TNT: Super Excellent Comeback!!!

In football: I’m 6-4 in the playoffs. That’s kind of good news. But it is an unfamiliar and unpleasant feeling to be that close to the Super Bowl and have it yanked from you. I’m not sure the Colts are the better team, but they certainly earned it last week and they certainly played better, which, last time I checked, is pretty important when it comes to deciding the game. I’m proud to say I was gracious in defeat at the time, willing to submit to having lost fair and square to a team that deserved it. And it didn’t bother me nearly as much as I thought it would, I guess because I’m content with the three past titles and don’t want to be that greedy. However, when the NFL admitted they blew the pass interference call, it certainly did get me kinda pissed off, as did later seeing how Brady had two guys open on the game-ending interception.

Anyway, this is probably something I should reacquaint myself with. It’s probably a little unrealistic to expect a Super Bowl every year.

Although it’s still a lot harder to cope with than I thought. Unlike the Broncos game last year, when everyone played like shit and everything that could’ve gone wrong did, this was just so goddamn close… Jesus, listen to me. I’ve had 9 days to think about it, and I’m still complaining.

What are ya playin?: Well… seeing as how it’s been almost two whole months since my last TNT– two months that included a nice Christmas and a few select investments in some good games — I’ve played quite a bit. I won’t get into much detail in most of them, since I can use them as filler when I have nothing new to write. But games I’ve enjoyed over the last two months include; Okami, Twilight Princess, Metal Slug Anthology, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Super Swing Golf, Wario Ware Smooth Moves, Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkachi 2 (suprisingly fun), and my new, current obsession: God Hand. You’ll probably hear about that within the next week.

What are ya watchin?: I caught Demetri Martin’s special on Comedy Central a week ago. It was really funny. I remember seeing his Comedy Central Presents: a bunch of years ago and he really stuck out to me; possibly just because of his name, but I recall really liking his joke about the Double Hawk. But yeah, his new special was really good. It was on YouTube last time I checked.

Now surfing on the Intertron: The Angry Nintendo Nerd posted an excellent review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III. It’s in two parts, here and here.  I like the Nerd, but he seemed to want to do what made him famous too much and exaggerate the character a little more than he needed to. But it’s easy to see in this review that he’s a pretty smart guy when he’s not restricted to entertaining with vulgarity, which I don’t object to, but I’d certainly like to see something new.

Pressing sports current event:  Well, winter sports here in Boston have taken on a new low. The Bruins are frustratingly incompetent and consistently inconsistent. And yet, they still have an outside shot of making the playoffs, although a significant turnaround would need to take place, but I somehow find myself much, much more interested in the Celtics.

After the 2004-05 season, Ainge had two options. Option A was to trade Pierce to Portland for the #3 pick, and Nick Van Exel’s executable contract. The #3 pick most likely would’ve been Chris Paul, who’s already one of the best point guards in the league. Van Exel’s contract could’ve been terminated immediately and could’ve allowed them to sign someone like Ray Allen, Michael Redd or even Larry Hughes. Plus, they would’ve kept their #17 pick and would’ve still (most likely) gotten Gerald Green.  Their starting five in a few years could’ve been Paul, Redd, Green, Jefferson, Perkins, with either Ricky Davis or Wally coming off the bench, depending on the deal. Option B was to hang on to Pierce and package Green, Jefferson and Tony Allen and whoever else and make a play for a huge star to complement Pierce, such as Garnett, Jermaine O’Neal, Pau Gasol or even Chris Bosh. This scenario was less likely, but could’ve also worked when you’d get a three headed monster (adding Ricky or Wally to the mix) plus solid role-players like Delonte off the bench.

