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What’s Going On Stays Off Lawns

It’s time! It’s time! It’s Hater time!

Will Ospreay and Ricochet met in this year’s NJPW Best of the Super Juniors tournament and had a phenomenal match. (I called it ★★★★¾.) NJPW put the match up on YouTube. It says in the description “free for a limited time,” so if you haven’t already watched it, go do so now. Seriously, take a break from reading this and go watch the match. Here’s the link one more time. I’ll even embed the video.

There. You no longer have any excuse to not watch this match.

Anyway, I’m assuming you’ve just watched the match and are now ready to talk about it. It was pretty great, huh? That’s a great reaction from the Japanese crowd, which is typically much more reserved than their American, Mexican, and European counterparts. Well, not everyone thought it was so great. Vader certainly didn’t. He called it a choreographed gymnastics routine and talked about how he used to slap on a hold and get a reaction. Relevant:

I mean, yeah, holds and things like that used to get much bigger reactions than they usually do. But things change. Here are the top 10 TV shows from 1966. And 1976. And 1986. And 1996. And that site didn’t have a list for 2006, but the point should be clear by now. Entertainment is constantly evolving. Some entertainment from the past holds up to the test of time and is still fun to watch in replays (syndication for TV, tape libraries for wrestling). As great as Seinfeld was, if the show had continued to do the same thing for the nearly two decades that have passed since the show wrapped, they would have done everything interesting there was to do and viewers would have turned the dial to something fresh. Why the old farts of the wrestling business seem to think their form of entertainment is exempt from this, I have no idea. J.R. and William Regal both get it. We need more guys like Good Ol’ J.R. and Regal. Jim Cornette reacted about as you would expect. I’ll give him a pass, because I really believe his heart’s in the right place as opposed to guys like Vader who appear to have Hulk Hogan-itis and can’t seem to accept that they’re the past. And Will, if you’re reading this, if you actually want to sell some “It’s Ospreay Time” shirts, our new buddies at whatamaneuver.net might be able to help you out.

News from the front lines

We’re fighting a two-front war; one with Rutgers, which is about as one-sided as this past year’s football game with them and the other with the SEC. First, Rutgers. Former Paramus Catholic head coach and current Michigan LB coach Chris Partridge sent this out:

So I guess we should expect a tweet from Chris Ash saying something “Put on your mittens” with a picture of Rutgers’ zero recruits from Michigan, because they’re Rutgers and that’s how they do things. On the other front, Nick Saban criticized satellite camps. General Harbaugh responded appropriately.

You’re exactly right, General, it is amazing. Alabama just had their D-line coach resign due to potential recruiting violations, and now their head coach is worried about recruiting rules being broken at satellite camps. The “bump” rule is named after Nick Saban. The guy oversigned so much, the SEC started looking into medical hardship requests. H/t to MGoBlog on that one, I had actually forgotten about it, hilarious as it is, because, after all, it’s the SEC! Guys get paid thousands and thousands of dollars by booster and they look the other way. To have them say you’re going too far means you’re really a scumbag. Nick Baumgardner eviscerated Saban:

Saban — who has, of course, won four national titles at Alabama — is literally in the middle of a situation where recruiting violations within his program were found. An assistant coach has been forced to resign and the school currently is awaiting the result of that NCAA investigation.

And if that were the only thing going on here, it’d probably be enough. But it’s not.

Like in 2009 when a businessman paid for stars Mark Ingram and Julio Jones to go on a fishing trip. Or in 2013 when a former Alabama player was caught giving Tide offensive lineman D.J. Fluker impermissible benefits. Or later that same year when Saban had to fire a staffer after he paid safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix.

Anyone remember that whole deal about the disassociated Alabama booster who continued to sell signed Crimson Tide merchandise — from players who still were on the team — back in 2014?

and the SEC:

This stuff might as well have its own ticker in every SEC market because it’s not just an Alabama thing. Ole Miss is in the middle of what looks like a debacle. Coach Hugh Freeze is going on radio shows to take blame for this situation — sort of, but not really.

Saban made the same old, tired, nonsensical arguments about the camps: they aren’t about the kids, it’s going to lead to violations, blah, blah, blah. The guy said it was going to become the “wild, wild West.” The guy from the “we’ll look the other way while our members blatantly cheat” conference said that. Of course, most kids at these camps aren’t D-I talents, so the camps give them the opportunity to be coached by D-I and NFL coaches and be seen by D-II and D-III coaches and get on their radars. And, of course, compliance officers come to these camps and the argument Saban and his ilk are presenting is one better applied to camps run by people like Nike or Under Armour than camps run by schools. But since when do facts matter to people in the south?

ESPN now closer to watchable

This came across my Twitter timeline the other night:

First of all, Bill Simmons is gone because John Skipper is a child. Cowherd left for Fox Sports 1 and Bayless is going to join him because Fox’s strategy appears to be “go after the loudest people we can find, regardless of how many brain cells they possess and be TV’s version of clickbait.” Case in point, Colin Cowherd and Jason Whitlock are going to have a debate show together. I have no idea what the deal with Berman is; first he was retiring, then he wasn’t, then ESPN isn’t going to renew his contract. In any case, he’s in his 60s and likely wasn’t going to be with the network much longer anyway. Tirico is an actual loss.

As far as the cord cutting argument goes, it’s an issue, but the bubble hasn’t burst just yet. ESPN is still making plenty of money off of people who couldn’t care less about sports. In the not-too-distant future, cord cutting is absolutely something ESPN is going to have to address. Cable companies offering an a la carte model is probably not going to solve the problem, because fewer people paying for a channel means that the networks will charge more for the networks to make up the losses, resulting in cable subscribers paying roughly the same amount of money for fewer channels. A better option may be a premium model a la HBO or an over-the-top model a la the WWE Network. Kinda strange to see Vince McMahon ahead of the curve on something, but here we are.

Twitter: @KSchroeder_312

E-mail: schroeder.giig@gmail.com

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