cabbageboy

For anyone wanting to check it out in IMAX, it's okay in IMAX but I don't know if it's worth a lot more per ticket. The picture is a little bigger but it's not exactly like seeing a documentary of the Grand Canyon in IMAX at a museum and feeling floored by it. It's kind of like watching the movie and having it be slightly bigger and clearer. I did see Beowulf in IMAX 3D and it floored me. Unreal.

Regarding the 2000 Wargames, I am assuming that it was illegal to simply waltz down the side of the cage. As in if Booker had simply done that the match wouldn't have ended and he would have been forced to go back up and climb down through the ring. I think that was the stip, that you had to go out that one particular way.

Adamle at this point is almost a parody of broadcasting, so if you listen to him with that in mind he's amusing for what he is. Cole though? At best he's so bland that I can tune him out and ignore him, and at worst he insults my intelligence and comes across like a cynical shill for WWE. As in he's a puppet for Vince rather than his own man telling you what he thinks.

This show is largely forgettable outside of the main event, which is of course one of Nash's best matches ever (basically all good Nash stuff involves either Bret, HBK, maybe also Razor). The Owen/Bulldog match was just whatever, went on a bit too long for what it was. Razor/Vader was decent enough but in retrospect you can see that Hall is leaving. I do remember the next day at school a guy I knew ranted about the main event of this PPV and how much he disliked it. He was like "That Michaels and Diesel match was stupid. Diesel beat his ass almost the entire match, then finally Shawn hit one superkick and pinned him." I think this sort of booking did Shawn no favors. I don't recall anyone batting an eye when Bret beat Diesel because we had been conditioned to think Bret could outwrestle a big man. HBK didn't have that sort of wrestling technician credibility, so it came off like he was a guy who got his ass kicked most of a match and got the win because, well, he was simply booked to win.

The Mummy will beat out The Dark Knight fairly easy next week I think, unless it turns out to be a mega flop. Unlike X Files though the trailer actually looks pretty interesting. It will probably do about 50 million next week, while if TDK continues on the current pace it would be somewhere around 35-40 million.

I wouldn't say Pee Wee's Big Adventure really fits Burton's gothic schtick either. Burton is either about the goth stuff or the "outsider misfit" plot (Pee Wee, Ed Wood....Edward Scissorhands is both). Ed Wood was a great movie. I actually saw that twice at the theater, which was no easy feat considering it had maybe 1 week in the first run house, then 1 more week at the 2nd run theater.

I'll freely note that Batman and Robin is easily the worst Batman movie ever made, but yet why is it I find myself more willing to watch it than Returns? Returns is obviously a better made film with a couple of decent performances, but it is the epitome of Bruce Wayne being reduced to a bit part player and has ideas in it as dumb as anything in the Schumacher movies (only there it was meant to be cheese). I used to be pissed at Bane's portrayal in B & R, until I actually read all of Knightfall in a trade paperback and saw what a huge pussy the dude is. As far as Judge Dredd goes, oh man. At the time I thought it was a typical kinda weak Stallone movie but go back and check it out sometime. It is hysterically bad. Not to mention it completely misses the point of the comics. I can't help but think Judge Dredd could have been a kick ass Paul Verhoeven movie though.

I dunno, Umaga or someone would be a better placeholder feud since it might at least be an okay match. Though really I can't recall a good one HHH and Umaga had on Raw. I think what we'll see in this HHH/Khali match is that HHH isn't UT or even Cena when it comes to getting something out of Khali. Is a major PPV like SS the time to do a nothing placeholder feud? Maybe if it is ultra stacked. They've already put in the HIAC, hopefully Raw will have some fun gimmick main event with all the various contenders (either a 2nd HIAC or an EC match).

Batista was already a Raw guy before being on SD, so he doesn't count as one of those SD guys that joins Raw just to get buried. Punk and Kane both came in from ECW, not SD. But seriously, doesn't Rey fit the bill of the typical SD guy that is sent to Raw and gets lost in the shuffle? Injury prone, no real steam left as a draw, etc.

How could no one know that Dent would end up being Two Face? Collective brain fart? I'm pretty sure the Schumacher movies are in the same continuity as the Burton films, but really there's no particular connection so you can take it either way.

Jingus, you have all but converted me to a TNA basher. Or is it just the post Slammiversary shows have been this crappy? I mean right now there's maybe one thing that interests me in TNA and that is the whole Angle/3D vs. Styles and Co. feud. That is adequate stuff. But the rest? The X Division is all but invisible at this point, with a champ in Petey that is barely on the shows and there's no real feud going on for the belt. Why even get the belt off Lethal if this is what they had in mind? The tag feud of LAX vs. Beer Money was an okay filler feud for a month, but it has no business continuing over multiple PPVs. Move the MCMG into the title scene and do something decent. The world title scene? I don't know where any of this is leading, aside from the obvious stuff like Joe eventually beating the crap out of Booker. Again, that's a 1 month nothing feud, just feed Booker to Joe and move on. I seriously detest all these "so and so has possession of the belt but isn't really champion" angles that TNA loves to do. Imagine being a first time viewer and seeing Booker show up with the belt as though he's the champ, but it's really Joe, yet he simply lets Booker keep the belt. WTF? But the real venom has to be directed at the way TNA has so thoroughly fucked up the Knockouts division in almost record time. They for whatever reason decided to job out Kong to this worthless Taylor chick, and then actually did it AGAIN on a PPV instead of immediately correcting that fiasco. And then set up a 10 woman Rumble match for #1 contender with Velvet Sky winning only to job her out to Taylor in 5 seconds, then in 20 seconds right after. Angelina Love was correct in pondering who this chick is banging to get this wildly overpushed for no good reason. Beating opponents in actual matches with a finisher gets someone over, not just doing rollups and small packages in less than a minute. That stuff sucks and doesn't work. Who is booking the women now that D'Amore is gone? It almost has to be Russo, I won't believe it's anyone but him.

