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As an amusing anecdote, Mr. Nick Bockwinkel will walk into the general lockerroom, even if he has his own dressing room, and not only shake everyone's hand, he introduces himself to each and every individual and asks their (often) gobsmacked names. The man is a super class act, and defines not only the honorific of "world champion" but he IS his gimmick. I have seen him treat the lowliest of indy scum workers (myself included) as you would think he would treat a seasoned veteran of ring and road. honored, RAF

Abeyance! Someone got a new word of the day desk calendar. Gonna be so many new hobos wandering the streets after next Monday: - D-Brine, the smelly little shrimp. - Zig Zag, zigging and zagging through traffic to get to cars to wash their windshields with his pink rags. - Coffee Can Kingston just standing on the corner shaking his coffee can for spare change. - "Unhappy Cause He's Nappy" D-Young - "Will Trade Redemption Points For A Hot Meal" Titus O'Neil - Zack Ryder

This could easily go in the sports forum but I think it belongs here instead. Thanks to the magic of Ebay, and a good friend looking out for me, I have acquired the actual game jersey that my brother-in-law wore for his brief time with the Durham Bulls (yes, the team from the movie) in 1990. Players don't usually get to keep their stuff so to have this back in our family 23 years later is just awesome!

By far the best race photo I've ever been in. My first marathon win also, which certainly endears the picture to me further.

This was the first RAW that I have watched since god knows when and the thing I noticed the most was the lack of Jim Ross and how there was weird silent seconds of non commentary. Which seems strange with a 3 man booth nonetheless. How long has JR been gone? What's the deal with Dolph Ziggler? I think I know his face from one the Spirit Squad kids but can't name him at all, he's cool though, looks like an 80's guy all orange with bleached blond hair and bumps like a motherfucker. Dean Ambrose, on the other hand did, nothing for me. Kinda weird having a face lose a title match on the PPV and then have a non-title rematch the day after and giving him the win. BTW double arm suplex from the 2nd rope? Wow. Ron Killings I know, Fandango too because The Natural kept posting gifs of him in the various Pictures Threads and I had to investigate the hype. And the song oh my god the song. Him and the girl can't dance for shit though, so when they turn face I guess they'll have dance lessons? Dusty's so slim!, good for him. lol fuckers "WHATing" Dusty, man fuck everything. See, big ass segments with wrestling acting aka bad acting is definitely not my thing, but eh fuck it it was alright I guess. The best thing about this was that getting punched by Big Show is being sold like being elbowed by Misawa and kicked by Kawada at the same time. Dusty was dead. So many divas?! And they're not all blonde white girls! Holy McMahon! Actually none of them are blond apart from the chick commentating. AJ is the only one I know, again because of pictures and gifs and The Natural, she was awesome at the booth. The match was short but way better than I expected. Cool. I LOVE Sandow, he looks so evil and I loved that video of him going to SD Comic-Con (again I thank The Natural). This match was pretty bad though . Apparently Sandow is Mr. Money in the Bank so why is he losing meaningless matches against RVD? BTW why does RVD have his own personal hispanic announcer? LOL Apex Predator. Who the fuck comes up with these names? Randy gets a pretty meh reaction considering he's the top heel. I like Miz though, I briefly remember watching back in 06 or something, cool kid. His parents are glorious. Crazy psycho Randy is the best Randy though, but again the crowd response was lukewarm at best. Scratch that, Heyman is the top heel. Holy shit Ryback can't talk for shit, the only thing I know about this guy is that FSW loves him and everyone else not so much. Heyman made this, the kiss was funny yet bizarre. Ugh bullfighting gimmick. Man I hate bullfighting, that shit is still legal over here and I fucking hate it. Thankfully killing bulls in the arena was ruled illegal awhile ago, still sucks and fuck everything about it. Tag match was good, I'm kinda unsure who was heel and face though. Only guys I knew were GIANT BERNARDO and Claudio, but I'm gonna go on a limb and say the Samoans are Anoa'I kids. Claudio's giant swing makes everymatch 5 stars. Who's that survivalist looking guy? He kinda looks like Dutch Mantell. Bayou looking dude was fun. Who's this? Is reigns an Anoa'I kid too? Dudes looks kinda samoan. Unless they're having Danielson doing dark matches I'll love everything he's in, the crowd popping huge for him makes me super happy. Man, 5 or 6 years apart from wrestling and I'm already kinda bored with Orton and I was never a big Randy hater. A little more interference during the match from Tyler Black and Ambrose would have been cool, btw where's Jimmy Jacobs?, seems like he's the only ROH guy that was not invited to the E party. Black still bumps like bonkers, jesus h. christ. The faces' run-in, Dragon's celebration on the dude's shoulders and all the YES! chants almost brought a tear to my eye. IT'S STILL REAL TO ME DAMMIT! This post is longer that Lex Steele, I'm sorry.

