Welcome to another blog here at DOINOW.com. As always, thanks for giving me some of your time, even if you're reading this on the toilet. If you are really backed up, check out the archives section on the right hand of the site for previous articles.
For those who read me for different topics, and hate that I don't break up these monster blogs into mini-blogs on one subject, the Knicks will be talked about first, scroll down for the hockey talk, scroll down further for the wrestling and scroll all the way to the end for some final thoughts. Breaking up these blogs into short little blogs seems like a cheap way to increase your overall website hits, and I'm not really concerned about that.
I originally wasn't going to return until Wednesday's Rangers game was completed, but the sports world has been busy and fuck it, I got the time to pump out an extra blog here. There are several topics to discuss in the NY & sports world, so away we go:
The New York Knicks are now officially the worst team in the NBA, at 5-32, as a result of the Philadephia 76ers pulling out a rare win on Monday night. I have stopped writing about the Knicks, here on DOINOW.com, because simply, what else is there left to say? They fucking suck. I even find it irritating when the Knicks & MSG, on twitter, plug the upcoming post-game show after games. What's the point? What else can you say? They are a fucking joke and a fucking embarrassment!
I'm realistic. I didn't expect the Knicks to do anything of note this season. However, I did not expect them to challenge for the NBA All-Time Worst Record in NBA history. I'm of the belief that we will never see the Knicks win a championship, as long as Lebron James is playing. Just like Jordan in the 1990's, Lebron dominates this league. While stylistically, he's the complete opposite of Jordan as a player, he's just as dominant, perhaps even more dominating than Jordan, since the NBA has only 3-4 teams a season that have a shot at the championship. In the Jordan days, and the eras before Jordan, you had time-tested heated rivalries and teams that were together for years, where now, the players do whatever they want and play for whoever they want.
I understand the rebuilding process. I understand tanking. I understand the Knicks, for the first time in a while, have control of their first round draft pick. I understand salary dumping. What I don't understand now, nor did I understand when it happened, is why the Knicks re-signed Carmelo Anthony to a max deal. The Knicks have everything else going for them, starting in the 2015-2016 NBA season, except for Carmelo. Why sign a guy to a max deal who doesn't embrace team basketball? Why sign a guy who's never won a championship? Why sign a guy who openly talks about playing for other teams, even after he signed his deal!? Why sign a guy, when you break it all down, is nothing but a whiny malcontent?
I would've let Melo walk this summer. The Knicks were gonna suck anyway this season, but no one imagined them sucking this much. So what's the point of paying Melo max money for a lost season? You could've let him walk and then play with the bigger free agents coming up, like Kevin Durant or Marc Gasol. I will never understand why they signed Melo and no matter what the Knicks do, I don't see them winning ever with Melo.
In an attempt to continue the tanking process, there have been talks about shutting Melo down for the rest of the year. You're stuck with this guy, as no one is going to trade for his contract. Might as well shut him down. He's only getting older, and a full 82 game NBA season just destroys the knees of every athlete on the floor. Might as well not age Melo if you don't have to.
Before tonight's raping, the Knicks made a deal. The deal broke down as:
Cavaliers receive JR Smith & Iman Shumpert
Oklahoma Thunder receive Dion Waters
Knicks receive dead weight & expiring contracts in the form of Lance Thomas, Alex Kirk & Lou Amundson, with the latter two to be waived.
I'm conflicted on the deal. JR had to go obviously. He has a bad contract, hasn't had a season since 2012, where he won the 6th Man of the Year award and is just someone who doesn't give a shit anymore. I'm one of the idiots who follow JR on twitter. Without fail, after every game this season, JR is talking about going out, hitting on women and ignores basketball. Sure, we all don't want to talk about our jobs after the workday is over, but we are also not getting paid millions of dollars to do our jobs. JR will talk to random big breasted semen collectors, but ignores anything basketball related. He's accepted losing and that's that.