I dunno some of the jobbers but Pete Sanchez was at least the jobber Flair beat in his MSG debut in 1976. That was on the Flair DVD. Sanchez looked about 80 lbs. lighter back then. These 1987 shows need Dennis Stamp to deliver the jobber goodness. Too many bad, boring jobbers.

The whole notion of Hogan never defending the belt isn't exactly new. If you watched the WWF in the 1980s he never seemed to wrestle on TV or defend then either. More than in WCW though. The problem he had by 1993 in the WWF is that we had become spoiled by Bret having the belt and actually WRESTLING a lot on TV.

Let's not kid ourselves, someone from the draft that was sent to Raw is going to end up being a bust, and Rey is the textbook example of it. He's from SD, and don't most of the SD guys not named Cena get buried on Raw? We'll see what he does when he is fully healed. I don't see much for him on Raw though.

It's obvious watching this Cardinals/Brewers series that STL can't really compete with Milwaukee without making some sort of deal before the deadline. In fact the way the Brewers are playing they have to be favored to win the NL. Brewers vs. Angels in the World Series? What a bizarre series that would be, especially considering in 1982 that was the ALCS.

Anyone know what the deal is with The Dark Knight's overseas business? I saw on boxofficemojo.com that it's made 41 million so far, but is it just being released slower or what? Just not updated?

The best villain I've ever seen in a movie was Tim Roth in Rob Roy. It's not the most well known movie or anything, but I hated his character so much in that movie I'd probably want to kick his ass in real life, haha. There's also Gary Oldman in Leon: The Professional. He's a total nutjob, but I have to say I still flat out hated Roth more in Rob Roy. But it's astounding to think that the guy who was such a demented wacko in Leon and True Romance can also give a restrained performance like he did as Gordon. The best villains are the ones you want to see something particularly bad happen to them in the end. For whatever reason Chigurh in No Country For Old Men never made me hate him exactly. Hannibal wasn't even really a villain, if anything I kinda liked the guy.

Michaels wouldn't have done shit in WCW. At best he would have ended up in a heatless US title role that Austin had circa 1993-94. Might have put over Flair in a pseudo world title feud in early 1994. Either way he wouldn't make such a big difference that Bischoff wouldn't sign Hogan in mid 1994 anyway, and after that he would be going nowhere. In fact I dare say that he probably would have either gotten buried, injured, released, whatever by 1995. Then maybe gone to ECW and started doing his DX type gimmick a few years early, and ended up in the WWF again. As for the WWF, I think they would have been fine. The backstage area would have been much more peaceful, Bret would have kept the belt and had a better run. Probably no Diesel for all of 1995 with the title. Maybe a bigger push for Razor (if Hall was sober) and maybe UT gets back into title consideration.

I did see Goldberg's first match in Sept. 1997. I recall to this date the first thing I said was "This guy looks like a ripoff of Steve Austin." My mom came in the room and took one look at him and said the SAME thing.

To be honest I have little desire to go back to some of the stuff that made the Attitude Era what it was. Do we really need a bunch of Russo sex based angles and miscarriages? Or Mae Young giving birth to a hand? I think for a time the WWF had an idea on how to try and market to kids while also not insulting the intelligence of the wrestling fan. The 1992-94 era was somewhat like that, albeit with some goofy gimmicks tossed in. It didn't really draw too well, but it was a changing of the guard era and truth be told the economy wasn't so hot then either.

This sort of bizarre shoot angle goes back to before Russo though. Sullivan did this sort of insane crap in WCW with Brian Pillman and it didn't draw any money and actually sent Pillman to the WWF. As far as Kaz goes, I said it before on here and I'll say it again: The dude is like a modern Tom Zenk. A solid enough worker, but no real charisma.

Is there any real point in going back to The Joker? Do they seriously want to end up like the Superman series with Lex Luthor constantly having to be in every movie because they haven't built up another villain to be viable? If Two Face is in fact dead and the Joker is in Arkham (or not even in the next one), it's time to do Bane...and this time do it right.

I don't buy the lack of top level heels on SD stuff. Here's an idea: elevate someone. You know, kinda like how Raw has done in the past month. But going back to Khali is a horrible move for a title match on a Big 4 PPV. Or if they are dead set on something like this, go with Big Show as the #1 contender. He could at least be a passable feud for HHH. This Khali thing is so utterly out of nowhere that they almost have to be giving him a transition title run here. As in UT wins the HIAC vs. Edge, Khali screws HHH out of the belt, then UT can get the belt back by destroying Khali.

How about Sean Young? Ha. One thing that may well have been mentioned on previous pages but I'll ponder here is this:

Dragon, when was Angle ever the champ on the new ECW? Van Dam started out with it and he lost it to the Big Show, then after that Angle got released before ever challenging for it. Anyway I am hoping Matt wins the belt at the PPV. Okay, fine Mark Henry got a token title win due to the Hayes situation. Now put the belt on someone who can actually work. After reading the SD spoilers for this week I can't believe two of the top title matches on the PPV will be Henry/Hardy and also.....