NXT pops up on Hulu sometimes on Wednesday night/Thursday morning.As of now, here is a list of the main people on the roster. BO DALLAS -- Bo's the current NXT Champion. He's a long-haired goof. They originally cast him as a Cena-like hero for all. However, everyone crapped on him because he was so terrible. They just tweaked him where he's essentially the same persona, but with a tinge of sanctimony and self-obsession, and he's now this really good heel.SAMI ZAYN -- Sami's formerly known as El Generico. He's a very nice person who is into pop-punk and ska. That's his gimmick. He's a good person. He's really courteous (and a bit flirtations) with Renee Young, who does backstage interviews on both Raw and NXT. Sami recently had a killer series of matches with the We The People group. His match with Cesaro got legit Match Of The Year hype (not as good as the SummerSlam matches but still REALLY good) and his match with Jack Swagger was great as well. He's currently stepping up against Bo Dallas. Bo claims to be Sami's "mentor" and is totally delusional about their relationship. ADRIAN NEVILLE/COREY GRAVES -- Neville was previously known as Pac. They're a forced tag team that currently have the belts. I kind of hate them both. Neville has a lot of great moves but is sort of a snooze. Corey Graves is a punk rock type who is a total snooze.THE ASCENSION -- Rik VIctor and Conor O'Brien. They have some vague, undefined supernatural gimmick. They have some big power moves but are largely UGH.TYLER BREEZE -- A fashion model character who takes selfie pictures of himself on his cell phone non-stop. He's awesome. AIDEN ENGLISH -- NXT jobber who just started getting a push. The only real artiste in professional wrestling who sings showtunes on his way to the ring. CJ PARKER -- Goofy 60s relic hippie. XAVIER WOODS -- 90s obsessed black dude who is also getting a PhD and has two master's degrees. Sort of a really confusing character. LEO KRUGER -- South African hunter of men. He wrestles really well as his character. THE LEGIONAIIRES -- Sylvester LaFort is their manager. He's a scumbag French guy obsessed with MAKING ZE MONEY. His first charge is Scott Dawson, a redneck trailer trash guy. The latest addition to his stable is Alexander Rusev, aka The Bulgarian Beast. Rusev is on his path to being awesome.PAIGE -- Current NXT Diva's champ. She's "The Anti-Diva." She's pale-skinned with dark hair and a bunch of piercings. She's fierce and rough and a total star on the rise. EMMA -- Goofy Australian who is beyond over with the crowd because of her amazingly dumb dancing. She's also pretty good in the ring, too. Really fun character. BAILEY -- Nerdy, awe-struck diva who has an offense based around hugging her opponents. Very funny character. CHARLOTTE -- Ric Flair's hyper-athletic daughter. SUMMER RAE -- She's Fandango's dance partner. She's a total mean girl. SASHA BANKS -- Newly turned heel diva noted for her terrible acting. There's also some NXT alumni you should familiarize yourself with:THE WYATT FAMILY -- These are the bayou looking dudes who showed up on Raw. They're led by Bray Wyatt, who is a backwoods cult leader who has hinted that he is the Messiah and we have entered into the end of days. His flunkies are Luke Harper (the dude with the black beard who is awesome) and Erik Rowan (the dude in the sheep mask who is still pretty raw). They just got the big promotion to Raw a few weeks before SummerSlam. Until then, they just wreaked havoc and chaos throughout the promotion. Bray's one of the best promo guys in wrestling right now. They're my favorite stable. BIG E. LANGSTON -- He was last scene on the main roster as AJ's best friend/enforcer. He was a face in NXT known for making refs count to 5 after his finish. He has a really interesting, unique charisma and sense of humor.

