cabbageboy

This thread inspired me to rent that Wicker Man remake tonight. I have to say that the You Tube thing captures most of the good stuff, cause man that first hour or so is pretty damn boring. The last 30 mins. however? Oh lord.

I'm hoping against hope that they will use RVD's last match in a constructive fashion to get someone over. Not some lame burial crap that is a 5 minute match or putting over Shane, etc. As in giving him and Punk about 20 minutes on PPV with Punk getting the win. Again I say this: If RVD has no plans on coming back to WWE, why agree to some bullshit burial? Van Dam isn't this Jericho type heel that they can drag kicking and screaming out of the building. The guy is a face after all. It might be reasonable for him to put someone over on the way out, but he shouldn't agree to some crap scenario that would bury him. I think he outta say "Hey, I'll be glad to put a guy over on the way out, but I want to at least look respectable." It's really bad business to bury Van Dam at ONS. Even in Jacksonville that crowd will be decidedly pro ECW and most will know the reality of the situation, but will still want RVD to not look like a chump.

The Ozzy stuff sounds like something straight out of WCW circa 1999, although I'd rather see Ozzy even in his current state than most of the people that performed on Nitro. This sounds like a tremendous show though. I'm worried about the Vicki aspect but as long as she just ends up being Long's assistant and stays out of the way it would be okay. Man, Edge is going to have so many people pissed at him in about 6 months. The guy he ripped off for the MITB will be coming back (Kennedy), as well as the guy he screwed out of the title (UT). No offense to Kennedy, but he's likely to end up the odd man out in this scenario since UT vs. Edge has been a match people have wanted for the past 2 years. Not to mention Batista will be pissed at him now.

I assumed Doc Ock was a professor of some sort at the college? Maybe not full time exactly since he was doing his mad scientist experiments, but I figure he'd probably have taught there at some point.

Yeah HHH was initially a mediocre IC champ but he isn't anywhere near bottom 5 ever by any means. As far as Chyna, I explained in the other thread why I didn't put her in the bottom 5. At least her run was notable on the show, and dare I say the Jarrett and Jericho matches were actually pretty solid for what they were. Yeah there was the co-champ crap with her and Jericho, but I didn't know how to rate that in order to list it. Chyna also won the title again in 2000 briefly before Eddie won it and turned on her, which was a terrific angle. Good god, I honestly forgot Test even held the title at all. In fact I thought he was US champ at that Survivor Series unification against Edge. No one will want to hear this, but during that same era I hated Regal's IC title run. His feud with Edge produced a few truly awful snoozers, but I can't put Regal in the bottom 5 since his Power of the Punch gimmick during that time was at least hilarious.

Actually I do like Edge quite a bit, but in storyline terms he is in fact Mr. Revolting since he's a dick heel. As far as Kennedy goes, I have no idea how he's going to get over as a face. He gets some occasional bad boy cheers at the moment due to his schtick, but as a face that exact act has no hope of working (screaming MIIIISSTTTERR KEENNNNEEDDYY isn't something that can work as a face since it's extremely annoying by definition). So let's say Kennedy drops his irritating heel schtick that got him over. What else does he really have? Otherwise he's an average worker with an average look. Not knowing about Kennedy's injury last night I figured having Edge win the MITB was their admission that Kennedy simply wasn't ready to win the title on SD and that the show needed more immediate help with an established guy like Edge.

Considering that match is now a 3 on 1 handicap match with Umaga and Shane I doubt RVD will even get a shot at Vince aside from Vince pinning him. He should beat the holy hell out of Shane though for stealing the Van Terminator. I really hope they don't do that spot in the match (Shane hitting the Van Terminator on RVD). Since they are planning to take RVD off TV anyway, what is RVD's incentive to even do this match?

