cabbageboy

Wow, I'm shocked you analyze Nielsen ratings on a show that is lucky to break a 1.0 rating. And until this angle tonight I would have 100% agreed about Love and Sky, they just were the Whore Corp. to me. Just skanks out there taking up TV time and doing a weak heel act. But after tonight they might actually get some heel heat, we'll see. To me, Cornette is a heel in all of this. He had no real reason to book such a stip since it was a whim, and I don't see how TNA can keep him a face (or even tweener) GM after tonight. On a totally different note, Styles was really shit tonight. I mean wow the dude was off his game. He literally fell on his face and botched the finish to the first match, and then didn't even roll over for the small package finish to the LAX match, making it look like he got screwed since his shoulders weren't down at all.

Jingus, I gotta disagree with you on this one. TNA must get the hell out of Orlando, seriously. That crowd truly fucked up what I thought was a terrific angle tonight with Gail/Roxxi/Love/Sky. The main misgiving I have about it is that Kim came out looking like a bit of a bitch herself, willing to screw someone over for a title shot. But consider what we got out of it: Roxxi got insane sympathy for being so royally screwed and having her head shaved, while Love and Sky may well be the most hated wrestlers (male or female) on the roster after this shit. They're like the Austin Idol and Tommy Rich of women's wrestling. The problem of course is that the Orlando crowd SUCKS A DICK and has no idea how to handle some old school Memphis style booking, and of course chants "Fire Russo!" like a bunch of pseudo smart marks who don't know shit and refuse to go along for the ride. They would have been better off running this angle next month at Slammiversary when they would be in the Memphis area, since that crowd would at least grasp this sort of angle. I wonder, do those who hated this angle mainly hate it due to it being women? If this was a man having his head shaved, would it piss people off? Know what pissed me off more? Kaz being in the main event. Once Angle was hurt that match flat out needed to be 1 on 1 with Joe and Steiner. Nobody would care about them not doing the announced 3 way, since (gasp) no one gave a crap about Angle's involvement anyway. Further, why on earth would they job Steiner when you have a ready made job bitch like Kaz right there? Hell, they even had the ready made reason for it, with Petey out there to screw over Kaz and set up the X Division match that Kaz earned earlier in the night. I did enjoy LAX winning the tag titles tonight, though none of the tourney matches were especially great or anything. At least the booking of that tourney made sense with the teams that couldn't get along all lost early, and the two legit teams (LAX, Dudleys) making the finals.

What frustrates me is that initially there was a June 22 house show in Louisville but for whatever reason it was changed to Cincy. I figure this could mean one of three things: 1. TNA is basically screwing us and isn't going to make up that date anytime soon. 2. They will reschedule a house show a bit later. 3. Best case scenario, Louisville gets a PPV. I noticed on their website that neither Hard Justice or Victory Road have an announced location.

Speed Racer made 5.85 million on Friday and is on pace to make 19.5 million for the weekend. Ouch, that is an even bigger flop than expected. It was predicted to make about 30 million or so. As far as the Batman movies go, of course Batman Returns is a better movie than Batman and Robin, with better acting and direction. But the movie is flat out no fun and is really quite disturbing. And truth be told, some parts of it are as idiotic as the Schumacher movies, except this is idiotic in the Tim Burton vein. An army of penguins with bombs descending on Gotham? Burton got Catwoman right for the most part (though the origin is certainly bizarre), but his take on the Penguin is as misguided as Schumacher's take is on Two Face or Mr. Freeze. Oh, and Batman Returns is the epitome of the series almost forgetting that Batman is supposed to be the star of his own movie, with the heels running wild and the Dark Knight gets little screen time. Why do you think Schumacher ended up doing the sequels after Returns? It's because a lot of people thought Batman Returns SUCKED and wanted a new direction.

Oddly enough I might find B & R the 2nd most watchable of the original 4 movies, behind just the first Batman. Batman Forever is the one that is really dated and doesn't hold up with time, since some people thought it was a real movie when it was out instead of camp cheese. The sad aspect of the Batman sequels from 1992-97 is that they actually DO cast the right people in the villain roles and STILL fuck it all up with hideous writing, a misguided take on the characters, or bad direction.

This last episode was funny. It seemed like every jobber on the show was a Samoan, including the notorious Samoan Joe (!). Seeing Gagne squash a 300 lb. Samoan that looked vicious is so wrong, haha. They teased me with Hennig vs. Lawler as the main event but alas it wasn't the historic title change in Memphis, just a double DQ from Vegas.

