Hawk 34

Miami's defense is "knock down anyone who comes inside and pick up the ball and score a layup".

Keep in mind, if Miami plays well, I'll be marking out like a 15 year old Jeff Hardy fan.

How you think I feel? Oregon will probably win me a huge shitload of cash as long as they reach the sweet 16 if Wisconsin falls but I don't want Oregon to win the first round. Right now, Oregon is missing everything and Miami is just playing MIAMI BALL.

909 cursed me. I hadn't lost a game until LBST decided to tank this. Luckily, WISCO is out in the second round for me and I know alot of people in my big money pool took them deep. I got the rest covered as well, so I'm quite happy. I just wish I knew 909 took LBST beforehand.

Don't forget Jay-Z man!

Oh, fuck. I got them as my ultra upset special(to the s16) in my mega cash pool and after your proclamation about getting acclimated to USC only for them to get massacred this past weekend, you aren't helping my confidence, man!

15-1. Fuck you, Duke.

BYU would be doing quite well if they weren't fouling every other play.

Going into this slate of games today, I felt the winners were quite obvious with the only exception being the ODU/Butler game, which I flip-flopped throughout my many brackets except for the big money ones, for those I went with Butler. Duke/VCU is easily the best game thus far today and looking at what's ahead, it'll probably remain the best game of the night. I had VCU in a few of them but my two big brackets sees Duke winning. It's one loss, so it wouldn't kill me anyways.

I'll call Lakisha doing Satisfaction right now.

I love looking at the random brackets that I filled out without thinking and ended up having stuff like Arizona reaching the E8, two sets of 14 seeds winning the open round (MOH and Wright) and even took a 9 seed (X) to the title game. Sadly, I'll probably do better on the joke brackets then I do on my big money pools.

I'm in 12 pools but only four of them matter (any pool that pays out less then $200 or doesn't give me significant bragging rights were left to random selection). The most important one, at my old job with a pay-out of $1,000-1,500, I am 3-0 but I'm guessing everyone picked those three games since they were pretty standard and obvious.

Did another quick one. WrestleMania VII This was quite the bloated event with only a pair of relevant matches. It could use some trimming and a little punch. Opening Match Bret Hart Vs Greg Valentine -This would be Bret’s big coming out party as a solo performer and Valentine was as a good as any heel in the game at making someone look good. A good strong mid-card wrestling match to put over Bret. Time: 12 minutes Legion of Doom Vs Demolition -Demolition had always been called a rip-off if the Road Warriors and for years had been the WWF’s most dominant tag team without question. This version was the Crush/Smash version which didn’t hold the same clout. Demolition and LOD had a feud going almost right off the bat but it never got as far as it could have. While that was in cause of a weak support. I still would have used this opportunity to blow the feud off on a big stage and give LOD a more credible victory as opposed to a quick squash over a JTTS team Time: Seven Minutes Jake Roberts Vs Earthquake -Damien getting squashed into hamburger meat still remains one of the most vivid moments in most fans memory. For the sake of fantasy, I simply pushed this program up a few months in advance. This also becomes the event where Jake debuts Lucifer. Earthquake puts over the new snake and Jake gets the sneaky DDT for the win. Time: 6 Minutes Retirement Match Ultimate Warrior Vs Randy Savage -One of the better WM programs in history. Nothing gets changed here Time: 25 Minutes Eight Man Tag British Bulldog, Bossman, and Bushwhackers Vs Warlord, The Mountie, Haku and Barbarian -Just to condense the rest of the mid-card into one match. Warlord and Bulldog prolong their issues, while starting the Bossman/Mountie natural rivalry. The faces get the clean victory with Bulldog pinning Haku. Time: Eight Minutes. IC Title Texas Tornado Vs Rick Martel -Tornado won the title from Mr. Perfect in the late fall, allowing Perfect to move up to the main event leaving Von Erich as the new carrier of the IC Title. Rick Martel, by default was the top mid-card heel in place. The incident with Roberts already wrapped up and Martel sought after gold. This also allows the blindfold match to expire from our existence. Two solid mid-card acts here. Martel gets the deserved title reign via assistance from Arrogance. Time: Ten Minutes WWF Tag Team Titles Nasty Boys Vs The Rockers -I would have just hot shot the tag team titles over to the Nasty Boys upon their debut and allowed The HF split to occur at that point to send Bret’s solo career into motion. Rockers were a consistently over face team and the idea here is to keep the titles on Nasty Boys, so a good completive match here with the typical heel shenanigans to finish. Time: 10 Minutes Ted Dibiase Vs Virgil -As it was in reality. A hot program that didn’t ultimately serve anything for Virgil aside from a couple big pops and a lifetime of JTTS-Ville. Time: Eight Minutes The Undertaker Vs Tito Santana -The start of the streak right here for UT against Santana. No real reason I changed it from Snuka to Santana. Time: Four Minutes Main Event Hulk Hogan Vs Mr. Perfect -No. Really. The Iraqi War angle was beyond tasteless and just atrocious. I would have had Slaughter win the title on the 11/23 SNME over Warrior and blown the entire thing off at The Rumble with Hogan winning back the title. The heel roster for WWF in 1991 was spread severely thin but since this is fantasy rebooking, I’m going to Mr. Perfect capture the #1 contender rights by virtue of winning the Royal Rumble. Some might argue that Perfect wasn’t a real threat but he was a great heel and with Heenan on his side, it allowed for an increase in heel quality. Hogan feuded with Dibiase for awhile and Dibiase was never a big man either. Perfect was a superb heel and had the ability to play that spot. Time: 18 Minutes

