BillThompson

Oh, the many years of Tenta enjoyment that I lost out on because I was an idiot kid convinced by Scott Keith that Tenta was complete trash.

So Yadier Molina shoves an umpire and gets no suspension from that. Guess that's the Cardinals Way.

How is baseball ever going to be dead to anyone?

Don't forget the standing ovation that he is going to get in Baltimore. You really think that the same people who cheered in a scrimmage are going to boo now? Not in the NFL. And before I get bashed on it, I realized that if Ray Rice played on every other team in the NFL the fan reaction would be the same. I have caught myself coming dangerously close to finding a sliver of benefit of doubt to give Ray McDonald, myself. Or at least thinking "you idiot, the team needs you" as much as "you idiot, beating your wife is wrong." Sports team loyalty makes hypocrites of us all. It's hard to stick to your guns on a situation like this, but I've managed to with the Patriots. I won't watch them as long as domestic abuser Julian Edelman is on the team. Every so often I'll turn on a game, then Brady will complete a pass to Edelman and I'll remember how much I loathe his actions and turn the game off. Of course, I'm sure there are people on the Cubs and Red Wings I should take this approach with as well, and I don't, and that does make me a hypocrite.

Soler still continues to hit like he's been in the majors forever, Turner pitched a good game, our bullpen continues to be surprisingly good, and Alcantra has been aces in the field and is starting to become more consistent with the bat. The Rizzo injury worries me, and watching Baez struggle is tough, but overall I'm very happy with the way the Cubs have been playing lately.

I'd imagine it has to be similar to being a ten year old who's never seen anything faster than a 50MPH fastball stepping into the Nolan Ryan batting cage and watching a 101MPH heater fly by. Only probably even more intense.

I hope people are willing to accept him struggling. I have a bad feeling that the majority of the fan base is expecting him to come up and dominate. Maybe he will, but as Brett Taylor wrote about today at Bleacher Nation, he's being brought up to face big league pitching, fielding situations, and the big game in general. He probably will struggle, but all that really matters is that he's getting big league experience and that the club is continuing to move him along on a really good developmental track.

Anthony Rizzo started bunting against the shift this year, and it's done wonders for him against lefties. The name of the game is getting on base, and if the shift is presented a properly laid down bunt will get you on base. There's no reason not to bunt against the shift every once in a while.

There are a few good arms in the system though, namely Edwards, Viscaino, and Hendricks. Other pitching will come, because things are too crowded now, or at least will be in a few years. Even if you go with a dream line-up of Castillo at C, Rizzo at 1B, Alcantara at 2B, Russell at SS, Byant at 3B, Scwarber at LF, Almora at CF, and Soler at RF that leaves Vogelbach, Castro, and Baez without positions. And yes, when the chips are down I would use Baez as a trade piece to get more pitching, because I see a better future with any combination of the above minus Baez than I do with Baez (and that's not a knock on Baez, who I like a lot).

I highly dobut they will ever upload any of the WWECW stuff or velocity though which is not at all a draw for anyone (aside from me) so I don't see why that kind of stuff couldn't be there on launch or shortly after. Nobody cares about it so it's not like the Raw episodes where they air them first and then put them up either. It's not like they're only holding the big guns to have something new for when the first subs are up, they still have a lot of stuff that would at least be nice to pad the library even if it's not going to get anyone to buy it. As it is now it's pretty much just all PPVs with no context aside from 93 and 94 WWF and some WCCW. I fully expect them to upload stuff like Velocity, Jakked, Super Astros, Worldwide, Saturday Night, etc. They'll need the variety of content as the Network grows and I expect them to use the C shows to boost the amount of content they offer.

Not to derail the thread, but I was hoping to get something cool out of the AWA title still being active. Sadly (or cool if this were actually a thing and WWE all of a sudden brought back the AWA title) the linear AWA title only lasts until Hulk Hogan's first reign, and then it's the same as the WWF title the rest of the way. Technically that means Cesaro is currently both the WWE and AWA champion (and a quick mock up of the ECW (beginning in 1994 when they officially became known as Extreme Championship Wrestling) linear title history reveals that Cesaro is currently the triple crown champion of AWA, ECW, and WWF). Either way, here's the AWA linear title until Hogan, Verne Gagne 08-16-1960 Bob Geigel 05-10-1961 Hard Boiled Haggerty 06-07-1961 Bob Geigel (2) 07-07-1961 Leo Nomellini 07-25-1961 *Vacated due to inactivity* Gene Kiniski 07-25-1962 Buddy Rogers 07-30-1962 Lou Thesz 01-24-1963 *Vacated due to inactivity* Mad Dog Vachon 07-20-1966 Verne Gagne (2) 02-26-1967 *Vacated due to inactivity* Verne Gagne (3) 11-25-1968 *Vacated due to inactivity* Verne Gagne (4) 08-14-1971 *Vacated due to inactivity* Nick Bockwinkel 06-25-1977 Crusher 02-03-1980 Jerry Blackwell 10-06-1980 Crusher (2) 10-11-1980 *Vacated due to inactivity* Nick Bockwinkel 05-02-1982 David Schultz 07-16-1982 Gerry Morrow 09-12-1982 Keith Hart 10-08-1982 Hubert Gallant 11-12-1982 Keith Hart (2) 11-19-1982 Leo Burke 02-11-1983 Dynamite Kid 03-04-1983 Cuban Assassin 05-22-1983 Bruce Hart 06-04-1983 Cobra 09-02-1983 Keith Hart (3) 09-12-1983 Cuban Assassin (2) 11-21-1983 Sonny Two Rivers 12-19-1983 Kerry Brown 02-03-1984 Sonny Two Rivers (2) 02-10-1984 Killer Khan 02-26-1984 Dynamite Kid (2) 03-10-1984 Bad News Allen 03-28-1984 Dynamite Kid (3) 04-04-1984 Tatsumi Fujinami 07-26-1984 Hulk Hogan 02-05-1985

