cabbageboy

There's no way the 94 Steelers would have had a hope in hell vs. the Niners. Good grief, the Niners treated the Chargers (who beat the Steelers in Pittsburgh) like a total jobber in the Super Bowl. Steelers would have had the same fate. As far as the 1998 season goes, I still have no idea how the Vikings managed to lose to the Falcons. Yeah the Falcons were 14-2 that year, but they seemed a really lame 14-2 that hadn't done anything. I'll toss out a What If from the next season. What if the Titans don't pull off the Music City Miracle? I have to wonder if Manning gets to the Super Bowl in his 2nd year and then get some crazy 42-38 shootout vs. the Rams in the Super Bowl. For some reason I don't see Jacksonville winning the AFC title game in either scenario.

Clarence Mason mainly just stopped managing Bulldog/Owen because he served no purpose in their storyline. I don't think there was ever a storyline reason for it, not even "he sold their contracts to so and so." The amusing irony is that Owen was a pseudo member of the NOD a year before he joined for real due to the brief Mason/NOD connection. And yes, Sting/Koloff was a really boring and awful match. But it's from the 1991 GAB, so it's not like it can be expected to be good or anything. A part of me wishes they would show that PPV at some point, just so I can experience the total nightmare.

I can buy Eric Young in the X Division. Maybe give him a decent run with that belt, but not a hugely long one since I think he would start annoying people. There is still one major problem with that Daniels/Sting idea. There is still no backstory to any of it. We still don't have months of stuff leading up to this to get a grasp on WHY Daniels feels this way about Sting or that Sting is frustrated about him misunderstanding. They almost needed a Jigsaw/Amanda type deal, with a mentor/student relationship (no serial killing though). Then Daniels focuses on these creepy weird aspects of Sting and goes off in a deranged direction. TNA tossed this angle out there without the necessary seeds being planted. Daniels never had any connection to Sting at all, so why is he now obsessed with the guy? It's like someone stole Adam Sandler's remote from Click and fast forwarded through about 6 months of wrestling continuity.

Agreed. To be honest I tend to look slightly down on a film that has a bunch of various cuts. That said, my god the original cut of Blade Runner sucked with the narration. It's funny because if you check out Maltin's book he gives Blade Runner *1/2, which is the review of that crappy original version.

Here's a what if in baseball moving up a few years: What if the Great Depression hadn't hurt the Philadelphia A's? Could Mack have kept that group intact and would they have been as well regarded as the Yankees of the time period? I was actually surprised to see that the A's from 1929-31 had a better overall record than the Yankees from 1926-28. Ironically the Cardinals beat both of those juggernaut teams in 7 games to keep them from having threepeats (Cardinals over Yankees in 26, then over A's in 31).

If you could combine Lashley and Ahmed's best attributes then you'd have a really big draw. The intensity and deep voice of Ahmed with Lashley being less sloppy and thus far less injury prone.

Well, if Robinson didn't then I guess Larry Doby would have a little while later? It was likely going to happen either way. Danville, your Pitino question is a fascinating one and the answers aren't easy. I think that UK might have stayed a perennial contender in the next century (maybe one another title or two), but they wouldn't have won the 1998 national title. Let's face it, there was a reason Pitino went to the NBA. He took a look at that roster coming back and said "No Anderson? No Mercer? No Epps? Fuck that." I don't think Pitino would have believed in that particular team the way Tubby did, since he himself had a lot to prove in 98. For instance there's no way in hell UK wins that Elite 8 game vs. Duke. As far as the Black Sox scandal, it's hard to say. The rise of the Yankees with Ruth had a minimal amount to do with it and more to do with the Red Sox trading/selling guys foolishly. The White Sox may have stayed contenders for a while longer, but it's hard to see them winning the pennant over the Yankees. The White Sox falling apart after the scandal and the Red Sox generally screwing up left a massive power vacuum in the AL during the 1920s (Yankees won the AL 6 times in the decade, with the Indians winning in 20, the Senators won a couple years when Ruth was ailing). It really wasn't until the resurgence of the Philly A's in 1929 that the AL had another really powerful team.

