cabbageboy

I am glad Tennessee won tonight. What will be so funny is that Memphis may just fall to #2 and then end back up and #1 once Tennessee loses at Vandy this coming week. Let's just say I'd be shocked if the Vols didn't have a massive letdown there. Tennessee....they won at Memphis, but still can't figure out how to beat UK, haha.

I'm not sure what they are doing with MVP right now but he needs a few solid US title defenses since he's mostly been jobbing to guys higher up on the card. Some of it is due to Matt being injured which put that feud on hold. But it's obvious once Matt gets back that MVP is jobbing the US title to him, so I don't get all the jobbing MVP is already doing.

The biggest problem with this entire Flair scenario is that he is being forced into it by Vince. If Flair simply came out and said he would retire the next time he lost a match and put the pressure on himself, then it would be one thing. But Vince dictating it makes it a bit unpleasant. Oh, and why are people so obsess with Jeff Hardy (or Edge last year) winning MITB and cashing it in at the end of WM? It's just such a lame, WM IX type of situation and it really doesn't make any sense at all. Jeff or anyone else would go through hell to get the briefcase and likely would be more banged up than the WWE champion, who just wrestled a standard match. In storyline terms it makes no sense to cash in a MITB when you surely aren't 100%.

Man, is TNA really worth getting all that upset over? I've found simply laughing at all of TNA's silly shit more of a coping strategy, but maybe that's just me.

I'll do it. What topic do you want to discuss in particular?

Okay I will tolerate them doing this sort of thing as long as Benoit and Woman were a couple on TV, since that actually might be uncomfortable to some people. But once she retires from the business and it's just him, I think they ought to show him again.

How could someone have never seen an R rated movie that is in their 20s? Even a chick flick like Atonement is rated R. I bet she saw something on regular TV that was edited that was an R rated movie. There lies a debate: If Brooke White saw Bad Boys on TBS or something, does that count as seeing an R rated movie?

In the Death of WCW book it said that WCW did in fact intentionally want to go 3 1/2 hours but, get this, they never actually informed the cable companies beforehand. I don't think it was anything they were doing out of malice or a conspiracy, they were just morons.

I'll go with Bill Watts from his WCW and UWF days (though I haven't seen much of the UWF). He was serious, tried to be impartial, but would kick someone's ass if he had to.

Actually Edge/Cena pretty much was that sort of thing. The first initial feud lasted just a couple of matches in Jan. 2006 with Edge cashing in the MITB, Cena regaining, and then the blowoff on Raw. I don't really consider the other stuff in Aug.-Sept. 2006 the same feud. While I agree that Judas is a weak character, that is because TNA didn't do much to convince me he was a threat. It didn't help that he got hurt almost immediately into his run, but should he really be doing a clean job for Christian the week before a vicious barbed wire match?

It's silly too because there is almost zero shot of Hogan/Flair actually happening. On Raw they already pretty much started the ball rolling for HBK/Flair at WM. It's odd though, I don't think any promoter ever truly drew the maximum amount of money from Hogan vs. Flair. Vince didn't in 1991-92 and by the time WCW did it both guys were a bit too old to have it be the Dream Match it would have been 5 years earlier. That said, at least WCW got a few 1.00 type buyrates out of it.

Most everyone should know Tim Duncan, but I can certainly understand not giving a shit about him. The ratings for the 2003, 2005, and 2007 NBA Finals bear that out.

At this point why not just drop this whole idiotic Benoit thing and just show the episodes? What are they going to do when he actually becomes a major force in WCW in 1998-99? Stuff like the Booker T "Best of 7" and Flair's return are too important to edit.

Always nice to see Duke go down. At this point I think Duke is a perennial cocktease...always highly ranked, never going past the Sweet 16. I'd be more excited about this Memphis/TN game on Sat. if I thought either of those teams would even sniff the Final 4. Man, I don't think Duke, Memphis, or Tennessee will make the FF. Oddly enough the Vols were one of my preseason FF picks, but they lost to UK.

Amy Davis was the chick who did Where the Boys Are, right? The hilarity of it to me is that Where the Boys Are is my mom's favorite movie, and when that chick sucked I certainly joked about how she should be one of the first to be voted off. Most of these chicks tonight were just bland and dull. They should have never started off with 60s week when we don't even know yet what these people can do well.

Tyson's claim to fame is only partially the rape conviction. Mind you, Tyson himself has said there were things he did in the past that were deserving of prison time, but that rape conviction was a result of his inept legal defense more than anything. Either way in the 1980s and early 90s Tyson was a massive star in boxing, he was known to everyone regardless of whether they followed boxing, he had his own NES game, etc. Mayweather is known to boxing fans and some casual observers but is hardly a household name. And thus far him having his entourage around reminds me way too much of Master P and the No Limit Soldiers, although certainly better than that atrocity that helped kill WCW. Rey was also involved in that No Limit nonsense.

Oh yeah, they have to keep this Danny dude around for a while. He's the Sanjaya of this year. He sucks terribly, he's unbelievably gay, and it makes for hilariously great TV. Incidentally how is Jailhouse Rock a 60s song? That movie came out in 1957. I'd get rid of the guy who did the song from Midnight Cowboy and the dude who sang Moon River. They were both boring and bland, white bread as hell.

I'll give Purdue this much: The Boilermakers are a very young team and next year might be ready to make some serious noise. I feel similarly about UConn...this isn't quite their year, but next year they will be very dangerous. Does anyone know a website that has all sorts of college basketball stats? I'd like to see stats for various teams that won the national titles or made the FF, but I can't seem to find this stuff easily.

