The big G takes on the pretender!

This could be the greatest Godzilla movie ever. From Creature Corner.com:

Shortly after Tri-Star unleashed the cinematic catastrophe that was Roland Emmerich & Dean Devlin's Americanized Godzilla, angry fans of the Big G took to dubbing the movie and it's radically redesigned monster GINO (Godzilla In Name Only). The backlash against the movie was so severe that it even trickled over to the mainstream, especially after the film underperformed at the box office after nearly a year of being hyped to death. Despite managing to squeak out a small profit the movie has still taken its place alongside such other films as Batman & Robin, Battlefield Earth, and Howard The Duck as a prime example of Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking at its very worst. What was designed to launch a potential cashcow franchise for Sony died an agonizing death and nobody in their right mind ever thought they'd be seeing their version of the King of the Monsters on the big screen ever again. Well, guess what? This December, GINO returns and take one guess who's gonna finish him off once and for all?

The ultimate battle between the King of the Monsters and the pretender to the throne is going to take place in Godzilla: Final Wars, the 50th Anniversary Godzilla movie - the one Toho vows will be the "final" Godzilla movie at least for a decade. The film pits the iconic monster against alien invaders out to conquer Earth through the use of a horde of other well known past Godzilla foes plus one wild card – the Tri-Star Godzilla. Strangely enough, the battle between the two zillas will take place on neutral territory - Sydney, Australia.

What sounded like a loony rumor going around the Godzilla fandom community just 48 hours ago has proved true as Toho producer Shogo Tomiyama and GFW director Ryuhei (Versus, Azumi) Kitamura revealed details the other day on this surprise turn of events.

"The production staff makes sure the rights to use Godzilla are exclusive to Toho. In America there are imitation products on the market that have the name "Zilla." Producer Tomiyama has the ability to get rid of these products if he chooses to. Tomiyama thinks that the American Godzilla is a representation of these imitation products therefore he named the American Godzilla in FINAL WARS simply "Zilla". The significance of this perfectly suits this kaiju who has had the word "God" taken out from the name "Godzilla".

When Zilla appears in Sydney, humanity’s last hope is a revived Godzilla who is beneath the ice in Antarctica to do battle with it. The details of the battle are under wraps, but the Sydney streets will be decimated. Kitamura, who studied film direction in Australia, said it would be an honor to have Godzilla destroy his second home.

"I want to compete with America. I want to overwhelm the American Godzilla (which is a symbol of CG) with the Japanese technique of suitmation," says Kitamura. In the movie, Godzilla is made from a suit, and Zilla is made from CG. "I’m putting in the movie what people all over the world want...Zilla. I want to reach the height of the series and return Godzilla back to being strong and cool again. There are times also when Godzilla behaves affectionately and humorously which I think will make Roland Emmerich laugh if he sees this movie," Kitamura says with confidence.

So who will survive the supreme showdown between the rubber suit icon and the CGI imposter? We won't find out until December 4th when Godzilla: Final Wars opens but I think we already know deep down which one will walk away wearing the crown.

Man, Tri-Star better buy and release this theatrically without screwing it up. It's gonna be awesome.

I watch 'em so you don't have to...

How do you pitch something like this?

"Okay, I wrote this script I want you to make. There's this guy who captains a boat. He gets hired by this sleazy guy who wants to buy an abandoned island. But when they go to the island, there's a guy and his granddaughter there. The sleazy guy threatens the guy on the island, and then zombies show up. And there's porn. Lots of it."

Erotic Nights Of The Living Dead(1980), is a piece of work for sure. It's directed, if the word may be applied, by legendary Italo-horror hack Joe D'Amato, and it stars George Eastman and Laura Gemser, both well-known figures in cult horror.

This film has:

- Gratuitous nudity every five minutes. A lpt of it is of the fairly hardcore porn variety, as there are some head scratching thing in this movie. For example, there's a sequence (that derails the movie, by the way) where George Eastman is alone in a strip club while a woman does her act, then involves a champagne bottle.(You can figure out where it's going. You're big people.)

