My apologies for the lack of a column last week. As with most columnists on Inside Pulse, I’ve got a job that sometimes takes precedence over my work here. I’m in the United States Army and we’ve got guys flying home from Iraq over the next month, so I can’t promise that I won’t be erratic in my schedule until that’s over. We should have everyone home by the end of this month at the latest and I can return to doing my reports in a timely fashion, but everything is fair game until that point.
There’s really not a lot this week. It’s been a strange few weeks in the wrestling business, with a weird run of incredibly bad television shows leaving me in a state of apathy in regards to just about every major promotion out there. I’m usually excited about SOMETHING happening, but everything has been bad as of late. WWE is setting a new bar for bad wrestling programming; they’re treading water in a bad way and it’s completely obvious to everyone that doesn’t have the last name of McMahon or Dunn.
Let’s talk fantasy football again. This is a weekly segment, so if you’re not interesting in football, fantasy football or sports in general, you can skip on down to the WWE Notebook and begin reading from there.
THE SONIC DEATH MONKEYS
Look, I’ve lost two in a row. I’ve been trying to stick with most of the team I drafted, but they’re just not putting up numbers and I’ve been embarrassed two weeks running. I’m standing at 4-4 and in danger of not making the playoffs, so I decided it was time for a shakeup. I gave notice to the league that my entire time (with the exception of Andre Johnson, who has become the best receiver in the AFC) was available for trade talks.
I ended up making two very good deals. For starters, I traded Tiki Barber and Reggie Bush for Michael Vick, Carnell Williams and Dallas Clark. People will look at me like I’m a fool for trading Tiki, but here’s my reasoning: Tiki is a great back. He puts up great yardage every single game and is always dependable for 12-15 fantasy points…but he doesn’t score touchdowns. He’s not the red zone back for the Giants, and as a result he doesn’t put up the kind of numbers that I need from the guy who is supposed to be my #1 back. Reggie Bush was a good draft choice, but he also doesn’t put up fantasy points. He might be good for 80 yards of total offense per game, but he doesn’t score touchdowns, so he doesn’t give me any points. My main goal in this trade was getting Vick; he’s an absolute fantasy monster, and I wasn’t getting production from any of my quarterbacks. I needed someone who can put up 20-30 points on any given day, and Vick is that guy. Cadillac will give me more points than Bush does, and Dallas Clark fills a role in tight end that’s been sorely lacking for me.
I also traded Joseph Addai for Jeff Wilkins. Wilkins is the #2 kicker in the game in terms of fantasy points right now and Addai is a role player for me, so that was a no brainer. I’d been rotating kickers on a weekly basis, with the most recent failed pickup being Neil Rackers, so Wilkins gives me a solid starter every week in addition to someone who can carry a majority of the fantasy points for my team every week.
I also picked up Houston TE Owen Daniels from waivers and grabbed Chad Pennington. As of now, my team looks like this:
>> WWE NOTEBOOK << — As of press time, Monty Brown has not signed a contract, but is expected to shortly. As noted previously in this column, Brown left TNA mostly because they wanted him to work indie dates in order to get better on his work in the ring, but he made far more money doing his personal training business than he ever would on the indie scene and so it wasn’t worth the effort to him. WWE would be paying him a generous guarantee, so he’ll be able to sacrifice the personal training job in order to work on the road with WWE. The current working idea is to add him to the ECW brand to bolster that lackluster roster. — Paul Wight (Big Show) is nearly done. His contract is up soon and he’s completely shot physically, and there’s zero interest on his part in signing a new deal for any length of time. He’s a legitimate 530 pounds and his knees and back are gone, and he’s suffering from many of the same maladies that plagued Andre The Giant during the latter portions of his career. He’s unable to work out due to his physical deterioration, so the only way he can alleviate some of those problems is through a serious diet regimen, and the feeling is that at his age he’s not interested in doing that. The planned Hogan/Show match for WrestleMania in Detroit may or may not happen, but if it does it will in all likelihood be the final match of his career. — The current plan is for Test to win the ECW Championship at the December To Dismember PPV. He’s obviously not the best option in the world, but they aren’t going to give the title to Rob Van Dam at any time in the near or distant future and with the exception of perhaps Bob Holly, there’s nobody else that could be a viable option at this point. CM Punk isn’t ready, nor should they try to rush him into that role, so it will likely fall on Test. Yes, I’m as excited about this as you’d think I would be. Van Dam is said to be in a major funk because he knows he pretty much ended any chances he had of being a top guy with his drug arrest. — One of the major reasons the ECW house shows are being integrated with Smackdown is that the ECW shows are doing so badly that they are actually bringing down the house show numbers on WWE financial reports. The house show business for Raw and Smackdown has actually been up the past four months, but ECW is doing so badly that it makes it look like things are staying at the same level. Vince McMahon won’t admit it, but the feeling is that he’s folding ECW into Smackdown so investors will think business is picking up. It’s actually a shrewd business move, and the ECW experiment will likely be dead within a year anyway so it doesn’t really matter. — There is a lot of interest in Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli. Hero had a WXW match that someone in the company got a tape of and Castagnoli had a tryout in Deep South Wrestling which got great reviews. Castagnoli likely has a much better shot at actually doing something in WWE because he’s tall and has “the look”, while Hero would be getting by on his in-ring alone. — The final day of Lita’s contract is December 1st, though the feeling is that she’ll actually finish up at Cyber Sunday or the following night. She won’t be doing any more wrestling for awhile as she’s going to concentrate on her (not very talented) band and do some indy film work, but the general feeling within WWE is that she’ll eventually sign with TNA because of the lax schedule. Actually, there are a lot of middle-to-lower card guys who are making noise about going to TNA because they can make the same kind of money they’re making now for a much more prominent position on the card and a lot less time on the road. — Jim Ross is currently working without a contract, but don’t expect that to last very long, as Vince McMahon hates working with people who don’t have a long-term contract. Ross won’t sign a long-term deal, though, so it’s a bit of a stalemate. JR’s refusal to sign a contract stems from the way the company has treated him in the pas, and he’ll probably walk the next time they want to embarrass him in Oklahoma, or anywhere else for that matter. TNA has made Ross an offer where he’d be the play by play guy with Mike Tenay as color commentator, shifting Don West backstage to do interviews. This is the best idea I’ve ever heard. There’s always a chance of it happening and Ross is high on TNA, but most likely he’ll end up just working on his restaurant chain and barbeque sauce sales. His blog (jrsbarbq.com) is pretty much the best wrestling writing available anywhere these days, and he could probably make $5,000 a month from that alone if he’d put Google ads on there and monetize the thing. — Flash Funk should be debuting sometime in the next month. >> TNA NOTEBOOK << — Vince Russo’s reputation backstage is said to be far, far better than it was with his last run in the company and worlds apart from how he acted in WWE and WCW. He comes across as less egotistical to those who have previously dealt with him. Some of his previous bad tendencies in booking are still in place, however; Russo tries to get the entire roster over instead of concentrating on just a few stars, and while that sounds good in practice, the end result is that nobody ends up getting over. With the exception of Jim Cornette, however, everyone wants to at least give him a chance because he seems to have honestly changed his ways in regards to sleaze and hotshot booking. — In addition to trying to sign Chris Jericho, Dixie Carter and Jeff Jarrett have also been making overtures to Trish Stratus. She probably won’t sign because of WWE devotion, but they’re trying anyway. — I don’t think this has been reported anywhere else, but back when John Bradshaw Layfield was working without a contract in WWE, TNA made him an offer.