I have actually heard most of that Michaels stuff before, about his brief departure in 1993. He wasn't really that huge so I can believe him when he says he wasn't on the juice. But then why frame him? There's something more to this than we know. And if he did test positive and had to be fired, why not job the belt off him? Hell, did Shawn ever lose a friggin title after this point? He was stripped of the IC there, he and Diesel were stripped of the tag belts due to having a falling out, he was stripped of the IC again after the Syracuse incident, he did lose the WWF title to Sid in the ring though (though he got it right back in his hometown, so it's not like it was some big sacrifice). Of course there was the notorious "Losing my smile" forfeit of the belt. And I think he and Austin were stripped of the tag belts in 1997 too, though Austin ended up tagging with Dude Love and they won the belts. From 1993-97 Shawn lost the WWF title in the ring once to Sid, and I guess there was the silly non match with HHH over the European title.

Daniels/Sting was a bizarre and incoherent feud to begin with. There was no backstory to tie these guys together. It's not like Daniels had been Sting's pupil for months and then started going nuts and misunderstanding what Sting was saying. He just took months off and came back saying this shit out of the blue. Sometimes I think TNA falls in love with a guy because he is a big name. I don't think Sting is actively trying to bury anyone, they just book him to win these matches because he's Sting.

Yeah while I enjoyed the Papparazzi segment as usual I have to mention how unsettling it is for young guys like Sabin and Shelley to constantly sell for an old washed up Backlund. The show tonight was mostly just there. This Abyss face turn is truly bizarre....what kind of face, even a harder edged face, would threaten to slam a smoking hot woman into a pile of broken glass? There's a difference in being edgy and being a raving psycho.

Lushus, are you ready for Michael Bay to do a GI Joe movie, or maybe a He-Man movie? I can see Bay doing GI Joe more than Masters of the Universe...he's more adept at crazy shoot em up affairs, and that's what GI Joe would be. How about Peter Jackson for MOTU? Or maybe Zach Snyder, who just did 300?

In all honesty I don't even remember much about the Duke/IU game other than Duke won by 3. Here's some other hoops what ifs: --What if Webber hadn't called the time out vs. UNC? Though then we could just say he should have been called for the very obvious walk he did. I still think UNC wins the game either way. --Same 1993 tourney. What if Alan Henderson isn't hurt for the 1993 NCAA tourney? IU was #1 in the nation going into it but without him lost to Kansas in the Elite 8. If IU had won that game it would have been all 4 #1 seeds in the FF. Would IU have beaten UNC? We know they could have beaten the Fab 5. This isn't a What If really, but more of a question. How the hell did Florida make the Final 4 in 1994? That was such a mediocre team that did nothing to impress me the entire year. Maybe it's because that year alone I saw my local teams beat their asses several times. I think UK beat them 2/3 times (FL's lone win was during a massive snowstorm whereas UK barely got out of the state in time for the game). U of L beat them by like 15 in Maui. I have no idea how that team beat UConn in the Sweet 16 and then damn near beat Duke in the FF.

Eh, I just record both parts on the same disc at LP mode. I don't really care for splitting up the discs. Does anyone want to shed some light on exactly why Shawn quit/was fired/was suspended in late 1993? I have always found this bizarre. He was pretty much the only logical guy to put in the match with Lawler's legal troubles though, and it did lead to the WM X ladder match. As far as IRS goes, I stopped giving any sort of a shit about him after Money Inc. broke up. So I didn't really remember the IRS/Razor feud. I too noted Luger's hilariously cheesy family opening (his wife wasn't especially hot either). UT was certainly the most over guy on that team, I should think because he was the lone guy who didn't go in for the campy red, white, and blue rah rah stuff. Luger going around waving the flag against a group of not especially evil foreigners was phony, and combine it with him not winning the title it's easy to see why it didn't get over. 1993 was simply not a time for the Good American vs. the Evil Foreigner angle, since the USA wasn't really fighting anyone and the Cold War was over.

