Sportscasters and shows
As I've mentioned before, it's always interesting to see what yahoo and goggle searches stumble upon my blog. My newest favorite: "most ridiculous use of statistics".Couple of non-athletic sports items going on that appeal to only me, but it's my blog so therefore, we shall discuss:
Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick will REUNITE for one hour a week on Fridays on ESPN Radio starting in August. For those that don't know (as it has been several years), from 1992 to 1997, the tag team of Olbermann and Patrick pretty much revolutionized just what a sports anchor COULD be and led to the booming popularity and love for ESPN's Sportscenter, the ramifications which can still be felt today. To say I LOVED Olbermann and Patrick is an understatement. They were the first ones to really bring in running gags and tounge-in-cheek comments that were "smart", as opposed to so many other sports anchors who just came off as "smart asses". You simply can't fake chemistry and trying to force chemistry that isn't there will always lead to failure. Olbermann and Patrick had that genuine chemistry that made Sportscenter required nightly viewing. In fact, I STILL have Olbermann's final Sportscenter from 1997 on tape and throw it in once a year to reminsce about just HOW good that show used to be. The only combo that ever even came close to touching them was Stuart Scott and Rich Eisen, but that was moreso because they were two tremendous individual announcers than a great tag team. Anyways, god only knows if I'll ever be able to get ESPN radio dialed in at the appropriate time as my house as WFNZ (and AM stations in general) start to die before they reach my backwoods ass house. But the fact remains that my favorite tag team that never stepped foot in a squared circle is indeed back.
In other less than exciting news, John Madden will join the NBC Sunday Night Football package in 2006. This announcement was made with the following Hall of Fame quote from Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC:
"John Madden is the best analyst in the history of the National Football League and, in my opinion, the best analyst of any kind in sports television history. John is much more than a football legend, he's an American icon."
I would like to follow that quote up with a quote from ME that I posted on April 20th, right here on the blog:
"Hell, I can't even celebrate the fact that John Madden is out of a job, cause just like when CBS closed up shop in '95, either ESPN (or preferably NBC) will pay him the $ to bring him to their broadcast team cause god knows unlike Al Michaels, who's only a million times more versatile, Madden is for some ungodly reason a football icon and just HAS to have a spot behind the booth. I can honestly say that in my years in broadcasting with FOX, I never once worked with a LOCAL sports anchor that was as worthless as Madden, who gets a national stage every week."
Now, who are you gonna believe, Dick Ebersol or me? Please.....
Hey! Let's head to Greensboro, outdoors this past Wednesday night at the by-god Coliseum for "One Hot Summer Night" (take deux):
1. Amber O'Neal and CWF/AWA Mid-Atlantic TV champion Jesse Ortega defeated Mikael Yamaha and Krissy Vaine in 11:20 when O'Neal defeated Vaine by submission -
Pretty basic goofball tag match with the pros just having some fun out there with the hilights being Yam bumping like a champ off of Jesse's shoulderblock and following it up with some excellent intensity that I hope he brings for FNF next week. The cinematography and photography were just beautiful as evidence by Randolph's above shot. Cool little double tap finish that was never taped because somebody tried to turn the big lights on during the finishing sequence and blew the power to the camera, PA, etc. Wonderful.... *3/4
2. CWF/AWA Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight champion Ric Converse pinned "A Very Handsome Man" Mitch Conner in 7:10 of a non-title match -
The rubber match in the series with Ric winning it. Like before, very basic, solid enough stuff. Ric just continues to just look the part and present himself as everything a champion should be. Not as good as their previous two, but that wasn't the intent. Still sound. **
3. "Boogie Woogie Man" Rob McBride won a $1,000 10-man "Blacktop Battle Royal" in 15:03. Order of elimination: Michael McAllister by Alex Adonis in 3:25...J-Money by Garry Stevens in 6:14...Stevens by Money and Xsiris in 6:50...Brass Munkey by Tank Lawson in 8:08...Kid Justice by Adonis and Corey Edsel in 9:03...Adonis by McBride in 10:10...Xsiris by Edsel in 10:41...Lawson by McBride in 11:18...Edsel by McBride in 13:38 -
Only the second battle royal in CWF history by the way. And don't we all remember the days when the staple of an Indy show WAS the battle royal? Anyways, I've always been a big battle royal mark but for some reason this one came off very flat and disjointed to me. Alex Adonis decides to go into business for himself before the match and get in Ric's face at ringside (who's still there signing autographs). Money and Stevens continue their secondary feud with some good intensity as do Rob-Corey-Munkey. Only the last :60 of this will probably ever see the light of broadcast day as Corey MURDERS Rob with the nastiest exploder EVER only to get his foot caught in the ropes seconds later (ala Cactus and the ear incident). Corey frees himself, Rob dropkicks him off the apron for the win. 3/4*
Overall thoughts: Make no mistake, this show was NOT about workrate or great matches. Just a little promotional dealio that shouldn't even be ranked against your normal shows. Now, compared to the other Greensboro Coliseum shows, I would certainly rank it as the weakest of the three. But thank god for our regular fans who showed to lead the crowd making the experience in general a bazillion times better than the last one in February.
