MTV's got a wrestling show.

And it kinda rocks, and kinda sucks. (Yes, I know MTV used to run Sunday Night Heat, but this is a show that they produce themselves.)

Wrestling Society X premiered this week. I have to say that I was both encouraged and discouraged all in the same half hour. The opening match was very acrobatic and impressive, even though I'd never heard of either participant(Matt Sydal and someone whose last name was Evans.) The Evans guy busted out a nasty 630 splash as a finisher, and other than some ridiculous overselling of non-injuries, it was a good match.

Unfortunately, I had heard of many of the participants in the other match. When you have to fill your roster with the guys WWE/TNA don't want/got rid of, it's pretty bad. Justin Credible, Vampiro, New Jack, Chris Hamrick, and 6-Pac (okay, can't you come up with anything better than that?) among others. Exploding fake-ass wired up steel cage boxes (or something). More garbage than a month's worth of old Thunder reruns. And the threat of 6-Pac or Vampiro as the WSX "champion".

Overall, I'll probably watch next week, but I'm not sure I'd watch beyond that. The camerawork was very annoying, and having Zack Wylde as guest commentator was more aggravating than anything else, plus the two morons that MTV hired to do commentary go Joey Styles way too much.

Bring on the baseball season.

Is it unfair, nay, mean of me to suggest that I'd be happier if twin plane crashes claimed both winning teams in today's NFL Championship games?

I mean, who am I supposed to root for? Peyton "Marino" Manning? Rex "I just couldn't bring myself to care about a regular season game" Grossman? A wardrobe malfunction by Prince at halftime?

Forget this shit. Three weeks until pitchers and catchers report, and two weeks until the start of the 2007 Six Nations tournament.

Aaaaaand exhale...

What a game. That was way closer than it should have been, especially with Manning facing that first and thirty.

Of course, we're not going to beat N'awlins, but at least we beat the Giants and hopefully flushed away the residue of that September comeback.

(No posts for a few days, as I'm going on the road for work.)

Okay, it's official...

One hour into the new ESPN Friday Night Fights season, and Shannon Briggs comes up with what will probably be the quote of the year. While discussing the Peterson brothers, a pair of undefeated fighters who ESPN loves (not the least because of their extreme hard luck story(read down to the end of the profile)), Briggs tried to make a point about their records so far:

"It's like eating ice cream. When all you've been fed is Mr. Softee, you might have a hard time eating hard ice cream."

Laurene and I were just floored. It was HI-larious. Combined with the atrocious red shirt and peppermint-striped tie, Briggs definitely set the bar pretty high for the rest of the boxing community to top this year.

2006 post-mortem continued...

I forgot about Criterion's Equinox DVD yesterday in my DVD's of the year. What a great title to get the Criterion treatment, especially given the involvement of Dennis Muren and the movie's influence on the Evil Dead films.

So, ported over from ITVR, my ten favorite albums of the year:

DJ BC - Wu Orleans (Great mashup album)

Dragonforce - Inhuman Rampage (Despite Thom's description of them as "saving the world one keyboard solo at a time", they were awesome at Ozzfest.)

Hatebreed - Supremacy (Also awesome at Ozzfest.)

Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere (Laura loves "Crazy" and the Femmes cover's awesome.)

Entropia - Funky Cops and Hard Boiled Girls (This was the bonus disc of the DVD of Stelvio Massi's The Last Round. It's a collection of 70's Italian action movie themes.)

Weird Al - Straight Outta Lynwood (Not as good as Poodle Hat, but not bad.)

Jack Johnson - Curious George OST (Cute movie, good album.)

Bob Dylan - Modern Times (Just plain great.)

Neil Young - Living With War (Recorded in two weeks, and Neil's probably at his angriest since Weld, and it's probably musically his hardest stuff since Mirrorball)

Morrissey - Ringleader of The Tormentors (Blind Guardian was originally here, but I think I liked the Morrissey album more. "You Have Killed Me", simply awesome.)

And the worst, but most guiltily entertaining album of the year? I am ashamed to admit that I actually downloaded the K-Fed album, though I did it on the strength of this BWE article, which made it a must to hear for me.

PANCAKES, PANCAKES!

So, I'm trying to be back.

Don't expect too, too much, as I'm going to be on the road a lot, but I figure I ought to try and start writing some again. Today, a brief post-mortem on some of the things I liked in 2006.

My favorite movies of the year:

Cars
Pirates Of The Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest (can't wait for the third one)
Snakes On A Plane (come on, it's a movie called Snakes on A Plane. It's the greatest movie ever.)
Hostel
Over The Hedge
Jackass 2 (can you tell this list isn't especially highbrow?)
Wordplay
A Prairie Home Companion (RIP Robert Altman. A good movie to go out on...)
The Great Yokai War (I don't think this was released in '06, but I saw it in '06, so there...)
Thank You For Smoking

The worst movie I saw in '06, by far(and I actually wasted the 9 bucks to see it, more's the pity) was Ultraviolet. Even the director's cut DVD didn't help matters.

DVD highlights of the year for me:

The continuing amazing releases from WWE, particularly the History of The WWE Championship and Spectacular Legacy of the AWA DVDs. (Almost made up for the editing of certain segments of WM23 for the DVD.)

Special editions of Forbidden Planet and The Maltese Falcon, as well as George's grudging release of the original non-edited Trilogy on DVD, even if they weren't anamorphic.

The Adventures Of Brisco County on DVD. Bruce Campbell rules. 'Nuff said.

(More later. I gotta go pick up Laurene from work.)