- An obvious delineation between the legitimate actors(Gemser and Eastman) and the porn actors. Eastman's sex scenes are of the Skinemax variety(he never actually takes his pants off in any of them), and Gemser's two big scenes are similar. The sleazy guy, however, has what amounts to around 15 minutes of hardcore porn scenes(though he doesn't appear to be much of a cocksman; the longer of the two scenes ends with maybe 45 seconds of humping before the unimpressive finish).

- A very disjointed plotline. My brief description of the plot above is an attempt to make the movie make sense in a straight fashion.

- The movie is also unsure of what it wants to be. The zombies, such as they are, are almostan afterthought, and there's no real horror to the film(unlike say, Fulci's Zombie, which does have a certain sense of dread to it.) There are a few half-hearted attempts, such as two seperate cat scares, and a zombie does munch on a stupid coroner, but this is a curiously zombie-light movie for something with the words "Living Dead" in the title.

- A ridiculous "end is the beginning" ending. The film opens with an obviously crazy Eastman giggling maniacally in an asylum with some stereotypically "crazy" movie people. Then we follow a girl as she's stalked through the asylum by another nut. Instead of murder, however, she meets George, and they start bumping hysterically while the other guy watches. Then we cut to non-crazy George, sailing his ship. 90-odd minutes later, we figure out that George and the female lead have both been driven to priapism and nymphomania respectively in the "shock" ending.

- There is a McGuffin of sorts, fetish figures that we're supposed to assume ward off zombies. However, it's never really explained, and at one point, one of them transforms into a cat when the bad guy throws it down. (But then the cat apparently is also Laura Gemser, and so.. well, I don't know.) It apparently is also the cause of George's priapism, because he loses the one that the old man gives him and inadvertently brings forth the zombie horde(Can 12 zombies be called a horde?). When George picks up the other one(the one which had turned into the cat), it works to vanquish the zombies, but also apparently makes George and the female lead crazy.
If you're confused, don't worry. I was too(and I took notes).

Shriek Show has seen fit for some reason to put out a Special Edition, if it can be called that. It features some alternate footage from the non-hardcore version (called Sunny Afternoons of the Living Dead(!?!) as well as a mind boggling trailer. Watching the trailer, you'd think they'd cobbled two different movies together.(In a way, they have, I suppose.)

Overall, highest recommendation to avoid, unless you're a masochist. This may be the most zombie-free zombie movie ever(they're on screen maybe 10-15 minutes tops), and it's 100 minutes that feels like 4 hours.

Christ, I'm getting lazy at this...

No post for 5 days? What the hell is wrong with me?

Lots of downloading and ripping and not much else, that's what.

Okay. This week for sure: Review of possibly the worst Zombie movie I've ever seen in my life.(Even worse then Pupi Avati's Zeder(Revenge of The Dead.) Maybe some Raw thoughts. Possibly a review of the new Criterion DVD of Cronenberg's Videodrome, just ripped. Also possibly a review of The Passion, also freshly ripped.

I mean it. Really.

Wrestling weddings are never boring.

Watched the bookends of Raw last night.(I was trying to blow out all the Olympic Boxing on the DVR, so I recorded Raw.) Poor, poor Dwayne. I hope Vince gave him a big payout to show up and do his thing to push the utterly awful Diva Search forward (and give the Rhyno/Tajiri tag team a nice bump in the process). You've got to wonder if Dwayne's even going to make a comeback now, seeing as the last couple of appearances have been used to bump along angles that need help(though unlike the Divas, Eugene has benefited from the bump.) It will be interesting to see if he just keeps making movies that no one goes to see in the theatres.

The show closed with the "wedding" of Kane and the "pregnant" Lita. It was something.