Well, not only that aspect but it's cheesy that ALL of these various heels have some connection to Peter Parker. Let's take inventory: --Green Goblin. Yep. His best friend's dad. --Doc Ock. Yep. Professor at his university, Peter was doing a paper on him. --Sandman. Yep. Dude shot his uncle. --Venom. Yep. Rival photographer at his newspaper. If they add Lizard it's yet another prof. that goes bad. WTF? That has to be one fucked up school. Let's have a heel that's just some maniac that's out to wreck NYC, or Kraven the Hunter stalking Spidey, doesn't really matter. Something that doesn't require a deus ex machina. The first Batman had this problem, trying to force The Joker into some meaningful role in Bruce Wayne's life (killing his parents) rather than him just being a psycho. At least with Batman Begins they had a logical role that Ra's Al Ghul played in Bruce Wayne's life that was built at the beginning. Ironically enough the one guy who DOES have a valid connection to Bruce Wayne is Two Face/Harvey Dent, and in the movie I don't recall them ever exactly mentioning that backstory of Bruce and Harvey. Instead we get this cheesy video footage of Dent being burned by the acid in court with Batman trying to make a save. Why did they not have Bruce Wayne try to make that save, since there's no way Batman would be allowed in court in his full costume? Looked really goofy in the movie.

I've always been a Ghost Rider fan (well at least since about 1993 when I was into comics) so I enjoyed most any movie of him. Sadly I did not see Con Air at the theater in 1997. I did see Face/Off and enjoyed it quite a bit, but that summer kinda sucked to me. But then I saw Batman and Robin at the theater, along with The Lost World too. Frankly, I find B & R to have more replay value than Lost World. At least B & R is hysterically funny. Lost World just sucks ass. Con Air: The movie Michael Bay can only wish he made.

You know the problem with Kennedy waiting until WM next year anyway, especially with him hurt for 6 months? The guy currently has zero main event credibility. How is him sitting out 6 months going to make anyone think he's a viable main event guy for WM? Right now we have no earthly belief that he could actually pin UT or Batista with everything on the line, ditto Lashley. Kennedy taking 6 months off and coming back to cash in a MITB we'd have likely forgotten is a blatant deus ex machina that would be tough to take seriously.

That certain young man also just beat Kennedy clean this past week on SD. What makes anyone think that they have a serious plan for Kennedy at this point? The guy has had two major injuries now since he's been in WWE, which is just 2 years or so. Hell, I figured Kennedy would be that first guy to cash in the MITB and job in the match, but he didn't even get the chance to cash it in. After the way he got goaded into the match tonight, was humiliated by Edge and beaten, and then foolishly wanted to do the match anyway....what makes you think anyone would want to see Kennedy come back and main event WM? Kennedy's act is so inherently annoying that he can't really be pushed as a face with it, so his possible feud with Edge would be Mr. Annoying vs. Mr. Revolting.

Not having any idea that Kennedy was hurt I figured they were doing a mass burial of the guy tonight, so anyone who suggested that he's getting buried seems correct in my view. Hell, I think they would have done this tonight anyway since Kennedy isn't exactly a main event level guy right now (which was the initial point of doing the year long build to his WM shot). Let's face it, it looks goofy for a guy to job clean to Matt Hardy one week and then cash in the MITB and beat Batista/UT the next. Smackdown is a show that needs immediate relief with UT ailing, and Edge is the most logical guy. Edge has been frozen out of the title scene on Raw and with his Orton issue buried there's nothing much for him left to do on the show, so why not put Edge on SD anyway? It's obvious that Edge is jumping to SD tomorrow, cashing it in against a wounded winner of UT/Batista, and getting another ultra cheap title win. At least this time he won't have Cena there to ruin it.

5. The Godfather (A total Russo era push, didn't really last very long...not any good as a wrestler either. I considered D'Lo for this spot but he did at least sorta unify the IC and Euro, so he has that going for him.) 4. Road Dogg (Another lame Russo era push, almost the same exact time. He held it for maybe two weeks before jobbing it to Goldust.) 3. Albert (Agreed. I have no idea what they were trying to accomplish with this push.) 2. Umaga (I doubt anyone will back me up on this, but Umaga's IC title run was totally pointless, he never defended the title at all, and the ONE time he did was against a plant "fan" in Santino Marella and he jobbed. Instead of trashing Marella, trash the guy who actually jobbed to him.) 1. Billy Gunn (Terrible, god awful push where he actually beat Eddie and then Benoit cleaned his clock immediately after that. Also, Chyna was involved so that raises him even further.)

