Kahran Ramsus

Between LT, Chad Johnson & Steve Smith, my fantasy team is having a great week.

This looks like it could be the best WWE PPV since Vengeance, which isn't saying much considering how bad Great American Bash, Summerslam & Unforgiven were.

Andre's finisher was some crappy hiptoss/suplex thing during his main event run in 87-88. After that it was just an elbow drop or BUTT splash.

Not Randy Moss? Wow. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Not even close. Carter has more than him as far as WRs go.

Let's try to get back on topic, shall we? When most of us say "He needs to spend more time in OVW...", it is in reference to someone who has potential, but was brought up before he was experienced enough to work properly, both in the ring or with the live crowd. TV experience is overrated, because they are still playing off the live crowd not the television audience. In many cases it is simply because they are too young. Randy Orton in particular wouldn't have experienced nearly the problems he has had trying to get over if he were five years older. As it is, he pretty much had to learn on the job and in a league with seasoned pros like Chris Benoit, Eddy Guerrero and even mediocre veterans like Bob Holly, that is a big obstacle in being viewed as a threat. Batista has ten years more life experience than Orton, so even though he's only been in the business for about as long, he didn't have nearly the problem getting over. Guys like Randy Orton & Renee Dupree could have really used a lot more time in the minors. They are both decent wrestlers, but it lacks polish (someone like Benoit is a lot more fluid in his movements) and they don't really know how to deal with people, either as far as acting with the other wrestlers or in how they handle the audience. They have potential, but they look green. Orton's been better lately just by having his father hang out with him. I really thought that Matt Morgan had a lot of potential, but bringing him up to soon and giving him a crappy gimmick likely cost him his job. The Rock was almost ruined by putting him on tv before he was ready. Then we get to the other category. These are the guys who I really think don't have any hope, or that it would require so much time and work to make them into decent wrestlers that it isn't worth it. Talent is the problem with these guys, not experience. Chris Masters, Grenier, Jindrak, Carlito, Tomko, etc. fall into this slot. Some of these guys could be bodyguards or managers or interviewers and some have no value at all, but none of them have the ability to become good full-time wrestlers. They could have a miracle turn around, but in my 18 years of watching wrestling I can probably count the number of people that have done so on one hand, the most recent being JBL.

Atlanta at Buffalo 2.5 3.5 Carolina at Miami 2.5 Cincinnati at Chicago Cleveland at Indianapolis 13.5 - Like the Niners/Eagles last week this is a lot of points, but I fully expect a complete squash. The Cleveland defense just can't handle Indy. Jacksonville at N.Y. Jets 2.5 New Orleans at Minnesota 4.5 - Minnesota should be favoured over nobody right now. Oakland at Philadelphia 8.5 - I'm tempted to take Oakland since I think the margin of victory could get down to about 7 pts or so, but not any less than that so I figure this way is safer. 3.5 Tampa Bay at Green Bay - 2.5 and I might be going the other way. Tampa is good, Green Bay is bad, but I think the margin of victory will be close either way. Tennessee at St. Louis 6.5 Arizona at Seattle 6.5 - Seattle is tough at home and Arizona has disappointed. 6.5 Dallas at San Francisco - Short week for Dallas, but just like last week the Niners get a team that took a brutal loss on Monday and will be out for blood. New England at Pittsburgh 3.5 - Game of the week. Could go either way. N.Y. Giants at San Diego 5.5 - Must win for the Chargers if they want to keep up with KC. Kansas City at Denver 2.5 - How is Denver a favourite? Steelers - 27 pts Vikings - 14 pts. If they can't reach double digits against the Saints D, there is no hope for this offense.

His last high-profile win was probably on Superstars in December 1989 when he and Haku beat Demolition to win the WWF Tag Titles. Between the end of the Hogan feud and Wrestlemania VI, Andre didn't do a whole lot. The last win of any sort that I can remember being mentioned on television was the Collosal Connection's victory over the Rockers at a house show in March 1990. It didn't air (to my knowledge), but Heenan used to talk about what his guys did at house shows when he hosted Prime Time Wrestling with Gorilla Monsoon and I remember this match specifically being mentioned.

Don Hutson is Green Bay's all-time leading scorer.

Exactly. I can understand complaining about Xenosaga or the later Final Fantasy games for this reason since you can't skip them, but in all the MGS games you can skip everything to do with the storyline including the Codec conversations.

II miss it being portrayed as a real athletic competition. Matches occuring because they were booked to occur, rather than simply because two wrestlers are feuding. Certainly feuds are a part of wrestling, but do we need to see them be so restrictive. These days when Chris Benoit comes out on Smackdown you immediately know that Orlando Jordan is going to be involved somewhat. As a result the shows tend to resemble each other. They never have say Christian fight Benoit unless Jordan comes out to interfere, so we see the same matches over and over again until the feud is over. And when they actually do something different, how many times have we seen the opponent doing commentary only to cause the guy he's feuding with to lose. It has nothing to do with the amount of TV time because WCW never had this problem during its peak. Things are so nauseatingly predictable now because of this. If Vince was booking the NFL the Eagles & Falcons would be playing each other every week. Do we really need to waste time on feuds for matches 7th from the top to begin with? It isn't like they sell a show. Everything needs a story these days for some reason, and it often gets you to wonder what these wrestlers actually do for a living, since they seem to only be on tv when they are pissed with someone else. There is nothing resembling rankings and championship divisions anymore. Feuds should be built around big matches for the most part, not the other way around. Blood feuds are not as meaningful when every match on the card has a similar background.

