Wednesday, April 18, 2012

A 12 year-old's view of Jersey Shore

Read my article on Yahoo! of how an innocent 12 year-old views Jersey Shore

http://voices.yahoo.com/how-12-year-old-views-jersey-shore-11202388.html?cat=39

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Professional Wrestling Match of The Year 2012 So Far

Here are my top three matches for the first quarter of 2012

1. Davey Richards vs. Michael Elgin for the ROH World Championship at Ring of Honor Showdown in the Sun Day 2 3/31

I can see this one holding up throughout the year to win not only my match of the year but also the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Match of the Year. It was that good. Both men are incredibly intense. It took Elgin to a new level. Although Richards is terrible on the mic as was the case in his post-match promo. The Kevin Steen-El Generico Last Man Standing match from Day 1 is also a great match to seek out if you haven't seen it.

2. Kazuchika Okada vs. Testsuya Naito for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship at New Japan Pro Wrestling 40th Anniversary Show 3/4

Amazing match. Naito is so talented and Okada could become a huge star with a solid run with the belt. He has the look and skills.

3. Undertaker vs. Triple H Hell in a Cell with Shawn Michaels as special guest referee at WWE Wrestlemania 28 4/1

Not quite as good as last year's Wrestlemania match but excellent and better than almost everything else this year. I would put last year's match behind only Punk vs. Cena from the Money in the Bank PPV as 2011 MOTY with Richards/Edwards II and III coming in at the 3rd and 4th spots. Even though II got 2nd place in the Observer and I don't believe the third encounter was eligible.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Rock vs. Brock Lesnar Wrestlemania 29 RAW Thoughts

Rock vs. Brock Lesnar at WWE Wrestlemania 29

This past Monday on Raw the Rock vowed to once again become WWE Champion.

The crowd was super hot for this show with Daniel Bryan being incredible over.

The spot with Brodus Clay confronting Jack Swagger and Dolph Ziggler was great. The headbeat to Dolph was awesome and it will be great to see what the Funkasaurus becomes.

It was interesting to see WWE mentioning wrestling in Japan and I thought the Lord Tensai debut was pretty cool.

Extreme Rules in Chicago should be cool with the Punk-Jericho match. The spot where Jericho smashed the bottle over Punk’s head was effective and the build should be good for this match.

Brock Lesnar’s return was over huge and it will be interesting to see if the build into WM 28 is the Rock challenging Lesnar for the WWE title.

Lesnar reportedly got a monster deal and has had notoriously been very hard to deal with which should make for interesting stories throughout the year. Lesnar is well off moneywise coming off his UFC run so does not have that desire and he seems to be a very hard-headed individual. During Lesnar’s run in New Japan he was paid 50K per match and didn’t try that hard making it hard for him to get over in Japan. How hard will he work in this role?

This was a great RAW especially with the crowd so it will be interesting to see how things progress.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Wrestlemania 28 Betting Perspective Thoughts #wwe #wm28

Wrestlemania 28 was an entertaining show. I wanted to give a few thoughts from a betting perspective. As I wrote previously, I didn’t bet this show but wanted to give quick thoughts. It definitely seemed like Sheamus would go over after the go-home RAW even though the odds shifted in Bryan’s favor as Sheamus went from -250 to -215 from what I seen.

Kane-Orton was interesting as everyone thought Orton would win so WWE went with the opposite finish. Orton was about -500 so this one would have hurt for those betting on Kane. This is all in hindsight but this was the one match where WWE could swerve the fans. Also, Kane is supposed to be a monster and having him job out in the 2nd match on WM. Imo, it was smart to put him over if anybody still cares about him.

Cody Rhodes vs. Big Show had been about even money even though Big Show was + money when I thought Show had a much better than 50% chance of winning to finally overcome being a WM joke which was the point of the storyline. Of course, it was hardly a sure thing as they could have turned him heel. But, in the end he went over and I felt this would have been a good bet.

The divas match had the babyfaces going over. You had to think this would happen, if you would have bet it early when the faces were only -155 or under -200 it was a great bet but again, hardly a sure thing. It eventually moved closer to where it should have been.

Undertaker was a great bet at -475 is what I first seen it at on 5dimes but eventually was up to -2000 last I saw which is where it should have started as of course Taker was going over. Price was steep but still VALUE.

Team Johnny price went really high and they went over as expected.

Punk vs. Jericho had Punk as the underdog for a while and was hard to call even though I really thought Punk would end up winning although a good case could be made otherwise and was def. not convinced with the pre-match angle where Punk could lose his title on DQ since the following month is Extreme Rules in his hometown of Chicago.

Last match was very interesting with Rock vs. Cena. Cena was the favorite when the betting was released way back in 2011 and it stayed that way. One had to think they had to put over Cena and Rock would be leaving and do the job but right before match time and somewhat the last RAW it became evident they didn’t have to do that and before the match def. seen Rock winning. Anything else, would have been a terrible ending from the crowd.

These are just some thoughts I felt like writing up and might be good reference when betting next year’s Mania. How the mind frame of the writers worked and how the odds shifted.