As of today, the biggest fight possible in the UFC is new Lightheavyweight Champ & Pride Legend Shogun Rua vs Middleweight Kingpin Anderson "The Spider" Silva. It is the only fight my new-to-MMA-fan friends have asked me about in the last two days, and the fantasy title fight with the most "buzz".
Ironically, Shogun vs Spider may have been more likely with a Shogun loss at UFC 113.
Anderson Silva has repeatedly stated that the 205-lb belt "belongs to Lyoto", even before The Dragon had been granted his title shot in May of last year. Given their friendship and loyalty, it is very possible Anderson will refuse to fight Shogun for the belt anytime soon - under the assumption that Lyoto will return to his winning ways and earn another title shot within 2 or 3 fights.
So how do we get to a Rua-Silva mega-fight?
The best bet would be for Lyoto to lose again within his next three fights and drop him clear out of title contention.
But who would beat him?
Despite getting clipped on the temple by (arguably) the best 205lber of all time, Machida is unquestionably the #2 or #1b fighter in the division. Some fans will recall one reason for the "delay" in Lyoto getting his title shot to start with was the fact that no one in the Top 10 would actually accept a fight with him. Rampage ducked him. Griffin ducked him even after beating Shogun in 2007. Only then-undefeated Thiago Silva had enough balls (or self-belief) to take the challenge and even that fight was delayed several months after Thiago injured his back. Machida's team basically had to wait, or risk the ability to face a fighter of any consequence.
Even with all of the power UFC matchmaker Joe Silva and Dana White weild, it is only when an avoided fighter such as Machida is the #1 contender or champion that they can really "force" Top 10 guys to fight him. This may explain why certain top fighters - i.e. Rampage, Spider Silva, Big Nog - who enter the organization receive a title shot after their first big win. It also explains why Machida didn't face any of the traditional big names in the 205 lb division you would assume one has to beat to get a title shot.
All of that to say - the few fighters not named Rua who might actually stand a chance to beat Machida won't bother taking that chance...so he won't be losing anytime soon. Rich Franklin would be the biggest name that might want a piece and he's previously been quoted as not wanting the fight on account of Lyoto's "boring" style (the same style Machida used to TKO Franklin). Lyoto will continue to beat Top 20 guys like Luis Arther Cane, Keith Jardine and Matt Hamill until he's back as the clear #1 contender sometime in late 2011 or early 2012.
If Dana White sticks to his recent statement that Spider Silva will need to beat both Chael Sonnen in August and then Vitor Belfort (let's say in December on the year-end show) to be allowed to move to 205 and vacate his Middleweight title, that would put the ETA for Anderson's arrival in the Lightheavyweight division at April of 2011. In the mean time, Shogun would need to beat the winner of the main event at UFC 114:Black on Black Crime, and then Randy "The Natural" Couture by year's end.
By then, Lyoto will be back in the win column, re-activating his claim to the throne and causing Anderson to say "it's still Lyoto's belt" through their (heel?) manager Ed Soares.
So how do we really get to a Rua-A.Silva mega-fight?
Timing will play a large role. The time it takes for Lyoto to earn his title next shot could run parallel to Silva's run through the division. Anderson fighting for the 205 lb belt in May of 2011 (or September 2011 if Forrest Griffin is protected for a year and given a title shot/rematch with Shogun) comes with the distinct possibility that were he to win, the clear #1 contender might be Lyoto Machida. Short of a random split within the House of Soares or some WWE storyline-style professional jealousy, that fight isn't ever happening.
Thus, the best chance for Silva-Shogun to happen is if Anderson is truly serious about eventually moving up to heavyweight to challenge Brock Lesnar and is willing to campaign at Heavyweight for the remaining fights on his contract and then retire.
If that were true, Dana could "convince" him (with $, of course) to take the fight with Shogun, and set up conditions to ensure he wouldn't be in conflict with Lyoto's path to another title shot in the event he won the belt. The deal could involve Spider defending the 205 lb belt no more than twice (options include Jon Jones, Rampage, and maybe a Shogun re-match) and then vacating to move up to Heavyweight and challenging Brock or whoever the champ is at the time. No conditions would be needed if Shogun were to defeat The Spider.
Of course, there are still caveats with this scenario.
1. This is all blown up if Lil' Nog keeps knocking guys out and Silva-n-Soares say the belt belongs to him too.
2. Having Silva as champ while Lyoto returns to prominence would only re-ignite Dana's obsession with making teammates fight.
3. Silva vacating the belt right as Lyoto (or anyone else) gets ready to earn another title shot would reduce the legitimacy of the new champion's claim to the throne. I don't think Anderson cares about that going down in the middleweight division, nor should he. But would he want to hurt the perception of his friend? Would Soares want that cloud hanging over the title reign of one of his clients? That will probably be something Team Soares takes into heavy consideration when the hype for Shogun-Spider picks up at the end of this year.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
Come on, Shaq!
I used to like Shaq, but in the last 12 months, a pair of separate incidents have led me to believe that Shaq, as Diddy would put it, is on some Bitchassness.
First of all, is there a reason he bounces from team to team so much? Shaq is one of the 3 greatest centers ever, and definitely in this era... but he can't keep a team? How is that?
Maybe because he's on some bullshit? Just maybe. I don't know the man. Like I said, I tend to like Shaq. He's charismatic, funny, and seems to enjoy himself.
But umm... what's with fucking Gilbert Arena's life up?
And what's with stealing Steve Nash's idea so dirty you had to give executive producer credit on the show idea you stole from him?
First let's talk about "Shaq Vs."
It's a show on ABC where Shaq challenges top athletes to a duel in their sport. Like a home run derby against Albert Pujols or a swimming race against Michael Phelps. It's a cool idea, I might admit. And in the world of sports, who better than Shaq to pull it off? Personality wise, I can only think of a few names, and since he's going to lose, its about the personality of the event. Athletically, it'd probably be cooler to see LeBron or someone younger do it.
Anyway, Shaq didn't make this idea up, or get it from some TV studio. He OVERHEARD a conversation Steve Nash had in the locker room about STEVE NASH VERSUS (or whatever he would've called it). He then took it to his people, got it to a TV studio, and Shaq Vs was born.
How fucked up is that?
Steve Nash, now an ex teammate, heard about it, and to HIS credit, didn't blow a fuse like I might've. There may or may not have been lawsuit and $ talk, but at the end of the day, Steve Nash gets an Executive Producer credit on the show.
Then, there's Gil. Agent Zero. Now $80 Million Future dollars poorer after being suspended for the rest of this NBA season and likely having his Wizards contract bought out or voided.
Shaq, long story short, was fucking Gilbert's fiancee. Text messages and email accounts from alternate email addresses came out earlier this season. Shaq also had a "shoulder injury" for the 2 games before and after the Cavs only trip to Washington earlier this season. I'm calling BULLSHIT, on a shoulder injury there. And I can prove it too.
Gil has since gone crazy. He probably was going to kill Shaq live on national television had he come, so it's good he didn't show up, but lets look at what else is going on in Gil's head. He doesn't even know if his KIDS ARE HIS are not anymore. He was going to marry this woman, and she's a tramp. With Shaq. His boy. Come on son... that'll drive a man crazy enough to bring 3 or 4 guns into a locker room and tell a teammate to choose one for an OK Corral style "DRAW!" duel.
Gilbert Arenas just lost $80 million, his fiancee, and his sanity...because of Shaq O'Neal.
That's fucked up.
I sincerely hope Gilbert did something to Shaq first. Otherwise... he's just plain evil.
