Steve J. Rogers

Also, Lance Storm STILL hasn't wrestled during the main WM card I think right? Just on the Heats before the show, even this year when he was half of the tag champs

Damn, how the hell did I forget that when I was going off the top of my head? To quote Homer Simpson, D'OH! Steve

Something slightly askew, I am taking graduate courses at a New York State college in southern Westchester County (southern NY, about a half hour outside New York City depending on time/traffic, ect) and been visiting the food courts and noticed the names of the providers of fast food style stuff (hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, french fries, ect) as "Coyote Jack's" and the coffee products were provided by "Ritazza" being slightly curious as to why I never heard of such companies I did a google search and found them all over the mid and south west, (and all over the United Kingdom as well aparantly)leading me to wonder if they were the cheapest avalible for this college to chose from! Just to point out an example, my ala mater, Fairfield University in Fairfield, CT (Southern New England) used Burger King, albeit a national chain based in Florida but you will find scores of them in the Northeast so its not like "Who in the? that you get when you bring in regional chains from a different region and Green Mountain Coffee Makers were the coffee distributors, they are a Vermont company, who are either partners or a branch of Poland Spring who obviously come from Poland, Maine, so even if you never heard of them, they are a local distributor. In other words, you don't have to comb the country looking for them. Steve

You know, all the steriod talk on radio here in NY seems to have one singular underlying theme, its how much people want, not think that he is, Barry Bonds to come out testing positive for steriods. That, and something I heard Brandon Steiner, the guy who runs Steiner Sports the memorabillia giant, said in a recent radio interview, that Bonds memoribillia is hot almost begrudingly as opposed to other like stars. Almost like you'd collect if you were a completist of whatever group Bonds belongs to (500 HR, 60 HR single season, ex-Pirates, guys who wore 24 or 25, ect) but you wouldn't single Bonds out as a "favorite" leads me to wonder if Bonds will EVER be accepted in the main stream culture as a popular player the way Griffey Jr, Sosa and McGwire have been (i.e. the causal or non fan likes that particular ballplayer without really knowing the whole deal about them) despite the best efforts of a select, very few in the media (I think Dan LeBetard of the Miami Herald/ESPN The Magazine is the only national guy of note to be really "pro-Bonds" in terms of opinion makers, guys like Neyer and Stark don't count as they are more fact and info driven reporters than columnists like LeBetard) When you think about it, ever since the early 90's that causal/non fan has been trained to hate Bonds because of his aloofness and selfishness in the locker room when that seems to be the ONLY thing you can pin on him, well that and he WAS taken to court for child support! Has he been a "hired gun" ballplayer out for just the almighty dollar as depecited in the 92-93 offseason? Well SF sure filled his coiffers, but he would have been gone years ago if that was the case. So what if he is an isolationist in the clubhouse, I could name scores of such players who stuck to themselves but still gave the effort needed on the field of play to be a teammate. And whos to say its his regime that keeps him getting better each year as he got older? Why hasn't anyone looked at Roger Clemens as a steriod abuser? He got better with age, or Nolan Ryan? Both of their workout regimes were well documented and applauded, with Bonds its given whispers here and there than its not all natural, of course it looks very bad when he is now being supeonaed as part of a messy trial, but wouldn't someone who has the advantage of a "benefit of the doubt" that Bonds doesn't have like Jason Giambi get all "well maybe that was a scene or section of the company that he wasn't involved with" (I don't know how much nationally the Giambi part got, but it was mostly blown over here in NYC after the first day of the news cycle, no pun intended BTW) But since the main stream opinion of Bonds has allways been "This guy is a bad guy" he doesn't get the benefit of doubts, he doesn't get the glowing stories about how he keeps himself in shape, he doesn't get put on that McGwire/Sosa/Griffey pedestal where articles are written describing how great it is to have this "all time legend" at this point in the games history. Instead its all, "well he MUST be on the juice, look how small his head was in 1990!" Or, "Oh, I can't root for him, he's moody, a bad teammate, we don't need him on my team and if he was I wouldn't root for him, he's a bad guy!" To me, I never quite understood rooting against a single person, especially in the day and age where anyone could be on your team the next year, unless they did an unspeakable act, or just said something so utterly offensive that the team/league comes down hard on them (Rocker) I have always "booed the uniform" (opposite of cheering for the uniform) but many people nation wide seem to have this built in hatred for Barry Bonds. While somehow that minority of press has tried to "cool things down a bit" (i.e. when the ASG was in Milwaukee Bonds got "polite applause" for some reason rather than his usual "only NL guy booed except for chief local arch rival" though that crowd did seem very, VERY passive towards everyone, even the Yankees) it doesn't seem to have any effect. Which leads me to believe that even if he gets to be the "Grand Old Man of The Game" the way Williams and DiMaggio were at the end (and ironic considering they both share some of Bonds' personality traits) I don't think he will ever get much more than a begrudinal respect from main stream society. I don't know, maybe I'll be wrong, but it does seem that if Bonds is proven to have been on steroids (and come on, do you think that will EVER come out? The only way that will be proven if God Forbid Bonds drops dead of heart failure, some form of cancer, or something at an early age) that 99% of baseball fans and media will be going "YEAH! I KNEW THAT BASTARD WAS ON THE ROIDS AND HE IS GOING DOWN! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! NO HALL OF FAME FOR YOU YOU PRICKISH, SELF CENTERED EGOTISTICAL PIECE OF CRAP! WHOO HOOOOOOOO!" Steve