It sucks that Shumpert had to go to. While he hasn't been the same player since coming back from his ACL injury, he is still young. It's sad to see a former first round pick go for next-to-nothing, but he's an upcoming free agent. You can get him back if you really want to. At the end of the day, Shump or no Shump, it doesn't affect this team.
It's funny, while Shump & JR were part of the worst team in Knicks history, I can see them being assets in Cleveland. Lebron isn't a clown like Melo. Lebron has won championships. Lebron plays a team game. Lebron stresses defense. Lebron knows how to win. He's in his prime now, with prime years left. He has all the power in the world in Cleveland. He can get rid of JR if JR doesn't show up ready. However, I think JR will become reinvigorated knowing that he has a chance at a title. Shump brings stellar defense and a good shot. He will get more looks and touches with the ball than he did with the Meloknicks.
The Knicks are bracing themselves for the biggest summer in team history. It will be amazing if anyone other than Melo & maybe Hardaway Jr. remain on this team by this time next year. However, that could be part of the problem, as we get to year 3,4,5 of Melo's deal.
Who would've thought that the lowlife Knicks would be the worst team in New York?
The funniest thing about the whole situation is that no matter what, the Knicks will always sell out. Being at a Knicks game is a status thing for rich people. Corporations gobble up blocks of tickets. It's a tourist thing to do. Being at MSG is special. The days of real fans attending Knicks games are long gone, as most of the attendance at Knicks games are Jews in suits eating sushi. You don't see the family of four. You don't see the black kid in his Ewing jersey. You see all the fat white faces stuffing their face with $20 food items. The Knicks can be 5-32 or 32-5, either way, they are making their money. Only the true fans suffer at times like this.
Congratulations to my Canadian readers (Is there anyone Canadian reading DOINOW.com outside of Cam Talbot's parents?) and of course to Anthony Duclair. If you remember, or if you checked the archives, I did a column on Duclair at the beginning of the NHL season. You can read my column, "HOW ANTHONY DUCLAIR CAN CHANGE HOCKEY" here:
http://doisports.blogspot.com/2014/10/how-anthony-duclair-can-change-hockey.html
Black, white, brown, green, it doesn't matter. Sure, a black player, in a major market, could influence black people to watch hockey, but to simply break Duclair down - he's a good hockey player with tremendous potential. Duclair, scoring first, scored the game winning goal for Team Canada against Team Russia in the IIHF World Junior Championships. Duclair tallied up a bunch of goals and assists during this tournament. Duclair, already a QMJHL All-Star last year, proved again that he can dominate at the level just below the NHL. Can he eventually do it for the Rangers, in the NHL? Time will tell.
On an aside, if you didn't see the gold medal game on the NHL network, you really missed out. It was one of the more exciting hockey games of the season. I really had no rooting interest, outside of Duclair, but this was a fierce battle with many ups and downs for both teams. Just when you thought Team Canada had the game won at 3-1, and later 5-2, Team Russia fired back to get the score to 5-4. The last 75 seconds of empty net hockey was awesome to watch, especially with so much on the line.
Connor McDavid, expected to be the number 1 pick during this years draft, and who will probably wind up playing for the Oilers this time next year, had an impressive game as well. He's going to be someone to watch. I know Jack Eichel is also getting some major burn, due to his play in Boston College right now, but I don't see how McDavid doesn't go #1 overall.
As far as #63 for the Rangers goes, his future is up in the air. As I've written about before, if the Rangers send Duclair down, he can't come back up until his team is finished in the QMJHL. Since his team, the Quebec Remperts are a playoff team, and expected to go far, the earliest he would be able to come up is mid-May, when the Rangers could be done with their season as well.
The Rangers have an abundance of forwards right now, each having their own positives and negatives. Lee Stempniak seems to have a hold of the 10th forward spot, where Jesper Fast, JT Miller & now Tanner Glass are battling for the last spot. One of those three have been the odd man out in recent games. Adding Duke to the mix means two healthy forward scratches a game. Who knows, as the season gets deeper, perhaps you want to rest a Rick Nash or MSL a game here and there and having an extra guy, who's been practicing with the team, on the ice for you.