Let's see: Midget ringbearers? (check!) Kane in a white tux? (check!) string quartet playing Kane's theme as he came down the aisle? (check!) Lita in black wedding dress? (check!) Odd choice of appearance at wedding? (check! Eric Bischoff came out and read a passage from the Bible, of all things) Inappropriate interruption, with brawl(to move angle along)? (Check! (Trish, in white lingerie(yowsa) coming out to "support" her "friend" Lita, then rolling around on the floor with the "pregnant" Lita.)) Hero coming to try and save the day? (Check! Matt Hardy comes from the crowd to rescue Lita, ends up getting a chokeslam off the stage for his troubles.)

(A side note on the Matt runin. Didja ever notice that in wrestling, whenever someone's entrance music gets played, but they don't appear at the top of the ramp, the person in the ring will walk Pavlovianly to the source of the music, completely oblivious to the fact that their antagonist is actually coming out of the crowd?)

In the end, Kane and Lita were "married" without the expected Lita Heel Turn. One wonders if they're going to pull a Stephanie McMahon Helmsley and have it all turn out to be an elaborate work on Matt Hardy and have Lita reveal she was with Kane all along.

There was wrestling, or so I hear, but considering that they wasted close to an hour on the Diva search and the Wedding, I doubt it actually added up to much. Maybe later I'll watch it.

Ugh.

Not much time the last couple of days. Double shifts at both jobs the last three.

Brief stop amid the work hysteria to celebrate my cousin Laurie's ordination as a minister in the United Church of Christ. She and her wife(yes, I said wife) are on their way to Atlanta, where she is going to be a chaplain at a hospital down there. So congrats to the Reverend Laurie Muggleton Robins.

Laid hands on the OOP R-rated cut of "Swamp Thing" that MGM mistakenly issued. One of the other stores in the chain had it, so rip, rip, rip we must.

Housecleaning the next two days, and evaluation of stuff that might become tag sale or EBay fodder. Oh well.

Too much downloading...

Christ, I've got too much stuff on this computer. And it just keeps getting worse. I'd gotten back up to around 50 gigs worth of space, but now, having joined two private torrent boards, I've fallen back to around 30 gigs.

Recent acquisitions:

Complete discographies of Goblin, Claudio Simonetti, all the available scores to the films of Lucio Fulci, and Pino Donaggio(Carrie, Don't Look Now, Dressed To Kill)

All Ladies Do It - Italian semiporn directed by Tinto Brass(Caligula, Salon Kitty)

An uncut VHS rip of The Burning, a 1981 slasher flick currently not available on DVD, features Holly Hunter and Jason Alexander and some heavy FX work by Tom Savini.

and The Picture Of Doriana Gray, an utterly incomprehensible Jess Franco flick(not that that's any different from his other movies)

So I've got lots of stuff that I'm not looking at. Add that to all the music that I'm still putting together, and what does it spell?

I have enough media for ten people, not just myself.

Attention~!

Everyone hitting my blog to find out if Lita is pregnant:

No, she isn't, at least not in real life. In storyline only. And if she were, she wouldn't be sort of showing after less then two months, as they'd like you to believe on Raw. So again, for the cheap seats:

LITA. IS. NOT. PREGNANT. (except in the FAKE world of professional wrestling.)

Thanks. We now return to your regularly scheduled sarcasm and vitriol.

Well, we didn't go to Boston.

Working last night at the video store when my Dad(who is my boss at the real job) calls my cell phone. The Boston trip, which had originally been a two day trip on the weekend, had become a one day trip on Thursday when JP(Dad's boss) called yesterday morning. Well, yesterday afternoon, JP called Dad to tell him that the regional manager who was coming to slap us around and get us in line had to cancel.

Seems one of his regional managers on the West Coast had been shot and killed. Details are sketchy, seeing as I haven't any idea what this person's name was and I wasn't able to find anything on any of the West Coast news sites about it. I find myself wondering if it was a disgruntled TR or something entirely different. So instead of being gone, I have the next two nights off in a row from the store. I plan to catch up on my boxing.

