A giant-ass update
All right. When I wake up in the morning, I have to take my brother to the airport so he can go skiing with my uncle in British Columbia out at Whistler, then go home, get my shit together, and take a train to New York City, then take another train to Princeton to chill with Andrew for a couple days. Then, going to Wrestlemania XX on Sunday, and school on Monday. Good times. Anyways, here's a big, beefy update for you guys.
WRESTLING SECTION (If you don't like wrestling, just skip it, bitches)
- I'd like to take this opportunity to comment on how goddamn fucking STUPID Vince McMahon is. He's letting his youngest star, the man who was going to be the center of the WWE for years to come, the ONLY GODDAMN STAR he's managed to create on his own since 2000 or so, just walk out the door after Wrestlemania. Brock Lesnar was the key to the long-term success of the WWE. He was becoming one of their best wrestlers, he was their #1 heel on Smackdown, and he was learning how to talk. He was going to be the best power wrestler of all-time, and now he's suddenly "burnt out" and just wants to walk so he can try and walk on for the NFL? Guess what, Vince? YOU are to blame for this. You gave him too much, too soon. Then, you had Taker humiliate him. You had him run away from Hardcore Holly. HARDCORE HOLLY! You've bitched on his character, and were going to do it again. Brock, you're also a pussy for walking out on millions of guaranteed money and a position that people like Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho, and Booker T have spent their entire lives chasing. It was HANDED to you, Brock. You won the belt six months after debuting, beat every WWE star besides HHH at some point in your run (surprise, surprise), and you didn't deserve it. It's a sign that the WWE doesn't know how to choose its stars, or how to provide some kind of support system for them. But they created this mess, and now they're in VERY deep. A look at the brands shows this nicely. Their current top stars (upper midcard and main eventers) are:
RAW:
The Rock
Mick Foley
Goldberg
HHH
Shawn Michaels
Chris Benoit
Chris Jericho
Kane
Booker T
RVD
Randy Orton
SMACKDOWN:
Brock Lesnar
Eddie Guerrero
Undertaker
Kurt Angle
John Cena
Big Show
Now, let's look at this list. After Wrestlemania, Brock Lesnar, Goldberg, and the Rock are gone. HHH needs to shoot a movie, and Mick Foley won't be a full-time contributor. Shawn Michaels is getting rather old, Undertaker won't stick around long, and Kurt Angle's neck could fall apart at any second. After factoring all of these in, you're left with a very small group of people. A lot of people still on the list need a lot of work to become legit title contenders, but I don't think that's gonna be happening for the RVD's, Booker T's, and Chris Jericho's of the world, so they're out as real title contenders. There's a total lack of new talent at the top. The WWE needs to establish Cena, Orton, and Guerrero as legit main eventers in teh next few months, then start working on a new set. Once they're in place, things will get a BIT better, but they're still gonna need work. We'll see what happens, though.
On to Wrestlemania: My predictions for the show, and my predicted star ratings (out of *****)
Brock Lesnar vs. Goldberg
- With both of these guys walking out, there are two options: A) Go with the old finish of Brock pinning Goldberg cleanly, or B) Have Austin, the special ref, beat the hell out of them both. B) is a bullshit finish, but since Brock and Goldberg are on their way out the door, they might as well make Austin look good. Hopefully it's an entertaining match, but the finish is way up in the air. **1/2, with Goldberg getting carried nicely by Lesnar
Eddie Guerrero vs. Kurt Angle
- This match will own. Angle and Guerrero are about as good as it gets wrestling-wise, and with it being Wrestlemania, there's no way that they don't pull out a beauty here. As for a winner, it's hard to tell. I think I'll take Angle to win by cheating here, but it could go either way. I'll take Angle to help continue the feud, though, since there's no other challenger built up for Eddie on Smackdown right now. ****3/4 in an early contender for Match of the Year with Eddie match from No Way Out against Lesnar.
HHH vs. Chris Benoit vs. Shawn Michaels
- What SHOULD happen? This should be the main event, and Chris Benoit should make HHH tap out cleanly to win the World Heavyweight Title. Benoit should be the face that gets to go over big tonight. What WILL happen? HHH will retain the belt through some screwjob finish, and they'll delay Benoit's title win until Backlash (unless they pull a screwjob there). I'm pulling for Benoit, I think it's gonna be HHH, and god knows what Michaels will do here. Still, should be a pretty good match. I'm guessing about ***1/2
Undertaker vs. Kane
- This match won't be pretty, but it'll probably have the most heat of any match that night, since people are BURSTING to see the Dead Man return. He'll get huge cheers, and hopefully put Kane over (but I just don't see that happening). This would be the win that defines Kane's career, but he won't get it, since Taker needs to look even stronger for his next main event run that nobody wants. I'll say this match is about *1/2, but the heat should make up for it.