Onto Friday and an exhibition match at the ACE Speedway in Altamahaw, NC. First time I had ever actually been to a racetrack while cars were actually making the left hand turns. I did an NDW show back in '98 at the Concord racetrack but that was a stand-alone show. Pretty interesting stuff and that's coming from someone who could care less about NASCAR. Anyways, it was basically a meet and great with the legends (Don & Rocky Kernodle, Ivan Koloff, Johnny Weaver, and Jimmy Valiant). The modern day guys then did one match between races which saw the following result:
1. Brass Munkey, "Boogie Woogie Man" Rob McBride, and CWF/AWA Mid-Atlantic TV champion Jesse Ortega (with CWF/AWA Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight champion Ric Converse in their corner) defeated Tank Lawson, Keenan Quinn, and "A Very Handsome Man" Mitch Conner in 11:59 when McBride pinned referee Redd Jones and special guest enforcer Jimmy Valiant made the count - Yes, a statistical nightmare (which for the record breaks down to 1 win for each member of the babys, 1 loss for each member of the heels, 1 pinfall scored for McBride, and an 0-0 record for Redd Jones but a pinfall loss attributed to his record. Booya!). A petty enjoyable match especially considering that it was as ad-libbed as anything we've probably ever thrown in a ring. Some cool visuals with the thousands in attendance as the backdrop and the sunset giving some wicked silhouette. Anyways, Redd works as a heel ref (which I normally hate and we'd never do, but in this setting it was more than fine) which leads to the champ getting involved, murdering Redd with the Ric-ter scale, Rob making the cover while everyone else is planching to the outside, the original Boogie dives in and makes the count. Fun stuff. **
Hedd's car knocked out on the way back after the show which led to us crashing at his place in High Point Fri night, thus taking us to Saturday 6/18 (whew, what a week) for the "Pffaftown Showdown" for our final show at the West Central Community Center. Which is a major show cause we were finally building that town to be something special with slowly growing crowds and some hellagood shows. But, as they had done in the past, the building breaks their lease and screws us over...oh well, just have to find another spot in the Winston area to replace it. No biggie, I just feel bad for the fans that were just awesome for us last night and now have to make the hour drive to Burlington or wherever to see us in action.
1. Scottie Gash pinned "A Very Handsome Man" Mitch Conner in 9:23 - Gash (as a baby) comes out to some form of entrance music that kicks off with the phrase "Mother Fucker" which hopefully will never see the light of day again on a CWF show. After that faux pas, this turned into a fantastic opener. Flat out solid wrestling with the build leading towards several believable (and not finish-killing) false finishes. ***
2. Xsiris pinned Rising Generation League champion Kid Justice in 9:50 to win a shot at the Television title on "Friday Night Fights" - The hits keep on coming as X and Justice have a seriously good cruiserweight match. This match was originally supposed to be X and Krazy K but I firmly believe it wouldn't have been as good or sound as what this one turned out to be. Pretty spotty and all as you would expect, but it still made sense and no true finishers were killed. Justice just bumped his ass off during this match and when all was said and done, this match totally MADE Xsiris a VERY credible challenger heading into FNF. ***
3. GeeStar and AWA Mid-Atlantic TV champion Jesse Ortega defeated Scar Stevens and Keenan Quinn (with Destiny in their corner) in 14:12 when Ortega defeated Stevens by submission - Destiny was scheduled to be in this one but threw her back out earlier in the week but we didn't find out until an hour or so before the match that she wouldn't be working it at all. This led to some "discussions" in the back in which I probably didn't endear myself to her ("I've been called worse by alot better than you"...ohhhh TAG). As it turned out, it was probably for the best. She comes out on cane, being the chickenshit heel trying to back out of the match and Scar brings out Quinn as his replacement partner. I actually kinda dig Gee and Ortega as one of the most oddball duos ever because their energy level is just SOOO off the charts. Basic old school formula with some really solid chain stuff by Jesse early. Gee takes some non-dramarific heat for a change (that being a good thing). Scar accidentally clocks Quinn with the cane to KO him, Jesse puts a submission on Scar while Destiny tries to run in but gets the DDT from Gee. Gee/Jesse then do the double submission on Scar for the immediate give. Crowd ate it up like crazy. ***
4. "Dangerous E" Corey Edsel pinned Brass Munkey in 20:36 of a falls count anywhere street fight -
The rematch from the MOTYC from the last Pffaftown show. Completely different as the last one was a highly intense wrestling match while this one was an out and out brawl. I'm not as big on hardcore style matches although there was no trash can lids or ladders or fire or barbed wire to be found here. It was more or less "hardcore" with a purpose, as Corey and Munkey bounced one another's heads and torsos off of every corner of the Rec Center. Corey had multiple bruises around his face midway through. Munkey breaks out an old Corey standby, the mist (green in this case) making for some flat out awesome visuals as he blew his load and then some. For the finish, two lariats can't put Corey away and on the third, Corey ducks and hooks somehow, jumping Tombstone and it's goodnight Walter. **** although those that actually love this style of wrestling would probably rate it higher. Still a wonderful addition to this feud's library.
