Fire Ryan Poles | Fire Matt Eberflus

1. First off, I wish that everyone had a safe Memorial Day weekend.

2. I would like to thank Fork and CT at Hockeenight for their gathering on Friday night at Galway Bay Pub near Lincoln Park. I ended up meeting and surprisingly getting along with Big Cheyenne, Morpehus, Mike D., Oleg, Thrillho, Start Kyle Orton, Tonker and wait for it…a drunk Irish Yeti. He did NOT bring his stat book. Sorry if I missed anybody else but anyway, thanks again guys for a fun night.

3. So that brings me this: We are still on schedule for the weekend of June 24th for Genre’s return home. Unfortunately, we only have Friday, the 24th and Sunday, the 26th. I was reminded the other day that I already had Saturday, the 25th booked for something else.

This gives us at least three weeks to figure this out. I am guessing Sunday, the 26th would be the best day. If not, we can all meet up either in Chicago or as we previously planned, in Kenosha. So please, let me know what day and location works the best.

GOOD-BYE!

And there you have it ladies and gentleman. The Bulls did what I said they were going to do. I said it a hundred times and I will say it one final time this season: Missed free throws, stupid shots and dumb turnovers will hurt the Bulls when it matters the most.

At least a get couple months to relax without sports. I could use it. Assuming there is a football season, things will be a quiet around here until late July when training camp starts. Until then, I will take a bit of a break on sports.

In the second part of this latest article, I am going to focus on the current state on TNA. I will say that I have not watched TNA in quite a while and that’s because it has become unbearable to watch. I am writing this article based on reading about what is going on lately and I think that in itself is a good enough reason not to invest time into their weekly show.

I have tried to watch TNA on a consistent basis in the beginning of 2010. I have tried to like TNA since and I cannot believe how awful one product can be. All of the blame can be placed on one person: Dixie Carter. I think even before Hogan and Bischoff arrived that TNA was at a standstill as far as talent and their development was concerned. However, when Carter decided to hire these two guys and give them the keys to the car, saying that disaster was going to happen would be an understatement. Let me say that I thought there would be a chance that Bischoff had one last run in him as the guy in charge and that if anyone was going to turn it around, he would be the guy. Instead, it was the same old shit. TNA would have been better off finding someone in the stands and appointing him or her to be in charge. It couldn’t have been any worse.

They took the most athletic and charismatic guy in A.J. Styles and ruined his career by hiring Ric Flair and having Styles play Flair’s character. Along with that was hiring the third floor of the senior citizen home and making them main event stars in the recently mentioned Flair, Kevin Nash, S cott Hall and continuing to let Sting hog the main event. All of those guys are at least 50 years old. Why TNA would want any of those guys even in a wrestling capacity is anybody’s guess. In addition, the Nasty Boys were rehired for a short period of time by none other than Hogan.

It gets worse ladies and gentleman. TNA has recently been having television and radio commercials promoting the name change of their show from “TNA Impact” to “Impact Wrestling”. Along with that, their commercials involve Hogan and a few others attacking Vince McMahon by saying they are a wrestling company and not entertainment. So now that they are not only failing miserably to WWE, they still continue to attack them knowing no one gives a shit about them other than the 2,000 fans who attend their shows by chanting “This is wrestling!” and “Holy shit! Holy shit!”.

The one thing I can give credit to Vince McMahon for is that he has never attacked another company publicly. He tells his workers to not worry about anything and to do their jobs. TNA on the other hand, continuously throw jabs at WWE by criticizing them. If TNA was winning this battle, I could somewhat understand it. TNA couldn’t carry WWE’s jock.

I have been meaning to write this article for a few weeks but due to work and the Bulls showing all of us how great they are, I am finally getting a chance to speak my mind on a couple things that have been bothering me in the world of wrestling.