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I've been watching the Olympic boxing trials the last few days. I can't confess to knowing much about boxing, having only been really geeking it out for the last 5 or 6 months on the sport. Thankfully, NBC's telecasts, led by ESPN's number one analyst, Teddy Atlas, have been very helpful. At the start of each show, they explain the scoring system(somewhat more esoteric then the standard prizefight system), and they introduce all the fighters and tell how they got there. So far, I've seen three US fighters, only one of whom was truly dominant. I don't know how good this team is, but NBC likes to stress how young they are, so that seems to be a factor. The best one I've seen so far is a featherweight named Vincent Escobedo(sp?) who pretty much dominated his opponent. Unlike the other Olympic events, boxing will extend through the entire Olympics, so I'm sure by the end there'll be a few breakouts who I'll be hoping to see on ESPN or the pay channels soon.

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Unsurprisingly, Randy Orton went face last night. Some of the IWC columnists were arguing for a continued Orton heel presence, but let's be honest. HHH is not turning face anytime soon, and the fans seem to be on their way to accepting Orton as a face. If he gets a little better at cutting promos, maybe he might go a little farther.

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New link added to an interesting site sent me by my friend Mat. The Last Exit is a site of brief capsule reviews of the kind of movie that I like; Takashi Miike, Lucio Fulci, and David Cronenberg all get a mention. I do disagree with him on a few things; he thinks almost all of Fulci's films are unredeemable, and he trots out the usual hyperbole about Salo, but other then that, it's a valuable reference if you want to see sleazery.

How do I love Toronto wrestling show crowds?

Let me count the ways:

Two years ago, they ignited the dormant career of Hulk Hogan by booing the Rock at Wrestlemania 18, turning on him in spectacular fashion. This led to a brief nostalgia run with the WWE title and Hogan taking on the young bulls before bowing out as "Mr. America." (He's still around, BTW. 411 this week suggested that he's trying to convince Vince that Ted Turner wants to build a promotion around him so Vince will hire him back)

Tonight, the crowd booed Eugene lustily and chanted the usual "You Screwed Bret" chants. But the twin highlights of their show were both during the dire Undertaker/JBL match. First they began doing the wave during a particularly dull portion of the match. Not for a few seconds, mind you. For at least five minutes. Then they started chanting "Spanish Table" when it looked as though Taker might put JBL through the table. Funny stuff.

The rest of the show was decent, but kind of strange. JBL/Taker ended on a stupid DQ, which was followed up by Taker dropping JBL through a very bad-looking (vinyl)"metal" limo roof. And the Orton/Benoit main event seemed to just end out of nowhere, as though something had happened to one of the participants. (Benoit took a few bumps that looked as though they might be unintentional; a tope suicida looked as though he'd hit his head on the rail instead of getting his hands up, and when he attempted to hit the flying headbutt on Orton, it looked like Orton kicked him in the back of the head.)

In the undercard, HHH beat Eugene in a decent match that included Eugene hitting a pedigree on HHH. Kane beat Matt Hardy, so he gets to "marry" the "pregnant" Lita while Matt goes off for 6-8 months for major knee surgery. Edge beat Jericho and Batista(though Batista wasn't really a factor in the match.) John Cena beat Booker T in the first match of a best of 5 series that will probably continue all the way to Survivor Series. The Dudleys beat London, Kidman and Rey Mysterio in a short and dull match. And there was some stupid crap involving Divas and Dodgeball that isn't worth mentioning.

Overall, not a bad show, just... strange.

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TNA is ending its weekly PPV shows in favor of a more WWE-like schedule, with house shows and one Sunday PPV a month. It figures that they'd do this just when I was starting to get into TNA. If they want to get a better audience, they're going to need to turn Impact into a more Raw/SD~!-like show, and less of a Superstars-squashtacular-like show. But I'd say this probably puts paid to my interest in TNA unless they get it going.

Yup.

Like Ken and Demp, I've been neglecting my blog this week. And next week's not going to be much better, as I have a business trip to Boston and 4 days at the video store.

Anyway, I'll see what I can do to get some content up.

