Hawk 34

Except that's where you take the internal philosophy of ECW and make a crowd care about it. It can and has been duplicated with great success but it takes a tremendous product to approach that type of rabid fanbase. WWE will never be willing to wait to build such an fanbase. They have a large mainstream casual fanbase and that what makes them money but you can't duplicate it using the same methods to re-create ECW. It's just reusing the name and nothing more and that's FINE. Leave it as that but alot of peopl, Lance Storm and other internet types wont even bother making the seperation and have such a issue with the "ECW" name being used here.

I can't figure out why people are really so obsessed about the No DQ stuff. It doesn't make it a better show if all matches are "extreme". ECW usually had a good balance of straight wrestling and crazy brawls. That's exactly that this version has had as well. The people that want to hate this brand are just people who actually buy into the idiotic notion that ECW can be re-done. It's not and it's actually been suprassed in the same mold by another company. What this is, happens to be another brand for more wrestlers to get tv time and national exposure. If they didnt have this brand, Punk and Knox wouldn't be where they are. ECW has been good for players like Holly, RVD, TBS whom werent doing much elsewhere besides the mid-card. It gave SABU, Dreamer and Sandman steady work.

On Saturday morning, driving back home after crashing at Allison’s apartment, I was fairly relaxed and took the scenic route as opposed to my regular routine (after all, I wasn’t in any particular rush to get home). Right now, is my most favorite time of the year. The weather is just right with the heat dying out, the crisp mornings and evening chills creeping in just before the icy freeze of winter’s gloom arrives and you get this build up within, a rush of events in the form of holidays, family gatherings, mass rushes of shopping euphoria and forced kindness in the spirit of the holiday season. Football is in full bloom from high school (playoff football is a huge deal in SW Ohio), college (the madness of the BCS strikes again, and no matter what the “playoff!” enthusiasts will say, they know that the current format offers so much more intrigue) and pro (the contenders and pretenders separate and the race to the super bowl begins). Movies, the good movies that studios have complete faith in to be academy award candidates are rolling out alongside the family comedy blockbusters that drive the art house elite into frenzied coffee fueled rants about the decline of something that I ignore because they aren’t worth the time to pretend to give a shit. I drove along with some innocuous music serving as theme music for the long drive and I happened to drive pass a Best Buy, which was oddly placed into a vacant mass of land occupied on its own as if it was mistakenly dropped there and no one bothered to move it to the proper location that was swiftly replaced with another Wal-Mart Super Center. There was a long line of people sitting around the side of the building apparently waiting for the release of yet another stupid game system. After all the reports that came out about the PS3 release and the backlash that occurred, I couldn’t believe these people (likely the same ones that sat in the same spot a week ago) buy into the promotion that they MUST own these over-priced game systems as soon as humanly possible regardless of all the likely glitches and product dependability issues that always occur from these initial launches. If you can’t wait 3 months when the price will likely drop, the bad editions will be tossed aside and there’s no having to stand in a line with someone who hasn’t showered in a 2-3 days, then I’m can’t really feel sorry for those that wasted a tremendous chunk of money on this product. People are getting robbed and attacked not just by SONY/Nintendo but by regular assholes and I can’t help but to feel like they probably had it coming. I kept driving along when I somehow ended up behind a dump truck full of dirt, rocks and assorted materials. It was an impassable one lane road, so I did the common sense thing of dropping back a decently measured distance to avoid those pinging rocks and clumps of dirt from colliding with my car. Generally, I won’t care about getting a little dirt on the car or even tiny scruffs from the falling rocks but I still plan on selling this car very soon and I wasn’t looking to lower the value of the car. My intention didn’t work out to my hopes as my impatience got the best of me and I moved in closer and decided I would simply just slingshot past the truck knowing the risk that would occur on a narrow one lane road. I signaled to the driver that I was passing and I began to proceed and about half-way pass the truck, he suddenly sped up as we went into a curve that gave me zero room to make that pass, forcing me to dropping back behind him and as you would imagine with his increased speed and my now close proximity, the rocks bounced off the shaking truck and pinged right onto the hood. I dropped back again further and finally he disappeared. Once I finally got home, I surveyed the damage to the hood and while it wasn’t drastic, there were noticeable dents and marks. It won’t hurt the car and it can be fixed fairly easy but it’s kind of annoying to see the scruffs and some of the paint chipping away. It’s disconcerting because this was my first purchased car and even though I stopped driving it for awhile, I still had an attachment to it. It was a beautiful, shiny fresh car when I first brought it way back when and now it’s becoming old, used up and faded from its once beautiful state. I guess that’s the course of life for everything, isn’t it? On Thursday, 11/16/06, my oft-mentioned friend from the past finally gave birth to a supposedly healthy boy (I say this because I never got how they determine health for a freaking infant that’s been alive for no more then 2 days, give it some time to catch a disease or something before labeling it “healthy”). Named the kid, Jason James. Apparently, no real significance. However, that just made me wonder about something. In all of life, I have to imagine naming your child has to be one of the more stressful tasks possible. It sounds silly but what you name that kid will most likely determine his course in life. Also, will parents stop trying to be creative with names? Throwing extra letters, or changing a letter in a regular name to make it different. I’m stick of the different spellings for names like Sean/Shawn/Shaun. Can’t we have some international vote about what will be the official proper spelling of these names? It seems parents think they win something if they have the most creative name for their kid. Im talking regular folk, not the celebrity nutcases that name their kids, Apple or Suri. At least those kids can point at their parents and we understand. Regular kids with regular parents don’t have an excuse. I did bring this up with Allison though and I learned a lesson. DON’T. I learned that girls have pre-named all their future children before we (males) even started killing our prospective kids with scrambled Cine-Max. All I ask if that if I ever do produce a spawn boy, that he’d have my father’s first name for his middle name like the past 4 generations of first born sons in our family have. (I.E, my grandfather’s given first name is my middle name). However, I learned that David (my father’s first name) doesn’t fit with her pre-approved names for any male child. I made a compromise, I would get to name all the dogs. I think it’s a fair trade. Oh, yes. It’s only two months into this thing and we’re already having that “kids/marriage/future” talk. That’s further ahead then I ever really got with my previous ex’s. Scary.

