Steve J. Rogers

Got a feeling that GI Joe will be a strong contender. -You know fans going in are turned off by the lack of "America" references and the fact that the Joes are now a global force. And before anyone says "This is GI Joe vs. Cobra" go back and look at what the line, comic book and cartoon are titled: G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. -Part of the charm of the Joes vs. Cobra was the fact that the Joes weren't all in the same uniform. To say nothing about the fact that it set them apart from the totalitarian terrorist force that was Cobra. Now I know they are making a live action movie and not a cartoon, but there is a way to do it without the Joes coming off as the same. -They could suffer the problem of trying to cram, and service, too many characters into the movie. That is always a problem when adapting "large teams" onto the big screen.

Is it too early to put Omar Minaya on this list? Sure he did shape the 2006 NL East Division champs, but let's take a look at a few things: -Lucked out on the fact that John Maine and Oliver Perez were essentially throw-ins in their trades. Jorge Julio was the target of the Kris Benson to Baltimore trade, and Perez was an afterthought in the emergency trade that brought Roberto Hernandez in from the Pirates for Xavier Nady. -Oh sure he made big splashes with Beltran, Pedro, the Delgado trade, Wagner, Santana trade, KRod and the Putz trade, but it doesn't take much creativity to reel in the big free agent fish for the NYC market, and Delgado, Santana and Putz can be seen as salary dumps or "We can't sign the guy, so you get him, you sign him" deals. -Gave way too many years for guys like Alou, Castillio, Schoenweis, and even Julio Franco! The Mets are now beholden to a slap singles hitter with bad knees for the next three years at 2nd, while their "2nd baseman of the future" is in the outfield mix. -Seems to rely too often on the notion that deals don't have to be made because Player A is due to come off the DL in a few months. Rather than consider the possibility that Player A might not be ready when scheduled (considering the Mets' crack medical staff, that should ALWAYS be a possibility) and bring in a talent from another organization to fill the gaps.

Not sure if it has been brought up in this thread yet, but you do know that this was one of Vinny Ru's great "ideas" during the early days of the Attitude run. Basically an entire episode of programing and not one single second of ring action.

Well, Mets have dusted themselves off and came back after horrific losses already in the last few weeks, going back to that collapse in Philly, there should be some fight in them heading into the final two weeks.

If your team moves, it's considered acceptable to switch to another team. Ah right, so you guys still support your 'home town'? Do you keep tabs on your old team? Go as Brooklyn Dodger fans, Cleveland Brown Original Recipe (currently the Ravens) fans, Houston Oiler fans, Baltimore Colt fans, etc. No matter what the reason, a team up and leaves a city, they will forever be seen as villains to that community, and that old fanbase. The guy who moved the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, Walter O'Malley, is still hated as much as Hitler or Stalin by old Brooklyn Dodger fans, who think that it is now a black eye for baseball that he is now a member of the Hall of Fame. And this is 50 years after the move! So, no, generally fan bases generally do not move with their old teams, and either follow a new team, or if they get a replacement team.

Any of you Yankee haters glad that that murderous scum Mariano Rivera* will never hold any save record? *October 2004, was it an accident? Or negligent homicide? If you think it was the former, consider why his pool had so much voltage running though it. Was it as he said solely to keep intruders and wild dogs out off of his property? If so, then why was it so lethal? The man wanted to essentially MURDER anyone, or anything, that got onto his property. Put it this way, if that went down here in the US, Rivera would certainly not have pitched in 2005, because he would have been incarcerated for negligent homicide. And sued like crazy by the woman whom he took a child from and left a widow. So when you cheer for Mariano Rivera, you aren't just cheering the greatest closer of all time, you are cheering a murderer of children and puppies.

As a heel? IIRC Blassie never appeared on WCW TV, and was dead by the time Hollywood Hogan showed up in the WWF.

Eric Kausilliwhatever annoys the sheer hell out of me again this week while filling in for Greenberg on ESPN Radio with the latest imitation of Tony Schivoine by an ESPN employee. Get this one, 2008 is the greatest single calender year in the history of professional sports! And he said this without the decency to bring up other years to debate against! I mean off the top of my head, 1969 was a very, VERY big year; You had the AFL winning the Super Bowl in a game that sealed the merger, You had the Miracle Mets setting the baseball world on fire all year, And you had the last ring for Bill Russell. Why, WHY must these commentators constantly come up with hyperbole every single time something major happens? I understand the need for them to commentate in the present moment, but don't insult history by coming out with statements like "greatest X in history" just because its fresh in your mind, and you are too lazy to do research. Or you fail to realize that generally history does the judging.

