Rants and Ranks

I'm sure most people are like me and are just thrilled to watch Styles every week on WWE programming.  Here I want to rank all the top matches AJ had prior to WWE.  I planned on putting every single one I could find on here, but he had so many 6, 8, or 10 man tags in NJPW that were essentially repeats, that I decided it would be redundant to do so.  So what's here is what I'll call the "important stuff."  Enjoy.   AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels vs. Samoa Joe TNA Unbreakable ‘05 AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels TNA Bound for Glory ‘05 AJ Styles vs. Abyss TNA Lockdown ‘05 AJ Styles vs. Chris Sabin vs. Petey Williams TNA Final Resolution ‘05 AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels vs. LAX TNA No Surrender ‘06 AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe TNA Sacrifice ‘05 AJ Styles, Rhino, Sting, Truth vs. Scott Steiner, Jeff Jarrett, America’s Most Wanted TNA Lockdown ‘06 AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels vs. America’s Most Wanted TNA Slammiversary ‘06 AJ Styles vs. S...

It was the summer of 1996.  I was 10 years old.  Michael Jordan had just completed his first full season since returning from his hiatus.  The Bulls had won a then-record 72 games on the way to the championship.  They beat the Seattle Sonics lead by the best dunker in the NBA, Shawn Kemp, and of course “The Glove” Gary Payton.  The Sonics had beaten the reigning two-time champion Houston Rockets in the second round.  The Rockets would soon retool by adding Charles Barkley in hope to regain their championship pedigree.  The Bulls biggest threat was seemingly the Orlando Magic, who knocked them out of the playoffs the previous year.  They met for a final showdown in the Eastern Conference Finals.  Orlando however came in limping with multiple injuries to key role players like Horace Grant.  Shaq and Penny had somehow had even better seasons than the year before when they shockingly made it to the Finals, only to be swept by the Rockets....

All stats are from players' Lakers tenure Kobe Bryant : 1346 games, 1 MVP, 5 Championships, 16 Laker Records, Top 10 in 19 other categories Magic Johnson : 906 games, 3 MVP's, 5 Championships, Hall of Fame, 8 Laker Records Top 10 in 29 other categories Kareem Abdul-Jabbar : 1093 games, 2 MVP's, 5 Championships, Hall of Fame, 5 Laker Records, Top 10 in 30 other categories Jerry West : 932 games, 1 Championships, Hall of Fame, 1 Laker Record, Top 10 in 20 other categories Elgin Baylor : 846 Games, Hall of Fame, 2 Laker Records, Top 10 in 19 other categories Shaquille O'Neal : 1 MVP, 3 Championships, Hall of Fame, 1 Laker Record, Top 10 in 34 other categories George Mikan : 5 Championships, Hall of Fame, 1 Laker Record, Top 10 in 8 other categories Wilt Chamberlain : 1 Championship, Hall of Fame, 6 Laker Records, Top 10 in 5 other categories James Worthy : 926 games, 3 Championships, Hall of Fame, Top 10 ...

WrestleMania weekend has now come and gone.  Top to bottom, it was a really enjoyable show.  The main event left a whole lot to be desired, but there was enough fun stuff throughout the show to cancel out the Triple H main event.  (Are we sure it's not 2003?)   This was initially going to be a WrestleMania wrap-up blog, but I'm not really feeling that.  I want to write about the thing that has the most buzz.  It was the thing that I was most excited about when I saw the card a few months back (Due to the spoilers of it being a taped show; I'm not complaining though). NXT Takeover: Dallas was the best NXT show yet, and that my friends is saying something.   Austin Aries came out on a NXT taping the weekend of the Royal Rumble. This was fantastic news for me, and pretty much anyone else who watches NXT.  This was before the rumored NJPW guys came aboard.  So in my mind, even if those rumors were false, Aries is a pretty damn good c...

When I woke up yesterday to read my news feed from whatever social media site I was looking at, I got really excited.  Someone had seen Daniel Bryan in a Phoenix airport getting ready to depart on a flight to Seattle, which was the place of that evening's Raw.  They also had an accompanying picture-because let's face it, "picture, or it didn't happen." Much the same way he yells, I was yelling "yes" as I read the news.  This was great.  AJ Styles had reignited my WWE flame, and now adding Bryan back on the show made me a happy boy.  Then I read some of the comments on that post. Reading comments on anything can be dangerous.  The negativity out there is ridiculous, especially when the people don't know each other.  This particular post was met with great joy obviously, but then I got to one that said (I'm paraphrasing) "Don't get all worked up, he's just going to Raw to retire." That's a big-time bummer.  That one comm...

courtesy: nba.com It's usually the time when I'm complaining about the all-star selections, and believe it's coming, but today's topic is about another type of selection.  Arguably the more prestigious selection of the Olympic team.  It's down to the 30 finalists, and Team USA has an embarrassment of riches.  Even still, I thought I could whip up my list of 12 with no problem.  Wrong.  I figured out my starting 5 relatively easy, but 5 of the 7 subs was mind-wracking.   When the list of finalists came out, people were complaining about the lack of "player X" or "player Y."  What the common fan fails to realizes is that this isn't the all-star game.  It's not picked by fan-favorites.  In fact, the best player in the world could choose not even to play.  Case in point: fresh off shutting down LeBron for his Finals MVP, Kawhi Leonard opted to not play in the FIBA championships in '14 even though he would have been a shoe-i...