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This. The Streak should never end. The Undertaker's urned it ; ).

@SaifsArt is the face of Twitter.

Sounds like someone forgot to pay his air bill...

It's pretty obvious that the correct vote is entire world. It's the choice that will most fulfill the true spirit of March Madness: "Wait, what is the true meaning of March Madness, Mark Henry?" "Lights please! The true spirit of March Madness is to do whatever it takes to somehow get Jaedmc's hopes up that this year might be different. That this year people might actually see all his hard work as a chance to expand their horizons rather than just to be the same assholes who are going to say and do the same dumb shit they did last year." "And then, Mark Henry? What then?" [sigh]"Here, since you dumb sad fools can't quite grasp this, let me show you in a language you understand, crude photoshop" "And that, my sad dumb message board, is the true meaning of March Madness. Lights please."

I liked Man of Steel, but I knew that it wasn't "my" Superman. The movie was made the way it was because memes get reinvented for new audiences and that's how they survive. You can get mad about it and resort to posts in ALL CAPS or you can acknowledge that the mythos is changing and adapting to what modern audiences want to see. The movie made almost a billion dollars. The Action Comics and Superman comics make around $419,000 a month selling around 140,000 copies combined. The people have spoken. Find something you do enjoy and relax. It's all good. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go rage about the Sam Raimi Spider-Man flicks. Toby fucking McGuire crybaby horseshit.

If the producers expect me to remember which one is a stiff block of wood, they should have put name tags on those two.

Jokes, they're not your thing.

Bring in Prince Nana and pair him w/ Kofi Nahaje Kingston. They're both from Ghana. Then you'd have the beginnings of the WWE version of the Embassy. Next, I'd add a tag team that requires a mouthpiece. One that's not good enough to be Paul Heyman guys. I think Ryback and Curtis Axel would fit perfectly in the mid-card level new Embassy. Now comes the best part. Since Hunico has resumed the role of Sin Cara; Camacho should get called up, but drop the faux Mexican act. He needs to embrace his Tongan heritage and embrace that he is the son of motherfucking HAKU!!

In a company where titles are passed around like hot potatoes and babyfaces laugh off their defeats... Taker's streak is the only thing that still means something.

Jesus shut the fuck up dude Is this the definition of irony?

The beauty of this is the Steelers get these fucking dogshit calls every other week. They just happen to be playing a higher team in the NFL buttfuckery rankings.

Were any of you guys here reading WCW Magazine near the end of its life? They used to have a feature called "Uncensored" that was a pretty amazing sitdown one-on-one interview with a guy that's as close to being a shoot as it possibly can. I went through and transcribed the entirety of Sting's interview and was pretty surprised at the stuff that was discussed: "Q: When you were pitted against Vampiro during the New Blood vs Millionaires Club angle, there were some who suggested the two of you didn’t work well together. Your thoughts? I have nothing personal against Vampiro. He and I have talked about it and I’ve been straight up with him. I told him there just wasn’t chemistry there. It wasn’t his fault, it wasn’t my fault; I’m not pointing the finger at anybody. For whatever reason, it just didn’t work. I tried everything I could do — we did videos and vignettes. At the end, I finally said, if the bookers or writers are trying to make a new Sting, sensing that Sting has lost his drive or whatever, and they want to capitalize on another painted face around here and they want to make Vampiro that guy, then fine. But let him go off and do his thing by himself. He probably stands a better chance without me involved. Originally, they had Vampiro as a babyface aligned with me, and I think that would have been good if they had continued that storyline. That story could have been something that people could sink their teeth into. Instead, he was slapped up on me, just as Kidman was slapped up onto Hogan, and so on. They wanted to make stars overnight, I guess. But you had guys with very high “Q” ratings and guys with very low “Q” ratings. They were trying to give guys the rub and bring them up, but what happens is that it brings the guys on top down.” The entire interview with Sting is on my site and is too lengthy to post here -- real neat to read since Sting is a seemingly private individual. Other guys that were interviewed were Vince Russo, Goldberg, Bret Hart (AFTER his career ending injuries), and even Buff Bagwell. I'll need to get around to getting all of these online...