Aw, you mean a school already pillaging students with tuition costs won't get the chance to pad their wallets with an extra few million bucks with an undeserved invitation to the prestigous Motor City Bowl?

Boise State is undefeated but no one cares about them except their blue turf stadium. Does it really matter who plays where? They all get their 10-12 million for playing the game regardless of it being in Glendale, Pasadena, Miami or New Orleans. I say just take the top 10 teams in that fucking BCS deal and having lottery drawings to pair teams up in these money bowls. A playoff reduces any legitimacy and intrigue in the regular season, which kills the entire point of watching the regular season and not having a playoff means you'll always have these idiotic reactions like "THEY PLAYED A SOFTER OOC SCHEDULE! THEY DON'T DESERVE IT! YOU FUCKING RETARDS! I HATE BCS!". You can't really win with college fooball because one way or another, nobody is ever happy. I hope they give in and do a tournament playoff and then these monkeys will realize that it isn't all that much better and didn't prove anything when a 8-4 team runs the table and wins the tournament. At least the current structure allows for a more likely legitimate claim from the national title holder.

Style points, will play big for ND. They'll need to kill USC along the lines of a 49-10 shutdown to overcome getting slapped by Michigan to at least muster a greater line of support.

I hate to say it but it seems WWE is better with the girls then they are the actual wrestling talent. Kelly Kelly went from being a really bad performer with incredible awkwardness into being a pretty good valet with great comfort in her character and the crowd. You can really see the adjustment in Kelly. Kristal and Sharmell, have been pretty good too with their roles on Smackdown as well. Candice is another vastly improved diva in her work and how she does her act just right. Mickie was pretty good with Trish in and out of the ring although that cooled off with her face turn. Lita has been a huge contribution for Edge and really helped him shine as a legitmate main event. Maria is pretty good at her role too and actually has tremendous knowledge about wrestling, which is a plus. What I'm getting at is, I'm glad WWE is actually giving the diva's character progression and personality beyond just being used for looks. Would I rather they get talents like Allison Danger and Cheerleader Melissa, who can flat out work in addition to being beautiful as well? Yes, but two actual workers appears to be the maximum for that division. However, Torrie Wilson still remains employed.

