cabbageboy

With all the comments about Rutgers having a crap schedule...well I'm assuming they put it together years ago when they sucked. To be honest I really don't know if Rutgers is a serious team for the long haul. They might just have a couple of flukish good years with Ray Rice and then go back to sucking once he goes pro. I'd say South Florida is easily a more serious threat long term, what with all the FL talent they can recruit and Miami and FSU both sucking now. I'm still frustrated and pissed over last night. It's embarrassing to lose to UK. There's starting to be less and less of a reason to play that game on U of L's end. If we squash UK like last year, then pundits say "Oh, Louisville doesn't play anyone." If we lose to UK like last night, it leads Sportscenter and everyone laughs. Ah well at least I'll take solace in the fact that Hunter Cantwell will make the Cats his personal bitch next year. It's maddening to lose to a team that can't really DO anything with the win. It's not like UK is going to do jack shit. They've got likely losses to Arkansas, South Carolina, LSU, Florida, Georgia. I got a laugh out of the newspaper this morning acting like Andre Woodson is some All American QB...hell Middle Tennessee put up more points than UK did.

I called it a while ago: Kennedy will still side with Vince and get a title shot at Survivor Series, then on the 10th anniversary of the Montreal Screwjob they will of course screw Cena out of the title. It gets the belt off him for a while without him losing any face, Kennedy will move on to face HHH at WM, and Cena can face off with Batista at WM in a "dream match" of the two guys who choke at the Rumble.

I think Angle's idea of giving Joe a rub is to feud with him and beat him in every meaningful match. But Joe's getting that rub from facing the best, right Kurt?

Man, fuck. How the hell can anyone possibly get the gift of all time personal foul penalty and then give up a TD to a blatantly wide open receiver? How is Mike Cassity possibly employed after that shit tonight? Three games in and U of L's season is already down the drain. It doesn't really matter though, since with the shitty defense there's no way we could actually beat serious teams like WVU or Rutgers anyway. In fact I'd be shocked if we didn't lose to USF and Cincy as well. Brohm should have just gone pro rather than become a glorified jobber. It reminds me so much of 2002 when Dave Ragone came back for his senior year and lost to UK.

The main problem with that analogy is that it's easy enough to notice someone who is drunk or stoned. Thing is, without a failed test it's harder to truly know if someone is on steroids or HGH. Sure you can suspicion it highly, but as long as there is no failed test the guy can say "Hey, I just work out a lot."

Yeah that Raw ends with Flair and Perfect yelling at each other and they agree to fight the next week. Flair/Perfect from the 3rd ever Raw is one of my favorite matches of all time. Why is this stuff just available online? The real 24/7 should show these old Raws, cause that 1993 period is a treasure trove full of stuff waiting to be rediscovered.

I'll split the difference with Cena/Michaels and say that I really didn't like either match worth a damn. To be honest I've never seen an HBK match that goes past 30 mins. that I thought was any good. This will sound incredibly cynical, but you can't compare Owen's accidental death to the Benoit tragedy this year. The WWF made money off of Owen's death...the Owen Tribute Raw did a 7.1 rating. There's no possible way to spin the Benoit situation into money, cause Vince would likely try if there was a way.

I have to admit that I laughed my ass off last night when Cornette said there would be another reverse battle royale. It's almost like TNA doesn't get the memo sometimes that some of their ideas just suck. Who exactly is going to be in this thing if Joe and Christian are in a separate match?

Ha, I didn't know FSU vs. Colorado was the primetime ESPN game. Certainly puts the U of L vs. UK rivalry into perspective when that crappy game gets on ESPN instead. It's a lousy decision though, since U of L vs. UK will be something like 56-55.

I just watched Total Recall tonight. Truth be told it's never really been one of my favorite Arnold movies. As far as Verhoeven stuff goes I definitely like Robocop and Starship Troopers better.

Yeah and also Eddie Guerrero started catching fire like a maniac in 2003. And Cena started really emerging as a big star that year. SD was a fairly strong show during that period, but man Raw was the drizzling shits. Oh and people forget the crap with the McMahons all over TV in 2003 in various storylines. I don't excuse HHH for sucking in 2003 due to wrestling Nash, Steiner, and Goldberg. Hell it was likely his idea to feud with all those bums.

Truth be told that's what Kane SHOULD have been. As much as Kane is kind of a guilty pleasure he's mostly just been a stale guy on the roster since about 2001. As far as the "What" gimmick goes, it was over initially when Austin was a heel in the Alliance. But that said, the "What" crap is something that really started to wreck Austin's career circa 2002 when the act wore out its welcome. The fact that people still chant it today when Austin shows up makes me never want to see Austin on TV.

RVD and Sabu vs. Team Pacman baby! Come on, you know you want to see them put Pacman through a table. Of course given TNA's booking they might have Sabu job to Pacman or something.

Yeah the New Generation 1995-96 era was the true nadir in terms of quality and business. Some years like 1992 were crap financially but yielded some truly timeless shows that rank among my favorites ever. Truth be told I don't think most fans really cared about the steroid trial. In 1994 when all that was going down there really wasn't much in the way of internet reporting, so unless you were reading Meltzer's newsletters it wasn't a big deal for fans.

Colts/Titans should be an interesting game on Sunday. Recall that last year the Colts won by 1 in Indy and the Titans got that insane FG in Nashville to win at the buzzer. Will Vince Young keep it up or are the Colts just going to make the Titans their bitch?

Yeah X-Pac was just some guy tossed in there. As long as they had HHH/Chyna and the NAO there would have been a DX nucleus.