Forget the Ravens, this is the most devastating loss this weekend. I'm really shocked over this one.

This week was brutal. I'm lucky to have won as many games as I did. The Packers losing certainly doesn't please me, but I can understand it (the Packers suck), but what the hell happened to Buffalo & Baltimore?

You can skip the cutscenes you know.

The last one was pretty good once you got past the boring speeches at the beginning of the game.

There's only 8 teams. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> A 6 Team league shouldn't have Fitzgerald on waivers provided you use backups. As for the above post. Take Deuce & Fitzgerald. Deuce could be better than Jones outright. Avoid Keyshawn. He likely just had his best game of the year by far.

Baltimore (4.5) at Tennessee Buffalo at Tampa Bay (2.5) Detroit (1.5) at Chicago Jacksonville at Indianapolis (9.5) - Indy's going to win, but 10 points is a little much against a team like Jacksonville. Minnesota at Cincinnati (3.5) New England (3.5) at Carolina - With Jenkins, I go the other way. I still have fears of New England only winning by a FG though. Pittsburgh (6.5) at Houston San Francisco at Philadelphia (13.5) - A lot of points, but after Monday the Niners picked the wrong week to go to Philly. Atlanta at Seattle (1.5) - Not a pick I want to make, but Seattle is a long ways from Atlanta and the Hawks are usually good at home. St. Louis at Arizona (1.5) Cleveland at Green Bay (6.5) - If Green Bay doesn't win by a TD here, they are in bigger trouble than I thought. Miami at N.Y. Jets (6.5) - Miami will be much better at home. San Diego at Denver (2.5) - Not a fan of Denver. Man I feel like I'm picking way too many road teams. Kansas City (1.5) at Oakland - So here's another one. N.Y. Giants (.5) at New Orleans - The Saints are probably emotionally exhausted after last week. Washington at Dallas (5.5) - One TD means Dallas covers as Washington has arguably the worst offense in football. Minnesota - 21 pts. The Bengals aren't known for their D, but the Vikings offense looked sick last week. With last years Vikes, this game is a shootout and both teams score into the 30s. This year I expect something like 28-21 in favour of the Bengals or something in that ballpark. Pittsburgh - 24 pts. Ten less than last week. Steelers get out to an early lead and then the offense takes it easy while Carr & Davis get smothered by the D. Won't be a great offensive performance from the Steelers, but with the Texans lucky to score more than 3 it will be more than enough.

Were you even around when he won the title in 2002? Hogan is a good draw when he comes back for a match or two, but if he stays around too long he kills buyrates and ratings.

The Rebel Face vs. Authority Figure storyline is dead. No storyline in wrestler has been overused more. They just need to drop it.

Especially when there is a brawl 20 minutes before the game. I called up a bunch of people after that happened and told them to turn the game on. I'm sure others did the same.

Match up for this week (Who should I start?): Steve Smith against NE or Larry Fitzgerald against St. Louis

I find Orton/Taker to be the most enjoyable, and it certainly was the match I was most into live, so I can see where you are coming from to a certain extent.

I can understand not knowing all about the indies and foreign promotions, but if you are missing out on things like WCW or the AWA which were viable national promotions with easy access and a tape library owned by WWE, then that is a problem when we get into these discussions, largely because it involves many of the same workers. If you are basing say Ricky Steamboat's career entirely on what he did in the WWF, then you aren't really qualified to discuss the subject properly. It would be like discussing the history of Carthage when the only thing you know about them is their role in the Punic Wars.

Not a great year. I agree with Angle/Shawn from Mania, with four tv matches following it. HBK/Benjamin from RAW, Benoit/Regal from Velocity, Eddy/Rey from Smackdown after Judgment Day, and Benoit/Orton from Smackdown. EDIT: Had to change Cena/JBL to Orton/Benoit. Forgot about that much. It still just makes into the top five though.

Season 5. "Boy Scoutz N The Hood", "Cape Feare", "Homer Goes to College", "Deep Space Homer", "Rosebud", "$pringfield", "The Boy Who Knew Too Much", "Homer and Apu", "Homer the Vigilante", and "Burns' Heir" are some of the best episodes ever produced. You don't find this type of quality across the board in any other season.

Correct. For example, RVD is fast. RVD cannot wrestle worth a lick. Christian is a lousy wrestler, but he's pretty fast. But since it was brought up, no, Shawn Michaels is not fast anymore. He used to be, but not since the injury. It is especially noticeable when he gets in there with someone else who isn't exactly speedy, like Edge. Their matches were excruciatingly slow. Angle & Benoit can move extremely quick around the mat. Their holds and reversals are easily more crisp than you would see in something like HBK/Jericho from Wrestlemania XIX, and Shawn is slower now than he was then. If he's in with a fast worker like Shelton Benjamin, Shawn looks much better than if he's not.