I think it was Joey Styles that started the whole notion of "HHH would be more respected than Cena." I was actually more intrigued at the possible idea of RVD vs. JBL headlining that PPV, though it might not have made the most logistical sense due to RVD being on Raw and JBL on SD. This was of course before JBL had the back injury and retired, when there was a rumor he would beat Rey at Judgment Day. JBL would have been the most over as a heel in the right way of anyone they could have had vs. RVD, since he was public enemy #1 from the previous year's ECW PPV. And also, JBL could at least deliver a violent brawl type match, and they could have put RVD over clean there. With that said, I don't think this plan was ever in the cards and I have no idea where they would go with it from there. Maybe ECW/SD crossover stuff, since the two shows were taped the same night?

USA is stuck in 1998. There is no other way to explain these bizarre demands. I don't get why they would think Austin means jack shit since as noted above he can't wrestle and frankly hasn't been even slightly entertaining since 2001. As far as UT goes, WWE doesn't have to worry about that for the time being since he's hurt. I can see why USA might want UT back on Raw, but WWE can't put EVERYONE on Raw. Smackdown is going to need some major draws unless they plan to scrap the brand split. That said, I don't think 3 hours of Raw is a big deal. If you go to a Raw taping you know that they start at roughly 7:45 so there's Heat stuff or dark matches that they could show during that 8-9 hour. Just televise the matches they are already doing in other words. I usually have to flip channels to kill time during that hour, so I wouldn't mind having an extra hour of Raw.

Edge cashing in the MITB after UT/Batista at WM and winning the title to end the streak would seriously be a worse booking decision than the Fingerpoke of Doom (or the similar ending to WM IX). Let's face it, to get Taker to do something like that they would have to promise to job Edge the FUCK OUT to him in the future, which would of course go against the point of having Edge beat him. So in the end UT would have buried Edge and the biggest yearly thing they have going (UT's streak) would be gone due to a hotshot piece of booking that didn't even draw any money. As far as ONS last year goes, why is the ECW crowd going to not hate HHH? If these people are the smarks that they're reputed to be, they would realize HHH did his best to bury RVD over the years and also hates ECW as well. Sure, fans on certain levels respected the WWE invaders the previous year but still enjoyed seeing them get the crap kicked out of them. Having Cena involved produced the biggest example of "the wrong kind of heat" ever, whereas HHH would have been booed in the more traditional sense. Further, they even set up the RVD/HHH match with the Road to WM tourney, with HHH screwing Van Dam out of the WM main event. I didn't especially care for the actual booking of RVD/Cena. I had these crazy visions of Van Dam doing the flips into the 5th row on Cena, Van Daminators, Van Terminators, just throwing everything in the book at Cena but Cena keeps kicking out before finally going down to a 5 Star. RVD survives the FU and the STFU (the latter he did survive). Instead I got Cena dominating about 70% of the match with tedious offense and then an Edge run in to literally give RVD the belt, and then I figured they might overturn it the next night. As an RVD fan they took a moment I'd been waiting for since about 1998 and made it anticlimactic. That takes true booking talent.

Bob, what the hell is USA thinking wanting a lot of Austin on the show? Austin literally has zero redeeming value at this point. He can't wrestle anymore. His movie tanked beyond all comprehension. His ex wife is all over cable news stations badmouthing him to anyone who will listen. And when he gets on the mic he's insanely tiresome with his "WHAT?" garbage that was tedious 5 years ago. Oh, and he'll also bury all the Raw talent by stunning them while they get nothing back on him. And in the end won't draw any more viewers, maybe would even turn off some of the current audience.