All of this leads me to ask one question I never really expected to ask...
Was Kobe really the problem in LA?
First of all, is there a reason he bounces from team to team so much? Shaq is one of the 3 greatest centers ever, and definitely in this era... but he can't keep a team? How is that?
Maybe because he's on some bullshit? Just maybe. I don't know the man. Like I said, I tend to like Shaq. He's charismatic, funny, and seems to enjoy himself.
But umm... what's with fucking Gilbert Arena's life up?
And what's with stealing Steve Nash's idea so dirty you had to give executive producer credit on the show idea you stole from him?
First let's talk about "Shaq Vs."
It's a show on ABC where Shaq challenges top athletes to a duel in their sport. Like a home run derby against Albert Pujols or a swimming race against Michael Phelps. It's a cool idea, I might admit. And in the world of sports, who better than Shaq to pull it off? Personality wise, I can only think of a few names, and since he's going to lose, its about the personality of the event. Athletically, it'd probably be cooler to see LeBron or someone younger do it.
Anyway, Shaq didn't make this idea up, or get it from some TV studio. He OVERHEARD a conversation Steve Nash had in the locker room about STEVE NASH VERSUS (or whatever he would've called it). He then took it to his people, got it to a TV studio, and Shaq Vs was born.
How fucked up is that?
Steve Nash, now an ex teammate, heard about it, and to HIS credit, didn't blow a fuse like I might've. There may or may not have been lawsuit and $ talk, but at the end of the day, Steve Nash gets an Executive Producer credit on the show.
Then, there's Gil. Agent Zero. Now $80 Million Future dollars poorer after being suspended for the rest of this NBA season and likely having his Wizards contract bought out or voided.
Shaq, long story short, was fucking Gilbert's fiancee. Text messages and email accounts from alternate email addresses came out earlier this season. Shaq also had a "shoulder injury" for the 2 games before and after the Cavs only trip to Washington earlier this season. I'm calling BULLSHIT, on a shoulder injury there. And I can prove it too.
Gil has since gone crazy. He probably was going to kill Shaq live on national television had he come, so it's good he didn't show up, but lets look at what else is going on in Gil's head. He doesn't even know if his KIDS ARE HIS are not anymore. He was going to marry this woman, and she's a tramp. With Shaq. His boy. Come on son... that'll drive a man crazy enough to bring 3 or 4 guns into a locker room and tell a teammate to choose one for an OK Corral style "DRAW!" duel.
Gilbert Arenas just lost $80 million, his fiancee, and his sanity...because of Shaq O'Neal.
That's fucked up.
I sincerely hope Gilbert did something to Shaq first. Otherwise... he's just plain evil.
All of this leads me to ask one question I never really expected to ask...
Was Kobe really the problem in LA?
Black College Football - The Big Idea
(***2nd edit complete. One more to go.***)
College football is by far my favorite sport. The traditions, pageantry, Bowl Games, constant debates over playoffs, etc... I love it all. But when I turn on the TV for the big games on fall Saturdays, I can't help but be a little sad that I don't see black school featured in any CBS spotlight games of the week.
Many institutions of higher learning use their athletic programs as free advertising for the rest of the university, and big money generators as well. For whatever reason, HBCUs don't take full advantage of what they have. I went to an HBCU, specifically, the best school in the country - Florida A&M University.
FAMU has a strong football tradition and program and the added attraction of the world's best band... the incomparable Marching 100. We won the first 1-AA/FCS title in the late 70s and beat Miami in the same season. Somehow, over the last 30 years we've gone from beating the Hurricanes to not even being in the conversation with them for recruits.
Its not just FAMU either. Eddie Robinson, possibly THE greatest coach ever in college football, won his games at Grambling. Southern, Tennessee State, South Carolina State and other black football programs have similar stories to tell.
When I was at FAMU, the Rattlers football team was in the midst of playoff streak that reached 8 years. It ended during an aborted attempt to move the football program up to the 1-A/FBS level. At the time, we would often see Troy State in the playoffs. Troy was a pretty good 1-AA team, but they had NOTHING on the Rattlers and we'd beat them 3 out of 4 years to advance or something like that.
Ten years later, Troy is in the Sun Belt Conference, playing division 1-A football and making up to $1 MILLION dollars a game (Arkansas State, also in the Sun Belt, is getting $1 M to play @ Auburn next year http://blog.al.com/auburnbeat/2009/03/auburn_adds_arkansas_state_to.html) and we're getting paltry checks from Mickey Mouse to sell out the Citrus Bowl with BCC (BCU?) in the Florida Classic.
This bothers the shit out of me. On two counts. 1) there's nothing special about Troy, but they're getting money we should be. Oklahoma and Virgina Tech were ready to chip in more than $500,000 each to play FAMU when we announced our move to 1-A. 2) Black Colleges routinely FILL mega-stadiums and domes with alumni fans and students and do not get anywhere near the $ these 1-A schools get.
For example - The Chick-fil-a Kickoff Classic paid Clemson and Alabama more then $2 Million EACH for a sellout of the Georgia Dome. Guess who else sells out the Georgia Dome?
FAMU vs Tennessee State. Last Saturday in September every year. And it'd be an even BIGGER game is FAMU played SOUTHERN there every year like i'd prefer.
Do FAMU and TSU take home $2 Million for the same sellout that Alabama and Clemson get? Hell no. Why? Partially bad negotiating, partially the fact that we're playing small-time football.
It's BEEN time for that to be over.
Considering the campus make-up, smaller class sizes, and focus on the students' success you find at HBCUs, its a shame they haven't become powers in the world of NCAA college athletics... And I'm talking in all sports.
OK, that's a lot of set up for One Idea. Let's skip to it.
Here's my idea.
I want 8 to 12 HBCUs to create a new football conference and apply for admission to Division 1-A together.
There are multiple components to this idea. The MONEY. The SCHEDULE. The ORGANIZATION.
Let's start with the SCHEDULE.
The minimum requirement for 1-A football is average attendance of 17,000. There are a handful of HBCUs that meet this off top. ( http://web1.ncaa.org/d1mfb/2007/Internet/attendance/IAA_AVGATTENDANCE.pdf )
HOWEVER, this doesn't factor in the "neutral site" games that define the Black College Football Experience. If a school were to play in two big classics a year, considering one a home game and one an away game (you are allowed to do this, according to NCAA regulations), these contests would only need to pull about 30,000 fans to swing the the attendance of several HBCUs on the above list above 17,000 for the year.
When FAMU tried to move up to 1-A, they discovered some serious issues internally, but the biggest program in my mind was the schedule and its lack of attractiveness to fans.
FAMU Football Transitional 1-A Season (2004) Schedule
@Illinois
@Tulane
@Temple
Tennessee State - Atlanta
Virginia Union
Nicholls State
@Va Tech
Savannah State
Florida Atlantic
BCC - Orlando
@Florida International
Nicholls State? Tulane? Florida Atlanta? Who the F wants to see us play them? I don't. As a football fan I don't care about those program, but as an HBCU grad I want to see the Battle of the Bands and the Southern University Dancing Dolls as well.
In a PERFECT world... for FAMU, the 1-AA/FCS schedule looks like this in my mind.
@ Florida
vs Grambling
- Southern in Atlanta
@ Tennessee State
@ Hampton
vs North Carolina A&T
@ Prarie View or Texas Southern
vs Jackson State
vs Alabama A&M
@ Alabama State
- BCC in Orlando
Not only does this schedule provide compelling HBCU matchups, it takes the football team to areas where there are good recruits. South Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, etc... And it guarantees 17,000 fans at home games.