Chris Jericho vs. Christian
- I'm looking forward to this one, which could be a show-stealer. Christian needs help in the ring, but hopefully Jericho can help him through this one. I'm rooting for a big heel turn by Trish here to join Christian, but not really expecting it. Still, should be a good match. I'll call ***1/4 with Christian winning, but if both men hit their potential, **** isn't out of the question.
Rock 'n' Sock Connection vs. Evolution
- It's great to see Rocky back, even if it's just for a night. This match won't be anything special workrate-wise, but hopefully it gets the card going at full steam. I think Rock and Mich win this one, but Randy will probably take a singles match against Foley later on (Backlash or Badd Blood) to end/win the feud. Hopefully this one has a lot of energy, because it could be bad otherwise. I'll call **1/2 for this one.
John Cena vs. Big Show
- The most clear-cut match on the card. Cena should and will go over here to become US Champ, and take another step towards the main event (which I'd like to see, since people LOVE his character). I'm not expecting a ton from this match either, but Show has been surprisingly good lately, so maybe he and Cena can cobble together a decent 10 minute match or something. I'll give it **
Cruiserweight Open
- I think they'll probably just have Rey win the title back, or have Chavo cheat to beat Rey. However, I'd have the Cruiser Open bring someone up big. Ultimo and Kidman are both prime candidates to look real good after this match, and I'd go with Ultimo, since Dragon is the fucking man. But odds are it just comes down to Rey and Chavo. I'll pick Chavo to retain, but it's far from definite. Match should be a fun spotfest at about ***
The other four matches (Sable/Torrie vs. Jackie/Stacy, Molly vs. Victoria, Dudleys vs. Booker/RVD vs. La Resistance vs. Jindrak/Cade, and Too Cool vs. WGTT vs. APA vs. Bashams) aren't worth going into detail about. Nothing but filler, really. Still, should be a good show overall.
THE WRESTLING SECTION IS NOW OVER. YOU CAN READ THIS AGAIN, BILL
Well, here's a quick recap of what I did on my spring break:
...
OK, I didn't really do anything. But I'll try and describe it anyways. On Sunday, I took my brother up to New Hampshire so he could ski. I got some work done in the lodge and just did some reading as well (a nice chance to sit down and relax a bit). I dealt with some more banks, played some computer games here at home, watched a lot of TV (which I really don't get a chance to do at college), and generally had a good time. Wasn't the most exciting break, but it was one that was most definitely needed, so I'm glad that I had the chance to chill out a bit. Got my job at the course lined up for summer, which is nice to have taken care of early on.
The one thing of note I did was head back to St. Seb's on Wednesday to say hi to all the teachers I hadn't seen since I graduated in June. It was really nice catching up with some of them and just getting a chance to talk with them. I got to see just about everyone who had taught me (Nunan, Camp, Thomasy, Schwimmer, P. Kittler, and just about everyone else). Ran into a few kids who I don't get to see enough of anymore, which was nice as well. Also, Andy Bartlett was there for the day (all 5'1" of him), so it was great to see him. He's down at Providence right now, and seems to really be enjoying it. Gave him a lot of shit about how B.C. kicked their ass the other day, while failing to mention that Holy Cross had sucked ass this year. Go me or something.
That sums up my break pretty nicely. Nice and chill. Now, before I go, I'll hit you people up with a lot of more random thoughts and so forth. Here we go....
* John Henry Williams, Ted Williams' son, died from leukemia. I don't like to laugh at people when misfortunes happen, but he fucking deserves it. Between selling his father's 1946 AL Championship ring on the black market without telling him, using his father's name to get tryouts with Red Sox minor league teams, blatantly extracting every dollar he could out of his father's legacy, and the cryogenic stuff that I'm not even going to get started on, I find it VERY hard to feel any sympathy. John Henry got what was coming to him, plain and simple. See you in hell, asshole
* Speaking of baseball, this steroid thing is horrible. Thank god the government is starting to lay down the law on this, since the player's union is obviously never gonna come around without being strong-armed into it by a force MUCH more powerful than the owners. Steroids are horrible things, and baseball will be a much better game without them. They need stricter testing, and MUCH stricter punishment rules.
