Cobra Commander

so Eric Philbin will be the grandchild of Regis in Regis' bid to take over the WWE for some reason. Cahill will be some random dude. Print that money

the worst possible leadups to Ryback/Goldberg: Goldberg returns to the WWE, only to be mercilessly bullied by Ryback. Goldberg leaves the WWE for a few weeks, only to be motivated by John Cena to be a star, leading to his comeback to the ring

Even that way, Cabrera will be better at 1B than Fielder. He won't be good but he's at least semi-athletic and not 320 pounds. Hell, I have 2 bad knees and can't even hardly bend over and *I* would be an upgrade over Fielder. Cabrera clocked in at -5/150 in 2010/2011, and his overall is -2.2/150 thanks to a good 2009 at First (Cabrera was -4/150 in 2008) Fielder, on the other hand, has a -5, 0, and -4 in his last 3 years at first. I don't know how much the injuries effected Cabrera's metrics at 3rd (where he dropped from -11 to -20 from 2012 to 2013). But I suspect a healthy Cabrera and a healthy Fielder probably post the same -5 at first in 2014

He Who Must Not Be Named & Dean Malenko v. the Blue Bloods from the Havoc preshow. Come for the talk about the Monster Truck Match and the beginning of the Heenan/NJPW angle (along with Dusty/Bischoff mixing up Bobby Heenan and Bobby Eaton) and stay for the actual match. I believe Benoit was in the Horsemen quickly after this. So the NJPW stuff is coming up soonish, YT legal mercies permitting

watching a trailer for Kevin Sullivan's timeline. Somehow, Kevin Sullivan without hair looks even more sinister/satanic than Sullivan with hair doing one of his Satanist gimmicks. So Sullivan could always go back to that well as a mouthpiece and look even more sinister. Ok, Sullivan kinda looks like Mike from Breaking Bad. But he could also be Anton LaVey.

or a Donkey Kong scene tattoo across the back

Cabrera and Fielder are the same offensively? Say WHAT?!?!?! Cabrera's last four years, he's had an OPS+ higher than every single season of Fielder's entire career but one - and three of the four were higher than THAT. 3 straight batting titles, a Triple Crown, two OPS+ titles, one year leading in total bases, and so on. Any of that sound like Fielder to you? No? Fielder was a 120 OPS+ last year. Cabrera was 187 - over 50% better. That's a RIDICULOUS margin between two players. That said, Kinsler is not Fielder offensively. Nobody expects him to be. If he hits .280 and drives in 70 while not being a complete abomination speed-wise and plays his usual good defense, he'll be exactly as expected. The Tigers win this by shuffling pieces and freeing up a ton of money that would have been wasted on a guy that is grossly out-of-shape and declining. And here's a wake-up call to you Texas fans: Hate to break it to you but Jurickson Profar will never be a star offensively in the majors. He might get all the way up to .270 but never a star. He's still really young and has time to improve, I just don't see it happening. Hope I'm wrong - he was a big favorite when he played here in Spokane and you could pretty much see the talent oozing out of him - but I just don't see it. I think I meant to compare Cabrera and Fielder DEFENSIVELY at 1st. My typo

speaking of Zbyszko and his wrestling son... I'm dubbing Tim Zbyszko as "The Zbyszko Inferno"

it wouldn't surprise me if the quickest way for Detroit to go from "give Prince 200M? Sure!" to "Trade him" within 2 years involved some bridge burning. More than just having 11 bad games in the postseason. On first glance, Fielder's a better hitter than Kinsler (good lord, Kinsler's numbers have died in the last 2 years). The metrics aren't exactly big on Kinsler's defense. Essentially Detroit's potential to get a plus out of the deal involves shuffling Cabrera back to 1st (where he's merely below average, instead of horrible). Cabrera/Fielder are the same offensively. Presumably the next 3rd baseman will be a living being, and thus will top -15/150 at 3rd. So, on the short term, I don't think the Tigers got better for 2014 through the deal. On the long term. Well, how much does the long term really mean? They'll have more money to re-sign Scherzer in a few years (not an extension, a re-signing, Boras guy). But they put themselves in this spot when they gave Prince that stupid deal, and fortunately they got out of it before some Pujols/Howard years occurred.

yeah, I was thinking Shane had some fringe involvement lately, so yeah..

I think Shane Douglas is SOL, but it's not like they have to actively try to not hire Shane Douglas

and Butch Reed for the KC team. I forgot Butch Reed. So Butch Reed, Harley, Bob Orton and Mr. Hughes

team Kansas City would be Harley Race, Cowboy Bob Orton, Mr. Hughes and Rufus R. Freight Train Jones.. at the very least.

Today is brought to you by Stone Cold watching World of Sport on YouTube

amongst WWE people who'd be aware of indies. Well, Finlay is an agent these days, and he had an East Coach indy run during his vacation from WWE employment. But it's not like the entire WWE is totally unaware of the outside world.

i'm guessing Miz turning heel doesn't mean that Miz is gonna become a real American as a side gig

Anybody got any info or guesses on how much of the WWE buyrates come from bars/restaurants that buy the PPV and air it for customers? just a kinda random question also, I find it interesting that matches from Legends of World Class are on YouTube for a fee. I'm pretty sure they've done that repeatedly with other DVD releases. So, in theory, they could stream PPVs through YouTube (similar to how the Olympics or major sports have done the same thing) for a fee, with the hard copy of the PPV being available for viewing later. YouTube has seen an amazing streak of pretty blatant benign piracy. I say benign because people posting MLB GOTWs from the 80s, entire CDs as one track, or full PPV events from the 90s is probably not costing the violated copyright holders much money, but technically violations are occurring. IIRC, Google pretty much pays businesses enough to stop them from doing mass takedowns of videos and will take down people from time to time. But yeah, streaming PPV is probably way more viable than when they streamed WCW house shows in 1998. I wonder how much of a cluster it'd be to get the WWE archives on Netflix or Hulu or whoever is their exclusive hookup there

I don't know what country magic is, but I am 100% behind it if we get Jeff Jarrett as some sort of redneck Papa Shango. it will involve Spellbinder though

TNA will invade led by Jeff Jarrett, and TNA will be packaged as a county magic-based wrestling stable

I think my day was brought to me by watching Onita/Akebono in an exploding barbed wire match, from 2013. Not sure how horribly the whole explosion match concept aged from the 90s to now.

oh Mets. Couldn't even pull off subtlety. Had to recall the guy in the middle of a series one day after he would have gotten free agency earlier

WCW squashes! Arn/Pillman (with multiple Dusty mentions of "Cody Runnels"): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLi7P29FyBU Vader http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM5hRkfy2gc and Face Vader from September 1995 (starting at 4min in): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QOF5yYpHII also, the press conference with Undertaker and Christie Todd Whitman before Mini-Vader/Mini-Mankind v. Mini-Goldust/Mascarita Sagrada Jr... amazing

Scott Pioli commenting on a successful Chiefs team is less credible than (x).

so who do you think got stock footage of Mussolini/Stalin in the McMahon video packages in 1998, Vince M or Vince R? (saw it in the Over the Edge 98 opener and the 9/28/98 Raw open) also found that the 9/28/98 Raw was the Owen 'injuring' Dan Severn with the piledriver episode

so we're one Randy Orton injury away from Daniel Bryan selling out to Authority?