THE ORGANIZATION
The schedule above isn't a 1-A schedule unless these schools become 1-A. So a concerted effort to get facilities and programs in order by say, 2015 to qualify has to be done and it has to be done with harmony and agreement. The SWAC and MEAC won't be happy, but they can be appeased financially and this could technically be a football-only deal.
THE MONEY
Football is THE money making sport in college sports. Basketball can be too for very successful programs like Duke, UConn and North Carolina. But its all about football. And football, and running a university, is all about money.
This is how I see the money working.
FBS/1-A schools get to play 12 games a year. At $1 Million per road "guarantee" game against a big, powerhouse program, there's plenty of money being given out to build a REAL football program over, say, a decade. (Again, see Troy as an example. Did they get destroyed in all their early 1-A games? Yes. Do they now? No...because they took their $, invested in facilities for football, got better, took advantage of their TV exposure, recruited better, and made themselves into a 7-5 type of program. The next step would be to LEAVE the Sun Belt and get to a real conference like Conf USA)
With $1 Million guarantee games available, and increased negotiation power for the Classics (over time), now that the football being played "matters" more, the HBCUs that do this would have the $ to get better over time. I also think that there will be players from Florida who would JUMP at the chance to play for FAMU and have their NFL dreams still be realistic (same with Louisiana boys and Southern/Grambling)... so the rebuilding on the field wouldn't take as long.
So here's the list of schools who could possibly pull something like this off based on attendance (mainly), programs, and what I know about the schools.
FAMU
Southern
Grambling
Jackson State
Tennessee State
Alabama State
NC A&T
Norfolk State
South Carolina State
Maybes
Hampton
Howard (a university that can do whatever it wants but has ignored athletics for some reason I don't get)
Alabama A&M
Prarie View (based on their market, Houston)
Texas Southern (ditto)
...and finally, FAMU's 1-A schedule as part of the new conference
@ Oregon
- Grambling in New Orleans
@ Hampton
vs Tennessee State
@ NC A&T
vs South Carolina State
@ Jackson State
- Southern in Atlanta
@ Ohio State
vs Norfolk State
- BCC in Orlando
vs Alabama State
The MONEY Part 2
Here's the other piece of the $ puzzle - the conference championship game. The SWAC does this now, and if done properly, could be a big deal at the 1-A level sometime around... 2020. That's an extra $500k per school with a $6 million rights fee. I'm not sure what Dr Pepper is paying to sponsor the Big 12 and SEC title games, but if you can win $1 million at halftime kicking a 50 yard field goal i suppose the conferences get way more than that. $6 million is a conservative estimate for sure. And I didn't include the broadcast fees yet either.
If 12 teams are in the conference in two divisions...
West / South Division
FAMU
Southern
Grambling
Jackson State
Prairie View
Alabama State
East / North Division
Tennessee State
Norfolk State
North Carolina A&T
South Carolina State
Howard
Hampton
...a conference championship game the first week in December in Atlanta or Miami would be do-able.
The DOWNSIDE
There's a lot of potential pitfalls for this idea. Most of which involve some form of crabs-in-the-barrel behavior at either the collective or an individual institutional level.
There's also the split-small-town attendance issue. FAMU and FSU share Tallahassee. Southern and LSU share Baton Rouge. Can FAMU and Southern get 17,000 to the stadium without Classics? They already do...again, FAMU trying to schedule Nicholls State and not Grambling State for a home game is part of the short sightedness of going it alone.
The investments needed to upgrade the facilities to even minimum "you call yourself a 1-A institution?" standards are substantial and critical to the success of the project, as there won't be a LOT of kids willing to pass up the Nautilus machines and player lounges at FSU for a weight room at FAMU that's not even as big as the one at their powerhouse, state champion high school.
HOW LONG WOULD IT TAKE?
10 years and the HBCU conference will be at least as good as the MAC or Conference USA. They're already as good as the Sun Belt.
The benefit of moving up TOGETHER is that while the decade passes, and the seed money comes in from getting beat up by Auburn and Oklahoma is put to use, the BLACK COLLEGE GAMEDAY EXPERIENCE DOESN'T CHANGE for students and alumni of these institutions.
Everyone who went to an HBCU, especially the ones listed somewhere above, understands the difference between going to a game to watch the band and going to watch the game. FAMU fans are lucky enough to understand both (I'd try not to get upset when everyone left after halftime when we were up 36-0 back in the Billy Joe "Gulf Coast Offense" days, but I was never disappointed when we had a close game or were down - Rattler fans stayed until the end of the game and participated well).
Using this experience as a starting point for something much much bigger is what I'm bout... and by much much bigger I mean...
FAMU vs Southern on ESPN2,
Young kid sees the game, the band, and says "cool, I want to go there". He's 8.
10 years later, he's a scholarly lad, and wants to be an engineer. Well guess what, now when he considers FAMU, NC A&T, etc... he's not going to some small backwater school no one has heard of, because these teams get on TV as much as the SEC and Big Ten schools now...
So when he graduates with honors and goes to career fairs... he doesn't have to explain his school. And when he starts working on engines for Harley-Davidson, no one asks him "Florida A&M, you mean Florida State?" - response: "NO, Bitch. FAMU", followed by "Oh, where's that?"
And when companies schedule those trips... and cut those scholarship checks... and alumni have to choose between giving to their HBCU undergrad or their Ivy/Big Ten grad school...
You see where I'm going with it. HBCUs are an important piece of the educational history and fabric of the USA and have been somehow relegated to 2nd-class status in many ways. This is tragic. People have to hear of you to care about you... And in America, football is King.
(***To be completed***)
College football is by far my favorite sport. The traditions, pageantry, Bowl Games, constant debates over playoffs, etc... I love it all. But when I turn on the TV for the big games on fall Saturdays, I can't help but be a little sad that I don't see black school featured in any CBS spotlight games of the week.
Many institutions of higher learning use their athletic programs as free advertising for the rest of the university, and big money generators as well. For whatever reason, HBCUs don't take full advantage of what they have. I went to an HBCU, specifically, the best school in the country - Florida A&M University.
FAMU has a strong football tradition and program and the added attraction of the world's best band... the incomparable Marching 100. We won the first 1-AA/FCS title in the late 70s and beat Miami in the same season. Somehow, over the last 30 years we've gone from beating the Hurricanes to not even being in the conversation with them for recruits.
Its not just FAMU either. Eddie Robinson, possibly THE greatest coach ever in college football, won his games at Grambling. Southern, Tennessee State, South Carolina State and other black football programs have similar stories to tell.
When I was at FAMU, the Rattlers football team was in the midst of playoff streak that reached 8 years. It ended during an aborted attempt to move the football program up to the 1-A/FBS level. At the time, we would often see Troy State in the playoffs. Troy was a pretty good 1-AA team, but they had NOTHING on the Rattlers and we'd beat them 3 out of 4 years to advance or something like that.
Ten years later, Troy is in the Sun Belt Conference, playing division 1-A football and making up to $1 MILLION dollars a game (Arkansas State, also in the Sun Belt, is getting $1 M to play @ Auburn next year http://blog.al.com/auburnbeat/2009/03/auburn_adds_arkansas_state_to.html) and we're getting paltry checks from Mickey Mouse to sell out the Citrus Bowl with BCC (BCU?) in the Florida Classic.
