Lucha Rosters

If you don’t normally check out the CMLLBlog, you’re missing the new rosters I’ve set up: AAA CMLL IWRG Main page here. I discuss this project over here.

If you don’t normally check out the CMLLBlog, you’re missing the new rosters I’ve set up:

AAA
CMLL
IWRG

Main page here. I discuss this project over here.

07/30 Velocity

Here. It’s not going to work out for Frankie if he’s been around for three weeks and they still haven’t felt it neccesary to put him on SmackDown. It could still go okay – I think he probably wouldn’t be on TV at all if they didn’t release all those guys and needed people to … Continue reading “07/30 Velocity”

Here.

It’s not going to work out for Frankie if he’s been around for three weeks and they still haven’t felt it neccesary to put him on SmackDown. It could still go okay – I think he probably wouldn’t be on TV at all if they didn’t release all those guys and needed people to fill time with or without an idea for them – but there’s not a good track record for guys who get entrenched on Velocity quick.

User Note

To: The Original Donald It’s not working out. I don’t think it’ll ever work out. Please stop posting in the comments, now. Thanks.

To: The Original Donald

It’s not working out. I don’t think it’ll ever work out.

Please stop posting in the comments, now.

Thanks.

Velocity 07/23 and Heat 07/25

Velocity and Heat. And I’ve got nothing to say about them. The second best money I spent this weekend was $0.50 on a NES Super Mario/Duck Hunt cartridge, still in it’s original package. It’s so cool to have, even though I have no idea what I’m actually going to do with it, and think I … Continue reading “Velocity 07/23 and Heat 07/25”

Velocity and Heat. And I’ve got nothing to say about them.

The second best money I spent this weekend was $0.50 on a NES Super Mario/Duck Hunt cartridge, still in it’s original package. It’s so cool to have, even though I have no idea what I’m actually going to do with it, and think I might just have the Mario/Duck Hunt/power pad game one somewhere.

Actually, I’m not sure I ended up paying for that. Huh. Whatever.

NWA Midwest notes: For the lack of an actual recap, there’s a thread where we’re pointing out the overbooking while giving credit to the wrestlers (Delirious/Sydal was MOTN, easily)

Stuff which was too trivial to post there.

– I got lost! Can you believe it? Crazy. Somehow I missed Bartlett Road, though I still can’t figure out how. And then parking was weird; Streamwood’s parking lot is small in front, there’s one in the back (which was full and I couldn’t figure if it was staff only, with all the wrestlers hanging there), and there seemed to be quasi-legal parking across the street at the church, but that means you’re crossing a four lane road with no particular crosswalk or lights at night. I didn’t die, so I guess it’s all good.

Anyway, the timing ended up perfect; I showed up after 7, but just enough before the show that I didn’t quite get bored before they actually started.

– So I have the forethought to grab my pad of paper, and even a pen despite having like six in my car – and then didn’t actually bring a pen inside. At least it saved me from looking a dork, although my awesome black Nebraska cap obviously prevents that.

– I didn’t seek out jtron, because I have a thing about bugging people when they’re working (which is more a thing about people not leaving me alone, but that’s a digression), and then when I saw him during intermission, it occurred to me I was really hot and had nothing in particular to say, and that didn’t work out so well at ROH.

But then he came over later and we discussed the goofy finishes, ignorant what was still to come, and it worked out well. I think limiting it to sixty seconds was the key.

– hot. so hot.

– It’s arguable, sure, but to me, the best bad crowd reaction on the night was “the zero people cheering, one guy booing” on the hype for NWA-TNA’s next PPV – still hasn’t gotten old to me. The “three people clap, one guy booing” for the annoucement of Shane Douglas was special too.

– Matt Longtime really really REALLY wants to be Christian when he grows up. There are worse role models, but it’s almost scary.

Like I said in the post, I’m probably skipping the next show (and hoping there’s a good lucha show – get Dr. Wagner before he’s unmasked!), but I have so low expectations for indy booking (or booking in general, I guess) that a whole bunch of screwjobs didn’t sour me on the whole show. It did it for other people, though.

