cabbageboy

U of L with the "eh" win over Marquette today. It's an "eh" win since Dominic James is hurt for the season now and I was hoping for a 20 point beatdown. Either way it's a nice resume win over a top tier BE team. Now it's time to beat down Seton Hall (payback from last year) and then watch Pitt and UConn maim each other. Still a shot at the conference title.

There is something to that though. Miley Cyrus at least got the seedy pervert crowd along with the kids. But Jonas Brothers? I agree about the Taken comments. One thing to watch in the next few weeks is how Taken performs. Bear in mind Watchmen is rated R and Taken somehow is PG-13, so this could be a situation much like 300 had in 2007. Wild Hogs made way more money than anyone predicted, and the theory was that underaged kids bought tickets for Wild Hogs and snuck into 300.

Well it's weird because on a personal level Steiner has done nothing to Joe to warrant such action. Sure, he's cut hilarious promos all over him and called him a fat bastard, etc. But that's about all. And really Nash hasn't done THAT much to Joe either, mainly just put up with Joe being an asshole for nearly a year before turning on him over Joe putting down his best friend. Watching these shows I thought "Dude, they gave you a typical heel beatdown. It's not like they beat up your in laws and attacked your wife." It's like Russo desperately wants to recreate Steve Austin with guys like Joe and Styles, but neither man makes sense in that type of role. Austin might have broke into Pillman's house but it was Pillman that had the actual gun, and in the end did that goofy crap get Austin over? Not exactly. Throwing a dozen guys out at the Rumble got him over. Passing out due to blood loss but not tapping out got him over. Having his neck broken and coming back for more got him over.

ECW was quite good in 1999. Probably had the best wrestling action in the US at that point. The WWF was goofy with all the overbooked Russo stuff but at least it was wildly popular. WCW was the real culprit though, just sucking hard for the vast majority of that year.

Madden could certainly be an obnoxious goof but I will say that his commentary with Stevie Ray on the Mayhem 2000 PPV was hilarious. It was like hearing two smark fans do nothing but trash the show and the promotion while Schiavone was helpless to stop any of it. The "shoot" segments on WCW PPVs from 2000 are such idiocy. Russo didn't realize the key to an angle like that is to not have announcers screaming constantly about "OMG, this isn't in the script! It's not on the format sheet!" It only reinforces what we're seeing is fake.

I need to see more from Klein here. He seemed pretty bad but I must see more. This is one of those 1.00 rentals from McDonald's once it comes out on DVD.

Only the sickest bastard on earth would spend 300 bucks for this PPV. Anyway from what I recall the whole idea would have been for Hogan to walk off and then Bischoff would bring him back with his belt and he would do a unification with Booker (or whoever) in a young vs. old feud. Bischoff would lead the old guys, Russo the young blood. I watched this again today. What a marvelous bunch of crap this show is. I had totally fogotten Steiner's antics on this PPV. What was up with him helping Goldberg and turning on Nash? This bizarre alliance didn't last long though since that epic 3 way happened at NBR.

It has to be this new Street Fighter movie, though I won't check it out until it hits DVD. Who would actually do another Street Fighter movie in the year 2009, and on top of that build it around Chun Li? But then in 1994 who thought anyone would be dumb enough to build a Street Fighter movie around a Belgian guy playing the very American Guile? It's like no producer grasps the notion that Ken and Ryu are the main guys on the game that carry it. Just wondering but why is Chris Klein supposed to be so horrible in it? As in what does he do?

The problem Russo had is that he just doesn't have a clue how to build anything. In the WWF it's not a problem because they have clear cut shows like the Rumble and WM that forced stuff to be built. They basically had to build to Austin/Michaels or Austin/Rock, or UT vs. Kane. Or at least if Russo wanted Taker to beat Kane down on Raw someone could pull him aside and say "No Vince, we need to save this for WM." Russo is good at coming up with something for undercard guys to do. Nearly every segment of a Russo show does at least have an issue going on in it, though it might not be a good issue. If someone could get a Russo/Heyman tandem booking team it might produce some results, since Heyman could have the main event picture in mind of what to build for the future, while Russo could handle the midcarders. Someone with sanity would need to be there to overrule both though.

