dragit

Which guy? Pat Downey?!

That would be quite surprising, for starters, he has zero arrests, legal problems, and near fatal reckless accidents, and four national championships, a lot less, and a lot more, respectively, than the other two buffoons combined. I am not a Starocci fan, was very critical of his behavior at Big Tens, but his only basic problem is that he doesn't present himself well in the media, social and otherwise. He's a hard edged unsophisticated guy with nothing in common with Downey and Ferrari.

Wasn't the point of Rocky that he was likeable so you rooted for him?

It must be conceded that Downey is legit dangerous at freestyle (though not as dangerous as he is at life). That being said, he is zero threat to win the trials. Putting aside the awesomeness of the competition, whose league he is not familiar with, I can't imagine his conditioning or match sharpness will allow him to be at his theoretical best.

Agree not sure how that's productive. It's just a different thing. Steveson spending time doing something he's not good at when his body would still allow him to be transcendent at something very meaningful bums me out, but I can't see how I can blame the McMahons for Steveson's decisions.

This seems like a good way to put it. WWE is not athletics, which involve actual competition, it's a show, but like cirque du soleil or any other acrobatic production, the performers are definitely using their athletic ability in the show. "One of these things is not like the other." Exactly. Which is why it's not accurate to call the second activity "wrestling," which is defined as "a sport or contest in which two unarmed individuals struggle hand to hand with each attempting to subdue or unbalance the other." That's not what they're doing. It's not a sport, it's not a contest in any way. So the lawyers come up with World Wrestling Entertainment to try to get around this, but it's a substantial stretch to use the word "wrestling" in the title when they aren't wrestlers and they aren't wrestling.

Nicely done!!!

Youdaman

That ain't gonna happen. I'm not a huge fan of him overall because of this, but I really respect that he doesn't sugarcoat his pride and he doesn't pretend to be a sweet guy. That's why the comment about Starocci's knee didn't bother me at all. He was being honest and giving a window into his fierce mentality which he's always been honest about -- it's me or them, so I do whatever it takes.

I think people are critical of bad announcers and appreciative of good announcers. Bad announcers badly blemish the viewing experience, which is why people make a big deal out of it. I've gotten to the point where I can't watch the World Series with the sound on because of John Smoltz. It's a problem. It's like an idiot has come into your living room and has spent three hours in your home staying stupid things while you're trying to enjoy a rare opportunity to do something for yourself.

A terrible terrible shame. Hard to even process. Could you imagine if that happened to you?

I'll counter with Burroughs, Gibbons, and Harrison.

In other words he basically doesn't do his job and sucks to the extent he does. Burroughs is excellent. And they already have an enthusiastic caffeinated yeller, Harrison, who unlike Cormier actually contributes helpful commentary in addition to his energy.

I thought that was pretty typical, didn't seem like he was near crying. Best part was his awesome understatement that, "A lot of times you don't open that curtain for everybody to see." As opposed to the times that you do?

I can't remember the match last year because during the 46 minutes between the beginning of 125 and the end of 133 I made a hypnotist's appointment, drove across town to see him, had him erase all my memories of replays which ruined watching wrestling. Then I went out to get a bite to eat, drove home, went out to walk the dog, then came home again, then settled back in as they were coming out of commercial to start the 141 final.

There need to be no reviews. The costs outweigh the benefits. It's literally not the same sport anymore. A big part of what made wrestling the purest sport was the continuous action. The 46 minutes between the beginning of 125 and end of 133 were a new low during a long, slow slide.

Brooks is absolutely awesome, but this one was earned by and should go to the Panther Train. (How does an animal mascot get tied into a mechanical object? Does the big cat pull the cars behind him? Shouldn't it be the Boilermaker Train?)

It definitely is a difficult job but he does it poorly. His whole approach is bad. The questions are labored and don't set the athletes up well for specific answers. The sideline reporters at basketball and football games have the same challenges and they are generally much more effective. Tracy Wolfson for example, she's poised, direct, and focused and she locks them in. She makes it about the interviewee, not herself. Erin Andrews, Pam Oliver. The only charitable thing I could offer is that maybe he is in awe of them based on what he's dlseen them do for three days and as a result is too deferential. Just a guess.

Some random thoughts after watching on a delay and therefore not following the posts here live. 1. Penn State won by A HUNDRED POINTS?!?! 2. Great appreciation to Caleb Henson for saving the night if not the sport after that absolute brutality from 125-141. I checked and from the beginning of 125 to the end of 133 it was 46 minutes. For the umpteenth time on here, I renew my statement that replay should be eliminated. It does far more harm than good. 3. Speaking of saving the sport, if they could make a bunch more Messenbrinks, this would be the most popular sport around. He is so fun to watch. But oh no did the PSU evening get blemished by him not knowing the score? If so, truly a bummer after he had come almost all the way back. 4. Cormier, Q, terrible directing - ESPN sucked, as I went off at length about in the other thread. 5. Not sure what is more impressive -- Brooks's stupendous wrestling or is ability to answer literally any and every question by directing it back to his faith. Now THAT'S wrestling discipline. 6. Props to the coaches from Cornell, Michigan, Virginia Tech, and I think one or two others for wearing a coat and tie to coach a national championship match. 7. Impressive work by Mike Grey. Legendary coach leaves and you hold the program together, keep the recruits coming in, and take second. 8. Uh-oh. No team trophy is one thing. Losing to Iowa State is another. 9. Quite the two weeks for Carter Starocci. Goes from looking like he was topping off a career of being kind of a bully with a historic shameless snit to throwing three shutouts, including two over national champs, topped off by the classiest post-match work of the night. 10. The Panther Train deserves a Hodge, right?

Truly terrible work by ESPN. Kessenich somehow gets worse every year. How is that possible? Constant poor directing. The other day they made this big deal out of Starocci the whole broadcast and then they didn't show the beginning of his match -- and the takedown against him -- live. And they constantly missed the shots they should have had, all the way through after the end of the Brooks match when they cut away from him for a meaningless shot of Hidlay before (I assume, will never know for sure since they didn't show it) he was going to hug Cael, who you knew was going to blow out of there as fast as he could after that to otherwise avoid the cameras. That wouldn't have been something to top off the telecast -- the biggest current name in wrestling, his 11th title, breaks the scoring record, hugs his 4x champ who he has been rolling around in the room with for four years. Let's instead show Hidlay and coaches literally doing nothing. Well done. Cormier was so bad it's hard to describe. I think he literally didn't say one thing the whole weekend that added anything to the broadcast. Why anyone would have thought he'd be good is hard to understand. And the shame of it is that Burroughs is terrific. Classy, knowledgeable, smart, good sense of how much to speak and when. And even worse is the fact that he and Gibbons were fantastic together on the same network this year for the Iowa-Iowa State dual. Great chemistry, charming byplay, calling each other Coach and Champ, super enjoyable on top of delivering a solid informative broadast. So let's not learn anything from that and instead pair Burroughs with a blowhard who hasn't done any homework about what he's covering. Great job guys. You suck.

? Are you saying that anything about today's nothingburger win suggests he will beat The Force That Is Vito?

I can't remember. Wouldn't they have stopped the clock and restarted after the 5 second call, so it shouldn't have been stall plus escape anyway?

Worse than that. He totally lost me when he did the Matt Brown Special and repeatedly attempted to quickly go to his knees when his opponent locked hands when Davis was on his feet (in order to manufacture a penalty point).

It's Cormier for all those who hadn't seen the press release and didn't feel like trying to do a mental inventory of every DC wrestler they could think of.

Thanks emoji