This bothers the shit out of me. On two counts. 1) there's nothing special about Troy, but they're getting money we should be. Oklahoma and Virgina Tech were ready to chip in more than $500,000 each to play FAMU when we announced our move to 1-A. 2) Black Colleges routinely FILL mega-stadiums and domes with alumni fans and students and do not get anywhere near the $ these 1-A schools get.
For example - The Chick-fil-a Kickoff Classic paid Clemson and Alabama more then $2 Million EACH for a sellout of the Georgia Dome. Guess who else sells out the Georgia Dome?
FAMU vs Tennessee State. Last Saturday in September every year. And it'd be an even BIGGER game is FAMU played SOUTHERN there every year like i'd prefer.
Do FAMU and TSU take home $2 Million for the same sellout that Alabama and Clemson get? Hell no. Why? Partially bad negotiating, partially the fact that we're playing small-time football.
It's BEEN time for that to be over.
Considering the campus make-up, smaller class sizes, and focus on the students' success you find at HBCUs, its a shame they haven't become powers in the world of NCAA college athletics... And I'm talking in all sports.
OK, that's a lot of set up for One Idea. Let's skip to it.
Here's my idea.
I want 8 to 12 HBCUs to create a new football conference and apply for admission to Division 1-A together.
There are multiple components to this idea. The MONEY. The SCHEDULE. The ORGANIZATION.
Let's start with the SCHEDULE.
The minimum requirement for 1-A football is average attendance of 17,000. There are a handful of HBCUs that meet this off top. ( http://web1.ncaa.org/d1mfb/2007/Internet/attendance/IAA_AVGATTENDANCE.pdf )
HOWEVER, this doesn't factor in the "neutral site" games that define the Black College Football Experience. If a school were to play in two big classics a year, considering one a home game and one an away game (you are allowed to do this, according to NCAA regulations), these contests would only need to pull about 30,000 fans to swing the the attendance of several HBCUs on the above list above 17,000 for the year.
When FAMU tried to move up to 1-A, they discovered some serious issues internally, but the biggest program in my mind was the schedule and its lack of attractiveness to fans.
FAMU Football Transitional 1-A Season (2004) Schedule
@Illinois
@Tulane
@Temple
Tennessee State - Atlanta
Virginia Union
Nicholls State
@Va Tech
Savannah State
Florida Atlantic
BCC - Orlando
@Florida International
Nicholls State? Tulane? Florida Atlanta? Who the F wants to see us play them? I don't. As a football fan I don't care about those program, but as an HBCU grad I want to see the Battle of the Bands and the Southern University Dancing Dolls as well.
In a PERFECT world... for FAMU, the 1-AA/FCS schedule looks like this in my mind.
@ Florida
vs Grambling
- Southern in Atlanta
@ Tennessee State
@ Hampton
vs North Carolina A&T
@ Prarie View or Texas Southern
vs Jackson State
vs Alabama A&M
@ Alabama State
- BCC in Orlando
Not only does this schedule provide compelling HBCU matchups, it takes the football team to areas where there are good recruits. South Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, etc... And it guarantees 17,000 fans at home games.
THE ORGANIZATION
The schedule above isn't a 1-A schedule unless these schools become 1-A. So a concerted effort to get facilities and programs in order by say, 2015 to qualify has to be done and it has to be done with harmony and agreement. The SWAC and MEAC won't be happy, but they can be appeased financially and this could technically be a football-only deal.
THE MONEY
Football is THE money making sport in college sports. Basketball can be too for very successful programs like Duke, UConn and North Carolina. But its all about football. And football, and running a university, is all about money.
This is how I see the money working.
FBS/1-A schools get to play 12 games a year. At $1 Million per road "guarantee" game against a big, powerhouse program, there's plenty of money being given out to build a REAL football program over, say, a decade. (Again, see Troy as an example. Did they get destroyed in all their early 1-A games? Yes. Do they now? No...because they took their $, invested in facilities for football, got better, took advantage of their TV exposure, recruited better, and made themselves into a 7-5 type of program. The next step would be to LEAVE the Sun Belt and get to a real conference like Conf USA)
With $1 Million guarantee games available, and increased negotiation power for the Classics (over time), now that the football being played "matters" more, the HBCUs that do this would have the $ to get better over time. I also think that there will be players from Florida who would JUMP at the chance to play for FAMU and have their NFL dreams still be realistic (same with Louisiana boys and Southern/Grambling)... so the rebuilding on the field wouldn't take as long.
So here's the list of schools who could possibly pull something like this off based on attendance (mainly), programs, and what I know about the schools.
FAMU
Southern
Grambling
Jackson State
Tennessee State
Alabama State
NC A&T
Norfolk State
South Carolina State
Maybes
Hampton
Howard (a university that can do whatever it wants but has ignored athletics for some reason I don't get)
Alabama A&M
Prarie View (based on their market, Houston)
Texas Southern (ditto)
...and finally, FAMU's 1-A schedule as part of the new conference
@ Oregon
- Grambling in New Orleans
@ Hampton
vs Tennessee State
@ NC A&T
vs South Carolina State
@ Jackson State
- Southern in Atlanta
@ Ohio State
vs Norfolk State
- BCC in Orlando
vs Alabama State
The MONEY Part 2
Here's the other piece of the $ puzzle - the conference championship game. The SWAC does this now, and if done properly, could be a big deal at the 1-A level sometime around... 2020. That's an extra $500k per school with a $6 million rights fee. I'm not sure what Dr Pepper is paying to sponsor the Big 12 and SEC title games, but if you can win $1 million at halftime kicking a 50 yard field goal i suppose the conferences get way more than that. $6 million is a conservative estimate for sure. And I didn't include the broadcast fees yet either.
If 12 teams are in the conference in two divisions...
West / South Division
FAMU
Southern
Grambling
Jackson State
Prairie View
Alabama State
East / North Division
Tennessee State
Norfolk State
North Carolina A&T
South Carolina State
Howard
Hampton
...a conference championship game the first week in December in Atlanta or Miami would be do-able.
The DOWNSIDE
There's a lot of potential pitfalls for this idea. Most of which involve some form of crabs-in-the-barrel behavior at either the collective or an individual institutional level.
There's also the split-small-town attendance issue. FAMU and FSU share Tallahassee. Southern and LSU share Baton Rouge. Can FAMU and Southern get 17,000 to the stadium without Classics? They already do...again, FAMU trying to schedule Nicholls State and not Grambling State for a home game is part of the short sightedness of going it alone.
The investments needed to upgrade the facilities to even minimum "you call yourself a 1-A institution?" standards are substantial and critical to the success of the project, as there won't be a LOT of kids willing to pass up the Nautilus machines and player lounges at FSU for a weight room at FAMU that's not even as big as the one at their powerhouse, state champion high school.
HOW LONG WOULD IT TAKE?
10 years and the HBCU conference will be at least as good as the MAC or Conference USA. They're already as good as the Sun Belt.
The benefit of moving up TOGETHER is that while the decade passes, and the seed money comes in from getting beat up by Auburn and Oklahoma is put to use, the BLACK COLLEGE GAMEDAY EXPERIENCE DOESN'T CHANGE for students and alumni of these institutions.
Everyone who went to an HBCU, especially the ones listed somewhere above, understands the difference between going to a game to watch the band and going to watch the game. FAMU fans are lucky enough to understand both (I'd try not to get upset when everyone left after halftime when we were up 36-0 back in the Billy Joe "Gulf Coast Offense" days, but I was never disappointed when we had a close game or were down - Rattler fans stayed until the end of the game and participated well).