I'm not sure if I am happy or disapointed. I started 0-5 and looked headed to a winless season before going 5 for 7 to close the season (beating some good names). Being tied for 3rd after looking like the actual Miami(OH) program is somewhat good but still disapointing knowing that if it weren't for that horrendous 3 win performence last week, I could have slipped into the conference title game or at least a bowl bid.

An hour draw is far too unlikely to occur, especially when Angle probably can’t endure that. Angle’s never been particularly good at long matches anyways. Angle is at his best in the 18-25 minute zone where he doesn’t run into the problem of spot repetition and pacing concerns. Joe, is of course better at longer matches and I would love to have seen them build that up. It sounds wrong to say the bigger and heavier guy is better conditioned for longer matches while the smaller, quicker and more experienced wrestler isn’t but that’s the case with these two. I can’t see this match going a minute over 25 and it shouldn’t because they have every intention of making this a series of matches and the first match is supposed to be about fierce hatred. The finish almost has to be anything other then a pinfall, clean submission or non-finish. Quite frankly, the only finish they can do is the blood stoppage/pass out finish for Angle. Either man can really afford a clean loss right now with each other. This is really quite interesting, regarding this match for TNA. TNA has been struggling to compete with WWE and lately have tried desperately to conjure up that mid-90’s magic by attacking WWE and have failed at it, miserably. They spent massive amount of time and presumably, money on promoting their primetime debut featuring Kurt Angle and the ratings hardly did anything. Basically, all they did was retain the exact same audience it had at 11. This match could have been gigantic for TNA but instead, it hasn’t quite managed to capture that for TNA. The internet is abuzz about it but that’s a given considering the talents involved. That’s not the market TNA needs right now to truly grow and compete. Will the match meet the insane hype? Probably not. It’ll be good, maybe great but probably not the classic that we all imagined would occur. They have a can’t miss attraction that people have literally been dreaming about for over 2+ years ever since Joe made his name in ROH by taking a regional promotion’s title and making it a true legitimate and revered WORLD title and Angle being generally considered the best overall worker in WWE since Bret Hart. Two styles that were seemingly perfectly meshed for each other. Joe has worked talents similar to Angle with great success (Styles, Daniels, Punk, etc, etc) but the real intrigue would be how Angle would fit with a talent like Samoa Joe. The closest we ever got to seeing that was Brock Lesnar whom wasn’t within distance of what Joe is but had enough similarities to make an fair enough comparison. The series Angle had with Lesnar, were fairly disappointing to say the least. They had the “injury” excuse to fall back on but Joe/Angle doesn’t have that. Joe is healthy. Angle looks to be in the best physical and mental shape in quite some time. Angle relies on his word and his desire, or rather, his need to prove himself. There isn’t anything to fall back on. With such intense hype and anticipation, it’s going to be hard to measure up. Regarding the rest of the show, while it’s all about Joe/Angle, there’s a good deal of interest involved with the LAX/AMW, AJ/Cage and Sting/Abyss. The rest, like most events from TNA is completely random and probably not even necessary. While I’m glad they aren’t throwing in another gauntlet/battle royal match to squeeze as many talent as possible onto the show, I’m still not sold that Paparazzi/Killings+Truth, VKM/Movement and the Naturals/Dutt+Lethal are needed. I’ll go ahead and call for Low Ki to be the open challenge to Roode. I just think the show would be better served by reducing the card from 9 matches to 6 matches and let those matches go longer. 9 matches is a lot to squeeze in, especially with the packages they run. Not to mention, the technical difficulties that seem to always occur.

Poor Rutgers. From a probable BCS bowl to a lowly bowl like the Texas or International Bowl.

He wasn't the only one to call this result. Even if Rutgers hadn't won last week, I still believed Cincy would beat them. I just didn't beat it over everyone's head like Cabbage did during his bitter tirades about Louisville.