Things to write about: Summerslam is tomorrow, my recently downloaded Italian and Spanish horror/porn(I'd always heard the rumors, never believed it. Now I do.), TNA dumping the weekly PPV for a WWE-style schedule(never a good sign(ECW, anyone?)), Olympic boxing(probably the only thing that I'll really watch here), and of course the rest of the Goblin story.(Not that anyone reads this thing.)

More later today, maybe.

Showtime sucks.

Looking forward to seeing Sharmba Mitchell and maybe even Yodsdan 3K Battery on this past Saturday's Corrales/Freitas undercard. But no such luck, as apparently Showtime thinks that the Tyson/Williams debacle is more interesting. Oh well. And what's up with Jim Gray? If Shelly Finkel tells me that Tyson's not talking, I say, "Okay, thanks, we'll catch him later." But Gray pushed and pushed until Finkel got pissed off. What was worse was that Gray broke away from the victorious Williams to harass Tyson.

Freitas/Corrales was good, though I never expected to hear Freitas say no mas. But after three knockdowns in two rounds and Corrales' agressive attack, Freitas was done, done, done.

So thanks, Showtime, for one good match in a two-and-a-half hour time slot.

My weekend with (not) Goblin, part 1.

In October of 2000, I got a phone call from my friend Thom. He wanted to know if I'd be interested in working on the staff of his friend's convention in Tarrytown, New York. He said I'd be doing general odd job work, maybe a little security, and rattled off a few of the guests' names.

He then said the words that I would soon regret hearing.

"Goblin's reuniting to do the show."

A little background. Goblin was an Italian prog-rock band named Cherry Five who transformed themselves into Dario Argento's house band for his groundbreaking horror films of the late 70's and early 80's. They played a keyboard-heavy, ELP-esque driving rock which seemed to fit Argento's artsy, plot-light, flash-heavy movies. Egos consumed the band, and they split in the early 80's, reuniting briefly a few times for soundtrack work. In the fall of 2000, they had reunited again to produce the soundtrack to Argento's Non Ho Sonno (literally, "I Can't Sleep", domestically released in a butchered form by Artisan releasing as "Sleepless".)

Apparently, Thom's friend Phil Palmieri knew someone who knew someone who knew Claudio Simonetti, the keyboardist and frontman of Goblin, and Claudio had agreed to bring the band over for the convention.

Being a huge Goblin mark, I told Thom, and then Phil, that I'd do whatever they had for me to do in order to see Goblin perform live.

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Next: Logistical nightmares and unplanned changes.

Dark days...

Did you ever have one of those weeks where it seemed like everything you knew was just a big heap of bullshit?

That's how the last 4 or 5 days have been. (One thing positive that may come out of it is that I think I'm ready to start on my novel again.)

Freitas/Corrales when I get a chance to watch it, and the Goblin story part 1 tonight hopefully. Plus some thoughts on a couple of Italian hard-horror-core movies I've recently added to my collection when I finish with the second of them.

R.I.P. Rick James

Natural causes(a surprise, to be sure) at the age of 56. Now maybe everyone will stop with the parroting of Dave Chappelle's #1 catch phrase. (Though the first thing I did think was "I'm dead, bitch~!") He was a superfreak to be sure, and unfortunately, pissed away his talent with drugs and excess. But we'll always have "Superfreak" and "In My House" by the Mary Jane Girls.

My Weekend with (not) Goblin, Part 0.

In November of 2000, my wife and I traveled to Tarrytown, New York, about 120 miles from our home in East Haven, Connecticut, to work at a cult movie convention. The show, innovatively called "Cult-Con 2000", was being run by a friend of a friend who would pay for our hotel room in exchange for the assistance. It was an experience I'll never forget.

Dramatis Personae:

Phil and Jeanette Palmieri : The aforementioned friend of a friend and his wife, who were running the convention.

Thom Guthrie : My fellow blogger was the person who introduced me to Phil, having known him for some time, and who also was going to be working at the show.

Killjoy : Vocalist for the death metal band Necrophagia, Killjoy was responsible for getting us a certain guest, who he'd worked on music videos with.

