Welcome to (very late) Tuesday here on Inside Pulse, and I’m supposedly your Tuesday party host. Between RumbleMania running wild on the server and the incredible amounts of news surround Rumble weekend, this column is more delayed than I had planned, but that’s life running one of these website things.
Luckily for me things are doing well in WWE to talk about, so let’s get right to it!
Wrestling
I’ve been talking about it to the IP staff for months, but WWE has delivered on the official beginning of RumbleMania season. If you consider Wrestlemania the “super bowl” of WWE, than the time from the Royal Rumble into ‘mania is the playoffs, and WWE steps it up every year, starting with the Rumble.
The Rumble was a great PPV, and finally felt like there was a positive energy up and down the whole WWE PPV card. Every match seemed to be booked with a long term purpose, and each match delivered in a fairly satisfying fashion. I’m curious to see where this Orton burial is leading, but the old adage is that you do a lot of jobs before a major turn, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Orton turn heel soon.
The whole idea of an insta-face Orton was panned from the beginning, and the confused booking only made it worse. I’m not saying Orton couldn’t have overcome it, but it would have been VERY hard and its easy to forget he’s only 24. Let’s see — he beat the (at the time) top baby face for the title, then screwed that same babyface out of the rematch match, then got beat up by HHH looking like a chump. He’s a young pretty boy who was born into his position and was rushed to the top, and I’m shocked the fans didn’t turn on him worse than they have (with apathy). It’s a credit to Orton for making it work as well as it did, and it’s not even hindsight because most of the IWC said it at the time.
Raven West debuted during PPV coverage during one of the toughest PPVs to cover of the year, and did a bang up job. Check out his report and let him know what you thought! Using all my guilt powers, I got Hyatte to whip up a Rumble Mop Up. Scott will have his rant up “soon”. Hatton brought his Rabble to the PPV party. And, as a dark horse candidate for the most entertaining Rumble report is Eric S who loaded up his column with RR screengrabs. He also dated his column 2004 which makes me wonder how carefully he’s reading over his stuff. Then again I approved it and still haven’t fixed it. SMELL THE QUALITY CONTROL.
Raw followed up on the Rumble with a very solid effort. I was hoping to have a high energy show with the same type of urgency seen at the PPV, but the show was more of a small piece in the WM21 puzzle rather than anything major. class=wrestling>Scott made a good point and said Raw is likely in a holding pattern until after No Way Out anyway. We had a full slate of Raw coverage, from PK’s super fantasic Report to Hatton’s Monday Night Rabble and of course Mista Keith
Sports
The Mets remained active in the off season this past week, with this HUGE maneuver:
From ESPN.com:
New York Mets: Left-hander Scott Stewart agreed Monday to a minor league contract with the Mets and will have a chance to earn a job in their thin bullpen.
Stewart, 29, was 1-0 with a 5.23 ERA in 10 games and 10 1-3 innings last year for Los Angeles, which bought his contract from Cleveland on Aug. 18. He was 0-2 with a 7.24 ERA in 23 games and 13 2-3 innings with the Indians.
Also, one of my new Least Favorite Sports Players comes to the Mets (of course) to curtail all my happiness about Beltran and Pedro. I love Doug Mientkiewicz as a player and think he will be a great fit at First Base. I just can’t get over how lame it is to hold onto the World Series ball and hold up the team for more money. Here is the Full story on Doug Mientkiewicz. Why is it that sports players are such total douchebags sometimes?
Man if it’s not Mets, I’m worthless with sports lately. Where is hockey dammit!
Inside Pulse Sports isn’t worthless, and they are not deferred by the lack of hockey like I am. Is it so bad that I don’t like NCAA basketball? I went to Rutgers, you wanted me at the RAC every game? I went to enough. Wow that sounds like I have issues.
Patrick Nguyen check in with On the Offense talking about a huge variety of topics, including but not limited to: Match-fixing soccer, Owens, Patriots v. Mitchell, Angela Ruggiero, Edgerrin James wants to leave the Colts, Bonds’s surgery has him miss most of spring training, Piazza married.
Mark Urciuolo checks in with a DOUBLE shot of plugs for The Musings and The Weekly Pulse for IP Sports
Music
Today is new release day in the world of music, and there ain’t much going on. Motley has ANOTHER greatest hits package out, but I already got one of the three new songs and grabbed the other two on iTunes. $3 for your new songs suckers! I have all the others!
Unwritten Law has a new CD out today and I wanted to picked it up. I’m way into the single, Save Me, and I have high hopes for the full CD. It’s NOT on iTunes yet, which is annoying, so I’ll probably pick it up tomorrow. I thought the last CD, Elva, was a really eclectic CD and I hope they have a bunch of different sounds on this one too.
I got a drunken IM from gloomchen over the weekend. That’s all I’ll divulge at this point.
Botter is back and as long as he updates top stories, I’ll throw him a plug every week.
I’m totally in agreeance with Shawn M. Smith about The Zutons – Who Killed the Zutons? even though I hated Pressure Point at first. Now I’m loving the CD.