Packages and openings are exactly the reasons we don't need super slow mo anywhere near wrestling.

Why is the Observer free this week? http://www.f4wonline.com/component/content/article/110-wrestling-observer-newsletter/33185-sep-23-wrestling-observer-newsletter-questions-regarding-the-future-of-tna-hulk-hogan-jim-ross-retirement-wwe-night-of-champions-and-aftermath-cmll-80th-tons-more

The entire Norton-Holmes fight is on YouTube. It will not let you down.

It will be interesting to read Dave's first-hand comments instead of his second-hand reinterpreting what Carlos or Dr Lucha or Kris sent him. Meltzer's comment on Sombra/Volador Jr's spotfest was stupid. He's seen insane spotfest just on Dragon Gate and various indy shows and raved about them, yet this one didn't suit what he likes in wrestling. His rant on these guys doing spotfests and possibly getting hurt makes Dave sound like fucking Zbyszko nowadays. Injuries can happen with anyone at anytime. Look at La Sombra, he's done crazier spots (that dormilona into a somersault plancha on Tama Tonga) and doesn't get hurt, but he jumps over stupid Taichi and sprains his ankle. Didn't Orton break his arm or something punching the mat in the past? I thought he was way off on Blue Panther (spending more time pointing out he's old) and he doesn't get Rush. Also, by the way, that one guy who sent feedback and said Blue Panther looked old and looked like his grandpa...FUCK YOU...You wish your grandpa could tap young motherfuckers out with the nudo lagunero & teach you the proper way of maintaining your lazy ass in shape. See now y'all made me angry...I'm gonna go watch TV...

That was pretty awesome. WWE needs to use that for a new Raw opening ASAP. Also, Emma's slow-mo hair toss...

....Or people who don't watch the show posting for no good reason.

To be fair, a lot of the 25 page threads are shitgimmick posters and bitchery at each other.

Great news Justified fans...the next season will feature more Wynn Duffy. Wynn's Dixie Mafia resourcefulness always plays well with Raylan's smart ass bad ass and Boyd's hillybilly genius. http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/cleveland-browns-1999-present-summed-one-incredibly-sad-184203507--nfl.html

For the stat people, Richardson was fifth in RB elusiveness last year and leads the league this year in elusiveness according to Pro Football Focus. I know, shocking that teams stacked the line and committed to stopping Richardson and let Brandon Weeden attempt to beat them. Playing with a respected quarterback will do wonders for him, and I think he has a Shaun Alexander type of career for the Colts.

They should shut up if they're not Native Americans. Or have red skin. Like Mike Shanahan.

We need more lapsed fans to post time capsule wrestling reviews.

and his tumbling squad!

Or Illinois' Secretary of State.

What does it look like without any Pogs on it?

Well it would reveal they are essentially the same party.

Fuck the homicidal maniac shit dude, let's just sit in our car, watch the sunset, and listen to the radio. My girlfriend, who has never seen a GTA game before, has been watching me play and often chides me for being so boring. So I end up saying things like "I will go kill those guys when this goddamn Bob Seger song is over" a lot more than I ever thought I would.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

It wouldn't work. "If I lose this job, I'll just go back to wrestling in armories" is a response that easily translates into every facet of his life...including the ladies...