More Con Air awesomeness: "The last thing little Casey Poe is going to smell will be my stinking breath!"\ "Anybody make a move and the bunny gets it." "Larkin? He's out saving the rain forest! Or maybe recycling his sandals or some shit!" "This situation better get unfucked right now!" "I hate to say this, Cyrus, but we are three white dudes short. Or as they say in Ebonics, 'We be fucked'. " "What's wrong with him?" "My first guess would be.....a lot." "Do you know what I am?" "Ugly all day." "It's amazing the shit you white trash know." "Fuck you, trailer trash." "Hey! My mom lives in a trailer!"

I figured that Wicker Man remake was crap but figured it couldn't be THAT bad. But then I watched those clips. Oh my god. I need to see this all the way through, but since I haven't seen the original I feel somehow dirty watching that crap remake before it. Some of my favorite lines from Con Air: "I knew you was a punk." "Cyrus, this is your BBQ and it tastes good..." "I'm gonna fuck your wife, then I'm gonna fuck you. Then I'll fuck your whole family." Con Air is brilliance.

Perfect is a guy who mostly seemed important with the IC title. But then once I thought about it he really didn't have that many great matches as IC champ. The match where he beat Santana in the IC finals was good, as was losing to Bret, but between then? His feud with Von Erich didn't produce much worth noting (not really Hennig's fault), his feud with Bossman was okay but never had a clear resolution. I think he had a house show feud with Bulldog in 1991 that was okay but not great. In the end I put him #4 on my list since he was a very credible champ but his feuds in 1990-91 weren't the greatest.

I agree. I figured Cena/Khali in the Punjabi Prison is about as good of an idea as they can do here. It allows them to have Cena retain and Khali doesn't really lose much heat by losing.

Well, I don't think that was James Franco since he flat out dies in the movie and is buried and there's really no sensible way to bring him back. It can't be Thomas Haden Church who said this since Sandman doesn't even fit the description in any way. Gotta be Topher Grace as Venom, since the character's potential was only barely touched. If this actually is the only appearance of Venom then that's one of the most unbelievable examples of leaving money on the table that I can recall. Harry's character arc is pretty much over now, the Sandman stuff was mostly resolved, but Venom is a character that they can bring back big time.

After seeing The Full Monty that's as much of Robert Carlyle as I want to see! Spidey's numbers don't surprise me. There really isn't anything out right now. I'm just curious as to how well POTC and Shrek are going to do since they are coming out a week apart and are bound to have some overlap in audience.

Okay I finally saw the movie.....and I thought it was pretty good. Certainly better than the various reviews and people on here indicated. Thoughts:

There have been plenty of quality guys holding the IC title since Chyna, but the business had changed and nobody was given a good run with the belt. Van Dam, Eddie, Jericho, Benoit....all could have been near the top of this list but none held the belt any one time for a decent length to be great IC champs. That said, I didn't include Chyna in the bottom 5 since some of her matches against Jarrett and Jericho were pretty good for what they were. That said, why on earth did they go to such lengths to protect Jarrett, who they hated for leaving the way he did, with the "belt isn't a household item" Dusty Finish? The dude was leaving, they paid him 100,000 to job there, so I'd have jobbed him the FUCK OUT. If he was holding me up for 6 figures to lose one match I'd have had Chyna squash him and make sure he had no way of ever being taken seriously in WCW (not that he was anyway). This booking is highly bizarre when you look at them jobbing Jericho out to Chyna cleanly soon after, which essentially wrecked his initial momentum in the WWF and in a lot of ways he never quite got back on track. Why protect a guy who is leaving that you feel isn't doing proper business, while burying a guy you just signed and in theory had high hopes to push? I thought of mentioning Rocky Maivia in 1997, but since the Rock started a better run that same year I didn't feel having one lackluster reign qualified him for the list. As far as Michaels goes, when you watch SD next week and see UT likely drop the belt while seriously injured just think about how much of a punk ass bitch HBK really was circa 1993-95. That said, I don't want to turn it into the 1000th HBK bashing thread. At this point we all know the past shortcomings of one Michael Hickenbottom.