I was crafting a fan-fict where Steve Austin was facing Dean Malenko, and Malenko had Austin in the Texas Cloverleaf and I had Austin countering it by getting a hold of Malenko's ankle, shoving it forcing Malenko to break the hold (not sure if that would work in an actual fight though, getting a hold broken simply by pushing one foot a little off balance) and winding up rolling Malenko up in a small package to win the match. So, how legit would that counter be? I don't think I've seen any variations of that move (Sharp Shooter, Walls of Jericho, etc) countered that way, so I don't know if it is even possible in the scripted world of pro-wrestling.

Know this guy, Steve Coffey, in Atlanta. He has a rock band called the Rockin' Pontoons and he is part of this competition from Budweiser and needs some votes. He has three songs up on this special gig, reality TV-ish/American Idol esque competition that you can vote for. Check it out, he is under Steve Coffey & The Rockin Pontoons, from 76-79 on the drop down ballot. edave.com

Yeah I know this has been a long time coming, but hey what can you do. First of all, one thing I love about flying, probably the only thing sometimes, is the view from the window seat, and here are some cool pictures from a JetBlue plane outside JFK International airport in New York. and on the runway I just love the view of a blue sky with nothing but the horizon underneath. Anyway, a couple of short hours later, and its time to touchdown in Chi-town! Funny story, my cousin and I left the house at 4:30 to catch a 6:30 flight. We get to the airport, and go under a canopy at the drop off point, then go inside. We walk to the check in, baggage check-in, and security, then to a bus stop (also with a canopy) which took us to the proper terminal. We then get to the terminal, through the tunnel to go on the plane, then the plane. Plane lands at O’Hare, walk through the tunnel to the airport, and walk through baggage claim. Now we got a hotel room at the Hilton at O’Hare, and we find out that you can walk through the airport, underneath the streets, to get to the lobby of the hotel. We get to the lobby and leave our bags at the concierge because we were quite early for check-in. So we go back through the basement level to get on the L to get to downtown Chicago. By the time we get to the Clark Street stop, it is 11:00 local time, and we have yet to actually get a breath of fresh air in pretty much five and a half hours, despite the fact that we went from Westchester County, New York to Chicago, IL! That is pretty remarkable when you think about it. Anyway, we get out right in the middle of the Chicago Theatre District, and my cousin fancying himself as a budding thespian had to get a shot like this: So we walked around a bit, and found the Sears Tower, went up to the 103rd floor for their revolving floor filled with, well some amazing views, and walls lined with interesting facts about Chicago and profiles of famous people and events. Got some nice shots around The Windy City as well; The Sears Tower Hancock Building Chicago Tribune The Chicago River Well, it was now time for lunch and it we noticed a great place to get some food. No one was playing that afternoon, but I got a nice shot of the small stage in the restaurant. Sadly, you can not get a dry piece of white toast or four whole fried chicken with a coke, but I did get this shirt: Right next door was also a pretty nice place to grab a beer and watch the Cubs beat the Phillies. MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO The lobby and entrance are filled with famous folks with the pictures taken with this bust Coming soon, Part Two: The Mets invade Wrigley Field!

Ahhh, thanks Bob. Heh, funny you did that, I remember one time his rants hit counts nearly overloaded the webarchive's server and he was asked never to advertise that you could find his rants in various places off of webarchive.org Questions: Do you part of what soured you on pro wrestling through the years come from doing rants and articles as part of a job rather than a hobby? Meaning did you lose some of the passion because you HAD to do it rather than something that was fun to do on the side? Along the lines of the IWC question, do you think people like you led to the rise of the "smart marks" in terms of revealing the "secrets" to the masses and therefore creating this generation of fans who don't go gaga when Hogan "hulks up" or thinking that Goldberg would crush Austin in a "real brawl" but rather appreciate the artistry of a pro-wrestling match and don't get caught up in the silly "fake" stuff like who would win in a legit fight or something. Or do you think that segment of fandom always existed and was bigger than plain marks, but the internet finally gave them an outlet to suddenly be the mainstream wrestling fan as opposed to the "marks?" Speaking of marks, do you care that they still exist? I mean do you think being a smark means you are a better fan? Not saying there are those (who should know better I mean) who think kayfabe is real or that the matches AREN'T predetermined, but those fans who really couldn't care less about all the backstage politics, that really would rather cheer the babyface and boo the heel because "that is the show" and they just care about the entertainment aspect. I ask because it does seem to be a sore subject on various forms where those type of fans get ridiculed because they are acting like sheep or whatever.