Random :

* iTunes adding Podcast is a huge boon for people like me who knew about podcasts but aren’t interested in downloading a specific program to get things they may or may not listen to. (With Mr. Tony’s vaction, I found the time to listen.)

* This week, I’m going to add a feature to CMLL section, which hopefully will be neat for even nonlucha people. Of course, it’s like the third deadline I’ve set, even with the expectation of only doing it as a beta, because I keep thinking of better ways to do things, but it

brain dump

Okay, so I post a Dukes Of Hazzard thing, figuring it’s an easy way to get comments, and I get one (sorta) reply. But my off the top of head rant (after which the Cubs have lost every game) gets a blizzard of comments. I dunno. Though I guess it’s all ruined by turning into … Continue reading “brain dump”

Okay, so I post a Dukes Of Hazzard thing, figuring it’s an easy way to get comments, and I get one (sorta) reply. But my off the top of head rant (after which the Cubs have lost every game) gets a blizzard of comments. I dunno.

Though I guess it’s all ruined by turning into a meeting of the Mets Fan Club.

It seems like I’m not doing as much with the site of late. There are reasons. These are some.

– I got NCAA 2006 and have been playing it quite a bit. I haven’t gotten an NCAA game before. It’s okay. Race for a Heisman will get better in future years, but needed to be better in version one than what I’m getting. Hold no hope for the Madden (or other EA) comparable being more than a dumbed down Dynasty/Career mode.

– Part of it’s because I’m working in bursts on web scripts to make my life easier and add features, but I’m kinda learning quite a bit as I go which makes it crazy. There’s a lot of points when I’m at a loss at exactly how to get the computer to do what I want it to do, and the only real way I can figure it out is by stepping away from the computer for a while. And most of those times, I just end up doing something else.

– I got a lot of little ideas of stuff to post, feel like they need to be more developed and more provable to be on this page, and don’t have the time or energy to do it.

This happens a lot. Inside my head, in idle moments, my brain examines and challenges the one thought or one paragraph I think might be intersting, repeating, fine tuning, and generally driving me crazy until I’m able to forget it or I just write it out.

I find myself caught between the personal notebook of half-baked ideas and useless information this site is and should be, and a semi-professional credible place I aspire to. I know the latter is a bad idea for something called thecubsfan.com, but I’m always doubting if this is good enough.

Former wins out. Idea dump time; watch me write the one paragraph I had in mind, and then find a thousand words to go with it.


Because it’s being portrayed as a shoot bit, everyone’s comparing Matt Hardy to Brian Pillman, right? And the first thing they say after that is “Matt Hardy’s no Brian Pillman!”

At last check, the great Brian Pillman “I Quit, Bookerman” angle resulted in little significant business for WCW, ECW or WWF. Brian Pillman didn’t become any more of a star; Brian Pillman lived his gimmick, crashed his car ruining the biggest chance of his career, and ended up dead too soon.

Yea, Matt Hardy is no Brian Pillman. Thank God, wouldn’t want him to be.

(And now comes the negative mail)

I don’t think Matt’s going to draw at all; maybe for ROH, but unless they get the DVDs turned out before the bloom completely comes off, it won’t mean a thing. (I figure they were booing him not because they think this is all disingenuous, but because a guy who’s not going to be around long and isn’t Lyger beat a cornerstone. Blame Gabe.) His match with Edge at SummerSlam will be treated like a midcard match and mean exactly that. There’s a decent shot he may end up right where he left off on the B-Shows (though I obviously wouldn’t have any problem with that), so long term, this is probably just a blip.

I think Pillman is incorrectly credited as an innovator when his real skill was manipulation. The shoot/work stuff would’ve taken place regardless – I don’t think the Kliq looked to him before doing the bit in MSG – and the Anything Can Happen atmosphere was much more a byproduct of the two Monday Night Shows. Where Pillman shined is convincing everyone how important and how valuable he was; even though he was likely on the downside of his peak before the injury (certainly physically, debatable in other areas), he worked a huge contract out of making everyone believe he was crazy. There’s plenty of people who are genuinely insane who couldn’t do something like that, but Pillman made people believe he was without limits.

