jstout

That main event was a absolute blast and was a fan-damn-tastic free basic-cable fight. By the end, I was cheering pretty hard for Cooper just because Shlemenko kept going for those spinning back fists (I think he was 1 for 10, maybe) and kept doing that ridiculous taunting after he got rocked. There were sections of the Rogers-Parlo fight where they reminded me of Rock Em Sock Em Robots, just standing in one place hitting each other. As soon as I said to myself "man, that Butcher guy looks awkward in there, like he doesn't really belong," he knocks the old man out. Old man - he's younger than me and is retiring. Even if I wanted to be a cagefighter like my hero Kip Dynamite, I'm too old. I just hate I missed the Torrey-Ward fight, from reading about it.

Was it ever super-essential to know every detail of the complicated storyline to enjoy Chikara? I think the gigantic storyline was done because Quack knows there's a certain percentage of his crowd who would get into it. I think it certainly is ambitious, at least, and you gotta at least admire the fact someone could do a 78-page PDF on it. I still betcha Chikara's done, though, and all of these odd little resurrection efforts are just meant to make people more interested in seeing the old Chikara guys wrestle in the new Wrestling Is ... promotions.

I was gonna make a joke about this being the first PPV to register negative buys, but at least it's achieved a buyrate of 2 - two people.

I would recommend waiting. I'm not a hardcore gamer by any means, so I'm definitely waiting. I do think when an Elder Scrolls game comes out for one of the next generation of consoles I will be drawn to a store to buy the console and game like I'm being pulled by a magnetic force.

44, 45 soon. There's been a DVDVR board for quite a while, yes? I came in at the tail end of what I think was the first board.

Triple H and Orton are in the ring. They call out Bryan, who walks to the ring carrying a bazooka. He blows both of them into the 10th row.

"Nobody else can beat him, guess I'm gonna have to do it myself"

They already tried Super Astros and failed at that. Forgotten about that. Don't use big names, kinda make it a Latin-flavored NXT. Kiddie it up.

Wikipedia was no help - does Mysterio keep hurting the same knee all of the time, the one he wears that gigantic brace on, or does he injure different knees? He's gotta be close to the end of the line, injury-wise. He's not even 40 yet. WWE should start a small-time promotion full of masked luchadores, make it kid-friendly, make Mysterio the on-camera boss and syndicate the shows in markets with heavy Latin populations. Keep it afloat with limited house shows and merch sales. If anybody takes off, bring them up to the big time.

I haven't seen all of the episodes (boo - I still haven't watched some of season 2), but last week's episode was the best one ever for me - just one "holy shit" moment after another - the scene in the Mexican restaurant, the "confession" video, Walt's hug of Jesse, the scene with Saul, the scene in Walt's house). This week's episode just cranked up the tension with lots of great little moments leading to the big moment at the end. When Walt started moving toward the tough-looking guy and the girl came into screen saying "daddy," that brought the biggest "holy shit" from me since Gus Fring's tie adjustment. I thought that after the breakneck pace of last week's episode, we were gonna be in for a real rollercoaster ride over the last few episodes of the series. I still believe that after last night, but last night's episode was the rollercoaster going slowly up a hill before it gets ready to go 100 mph down the other side.

I don't understand why comedians, especially in this case, don't use the power of crowd intimidation more often - "all the rest of y'all who paid money to hear this and wanna hear it better get these couple of dumbasses to shut up." Or simply have the fuckers removed. I've also never understood people who pay to go to concerts and talk the whole time, but there's tons who do.

Akbar and Jeff. http://spf.fotolog.com/photo/47/16/25/dioni95/1244972796520_f.jpg

I love Zach Lowe's stuff. I think Rembert Browne's turned a corner with that "Rembert Explains America" series - it's not all been good, but some of it's been fantastic. I really enjoy odd things from time to time, like the profile of a rapper I've never heard of before, Action Bronson. Hey, it's free reading on the Internet - my expectations are low, so they're met. And I may be the only human on earth who likes Bill Simmons.

Go for it - the world could use a few more podcasts.

He strikes me as one of those psuedo-intellectual types who would do their English master's thesis on pro wrestling. But I think Grantland would rather have someone who doesn't really know a lot but writes it "well" as opposed to someone who knows what they're talking about but isn't a great writer (Meltzer, for example).

Ah, so many entertainment choices in our busy, busy lives - WWE or "Lizard Lick Towing."

Man, Valiant was the GLUE of that midcard. But I wonder why they paired him up with someone as charisma-less as Paul Jones when there had to be better choices out there (in terms of managers) to be his antagonist. Paul Jones' story in the Mid-Atlantic documentary extras about his turn on Ricky Steamboat is one of the single greatest things ever, though.

Why would the new administration not approve of Cabana as champ? "The Shiek" put in a higher bid?

I was listening to a bit of that David Shoemaker guy - The Masked Man - on Bill Simmons' podcast, and I started wondering if Simmons ever approached Meltzer to write about wrestling for Grantland. Meltzer did a few MMA pieces for Grantland - and they haven't really covered it since he quit doing so. I wonder if he was offered a spot writing about wrestling but turned it down for fear it would bastardize the newsletter. Simmons was asking Shoemaker about the timeline of Cena's injury, and I thought "shit, anyone who even reads wrestlingobserver.com knew Cena was gonna have to take some serious time off after SummerSlam," and Shoemaker didn't really have a clue. I just figure if you're gonna run wrestling coverage on a big, Disney-owned website like Grantland, you'd wanna hire the best writer possible to be writing about it, and Meltzer definitely knows the business inside and out.

IF NJPW produced a show in English for Singapore, would there be a cable channel in the U.S. willing to put it on for free for whatever rating it would probably do? I thought G-4 would be perfect, but G-4's not going to be around for much longer.

I watched the AM Raw last night, and boy, is Bryan over with the live crowd. They went nuts for him in that opening segment with Steph, just nuts. I think Bryan needs some kind of short-term help, though: Basically it's him vs. "the Corporation," which consists of Orton, HHH, Vince, Stephanie, Brad Maddox and the Shield. So it's technically 8 on 1, including the owners of the company and the general manager. If he overcomes those odds without a little help, it seems almost too superhuman. Someone or ones should step up and say "we've got your back," and the best candidates would be Big Show-Mark Henry. They don't have to form a lasting alliance, just a "common good"-type thing.

Is that the Black Keys singing the music for that Red House Furniture ad? Here's a local ad from my neck of the woods, perfect for this forum:

That's probably why I like him then. I haven't seen much of him, but I think he's really good with promos.

Magnum's gonna give Tully a lovely pearl necklace.

It's been harder to cheer for Walt lately, but after Hank's sad treatment of Skyler in the diner and then sending in Marie to do his dirty work, I found myself saying "fuck Hank, I hope Walt wriggles out of this." Not that he will...