Final Fantasy VIII has a plot riddled with crater-sized plot holes, paper thin, annoying characters, a magic/junction system that can see you be unbeatable 5 hours in by simply abusing the fun but paper thin card game, annoying sidequests that you couldn't POSSIBLY solve without use of an FAQ, that annoying ass mission in the fucking desert dungeon when you're running round and round like a Scooby Doo episode, a really bad translation and completely drops everything that is the slightest bit interesting for time-jumping, convoluted sorceress, weepy bullshit. But, since I played it non-stop as a child, every single bit of it is ingrained onto my very being and I could sit down now, load up a save from any point in the game and pick right up with an encyclopedic knowledge of what cards to refine, what magic to junction and where to go next. Some people know how to save lives, I know how to get unlimited energy crystals from monsters in Esthar. Jesus Christ.

Jenn, Shadow, and Vince are streaking through their neighborhoods again!

FUCK YEAH COWBOYS WIN COWBOYS WIN COWBOYS WIN

@InvisibleObama: Not sure who did less in the fourth quarter: Congress or Redskins

Batista turning on HHH on RAW before WrestleMania was so amazing. Then they banished him to SmackDown and I rarely got to see him save for that RAW/SmackDown Survivor Series parking lot showdown - when the RAW team looked like a bunch of goofs, and the SmackDown crew was all swanked out.

did we really make it to page 2 before this was posted?[

Cage is so amazing in Leaving Las Vegas.

As I recall, he worked a Ludvig Borga-like "foreign heel disgusted with American poverty and neglect of the environment" sort of deal on the indies.

Mark Henry as Marcellus Wallace I like Mark Henry as the Kingpin with Big E as his Rhino and 3MB as those goons The Enforcers. Have a plucky babyface (Sami Zayn?) battle through Henry's underlings while Henry hangs back in a suit and smokes cigars. That's a year-long program right there.

They are the only group of people left that are sedentary enough to perhaps not be able to out-maneuver him...unless their computer desk chair has little wheels on it. Then it's gonna be a race!

He could have had both feet in the door.

You're infringing on my gimmick. I hope FSW is laughing suitably hard. Bull, FSW stole my gimmick. In fact before FSW was anti-Punk I was anti-Rey Mysterio. There's really nothing earnest about you at all, is there? It's just all gimmick all the time. I mean with FSW, you can see what he really digs. He's got a slant on things, but some of that is just because of where he's from and his relative youth. When I'm an ass, it's usually some heightened version of what I'm feeling or I'm just getting into things here. You're just the living embodiment of insubstantial internet ooze. Anyway, screw the vote, Jae. I'm convinced. Pepper in some international guys. If they get trounced, then that's part of the character of the place. People have criticisms of Tanahashi or whoever here that they have less elsewhere and they're no less valid than any other criticisms I see. It'll get me to watch some Rush matches which I haven't done yet.

The first Terminator does a great job of using Arnold's then extremely limited range. But in the second movie? The man gives a god damn great performance of slowly letting in more humanity. If a more respected dramatic actor had the role and turned in the exact same performance that man would have gotten serious Oscar nomination buzz.

Crusher looks like he just walked in on Jimmy Valiant lying under a glass table.

MAKING MY WAY TOWARDS THE ZIPPER.

Glad to have Madison Rayne back. Looking forward to this feud although I am a sucker for heel Madison lol

Eh. I never seem to be as high on Kevin Love as most fans. He can ball offensively, but I don't think he's a great two-way player. While I know he hasn't had the best supporting cast in Minnesota, the fact he gets any MVP murmurs when his teams hasn't even been in the playoffs is interesting. I won't say he can't lead a team because even Dirk, who isn't know for his defense either, found the right supporting cast in the right year. Maybe he'll find it too. Odds are not in his favor though. I will say his talents might be better suited as a number 2 or at least 1.b. with another superstar. Also, the Christmas games aren't looking great on paper right now. Thanks NBA for scheduling another Lakers Vs. Heat game. They need to give up on that pipe dream.

I'll always remember that fight as I was in a random bar in North Carolina where the entire place besides me and three other guys was rooting for Sonnen. After the tap, we legit ran around the place hollering while the rest of the place cried that it wasn't a tap. Such an amazing fight.