Actually, only Dolph Ziggler has to do it every show. Unfortunately he forgets all the time.

I'm late to the party here but I wanted to echo the praise Roman Reigns is getting this week. He looked fantastic and it wasn't all just Bryan doing magic tricks. His moves looked great, his trash talk was top-notch and, yeah, he killed Kofi on the way out. Bryan has been amazing but I hope the Shield continue to get some sugar too because they've been a HUGE part of Bryan's ascent as of late. Oh, and might I add, Heyman and Dusty should have jobs waiting for them at the WWE "Sports Entertainment University" teaching promo 101. They were both awesome for different spectacular reasons. I am sorta fat and sorta ugly but I own my house and have had some sex.

Has there ever been a better case for adding a dislike button? Cue someone saying "that's what the ignore feature is for," but I don't want to ignore anyone! I just want another way to tell you that your opinions are bad and you should feel bad. TEAM BILLIE!

Somewhere, Lou. E Dangerously is hoping they really do have a script of the entire last year of CM Punk with some names crossed out.

Savage. Absolutely savage.

Miz's dad is Zap Rowsdower?

He wrestled a some matches with his old man there in Zero-1 and the Vader Time shows. I wasn't expecting much when I saw his FCW look: He looks like a hitchhiker that's about to rape you. He looks like a Miz cosplayer.

Ka-fucking-ching.

Yeah, I've never gotten that whole "omg bully heels totally contradict the BA Star message" spiel. What, and the Smurfs is unsuitable for children because of Gargamel? My mom thought so...I wasn't allowed to watch it, it was witch craft according to Jimmy Swaggart. I was, however, allowed to watch juice filled matches from Jim Crockett NWA, so go figure.

What would happen if they used that camera to film a Great Khali match? Would time completely stop?

I didn't finish watching the show yet and I have a whole eight man to go. But the Sami match was again really good. I would say he's one of the five best workers in the company right now but there's Randy/Bryan/Shield/Claudio so that's a ridiculously hard list to crack. But he's a star.The Bo promo was amazing. His character is just flat-out brilliant right now. They did a slow, subtle burn with it before he started acting like this. I love the thought of some wrestler just calling random Latin American voicemail systems and singing Journey. I wish this was real.The Aiden segment was a star-making segment if there ever was one. He sang a made-up showtune on the way to the ring. That is pretty spectacular. "Spotlight, please!" "Take A Bow!" Hopefully his in-ring work against actual wrestlers holds up. I think he'd be a really great lackey for Damien Sandow.

What makes you think the Colts pick will be that low? That team has some pretty big issues, most notably the offensive line and the defense. I forsee the pick being in the 10-15 range. I think they will be pretty good in the next few years, but giving away a 1st round pick on a team that snuck into the playoffs last year with smoke and mirrors could backfire significantly. I wish T-Rich the best in Indy, but I have a feeling that he isn't as good as advertised. I'm not really sure it matters where Cleveland picks because they will most definitely pick the wrong guy. I get the thought process, but it's hard to imagine the Browns correctly picking from a group of QB's. It just doesn't happen. I also understand this idea that T-Rich is overrated because of his low YPC and whatnot, but I would say it is a small sample size in a bad situation. It just seems way too early to give up on your 3rd overall pick. LT and Emmitt both had low YPC numbers in their rookie years. They can't stack the box on him in Indy. Let's see how that affects his YPC this year.