The Belgian Guy : Whose name I don't recall, but who was some nebulous connection with Phil for getting some of the European guests.

Matt Alling : At the time, drummer for the Connecticut-based Prog-noise band Archimedes Frisbie, also an associate of Phil Palmieri, who worked the staff with us and also provided the ill-fated P.A. system for the convention.

Claudio Simonetti : Italian Musician, former member of Goblin, primadonna. He figures prominently in this tale.

Daemonia : His band, brought in to substitute for Goblin.

Gunnar Hansen : A guest at the show. Played Leatherface in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. My wife is in love with him. Totally charming guy.

David Hess : Also a guest, someone who Phil knew personally. Kind of flaky, but seemed decent enough.

Antoinella Fulci : Daughter of the late Lucio Fulci, Italo-horror icon. Guest at the show.

Jim Van Bebber : Guerilla filmmaker. Friend of Killjoy. Guest.

Ruggerio Deodato : Italo-horror icon, guest of the show.

William Lustig : at the time, Anchor Bay Video's lead producer of DVD special features. Pain in the butt, as you will see.

Archimedes Frisbie : Defunct Connecticut Prog-rock band. Bigger primadonnas then Simonetti, as you will also see.

Bateau Lavior : Belgian avant-garde band, guests of the show. Unfortunately caught in the crossfire of egos.

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Wednesday Music List.

As a sort of coming attraction to the Claudio Simonetti convention story, this week's list:

Ten Favorite Horror Film Themes from Goblin or Argento movies:

Suspiria(Goblin) - Bells, jangly keyboards, Claudio whispering menacingly, a brief ELP-style rockout, and more jangly keyboards.

Mater Tenebraum (Keith Emerson, Inferno) - Actually done better by Claudio's ringer band, Daemonia, this is a great piece with a chorus intoning pseudo-Latin evilly while Emerson cranks away on his keyboard.

Profondo Rosso (Goblin) - Also done better by Daemonia, this is Proto-Goblin, from the first soundtrack they did for Argento after changing their name from Cherry Five. Very straight ahead Prog-rock.

L'alba Dei Morte Viventi (Goblin, Dawn of The Dead) - Argento was a producer on Dawn, and brought his favorite band in to do the score. The European cut replaces some of Romero's beloved music library cuts with Goblin, but all versions have this track and the next one on the list. This is a slow, loping track that has a nice keyboard break in the middle.

Zombi (Goblin) - This is the theme to the movie, per se, and it is a much harder, keyboard-heavy rock theme.

Buio Omega (Goblin) - The theme to Joe D'Amato's reprehensible Buio Omega (Beyond The Darkness, Burial Ground) is more of the same, but well done with a hint of disco to the prog.(The CD release contains a full on disco remix.)

Patrick (Goblin) - The theme to Richard Franklin's Aussie shocker is a creepy straight ahead rock track, not so heavy on the keyboards, with a jangly guitar sound to it.

Tenebrae (Simonetti, Morante, Pignatelli) - The pseudo-Goblin album showed a tendency towards Tangerine Dreamness, but is still one of the better 80's slasher movie themes.

Phenomena (Goblin, supposedly, more likely Simonetti by himself) - More Tangerine Dreamness, with keyboard vocals and a driving theme.

Demons (Claudio Simonetti) - Once you hear this, you can't get it out of your head. I hadn't seen the movie in years, but when Daemonia started playing it at the convention, I was like, "Hey, Demons~!". Keyboards, guitars, and synthesized vocals that make a theme that seems like it should be in something other then an Italian horror movie.

The Cult-Con story is coming. I promise.

an annoying autobiographical pause...

I am tired. Bone tired. I am in the midst of a 6 day no day off run of 15 hour work days. Our refrigerator broke down, so I had to spend $500 I don't have to buy a new one. I'm suffering a bit of writer's block on the convention story, and all I really want to do is try out the torrent of Doom 3 I just downloaded. But I have no time for that. Sorry. More when I come out of my haze.