Yeah that is WWF Mania. I wonder if they will have that ultra irritating chick Stephanie Wynand on there as well? I might not mind them showing some Live Wire shows from 1996 when they were going into this reality based shoot direction. Stuff like Russo showing up as Vic Venom and ranting. I remember his analysis of Bret's return at Survivor Series in 1996: "He came back and really struggled with Steve Austin? That's a guy he should go throw pretty easy." Something like that.

Hell, how many times did Bad News job to anyone at all? I saw one match from SNME where he jobbed to Hogan but that's about it. This sort of thing used to annoy me about Brown, since I never thought he was worth a shit as a wrestler (maybe earlier in his career, but not in WWF) and was baffled as a kid as to why no one simply beat this guy. Anyway, as far as WM VI goes...that is a show I can do without. It has a good main event with Hogan/Warrior but jack shit besides that. WM V has some really solid action on the card, whereas with WM VI I can't think of another good match on it. And Macho was utterly wasted in a goofy mixed tag with Sherri vs. Dusty/Saphire. I wonder, is my ho hum reaction to WM VI due to the fact that I stopped watching wrestling by that point, and didn't start again until that SNME right before WM VIII? I have no real nostalgia for the show and no context for the various feuds, so I can judge it for what it is.

Definitely a show that defined my childhood. I've always loved this show. Some may feel that it has too many matches that are filler, but at least nothing lasts so long as to be offensive. Hogan vs. Macho is a match that gets better with time, and I enjoy several of the undercard matches. The one thing that pissed me off as a kid was Warrior losing. I've always hated that goofy "manager grabs the leg on the suplex" finish, and of course they always dust it off every couple years or so. And I still hate it, haha.

I don't get the comparisons between Cena now and Austin in 2001. Austin was more popular than ever after his late 2000 comeback. He certainly wasn't stale or getting booed by anyone in the crowd. At the very least Cena needs to drift into a tweener type character that just doesn't give a shit anymore. But just watch that match with Orton last night. When the alleged top face in the company is getting booed during his comeback then something is seriously wrong. Something isn't working. WWE has no real idea of how to book a face these days. Years of anti heroes like Austin and The Rock have made it impossible to simply go back to rooting for the virtuous babyface. In addition WWE doesn't seem to know what fans WANT to cheer anymore. Witness Cena's reactions since late 2005, or the various rejections of Rey Mysterio.

Mayweather is known in boxing circles and certainly can draw money on PPV, but he has no real crossover or mainstream appeal. Pretty much everyone knows Mike Tyson. Tyson was probably 10x more known to non boxing fans.

I can't say with any conviction that Duke will get that #1 seed and get the usual Carolina bracket in the tourney. If UNC can ever get healthy then they are certainly a better team than Duke in my opinion. Is it just me or is Tennessee possibly the weakest, most flawed team ever to be ranked this high so late in the season? The #2 team in the nation lost to the single worst UK team I've seen since the probation year of 1990. Hell, they barely scraped by WKU earlier this year. I hope U of L ends up as a 4 seed or so in Tennessee's bracket (if they get a 1). I think we could beat the piss out of them.

I almost think the Russo style is a good shock to the system type of booking, but it is crap for long term booking. See, Raw needed that kick to the nuts circa 1997 and it worked well for that era. But by mid 1999 this style of Russo booking had already exhausted people and thus after he left the WWF did more relaxed storytelling and featured longer matches. Thing is, Russo needs someone to guide him in the decision process. This Abyss/Mesias/Mitchell storyline could have been interesting, but they literally did the blowoff to it right as it began! Watch the Raw shows from 1997-98 with the UT/Bearer/Kane storyline, which Russo was also involved in. On 24/7 they are in May/June 97 with Bearer blackmailing UT about the terrible secret. He reluctantly teams with Bearer again, but then quickly says the hell with it, then Bearer reveals the awful secret of UT burning his house to the ground and killing his parents. Thing is, there is no real money to be drawn off something like that...you need someone else, which ends up being the not so dead Kane. The angle almost plays a trick on the viewer since UT gets into the Bret and HBK feuds and we almost forget about Kane, almost like they just dropped the angle. But then BAM, Kane shows up and debuts at the most critical time, the first HIAC match and costs UT a shot at the title. UT disappears to think about it for a while, then comes back and refuses to fight his brother. Kane eventually suckers UT by pretending to make up, then screws him against HBK yet AGAIN in the casket match...finally UT has enough. They make the match for WM, where UT vows to take out his evil brother. That is how you draw money. This angle was first teased in May of the previous year, then Kane debuted 5 months later, then finally he and UT wrestled at WM in late March of 1998. I read that Russo wanted UT to chokeslam Kane right after the HIAC match, but Cornette pointed out how stupid that would be. Russo when he goes unchecked books like a child with ADD, he doesn't seem to understand the concept of how to build something. Abyss/Mesias in the barbed wire match should be a match that they build to for months. Abyss should refuse to fight his brother, while Mitchell and Judas laugh at him and badmouth him for weeks and months, calling him out, etc. Mesias can even use barbed wire on his opponents, and they also bring up Abyss' fear of barbed wire. Finally when Judas costs Abyss a title match with Angle, Abyss has enough and now vows to his mother to take out his evil father and stepbrother. This should last at least 6 months. Instead we get these guys doing the barbed wire deal mere weeks after the angle begins. What do you do with it now?