cabbageboy

Any new World Class episodes in July? I'm waiting to see that Von Erich vs. Flair cage match but they keep stalling.

I'm assuming Rey will be the top face on SD once he gets back. Surely they won't send him to Raw too. Matt Hardy might be worth a shot too. Let's be real though, once UT gets back he is the top guy that will face Edge.

Who is to say that Burke and Cor Von don't feud with each other with someone turning face there? Anyway, having seen nearly all of Punk's OVW work I can say with some confidence what we'll see on Sunday. Benoit will win a tough match and become champion, then offer his hand again to Punk, but then Punk will refuse this time and walk away. The odd trick that OVW managed to pull off (under Heyman) was that Punk did this disrespectful act to Brent Albright but somehow was the face in that feud with Albright becoming more of the enraged heel.

Is Moore bringing sexy back to Smackdown? I have to admit the whole Torrie part of this was bizarre and made zero sense. But then I still have a feeling of cognitive dissonance when she's hanging around Flair, considering she was the evil whore that tempted foolish David Flair to turn on his dad and join the NWO. At least this looks a bit less Vince oriented. I'd rather hear about Teddy Long's love life than the Vince crap.

When did I say Monica Belucci wasn't insanely hot? Hell, she kept the tedious Merovingian crap in Matrix Reloaded fairly watchable. It's just that she was badly miscast in Tears of the Sun. She was also one of Dracula's wives/vampire sluts in Bram Stoker's Dracula. My god she was hot in that. When Keanu later recalls it and delivers the hysterically bad line "I was impotent with fear!" you have to wonder what was wrong with the dude.

The easiest thing to compare the Vince angle with is the Al Wilson death. But the thing is Al Wilson's death was itself a goofy joke angle, and at least he went out nailing Dawn Marie until he had a heart attack. It was a low level angle and was stupid, but overall harmless compared to the Katie Vick type garbage.

Chicago makes the most sense to me for Kobe, if he's going to be traded at all. I know the glamorous NYC aspect might make the Knicks alluring, but even Kobe has to realize what a disaster that franchise is. Phoenix would be an awesome fit for Kobe (imagine Nash at PG with Kobe as the main scorer, and Stoudamire too), but I seriously doubt the Lakers would be dumb enough to trade him to another team in the division and have him torch the Lakers several times a year. Chicago makes sense though. He could live out his Jordan wannabe fantasies, the Bulls are at least semi decent, and it moves him out of the western conference.

Tears of the Sun was okay I guess, but Monica Belucci wasn't exactly convincing as an American doctor or whatever she was in that. The Last Boy Scout is great fun. A while back I tried finding the DVD and was incredulous that Suncoast, Best Buy, or anyone had it in stock. Ended up ordering it on Amazon. Now it seems like whenever I go into ANY store I always see 5 copies of it. Who could ever forget the following exchange: "Just once I would like to hear you scream!" "Play some rap music." Last Boy Scout: The movie that made being a Pat Boone fan cool.

I still wonder if recycling the same villains is a good idea. After Batman Forever was anyone dying to see Two Face or The Riddler again? Okay maybe Two Face since he was done so horribly the first time, but not so much Riddler. And The Joker was maybe the one villain they did right to begin with, along with maybe Catwoman to some extent. Batman Returns is obviously better made than either Schumacher movie, but I can certainly watch either of those cheesefests over it. It's far too drab and bizarre. Batman is a dark comic, but it's not the sort of ultra bleak and bizarre nightmare world of Tim Burton. Nolan hit it the best in terms of tone, fairly realistic with crime bosses and crazy villains, but nothing really retarded like an army of penguins descending on downtown Gotham. Say what you want about Batman and Robin and how weak it is, but there's nothing as stupid as the army of penguins with bombs in that movie.

Let me try to explain the difference, since it's a bit subtle. Everyone at home watching The Departed knows that Matt Damon or Leonardo DiCaprio aren't really dying. They are clearly fictional characters in the movie. Same thing with shows like CSI. WWE, as much as they pretend to be, is not like that. Some characters that are obviously unrealistic (UT, Kane, etc.) can do these goofy death angles and nobody bats an eye. But someone like Vince McMahon can't just play the role of Mr. McMahon on TV and say it's a fictional character because he IS Mr. McMahon. The biggest problem I have with the storyline isn't even the blatant tasteless aspect, the 10 bell salutes, or the various wrestler comments. The major beef I have is that there's simply nothing decent that can come of it as a payoff. It's obvious live crowds are already crapping on this angle, and they might get a couple weeks of ratings out of it but after that the ratings might actually drop since it's pointless. There's no big match or PPV they can build with this angle. What will they do, actually hype The Great American Bash with the tagline "Come see who killed Vince!" There was another mystery angle that involved the GAB PPV. It was the Hummer angle.