Glad I didn't pay $50 for this...

Watched the torrent of the Tyson/Williams fight. Talk about potential wasted.

Round one - Tyson comes out punching. Williams seems unafraid initially to go right at Tyson, but then Tyson starts to pour it on, clinching and smashing Williams to the body. With 1:30 left in the round, Tyson staggers Williams with a vicious left and a nasty uppercut, and continues pounding away. But with :30 left in the first round, Tyson steps back on a break and apparently injures something in his leg. Seemingly unaffected but adopting a wide stance, Tyson continues to pound Williams right up to the bell. 10-9, maybe even 10-8 Tyson.

Round two - Announcers suggest maybe Tyson's twisted his knee. Tyson continues to pour it on as best he can in the first minute, but his mobility seems limited a bit, and he sort of stumbles into a clinch at 2:00. Williams gets off a good left hook that seems to stop Tyson for a second. With 1:00 left, Williams turns on the jets, pounding back at Tyson and while probably not hurting him all that much, certainly slowing some of his momentum. The round ends with Tyson flailing a missed uppercut at the bell. 10-9 Williams, as he just seemed to outwork Tyson for more of the round.

Between rounds they show a different camera angle of Tyson grabbing his knee in round one. Not a great angle, but it's obvious something's wrong. They don't stay with Freddie Roach in Tyson's corner long enough to get a sense of what's happening, but they seem very calm about what's going on.

Round three - Tyson tries to be dominant, and backs Williams up against the ropes, but Williams seems to be taking it in stride and pounding back. But at 2:25, he punches Tyson while the ref is trying to break the clinch, and gets a point taken away. The ref then brings the doc in as Tyson has a cut over the right eye, apparently from an unintentional head butt. Tyson comes out swinging, but takes a low blow at about 1:40, and Williams loses another point. Christ, Tyson's taking a lot of abuse, but he keeps coming at Williams. Another near miss at the bell. I can't say Tyson won the round, so I'd probably call this one 9-8 Tyson on the deductions only.

Round four - Tyson comes out firing big again to start the round, and staggers Williams a bit with a flurry about thirty seconds in. Williams continues to respond right back though, as the announcers go on about how much heart Williams is showing. At 1:30, the crowd starts a Tyson chant as he continues to dish it AND take it. Tyson seems to be looking for the one punch finish here, as though he knows he doesn't have much left in the tank. At the :30 mark, Williams launches his big barrage, nailing Tyson with impunity. Tyson gets one last swat off, and with ten seconds, Williams sends Tyson reeling back into the ropes. Tyson's up(sort of) at 9, but this fight is over. The final punch is a nasty right hand, and the ref jumps in as Tyson goes into the ropes. Tyson even gets an extra couple of seconds as Williams was late getting to his neutral corner, but the result isn't in doubt at this point.

As they go to Jimmy Lennon Jr. for the post-mortem announcement, Showtime focuses on the dejected Tyson sitting in his corner as the announcers speculate on whether or not we're looking at the end of his career.

And that's the $40 million dollar question, isn't it? Subsequent reports have come out that Tyson has a complex tear of the lateral meniscus in his left knee and will have to have surgery. He had been talking about fighting at least once more this year. That's probably off the table now, as is a four-fight, $100 million dollar deal that Bob Arum was going to give Tyson. Gone too is a potential shot at one of the pretender champs to the Heavyweight title(and an eventual date with Vitali Klitschko). But I can't imagine Tyson being completely gone from boxing, not with the huge debts he has. If the buyrate on this fight is good, and I figure it probably will be, someone down the line will want to book Tyson on a PPV, even if he's fighting on the undercard. He's like a grim shadow hanging over the division, known more to non-fight fans then any of the current crop of heavyweight contenders and champions.

I'm sure he'll turn up again. Bad pennies always do.

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The less said about the trade deadline the better, save that the Red Sox got rid of their "cancer" and brought a few new players in so that we could find a new person to hang the Curse on.

Oh, and Jose Contreras sucks.