cabbageboy

Actually if someone went 16-0 in the SEC this year I would have questioned that team being a #1 seed, the same as with Memphis. It's funny but I thought that there was no way any notable big time coach would take the UK job at this point. But I guess throwing absurd amounts of money will lure the smarmy likes of Calipari after all. Calipari now has the most pressure on him of anyone in sports. He literally has to win the national title now, maybe even multiple titles. Can you imagine the nightmare his life would become if a UK team did what his Memphis team did in the title game last year vs. Kansas? He would be run out of Lexington on a rail. I hope UK fans will enjoy winning at the cost of the program's post probation era legitimacy. Because that's where Calipari will likely lead them....NCAA probation, Final 4 vacancies, off the court thuggery, and the like. One thing is for sure. With this move UK can say good bye to any crossover appeal they had with U of L fans. Believe me, during the Pitino era at UK there were a lot of U of L fans who liked UK a lot. That support in Louisville has waned over the past decade with Tubby's dreary teams and the hideous Gillispie hire. But now? They can forget it. Every U of L fan loathes John Calipari with a passion reserved for few other coaches, though I doubt Barnhart and Co. care about that.

This is a little surprising but it's easy to see why Taz would get sick of Vince being in his ear. I would be interested in Taz going to TNA though it might lead to a goofy Don West angle where he brings his own announce booth a la Ross in 1999.

Recently 24/7 had a showing of BATB 2000 and in honor of that epic PPV my brother and I busted out that Holy Trinity of 2000 and watched them: GAB 2000, BATB 2000, and New Blood Rising. NBR is a show that is truly as horrendous as its reputation. Uncensored 2000 is a show I actually do have on tape. I wanted to just go to a sports bar for it, but the place stopped getting WCW shows (ha!). So I had to actually get that PPV.

I doubt HHH would actually lose the belt on a DQ at WM. It's likely just to add some drama. I have no idea how that match will play out though. On one hand HHH should beat his ass given all of Orton's heinous antics of late, but they've talked too much about how Orton HAS to beat him to get to the next level. Some may predict a Steph heel turn, but how does that make even one iota of sense?

Monsters vs. Aliens making 58 million isn't a big shock but 23 million for Haunting in Connecticut? Anyone else think that is a surprisingly good number for what looks like a typical cheesy horror flick? But then who could stay away from a flick when it has Elias Koteas?

I enjoy gimmicks but they need to be done for a while and then a guy drops it once he's fairly established and becomes more realistic. Or sometimes a gimmick can be so good that it becomes the guy's actual persona, like the Million Dollar Man with Ted Dibiase. As far as the ring ropes go, it's time to go back to the old school red, white, and blue ropes again full time. One reason I've actually seen some mediocre GAB PPVs over the past few years is that on that PPV they at least use the real ropes.

Ugh. That was just horrible today. On Friday I was terrified when MSU beat Kansas, knowing full well U of L's nightmares against the Big 10 in the Pitino era. Just can't figure out that hideous style of play, in fact we played 2 Big 10 teams this season and lost both in ugly fashion. Now all week the world gets to hear about how it's been 30 years since Magic Johnson, the FF is in Detroit, OMG can the Spartans win it all???? Then UConn will stomp them by 20. That's the one aspect of this disaster that doesn't bother me, UConn already being there. Since UConn crushed U of L this year I didn't think there was much chance of a win in that one anyway. Izzo to UK now. Cause lord knows they base their job hires on the ability to beat U of L.

This will sound like an odd way to judge an era, but take a look at the various retrospectives that pop up on Raw or on DVDs. There's always a ton of 1997-98 era stuff on those. Memorable bits, promos, matches. Then they get to 2000 during the Kreski era and....there's really nothing to show. None of it is all that classic or memorable. Kreski was solid at maintaining momentum for a while. Let The Rock cut a funny promo, let the guys wrestle solid matches, and stay out of the way. If you take a look at the WWF roster Russo worked with, it wasn't all that good. But Russo at least got guys like the New Age Outlaws over, D'Lo Brown, Test, Val Venis, and so on.

That looks awesome. I love how it doesn't seem like it was filmed with a real camera. No one involved with that movie has heard of 24p for a more "film" look? Somehow I bet Morasca will go in that notorious category of Strippers That Do Not Strip.

The big problem was the timing issue. Warrior could work a big match enough to get over but the thing is he got the belt in April 1990, almost a perfect signal to the end of the 80s wrestling boom period. But the fact remains that Warrior wasn't a big enough draw on his own merits to carry feuds against guys like Haku and Bravo. Hogan a few years earlier could have sold out arenas against similar foes. The question is this though: Was Warrior really that much of a flop? As in what was business like before and after his title run? I don't really know. Keep in mind as well that the economy was tanking in the early 90s, which couldn't have helped matters when they tried a new champ.

Okay, Arizona wasn't much of a challenge. Pitino in the Sweet 16 is just lethal, so any "expert" who thought that game would be close is nuts. I have to admit though....Michigan St. worries me. I don't know why they do, but it seems like U of L never plays worth a crap against anyone from the Big 10. If Northwestern showed up in Indy tomorrow U of L might find a way to lose to them 56-55. Still, after that awesome destruction last night we just can't lose to this lethargic MSU team. I don't want to hear these lame "OMG Spartans are in Detroit for the Final 4!" stories. Here are predictions for the next round: Villanova 72, Pitt 63. Just not feeling Pitt in this tourney. They keep playing with fire and Nova is on a major roll. Missouri 85, UConn 84. I had Mizzou in my bracket so I have to keep the pick. Of my FF teams I have the least confidence in this one however. UNC 82, Oklahoma 77. Could be a close game but in the end I don't see the Sooners having quite enough. U of L 75, MSU 65. MSU will ugly it up with the Big 10 snooze deal, but surely the Cards won't be denied.