Anyway, Ainge chose option C, which was to keep Pierce, but try to raise young talent during Pierce’s prime. The result at its best would’ve been 8th seeds, first round exits and mid-round draft picks and at it’s worst would’ve been high lottery picks while Pierce’s prime got wasted away on shitty teams. The worst part about it seemed to be the timing. By the time we finally got a good lottery pick, it was wasted on the worst draft since 2001. I mean, we had to see some return this year, right? We finally had a point guard, Jefferson was gonna stay healthy, Green would have a breakout year, and Pierce would carry the team. Meanwhile, in this year’s draft, there’s Greg Oden and Kevin Durant and Joakim Noah and Tiago Splitter would finally come over and all of that, and here we are stuck in 8th-SeedLand again.

But a funny thing happened. Doc Rivers continued his amazing gameplan strategy of losing big leads and resting players at all the wrong times for all the wrong reasons. Pierce got hurt for a long time. Wally Szcerbiak got hurt as well, but continued to play and brought the team down because of it. Sebastian Telfair couldn’t do anything right. Almost everything just went completely wrong, and now the team sits at the second-worst record in the league.  Pending a lottery disaster, we’re either getting Greg Oden or Kevin Durant. I’m excited as fuck.

And not just because of our future. Despite the fact that the team sucks, there’s still bright spots. Al Jefferson has finally become the beast we’ve wanted for the last three years and is learning how to play defense, Gerald Green is morphing into the scorer we’d hope he’d become, and also playing some good D every so often. Even Brian Scalabrine is playing well, or at least, as well as a fat redhead who misses too many open shots can play.

And even though the Celtics are awful and I like hockey much more than basketball, I’m watching the C’s much more often than the B’s right now.

Other notes: My Royal Rumble odds were correct in terms of predicting the final four and the winner, even if I personally thought HBK would win. I might end up being right about the Cena/Taker thing, though. This marks the first time I’ve ever had any measure of success in any somewhat relevant field of gambling.

Rumble Eco(thugga)nomics

So my favorite wrestling event is coming up Sunday night. The Royal Rumble. Unlike Wrestlemania, where things are helped by the atmosphere and hype but is still capable of falling victim to a boring card and lackluster talent, the Rumble stands alone in that, as long as there’s 10 main event-caliber guys out of the 30, the combination of a bunch of dudes beating on each other and trying to guess who will win is enough to make it worth watching.

Of course, with my newfound addiction to (hypthetical) gambling, I thought it’d be fun to break down each scheduled participant’s odds of success. I posted my original results on the Wrestlecrap forum, a wretched hive of scum and villiany and a place I’m not quite sure why I still visit multiple times a day, and got some helpful feedback and advice. So here’s what I’ve come up with, with some bonus explanation for those who deserve it. Keep in mind, I haven’t watched a full episode of any wrestling show for at least 6 months, with the slight exception of about an hour of tonight’s Smackdown. So most of this is just from scanning the WC boards and skimming the F4Wonline.com newsletters.

NO CHANCE IN HELL
The Miz: 500/1
Kevin Thorn: 200/1
Viscera: 150/1
Gregory Helms: 120/1
Super Crazy: 100/1
MVP: 65/1
Holly: 60/1

ONLY A MIRACLE
Tommy Dreamer: 45/1
Sandman: 40/1
Chris Masters: 40/1 – The funny thing is, a year ago, it wouldn’t have surprised me at all if he won. Now, he’s getting jobbed out more than Hacksaw.
Kenny Dykstra: 35/1 - I was surprised how much they were pushing him recently, and I originally had him at 25/1, but there’s pretty much no chance they give it to him this soon. I like him, though. He looks a lot like Owen Hart.
Chavo Guererro: 35/1
Sabu: 35/1 – The Detroit connection is interesting, but I’m not sure he’ll even be employed by the time WM comes around.