This hasn't been touched upon all that much, but did anyone else wonder why the hell Anthony Anderson was in this movie? He wasn't exactly a believable computer hacker (maybe that was the point I guess, to show a different sort of hacker than the usual geeky white dude). And the Australian chick....how the hell did she even know him and what was the nature of their relationship in the film? Was he a long time friend? Just a guy she knew that was a hacker? Ex boyfriend (which I don't really buy)? They could have cut all that stuff out of the movie.

Yeah but it's just easier to say the Bills would have choked against the Niners too. As far as the 1992 UK vs. Michigan possible final, let us not forget that the Fab 5 did beat a much superior UK team in 1993 in the FF (albeit a tainted win in about 10 different ways). That said, considering Michigan were all freshmen I gotta go with UK in 1992. Danville, here's some other Bluegrass "What If?" scenarios: 1. What if Terry Howard simply makes 2 FTs in the 1975 FF against UCLA (dude was 100% from the line on the season)? It would have been Louisville vs. Kentucky for the national title...who wins? 2. What if UK hadn't been railroaded in the 1986 bracket by having to face LSU for a 4th time? This also would have set up U of L vs. UK in the FF, but who wins and would the winner be able to beat Duke in the finals? I personally think one major reason why U of L won that 86 title is we got to play a chump 11 seed LSU in the FF while Duke and Kansas had a #1 vs. #1 war in the other game.

Eric Young is over right now because he is a hapless jobber type. If they actually tried seriously pushing him I have the feeling the crowd would turn on him in a hurry. It's a bit problematic really, as in he will stay over in his current role but his role precludes him from moving up higher. The Daniels/Sting feud was idiotic anyway and I'm glad it just ended. It never made a lick of sense, there was no real backstory to it, and Daniels truthfully just doesn't have enough charisma on the mic to overcome the bizarre booking. They can either move both guys onto something else, or keep beating the dead horse and bury Daniels even more. The conundrum right now is how do they get the X belt off Joe? They have played out the 3 way matches with Joe not being pinned and dropping the title. Is it so hard to have Joe lose to someone with an Angle run in or distraction?

I did find it a bit odd that a huge black man would call himself the Silverback and invoke comparisons to a gorilla. Why that gimmick of all things?

I don't think WWE is going to fire anyone unless you start seeing a serious Federal investigation. During that time guys like Warrior, Bulldog, and LOD vanished quickly. Note that Bulldog returned in time for SS 94 right after the steroid trial. To be honest, I don't think most wrestling fans even care that Rey or Holly have been on the juice. If Rey is in as bad a shape as reported then he probably should call it a career, but they wouldn't fire him over this Astin thing. If Vince got in trouble with the govt. again guys like Masters and Snitsky would be the first to go. Guys with no talent and huge muscles.

I watched Survivor Series 93 tonight for the first time since renting it shortly after the show first came out on tape. It was a pretty fun show and the level of work on it showed how much crisper guys are during that era since they weren't juiced to the max. The opener was a fun match though I have no idea how IRS was the capt. of a team or why Diesel was somehow on his team instead of with HBK. I know Michaels was thrown into Lawler's spot due to The King's legal trouble over possibly banging some 13 year old here in Louisville (which was later dropped, so I'll give Lawler the benefit of the doubt but given what we know about him now it wouldn't shock me if this was true). RNR vs. Heavenly Bodies was a fantastic match. I thought the Bodies sucked really bad at the time but man I think I may have been wrong. They busted out a Death Sentence in that match...in 1993! The "Doinks" vs. Bigelow and Co. was truly bizarre. Someone had to have been on crack when they booked that match. Men on a Mission dressed up as Doinks, Bushwhackers as Doinks...just really deranged stuff. The main event was interesting but likely the weakest of the serious matches. Luger's push had already jumped the shark by this point, as UT was easily outpopping him as the crowd was dying to see Taker get his hands on Yokozuna and didn't really care so much about Luger. The whole Americans vs. Foreign Fanatics angle was silly since it was 1993 for god's sake. The USA's hatred of Japan had waned by this point obviously, and besides Yoko wasn't even Japanese. They were trying even then to make people loathe French Canadian heels, but I don't think anyone exactly wanted the Quebecers heads on a platter due to their nationality. And Ludvig Borga: Finnish heel. WTF? How did anyone think this could ever get over? Hell, Finland hates Russia big time so really is Borga all THAT much of a heel? Shouldn't he be an ally? It didn't help that Borga was quite possibly the worst wrestler on the PPV (aside from the non Bigelow guys in the comedy match). I did enjoy the PPV. It was fun seeing it again.