How about Ric Flair's first WWF "Retirement" match, well it was a Loser Leaves Town match against Mr. Perfect. Amazing that they didn't pick up on that, even when Mr. Perfect was brought back shortly after Flair was in 01/02.

Good stuff. Though it does make everyone here feel THAT much older! Geez, has it been 10 years since Austin won the belt in the then Fleet Center in Boston?

Actually, I don't think they ever did the realization part. IIRC usually it has been the standard post-Seinfeld sitcom "Oh well, move on to the next experience" with no "Okay I need to do this, this, and this, and for God Sakes, I need to get Barney out of my life!" Ted generally has been a dick, but for some reason no one ever called him on it, even after all those drunk calls to Robin in The Pineapple Incident.

Heh, makes you wonder why they don't just drop the sham all together and just say "Hey, we are trying to make a TV show here!"

So the real life Steph and Trips are now part of kayfabe? Last time I checked the characters actually did in fact officially sign the divorce papers, (IIRC the 2002 July PPV or something like that) so they can't actually say "Oh well, no one signed anything..." in terms of keeping kayfabe with the characters "Steph" and "Triple H"

Also Bonds vs. Clemens boils down to these simple facts -Bonds always has come off as a surly jerk and has been a hated baseball figure since his days as a Pirate. Clemens has really only been hated upon by the New York media/fans, Boston media/fans and more recently Houston's media and fans. -While Clemens earned a reputation as being a surly hot-headed (see 1990 ALCS when he got tossed from a game and proceeded to toss a bucket of Gatorade onto the field) and a head hunter, his only real "crime" other than, at the time, unsubstantiated whispers and innuendos about steroid usage was being a two faced liar and a mercenary who was just looking for a big payday and a championship ring. He was actually good to the media and fans unlike Bonds, so there hasn't been years and years of bad blood picked up by the national media the way there was with Bonds. Put it this way, there has been no ESPN The Magazine covers suggesting that America may be ready to love Clemens the way there was with Bonds after Bonds broke McGwire's record, and before Balco became known.

When does he become an ex-Yankee? I thought last season was it, I guess not?

There was also a bit where he "threw" a "Loser Leaves Town" match where Ted DiBiasie was forced to leave the WWF and Austin cut a blistering promo about it.

Fun and obscure trivia: The Giants were the first team to ever provide a loss to a team that went through an undefeated regular season. 1934, the 11-3 Giants knocked off the 13-0 Bears 30-13 in the infamous "Sneaker Game." Now some 84 years later the franchise does it AGAIN!

I kid you not, on one board a poster is very upset about trading Mulvey and is extremely worried that Santana will turn into Bartolo Colon, or worse, what happened to Frank Viola where he was essentially done after 1991 while two of the guys he was traded for (Kevin Tapani and Rick Augliera) went on to have productive major league careers.

Austin's turn after Survivor Series 2001 owns this thread. The bastard should have been given the cold shoulder by the entire locker room and he should have been treated as such by the fans and the broadcasters. At least he gave a hint of his classic "DTA, I'm only out for myself" face character when he stunned Flair at the end, but still if that was real life, it should have taken months for Austin to build back any sort of "trust" from anyone in the company and respect from the fans of the WWF. But he just comes back and its reset button time and back to "YES! STONE COLD! STONE COLD! BY GOD THE RATTLESNAKE IS BACK!" Without so much of a second thought of how he stabbed EVERYONE in the back, tried his damnedest to close the Federation for good, not to mention beat the crap out of JR himself as well.

Yeah, instead of promos cut on him by Edge and Rock they should have had him come out and pulled a classic promo turning on the fans, saying that he always sensed they never were 100% behind him or something. Like they were waiting to start chanting "You Suck" again.

No, the "Lonely Road of Faith" video was done before the "nostalgia" brigade of 2002 (Perfect, Goldust, Val Venis, nWo) and was kind of a "Is This The WWF's Last Stand?" before Survivor Series sort of piece. Also where exactly does Mr. Perfect fit? He kind of straddled both the 80s era and the early part of "The New Generation" so there wasn't really a set place to put him, and if they ran all the IC champs to that point, it would have been a longer piece.