NOT THAT CRAZY
The Great Khali: 30/1 – I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he ends up in the Final Four. But the only way he wins is if they want to somehow use it to set up him vs. Hogan at WM and find a way to dump the title shot, which is kinda unlikely.
Matt Hardy: 25/1
Ric Flair: 22/1 – My dark horse candidate. There’s this weird Rocky vibe happening with him. Plus, it’d definitely be unexpected with his current losing streak against Kenny. They’d have to put the belt on Orton or Edge for it to work at WM, though.
Shelton Benjamin: 20/1 - He’s been kinda dry at the moment; they’d have to turn on the hype machine big time. But it’s not that far fetched.
Carlito: 20/1

YOU’RE TELLIN’ ME THERE’S A CHANCE…
Rob Van Dam: 16/1 – There’s probably gonna be an ECW guy in the final four, and if it’s not Punk than it’ll be him. But the rumors on the internets say he’s on his way out, so I doubt they’d give him the rub.
Johnny Nitro: 16/1 – They seem to really want to push him by himself, but it’s almost like they couldn’t pass up the MNM reunion when they re-signed Jeff Hardy. But Wrestlemania? Probably not yet. He could win the Rumble and lose the shot at No Way Out, to at least get him in the main event scene, but I doubt it.
Finlay: 16/1 – He just keeps getting pushed and pushed, and now he’s feuding with Booker. He’s old, but he’s over. There’d still be a ton of finagling that’d need to be done to get it to work.
CM Punk: 15/1 – He’s my other dark horse, only in that if he wins, he’s jumping from ECW. The crowd’s really into him, although there’s talk that he’s getting into trouble backstage ever since Heyman left, so who knows. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they let him run with it.
Jeff Hardy: 15/1 – They’ve been giving a bunch of airtime to him since he’s come back, and even back when he almost beat Taker for the title a bunch of years ago, they seem to be willing to put him on the edge of the world title scene.

THE REAL CONTENDERS
Chris Benoit: 12/1 – I was really heavy on him earlier, putting him in 3rd place at 8/1 odds. But I soon realized there’s no realistic situation he can win and go on to main event WM. Smackdown doesn’t have any main event-caliber heels other than Booker, and it looks like his time has passed. There’s Kennedy, but I’m not sure if he’s WM-ready. And they wouldn’t put him against Taker or Batista, unless ‘Tista turned heel, which I suppose isn’t entirely far-fetched. That’s the biggest problem with having two faces going into WM as champions; unless you can set-up a cosmic clash like Warrior/Hogan or a three/four way like WM2000 or last year with Angle, Rey and Orton.
King Booker: 11/1 – I can see him winning only to become ‘Taker fodder at No Way Out, which I think is a very real possibility.
Kane: 10/1 – If I may be lame for a second, I think the Big Red Machine is the Big Red Herring. They’ve been pumping him a lot, but there’s really no scenario he gets involved in that would make him a face underdog at WM. It worked at WM21 because Triple H was able to play the equal-in-power heel but everyone knew Batista was going to beat him. Here, there aren’t any real heels who could be perceived as Kane’s equal if he were to win.
Edge: 9/1 – It’s pretty much a tossup between Edge and…
Randy Orton: 9/1 – …as to who gets fed to Cena at WM, although there’s two more likely possibilities than them. Still, if the WWE is as predictable as I think they are, they’ll have… well, I’ll make this a three-part entry.

WHO ARE WE KIDDING, IT’S EITHER…
Shawn Michaels: 5/1 – There’s three things working for him. (1), Heytch is out, but they still want to milk DX, since even the smarks who are booing Cena seem to still pop for this DX shit, even though I’d rather have SuperCena every single day over DX. (2) It’s still probably going to be either Edge or Orton vs Cena at WM. In order to make either one a credible opponent for him, they need to go over someone. Enter HBK, who would then face whoever isn’t fighting Cena at WM. (3), they’re in San Antonio. And while they had Cena lose in Boston and Edge lose in Toronto, I think they’ll go for the happy ending and just give HBK the Rumble.
Undertaker: 3/1 – This seems to be the other scenario. It’s either going to be my HBK wins, then drops to Orton or Edge and fights the other, or they’ll take the Smackdown route and go for Warrior/Hogan II with Batista vs Undertaker. Of course, the big problem here lies in that both men are older than 40, so Batista ending Taker’s streak doesn’t do much good because it could just be Brock Lesnar all over again (putting all the eggs in a basket that might be gone within a year or two), and Taker winning is only good for about a month’s good feelings before they have to create new stars.