Healthy Pillman was/is a better worker than Matt, but I chalk that to the WWE system. Midcarders aren’t going to be complete wrestlers who can consistently work 10-15-20 minute matches, because they’ll get maybe 5 chances to do it once a year, and only have a chance to do it in house style. It’s only going to be the guys who get boosted early and take to it who become well rounded, and that’s not Matt’s (or Edge’s) path.

I’m partial here and it’s skewing my take, I know. I enjoyed B-Show Matt and V1 Matt, didn’t need internet message boards to tell me he was hilariously off (“raindrop downfall” took care of that), and appreciated his effort in less than meaningful situations. I’ve always been very partial to guys who appear to be putting in more than they’ve got a chance to get out, and Matt’s in that group.

For me, it doesn’t have to be Pillman for it to be worthwhile; give me someone I actually already care about and I’ll be wiling to suspend disbelief. I realize I’m probably in a very small minority on this whole issue, but I thought I should say something.


Lesson learned from the cuts: There’s such thing as tenured status in the WWE, and there’s nothing more valuable. Undercards who went to WCW or ECW aren’t ever achieving it. If you’re a good WWE employee who was around during peak days, you’ll have it when you need it.

Unless you’re a chick. They need to just save their money.


The squeeze play is vastly underrated and completely underused in close and late situations. The only people who seem to run it are the Cardinals (maybe the White Sox?), and their ability to do it was the difference tonight. Which sucks.


I hate it when my threads are hijacked and 90% of the replies completely miss my point.

But whatever. Had to try, tried.

The secondary reason I write for OO right now is so I have ample opportunity to giggle at recent Quooteables sidebar on the main page, nearly a year old and never ever to be updated. I mean, it’s funny when the hilariously out of date stuff isn’t mine.


As usual, I’m screwing around 3 hours before the deadline for OO’s picks, with zero words written and desire to write zero more. As a way to entertain me, which is currently the only point of my text, I was thinking of writing my reasoning in rhyming couplets or maybe limericks. I opted out of it when I realized it would require more thought for something I’ve never gotten a slice of feedback on and figure no one reads, (AND I wanted to leave the bad rhyming to the professionals.)

Imagine my surprise when I read the preview, and notice Matt Hocking did his picks in rhyme, among other methods. Creepy. Another person did it haiku, too. Good thing I got apathetic, or that’d been really awkward.

I’m calling “writing pick in English, translating to Spanish, translating back to English” for next month.

By the way, I ended up entertaining me (and likely only me) with the Hassan/Undertaker analysis. That was fun.

Not as much fun is how I now realize I’ve dropped the same speech on Christian two months in a row. And I forget to do the extras: the Heat match will be Frankie Kazarian versus Scotty, I bet. I have a Three Match Rule, but if I broke it and told you my opinion about him now, it’d be “I have a long list of guys who were let go who I like better and probable are as good or better marketable than him”.

The other thing is Rick and I make exactly the same point about the Rey/Eddie stip, and then go completely opposite on the better SummerSlam Batista opponent: Batista vs Hassan.


This is another thing I’m probably a 180 on from the rest of the world, and probably wrong too, but, I want to be more into hockey. Not hardcore – knowing everyone and their minor leaguers and their moms – but have a rooting interest and a team.

Bill Wirtz and the rest of his family are free to run their business however they want, because it’s their money. The way they’ve run it, I’m opposed to it and probably wouldn’t want to be a Blackhawks fan if they put all the games on free TV tomorrow and played ten straight years of awesome hockey. I’m just done with them. And while the Wolves are a nice novelty and I root for them to outdraw the Hawks at every chance, they’re still a minor league team who exist on the exterior of the media; following them would mean being that hardcore fan I’m not interested in being.

I’m looking to adopt an NHL team. Or they could adopt me, whatever. I just want a team I can root for and enjoy.

I remember, not long ago, some fan “filed for free agency” from his old baseball team, sent letters to all the major league teams asking them to recruit him, and complained about those who didn’t bend over backwards for a nutcase.

