Day: June 8, 2004

no no anything but that

Actual WWE.com headline: New better quality video: Watch Tyson Tomko make his PPV debut. This is totally wrong; they need to force everyone down to 28.8bpps video for Tomko and hope the blocky video hides his kicks. Elsewhere, I’m betting the back story on why the JBL apology was pulled is far more interesting than … Continue reading “no no anything but that”

Actual WWE.com headline: New better quality video: Watch Tyson Tomko make his PPV debut. This is totally wrong; they need to force everyone down to 28.8bpps video for Tomko and hope the blocky video hides his kicks.

Elsewhere, I’m betting the back story on why the JBL apology was pulled is far more interesting than what he was apologizing for. Assuming it’s not just a goof up.

Justin: I still have it on TiVo, I think. Let me check when I get to my TiVo.

Bad Blood Predictions

Coach over Eugene – Anything could happen in a Coach match, though. Then again, Coach lives to figure out a statistical category he’s good in, and the writers live to end his happiness. La Resistance over Benoit/Edge for the Tag Titles – no sense in having Benoit/Edge win to drop them again Chris Jericho over … Continue reading “Bad Blood Predictions”

  1. Coach over Eugene – Anything could happen in a Coach match, though. Then again, Coach lives to figure out a statistical category he’s good in, and the writers live to end his happiness.
  2. La Resistance over Benoit/Edge for the Tag Titles – no sense in having Benoit/Edge win to drop them again
  3. Chris Jericho over Tyson Tomko – This needs to die and everyone else needs to move on. It’s Scott Steiner/Test of ’04! With better people.
  4. Lita over Trish, Gail and Victoria for the Women’s Title – if this was a top title, thinking would be to keep it on Victoria to continue building her, plus you’ve got lots of heel challengers (Gail, Trish, Molly, even Lita allied with Kane) and no face matchups if a heel wins. Thing is, they typically like the undercard to build drama to the main, and since Kane’s plan is for both he and Lita to have gold on the night, Lita’s got to win first. Everyone complains.
  5. Randy Orton defeats Shelton Benjamin – They’ll probably keep this going for a while, so Shelton doesn’t get the win yet.
  6. Benoit over Kane for the World Title – If the segment ended with La Resistance being announced as the winners instead of Bischoff making a 3 on 2 match, they’d have more to build up Edge/Benoit than Kane/Benoit. So I’m thinking they’re doing Edge/Benoit for the belt.
  7. HHH over HBK – Until the end of RAW, I was thinking they were going to other way. Now, not so much.

I’ll totally change my mind later.

NJ Super J 06/08

Hey, was I all right yesterday? I was! Rocky’s got 7 points now but probably darning his luck to be in the Block where 7 gets you fifth instead of first. You know, how did Curry get in without qualifying but Dragon had to? Block A: 9 points clinches second round, people will likely get … Continue reading “NJ Super J 06/08”

Hey, was I all right yesterday? I was!

Rocky’s got 7 points now but probably darning his luck to be in the Block where 7 gets you fifth instead of first.

You know, how did Curry get in without qualifying but Dragon had to?

Block A: 9 points clinches second round, people will likely get in at 8 and because of the big tie at 7, even that may be good enough. Yes, a 3-3-1 record is possibly enough to get you out of the league stage. Parity sure is something.

  • Kakihara is IN with a win or a tie
  • Kakihara is OUT with a loss and a Samurai win
  • Samurai is IN with a win and one of the other three remaining matches (Kakihara/Inoue, Dragon/Kanemoto, Liger/MA-G-MA) going to a draw
  • Samurai is OUT with a loss, or a tie and a Kakihara win or tie.
  • Taguchi and Inoue are OUT. Still.
  • if Inoue defeats Kakihara and Taguchi draws or defeats Samurai (no one gets past 7)
    • American Dragon is IN with a win, a tie or a loss and MA-G-MA/Liger does not go to a draw
    • American Dragon is OUT with a loss and a MA-G-MA/Liger tie (fixed)
    • Repeat for Kanemoto, and for Liger and MA-G-MA (replace with Dragon/Kanemoto)
  • if Kakihara draws or defeats Inoue or Samurai defeats Taguchi (people get past 7)
    • American Dragon is IN with a win or a tie
    • American Dragon is OUT with a loss
    • Same for Kanemoto, Liger and MA-G-MA

Block B: No change. And not one coming tonight unless they make Curry work.

I should point out Stuart’s under the impression they’ll use the heads up matches as tie breakers, but I’ve been working with the idea they’ll have tiebreaker matches on 06/12. Seeing as the only Junior match scheduled on the show is obviously going to be scrapped (Liger/Kanemoto vs Dragon/Curry, which was probably to build to a match for the titles the foreigners no longer have) and there’s only 5 matches on the show, I think they can fit ’em in.

PREDICTIONS SURE TO GO WRONG
Garuda over Nakajima
Kakihara over Inoue
Taguchi upsets Samurai
Naruse over Curry!

I’m going to really miss having the free Curry match correct on the last few shows.

kill it dead

I saw a newsbit* that said Bruce Pritchard is suggesting they get rid of the Cruiserweight Title. I don’t imagine it’s really of any merit; whenever they’re doing non-serious things with the division and people get a little paranoid, looking for trouble where it may not be. I doubt there’s more truth to it than to stir up some righteous indignation and banner impressions.

That said, I think killing the Cruiserweight Title is a good idea.

There’s too many titles as is, and there’s no sense in having a belt around that’s basically worthless. Belt or not, you could still do the same matches, either increasing the competition around the US Title (ie: more than Cena’s challenger of the month) or the tag titles or any other reason. Chavo Classic can still be Chavo Classic, and Jamie Noble can still wrestle someone on Velocity each week. Nothing much changes, except they don’t have to worry about upsetting people by not doing anything with the Title.

The way I see, there’s differing levels of how you can do this Cruiserweight thing:

1. Defended every month on the PPV, with secondary feuds not directly involving the title
2. Long periods of being an after thought/PPV filler with shorter periods of being a midcard issue
3. Total goofness (the last couple months)

3 is a pointless waste of a belt. 1 isn’t happening in this or any other WWE universe. 2 is what they usually do, and all that does is lead us to 3.

There’s a spot between 1 and 2 that’s a possible level of WWE commitment and worthwhile experience, but is it realistic that they’d ever get to that spot?

I’m sure this discussion has come up before but I dunno, I need a clean break or something. It’s just not working out.

* – wDB linking to it? I don’t remember and I hesitate to bring it up without a source, except I kinda downplayed it as legit so I guess I’m okay