Well, at least now I'm caught back up.at least until Thursday.

Well, since my massive readership.yeah, that's it.demanded it, I'm finally going to get caught back up again. At least until I get lulled to sleep by W's constant flogging of the necessity of military action against Iraq. If you want to know more about how I feel about this, I'd be more than willing to tell you :)

And this is purely pre-emptive on my part, but I think there's an article coming up from one of the other guys on the site talking about how "all Bill Raftery does is speak gibberish". Do me a favor and ignore that part. If you didn't know, Raft is a color analyst for ESPN/CBS college basketball. The guy has bona-fide coaching experience at Seton Hall, I believe. (The same Seton Hall that produced NBA chokehold victim PJ Carlesimo). Anyway, Bill has some tremendous insight into the game, and I think some of his expressions are hilarious.that is, THEY DON'T TAKE ANYTHING AWAY FROM THE BROADCAST. I think this guy may also argue that Dick Vitale is great, although he prefers to yell and carry on for the whole broadcast. Just food for thought.

Now, without any further ado.

(Belated) SmackDown Thoughts (2003.1.23)

Man, this was a great show! I mean, the in-ring action was great, and the Hogan thing was very well done.now, for the specifics:

The Good:
Hogan's return segment: Although it ran a little too long, I wish I would have been there in person. I couldn't believe the ovation that he got. But I had to take pause when the crowd wouldn't pop before he actually came out in person. Just saying a little something about the WWE not delivering on promises or trying for the swerve as of late. The promo started cheesy, and the whole Vince vs. "whoever" has been done before, but I think I may be looking forward to this.

Benoit/Haas, Edge/Benjamin, Angle/Mysterio: What has Raw done lately to approach the level of *any* of these? I mean, these were fun matches with some great work! I just hope that Haas and Benjamin don't get stuck on the J.O.B. squad whenever these guys hook up.

Well, with that said, was there even room for anything else on the show? Unfortnately, yes.

The Bad:
UT vs. A-Train: I'm still a little miffed about UT's gimmick. However, A-Train still sucks, and he needs MAJOR repackaging before anybody will care. Hopefully his TV time will be somewhat reduced if the rumors are true that he is being de-pushed.

Nunzio vs. Moore: Not really here because of the work, because it wasn't bad, but by how misused the Noble faction is. These guys are pretty hilarious, if you ask me.

The Ugly:
Bill DeMott vs. Rikishi: I think it might be safe to say that *any* Rikishi match will end up here until further notice, or at least until he gets jobbed out, a new gimmick, or a new moveset.

+++++++++++++++

Raw Thoughts (2003.1.27)

Well, I guess I'll have to swallow my pride and say that this wasn't actively as bad as some recent editions, but there's still ample opportunity to fill up the bottom side of the commentary here.

The Good:
Trish Stratus vs. Victoria: I honestly thought that there wasn't ever going to be another women's match that I actually enjoyed, especially since most of them are pretty clichéd. But this was pretty damn good. The ending was the typical train-wreck, but I was actually glad to see Jazz there, and I thought I'd never hear myself say that.

Tag title match: What? Regal, Storm, and Morley in the "Good"? Not so fast. This match sucked eggs, but the missing tables bit was kinda cool. Hopefully they can find a way to get the titles onto Booker and Goldust at WM, SINCE I'LL BE THERE.

Jeff Hardy vs. Booker T: I liked the match, and I liked how Jeff is FINALLY starting to be repositioned a bit, but there HAS to be something better for Booker to do.like winning the HHH title or something.

The Bad:
Tough Enough III match: Good effort, bad idea. The only way this can go anywhere is if they have good follow-up to the Dreamer angle, instead of forgetting about it for a month like they usually do.

D-Lo vs. Hurricane: The action wasn't all that bad, but the whole angle with Long and D'Lo just makes my head hurt.

Main-event tag match: I appreciate that they're trying to put whatever Triple's group is called over as big-time heels. But I just can't see anything past this being a way to get HHH over even more (at least in his own mind) at the expense of the others, especially with him getting the final shot in. I was actually calling for a RVD heel turn (ala Hogan/Sid 1992). However, I hope that doesn't happen, since that'll probably bury RVD even further down. However, if they only hold that out for a couple of months and then have RVD turn face again and actually WIN THE TITLE, I'd go for that.

The Ugly:
Storm/Regal vs. Dudleyz: After that brief moment that I actually liked (see above), this quickly became retarded. I don't really see how burying two stale guys would really help Storm and Regal, but that's just me. And as soon as 3-Minute Warning and Morley (3 characters I care less than nothing about) came out, I was trying to strangle myself with the telephone cord. Come on! Only 2 talented guys in the segment, and one of them has to tag with Regal in order to get ANYWHERE, and the other is stuck on the sidelines as a lackey for 3MW. Ergh.

Not as bad as previously, but this doesn't hold water when compared to SmackDown. But then again, what's new?

A group of friends and I put together this little project in 2003 as an outlet of out collective rage and anger about the subjects that each of us cared about. I was the editor-and-chief and games writer back then.

It was a blast to do and it to be involved in a great collaborative effort using the strengths of my friends was simply amazing. I hope you have fun reading our work as much as we had in creating it.