decent match last night with Flair but for god's sake Flair got a watchable match out of DAVID FLAIR. That whole match was Flair leading him around by the hand. At the end of the day though you wanna know why people resent guys like Masters and Carlito? They don't pay the dues. There's something romantic about a guy working his way up through territories or shitty indie feds until finally getting a break. Some OVW rookie being brought up and having a huge push is bound to cause resentment, and with Carlito he has the double whammy of being given TWO major titles upon his debut (one on Smackdown, the other on Raw) as well as mainly being pushed due to his daddy.

I don't think Masters's entrance lends itself to having heat. I mean it's a dramatic pose entrance with that goofy music and the Greek statues. How is a crowd supposed to cheer or boo this? You know, after last night I have this sinking feeling I'm going to see RVD go down to the Masterlock when he gets back.

Bear in mind that Bischoff doesn't usually job when he does wrestle. I do realize most of this was when he was running WCW and therefore didn't book himself to job, but this is the man who put himself over Ric Flair. And also didn't really let Larry Z. beat his ass either. That said, it's probably just an ass kicking for Cena to amuse the crowd.

Speaking of running on E I'd say the White Sox are on fumes at this point too. Cleveland is absolutely terrifying right now and I dare say someone is looking at not making the playoffs here (Red Sox?).

It's time to give it up with the retarded "MITB is only for the world title" crap. It's just for Edge to take on whoever has the title on Raw, there's no trivial mention of it being purely the World Title. It's a generic title shot at the champ on the show. Face facts, Matt is jobbing in that match and moving to Smackdown. What he does there is anyone's guess.

Yeah this was a very fun Raw tonight, albeit a completely lame duck show. I thought Flair/Carlito was probably better tonight than at the PPV, but please god just END this goofy feud. Carlito is garbage, he still has zero finisher, no believable offense (I found myself wondering how Flair's eye could be busted....surely Carlito couldn't do it). I'm thinking they'll segue this into a Flair/Masters feud, which somehow makes me feel dirty knowing Flair will job. The 8 man tag was a really fun match, though I too wondered what was up with Edge getting jobbed out so bad. One thing that truly puzzles me: Why did they hype the Homecoming Raw show without mentioning the most important detail of them moving to USA??? It's bizarre, it's like they just assume everyone knows this. Why don't they, I dunno, TELL people on the show itself? Anyone have any idea why they are doing this and not mentioning the actual USA move? Is Spike refusing to let them mention USA? And if so, why would Vince give two shits?

What would be interesting is if they went to MSG and started hearing the boos for Cena. And last night it seemed like neither Cena or Angle had any real heat during that match. As far as the Rumble goes, I actually hope Cena doesn't win it. He finished 2nd in it this past year and I'd rather see a fresh Rumble with someone new winning.

I keep hearing about a title vacancy but why? I mean Cena got DQed last night, kept the title...where's the major controversy?

Note that I asked about the NFC. The AFC is fucking harsh. Colts at 2-0, Steelers at 2-0, Bengals as well, Chiefs too. Bunch of others at 1-1 that are dangerous. Why is it that it seems like both confs. are never good at once? It was like that Packers/Broncos Super Bowl was the only time it's ever happened in the past decade.