When the WWF went to the roster split back in 2002, a majority of wrestling fans knew that things were going to change for the worse. In 1999 when Smackdown! made it’s debut on UPN, it was almost certain that WWF would take over and they did so by forcing Ted Turner and WCW out of business. Personally, I was really happy with what was going on with Smackdown! because I didn’t have cable at the time and the only way I could watch RAW was to go to a friend’s house, have that friend tell me what happened the next day or wait for Shotgun Saturday Night (later Jakked) to see the results. Then the roster split comes in which some stars are only on RAW and others on Smackdown!. This decision by Vince McMahon in my opinion is what has started a decline in credibility that wrestlers have and the titles that they are holding today. Since then, titles such as the European, Hardcore, Women’s and Light Heavyweight have all been retired. Today, only the WWE, World Heavyweight, Intercontinental and the newly introduced Divas belts remain. I believe the lack of titles has impacted the roster.

There are too many wrestlers and not enough titles. This is one of the many reasons why the WWE/World Title has changed hands so often in the last few years. Another reason would probably be because Vince McMahon, Triple H and the rest of the writers don’t know their head from their ass when it comes to talent these days. An example would be when Christin won the World Heavyweight Title at the Extreme Rules pay-per-view only to lose it on Smackdown! that same week. What I am about to present next is something that wrestling fans can find disturbing.

Time for stats (Cue Irish Yeti): In 2007, the WWE Title was held by only two wrestlers (Triple H and Randy Orton) and in 2008, Triple H and Edge were the only ones to hold the belt. In 2009 however, the title changed hands nine times. Just by looking at history, that’s way too many times and thus, has ruined the significance of holding a title in WWE. For the World Heavyweight Title, it changed hands seven times in 2009 and eight times in 2010.

If the WWE wants the significance of holding a title back, I think it is a must to bring back titles such as the European and Light Heavyweight Title. One problem I believe one unfortunate decision they made is that they retired the Women’s Championship and replaced it with the Divas Championship. Since the titles have switched countless times, we as fans cannot and will not remember many of the victories for guys like John Cena or Randy Orton. We all can remember the times when Steve Austin, The Rock or Hulk Hogan won their titles. Sadly, winning the title these days doesn’t mean as much as it did 15 years ago.

This last point is something I won’t spend much time on but WWE recently announced that their initials no longer stand for anything. Supposedly, WWE is entertainment and not wrestling. My question is why? Does McMahon hate the word “wrestling” so much? If so, what is he going to do about WrestleMania? Will he now call it “EntertainmentMania”?

The Bulls are down 13 with just over five minutes to go. So this game is over. I want all the idiots that came here and told me I was wrong to enjoy the next two games because it’s the last two Bulls’ games they will see this season. This series is over. I was right. The Bulls aren’t going to do shit. Remember: The Bulls deficiencies will come back to haunt them when it matters the most. The Bulls will not win this series.

No reason to complain about Wednesday night’s game. I’ll let the Bulls horrendous play do the talking for me.

As mentioned in the previous post, our good friend Genrebuster is coming home to visit for a bit sometime in June. As of right now, the best chance of everyone attending is the weekend of June 24th. If he can only make it the weekend of June 3rd, most of us could still make it. In order to make the trip a little bit easier for our guys Jimmy D, Keith and Mike, I am going to once again make the tentative plan for us to all meet up at the Brat Stop in Kenosha. Let’s try to get this done folks.

And yes Irish Yeti, Scott said you are invited. Only if you promise to bring your stat book and stay away from Chucky.

Where are you dumbasses now? The same ones that told me I was wrong about the Bulls? Well fuckers, all of the problems that the Bulls had in the regular season are finally starting to come back to haunt them. You know, missed free throws, dumb shots and bad turnovers. The only reason why they won the series against the Pacers is because they are bad. The Hawks are by far a much better team. As I am writing this, Derrick Rose just re-injured his ankle. Fantastic.

So don’t be surprised if the Bulls lose this series 4-2. You heard it here first. I can’t stand this fucking team.

By the way, can Dick Stockton stop calling playoff games for Chicago teams? He seems to be the kiss of death for sports in our city the last few years. When you hear his voice, you know something shitty is about to happen.