It will be very hard to stomach another 3 hours of this constant Vince memorial crap next week. I'm somewhat intrigued because if they take the tone they did for the first hour tonight it could be amusing. That would be the tongue in cheek, semi serious approach of the opening segment. But if it's this somber crap for 3 hours, it'll be unwatchable. Was the Raw GM stuff exactly addressed tonight?

Regarding the Nash thing, the idea that he has heel and face friends is a fun idea (Sabin/Shelley and also Lethal) but the execution of it was so utterly bizarre and off key that it fell flatter than most angles I've ever seen. There was no way of knowing what the hell was going on. Some people have ranted that Styles should have won or come very close to winning the main event. Why exactly? The dude has become a JTTS midcard comedy heel and Christian's lackey. He isn't remotely world title caliber at the moment (as in gimmick wise). I think Styles is a great wrestler, but he's a bit small for a heavyweight title and he's seen as above the X title at this point. As far as Daniels goes, it's not like Sting is some master backstage politician demanding to be put over. They just booked him to win. Daniels is a competent worker but to me he just lacks that "it" quality that makes a main eventer. His look, his size, his solid but not usually jawdropping moveset, mic skills are average to mediocre. He's upper midcarder for life.

Yeah, after Bischoff's last Raw appearance as GM where he guested and screwed everyone out of belts I'd rather he not come back. How about a new boss or GM on Raw that is impartial and doesn't screw people? The Coach has never been more than a grovelling toady, so I hope he isn't the new boss. I do think a show needs some sort of authority figure. Not all over the show or anything, but there needs to be a clear understanding to the viewers that SOMEONE is running things. ECW right now is bizarre since there's literally no one running the show. Just a Jim Crockett type boss who makes an occasional match and makes announcements.

I don't feasibly see how a carbomber could ever be a face even in a wrestling angle. Besides, whoever this culprit is would have to be at least arrested over it. At least with the Austin angle he could say "No I'm not pressing charges because I want to beat this guy's ass in the ring." Sure, that isn't likely in real life but for a wrestling storyline we can suspend disbelief and go with it. But if Vince is actually dead (in storyline) that's a murder and you can't just have Shane McMahon come out and challenge the guy for the next PPV. I think what might happen is that they arrest someone, we all basically know the dude is guilty, but they never quite have the goods on him and so he gets off scott free and continues to wrestle.

Bear in mind one thing about Nancy Drew. The original movie series from the 30s was little more than a series of B grade programmers, so why would the character suddenly draw huge money years after the books were at a peak? Isn't Harry Potter coming out in the summer as well? I think that might end up doing the most business worldwide, but Spidey might keep #1 in the USA. POTC 3 has to be considered a slight disappointment, but really there's a shortage of truly satisfying payoffs in that movie. It's not Matrix Revolutions level lame as a payoff, but I don't think people quite got what they wanted out of At World's End.

Nah it wasn't that bad of a PPV, just some really weird shit going down on it midway through. The middle portion of this show had Russo all over it, I think it was from the point of Backlund/Shelley until the Hoyt heel turn. It was just manic craziness that made zero sense, with people turning heel left and right and others doing turns that can't even be classified (like the Nash bit). I mean can anyone explain what the hell was going on with that Nash "heel" turn on Backlund, or why Lynn was involved, or why Lethal was miffed at Nash? Honestly, who cares if Nash beats up a former rival in Backlund? There's a decent angle in that mess somewhere with Nash still being pals with Shelley while also mentoring Lethal, but I have no idea what it could lead to. After that bizarre chaos they went straight to Daniels cutting a weird promo in the crowd, then the brief VKM/Bashams match with the Hoyt heel turn. It was like Crash TV 07. When they showed that Jarrett interview I started to have the sinking feeling that he was the 5th man and would get the "inspirational" title win. Hell my dad even thought someone would get hurt during the match and JJ would still wind up with the belt. TNA has so wrecked viewer expectations that scenarios like this aren't even farfetched. Oh joy, Angle wins the belt. I'll agree that this was easily the best KOTM match, but man some guys got buried hard here. Styles being the main one, he literally tried to let Christian pin him, then got his ass kicked the entire match and never qualified to hang the belt. Styles might be that one TNA guy who needs a change of scenery since he's done it all in TNA and he's frankly a bit stale. WWE would of course job him out, but hell TNA is burying him too. The storyline here was apparently Joe being pissed at the ref bump costing him the Angle tap out, thus he never got to qualify to hang the belt. To me that rings a bit hollow considering there are FOUR other guys besides Joe in the match. He couldn't just pin someone at all? In conclusion, I have one thing to ask TNA: Who in the hell are we supposed to cheer for in any of this stuff? Jacques is right about Angle and Joe both being unappealing and neither guy is really worth rooting for. Joe is better suited to being either a dominant heel champ or a tweener type, with a face chasing him. Him chasing the belt is bizarre since he doesn't really inspire sympathy as a character. The other guys in the match were a heel Christian, a dorky lackey Styles, and a bland Harris. I've mentioned it in the past, but Russo "shades of gray" booking is the wrong approach for TNA. A new company that is trying to establish itself and gain viewers needs clearly defined characters and concepts. The WWF could do shades of gray in their storylines because the WWF was a highly established company with recognizable names, so it gave us a different side to already well known wrestlers. A first time viewer to TNA wouldn't be able to figure out what Angle is all about, what Joe is all about, who are we supposed to want to win between them, who is the heel and who is the face. Even though the WWF product was fascinating in 1997, note that it didn't start drawing big money until they positioned Shawn Michaels in a total dick heel role, had a fan favorite Austin chase him and beat him for the title, and then feud with the evil boss Vince and his various Corporation guys.