The Rangers have the cap room to add Duclair to the roster for the remainder of the season. In my opinion, especially after this tournament, we know Duclair can play and dominate at the Junior level. Practicing with the best players in the world can't hurt him. I know AV only wanted Duclair if he could be a top 9 forward, but we haven't seen enough of him to figure if he's that. Plus, he's nervous and will always pass the puck instead of taking the shot, as he defers to his veteran teammates a lot while with the puck.
It's a real tough decision for the Rangers, but hopefully #63 will be skating at the Garden sooner than later. Congrats Team Canada.
I was on the fence about recapping Raw this week. On one hand, I really thought last week's show was good, so I figured I'd stay with it. On the other hand, the WWE pissed all over their stipulations again, bringing back The Authority way too early. Everyone knows this crap is fake anyway, but so are TVs & movies, at least try to make me believe, ya know? Since I have two TVs hooked up, I was watching this, the hockey and some of the Knicks. I'm glad I had other stuff to watch, because three hours of this straight is torturous at times.
This show was your basic "strengthen & empower the heel faction as much as possible" event. It was a heel heavy show, but I guess it had to be. Of note, no Brock Lesnar, which I understand because of contract issues, but why not bring out Paul Heyman, if you're not gonna do a Lesnar pre-tape? Heyman should always be there hyping up Brock, especially with Brock on the Rumble. I guess Adam Rose fooling around with some ghetto gospel jivers was more important.
Let's make this quick:
The show opened up with all the roster at the ring, minus the guys who only show up when they want & Seth Rollins. Cena did the usual "I'm sorry WWE universe, I accept responsibility" blah blah promos. Stephanie McMahon and her wife, HHH, came out. They were gloating. This took forever. Basically, the only thing to come out of this was that Seth Rollins was added to the Lesnar vs Cena rematch. That really junks that match up, but I guess we've seen Cena vs Lesnar so many times already.
The interesting thing in all of this, is where does the title go? Lesnar's last date is Wrestlemania. He's a free agent. UFC wants him. Bellator wants him. He is going to get a shitload of money. WWE might even offer more money than they are paying now, just so it doesn't look like all their top stars are running off to MMA. I absolutely hated they ended the Taker streak, especially with Lesnar being the guy, because he doesn't give a fuck and will never appreciate it. He's all business.
With Rollins now added to this match at the Rumble, I guess Cena can win the belt from Lesnar by pinning Rollins, and then they can do some schmozz to set up Rollins cashing in his briefcase on Cena to win the belt. If you have a brain, (which worries me with the WWE writing staff) I don't see how Daniel Bryan loses the Rumble. Rollins, flanked with The Authority vs Bryan for the title at WM31 would be a great main event. We have already seen Reigns fail and bore people to tears with Rollins & all these dead crowd reactions aren't helping his cause. I just know that WWE wants Reigns to be the guy, but he's not there yet.
The biggest problem is you can't have Lesnar go to Mania as a lameduck champion, or you will have WM20 all over again. The crowd will shit on it. If Reigns, who originally was booked to win the Rumble, prior to Bryan coming back, wins the title from a leaving Lesnar, it does nothing for him. Perhaps destroying Lesnar in a non-title match will do more for him.
Either way, what Lesnar decides determines the fate of the WWE. If he does go back to MMA, it really made the three months of the title being off of TV as worthless.
Outside of the title match announcement, an IC title match was booked and it was next.
Wade Barrett d. Dolph Zigger to win the IC Championship
This was the start of all the babyfaces getting fucked by the authority. Ziggler won the first fall, rather quickly. BNB destroyed Ziggler after the match, and Kane made the match 2/3. BNB picked up a quick second fall win hitting the Wasteland. He did the same move again, in the third fall, but somehow Ziggler was able to kick out this time. I hated that. If anything, he should be more beat up. Just comes off more phony than usual, but everything Ziggler does is cartoony anyway.