Few days ago I watched Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen at UFC 117: Silva vs. Sonnen for the first time in a while a few days ago. What a story. I don't know if you've seen Like Water: Anderson Silva before but I really recommend it as it shows the build to that fight, highlights of it and the aftermath. Great timing by the makers of it to cover that fight.

http://youtu.be/e0XS0RzqKfE http://youtu.be/wOwZLFxVrUM GAMBLER WINS A MATCH!

I absolutely agree with this. In the end, no one should have a long control segment where they beat down a guy like Brock, Goldberg, Henry, or monsters like that while the monster is selling a beating. It makes no sense. The reason these guys got over in the first place is that everyone from job guys to main eventers spent a lot of time eating their offense and desperately trying to find a way to survive. There is no need to deviate from that formula unless two monsters are wrestling one another.

Or, in the immortal words of Hank Hill, "Can't you see, you're not making Christianity better, you're just making rock and roll worse!"

I posted this on Facebook and thought it might be a good topic starter. Something I just thought about. A huge thing missing from today's wrestling climate is the believability of the characters. For as long as I've been a fan, up until about 12-13 years ago, you always got the feeling that all of those dudes could kick your ass in a real fight. They didn't take any crap. Even lower card heels were presented as dudes that might get their tail kicked by the babyface, but they'd still kick yours. Thats why it was so important to have managers, they could show that weakness for the guys so everyone looked strong. I'm not just talking about the monster guys like Barbarian, Andre, etc either. Dudes like Bret Hart, Tully, Arn, Haku were all seen as legit tough guys. Right now, there are too many guys that the average fan would look at and think "I could take him", and there is a good chance that they could. Before, if there was a guy that didn't come off like such a tough guy, like Honky Tonk Man or even early HBK, they made sure to go all the way with it, and use that to make you hate him even more. I guess what I'm saying is that there are too many guys pretending to be bad dudes, instead of actually being one. That is why someone like Brock, Mark Henry, Langston, Reigns, Bully Ray or even James Storm are taken seriously. You know those guys would hand you your ass in a fight.

I'd pay a large sum to watch Seagal break net nerd arms.

"Air is for closers!"

Have someone run a February Follies rest of the world tournament for people who care about that shit and give the top 2-4 guys entry into March Madness. Davey Richards might get out of the first round if he faces one of them foreign boys.

The Princess Bride and Monster's Inc cover a multitude of sins.

That reminds me, having proclaimed during last year's March Madness that this was going to be THE YEAR OF DOLPH, and now that THE YEAR OF DOLPH is officially coming to an end, I guess it's time to look back and reflect one last time at how great that all went... .... .....

Because the holidays are also the most stressful time of year

I think this makes the movie better. Indy is an archaeologist, he can't change history. And so with Raiders he serves as a recorder of history, and as an extension for the audience. We get to go back in time and have an adventure as the coolest fucking hero ever. And what better fantasy for an audience to live out than going back and stopping the Nazis. But we can't do that and neither can Indy. Dr. Jones, instead of uncovering bones and artifacts and imagining what their lives were like, can now experience history, LIVE, but he can't alter it - which by extension means WE can't alter it. Indiana Jones is also Steven Spielberg, wishing he could be Harrison Ford and unleash the wrath of god on the Nazi's, but he can't. The climax of the film is where Spielberg separates from Indy. Where Indy is tied up and must close his eyes, Spielberg realizes his freedom to look back at history with his camera, and while this doesn't stop what happened, by keeping the the memories of these monsters at the front of our mind, perhaps we can stop it from happening again. Yeah. I like that Raiders even better. Good talk, guys.

"It about that time of year again...you hear those jingle bells...it Christmas time."