As noted, the blame here has to go on Van Gundy. The Jazz were a more cohesive unit in this series, but in theory there's no way in hell they should be able to beat the Rockets. During this series I couldn't help but think that Van Gundy was the exact wrong guy to coach this team, since he's obsessed with this boring Knicks style crap that the Rockets aren't made for. I recall Skip Bayless ranting on Cold Pizza about how the Rockets seemed better off when Yao was hurt and Mutombo was starting. It seems absurd, but Mutombo is that enforcer type defensive center that fits much more with Van Gundy's aesthetic (which is to thug it up). The Rockets are at heart a finesse team. Yao Ming is not a tough guy center and Van Gundy can try for years to make him one but it's not likely to happen. McGrady isn't that sort of fiery player that Van Gundy needs. What does it say that when the Rockets went small and played a more finesse style that suits them, they looked good in the series. Van Gundy can be a quality coach with a certain style of team, and the Rockets would be a very good team with a more uptempo coach, but the two just don't gel.

Okay I rewatched Spider-Man 2 last night and enjoyed it quite a bit more this time. It's wasn't as dreary, sappy, and preachy as I remembered it being. The first half was all very solid and the last half hour is all very exciting (from roughly Ock smashing the car through the window up until the finale). That said, there IS a very notable lull around the point where Peter tosses his Spidey costume in the trash, which includes the Aunt May speech that might be mostly what I remembered thinking was maudlin in the film. That 20 mins. or so drags enough to where I still don't enjoy it as much as the first movie.

I think in a deranged way they were trying to go for a steal there, but never actually attempted any contact or steal. Van Gundy should be gone after this series, he really should be. Not just this game, but overall for the Rockets and their style of play. There is no reason why this team shouldn't be scoring over 100 a night, yet they never scraped 100 in this entire series. That's embarrassing for a team with two alleged superstars (McGrady, Yao). Further, I didn't understand the gameplan one iota down the stretch. Tracy McGrady has this albatross of never being able to get past the 1st round, so what do they do? Just give it to Yao on every possession, but aside from one time where he dunked on Okur he is content with shooting off balance jumpers and shit. The dude is like 7'6" and he's out there shooting jumpers rather than posting a guy and dunking on his ass every time. Nowitzki is more adept at being that hybrid player who can step out and shoot, but someone with Yao's size needs to post up. At any rate, they should have won or lost with McGrady down the stretch.

It's a bit unfair to put Santino on there at the moment. The dude hasn't even defended yet or shown us what he can do. If he just loses it pronto....then yeah. My 5 worst and this took some doing since in the past 10 years there have been a bunch that sucked. 5. The Godfather (A total Russo era push, didn't really last very long...not any good as a wrestler either. I considered D'Lo for this spot but he did at least sorta unify the IC and Euro, so he has that going for him.) 4. Road Dogg (Another lame Russo era push, almost the same exact time. He held it for maybe two weeks before jobbing it to Goldust.) 3. Albert (Agreed. I have no idea what they were trying to accomplish with this push.) 2. Umaga (I doubt anyone will back me up on this, but Umaga's IC title run was totally pointless, he never defended the title at all, and the ONE time he did was against a plant "fan" in Santino Marella and he jobbed. Instead of trashing Marella, trash the guy who actually jobbed to him.) 1. Billy Gunn (Terrible, god awful push where he actually beat Eddie and then Benoit cleaned his clock immediately after that. Also, Chyna was involved so that raises him even further.)