BNB eventually wins with the bullhammer.
POSTMATCH: Kane comes out to blow BNB. Kane went from the Undertaker's Brother, a former World Champion and all that good stuff, to raising BNB's hand in the opening match. Yummy.
Roman Reigns did a bad promo with Renee Young. I still can't believe ESPN hasn't poached Young yet. After this, Bray Wyatt played "Justified". He must have naked photos of someone, because I'm sorry, this dude sucks.
The WCW Saturday Night B-Team of The Ascension came out. They basically acknowledged they are not even a second rate, but a 133973895738978937589739847th rate version of the LOD & Demolition. They then buried the Demolition & LOD with the worst material possible. If you tried to write a worse promo for them, you couldn't. They then squashed two mexicans in 10 seconds.
You can see JBL hated this, because he buried the Ascension the whole time and kept saying Mexicans were worthless, in a JBL way. This basically sucked. I don't know what the WWE sees in these guys. Not gonna go into my spiel on them, I already did, so go read my other WWE & NXT reviews if you care what I think about these scrubs.
Roman Reigns d. The Big Show via DQ
Boring. You could literally hear the toilets flushing in the mens room during this match. Reigns may be the answer, but he's not the immediate answer. That role goes to Daniel Bryan.
This feud is so formulaic. First match a count-out, now we have a DQ, we'll get a no-decision next time and maybe a PPV match. Just a slow and plodding match. Show hits Reigns with the stairs for the DQ.
POSTMATCH:
Reigns rebounds and hits one of the weakest fucking spears I've ever seen in my life. Seriously, he made Edge look like Goldberg 100.0 with that spear.
Natalya d. Nikki Bella w/Brie Bella
Paige came out to support Nattie, playing off their crap on Total Divas. That show was entertaining, but it's so fake and overscripted so much, that you are mad and shaking your head while watching it. Nattie comes off like the biggest fucking cunt bitch mark you'll ever see, so it's hard to cheer for her in these matches. She is so unlikable on that show.
Anyway, Paige did a rib where she told Nattie she ate a pot brownie. Nattie was nervous about a drug test. Of course, WWE called to tell her the drug test was that day. How convenient. Anyway, all this shit turns into Paige lying about it being a pot brownie, but Nattie didn't find the joke funny. So now Paige, whose teeth get worse every show (Seriously, does she brush her teeth with brownies, dog shit and street pebbles?), is there to support Nattie in this match. I know way too much about Total Divas.
Paige beat up Brie on the outside, distracting Nikki, which led to Nattie rolling up Nikki for the win. Who cares.
WWE then paid respect to Stuart Scott. It would've been funny if they flashed a graphic of Stephen A. Smith instead.
Luke Harper d. Eric Rowan
More heel Authority shit. Jamie Noble & Joey Mercury were special guest referees. They refused to count for Rowan. They then quick counted when Harper made a cover. They all gang banged Rowan afterwards, to ensure that everyone knew Rowan was fucked for not being with the Authority. I get the angle, but 3 hours of this shit is too much.
Alicia Fox & Naomi were announced to be in a 6-man tag team match later on. I'm surprised Cameron, who already had an issue with Naomi, wasn't booked instead of Fox. Anyway, Fox did some horrible and unbelievable promo about Total Divas then attacked Naomi. So bad.
Ambulance Match
Bray Wyatt d. Dean Ambrose
Horrible. Same old shit, with the same old finish. The work is good, but no one cares about Bray Wyatt & the audience has grown to accept that Ambrose is not allowed to win big matches. Can't create new stars if babyfaces the crowd reacts to always is doing jobs. I know they want to save Bray for a bigger babyface, but the dude sucks and does the same plagiarized promos over and over. Anyway Wyatt wins again. Yawn, and you can hear the crowd die faster than Stuart Scott the second he was announced as the winner. It's not a heel reaction either, it's a groaning reaction.