* And speaking of needing harsher punishments, the fact that Todd Bertuzzi didn't get a full one-year suspension is despicable. For those of you who didn't see what he did, he essentially drove another hockey player face-first into the ice intentionally. He didn't mean to hurt him, but he did badly (a broken neck, possible neural damage. He should return to the NHL, but it's not a definite), and should be punished as such. If McSorely got a 1-year suspension for his attack a few years ago, this deserves at LEAST that, if not more. This, in my opinion, was MUCH worse than what Marty McSorely did, and the fact that he only got a suspension for the rest of the regular season (about 15 games) and the playoffs is horrible. Gary Bettman needs to grow some balls.
* One more sports thing: I hope the Celts keep winning out, just to fuck Danny Ainge over. And I hope they do it in a boring, defense-oriented manner too. Ainge should be run out of town ASAP, and the way things are going, he can take Tommy Heinson with him. I dunno how much more of Tommy I can take.
* Moving on once again: How the HELL did the Passion make that much money? It's not that good, it's ultra-violent, it's anti-Semitic...and it's one of the biggest blockbusters in history. Some things just don't make sense to me.
* I need to figure out which baseball video game to pick up. MVP Baseball seems to be getting very good reviews, but I'm waiting to see how ESPN does before choosing. ESPN has online play, which is a HUGE plus, so unless MVP is really improved from last year's game, which I didn't like too much, I think I'll be sticking with ESPN.
* The new WWE game on Gamecube looks like it's gonna have definite potential. Realistic character models, a legit story mode....they've finally caught up to where the Playstation games were 4 years ago! Yay!
* That bombing in Spain was absolutely brutal. And with it happening exactly two and a half years after 9/11...you gotta figure it's Al-Qaeda behind this one. Just a horrible thing, and my thoughts go out to the families over there.
* I picked up Season 1 of the Chappelle Show on DVD yesterday, and it's very quality. I hadn't seen a number of the episodes, so this helps to put things in chronological order and fill in the gaps for me. There was some damn good material, and I need to finish watching the second half of the set sometime soon.
* Why do I hate normal Law and Order, but really like Law and Order: SVU? It just doesn't make sense...
* I found my class ring! It was nice to see that again, since it was pretty damn expensive, and I didn't just want to lose it. It's a little big on me now, for whatever reason, but I'm definitely hanging on to that bad boy.
* And they're debating gay marriage amendments again in Massachusetts. Hopefully the SJC ruling continues to stand. I really don't wanna see that one go down.
* I am going to have SO much work to do at Holy Cross when I get back. I'm fucked.
And on that cheery note, I'm out. Enjoy this kickass update and all. On Monday or Tuesday, I'll hit this thing up with Wrestlemania XX notes and impressions and maybe some other stuff. Adios.
WRESTLING SECTION (If you don't like wrestling, just skip it, bitches)
- I'd like to take this opportunity to comment on how goddamn fucking STUPID Vince McMahon is. He's letting his youngest star, the man who was going to be the center of the WWE for years to come, the ONLY GODDAMN STAR he's managed to create on his own since 2000 or so, just walk out the door after Wrestlemania. Brock Lesnar was the key to the long-term success of the WWE. He was becoming one of their best wrestlers, he was their #1 heel on Smackdown, and he was learning how to talk. He was going to be the best power wrestler of all-time, and now he's suddenly "burnt out" and just wants to walk so he can try and walk on for the NFL? Guess what, Vince? YOU are to blame for this. You gave him too much, too soon. Then, you had Taker humiliate him. You had him run away from Hardcore Holly. HARDCORE HOLLY! You've bitched on his character, and were going to do it again. Brock, you're also a pussy for walking out on millions of guaranteed money and a position that people like Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho, and Booker T have spent their entire lives chasing. It was HANDED to you, Brock. You won the belt six months after debuting, beat every WWE star besides HHH at some point in your run (surprise, surprise), and you didn't deserve it. It's a sign that the WWE doesn't know how to choose its stars, or how to provide some kind of support system for them. But they created this mess, and now they're in VERY deep. A look at the brands shows this nicely. Their current top stars (upper midcard and main eventers) are:
RAW:
The Rock
Mick Foley
Goldberg
HHH
Shawn Michaels
Chris Benoit
Chris Jericho
Kane
Booker T
RVD
Randy Orton
SMACKDOWN:
Brock Lesnar
Eddie Guerrero
Undertaker
Kurt Angle
John Cena
Big Show
Now, let's look at this list. After Wrestlemania, Brock Lesnar, Goldberg, and the Rock are gone. HHH needs to shoot a movie, and Mick Foley won't be a full-time contributor. Shawn Michaels is getting rather old, Undertaker won't stick around long, and Kurt Angle's neck could fall apart at any second. After factoring all of these in, you're left with a very small group of people. A lot of people still on the list need a lot of work to become legit title contenders, but I don't think that's gonna be happening for the RVD's, Booker T's, and Chris Jericho's of the world, so they're out as real title contenders. There's a total lack of new talent at the top. The WWE needs to establish Cena, Orton, and Guerrero as legit main eventers in teh next few months, then start working on a new set. Once they're in place, things will get a BIT better, but they're still gonna need work. We'll see what happens, though.