I’m leaning towards the HBK scenario. I think Taker/Batista still happens on it’s own, possibly by adding Kennedy to it and just having Taker pin Kennedy so Batista doesn’t lose momentum.

You know what would be really fucked up? If Taker wins, but challenges Cena instead, and they just have Cena end the streak. Goddammit. I bet I’m right, too.

EDIT: So it turns out No Way Out is a Smackdown PPV. So most of the scenarios where Raw guys win it but lose the shot would have to happen on Raw, which is a little less likely. So that tips the scales to a Smackdown guy like ‘Taker or Booker.

A Conference Conflagrated into Fucking Huge Ass Flames

I should resume a more regular posting schedule this week. I think I have quite a bit to write about now. Like Zelda. I was 3-1 last week, which puts me at 5-3 for the playoffs. As for this weekend, both of them look like they’re pretty much toss-ups, with lines of 2 and 3, so…

CHICAGO (-2) over New Orleans
I really have no logic for this pick. The Saints’ offense is really, really good while the Bears D is solid, but only solid in a poor conference and an even weaker division. The Bears’ offense, on the other hand, doesn’t really have a scary runningback and while there are some good WRs, the quarterback has been awful. And the Saints’ D isn’t great, but certainly isn’t bad, either. Still, I’m gonna take the Colbert approach and throw out logic and go with my gut. Also, I’d much rather have the Pats playing the Bears than the Saints.

New England (+3) over INDIANAPOLIS
At first, I was going to pick the Colts, simply because I only picked their game correctly 3 times this season, including the playoffs. So if I reversed jinxed them, I could at least ensure a Pats victory. But I also noticed that each of those 3 times, I picked against the Colts. So while I have an 83% chance of failure when I pick a Colts game, and while I lost more than I won when picking against them, the statistic still stands that when I get a pick on a Colts game right, there’s a 100% chance it was because it was against the Colts. And if you think all this quasi-statistical analysis is because I really have no idea who’s going to win this game, you’re absolutely correct. I think the Pats will win, almost primarily because of Manning. Not because of some psychological, I-Can’t-Beat-the-Patriots-Oh-My-God-I’m-Choking thing, but more because he’s just looked awful this postseason, and even in the last third of the season. The last time these teams played, Brady was horrible. He couldn’t get anything done. Which was wierd, since Belichick kept having him throw instead of continuing to run the ball, which seemed to have been working. Anyway, I think the Pats do have a chance. I don’t expect it to be a blowout either way, though.

A Division Divided

BALTIMORE (-4) over Indianapolis
The Ravens defense isn’t really all that good, but they’re not incompetent, either. And last time I checked, Brian Billick was a much better coach than Herm Edwards, almost entirely because he’s not named Herm Edwards. But defenses win championships, and while Manning is great against reading blitzes, he’s toast against good corners and safeties, which the Ravens have plenty of. I predict Ed Reed takes one back to the house. Because I’m bold like that.

Philadelphia (+5.5) over NEW ORLEANS
I think the Saints will win, but it’s hard to ignore some of the “experts” who like Philly, only because I haven’t really seen neither of them that much. So I’ll play it safe and say the Saints win it by 3 or 4.

Seattle (+9) over CHICAGO
I think Chicago will win here as well, but 9 seems like too much, even if the Bears are the much better team.

New England (+4.5) over SAN DIEGO
I already posted a comment about this on Deadspin, so I’ll just paste it here. Someone asked if Pats fans were trapping themselves into falling for a mediocre team going against a team with far superior talent.