TV
Coogan might be the editor of Inside Pulse Movies but he is also DA MAN over in TV as well. One of my must-reads each week is Mr. Coogan’s So-Called Television Column where he teams up with Urciuolo (he’s everywhere this week) and Coogan to review ESPN’s Tilt.
If it’s the celebtiries you like here at Inside Pulse, then you’ll be happy to see Ask Nick: Season 3 – Episode 2.
Brian McLoone has a whole bunch about the week in cable TV in this week’s The Cable Guy and Mike Lawrence has an all new My T.V. Reality
Time is running out on me! I want to post this soon!
More Plugs!!!
The Small Gods Contest is over and The Overlord has all the details on the winners. Is it you? Click here to find out
Toy Fair is super close and time is running out on me building the new image gallery for PK. This weekend! Maybe”¦ You Don’t Know Jakks has all the details on the latest from Jakks.
Ryan Closs has a review up of The Sea Inside
Damn, games has nothing! Let’s do this Hot Seat.
The Hot Seat has been on a serious roll. Not many scores above the 50% range in quite a while. Some cocky Inside Pulse staffers have been going as far as to CHALLENGE the Hot Seat, and you see another example here today with Alex Williams. Longtime Friday columnist on Pulse games, Alex has a dark secret. Will the SMB3 issue be broached?
1. We always start with geometry – The diagonals of a ________ are perpendicular to each other. Each diagonal of a _______ bisects a pair of opposite angles. Please fill in both blanks with the same polygonal shape.
AW: rhombus
Judges: Excellent. 1 out of 1
2. Longtime 411/Pulse Games readers know you as the resident DDR freak on the staff, but I have a deeper question that I need to know the answer to. Is there really any difference between the NES power pad and the home DDR dancefloors?
AW: Outside of the material made for those pads? Sort of. The Power Pads don’t have a regular controller layout, as they have 9-12 buttons to press. No directions, no A/B. The DDR pads have directional buttons and at least the X/O buttons.
Judges: That was very informative, the judges appreciate the clarification. 2 out of 2
3. In 50 words or less, please defend giving Super Mario Brothers 3 for Gameboy Advance a 6.5 rating.
AW: Ha, ha Widro. Super Mario Brothers 3 is a great game. Super Mario ADVANCE 4 is a dissappointment. With the previous “Advance” titles in the series, you expected something more to go inside the game. With SMA4, you had to buy extra e-Reader cards. Good idea, bad implementation.
Judges: This was unfortunately a trick question. Any answer that defended a 6.5 for Super Mario 3 is instantly wrong, and for the first time in history, the judges are awarding negative 3 points instead of the customary 0 for an incorrect answer. -1 out of 3
4. People are always talking to me about new candy. And there are a lot of good ones out there these days. But we’re gonna go with an older, more refined choice for you. Please rank the variety of Hershey’s Miniatures in order of deliciousness, starting with the most delicious: a) Mr. Goodbar b) Hershey Bar c) Skor d) Krackle
AW: #1 would be the Hershey Bar, as nothing can beat the classical plain milk chocolate bar. #2 is Krackle, as crispy rice is always a nice treat. #3 is Mr Goodbar, as I maybe had ONE in my 22 years of existance. I never had a Skor, so that ends up last.
Judges: Any answer that placed Skor at #4 was correct, because the other three are so delicious it is really just a matter of taste what order you place them in 0 out of 4
5. Finally, as we look to a bleak EA-controlled future, can you help me cope with the cruel fact that Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath did not come with a colored instruction book? I mean this is ODDWORLD! Black and white? Are you kidding me?
AW: EA is the spawn of Satan itself, and apparently sold its soul a long time ago when they wanted to make a GOOD game. (i.e. Mutant League Football) Mucking up something like an instruction book for a decent game is just another counter-balance of that particular contract.
Judges: It’s”¦ just not fair”¦ 1 out of 5
Despite getting so many questions correctly, Alex unfortunately only finishes with a score of 1 out of 5. the Hot Seat holds grudges and its clear that no one is safe. There are rumors that March will see an ALL STAR HOT SEAT LINEUP so stay tuned.
Wrestlemania 21 Countdown – 61 days!
If you’ve been reading this column since last year, I’ve been counting down to Wrestlemania 21. And not to toot my own horn TOO much, but I have been piecing together WWE’s plans quite well if I do say so myself. Unfortunately Raw didn’t offer too much more in the way of new matches, so we are left with about half the card at this point.
The card, as it stands tonight, has the following matches as near locks:
Raw World Title
Triple H (c) vs. Batista
Smackdown World Title
JBL (c) vs. John Cena
Shawn Michaels vs. Kurt Angle
Undertaker & Kane vs. Gene Snitsky & Heidenreich
There were also interbrand tension between Eddy Guerrero and Chris Benoit, as well as Rey Mysterio with both Chris Jericho and Edge. although none were major issues.
Fan Forum
If you were scared off by the message board at 411 and are looking for a better forum experience, I highly encourage you to give the Inside Pulse Fan Forum a shot. We have a lot of great posters on the forum with great things to say. In addition, we have tons of games, contests and the buzz-worthy Ask PULSE! I will be posting the first edition on the main page tomorrow.
.: Widro :.