On to Wrestlemania: My predictions for the show, and my predicted star ratings (out of *****)
Brock Lesnar vs. Goldberg
- With both of these guys walking out, there are two options: A) Go with the old finish of Brock pinning Goldberg cleanly, or B) Have Austin, the special ref, beat the hell out of them both. B) is a bullshit finish, but since Brock and Goldberg are on their way out the door, they might as well make Austin look good. Hopefully it's an entertaining match, but the finish is way up in the air. **1/2, with Goldberg getting carried nicely by Lesnar
Eddie Guerrero vs. Kurt Angle
- This match will own. Angle and Guerrero are about as good as it gets wrestling-wise, and with it being Wrestlemania, there's no way that they don't pull out a beauty here. As for a winner, it's hard to tell. I think I'll take Angle to win by cheating here, but it could go either way. I'll take Angle to help continue the feud, though, since there's no other challenger built up for Eddie on Smackdown right now. ****3/4 in an early contender for Match of the Year with Eddie match from No Way Out against Lesnar.
HHH vs. Chris Benoit vs. Shawn Michaels
- What SHOULD happen? This should be the main event, and Chris Benoit should make HHH tap out cleanly to win the World Heavyweight Title. Benoit should be the face that gets to go over big tonight. What WILL happen? HHH will retain the belt through some screwjob finish, and they'll delay Benoit's title win until Backlash (unless they pull a screwjob there). I'm pulling for Benoit, I think it's gonna be HHH, and god knows what Michaels will do here. Still, should be a pretty good match. I'm guessing about ***1/2
Undertaker vs. Kane
- This match won't be pretty, but it'll probably have the most heat of any match that night, since people are BURSTING to see the Dead Man return. He'll get huge cheers, and hopefully put Kane over (but I just don't see that happening). This would be the win that defines Kane's career, but he won't get it, since Taker needs to look even stronger for his next main event run that nobody wants. I'll say this match is about *1/2, but the heat should make up for it.
Chris Jericho vs. Christian
- I'm looking forward to this one, which could be a show-stealer. Christian needs help in the ring, but hopefully Jericho can help him through this one. I'm rooting for a big heel turn by Trish here to join Christian, but not really expecting it. Still, should be a good match. I'll call ***1/4 with Christian winning, but if both men hit their potential, **** isn't out of the question.
Rock 'n' Sock Connection vs. Evolution
- It's great to see Rocky back, even if it's just for a night. This match won't be anything special workrate-wise, but hopefully it gets the card going at full steam. I think Rock and Mich win this one, but Randy will probably take a singles match against Foley later on (Backlash or Badd Blood) to end/win the feud. Hopefully this one has a lot of energy, because it could be bad otherwise. I'll call **1/2 for this one.
John Cena vs. Big Show
- The most clear-cut match on the card. Cena should and will go over here to become US Champ, and take another step towards the main event (which I'd like to see, since people LOVE his character). I'm not expecting a ton from this match either, but Show has been surprisingly good lately, so maybe he and Cena can cobble together a decent 10 minute match or something. I'll give it **
Cruiserweight Open
- I think they'll probably just have Rey win the title back, or have Chavo cheat to beat Rey. However, I'd have the Cruiser Open bring someone up big. Ultimo and Kidman are both prime candidates to look real good after this match, and I'd go with Ultimo, since Dragon is the fucking man. But odds are it just comes down to Rey and Chavo. I'll pick Chavo to retain, but it's far from definite. Match should be a fun spotfest at about ***
The other four matches (Sable/Torrie vs. Jackie/Stacy, Molly vs. Victoria, Dudleys vs. Booker/RVD vs. La Resistance vs. Jindrak/Cade, and Too Cool vs. WGTT vs. APA vs. Bashams) aren't worth going into detail about. Nothing but filler, really. Still, should be a good show overall.
THE WRESTLING SECTION IS NOW OVER. YOU CAN READ THIS AGAIN, BILL
Well, here's a quick recap of what I did on my spring break:
...
OK, I didn't really do anything. But I'll try and describe it anyways. On Sunday, I took my brother up to New Hampshire so he could ski. I got some work done in the lodge and just did some reading as well (a nice chance to sit down and relax a bit). I dealt with some more banks, played some computer games here at home, watched a lot of TV (which I really don't get a chance to do at college), and generally had a good time. Wasn't the most exciting break, but it was one that was most definitely needed, so I'm glad that I had the chance to chill out a bit. Got my job at the course lined up for summer, which is nice to have taken care of early on.