Thesz/Rocca is tough to really rate from a modern perspective...I mostly watched for historical purposes. The Robinson match was just to feature him a bit, it was nowhere near his best work but decent. I have yet to watch Liger/Dragon mainly because I've always thought Ultimo Dragon sucked really hard. He used to do that idiotic "stand on his head in the corner" spot that I loathed with a passion. That and I found it absurd that he had 8 title belts at one point in his WCW run from an overseas tourney. And you thought Kurt Angle was overpushed in TNA.

I got a cheap DVD of Starship Troopers the other night and watched it. Still a really funny and great action movie, but I have to say Robocop is better. Troopers has a lot of clunky acting and dialogue, although I think it is intentional. Still, the Federal Network newscasts are worth the price of the DVD alone, that stuff is brilliance.

Yeah I actually remember renting that European Rampage tape back in the day, it had an entire profile on the Bulldog and included the Royal Albert Hall win. Is that the same show that had Macho vs. HBK on it from Europe?

Haha, yeah I did like Flair meeting Hall in the nuthouse. Truth be told I think that angle is overrated in terms of it being some death knell on WCW. If anything Flair's crazed antics were one of the only amusing parts of WCW during that time period, even if it did wreck his drawing power. WCW picked the worst time to start hotshotting the title. In 1999 the WWF was doing the hot potato thing with the world title, but WCW needed to have a stable title scene to stand out as different. A dominant Goldberg title win over Nash or Hogan would have fixed things, and I think that was really what most WCW wanted to see (as in Goldberg beats Nash up at Stampede, then goes after Hogan). They should have never turned Hogan face again in 1999, at least not until after Goldberg crushed him on PPV. Maybe after that Hogan could say he's learned his lesson and goes back to the red/yellow. DDP winning the title was just so bizarre and arbitrary...it didn't fit into any storyline that was going.

I made the suggestion of Sandman to TNA along with RVD, Sabu, and Heyman on the 1st page and was immediately trashed for bringing it up. I still think it is an idea that could get over if it was done right.

Allow me to shed some light on my DDP theory in WCW. DDP won the world title on April 11, 1999 at Spring Stampede. The Nitro the previous week did a 4.3 and then a 4.4 the night after he won the belt. DDP lost the belt to Nash on May 9, 1999. Now, Nitro was preempted for the NBA on May 10 but the previous week's show on May 3 did a 3.4. That's right, they dropped a full ratings point in the month DDP had the title and Nitro's ratings never really recovered. And yes, WCW was doing other stupid shit on the show, but it was the way DDP won the title and the way he was presented as champ that hurt WCW. Allow me to explain: 1. DDP had zero heat by April, 1999. His run against the NWO, Hogan, and mini feud with Goldberg were all over. He had last been seen getting his ass kicked by Scott Steiner for the TV belt and did a stretcher job no less. Doesn't seem much like a guy being primed for a title run. 2. His return from injury was poorly handled. Instead of swearing vengeance on Steiner and the NWO, he just sorta comes back and does a bizarre heel turn that made no sense. And then he was tossed into the Spring Stampede 4 way for no real reason other than to have a 4th man (I assumed he was there to eat the pin). 3. His title reign sucked ass and WCW didn't believe in him. Just 2 weeks into his run he jobbed the title clean to Sting on Nitro and then won it back in a 4 way later by pinning Nash after spending the entire match protesting in the crowd. This was in fact the match where I completely gave up on WCW being a serious promotion. 4. DDP was similar to Ronnie Garvin in that he made for a good challenger but nobody seriously thought he should ever WIN the belt. Anyway, I'm not saying DDP winning the title was nearly as bad as a lot of the other trash WCW did later in 1999. But his title run did start the bleeding, along with stuff like Flair being in the nuthouse.

Actually that would be 2000 era WCW and not late 90s. Madden wasn't calling matches until then, and Awesome was in ECW circa 1999. At least TNA knows sometimes to just drop a shitty angle. That whole debacle with Jarrett/Hebner/Larry Z. last year comes to mind. That was well on its way to being the worst angle of the past 7 years or so, but then they just had Joe beat Jarrett's ass and then Sting beat him for the belt. With the Hummer angle they tried for MONTHS to keep it going without revealing anything. I still maintain the downfall of WCW was putting the belt on DDP in the bizarre, heatless fashion that they did. If you look at WCW's ratings they stayed strong after the Fingerpoke and the Hogan/Flair feud in early 1999 did some good business. But man once they put the belt on DDP they tanked big time and never recovered.

This is puzzling. I don't get why WWE puts guys all over TV and releases them right after, and doesn't even job them out first. Sandman was over on Raw and didn't even job to Marella last night. I'd love to see the Extreme World Order invade TNA. RVD, Sabu, Sandman, etc. and let Heyman manage them. Let em run roughshod over everyone.

Eh, I don't think either time Savage lost the belt to Hogan in WCW it was Hogan fucking with him all that much. The first time Savage was just used as a brief transition guy when it was clear Sting had lost his heat (you CAN blame Hogan in part for that however). They wanted the belt back on Hogan and I think Macho also had a knee injury, so that run was just a day. The 2nd time Hogan was coming back from his own knee surgery and they were going to turn him back to the red and yellow. I'm pretty sure the bad blood really started between Hogan and Macho during that period of time, since Savage thought Hogan was trying to bury him in the back and wanted them to push Sid instead. But hell, even if Hogan was screwing Savage over I can't really side with Macho too much considering he got the belt via the worst storyline in the history of the business....the Hummer angle.