ROTFLMAO! Well that does show you that baseball is played "on the level" Steve

They were two seperate incidents. The serenade of "Oh Canada" came off the heels of the Screwjob- 99.9% sure it was the night after (12.10.1997). Yeah thats correct. The nWo was trying to "recruit" Bret by coming out with Canadian Flags and such. The Monday prior Bischoff said he had a major "announcement" concering the nWo, it turned out to be that the nWo was trying to "sign" Bret Hart When they all came out Larry Zybsko wondered if the nWo had just invaded Canada! Steve

The Henning promo came from the fact that they decided to throw their "Holiday" party that night in the locker room and Curt apparantly had way to many Don't know why the fans charged the rings so many times though... Steve

Anything interesting? Big snubs, big no-shows, ect Steve

I think it also has to do with how the Hulk is treated in the mainstream popculture. When you think about it, even a casual or non-fan will know other characters and arch rivals of many of the other comic book character icons that the Hulk is among. Wheither its Doctor Doom, Doc Oc, Lois Lane, Magneto (hell Wings had Mags in a song in the 1970's, not the real Mags, but part of the live set decoration featured the character) The Joker, The Penquin, ect or even certain facts and trivia about the comic books. However, Hulk has none of that, its just Bruce Banner/The Hulk. Maybe Betty Ross but not much beyond that. Absorbing Man? Abomination? The Leader? Ask any Hulk fan who is not a hardcore comic fan who those three are and they'll give you a blank stare Look at the TV show for an example, the only Marvel created characters (other than "David" Bruce Banner and Hulk) that ever showed up were Thor, Kingpin and Daredevil/Matt Murdock (DD was to set up a spinoff that never got past the proposed stage) and those were only in TV movies made after the show ended its run (I think Tony "Iron Man" Stark may have been referred to at some point as well) Basically the point is, people expect the Hulk to be just the Hulk smashing things and running rampant, they'll watch/ Batman, Superman, Spiderman, X-Men, ect for storylines. The Hulk is considered by the mainstream population to just be a "junk food" form of entertainment. Repressed ID running rampant, Hulk Smash and all. Basically people expect it to be more "King Kong" and "Godzillia" than the Frankenstein or Jeckyl and Hyde that Hulk was based from Steve

BTW so far the show has had New York City's WEPN 1050 ESPN radio's Gordon Damner and Tom Keegan on the show (Keegan will be on Monday morning) so that radio station is obviously pumping it up a bit. They haven't mentioned the "quality" of the program though... Steve

We had a Flea Market thread, well lets have one about the Flea Market of the World Wide Web, they been doing this for nearly 10 years now, so there must be tons of stories of people on this board's experiences, good (great, really great bargains) and bad (horror stories of bad sellers/buyers) Steve

As far as "The Rock" what he should do is be referred to as Duane "The Rock" Johnson And an aside there, I wonder how many Hollywood types and Hollywood media even KNOW that "The Rock" is a nickname of Rock's "real" ring name, Rocky Miavia I mean I have NEVER seen an interview or piece where "Rocky Miavia" Very odd in a sort of way Steve