Most linear titles mock-ups I've seen follow these general rules, Title could only change hands in singles (i.e. one on one) matches. Title can not be lost by countout or disqualification (keeping with the traditional rules of pro wrestling) Title could be lost by pinfall, submission, or by a match stipulation. Title could be lost by Referee Stoppage Title could not be lost in an Multiple Man (Triple Threat, Elimination Chamber, etc) or Tag Team Match Title must be defended (i.e. wrestle a one on one match) every 365 days. The Linear Title is not bound to the "insert fed here". If the champion loses anywhere (Japan, another territory, etc.), they lose the Linear Title. Those are courtesy of Jason Felix over at Voices of Wrestling, who I believe started this Linear title thing.

If one accepts that originally TNA used the NWA title and that they eventually switched to their own title this would be their linear title lineage. It starts with Kurt Angle, who was the first TNA champion in a legit sense, and ends up being very TNA in the present. Kurt Angle 05-13-2007 Jay Lethal 09-09-2007 Christopher Daniels 09-10-2007 Jay Lethal (2) 10-14-2007 Johnny Devine 01-21-2008 Rhino 03-12-2008 Toru Yano 03-19-2008 Giant Bernard 03-23-2008 Hiroshi Tanahashi 03-23-2008 Shinsuke Nakamura 03-30-2008 Keiji Muto 04-27-2008 Hiroshi Tanahashi (2) 01-04-2009 Manabu Nakanishi 05-06-2009 Hiroshi Tanahashi (3) 06-20-2009 Takao Omori 08-07-2009 Masato Tanaka 08-09-2009 Togi Makabe 08-13-2009 Shinsuke Nakamura (2) 09-27-2009 Togi Makabe (2) 05-03-2010 Tetsuya Naito 08-06-2010 Toru Yano (2) 08-12-2010 Hiroshi Tanahashi (4) 08-13-2010 Prince Devitt 08-14-2010 Toru Yano (3) 08-15-2010 TAJIRI 10-11-2010 Michael Kovac 01-29-2011 Tatanka 02-18-2011 Joe E. Legend 02-25-2011 El Ligero 03-18-2011 Deano 03-26-2011 CJ Banks 04-02-2011 Kid Fite 04-03-2011 Chaos 04-16-2011 Killer Karlson 05-28-2011 Chaos (2) 08-27-2011 Lionheart 09-03-2011 Wolfgang 10-21-2011 BT Gunn 04-01-2012 Red Lightning 06-03-2012 BT Gunn (2) 06-29-2012 Red Lightning (2) 07-01-2012 U-Gene 12-07-2012 Dave Mastiff 12-09-2012 El Ligero (2) 01-27-2013 Super Crazy 02-01-2013 Joey Hayes 02-02-2013 Noam Dar 02-02-2013 Andy Wild 02-16-2013 Wolfgang (2) 02-17-2013 Kid Fite (2) 03-23-2013 Johnny Moss 06-21-2013 BT Gunn (3) 09-27-2013 Jack Jester 04-06-2014 El Ligero (3) 06-07-2014 Rampage Brown 06-08-2014 Zack Gibson 06-13-2014

She's actually proven herself to be a pretty good worker, one of the handful of women currently under WWE employ who can go in the ring. She could use a bigger moveset though.

I think it works better to start from when the title was actually the TNA title and not the NWA title.

He consistently shows a lack of understanding of even the current product he watches. I like Meltzer, always have, I greatly respect what he does both as a reporter and a historian of pro wrestling. His relationship with Alavarez has always been an albatross around his neck, damaging his credibility at every turn. Alvarez doesn't know wrestling history, he's unable to keep up with what the present day product offers, and when he did write it was rather insipid and of a very low quality.

He's a paid wrestling writer who wrote a book about the death of WCW, lives in an age where he has instant WCW historical information at his fingertips, and is partners with possibly the foremost historian in the business, there's no excuse for him consistently knowing jack all abut the history to the topic he is paid to cover.

I imagine Alvarez is defending his stupidity by calling everyone on the F4W boards who points out his stupidity a nerd.

It's even more damning in this day and age when one can just open up Cagematch and find the card for any of the Clashes.

I believe their first signing was Lance Hoyt.

Proof positive one need not be talented to have a professional writing job, well at least one of many examples.

Did Keller follow through with, recently, saying he would put out a list of all the matches he gave ****+ to?

Presently Anthony Rizzo leads the NL in just about every important stat for a first baseman. This makes me happy, almost as much as the rest of the league apparently continuing to sleep on him makes me happy.

At this point in her career Madusa was pure sleaze, and that was well before Russo came along.

He will be hiding in micro indies in Jersey. No one knows about them. Don't tell that to PWS, because they never, ever paper their shows, they really are outselling every promotion in the world every show.