I know the RNR were over, but still...even as a kid I wouldn't have bought Ricky Morton as a serious threat to the NWA title. You know it's funny that Ron Garvin's brief title run has been bashed so much over the years but if you watch these old shows he certainly seemed like a legit badass who was a threat to Flair. I think he definitely earned some sort of run with the title.

For the first time since SD has been in HD the CW feed was finally razor sharp tonight and didn't have all the blips and blurry crap. Anyone else been having this problem? Seeing this show play tonight I realized why I found this angle a bit lacking. For someone trying to screw over UT, Vicki sure did make it easy for him. He simply is back in a title match after being stripped, while in theory a bunch of guys had to fight to get to him. Shouldn't this have been the opposite, with Edge getting a virtual bye to the PPV and UT having to qualify for the battle royale and then win it to get to Edge? Instead we go the long way around to get to the same stale PPV match (Edge vs. UT) and render an entire tourney meaningless since neither man involved did any work in it.

You know, when I saw Batman and Robin in 1997 I mostly just thought it was sorta stupid but not all time level bad. As in like a *1/2 or ** movie. But then I checked it out again during a marathon of Batman movies before Begins came out and it's a laugh riot. Say what you want about Arnold, but at least he can pull off the really cheesy one liners, which I can't say about Tommy Lee Jones.

The only way I'd ever want to bother with this is if I saw it in IMAX and saw all the really bizarre visuals. It might end up being a cult hit for stoners, but it will likely tank in theaters.

Yeah, that scenario is what I mean. Why job Hansen out in that situation? Take a camera over to Japan and get some footage for ESPN of his various title defenses and give the impression of being an actual worldwide promotion. There was no need to job Hansen out there. The AWA could have just gone with Bockwinkel vs. Hennig in a #1 contender feud or whatever until Hansen got back, then you can put the belt on Bockwinkel in more feasible fashion.

No, no. The Terrordome thing is an X Division match at this PPV, while the women are in the battle royale with the head shaving stuff. I don't recall anything being said about women being in the Terrordome. Incidentally what is that Terrordome match FOR exactly? Is it #1 contender for the X Division belt? Or is the title actually at stake?

Slayer, the 2002 Celtics had zero heat to make the Finals. It never really dawned upon me that they could beat the Nets. That 2001-03 era was just the dead zone for the East though. The Nets were like 52-30 and 49-33 and made the Finals both years without it being shocking since the East sucked. That team circa 1997 or so would have been about a 7 seed.

See, I don't get what the AWA was thinking there. Why not let Hansen do his Japan tour as AWA champ and once he got back to the USA then job him out and amicably part ways? Wouldn't Gagne have gotten any sort of money from Japan with Hansen working as AWA champ there?

Who on earth could possibly want Vince back as a lead announcer? He's utterly terrible and in my opinion actively drove fans away from wrestling in the early 90s. We went from Gorilla and Jesse, Gorilla/Heenan to finally Vince and whatever crap partner he had (Lawler at his most grating, Macho, whoever). I can stomach the old school Vince from the 70s that I've seen on 24/7, but he was awful by 1993.

Dennis Stamp has a cult following due to his appearance in the Terry Funk segment of Beyond the Mat. Funk ran into him in Amarillo the day of his big retirement show in 1997, wanted Stamp to be there, but Stamp kinda blew him off by saying "I'm not booked." He wanted to be the guy facing Dory Funk, Jr. on the show, insisting he could have a better match with Dory than whatever bum they were flying in (which I think was Rob Van Dam!). Anyway, Funk took pity on the washed up jobber and made him the ref for his retirement match with Bret Hart.

Yeah that was a good match and an intriguing angle, though I wonder now what exactly the endgame of it was supposed to be. Did anyone really buy Morton as a singles challenger for the world title? Or was he just filler until they could go back to Dusty, Garvin, or elevate Magnum?

Was Depp really the villain in Sweeney Todd? I mean he's more of the actual protagonist of the movie with Alan Rickman as the heel judge. The audience is firmly with Sweeney for most of the film and wanted him to slice and dice.