Edgehead, clarify one thing for me. You say Edge in your booking scheme would beat UT for the title. Do you mean cash in the MITB literally right after the main event and attack UT? Cause that idea is something I badmouthed for weeks before the PPV when various people mentioned it on here. If you mean that Edge should have won MITB and done something like he eventually did (cash it in after a UT/Batista rematch, with UT exhausted), then it turned out pretty well. The MITB match this year was easily the most disposable of the 3. I haven't had the slightest desire to watch that match again, especially considering that Kennedy didn't even cash it in. And no one wants to admit it, but if he HAD cashed it in he was just jobbing anyway. Going in I figured Kennedy was winning it, but I was at a loss as to what precisely he would do after that. We had established he couldn't actually beat either UT or Batista. Lashley kicked the crap out of him. Cena would likely beat him as well. The most he could do is something like Edge's first MITB, where he did a Pearl Harbor on a weakened champ and then jobbed the belt back a month later. Truth be told, the RVD MITB win is the only one that was a logical angle from point to point. Edge's first win was way too drawn out and most of the time seemed like they had no idea what to do with it or when he should cash it in, and when he did cash it in it was a 3 week run just to justify the MITB concept. At least the RVD win had a solid foundation for what it was trying to do: Perennial "almost main eventer" RVD gets a crack at a ladder gimmick match that he would be good at, wins the MITB, then uses it to challenge at the main PPV where he would have the advantage (ECW ONS). I wonder if they even realize how close they came to something special with that angle, but while the music was good it was played out of tune. I still don't think Cena was right for that role of going into the show as champ, it should have been HHH. HHH could have heeled it up big time and trashed the legacy of ECW and fans would have been dying to see RVD finally beat the shit out of The Game. Instead we got the usual "Face challenger attacks Cena and veers into tweener territory" nonsense and for the regular WWE crowd it became a puzzling angle that where fans didn't know what to think. Then instead of the angle being what it should have been, namely RVD finally realizing his dream and winning the big one, it ended up being the usual crap of "OMG can Cena overcome the odds???" The crowd at ONS was more interested in trashing Cena than in rooting on RVD, which again was the real point of this whole thing. It actually still drew pretty decent money, but it could have been something really great. That said, there's a part of me that smiles knowing that Cena likely won't ever get the job back from RVD.

The thing I don't get is the notion that Cena is drawing all these fans in. Who exactly is being drawn in? For the talk of him selling a bunch of merchandise, well, a top guy should be selling shirts and stuff like that anyway. He's hardly selling some record amount of shirts. I don't see people walking the streets wearing a Cena shirt or carrying a spinner belt. Has Cena on top led to some huge upswing in business? Not really. Ratings surge? Treading water. PPV buyrates? Aside from shows like WM, they are overall declining domestically. I think Cena is similar to Bob Backlund in that his title run has lasted entirely beyond the fans caring, even to the point where his feuds aren't even the focal point of the show. Hell, since Cena moved to Raw he's mostly played 2nd fiddle to the McMahons humiliating Jim Ross, Hogan/Michaels, DX vs. Rated RKO, Vince and Co. vs. Lashley, etc. This is why I find him main eventing WMs a bit curious considering half the time he's not even the flat out 100% main event on Raw.