This is not that situation. I certainly wouldn’t mind free stuff by any NHL team who happens to somehow stumble upon this page, but I’m not deciding this based on the neatest thing I can swindle. I want a team I like, and then I’ll go buy the stuff myself.

These are the abilities I’m looking for in a team

– must play an exciting style; I don’t want a boring trap game or whatever, I want something I can be impressed with on the surface, without having to appreciate the intricate of doing things that are borderline illegal but on the right side of the border or whatever. It doesn’t even matter if they’re fundamentally good, because I don’t really don’t know enough about fundamentals to appreciate them if they had them anyway
– a top team isn’t necessary, but being a good team is. Extra points for a team on the way up where I’d be getting a good seat on the bandwagon.
– identifiable player I can root for. Again, it doesn’t even have to be the top player on the team, but someone who’s cool and likeable, won’t make me feel stupid for buying their jersey, and might provide a highlight or two a game. I think I’m biased against goalies.
– my own ability to see the team on television at least once a month. If I’m just getting 30 seconds on Sportscenter and scanning the local paper’s sports section to follow, it doesn’t really feel like I’m a fan of an actual team. This is really hard to determine until they get the TV deal settled, but I think this works against Canada teams
– minor stuff like “good color combination for a jersey, team is not named ‘Blue Jackets’, frequency of handing the Blackhawks their lunch” can help the decision, too. There’s probably other good stuff I’m neglecting.

So. Ideas? Suggestions?


It’s going to be upper 90s all weekend.

A friend has been trying to talk me into going to Lollapalooza – they’re holding it in Chicago, in Grant Park, for the two people who don’t know but need me to tell them – since the NBA was in the regular season (too bad there’s no off season this year.) At the time, he wasn’t sure if he had enough people for tickets bought by his group, and while they figured it out later, he was trying to get me to go. Every since I realized what the heat was gonna be like, I’m so glad I passed.

It’s a pretty nice lineup for something that was thrown together like a month ago, with a lot of nice scheduling so things I like aren’t on at the same time. (Not perfect – though I think I’d be at the Digable Planets show and be enjoying the emptiness.) I may enjoy an illegal recording of many of the performances, if such a thing becomes possible

But it’s going to be horrible conditions. It’s been hot the last few days, it’ll be bad on Saturday and there’s a Heat Emergency warning out for Sunday. According to the Tribune story (but conflicting with what they have on the lollapalooza website), they’re not letting people bring in outside drinks, which seems unreasonable given the conditions and the ticket price. I was trying to convince my friend to at least bring an umbrella, because any shade in the park will quickly be occupied.

So many hours out in the sun. People who go are going to be completely drained, and ten pounds lighter.

Since I’m not doing the concert, and I’m passing on the lucha show, I’ve been thinking about going to the NWA Midwest show. I figured out it’s only a half hour away, and most of the trip is one I make regularly, but I don’t know most of the undercard people and I’m not sure I’ll get motivated enough to, you know, leave the house on a day I’m not being paid to.


I think people might know this? Or not? Or am I supposed to say? I dunno. It’s your reward for making it this far.

Fate, and Joe being way too willing to see Indiana Indy Wrestling, will cause the first three person meeting of thecubsfan.com-type people at IWA-MS’ TPI shows in September. Scott there, Joe’s coming in, and I should be there at least one day if I don’t screw around.

Which means, if we all die in a bomb or something, the site goes to Tanvir. (Sorry Albert.)

Wild Card

Jody Gerut for Jason Dubios is good, I guess, if Jerry breaks his arm in the first half of a doubleheader and we need someone to play there for 15-ish innings. But otherwise, Gerut taking Greive’s spot doesn’t amount too much with the bench and the left field status quo. Anyway, the way I’ve got … Continue reading “Wild Card”

Jody Gerut for Jason Dubios is good, I guess, if Jerry breaks his arm in the first half of a doubleheader and we need someone to play there for 15-ish innings. But otherwise, Gerut taking Greive’s spot doesn’t amount too much with the bench and the left field status quo.