I skim through most stuff on the channel, but definitely watch the MNW shows. I'll watch NWA as well but mostly for promos, FF through jobber matches. ECW too but it's very hit or miss. Right now there's too much brawling Gangstas crap on there, but the last show had RVD/Furnas and a Johnny Smith appearance so it was fun (what was up with Taz/Styles trashing Smith?). Definitely watch the Legends shows whenever there's a new one. PPVs mainly if it's something I haven't seen before, either an old early 90s WCW show that is rare or a recent PPV I missed.

TNA has the worst booked faces in recent memory. Joe elicits zero sympathy from the viewer and if anything after his recent douchebag actions I'd rather see Steiner kick his ass. Styles attacked Booker in his room and stole his bogus belt...why does he hate Booker so bad? Why does he want his fraud belt so bad? That said, I did prefer this show to Raw. At least TNA is so bad and goofy it makes me laugh.

Would anyone really buy the RNR Express invading WCW? Most people viewed them as old NWA/WCW stars anyway, so who knows how effective it would have been. When exactly was Bischoff put in charge of WCW anyway? It was at some point in 1993 but I've never seen an exact date mentioned. I'm assuming it was in time for this SuperBrawl PPV?

24/7 needs to show New Blood Rising next month to follow up on the "promise" of BATB 2000. That show is peak Russo: Goofy matches, guys going against the booking and doing shoots, gimmicks galore, announcers breaking character, the whole Storm/Awesome misfire of a match. It has it all. By the time Fall Brawl 2000 rolled around Russo was basically out of gas as a booker in terms of wacky ideas, but that show at least had a good Goldberg/Steiner match. Halloween Havoc 2000 however was a nightmare and Russo went home shortly after.

I never had any real thoughts about WCW as far as Russo was concerned. Never thought they would overtake the WWF, but I also didn't think they would go under either. But bear this in mind, the WWF did actually struggle a bit in late 1999 after Russo left. Those shows aren't very interesting until the Steph heel turn that formed the McMahon/Helmsley regime. Let's face it, from mid April 1999 until Oct. 1999 WCW was so horribly bad, so lacking in redeeming value, that it would have been hard for Russo to do worse. What the hell, I still don't think he did. Russo's stuff was at least car wreck level hilarious...that 1999 era WCW stuff was just awful on every level and wasn't even so bad it was good. It was the Hummer angle and the No Limit Soldiers, etc.

TNA frustrates me sometimes. I am considering going to that March 13 house show in Shepherdsville, which is just outside of Louisville in Bullitt County. Thing is these goofs managed to book a house show on the same night as the Big East tournament semis where U of L likely will be playing provided they win 1 game in the tourney. UK will also be playing in the SEC tourney most likely. With the possible exception of doing a house show the next week during the actual NCAA tournament I don't think TNA could have picked a worse time to have a house show in this area.

Basically the Main Event Mafia beat Joe down and treated him like a jobber, so he took some time off to sell that. He came back with an ultra jobberific face paint gimmick and mostly threatened the MEM in pretaped interviews. Now's stalking Steiner and trying to kill him with either weightlifting equipment or with a knife. Are we supposed to want him to get revenge on Steiner? Dude, it was a typical heel beatdown, hardly worth killing someone and going to jail over.

Cincy gets the win over WVU in that one, a needed win if they have any chance of making the tourney. I still don't think the Big East can get 9 teams in, since the 8/9 teams will likely play in the conf. tourney and it's a de facto elimination game. Speaking of WVU, I do agree they'll be a tough out but what is with the computers having such a hard on for them? RPI in the top 20, kenpom.com has them in the top 10 (ahead of U of L, which is just baffling). This IS a team that lost to UK earlier in the season...just saying.