That reminds me of a very funny screwup a few years back HBK and Nash (as Deisel (BTW, was Deisel ever referred to as "Kevin Nash" during the Deisel gimmick?) ) were doing commentary on a match or something and Shawn calls Deisel "Kevin" by accident to which Deisel responds by calling Shawn "Michael" Aside for curiosity is Shawn Shawn's given middle name? I have never seen any listing ever of Michael Hickenbottom's full name and I'm guessing its Shawn in the very popular way of creating stage names by making a middle name your first name (and Michaels is easier to roll of the tounge than Hickenbottom so there you go)

Well that is because he is usually the heel in the situation, Shammy was usually the face. Plus the Angle "character" being cocky would say "Hey I can get this guy to tap just by half-assing this move" while the legit bad ass "Shammrock" character would do the move proper Its all in the character of the character Steve

Not favorite because of what it was, but more for the furor it caused, but Maculay Culkin in "My Girl" I mean groups were up in arms about how much kids would be tramatized by seeing "Kevin from Home Alone" lying dead by bee stings (kind of a funny way to go out and in a coffin. Geez, thank God Culkin didn't make "The Good Son" as his follow up to Home Alone as you not only see him get tossed off a cliff but be a miserable, evil bastard child. Other good ones, Got to go with Sonny but Solozo and McClosky's scene was a great one in Godfather, and so begins the downfall of Michael Corleone. In Part II when Vito slices up the Don who murdered his brother and mother was quite classic, as well as Fredo's final "Hail Mary" with Michael watching on Actually Vito and Michael have great death scenes as well. Probably more disturbing for Michael's being utterly alone when he expires Greg Kinear in "Mystery Men" also ranks as a funny one Going out in a blaze of glory deaths would be Bonnie and Clyde, Butch and Sundance, Thelma and Louise and of course Jimmy Cagney in White Heat "MADE IT MA! TOP OF THE WOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLDDDDDDDDD!" Joe Peci's Tommy in Goodfellas was classic, you saw it coming but it still gets you as a classic way of going out Steve

Fat guy in a little coat. Hmmm, interesting considering "thesmartmarks.com" are a direct decendant of Keith's "Ranstsylvania.com" fourm on Delphi's website. Anyway, in breif, Scott Keith is a Internet Wrestling Community legend, pretty much rose through the ranks of the old newsgroup alt.rec.pro-wrestling to become one of the preminant wrestling show recapper/tape reviewer on the internet landscape. His "rants" if you will are currently archived at his current place of internet writing employment "411mania.com" (he has also done work for the late and lamented wrestleline.com and his classic stuff shows up on vintage sites like theotherarena.com and kayfabememories.com) The creme de la creme of his work is his PPV rants (I don't know if he has a working archive of all the weekly shows he's done through the years, but for the most part they aren't very special and if the show was awful its a rush job) which he has done just about every North American PPV that was ever offered (one interesting execption is "Over The Edge" 1999 which he has said he does not ever even want to watch due to the death of Owen Hart) He is Canadian (Edmonton area) so he is a workrate freak and biased towards those who exhibit actual wrestling talent over the big and lumbering lunks, lately he has been rambling on the fact that wrestlers with long manes tend to get pushed more often (i.e. Billy Gunn, Triple H, ect) He has also written two books (and a third on the way) about wrestling, so he appears to be working the angle of "this interent thing is my way to the top of the literary landscape" or something like that as over the last few years he's really soured on the product and reading his weekly TV reports you can tell its more like a job than a hobby to him at this point. Well thats pretty much all you need to know, well expect to trace the lineage of this board to him so... Okay Rantsylvania.com was born with Keith and Scott Shannon at the helm and the "rant crew" fourm of fans was created on Delphi (basically others like Keith and Shannon who wanted a fourm to express themselves, mostly with the same views on wrestling and wrestlers as Keith does) and that was sometime in 97-98 I think... Anyway long story short, Shannon wigs out and quits the internet (he has since returned but with some weird poetry blog site that is too out there that only the Ultimate Warrior would be able to decipher) and Keith gets with other Rant Crew members and they put up a brand new site called "thesmarks.com" and due to costs I believe they move the fourms (now renamed thesmarksfourm to I think ezboard.com (some of the members who were there at the time can step in and help with my fuzzy memory) anyway Keith started to get too big for his own site (just didn't want to deal with the headaches of running it) and the site and fourm were heading towards shutting down. Well thats where the guys at thesmartmarks.com stepped up, and moved the fourm here, and the rest as they say... Well you know Steve