It transistioned into the announcement that the match would take place and led to the brawl. That was the purpose. Mid-carders do squashes quite often. How was Snitsky squashing two jobbers any different from MVP squashing a masked jobber who was given a smarky nick name for a certain demographic that'd get it and in the process doesn't put the non-knowing viewers out of place. It's quite a persnickety thing to be bothered by.

JBL, King Booker, and Malenko all were pushing hard to get him signed. The dumbass shows up, does a tryout match (which is praised) and then tells Johnny Ace, "Oh--I just remembered I have contract with CMLL...sorry." Yeah, what he did was stupid. My point wasn't to the contrary, it was WWE is wasting time by burying someone when most fans aren't going to know the reference. It was a squash match to put over MVP and set up the Benoit/MVP announcement for WM. How is it wasting time? It served a purpose for the non-informed fans and it was a not so subtle dig at Mistico for that stunt he pulled.

Wrestlemania XV Pre-Show Goldust and Blue Meanie Vs Acolytes -Fluff comedy/squash match to put over APA. Opening Match IC Title Val Venis Vs Ken Shamrock -The addition of Road Dogg, after months of being built as the top hardcore guy in the company into the IC match a week before the event for no reason other then zany swerve awesomeness, maintains as one of Russo’s most dumbfounded moves. Goldust had no real reason to be involved. The real heat was Venis-Shamrock over Ryan Shamrock. A straight one-on-one match here would have been a fine move. Not sure what result occurs with Ryan at ringside, though. Time: Eight Minutes Hardcore Title Al Snow Vs Bob Holly Vs Gangrel -The title was a stable of 1999 and these guys were among the most active aspects of it. Just the typical plunder filled match. Time: Six Match Woman’s Title Sable Vs Tori -Not much else to do for Sable, whom was insanely over for the WWF. Time: Four Minutes. Grudge Match Triple H Vs X-Pac -The big deal at WM was that HHH turned on X-Pac to reunite with Chyna but the involvement of Kane wasn’t needed even though the interaction he had with Chyna were intriguing I just jumped the gun on the heel turn instead.. This offered more in the way of quality and heat. In fact, tease a angle regarding Chyna’s loyalty to either DX or Triple H. Of course, Chyna turns on X-Pac and sticks with HHH instead. Time: 18 Minutes European Title Test Vs D’Lo -Test, a member of the Corporation captures the Euro title from X-Pac thanks to HHH and D’Lo is the #1 contender. Not much needed for hype purpose. Time: Six Minutes. The Big Show Vs Kane -How does it all set up? Easy. Kane was hired as the big muscle for the corporation but when Kane’s human emotion for Chyna got in his way, his ability to wreck havoc dwindled and his value to Vince subsided. Feeling as if Kane had become a bad investment, Paul Wight makes his in-ring debut here. The idea is that Kane was once again rejected by a father figure and this just leads him down a greater path of rage. The match would be atrocious leading to a double DQ finish to keep both men strong Time: Seven Minutes Street Fight Mankind Vs Shane McMahon -The McMahon’s screwed Foley and Foley sought retribution and instead of the average match that Shane had with X-Pac, might as well make it a real street fight with Foley instead. Shane was a great bumper as was Foley and the heat would have been nuclear had Vince gotten involved. Shane wins with some spectacular finish thanks to assistance from his corporation. Time: 12 Minutes WWF Tag Team Titles Jeff Jarrett and Owen Hart Vs New Age Outlaws. -While Gunn and Dogg were doing singles stuff back then, I would have simply given Jarrett and Hart an actual tag team to work with here and have the NAO take offense to the heels proclaiming to be the best champions in the history of the WWF. Simple manufactured reasoning. Jarrett/Hart win to continue the collapse of DX when NAO aren’t able to work together anymore. Time: Seven Minutes Undertaker Vs Bossman -Just a regular match here. The HIAC never really did anything at that event and since I already included a Foley street fight, another hardcore match and grudge match, it didn’t require that gimmick. Save it for the secondary PPV. Taker just goes about his usual WM ways. Time: Eight minutes. Main Event WWF Title Steve Austin Vs The Rock -No doubt about it. One of the most obvious main events in the history of the PPV. Nothing else really needed change except for the Foley involvement. Just a straight Austin/Rock match right here. Time: 15 Minutes.