As background, over at PWO I've been writing up all of the Buddy Rose matches that have been posted lately, chronologically, on youtube. Having made it through the 1979 offerings (of which there are around 25 I think), I wrote a couple thousand words about my thoughts on his year in general, from the Saturday Portland Sports Arena TV shows that we have. I'm crossposting it here. --- Now that I've finished the available matches for 1979, i wanted to double back and talk about Buddy's year before moving on. I've gone over this before, but, to me, to really judge and analyze and understand a wrestler, you have to look at an entire body of work. You learn something different in a five minute squash than you do in a sixty minute broadway. You learn something different in a tag match than a singles. You learn something different seeing the wrestler against a smaller opponent than a larger. You learn something different in a gimmicked blood match than a more straightforward title matches. The range of output we have from Buddy Rose in 79 is amazing. He has all those things and more. He has 2/3 falls matches, tag matches with two main partners of wildly varying experience and style, six man tags, squashes vs JTTS, blood feuds, gimmick matches, hair matches, and a ton of promos to go along with them. It's staggering the variation in the twenty-five or so matches I saw and wrote about. Even more staggering is that these are just the Saturday shows. So many of his actual blow-off matches were in Portland on Tuesday and as far as I'm aware we don't have those. Portland television is a lot like Memphis as went through the same loop every week as well as having frequent Tuesday night arena shows. They weren't every week but were often three times a month when things were hot, which they were in 79. Also, like Memphis, they had to utilize a lot of the same talent to fill the same buildings every week. The big difference is that the Portland Saturday show was also in the main (promoter-owned) arena, and they make the claim that the sponsors demanded high-level matches, which may be kayfabed and may be not, but it means that there were lengthy, high-end matches, quite often with real finishes every week. The other big difference, of course was one of style: Portland had a ton of 2/3 fall matches. I love Memphis TV but you didn't often get long meaningful matches on it. That was for the Monday night MSC shows. People judge wrestlers and matches differently. One thing that is very important to me is to try to figure out what a wrestler is trying to accomplish or achieve in a match and to see if they manage it or not, and how they do so. Buddy, in my opinion, had to accomplish two major things. 1) First and foremost he had to draw people to the Tuesday show and the weekly loop of shows. Whatever happened on Saturday had to incite the fans to spend their money on Tuesday (when applicable) and throughout the rest of the week. Since Owen owned the arena, being able to promote as many well-drawing Tuesday shows as possible was a huge deal moneywise. 2) It was also important people both attended and tuned into the Saturday night show, so while leaving the fans wanting more was important, giving them something substantial, their money and time's worth, was also essential. Moreover, he had to manage this while keeping things fresh and interesting despite the fact they were building to weekly live shows in front of the same audience and all of this had to be done with what I understand to be one of the least star-studded rosters in all the territories. Portland was considered a starting point and did not draw in most of the biggest names on a regular basis. On top of that, the 2/3 falls matches were something of a duel-edged sword. they allowed for all sorts of different structural experimentation and storytelling possibilities and ensured that the matches would be meatier and longer than in other territories on a weekly basis, but they also forced Buddy and friends to come up with an extra two finishes a night, basically, maybe even more considering that they were running in front of the same crowd twice a week most weeks. It meant pulling out every trick in the book and inventing a number more on top of that. Combined with the fact they really wanted to draw people in for the Saturday night show, they couldn't run the constant-match ending brawling breakdowns that were such a staple of Memphis TV. I'll admit that I'm judging what I've seen from concept and performance levels alone. I don't have attendance or rating figures before me. A lot of what I'm judging on is whether I thought something was well done or if it SHOULD have worked. I think there's every sign that it did work. The Portland show was absurdly highly rated and, dealing with one of its biggest challenges in years in 79, being forced to move to late night, still stayed highly rated. I think attendance was good. I'm going to focus on the in-ring though. In short, I think Buddy Rose had an amazing 1979, that he wrestled in numerous different situations, almost all successfully, that he made himself look credible as a heel ace while still showing a ton of ass and making his opponents, big and small, star and undercard guy look exactly as good as they needed to look. He had incredible timing, not just in executing the moves or exchanges in his matches but in knowing when to stall and when to go and knowing when to sell and when to take, and most of all, he was able to give fans more than their money's worth while still making them want more. Very few wrestlers get put in a position where they have so difficult a role to play but also have the time and the means to prove themselves in it. Buddy was in the position and he succeeded magnificently. It's me writing this, so we're going to lead with