Day: August 21, 2007

Joe Versus The World – 62: Justin Shapiro [SummerSlam, Part 2]

Justin Shapiro is back for part 2 of our Summerslam retrospective, covering 1998-2007. We recap some tremendous shows, plus death stalks Earl Hebner, boneheaded match ratings, l-u-g-u-b-r-i-o-u-s, Tazz: Beyond The Glory, Pure Sports Build, shows that may or may not have happened, Diva Dodgeball: where are they now?, profusely beaten babyfaces, the haunting of Randy … Continue reading “Joe Versus The World – 62: Justin Shapiro [SummerSlam, Part 2]”

Justin Shapiro is back for part 2 of our Summerslam retrospective, covering 1998-2007. We recap some tremendous shows, plus death stalks Earl Hebner, boneheaded match ratings, l-u-g-u-b-r-i-o-u-s, Tazz: Beyond The Glory, Pure Sports Build, shows that may or may not have happened, Diva Dodgeball: where are they now?, profusely beaten babyfaces, the haunting of Randy Orton, GrandpaTista, is Triple H an Other?, and the Summerslam Jam! Spend an hour at the biggest party of the summer, sponsored by Power Wheels

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If you missed it, you can download the first half of this show here

Justin’s been on talking about WWE previously: a two part retrospective of WM, 2006 year in review in WWE, US wrestlers nominated for WON HOF in 2006, June ’06 RAW and ROH and general WWE talk in April ’06. Justin’s movie reviews of the Marine and the Condemned are good as well.

We thank Justin for coming on again.

Please visit http://www.joeversustheworld.com for an index of old episodes. If you use a non-iTunes podcatcher, check out http://feeds.feedburner.com/JoeVersusTheWorld for easy ways to add the show to My Yahoo, Google and a half dozen other places.

If you’ve got any feedback on this show or any other, we’d love to hear it. Either leave a comment below, or contact Joe at joegagne AT charter DOT net. Thanks for listening – if you enjoyed a show, we’d quite appreciated if you told your friends, or at least told us!

We’ll see you for the finale – soon!

You can download any of our previous editions below. Right click and save them to your computer to take a listen.

Previous editions:
62: Justin Shapiro [SummerSlam, Part 2] (08/15)
61: Justin Shapiro [SummerSlam, Part 1] (08/15)
60: Naylor and Bix [ICW/IWCCW] (07/27)
59: Mike Quackenbush [CHIKARA] (07/17)
58: Bryan Alvarez [f4w] (07/14)
57: Tanvir Raquib [Rap & Wrestling] (06/21)
56: Rob Naylor [everything] (06/14)
55: Mike Sempervive [japan] (05/30)
54: Matt Foy [ROH] (05/16)
53: Alex Koslov & thecubsfan [lucha] (05/13)
52: Justin Shapiro [the condemned] (05/06)
51: Dr. Keith Lipinski [everything] (05/02)
50: party time (04/22)
49: Rob Naylor & Bix [GWF] (04/11)
48: Dean Rasmussen [everything] (03/31)
47: Phil Schneider [Best of Japan Indies Results and more] (03/26)
46: Justin Shapiro & Matt Foy [WrestleMania, XI-XXIII] (03/22)
45: Justin Shapiro & Matt Foy [WrestleMania, I-X] (03/17)
44: Chris McLeod, Chris Dempsey, Alan Counihan, Kelvin Cabrerra, Llakor, Kid Zombie and Hobbes [potpourri!] (03/14)
43: Rob Naylor [everything] (03/07)
42: Mike Coughlin [MMA] (02/27)
41: Matt Foy [ROH] (02/21)
40: Mike Quackenbush [CHIKARA] (02/14)
39: Tanvir Raquib [WSX] (01/31)
38: Mark Coale [DVDs] (01/24)
37: Christopher Robin Zimmerman [a little bit of everything] (01/17)
36: Dr. Keith [a little bit of everything] (01/06)
35: Matt Foy & Rob Naylor [year in review, ROH] (12/27)
34: Justin Shapiro [year in review, WWE] (12/23)
33: Adam & Mike [year in review, Japan] (12/14)
32: thecubsfan [year in review, lucha] (12/07)
31: Sven Mascarenhas [wrestling video games] (11/27)
30: American Balloon (2) [wrestling in Japan] (11/23)
29: Scott Christ [TNA] (11/21)
28: Tom Feely [survivor series] (11/19)
27: Rob Naylor (2) [indy] (11/12)
26: Matt Foy (4) [ROH] (11/07)
25: Vince Verhei (2) [comebacks] (10/27)
24: Justin Shapiro (4) [the Marine] (10/21)
23: Bryan Alvarez (2) [everything] (10/10)
22: Ken Dreiling and Jesse “J-tron” Irwin [IWA-MS TPI] (10/05)
21: Matt Foy [ROH] (09/20)
20: Tanvir Raquib [09/11 RAW] (09/16)
19: Rob Naylor [News and tangents] (09/09)
18: Dean Rasmussen [DVDVR, life] (08/31)
17: Phil Schneider [Best of the 80’s Japan Indies DVD] (08/26)
16: CRZ [being CRZ] (08/17)
15: Justin Shapiro and thecubsfan [WON HOF, US, Mexico] (08/10)
14: Dr. Keith Lipinski and Mike Sempervive [WON HOF, Japan] (08/04)
13: thecubsfan [lucha] (07/24)
12: Matt Foy [ROH] (07/17)
11: Bryan Alvarez [being Bryan Alvarez] (07/12)
10: Mike Coughlin [MMA] (07/01)
9: Dr. Keith Lipinski [Japan, general wackiness] (06/27)
8: Tanvir Raquib [ECW, parallel dimensions] (06/17)
7: American Balloon [his career] (06/10)
6: Justin Shapiro [RAW, ROH] (06/03)
5: Albert Ching [Judgement Day, ECW] (05/28)
4: Vince Verhei [everything] (05/21)
3: Matt Foy [ROH] (05/14)
Bonus: Hogan Knows Best recap (05/08)
2: Justin Shapiro [WWE] (04/29)
1: thecubsfan [lucha] (04/22)