Using this experience as a starting point for something much much bigger is what I'm bout... and by much much bigger I mean...
FAMU vs Southern on ESPN2,
Young kid sees the game, the band, and says "cool, I want to go there". He's 8.
10 years later, he's a scholarly lad, and wants to be an engineer. Well guess what, now when he considers FAMU, NC A&T, etc... he's not going to some small backwater school no one has heard of, because these teams get on TV as much as the SEC and Big Ten schools now...
So when he graduates with honors and goes to career fairs... he doesn't have to explain his school. And when he starts working on engines for Harley-Davidson, no one asks him "Florida A&M, you mean Florida State?" - response: "NO, Bitch. FAMU", followed by "Oh, where's that?"
And when companies schedule those trips... and cut those scholarship checks... and alumni have to choose between giving to their HBCU undergrad or their Ivy/Big Ten grad school...
You see where I'm going with it. HBCUs are an important piece of the educational history and fabric of the USA and have been somehow relegated to 2nd-class status in many ways. This is tragic. People have to hear of you to care about you... And in America, football is King.
(***To be completed***)
Friday, January 29, 2010
Tetris - An Appreciation
I'd like to take a moment to shout out my favorite video game of all time, Tetris.
If you don't know about Tetris, google it.
The highest score I can recall achieving is 360,000. I did that on a gameboy with the ALCS in the background in like... 1999 or so. I've been playing online recently and my goal is to reach 400,000.
There are people with Tetris scores over 10 million. That's insanity. For us not weirdo geniuses - I like to think of myself as just genius enough not to be a true weirdo - 400,000 is a lot of damn Tetris points.
If you don't know about Tetris, google it.
The highest score I can recall achieving is 360,000. I did that on a gameboy with the ALCS in the background in like... 1999 or so. I've been playing online recently and my goal is to reach 400,000.
There are people with Tetris scores over 10 million. That's insanity. For us not weirdo geniuses - I like to think of myself as just genius enough not to be a true weirdo - 400,000 is a lot of damn Tetris points.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Wrestlemania 2010
It's that time of year again... the time where I come out and admit - yes, I still watch professional wrestling. If you don't enjoy watching oiled up steroid using guys and gals pretending to beat each other up for your entertainment, I submit that something is wrong with YOU, not I.
Anyways, last year, Wrestlemania 25 took place in Houston, TX. Though I had recently left H-town, I somehow was still in town that weekend, and ended up attending with 3 friends of mine. Good seats too. It was a cool experience, but the show fell flat from some of the better Wrestlemanias like 14, 18, 19, and even 20.
There was one match, however, that not only saved the show, but took its place in Wrestlemania lore among the all-time classic battles in wrestling history - "The Heartbreak Kid" Shawn Michaels vs The Undertaker.
This match was so good, we should've left afterwards. They should've found a way to put one of the title belts on one of the two homestate Texans so the match could have gone last, avoiding the this-shouldnt-have-happened scenario of a weak Triple H - Randy Orton match closing the show. I believe we left mid-match and heard the end as we descended the escalators of Reliant Stadium.
Well, the WWE is nothing if not consistent, and the best time to watch wrestling is now - January until April. It starts with the buildup to the Royal Rumble, which naturally flows into the "Road to Wrestlemania", given the fact that the Royal Rumble winner gets a title shot at the big dance.
The HBK-Undertaker match was so good, it seems like a strong possibility that HBK-Undertaker II will occur in Arizona. However, the Undertaker isn't planning to put up his Undefeated record at Wrestlemanias and his World Heavyweight (Smackdown brand) Title against a guy he just beat last year. He wants new competition. HBK has been showing signs of obsession wit getting a rematch, and his only option is winning the Royal Rumble. Standing in his way are... pretty much everyone.
So what will the WWE do? I know what I would do... Have Michaels be the LAST competitor eliminated, and have to find YET another way of getting his match with The Undertaker. Oh you want details? OK fine.
HBK is the last man eliminated from the Royal Rumble and his obsession grows. His last chance is to enter the Smackdown Elimination Chamber match at the February Pay-per-view (sometimes known as No Way Out, not sure what they'll call it this year) and win the World Heavyweight title there, forcing Undertaker to face him at Wrestlemania if he wants his belt back.
(A more "twist" filled version of the same story is as follows. Michaels attempts to enter the Smackdown Chamber match but is DENIED since he's on Raw. So he enters the Raw Chamber match, WINS the WWE Title, then sneaks into the ring and causes the Undertaker to get eliminated from the Smackdown chamber match and lose his title. Maybe he even uses Hornswaggle to distract Taker and the referee, allowing for some Sweet Chin Music and the 1-2-3 on the Undertaker. Batista or CM Punk is the beneficiary of the interference and takes on Royal Rumble winner John Cena for the World Heavyweight title at Mania. Triple H fights the other heel (Punk or Batista). I actually prefer this scenario, because it provides some heel heat for Michaels and even more for Batista/Punk...and hey, they could even have a backstage scene where we see Batista/Punk leaving the DX dressing room as HHH enters it, and HBK is acting funny - good ole foreshadowing. )
So, WM26 - Michaels and Undertakr yeah, they're fighting. Otherwise they would've already addressed the whole "I want a rematch" thing by now. I actually expected HBK to beat Undertaker at SummerSlam or Survivor Series to even it up.
As for HBK-Undertaker II the actual match... If i were book the show, I'd have the Undertaker beat up on Shawn for the first 15 minutes, then a ref bump, followed by Shawn Michaels beating the living crap out of 'Taker for the next 15 minutes straight. Multiple Chair shots, groin shots... everything he can heel up. Then I'd have Shawn deliver Sweet Chin Music 3 times in a row, and still not be able to get the pin. Then Undertaker would win and the show would be over.
Other fun matches that will be built up over the next two months include the "12 years in the making" battle between Bret Hart and Vincent Kennedy McMahon. Wrestling fans know the drill. 12 years ago, Bret Hart was WWE Champion. His contract was up in less than a month. Vince and the WWE were in a fight for their lives against WCW and Ted Turner's endless supply of money. Raw hadn't yet benefited from the Stone Cold Steve Austin / The Rock era (because it hadn't started yet) and Vince either didn't want to, or was unwilling to match the financial offer WCW had made to Bret. So Bret decided to leave. Vince said OK, but you need to drop the championship before u leave, as per tradition. He asked Bret to lose the belt in Montreal at the Survivor Series pay-per-view to Shawn Michaels. Bret preferred not to drop the belt in Canada and asked to lose the title at a house show later that week. Vince thought that was ridiculous (he was right) but Bret kept refusing. So he said "OK fine" and developed a plot now known as The Montreal Screwjob.
Vince instructed the matchmaker to insert a new part to the match. Bret Hart would lock Shawn in his trademark finisher "The Sharpshooter", and Shawn would reverse it. Referee Earl Hebner was told to then call for the bell AS IF Bret had submitted or tapped out. Bret knew nothing of it. Shawn did but denied that he knew for YEARS.
The resulting chaos has been replayed on WWE TV many times. Basically, Bret spazzed out in the middle of the ring. Spat on Vince (who at that time wasn't "out" as owner of the WWF. He was "just" an announcer). Made a big W-C-W with his hands to let the crowd know he was leaving. Total spaz out. He then went in the back and punched Vince slam in the face.
From then on, Vince and Shawn can't go to Canada without hearing chants of "you screwed Bret! you screwed Bret!" 12 years later. Same shit. Its kinda crazy.