Which reminds me, and granted Robin Ventura is much younger than Nolan Ryan, (also a few years ago Randy Meyers took out a guy who charged the mound from the stands at Wrigley) but in the situation there, when a guy takes action against a guy charging him, that is whats applauded, not "boy thats making the situation worse" or anything Steve

How much do you want to bet that the "groundskeeper" was really a fan who paid off a real groundskeeper so he could pull that stunt. Either that, or the guy was "taking one for the team" and trying to stall Rivera before he could throw a pitch in the bottom of the ninth Steve

Granted no Mulder and Hudson's alleged stupidity knocked him out of Game 4, but when Chavez and Tejada fail to do anything, especially off of the Sox pen, it shows you that this team just can't get over that hump. 4 straight years, 9 straight elimination games, 0-9 Right now I can't think of any other pro-sports franchise to be this bad in the postseason

Well, the Houston Astros were 2-12 in their little "4 division titles in 5 years" run a while back, including 1-3 with RANDY JOHNSON on the mound TWICE (1998). That's pretty awful, in my book. I was going for being right there, ready to move on, champagne on ice and then WHAM drop two or three in a row, or getting a split and still losing the series! Not get in and get punked out in 4 or 3 game sweep

We are talking all-time franchise history here? Baseball: Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Its been over 5 years now, and there is no excuse in this era for a team to be THIS bad since startup. Look at it this way, since 1977 (with the FA period in full swing) MLB expanded 6 times. By 1983 the Blue Jays were in position to start their great 10 year run, the Mariners were just bumbling untill their turn around in the late 80's-early 90's. Marlins were World Champs in 5 seasons, and the Rockies have maintained decency for most of their 10 seasons. And their expansion mates, the D-Backs have a championship and three divison titles to their credit I'm not saying the D-Rays should be contenders, and with Pinella in charge, there is a slight glimmer down there, but shoddy management, crappy personel moves have made this franchise the absoulte worst of all 30 MLB franchises in terms of history Basketball: Probably Clippers. I'd give them the edge over the Nets...for now Football: Arizona Cardinals no doubt. Jets deserve a nod, almost because of how historic and huge their championship was on SO many levels and the fact that they have only played a hand full of AFC championship games since, and won only like 2 AFC East divisons since. Hockey: One cup in 58 years. And how the fuck do you miss the playoffs 6 straight years with the highest payroll? Yup, that would be my New York Rangers. Worse than the Whalers/Hurricanes, worse than any of the small market teams, just a sad, pathetic display of how to ruin what should be a "crown jewel" franchise in the NHL. Steve

Err, I know, I was relaying a funny aside to the whole Flair mess in the spring-summer of 1998, that a WCW stooge would actually pin the rise in the WWF's popularity on fans tuning into WWF programing in the hopes that Flair and Hall would appear. Steve

An intresting aside to those rumors. I forget whom it was exactly, wheither it was an employee like Bischoff or a WCW suck-up like Ryder, but there was a quote put out in an interview that the rise in ratings for WWF programming during this time, and the end of WCW's streak was all because fans were watching WWF programming in the hopes that Flair or Scott Hall (who went AWOL for the usual reasons from WCW programming during most of the same period) would somehow pop up ala Syxx the night after Wrestlemania. I wonder if thats where the former Iraqian Minister of Information got his fine positive propaganda drivel spinning from! Steve

I agree, but the stupid thing is how this is being made into such a big public spectacle. There certainly are worse things to be in a soup that a tooth, i.e. bugs, ect It's a legit lawsuit, (maybe more the company that packages the product than the product themselves) but something that shoud be a private matter. I'm sure these things happen quite frequently Hell my Mom once found some dead insect in a Snapple bottle, sued and won. Does anyone know about that? No, because she didn't go public and say "I'm never drinking Snapple products again!" or something stupid like that Steve Steve

Annette Benning does not list her debut movie in her resume, "The Great Outdoors" Steve