Honestly, that is why I watch very little WWE stuff. Even though there has indeed been a lot of good stuff in the WWE over the years, the WWE style has just never been my preference. When they became the only big game in town, they really ramped up all of the things that I didn't have a preference for, and to me it poisoned the pond. WWE wasn't wrestling anymore, it was "sports entertainment" or an "action adventure male soap opera", and that just didn't jibe with me. So, no matter how great someone might say the stuff with Bryan (or whomever) is, it isn't enough to compel me to watch it regularly, and I really don't know what would. I might get together with friends to watch a PPV, or check out a match online, but I cannot ever see me setting my DVR to record Raw, let alone tune in for three hours on a Monday. That was something that I felt during my in-ring career, as I traveled to so many towns and was a part of so many good companies that featured so much good wrestling... and just nobody sees it. There is just so much stuff out there that is just virtually ignored. I mean, there are some five-star classic wrestling matches on youtube that some random indy uploads, and ends up with 400 hits. Yet someone uploads a recording of a WWE videogame match between Kane & CM Punk, and 10000 people view the fn thing. I don't get it. I think this is something that UFC totally gets right. Although I don't watch it nearly as much as I used to (rarely actually), UFC always used to acknowledge that things like PRIDE or Vale Tudo existed, when it came time to build up a fighter. I don't think that WWE would *ever* plug an ROH or TNA event, but there is no reason to pretend nothing else exists. For example, when they call up Chris Hero, they should run vignettes where he talks about how he learned his elbows from Misawa when he wrestled for NOAH in Japan, and that he was actually there when he died in the ring, etc. Then they show clips of Hero throwing elbows and Misawa throwing elbows, and really try to get over how devastating the "Young KO kid" is. Instead, nope, Kassius Ohno just was some guy off the street with no history at all that walked into developmental one day and started sports entertaining. Yes, you do... and when you leave. I would say that the drama around this is waaaaaaaay overblown, but apparently some folks do get their panties in a bunch about it in the WWE, so I guess it really important. On the indies, the degree of this varies by region. I have been to some places where workers only shake workers hands, but I have been other places where you shake hands with workers, crew, wives, etc. Most places you just walk in, make the rounds and shake hands with everyone already there, and then take a seat and guys that come in later approach you. I have been places and heard stories though where the top dogs expect you to come find them (and in turn, they then "big time" you and act like you are bothering them). I can't imagine a guy like Harley Race going around shaking everyone's hand fifty goddamn times.

Man I missed Olberman.

That's awesome. They need to start calling him The American Dragon on air already! Or at least stick some dragons on the side plates next time he wins the big one.

I totally agree. In the "What Are You watching?" thread someone posted UltimoDragon/Malenko and Liger/MysterioJr from Starrcade, and it reminded me of what I thought was the best aspect of WCW. It felt like it was apart of the WORLD and that their wrestlers represented the company elsewhere. When Tenay or Schiavonne announces that Liger and Ultimo will be fighting for the cruiser title at the Tokyo Dome show, the biggest show in Japan, it made the belt feel super important. Furthermore it created this communal feeling, that you, the wrestling fan, was also connected to wrestling fans thousands of miles away. It made the wrestling in the ring have a certain weight to it, like these guys were competing for world recognition. And ECW had that going a little with the FMW crossovers, but not at the same level. But it made the company feel like a bigger deal. WWE just feels so insular and doesn't feel as big of a deal kayfabe wise despite being the biggest wrestling company ever. There's WWE and then there's everything else. And I kind of like the feeling of being apart of everything else more. I wish WWE would join in.

Just for BigFresh, it's Crazy Mary Dobson like you've never seen her before:

Politics didn't need a Keith Olbermann. Sports does. Finally someone with a brain, a voice, and a platform that isn't afraid to attack some real issues.

Don't cryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy out loud! Just keep it inside...

Ben Roethlisberger looks pretty good after a couple of drinks that he's served you.

I feel so sad knowing that your'e trapped in this vicious cycle of watching DEXTER while BREAKING BAD is devouring TV's soul at the exact same time. Literally, this time two weeks from now, TV will just stop, and you'll be like, "Why is there no more TV?" And then someone will have to tell you, "Um, because Breaking Bad, obviously." And you'll have to admit, "Oh, I was watching Dexter during that." You will then be sent to Belize.

What a bastard. Owing one of the biggest stars in wrestling 15 bucks and a hotdog. I hope if he's faking he really does get cancer.