The one thing of note I did was head back to St. Seb's on Wednesday to say hi to all the teachers I hadn't seen since I graduated in June. It was really nice catching up with some of them and just getting a chance to talk with them. I got to see just about everyone who had taught me (Nunan, Camp, Thomasy, Schwimmer, P. Kittler, and just about everyone else). Ran into a few kids who I don't get to see enough of anymore, which was nice as well. Also, Andy Bartlett was there for the day (all 5'1" of him), so it was great to see him. He's down at Providence right now, and seems to really be enjoying it. Gave him a lot of shit about how B.C. kicked their ass the other day, while failing to mention that Holy Cross had sucked ass this year. Go me or something.
That sums up my break pretty nicely. Nice and chill. Now, before I go, I'll hit you people up with a lot of more random thoughts and so forth. Here we go....
* John Henry Williams, Ted Williams' son, died from leukemia. I don't like to laugh at people when misfortunes happen, but he fucking deserves it. Between selling his father's 1946 AL Championship ring on the black market without telling him, using his father's name to get tryouts with Red Sox minor league teams, blatantly extracting every dollar he could out of his father's legacy, and the cryogenic stuff that I'm not even going to get started on, I find it VERY hard to feel any sympathy. John Henry got what was coming to him, plain and simple. See you in hell, asshole
* Speaking of baseball, this steroid thing is horrible. Thank god the government is starting to lay down the law on this, since the player's union is obviously never gonna come around without being strong-armed into it by a force MUCH more powerful than the owners. Steroids are horrible things, and baseball will be a much better game without them. They need stricter testing, and MUCH stricter punishment rules.
* And speaking of needing harsher punishments, the fact that Todd Bertuzzi didn't get a full one-year suspension is despicable. For those of you who didn't see what he did, he essentially drove another hockey player face-first into the ice intentionally. He didn't mean to hurt him, but he did badly (a broken neck, possible neural damage. He should return to the NHL, but it's not a definite), and should be punished as such. If McSorely got a 1-year suspension for his attack a few years ago, this deserves at LEAST that, if not more. This, in my opinion, was MUCH worse than what Marty McSorely did, and the fact that he only got a suspension for the rest of the regular season (about 15 games) and the playoffs is horrible. Gary Bettman needs to grow some balls.
* One more sports thing: I hope the Celts keep winning out, just to fuck Danny Ainge over. And I hope they do it in a boring, defense-oriented manner too. Ainge should be run out of town ASAP, and the way things are going, he can take Tommy Heinson with him. I dunno how much more of Tommy I can take.
* Moving on once again: How the HELL did the Passion make that much money? It's not that good, it's ultra-violent, it's anti-Semitic...and it's one of the biggest blockbusters in history. Some things just don't make sense to me.
* I need to figure out which baseball video game to pick up. MVP Baseball seems to be getting very good reviews, but I'm waiting to see how ESPN does before choosing. ESPN has online play, which is a HUGE plus, so unless MVP is really improved from last year's game, which I didn't like too much, I think I'll be sticking with ESPN.
* The new WWE game on Gamecube looks like it's gonna have definite potential. Realistic character models, a legit story mode....they've finally caught up to where the Playstation games were 4 years ago! Yay!
* That bombing in Spain was absolutely brutal. And with it happening exactly two and a half years after 9/11...you gotta figure it's Al-Qaeda behind this one. Just a horrible thing, and my thoughts go out to the families over there.
* I picked up Season 1 of the Chappelle Show on DVD yesterday, and it's very quality. I hadn't seen a number of the episodes, so this helps to put things in chronological order and fill in the gaps for me. There was some damn good material, and I need to finish watching the second half of the set sometime soon.
* Why do I hate normal Law and Order, but really like Law and Order: SVU? It just doesn't make sense...
* I found my class ring! It was nice to see that again, since it was pretty damn expensive, and I didn't just want to lose it. It's a little big on me now, for whatever reason, but I'm definitely hanging on to that bad boy.
* And they're debating gay marriage amendments again in Massachusetts. Hopefully the SJC ruling continues to stand. I really don't wanna see that one go down.
* I am going to have SO much work to do at Holy Cross when I get back. I'm fucked.
And on that cheery note, I'm out. Enjoy this kickass update and all. On Monday or Tuesday, I'll hit this thing up with Wrestlemania XX notes and impressions and maybe some other stuff. Adios.