structure. He didn't wrestle the same match twice in the ones we have. More than that, he barely, if at all, wrestled the same segment of a match twice. The two-three falls are all broken up by fall on youtube. and the times for the falls in various matches are wildly different. More importantly, just about everything is really logical and well-set up. He often uses the 2/3 falls medium to set up something in fall #1 that gets paid off in fall #3 either in a transition or in a finish, which makes a lot of his matches almost poetic in their storytelling. Most of his offensive flurries are body-part related and it's not always the same body part either, even if most often he works over the back, logically, to set up his finisher. I think the most impressive thing Buddy does, past the sheer amount of logical variation, is his ability to be a chickenshit heel that gives a huge amount while still being completely and utterly credible as an ace. At the beginning of the year and really throughout, he was still able to live off of his crippler gimmick. He could hone in on a body part and within three or four minutes believably take a pin in a fall. It was believable no matter who he was facing, jobber Jim Gagne or former WWF champion, Stan Stasiak. At the same time, he could spend a whole fall running from the Heart Punch or trying to avoid being in the ring at the same time as Roddy Piper in a tag match. He could take a powder after getting punched in the face or do one of his elaborate matwork/holds openings where he kept getting shown up by the babyface no matter what level of escalation he tried. He could do any of this stuff and he did, but at a moment's notice he'd be able to underhandedly or even legitimately take over and the fans would buy it completely. There aren't many guys in the history of wrestling that could manage that so believably and so well, and they're the guys who often come up when discussing the GOAT. There's such a community feel to Portland whether it's plugging referee Sandy Barr's flea market or pointing out a local newscaster's brother in the crowd. When the time change happened, these people went home and watched the show again so that they could see themselves on TV. It was that sort of community. They knew Buddy and Buddy knew them. He was great at knowing when to stop the action to acknowledge them, when to jaw with Barr for a while or let Barr get one over on him by reversing a hair pull or to use Dutch Savage or Down Owen in their role as management as a prop, even in the middle of a match.. He knew when to argue with the ever-present granny in the front row. He knew when to swarm an opponent from the outside in a tag match. He knew when to beg off. He knew when to take a powder and he knew when to hide in the ropes. He knew when to bring in humor and to make himself look bufoonish and when to bring the intensity and make the crowd yell for his blood. He just had a great sense of what the people would react to and when to pull it out of his arsenal and he varied it. You wouldn't often see him stall in the same way for the same reason two matches in a row. All that stalling and jawing and what not didn't mean he couldn't go. He has great opening stretches in his matches, able to keep up with anyone they brought in. He has that really entertaining shtick where he gets outwrestled which shined brightest against guys who could really work holds like Johnny Eagles, but that he was able to utilize to make greener guys look a lot more interesting too. He has not just varied and believable offense but a lot of innovative offense too. I know that's not a high selling point in most situations but I think when you're in front of the same crowd so much it is important. He and Wiskowski had a crippling second rope kneedrop/backbreaker combo that was years before its time. I asked Dave Meltzer about it in an e-mail and he said he couldn't remember anyone doing that sort of thing before then. The Billy Robinson backbreaker is a great finisher for not just the time but any time. More than that, he has these finishing segments, especially in big matches where there are not just finisher teases that are again ahead of their time, but where he even occasionally tries to steal his opponents finisher as a FU, almost always leading to his comeuppance. Most of all, he was able to deliver on what he had to do. He would work elements into his matches that foreshadowed or forced the upcoming gimmick blowoff, but he would use these elements in logical ways that were absolutely organic parts of the action. Yes, it was him keeping away from the person he'd be wrestling in a tag match and teasing the crowd with it or getting over an opponent's finisher in a tag match as something that could finally be the thing to vanquish him in a singles match. It was more than that, though. He would give the fans just as much as they needed to get riled, would give the babyface just as much as he needed to really seem believable as an opponent, would attack in the right sort of underhanded manner to inflame the passions of both for the match to come. Some of it was absolutely the booking, but that Buddy was able to work these forward-looking stories into his matches through his work itself was really the sign of being a master of his craft. So just how good was Buddy in 1979? He was good enough that, based on what we have from TV, I can't think of a wrestler that had a more complete year in the role of a television ace. Some of that is the selection of what we have and the opportunities he was given, but when you take a look at what we DON'T have: the big blowoff matches where he would be given even more of an opportunity to shine, it makes it all the more astounding the sheer talent, expertise and pro wrestling quality we can see in him in what we do.