I think people are too hung up on the "ECW" name aspect. It's basically OVW with a couple bigger stars and a national tv time slot and that's not a bad thing. (Well, not the current OVW but when it was good) The show has been far more consistant and entertaining then Raw and isn't too far behind Smackdown despite the depleted roster and shorter time slot.

Exactly. Everything about a re-match barring the other 4 teams all dropping another game is ridiculous. Put away all the over analyzed breakdowns. Explain how it's logical to re-do a game where the outcome wasn't in doubt. There was no constroversy to justify the re-match. If they couldn't beat them the first time with all that pressure and hype, how the hell would they manage with six more weeks of hype and pressure. Besides, OSU shouldn't have kept the game that close. A rematch would be an ugly blowout. It'll be an ugly blowout against the other three teams in question but it'd least be fresher.

Rutgers isn't laying an egg, to me. I expected Cincinnati to beat them. The emotions of a major win going into a tough stingy defense on the road is too much for that team.

Does Michigan deserve a re-match? No. While the score was close, Michigan was clearly outclassed by OSU today and when you got 4 other teams waiting in the wings (ND, USC, Rutgers and Florida) and at least 2 of them will still be a one lost team (except one lost will be an automatic elimination for Rutgers). I'll never buy the idea of a team that just lost in a MAJOR game to get another shot at the same team six weeks later with another meaningful prize at stake (and really, this game was bigger for Michigan then the national title game would be, especially given the circumstances). If they couldn't get it done today and they weren't as close as the score indictates, what would be the justification for getting another crack at OSU? A slightly tougher schedule? Let's pass on this rematch idea unless USC, Florida, ND and Rutgers all lose out. That won't happen.

The only similarity is that Coach, Benjamin and Lashley have shaved heads. Those specific names are totally different, were brought into the company completely different and I fail to see how anyone could make any sort of comparison aside from racial.

Taylor will be out for awhile. What worries me is that they'll make London the heel when Spanky's gold as a heel. Spanky and Ashley turning on London would work best in the dissension route.

It might be a long, long shot but considering the location of the pay-per-view, they should try to get Terry Funk to replace Piper. I know Funk is working a very limited schedule (like one a year) but I think he could be talked into doing a squash with Flair, Rhodes and Slaughter. It'd most likely be Duggan, however.

Back to the drawing board. Jarrett: Obviously, they need me back in the main event guys.

I was in the 4th or 5th grade during this, I believe but I do know that I was in my science/social studies class and my instructor was some old bitch that was caught up with this stuff. We watched the entire verdict stuff unfold and after the verdict was read, we the students, basically said "Okay" while she went bat-shit and had to leave the room, where presumably she went through a profanity laced tirade. She was gone the next year. I like to think the OJ stuff sent her further down the mental stability charts.

Also, why use Abyss at all? I know the other name main eventers like Joe, Sting, Rhino, Christian were out of the question but someone like Daniels would have worked enough. Especially if they built it as Angle facing someone that has taken Joe to his limit in the past. Daniels could've afforded the clean lost to Angle and the title change wasn't needed tonight. It's just pointless to job out the #1 contender a few days before his title shot. To compare this to Bret/Owen is idiotic as these are two totally seperate issues.

That is the political reason. Two wrestlers of different promotions aren't going to wrestle because of the politics of those two companies.

At least Nash'a ass isn't the focus of an entire show and promotion with a cartoon series devoted to it. It's little things like this that TNA does better then WWE. TNA: Better about male ass then WWE. Plus, we got Kurt Angle.

They all worked in the independents before going into WWF/ECW for quite awhile and constantly traveled as they were from the same area and worked the same shows.

I agree that Brown won't stick around long because of that aforementioned ego that will easily get laughed at by WWE. If TNA wasn't concerned so much about Brown's involvment once Joe hit the scene and especially after Angle's arrival, why would WWE bother with a virtual no-name of a distant #2 promotion's attitude? They've fired bigger names without breaking a sweat. Brown will have to work hard to get comfortable and we all know Brown wants the easy way at all costs.