Brody, haha. I also noticed Sabin's bizarre break of kayfabe where he basically admitted that they practiced the spots in the Ultimate X match. Feel the Russo~! The one thing that struck me as hysterical that no one really mentioned though was Steiner tonight. Bear in mind that Samoa Joe held a knife (?) to his throat and basically threatened his life, then a few minutes later he simply walks out with the MEM and is just fine. Not rattled a bit. It was such a blatant pretaped segment with Joe since Steiner never referred to it again and didn't sell it. Good grief, until the X Division title match there actually had been more Knockouts wrestling on this show than the men. Stuff like that just shouldn't happen.

I was referring more to the WWF's roster in the late 1990s, not 1996. And comparing WCW's 1992 output to the dreck that Sullivan booked in late 1999 is laughable.

Here's one that frustrated me even though I'm not a fan of Xavier. 2nd round in the 2007 NCAA tournament vs. Ohio State. Xavier had led most of the game and was up 3 with 10 seconds or so left. I was practically yelling at the TV "Just foul them!" But Sean Miller elected to play it straight up, OSU buries a 3 to tie it, then rolls in OT. Of course John Calipari made a similar mistake in the title game vs. Kansas last year, but Memphis put on a choker's clinic in that last 3 minutes so it's harder to narrow down to one thing. As far as the 1994 Knicks go, eh, Riley was just going with the guy that helped get him there. The Knicks really had no business being in the Finals anyway, getting a screwy Hue Hollins call to beat the Bulls (minus Jordan), not to mention the Pacers outplaying them but somehow losing in 7. The Knicks' luck just ran out.

Bear this in mind as well. Once Russo left the WWF the Fed moved away from the goofy sports entertainment and more into a serious wrestling product. Of course one could argue that WCW basically gave them a ton of great workers so the WWF could put on that sort of show in 2000. It's time to look at the hokey sports entertainment style of wrestling TV for what it is: A clever way to disguise an untalented roster. It worked in the late 90s WWF because by and large the roster was mediocre and the top guys were great at doing the silly skits and promos. Ironically enough someone like Bill Watts (minus the lame rule changes) would have been a nice choice for WCW circa 1999 in a way that he wasn't in 1992. Someone to kick guys in the ass and make them work hard, putting on shows much different from the WWF. Russo however wanted to bring a watered down WWF sports entertainment style to WCW and it was the exact thing fans didn't want.

Yeah that stuff was a blur reading it. But after all that we know at the PPV someone is going to turn heel in Russo fashion. Jarrett siding with the MEM makes zero sense at all, since Angle has been attacking him and threatening his family. So by process of elimination Foley is obviously going to turn heel and help Angle.

Russo and WCW at that point didn't grasp the notion that their fans detested sports entertainment and wanted serious minded wrestling. 24/7 should show that entire hideous Summer of 2000 from WCW (GAB 2000, BATB 2000, and the truly epic New Blood Rising). Those shows are Russo at his most insane and self indulgent, they wrecked a company that was already tanking, and I love each of them for all the wrong reasons.

Basically it was because Asheville was a SMW town and they added the Bodies to the card as a local deal. Later on they showed up in the WWF due to Cornette's presence in the company with Yokozuna (as well as backstage). Since they cut out Benoit/Scorpio I am quite glad that I recorded this show off 24/7 prior to June 2007. It was a very good PPV for the most part.

I don't have a problem with that really. They are just fixing the situation with HHH/Steph. It's easy enough to assume they reconciled at some point in the past 6 years or so. Why would anyone think Kozlov is going to face UT at WM in any scenario? There is no way WWE is dumb enough to tease Taker/HBK and not do that match. Kozlov is being hyped for now as a blocking device, as in "Whoa, can Shawn beat this guy to get to Taker?" Basically Kozlov is being built up to be fed to HBK, so that Shawn can be fed to Taker.