What's REALLY crazy, is how that incident led to the explosion in popularity the WWF/WWE in the late 90s and early 2000s. Vince was a B or C as an annoucer, but he plays the EVIL BOSS to a tee. So well in fact, that its clear he's really like that in real life. He's a true bastard, and he played one on TV. That made for the perfect foil for the anti-establishment I-don't-give-a-fuck attitude of Stone Cold Steve Austin, the biggest mega-star the WWF had seen since Hulk Hogan. Later, Vince would feud with The Rock, Triple H, Degeneration X, and his son Shane. None of that would've been possible if not for the Montreal Screwjob. Perhaps Vince would've found a way to get on TV at some point, but who knows when that would've been.
So with all that history and weight behind it, the Bret Vince match is going to be a pretty big deal. Expect interference, shenanigans, and hopefully a more in shape Bret Hart than we saw as guest host on the January 4th edition of Raw.
Let's see, what else?
Well, John Cena, Triple H, Batista, Rey Mysterio, Chris Jericho, The Big Show, Randy Orton and CM Punk are all still out there. As are Kofi Kingston, MVP, and The Miz.
Randy Orton and Legacy have been together long enough. Very soon, they are going to break up and DiBiase is going to be the one to stand up to Orton. I see this happening in one of a few ways. Orton takes on Sheamus at the Royal Rumble for the WWE title. He could win, and then order DiBiase and Rhodes to help him defend it at the Elimination Chamber event. When they fail (or more specifically, when DiBiase REFUSES to help), things will boil over and a big match for Wrestlemania will be set. Another route would be for Orton to NOT beat Sheamus, and NOT win the Elimination Chamber, and then make one final, last ditch attempt to use Legacy to get him the title (shot) he seeks by entering all 3 members into the Money-In-The-Bank Ladder Match, where the winner gets a guaranteed title shot at any point up until the next Wreslemania.
DiBiase would either win the M-I-T-B himself, or refuse to help Orton, and the split would be imminent. I don't really see any other options for Orton since he finished off his feud with Kofi Kingston so soon. Actually, it was a little too soon unless they had something else planned (like what I just typed out).
CM Punk and his Straight Edge Society have natural feuds with DX and John Cena. Based on Batista's "seniority" on the card and age (CM Punk has a lot of great heel years ahead of him), I see Batista being the heel in the 2nd Main Event instead of CM Punk. I'm not saying I agree with that, or disagree with it, but that's how I see the politics working out. Punk should still be the Smackdown World Heavyweight champion based on his work from last summer, but the politics have the belt on The Undertaker.
The WWE is blessed with some great heels right now. Jericho, Batista, Orton, CM Punk , The Miz, Maryse, Michelle McCool and Edge (when he comes back and turns heel after 6 months as a face) do EXCELLENT heel work. So much so that the heel turn so many hope John Cena embarks on (he was a good heel when he rapped...a damn good heel) may not happen for another year or three. In fact, they are going to have to start elevating some more faces. HHH HBK Cena Undertaker and Rey Mysterio will need backup from someone like Kofi Kingston, MVP, or John Morrison.
Until then, Triple H will still be on the top of the card. He's either going to win the Royal Rumble and fight Batista, or not win and fight CM Punk.
Here's the Wrestlemania line up I'm expecting to see.
Wrestlemania 26 - Glendale, AZ - March 28th, 2010
Shawn Michaels* vs The Undertaker for The World Heavyweight Championship
Batista* vs John Cena for the WWE Title
Bret "Hitman" Hart vs Mr McMahon
Rey Mysterio vs CM Punk
Randy Orton vs Ted DiBiase Jr
The Miz* vs MVP vs Mark Henry for the US Title
Drew McIntyre* vs John Morrison for the Intercontinental Title
Money In The Bank - Sheamus v Jericho v Kingston v R-Truth v
Evan Bourne v Rey Mysterio v Cody Rhodes v The Big Show v Santino Marella
Beth Phoenix vs Mickie James for the Women's Championship
Maryse vs Melina for the Diva's Championship
ROYAL RUMBLE UPDATE!!!
Edge(!) returned and won(!!!) the Royal Rumble tonight. So I'm adjusting my projected card. I now see HBK costing Undertaker his title in the Smackdown Elimination Chamber, and Jericho winning it. That leads me to an intriguing possibility... HBK eliminated HHH from the Rumble and Hunter doesn't have a natural Mania feud this year. Perhaps a DX-Taker triple threat? That's kind of a bastardization of doing Michaels-Taker 2, but I can see it happening. I'd rather see HHH in a triple threat with Cena and Batista though.
WWE Title - Shawn Michaels* vs The Undertaker
Bret Hart and John Cena vs Vince Mchahon and Batista
World Heavyweight Title - Chris Jericho* vs Edge
CM Punk vs HHH
Randy Orton vs Ted DiBiase vs Cody Rhodes
Women's Title - Mickie James* vs Beth Phoenix
Money in the Bank Ladder Match - John Morrison, Kofi Kingston, Rey Mysterio, MVP, Big Show, Kane, Sheamus, TheMiz, Shelton Benjamin
Intercontinental Title - Drew McIntyre* vs R Truth
ECW Title - Christain* vs William Regal
Anyways, last year, Wrestlemania 25 took place in Houston, TX. Though I had recently left H-town, I somehow was still in town that weekend, and ended up attending with 3 friends of mine. Good seats too. It was a cool experience, but the show fell flat from some of the better Wrestlemanias like 14, 18, 19, and even 20.
There was one match, however, that not only saved the show, but took its place in Wrestlemania lore among the all-time classic battles in wrestling history - "The Heartbreak Kid" Shawn Michaels vs The Undertaker.
This match was so good, we should've left afterwards. They should've found a way to put one of the title belts on one of the two homestate Texans so the match could have gone last, avoiding the this-shouldnt-have-happened scenario of a weak Triple H - Randy Orton match closing the show. I believe we left mid-match and heard the end as we descended the escalators of Reliant Stadium.
Well, the WWE is nothing if not consistent, and the best time to watch wrestling is now - January until April. It starts with the buildup to the Royal Rumble, which naturally flows into the "Road to Wrestlemania", given the fact that the Royal Rumble winner gets a title shot at the big dance.
The HBK-Undertaker match was so good, it seems like a strong possibility that HBK-Undertaker II will occur in Arizona. However, the Undertaker isn't planning to put up his Undefeated record at Wrestlemanias and his World Heavyweight (Smackdown brand) Title against a guy he just beat last year. He wants new competition. HBK has been showing signs of obsession wit getting a rematch, and his only option is winning the Royal Rumble. Standing in his way are... pretty much everyone.
So what will the WWE do? I know what I would do... Have Michaels be the LAST competitor eliminated, and have to find YET another way of getting his match with The Undertaker. Oh you want details? OK fine.
HBK is the last man eliminated from the Royal Rumble and his obsession grows. His last chance is to enter the Smackdown Elimination Chamber match at the February Pay-per-view (sometimes known as No Way Out, not sure what they'll call it this year) and win the World Heavyweight title there, forcing Undertaker to face him at Wrestlemania if he wants his belt back.