Anyway, the way I’ve got this figured, we’ve got this made:

The Braves are the Braves are the Braves. I’m not even considering them as the Wild Card leader, because they’ll end winning the NL East and it won’t matter. It’d be nice if we passed them, but since we’re not really competing with them, it doesn’t matter. They’ll get in the playoffs like always, we’ll face them like always (sorta) and we’ll probably beat them. Whatever, we’ll deal with it October.

We’ve got this as the race, as I type:

NAT —
PHI 5.0
CUB 5.5
HOU 6.5
MET 6.5
FLA 7.5

We’re not going to include the Diamondbacks and Brewers because I only stoop so low.

I guess we’re going to look back at these Marlins, ten years from now, as a team where everything fell in place just right for one year, and then never again, or at least never again at the same time. Unless they catch fire before they finally do the Burnett deal (they are playing the Diamondbacks, so maybe!), they don’t plan on being in the race so forget them.

Mets should be happy to be here. They won’t be. The fools! They’re not going anywhere this year, but we can count on them to make a stupid deal pretending like they’re going somewhere. I look forward to it.

Astros worry me because they pulled this same exact stunt last year, spending the first half sucking it up and coming back to kill us all. This time, though, the Royals have no one to offer them and I don’t believe they’re going to sustain the run scoring needed to make such a run. They’ll get closer and be annoying – I’m expecting both teams to still matter for my 09/24 ticket – but they’re not doing the same comeback twice in a row.

Hey, it’s us. I’ll get back to us. But we’re good.

If there’s anything the Phillies have proved over the last few years, it’s that they’re underachievers who never manage to put a run together when they need it. They’re a team with B+ promise but never deliver. They’re matching the Cubs about win for win right now, but what’s more likely: Phillies win strong in September or Phillies fade in September? Choke.

So it all comes down to the Nationals. Beneath their fancy new name and new city and stadium with fans actually in it, they’re still the Expos. The Expos! The Expos were competitive for five minutes in the last five years, in which they managed to trade for Cliff Floyd and trade away Cliff Floyd. That’s it. If I’m supposed to be impressed or fooled by calling them the ‘Nationals’ instead of the Expos, they need to think again! I can’t be scared of the Expos. The only worry I have is if they’ll hit the Cubs on their way back down to reality.

Take a look: after nearly completely wasting the first half and a unbelievable season by Derrek Lee, the Cubs are in range of taking the Wild Card. There are five teams, but there’s no one even the least bit scary. We can beat all these guys!

The Wild Card is still the Cubs for the taking. No problem.

Velocity 07/14 and Heat 07/15

Velocity: Regal vs Benoit is worth tracking down. Unless the parts they cut out were quite lesser than everything else, the full version would be pretty neat. Heat: Are they turning Tomko face? Huh.

Velocity: Regal vs Benoit is worth tracking down. Unless the parts they cut out were quite lesser than everything else, the full version would be pretty neat.

Heat: Are they turning Tomko face? Huh.

ROH 07/15

Joe caught the ROH’s show in Woodbridge, CT, featuring the debut of Matt Hardy. I thought everything worked on some level tonight, from the matches to the booking to the promos. Definitely snag this one when it comes out on tape/DVD.

Joe caught the ROH’s show in Woodbridge, CT, featuring the debut of Matt Hardy.

I thought everything worked on some level tonight, from the matches to the booking to the promos. Definitely snag this one when it comes out on tape/DVD.

I may be crazy but I ain’t dumb

Cooter has a low opinion of the upcoming Dukes of Hazzard movie. “Basically, they trashed our show,” said Jones, who now lives in the mountains of Washington, Va. “It’s one thing to do whatever movie they want to do, but to take a classic family show and do that is like taking “I Love Lucy” … Continue reading I may be crazy but I ain’t dumb

Cooter has a low opinion of the upcoming Dukes of Hazzard movie.

“Basically, they trashed our show,” said Jones, who now lives in the mountains of Washington, Va. “It’s one thing to do whatever movie they want to do, but to take a classic family show and do that is like taking “I Love Lucy” and making her a crackhead or something.

(article @ http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050713/ap_en_tv/dukes_of_hazzard_complaint via TVTattle)

His full opinion, which doesn’t actually include that quote, is at his website.