Game 123: Cardinals 6 – Cubs 4

Cubs 63-60, 0/3 Cardinals 59-62, 3/6 POTG: RF Daryle Wad (HR, 2B, H, R, RBI) Runner Up: 1B D Lee (2 H, HR, BB), SS Ryan Theriot (2 H, 2B, R) My eyes have seen the glory! The finish line is just a Save button away. I can tell you for sure, this will be … Continue reading “Game 123: Cardinals 6 – Cubs 4”

Cubs 63-60, 0/3
Cardinals 59-62, 3/6

POTG: RF Daryle Wad (HR, 2B, H, R, RBI)
Runner Up: 1B D Lee (2 H, HR, BB), SS Ryan Theriot (2 H, 2B, R)

My eyes have seen the glory! The finish line is just a Save button away. I can tell you for sure, this will be the last one I do tonight, because I think the Giants game will finish tomorrow.

I really hate getting behind on these. This time, it really got to be a mess because I was already behind, and then things broke loose. I don’t know if I’ve ever posted an explanation of last weekend’s down time, and I don’t know if it’s really that interesting, but neither was this game.

My version of the story is MY movable type software was breaking everyone on this server’s site. I found this semi-insane, because I don’t think my blogs get that much traffic. As best as I can figure, the actual problem isn’t people visiting the site or leaving the comments, it’s a massive amount of spam bots trying to post comments. The spam filtering software is good enough that very few actually seem to get thru – though there’s been some earlier this week, if you were looking – but the spam filter also sucks up some CPU each time runs. And it was running a heck of a lot, and so nothing else on the server was.

As a result, they – my hosting company – wanted to move this site to a higher priced plan, where it’d be less likely to take other sites down with them. I had talked to them about combining the server space for this site with the server space for the luchawiki – which had earlier ran into the same exact CPU usage problems, but wasn’t come close to hitting it’s bandwidth or space limits – and they said they could do it. But at the same time, they shut down my movable type, so it’d stop killing the servers.

So I waited for them to move, and waited, and got some mostly plain HTML updates on the CMLL Blog just to post the news, but really did little else with the site because I didn’t want something to be lost in the move. And I waited, and asked about the move, and got no response, so I e-mailed again, and no response. Still haven’t gotten a response, actually.