(A more "twist" filled version of the same story is as follows. Michaels attempts to enter the Smackdown Chamber match but is DENIED since he's on Raw. So he enters the Raw Chamber match, WINS the WWE Title, then sneaks into the ring and causes the Undertaker to get eliminated from the Smackdown chamber match and lose his title. Maybe he even uses Hornswaggle to distract Taker and the referee, allowing for some Sweet Chin Music and the 1-2-3 on the Undertaker. Batista or CM Punk is the beneficiary of the interference and takes on Royal Rumble winner John Cena for the World Heavyweight title at Mania. Triple H fights the other heel (Punk or Batista). I actually prefer this scenario, because it provides some heel heat for Michaels and even more for Batista/Punk...and hey, they could even have a backstage scene where we see Batista/Punk leaving the DX dressing room as HHH enters it, and HBK is acting funny - good ole foreshadowing. )
So, WM26 - Michaels and Undertakr yeah, they're fighting. Otherwise they would've already addressed the whole "I want a rematch" thing by now. I actually expected HBK to beat Undertaker at SummerSlam or Survivor Series to even it up.
As for HBK-Undertaker II the actual match... If i were book the show, I'd have the Undertaker beat up on Shawn for the first 15 minutes, then a ref bump, followed by Shawn Michaels beating the living crap out of 'Taker for the next 15 minutes straight. Multiple Chair shots, groin shots... everything he can heel up. Then I'd have Shawn deliver Sweet Chin Music 3 times in a row, and still not be able to get the pin. Then Undertaker would win and the show would be over.
Other fun matches that will be built up over the next two months include the "12 years in the making" battle between Bret Hart and Vincent Kennedy McMahon. Wrestling fans know the drill. 12 years ago, Bret Hart was WWE Champion. His contract was up in less than a month. Vince and the WWE were in a fight for their lives against WCW and Ted Turner's endless supply of money. Raw hadn't yet benefited from the Stone Cold Steve Austin / The Rock era (because it hadn't started yet) and Vince either didn't want to, or was unwilling to match the financial offer WCW had made to Bret. So Bret decided to leave. Vince said OK, but you need to drop the championship before u leave, as per tradition. He asked Bret to lose the belt in Montreal at the Survivor Series pay-per-view to Shawn Michaels. Bret preferred not to drop the belt in Canada and asked to lose the title at a house show later that week. Vince thought that was ridiculous (he was right) but Bret kept refusing. So he said "OK fine" and developed a plot now known as The Montreal Screwjob.
Vince instructed the matchmaker to insert a new part to the match. Bret Hart would lock Shawn in his trademark finisher "The Sharpshooter", and Shawn would reverse it. Referee Earl Hebner was told to then call for the bell AS IF Bret had submitted or tapped out. Bret knew nothing of it. Shawn did but denied that he knew for YEARS.
The resulting chaos has been replayed on WWE TV many times. Basically, Bret spazzed out in the middle of the ring. Spat on Vince (who at that time wasn't "out" as owner of the WWF. He was "just" an announcer). Made a big W-C-W with his hands to let the crowd know he was leaving. Total spaz out. He then went in the back and punched Vince slam in the face.
From then on, Vince and Shawn can't go to Canada without hearing chants of "you screwed Bret! you screwed Bret!" 12 years later. Same shit. Its kinda crazy.
What's REALLY crazy, is how that incident led to the explosion in popularity the WWF/WWE in the late 90s and early 2000s. Vince was a B or C as an annoucer, but he plays the EVIL BOSS to a tee. So well in fact, that its clear he's really like that in real life. He's a true bastard, and he played one on TV. That made for the perfect foil for the anti-establishment I-don't-give-a-fuck attitude of Stone Cold Steve Austin, the biggest mega-star the WWF had seen since Hulk Hogan. Later, Vince would feud with The Rock, Triple H, Degeneration X, and his son Shane. None of that would've been possible if not for the Montreal Screwjob. Perhaps Vince would've found a way to get on TV at some point, but who knows when that would've been.
So with all that history and weight behind it, the Bret Vince match is going to be a pretty big deal. Expect interference, shenanigans, and hopefully a more in shape Bret Hart than we saw as guest host on the January 4th edition of Raw.
Let's see, what else?
Well, John Cena, Triple H, Batista, Rey Mysterio, Chris Jericho, The Big Show, Randy Orton and CM Punk are all still out there. As are Kofi Kingston, MVP, and The Miz.
Randy Orton and Legacy have been together long enough. Very soon, they are going to break up and DiBiase is going to be the one to stand up to Orton. I see this happening in one of a few ways. Orton takes on Sheamus at the Royal Rumble for the WWE title. He could win, and then order DiBiase and Rhodes to help him defend it at the Elimination Chamber event. When they fail (or more specifically, when DiBiase REFUSES to help), things will boil over and a big match for Wrestlemania will be set. Another route would be for Orton to NOT beat Sheamus, and NOT win the Elimination Chamber, and then make one final, last ditch attempt to use Legacy to get him the title (shot) he seeks by entering all 3 members into the Money-In-The-Bank Ladder Match, where the winner gets a guaranteed title shot at any point up until the next Wreslemania.
DiBiase would either win the M-I-T-B himself, or refuse to help Orton, and the split would be imminent. I don't really see any other options for Orton since he finished off his feud with Kofi Kingston so soon. Actually, it was a little too soon unless they had something else planned (like what I just typed out).
CM Punk and his Straight Edge Society have natural feuds with DX and John Cena. Based on Batista's "seniority" on the card and age (CM Punk has a lot of great heel years ahead of him), I see Batista being the heel in the 2nd Main Event instead of CM Punk. I'm not saying I agree with that, or disagree with it, but that's how I see the politics working out. Punk should still be the Smackdown World Heavyweight champion based on his work from last summer, but the politics have the belt on The Undertaker.
The WWE is blessed with some great heels right now. Jericho, Batista, Orton, CM Punk , The Miz, Maryse, Michelle McCool and Edge (when he comes back and turns heel after 6 months as a face) do EXCELLENT heel work. So much so that the heel turn so many hope John Cena embarks on (he was a good heel when he rapped...a damn good heel) may not happen for another year or three. In fact, they are going to have to start elevating some more faces. HHH HBK Cena Undertaker and Rey Mysterio will need backup from someone like Kofi Kingston, MVP, or John Morrison.
Until then, Triple H will still be on the top of the card. He's either going to win the Royal Rumble and fight Batista, or not win and fight CM Punk.
Here's the Wrestlemania line up I'm expecting to see.
Wrestlemania 26 - Glendale, AZ - March 28th, 2010
Shawn Michaels* vs The Undertaker for The World Heavyweight Championship
Batista* vs John Cena for the WWE Title
Bret "Hitman" Hart vs Mr McMahon
Rey Mysterio vs CM Punk
Randy Orton vs Ted DiBiase Jr
The Miz* vs MVP vs Mark Henry for the US Title
Drew McIntyre* vs John Morrison for the Intercontinental Title
Money In The Bank - Sheamus v Jericho v Kingston v R-Truth v
Evan Bourne v Rey Mysterio v Cody Rhodes v The Big Show v Santino Marella
Beth Phoenix vs Mickie James for the Women's Championship
Maryse vs Melina for the Diva's Championship
ROYAL RUMBLE UPDATE!!!
Edge(!) returned and won(!!!) the Royal Rumble tonight. So I'm adjusting my projected card. I now see HBK costing Undertaker his title in the Smackdown Elimination Chamber, and Jericho winning it. That leads me to an intriguing possibility... HBK eliminated HHH from the Rumble and Hunter doesn't have a natural Mania feud this year. Perhaps a DX-Taker triple threat? That's kind of a bastardization of doing Michaels-Taker 2, but I can see it happening. I'd rather see HHH in a triple threat with Cena and Batista though.