A part of me deep down wonders if they are jobbing Edge to Batista. Looking at these roster moves there's still no top level faces on SD whatsoever if Edge gets by Batista. I guess Rey when he gets back is a decent idea, maybe Matt Hardy if they want to play on the past (though no one would buy Matt on that level). The roster is now full of these goofy monster heel guys like Khali and Henry for Batista to face too. Personally....I think Kennedy is the most likely to get buried here. Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't I read that HHH demanded Kennedy be moved to Raw because they needed another heel? That would imply he isn't turning face and isn't likely to get back at Edge. In other words, Kennedy has not only been injury prone, but now he's lost his MITB opportunity and will be jobbing to HHH or Cena on Raw...and not turning face.

That guy from Texas is so stupid he'll probably be ecstatic when Vince shows up again alive and well. "Oh my god, he survived that explosion! It's a miracle!"

Anyway this was a fun movie. The FF movies aren't great works or anything but it's enjoyable to see superheroes who for the most part enjoy their powers and responsibilities. I've seen both at the theater and each time the audience was having a blast, laughing at the funny parts and even applauding at the end.

I guess with Wycheck and Storm I did know that they were doing that as a PPV match but the show the other night didn't quite convey it in a way to make it important. It came off like "Oh, Storm got on this football player's case so I guess they fight at the PPV." Maybe it was vaguely mentioned but it didn't come off like a big deal. I'm hoping the last man in KOTM will be a surprise but there's a nagging feeling that the last guy will be Jarrett and he'll have an "inspirational" title win.

Well, it's hard to say which show is better now because we would need to see both rosters gel with the new guys. If Raw can't be consistently better than SD even after all the new additions then they need to take a serious look at the creative direction on Raw. Cause that roster is now a lot better than SD. The thing about this Vince angle is that it is so indicative of WWE's embarrassing angles. It seems like when WWE does some really terrible storyline it invariably veers into a direction of being offensive and cringe worthy. If there's one thing I can say about WCW is that they never did stuff that flat out angered or offended me as a fan. Stuff like the Fingerpoke was really stupid and business killing, but it's hardly as offensive as the Katie Vick angle, the Eddie exploitation, or this current Vince death angle. Ditto the Hummer angle in WCW. It was horrible and inconclusive (maybe the worst angle ever), but did it really offend anyone?

Yeah Cena vs. JBL may well still be Cena's best match and certainly JBL's. Only the weird finish may hurt it for some people. The TNT episode also has Fuji Chan on it as well as the screwjob women's match. I used to have that match on a really old Best of the WWF Vol. 2 tape that got ruined in a flood, and even as a kid watching it I knew something odd had gone down. Fuji and Muraco were awesome.

This was such a frustrating SD. The wrestling itself was largely very good, especially the Regal/Matt match. But the constant Vince crap and these utterly offensive "tributes" from the stars in the Owen or Eddie vein were just sickening. I changed the channel to anything else that was on during those.

Lashley looked really solid in that Benoit match so it's a shame we'll not get that rematch on ECW, or at least in theory it shouldn't happen. The aspect of Lashley's ECW tenure that hasn't been mentioned as much as it should is that it stunted his growth as a wrestler and performer. Yes, it got him a big push and a major spot at WM, but it was more condusive to his future success to feud with Finlay, Regal, and Booker on SD. In all honesty I hope they don't go with Cena vs. Foley for a few reasons. 1. The outcome is obvious with Foley jobbing. 2. Foley has no rub to give Cena at this point. 3. It irks me that Foley can just come back and get Big 4 PPV main event money.

WCW always did stupid shit like that in the early 90s. Sting vs. Cactus from Beach Blast 92 was a non title street fight match, which is idiotic since having a title match ADDS TO THE BUYRATE.