On some level I understood what Vince was trying to say here and in various TNA threads I've noted similar aspects of TNA's programs being far over the top with violent threats and acts. Thing is, none of us on this forum are booking a wrestling show with a PG rating that has home invasion, women being attacked and semi molested, etc. It's a pot calling the kettle black deal.

That gauntlet match over the last half of the show was a dubious idea. It's meant to be a Rumble style match but since there's a cage everyone has to be pinned in order to be eliminated. So everyone on the roster aside from Joe ended up doing a job during the course of one show, sometimes after taking one move of offense.

Agreed, I didn't much care for Nash in the WWF during his biggest push, but I loved the guy in WCW during the Outsiders angle and his TNA work has always entertained the hell out of me. I even kinda liked him during his jobber Vinnie Vegas days.

Here's the thing that makes it hard to judge Kreski's booking. Do we know exactly what he did and did not write for the shows? There isn't this textbook "Kreski style" of TV like there is with Russo. Some of the stuff that Kreski was credited with like the HHH/Steph/Angle storyline to me shows that the guy in the end didn't know what he was doing, since he apparently never thought of a decent ending to it. Austin was run down by the limo in Nov. 1999, when Kreski was first writing TV and you're telling me he couldn't think up something better than a Rikishi heel turn in the 9 months that Austin was out? Kreski had the good fortune of having a ton of major names on the roster while he was writing TV. Hell, take a look at that WWF roster of 2000. It was unbelievably loaded. Any of us on this board could say take HHH and The Rock and have them wrestle for 4 straight PPVs, or let Jericho and Benoit hammer each other a bunch of times. Kreski basically was given the keys to a sports car and told not to wreck it. He changed the oil on time, did the maintenance, but by Oct. 2000 he got in a fender bender and Vince took the car away and let daddy's little girl drive.

This was a show that looked like it would rule on paper and then it ruled when it really happened. A great PPV but if they edited out the Benoit/Angle match just skip this 24/7 version and find an older DVD from the original release. It will have the music and logos intact as well. This show has it all: main event epic matches on top, a soap opera sideshow match, technical wrestling, a crazed tag team spotfest, hardcore wrestling, etc. About all it needed was a fun cruiser match on the card, but they didn't bring in Rey initially from WCW.

Sarver rightfully was sent packing tonight. Why do the judges huddle and debate these weaker singers as though they won't send them packing? There was no suspense to that. He's mediocre, send him packing. Megan is clearly getting the VFTW love this year. She's just hysterically awful every week, but it's at least memorable.

No real shocks tonight, at least not to me. Stuff like UConn over Purdue was easy to pick, and Pitt has a stay of execution until Saturday now where Villanova should run them off the court given the way those two teams are playing. Why did these so called experts think Duke had a hope in hell tonight? You could just see from watching games this year that Villanova is bad ass and would be a nightmare matchup for Duke. They're quicker, shoot better, just have it all over Duke every way possible. Also had Mizzou over Memphis tonight, which may have surprised some. Calipari had a baffling strategy in this game. Memphis ran up a huge winning streak by playing hard nosed defense and tonight they were fine with getting into a high octane battle with one of the most frenetic teams in the nation? Memphis needed to slow this down a bit, because they don't have enough scoring to match Mizzou.

Yeah I voted for Bettman. The other guys haven't been perfect but at least under them MLB, the NFL, and the NBA haven't lost nearly every bit of TV aside from a weekly NBC game.

Foley and Sting could be a decent match but as good as UT/HBK at WM? I tend to doubt it. If anything it would be due to Sting not being on his game anymore. Foley will probably take a few bumps or have a bit in the tank, but Sting? Not so much.

Yeah but Flair was a last minute bailout of that angle and really wasn't near much of it on the shows until Starrcade. And the angle was quickly forgotten and Flair got the belt back from Sting about a month later anyway.

Now that part I do agree with. I never liked that 6 man with the Islanders/Heenan beating Bulldogs/Koko. What was with them using the Bulldogs as jobber 6 man fodder at WM anyway? They did that at III and IV.

Yeah I can now see Shawn saying "Hunter, I might make the save for you but not your cunt wife that damn near killed me!" I agree that the build to WM is way too dark and bleak. Not in a UT/Kane sort of way where it's so obviously sci fi that it isn't realistic, but in this "Psycho attacked my wife" or "One guy maybe tries to kill his brother" way. As far as Matt/Jeff goes, thankfully they made it Extreme Rules. I had been worried that the match itself wouldn't be much without a stipulation.

This show holds a special place for me since it was the first WM I ever saw. It has gotten a lot of flack over the years due to the sheer length, but it's still a fun show.

This was the total hard sell show for WM tonight. They did put a ton of heat on the main heels, with Jericho and Orton destroying Flair and HHH (as well as Steph). The Jericho segment made me want to see Flair vs. Jericho though, not the 3 legends against Jericho.