Wrestlemania XII Pre-Show Triple H Vs Bob Holly -It’s not often that working a pre-show against Bob Holly can be considered an upgrade but it would have been better then getting a total squash on the main show to a guy who stuck around for 4 months. The card was already just tight especially with about only 2 ¼ hours to fill due to the main event match. Holly's just a random JTTS. Opening Match WWF Tag Titles 123 Kid and Tatanka Vs New Rockers -Remember the New Rockers? The tag scene was a joke in 1996, consisting of roughly 3 actual teams. Anyways the actual match on the PPV wasn’t even on the show itself. The culmination of a tournament occurred on the pre-show between Donnas and Godwins. The New Rockers were a heel team in a technical sense but they could have worked just as well in a face manner. The Corporation was still intact at this point although hanging by a loose thread. Kid and Tatanka were regular partners. Not that great of an upgrade but enough. Time: Eight Minutes Steve Austin Vs Jake Roberts -Of course, in hindsight we all know what occurred between these two just a few months later after this PPV but going back to that time, Roberts was on the comeback trail and Austin was the young arrogant self-absorbed wrestling machine led by Dibiase. Dibiase and Roberts, having a history adds to it. Dibiase makes an effort once again to use Roberts’ battle with addiction to buy him into the corporation leads into this match up where Austin gets a clear defining victory over an established name. Time: Six Minutes. Owen Hart Vs British Bulldog -These guys always put on a good match and while Bulldog was a solid heel, he was always better in my mind as the super baby face. The tag team scene was dead at this time period as it was anyways and they ended up getting stuck in a pointless and horrible six man tag. I would have done the face turn for Bulldog right after the Royal Rumble. Just the usual split occurs, they lose the tag title tournament in the first round and Owen blames Bulldog for it. Bulldog resents it. Owen snaps because once again he couldn’t trust a family member. It might have been a slight rehash of the Owen/Bret storyline but they could have always put them back together down the road in the guise of respect after a series of hard fought matches. Time: 12 Minutes Vader Vs Yokozuna -A issue had already been established here between the two and in a effort to put Vader over as a supreme bad ass heel, destroying a 550+lb former world champion was a good enough opportunity to pull that off. The match wouldn’t have been much but a short brawl match would have sufficed. Time: Five Minutes IC Title Goldust Vs Ahmed Johnson -Ahmed Johnson was Bobby Lashley 1.0 and actually got the crowd to care about him right away and probably was more inspiring inside the ring and hadn’t yet gotten in the habit of injuries. This program was done a few months later anyways, might as well have jumped the gun here and pushed it for Mania to give Johnson the big victory here. The Hollywood Brawl served no purpose other then to do a OJ parody and for the finishing sequence in the ring with Piper. Time: Seven Minutes. Ultimate Warrior Vs Razor Ramon -Triple H was the young heel star of the company and hadn’t yet pissed off the company for breaking kayfabe. He was promised the KOTR victory in exchange for eating a squash by Warrior but there was no need for that type of burial, funny as it might be in hindsight. Ramon was on his way out the door and should have turned heel shortly after the Goldust program. Not much need for a build in this match. Razor meets the same fate that HHH did on that night. Time: Two Minutes. Casket Match The Undertaker Vs Diesel -Quite easily the highest profile match up to that point for the Undertaker at WrestleMania after years of JTTS, freak shows and big men. For the time, Diesel’s heel turn was quite edgy especially in contrast to the family friendly image WWE had emphasized at that time period, besting Austin’s transformation by a few months. The match wasn’t special but it really never had a chance to accomplish that. Nash was on his way and it was only fair he would put over UT and keep him strong. The show needed another top level match and this provided it. The casket played a pretty important role in the build, so might as well have the first WM casket match here. Time: 10 Minutes. Main Event WWF Title Shawn Michaels Vs Bret Hart -Obviously this was the only true main event that they could have ran in 1996 given the complete lack of top level stars within the company and that these two were the absolute best at this period. The build was superb for this, considering the face/face dynamic. The only thing I would have changed is the booking of an Iron Man Match. While it managed to make this specific match pop out more in a historic sense, I’ve always hated this gimmick as it hurts a match, especially the opening and middle segments. I would have simply built this as a straight wrestling match, one fall all and had the match go 60 minutes. It would have likely made for better drama and without the established length of time, the fans whom were sitting on their hands for a good portion of this match until the heat spots came in. I think the gimmick forced a more methodical pace and that hurt what could have been something truly special. I’m not sure if I would keep the overtime ruling but either way, I think it still would have worked quite well. Time: 61 Minutes.

. If it helps deciding on that upset pick, I was accepted to Wright State as well...take that as you will.

Marvin's blinded by love. Never fill out a bracket on cloud nine.

I think the Trump Plaza or Caesar's Palace makeshift arena were smaller in crowd size. Edit: Caesar's and Hartford drew about the same size. Chicago, for WM2 drew the smallest crowd with 9,000 but obviously that was 1/3 of the shows.

Yet, Timberlake has been proclaimed as a dead ringer for Phil Collins for quite some time. It all fits in there. Chris Richardson is the Timberfake. Blake is the typical techno white dork.

I'm surprised they didn't do Indiana/Texas Tech... it was right there since they overseeded Indiana. That would have been too blatant unlike all the other unplanned similar situations that we're going to see this year and have seen in years past. I think this is the first time I can remember that Duke and UK landed in the same region and no one is making the usual "omg! fix!" comments.

Yes. He was already going places with this heel version after spending a few weeks being the typical angry grunting heel before the Matt story really broke out. It obviously helped but he's carried that momentum big time. He is believable because he's damn good at the chracter (regardless of how much it might be a case of art imitating life) and is a flat out great heel. He was a good heel long before Matt/Lita/Edge ever occured. He's a natural as long as he isn't the generic heel. Ripping from Douglas and Pillman did great wonders for him as well as throwing in his natural dick nature.

Notice they aren't showing the celebs reaction about Vince. "Who?"

I said this last night but Brooke really needs to be Edge's valet. Something about her tells me that she'd fit with him perfectly. They wouldn't need to be as tight knit as Lita was with Edge but just a casual fling type of relationship would really put over Edge's current direction.