5. The Shadow, "Wild" Shane West, and "Madd Trucker" Garry Stevens defeated CWF/AWA Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight champion Ric Converse and the CWF/AWA Mid-Atlantic tag team champions $outh$ide Playas (J-Money and Will B. Smooth) in 21:51 when Stevens pinned Converse -
Tremendous 6-man with action from the opening bell and a super hot crowd to thrive off of. Money and Garry kick it off with their secondary feud with Money again pulling out that "unexpected intensity". Garry and Ric have no contact until Garry nails him with the billy club in the back of the head midway through the match. Ric is able to make the tag but still favors his neck constantly for the remainder of the match. Smooth continues to grow on me more and more as the "you may beat my ass half to death but I'll club you with something hard be-atch" member of the Playas. We finally get Garry-Ric one on one 20 minutes in but Garry gets over due to Ric's neck and then stuffs him with a powerbomb on the neck again and 1, 2, 3. You can honestly hear the GASPS from the crowd as they totally expected Ric to kick out. Tremendous energetic old school match. ***1/2 The Playas help Ric out as Garry gloats maniacally and the fans couldn't WAIT till next Friday.
Overall thoughts - This was almost the forgotten show taking place just 6 days prior to FNF but turned into an awesome house show that was TV quality from start to finish. And good lord, how often do we get to do TWO 20 minute matches and the show not drag on forever. Ahhh, the magic of 5 matches and a hot crowd. In the long term, this show probably meant very, very little but as a stand along show, it was great.
After the show, Munkey's fam had a small group of us over for Midnight breakfast by the pool which was wonderfully nice although I was kinda out of it for a variety of reasons. Next time I wanna do a bummer blog, maybe I'll hit some of those notes but there's so much happiness with the shows and all here lately, that I'll save it for now.
Anyways...next stop: Friday Night Fights and for me personally, it's the biggest task ever, handling LIVE commentary with Hedd for the AWA DVD release. Then next Sat, it's the kickoff of the VERY intriguing Weaver Cup and the 100th CWF event although that stat probably won't be capitalized on all that much. To say the least, next Sunday, I'll be one hoarse mo fo.
The Longest Yard -
I actually went to the theater for the first time in FOREVER to check out a movie. Of course I only did so because I had a coupon that got me two seats for $1 so it didn't exactly break the bank or nothin. So once again it's time to quench that off-season football thirst with the Adam Sandler remake of the 1974 movie. Well, I love football and I love wrestling so I can't even imagine what they could do to fuck this one up for me. So yeah, it's great....let's get that out of the way first. The casting is perfect including Michael Irvin playing the same fuckhead that he is in real life. Wasn't too big on Goldberg in this, but everyone else did a great job, especially Giant Singh and Bop Sapp, who just flat out steals each and every scene. Strangely enough, the training camp sequences in the prison are actually more beautifully shot and captivating than the actual football game that's played at the film's "climax". In fact, the payoff itself is almost a letdown when compared to the actual build (boy, how many times do you say that in wrestling). Still fun stuff and any movie that gives me Brian Bosworth and Dan Patrick is a big thumbs up. ****1/4
GRANT "STATMARK" SAWYER
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