I wasn’t totally waiting and doing nothing. I did do a fair bit of research, trying to figure out the right google words which would lead me to other people who were having this problem. (There had to be other people, I’m not that unique.) I eventually found a software plugin called AutoBan, which blocks the IPs of spammers from even being able to see your site. They all get redirected to a dummy page (so dummy, there’s not actually a page at this point) and can’t even look at the blog to find the comments they’re not allowed to use. Since I had nothing else to do, and since I knew how to do it, I installed the plug in, and slowly turned MovableType back on. That’s why I had the entries back up, but no comments for a while, just to be sure there wasn’t a more basic problem. Things seemed to go okay, so I turned the comments on, and waited for disaster. It never came. The comments were never supposed to be down for as long as they were on this blog, but a check box in the new version just didn’t work, and it took me a while to figure it out.

What I’m left with right now is a site that seems to be working – I’ve upgraded to 4.0 with Autoban, and it seems to be working better than it had been on the previous version – but I have no idea if everything might get deactivated again. I still haven’t heard from my server company, and I’m not going to go out of my way to talk them, because it’d be unprecedented to get good news out of one of them. I’m not too worried about something happening to the site, because I know how to make do, but I wish I could worry less about getting and keeping everything working, and come up with more ideas of stuff to do.

I know this was a non-baseball and completely frivolous digression, but if Ted Lilly had thrown a little better, maybe I’d be talking about the game. I will say, if I was a Cardinals fan and I saw Rick Ankiel throw a perfect strike to third base, I would’ve been thrilled and in agony at the same time.

NOT GAME 123: Cubs 0 – Cardinals 0

Yea, I think I’ll pass on 9 innings of the Sunday night crew. GOOD THING ABOUT THE GAME GETTING RAINED OUT – Z totally would’ve wanted to come back in after the delay. The odds of that leading to his arm blowing out just after his contract got signed seem good BAD THING ABOUT THE … Continue reading “NOT GAME 123: Cubs 0 – Cardinals 0”

Yea, I think I’ll pass on 9 innings of the Sunday night crew.

GOOD THING ABOUT THE GAME GETTING RAINED OUT
– Z totally would’ve wanted to come back in after the delay. The odds of that leading to his arm blowing out just after his contract got signed seem good

BAD THING ABOUT THE GAME GETTING RAINED OUT
– These double headers are going to start adding up…and I have no clue who’d be the #6 starter for the team right now. Gallagher’s got shelled, and no one else is close.

Game 122: Cubs 5 – Cardinals 3

Cardinals 58-62, -4.0 Cubs 63-59, +0.5 POTG: RF Daryle Ward (Grand Slam) Runner Up: 1B Derek Lee (3 H, 2B, R, RBI), RP Carlos Marmol (1.1 IP, BB, K) So, I’m sitting at the car dealership, waiting for my car to get serviced. Patiently listening to the sad stories about my filters and such, about … Continue reading “Game 122: Cubs 5 – Cardinals 3”

Cardinals 58-62, -4.0
Cubs 63-59, +0.5

POTG: RF Daryle Ward (Grand Slam)
Runner Up: 1B Derek Lee (3 H, 2B, R, RBI), RP Carlos Marmol (1.1 IP, BB, K)

So, I’m sitting at the car dealership, waiting for my car to get serviced. Patiently listening to the sad stories about my filters and such, about a half hour before this one’s supposed to get started. I’m not worried about waiting a while for service, because I’ve seen the sky on this day and know there’s going to be some delay. (As usual with the way these things go, it rains heavy on my way to the dealership and after I leave, but it’s just a soft drizzle while I’m there.) Sure enough, I’m still there at gametime, but Fox is showing Yankee Stadium and I just keep listening to my iPod and thumbing thru the SI College Preview (oddly not reading any of the college stuff.)

I get a call. From a friend who lives no more than 15 walking minutes from Wrigley. Asking me why Fox is showing Yankee Stadium. I request he look out a window. In his defense, he had spent the morning downtown, working, so he didn’t know exactly how bad it was, but it was already a dumb conversation. At some point later, he was wondering why Ward was in the lineup today. “Power”, I told him.

So what I’m saying is the Grand Slam made my weekend, right there.