I didn't realize I had such a reputation as a Punk mark. I like the guy to some extent, but he's not among my absolute favorites. What no one actually commented on is why does WWE keep booking Punk to do jobs if he's supposed to be in a title match at some point? Right now Punk is a guy on a 3rd rate show, who shows up on the main shows and does jobs to secondary title holders. Of the various MITB winners Punk by far is the one who needs to be booked the strongest since fans don't buy him on the main event level right now. Sure, Punk beat Matt in the KOTR tourney and I guess this was Matt getting the win back. But why does he need the win back? Why does everyone always need the win back?

Yeah in the most recent Entertainment Weekly there was an Idol article in it where Castro basically said "I've had enough, I want to go home." Bear in mind we've seen some pretty decent people eliminated before this clown (Carly Smithson, Michael Johns). Syesha may well make the finals. The two Davids may well split the vote a bit and she could slip in there and of course have zero shot of winning.

Scroby, I would agree with you about wins/losses more if we're talking about the real ECW. It was the actual storyline there that Dreamer couldn't beat Raven, but here is the caveat: Dreamer wasn't JOBBING to everyone else left and right. In fact he won the vast majority of his non Raven matches, and in fact several of the Raven matches were no decisions or a bunch of strange shit where he was kept strong in the end. Here is one of my key rules of wrestling booking: A babyface that gets screwed and ripped off by cheating heels is the plucky underdog fighting the odds. A babyface that is getting his ass kicked clean in the middle of the ring repeatedly is a jobber (or maybe JTTS). In fact I think a top level face shouldn't be doing clean jobs aside from a rare occasion. When I watched old Vader/Sting matches years ago I wasn't thinking "Wow, Sting is so unselfish putting the big man over clean for the title." I was thinking "Man, Sting isn't much of a hero...Vader is just killing the guy without cheating or anything." Even then though Sting would get some wins in the feud to stay viable. WWE fans have always been much more about the bottom line. Is this guy winning matches? Is he a credible threat? Or is he a jobber? To tie this to Colin Delaney....is there any real reason why I should be rallying behind this kid to see him get a contract? He just gets his ass kicked and 90% of the time isn't even competitive doing so. Based on that he doesn't deserve a contract. Estrada isn't screwing him over, he's just being realistic.

Let's also not forget the baffling jobbing out of CM Punk to Matt Hardy in this tourney. I'm trying to figure out the point of how weak Punk is being booked, maybe to set up a vulnerable champ if he should cash in the MITB and win? Edge/UT III has to be some sort of gimmick match. Let it be a TLC match or something. I would say HIAC but that REALLY makes no sense. Vicki strips him of the belt, then simply puts him in the main event of the PPV against a #1 contender. TLC would be beneficial to Edge, while HIAC is beneficial to UT.

Yeah I noticed that too and it was a spur of the moment emotional goog from Syesha, but what the hell. At this point I'm with Lushus I think...Syesha is performing the best of everyone. The judges keep slagging her mainly because they don't want another black chick to win. Jason Castro is in total "I don't give a fuck" mode. I've said for weeks on here that this wasted moron needs to hit the road yet he keeps somehow surviving while more deserving people are eliminated. Tonight he finally flat out crashed and burned in a way I haven't seen anyone do on Idol, especially not in the FF.

I do agree about Dreamer/Knox though. If Knox just keeps beating Tommy with Tommy never getting a win, it does nothing but bury him and Knox gains nothing. If Dreamer holds his own in a feud and gets maybe 2 out of 5 wins, then Knox could win a blowoff and in theory gain from the feud.

Well there is this to consider with Kennedy as well....the guy isn't taken seriously enough to be one of 2 men to beat a dozen men. Let's face it, Kennedy wouldn't even be favored to beat some of the guys on the ECW side 1 on 1, much less against such ridiculous odds. Kennedy vs. Kane? Kane would probably win that match (kayfabe wise). Would Kennedy be such a big favorite over Chavo? Punk? With Cena and Orton they at least were both main eventing WM, with one being WWE champion and the other the previous champ, so them going through a bunch of Raw jobbers wasn't something that shocked people. But Ken Kennedy, a guy who has done nothing more than a forgettable US title reign suddenly beating up an entire roster? It isn't believable. Regarding the women's division, why take the belt off Beth Phoenix? She was just starting to get into that "dominant heel champ" zone and they just job her to Mickie James for no good reason. Mickie is a solid women's worker that is sloppy at times, but she's not exactly someone who is going to create massive interest in the division.