WWE Title - Shawn Michaels* vs The Undertaker
Bret Hart and John Cena vs Vince Mchahon and Batista
World Heavyweight Title - Chris Jericho* vs Edge
CM Punk vs HHH
Randy Orton vs Ted DiBiase vs Cody Rhodes
Women's Title - Mickie James* vs Beth Phoenix
Money in the Bank Ladder Match - John Morrison, Kofi Kingston, Rey Mysterio, MVP, Big Show, Kane, Sheamus, TheMiz, Shelton Benjamin
Intercontinental Title - Drew McIntyre* vs R Truth
ECW Title - Christain* vs William Regal
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Super Bowl Bound
I'll keep this short.
Tomorrow brings the AFC and NFC Championship games. It would've been a bigger deal if the Colts hadn't decided to rest their starters for a month, but when the Patriots Wes Welker got hurt in the last week of the season (in a game with no real bearing on the standings), I guess you could say the Colts brass was vindicated. Don't say that to their fans though. Football is just entertainmen and they didn't pay season tickets to see JV football... OK moving on.
Jets at Colts - AFC Title Game
Rex Ryan talks more shit than Lane Kiffin, and that's saying something. His defenses, however, back him up. Rookie QB Mark Sanchez a year ago had Pete Carroll at USC mad at him for bolting after only 1 year as a starter (no doubt contributing to the 9-4 season for USC and perhaps Carroll's escape to the Seattle Seahawks), now he's a game away from the Super Bowl.
Well, really he's not. He's a game away from having the best seat in the house to watch the Jets running game try to eat clock against the Saints or Vikings.
Regardless, the last month and a half have been pretty sweet for Jets fans. Will they get another win in Indy? I think they have a shot. Their defense is the type that pisses off Peyton Manning and can have him running for his #@#$ing life for 4 quarters. And when you gain 10 yards a carry there's no need to have a rookie QB throw passes for Braylon Edwards to drop. But this isn't Week 16 and I'm going to assume that Manning Jedi-like command of the offense will allow him to find the open man (that would be whoever isn't blanketed by the awesome Darrelle Revis) a few times, and the Colts D has had time to heal. I'm not going to act surprised if the Jets do win, I just don't really see it happening.
Colts 27 - Jets 14
Vikings at Saints - NFC Championship
THE game of the year so far, unless you count Patriots @ Saints. Let's get a few things out of the way. It's going to be loud as hell in the Superdome. Brett Favre is old and good. Drew Brees is my preferred fantasy football QB (Aaron Rodgers works too) and is on some next level stuff himself. Reggie Bush is playing for his $8 Million roster bonus. The Saints are allegedly the soul of New Orleans, blah blah blah blah blah.
Karma says the Packers must suffer for forcing Brett out. And by suffer, that means "see their franchise's greatest player in the Super Bowl in rival colors". Karma also says the Saints are due.
Let's go to the X's and O's. I believe that if the Saints successfully pick up the pass rush, they will win. That's not an easy thing to do, and it will require leaving back a RB or two. Which would mean reducing the number of pass routes Brees can choose from. It'll be interesting - the Vikes pass rush is as effective as the Cowboys and thebitchass Cowboys came into New Orleans and beat the Saints up.
On the other side, I can't recall if the Saints secondary is better than the Cowboys'. Its gonna have to be, or there will be more whining about people running up the score. NO wait, that won't happen. Only bitch ass Cowboys fans who spend too much time in Euphoria that they won ONE playoff game do that shit. Lames. So what if the Vikings were throwing at the end of the game, its the playoffs of the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE - this ain't JV junior high school. Grow the f%%% up and take your beating like a man.
OK back to this week - the fact that Jason Campbell carved up the Saints secondary should mean that Brett Favre can right? Am I even allowed to use the regular season for info? I don't really know that I can take away anything from the Cards victory last week because the Cardinals are streaky and ran out of gas.
OK, I'll just admit it, I have no idea who will win this game. So my gut is yelling Vikings so (Sorry Officemate - Shoutouts to Rex Guillen) I'm going to go with them... and not be upset if I'm wrong. I do like the Saints.
Vikings 34 - Saints 30
Super Bowl
Colts 27 Vikings 23
Tomorrow brings the AFC and NFC Championship games. It would've been a bigger deal if the Colts hadn't decided to rest their starters for a month, but when the Patriots Wes Welker got hurt in the last week of the season (in a game with no real bearing on the standings), I guess you could say the Colts brass was vindicated. Don't say that to their fans though. Football is just entertainmen and they didn't pay season tickets to see JV football... OK moving on.
Jets at Colts - AFC Title Game
Rex Ryan talks more shit than Lane Kiffin, and that's saying something. His defenses, however, back him up. Rookie QB Mark Sanchez a year ago had Pete Carroll at USC mad at him for bolting after only 1 year as a starter (no doubt contributing to the 9-4 season for USC and perhaps Carroll's escape to the Seattle Seahawks), now he's a game away from the Super Bowl.
Well, really he's not. He's a game away from having the best seat in the house to watch the Jets running game try to eat clock against the Saints or Vikings.
Regardless, the last month and a half have been pretty sweet for Jets fans. Will they get another win in Indy? I think they have a shot. Their defense is the type that pisses off Peyton Manning and can have him running for his #@#$ing life for 4 quarters. And when you gain 10 yards a carry there's no need to have a rookie QB throw passes for Braylon Edwards to drop. But this isn't Week 16 and I'm going to assume that Manning Jedi-like command of the offense will allow him to find the open man (that would be whoever isn't blanketed by the awesome Darrelle Revis) a few times, and the Colts D has had time to heal. I'm not going to act surprised if the Jets do win, I just don't really see it happening.
Colts 27 - Jets 14
Vikings at Saints - NFC Championship
THE game of the year so far, unless you count Patriots @ Saints. Let's get a few things out of the way. It's going to be loud as hell in the Superdome. Brett Favre is old and good. Drew Brees is my preferred fantasy football QB (Aaron Rodgers works too) and is on some next level stuff himself. Reggie Bush is playing for his $8 Million roster bonus. The Saints are allegedly the soul of New Orleans, blah blah blah blah blah.
Karma says the Packers must suffer for forcing Brett out. And by suffer, that means "see their franchise's greatest player in the Super Bowl in rival colors". Karma also says the Saints are due.
Let's go to the X's and O's. I believe that if the Saints successfully pick up the pass rush, they will win. That's not an easy thing to do, and it will require leaving back a RB or two. Which would mean reducing the number of pass routes Brees can choose from. It'll be interesting - the Vikes pass rush is as effective as the Cowboys and the
On the other side, I can't recall if the Saints secondary is better than the Cowboys'. Its gonna have to be, or there will be more whining about people running up the score. NO wait, that won't happen. Only bitch ass Cowboys fans who spend too much time in Euphoria that they won ONE playoff game do that shit. Lames. So what if the Vikings were throwing at the end of the game, its the playoffs of the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE - this ain't JV junior high school. Grow the f%%% up and take your beating like a man.
OK back to this week - the fact that Jason Campbell carved up the Saints secondary should mean that Brett Favre can right? Am I even allowed to use the regular season for info? I don't really know that I can take away anything from the Cards victory last week because the Cardinals are streaky and ran out of gas.
OK, I'll just admit it, I have no idea who will win this game. So my gut is yelling Vikings so (Sorry Officemate - Shoutouts to Rex Guillen) I'm going to go with them... and not be upset if I'm wrong. I do like the Saints.
Vikings 34 - Saints 30
Super Bowl
Colts 27 Vikings 23
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