At some point, they’re going to have stop babying Sean Marshall. It is a pennant chase, he’s only thrown 125 IPs this year, you’ve got get more than 70 pitches and five innings out of him. It’s not as bad as a disaster start, because Marshall put them in position to win, but any day where you have to get 4 innings out of your bullpen is not a good day. Luckily, it worked out that they were going to get a day of rest, and maybe Lou and company just figure every Z start is going to be a day of rest for the bullpen.

Game 121: Cubs 2 – Cardinals 1

Game 121: Cubs 2 – Cardinals 1 Cardinals 58-61, -3.0 Cubs 62-59, +0.5 POTG: SP Rich Hill (7 IP, 3 H, ER, 2 BB, 7 K, W [7/13]) Runner Up: CF/RF Jacque Jones (2 R HR, SB), SS Ryan Theriot (2 H, R) A half game lead. Pretty awesome. The great thing about Rich Hill … Continue reading “Game 121: Cubs 2 – Cardinals 1”

Game 121: Cubs 2 – Cardinals 1

Cardinals 58-61, -3.0
Cubs 62-59, +0.5

POTG: SP Rich Hill (7 IP, 3 H, ER, 2 BB, 7 K, W [7/13])
Runner Up: CF/RF Jacque Jones (2 R HR, SB), SS Ryan Theriot (2 H, R)

A half game lead. Pretty awesome.

The great thing about Rich Hill is he’s very tough to beat when he’s getting the curve over for strikes and the wind is blowing it (10 MPH at the start of the game), and that’s exactly the Rich Hill the Cubs got here. It’s the usual fly ball out performance, but he didn’t walk himself into trouble (only 2 on the day) and he just didn’t give up that many hits. The only run was, naturally, on a home run, and there were no runners to hurt him. Meanwhile, the Cubs only got one burst off offense, but it came at exactly the right time.

I don’t think I got to see any of this game, as I was either traveling or already there and busy. I would’ve really liked to, just to see for myself if it was the conditions or Rich making the difference. The Cubs need to get a little hotter at this point if they want any comfort the rest of the season, and Rich getting it together like he did down the stretch in 2006 would surely help.

Game 120: Cubs 12 – Reds 4

Cubs 61-59, -0.5 Reds 52-98, -9.5 POTG: 2B/RF Mark DeRosa (5 H, 2B, 4 RBI, 2 R) Runner Up: SS Ryan Theriot (3 H, 3 R, 2 RBI, BB, 2 2B), 3B A Ram (4 H, 2 R, 2 RBI, 2 2B), LF Matt Murton (2 H, R), CF Jacque Jones (4 H, 2 2B, … Continue reading “Game 120: Cubs 12 – Reds 4”

Cubs 61-59, -0.5
Reds 52-98, -9.5

POTG: 2B/RF Mark DeRosa (5 H, 2B, 4 RBI, 2 R)
Runner Up: SS Ryan Theriot (3 H, 3 R, 2 RBI, BB, 2 2B), 3B A Ram (4 H, 2 R, 2 RBI, 2 2B), LF Matt Murton (2 H, R), CF Jacque Jones (4 H, 2 2B, R)

On July 2nd, just 39 games ago, Jacque was hitting .227. It wasn’t really till the 4 hit game against the Giants on the 19th that he started to take off – his average jumped 17 points today (though he gave back some of it the next couple weeks.) Some of his improvement is just plain because he’s played so much, and wouldn’t still be playing if Felix was hitting in the majors. But, no one was going to knock Jacque out of the lineup over the last ten days. He was at 247 after the first game of the Houston series, and ended up at 276 for the season by the end of this one. It took a 18 for 35 streak, but Jacque Jones is now hitting about the same Jacque Jones is hitting every year.

It’s funny how the Cubs started the season thinking Theriot was the super sub and DeRosa was the guy who playing the same position every day, and it’s gotten completely switched, but it’s also great how they’ve both been able to handle it and the Cubs have been able to get them both in the lineup at the same time. DeRosa’s been better than I thought he’d be at this point. The deal’s not over, but it’s looking good so far.

I was kinda annoyed with Marquis during the game, because he gave up the 4 run lead just as quick as they got it. He did shut the Reds down from that point on, keeping the Cubs in the game instead of going nuclear and making it unwinnable, and that was at least nice of him. It was just a matter of the Cubs running into the right reliever.

Nice to see Good Scott Eyre and Okay Ryan Dempster make appearances.