I think last year’s playoff loss had more to do with the opponent being Denver than the Pats being mediocre. Not to mention a few tough calls going against the Pats that killed their momentum. But that Pats team could’ve beat that Steelers team easily; it just so happened they ran into the one team that always gives them nightmares. The only time they’ve been able to beat Denver was when they had a substitute teacher starting at QB and Belichick had to invent the “intentional safety” to get better field position.

As for this year, I think the Chargers are very evenly matched, not necessarily vastly superior, although certainly they do have the edge in some parts. Gates is the better tight end, but the TE position is traditionally the staple of the Pats offense, so they aren’t slouches either. The same goes for the running game; Tomlinson’s obviously the much better RB, but the multidimensional attack of Maroney, Dillon and Faulk gives the Pats similar flexibility. The defenses are about equal, with the edge going slightly to the Pats. Merriman is a beast, but the Pats have Seymour anchoring the best D-line in the league, plus a smart linebacking group that still has a few big plays left in them.

So in the end, it comes down to QB and coach. Rivers has been great this season and may be just as good in the playoffs, but no one knows yet. He’s certainly better than Eli, however. But we know that, while not necessarily infallible, Brady doesn’t wilt under pressure either. As for the coaches, Belichick is the guy who found a way to minimize the damage from Marshall Faulk in SB36 (with a little help from Martz) and kept Manning out of the endzone in ‘05 when he had earlier set the TD record. There’s no sure thing, but he’s certainly got the track record for finding a way. Meanwhile, Schottenheimer is pretty much known almost exclusively for his failures as a head coach in the playoffs.

I’m pretty sure the Patriots aren’t the better team, but I know the Chargers aren’t vastly superior. I also know that the Chargers don’t play in Denver and that a Charger isn’t some sort of nickname for Bronco. So I do think the Pats have a pretty good chance on Sunday. It won’t be a blowout, and I won’t shake my head in disbelief if the Chargers are killing the clock up by 7 with 4 minutes to go. But I don’t think they’ll make us look silly, either.

So yeah, I think it’ll be a pretty damn good game either way.

Wild Card Marc Mero

So I finally calculated my results.

120-127-9

It’s a good thing I didn’t put real money on this… which I was pretty damn close to doing at the start of the season. I’ll give it one more season before I man up and start investing some cash in it.

As for the playoffs, first, my basic predictions all the way through. You already know who I think is going to win, though, so why even bother?

AFC
Pats beat Jets
Chiefs beat Colts

Pats beat Ravens
Chargers beat Colts

Pats beat Chargers

NFC
Giants beat Eagles
Cowboys beat Seahawks

Bears beat Giants
Saints beat Cowboys

Bears beat Saints

SUPER BOWL
Pats beat Bears, 24-17

As for the actual gambling picks this week,

Kansas City (+7) over INDIANAPOLIS
At this point, the whole independent thinking thing just isn’t working. It got me 7 games under .500, actually. So I’m just going with public sentiment and going with the whole “Indy can’t stop LJ” logic even though Green’s sucked since coming back, the KC defense sucks and Herm Edwards is coaching them. Whatever. I’m too cool for school.

Dallas (+2) over SEATTLE
The Cowboys are still pretty much fucked, but I think they can at least salvage a win before they completely implode against either the Saints or the Bears.

NY Jets (+8.5) over NEW ENGLAND
I really hope Simmons is right about the whole they’ve-been-slumming-it-for-this-day logic, and I don’t think the Jets can win since they have no real running game, which means our linebackers are better suited to defend Pennington’s short passes, but I still think it’ll be close.

NY Giants (+7) over PHILADELPHIA
Only because it’s Philly, and nothing’s allowed to ever go right for them.

Year in Review, Part 2

So yeah… I just typed a huge list of “Best of”s, but the whole thing seemed kinda lame and I rationalized way too many insignificant things, so lemme just say that Zelda was my game of the year, Jackass 2 was the funniest movie I saw, Casino Royale was probably my favorite movie of the year, and Red Steel was the most disappointing game of the year for me. Also, Endy Chavez had the play of the year.