The Miz & Mizdow & Alicia Fox d. The Usos & Naomi
Same old shit again. With so much TV, everything gets repetitive quickly. Why are these teams even still feuding? Let's just get to the Mizdow/Miz split, but I guess they are saving that for Wrestlemania. Miz pins Naomi's husband after a botched finish. I'll forget about this match tomorrow.
Seth Rollins & Kane d. Ryback
Again, more heel authority shit. It was necessary for the story they are telling, but alright already, I got the fucking point. Ryback had Kane beat, Rollins hit two curb stomps on Ryback and that was that. Good to see an upcoming babyface doing jobs. I'm sure that's best for business. For all the times they do DQ's, this would've been the time to do one.
Adam Rose w/The Rosebuds vs Big E w/the stereotypical negro faction went to a no-decision
Man, this New Day shit just screams "HELLO DERE MASSA!!!" Anyway, Tyson Kidd & Cesaro, dressed up as the Los Conquistadors, ran out and attacked the blacks. Poor Cesaro, being reduced to this crap.
MAIN EVENT SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT SEGMENT
Throughout the show, HHH & Stephanie McMahon were mockingly having "John Cena Appreciation Night". The big ending and payoff to all the crap we were subjected to tonight ended here. HHH cut some long promo, where he botched and stumbled over words like he was Mad Dog Vachon in a 100 yard dash. This also, was brutal.
All this blah blah blah crap (And all these promos feel like this because they are reading scripted words, designed to go for an elongated length, to fill up 3 hours) led to Dolph Ziggler, Eric Rowan & Ryback coming out. HHH & Steph decided they had to suspend them, but didn't know for how long. HHH & Steph said they needed a private convo, because obviously, they couldn't figure this out with a weeks time.
HHH & Steph left the ring. They showed a shot of balloons earlier in the night by accident, so I was thinking it would be water balloons or something silly like that dropping on all the babyfaces in the ring. Instead, Steph ripped off her father's catch phrase and told Ziggler, Ryback and Rown that they were fired. Does even the youngest WWE fan believe this will actually happen? WWE has killed their stips faster than Benoit with a bible, where no one believes what they say. I'll take a wild guess and all three will be in the Rumble.
This Authority storyline has run its course and they should've been off of TV until they needed something. How ironic that the Authority comes back once Monday Night Football & the holidays were over. Such a Hogan move.
Overall:
You know I'm a lifer and still will watch this shit, even if I hate it. It's what I do on Mondays. Rumble show should be good and at least both major matches don't have a clear cut winner. If they do Brock vs Reigns though, that is just gonna blow.
RANDOM CLOSING THOUGHTS:
- What is with these hippie pothead people at Starbucks on their laptops all day? You can't drink coffee and play solitaire at home? And before you say, "Oh Sean, how many hours of your life have you wasted in bars drinking a different substance than coffee?" let me remind you that at least a bar has social interaction. I went to get a coffee today while shopping with my g/f, and all you see are these unshaven and unkempt slugs playing solitaire and
- Has anyone seen that commercial for that black EMPIRE show? The first thought I had was, "I can't wait not to watch this." Even worse, they stole the same font as Boardwalk Empire. That's just being lazy. I'm sorry FOX & Terrence Howard, but this show looks like a loaded bag of elephant shit.
- If anyone is going to Francesacon, I shall be there. Feel free to buy me a beer!
- I was reading some Ranger blogs and facebook posts about people not liking Crazy Larry, the Rangers fan, who dances during the third period of Ranger games. They say he's a dumbass or whatever. I just think that's jealousy. Here's a guy, who pays for his season tickets and dances like an idiot, to get other fans loud and into the game. What's wrong with that? Some people don't like he's getting paid gigs and commercials and the like, but that just seems like an envious reaction. The guy is a diehard fan. Who wouldn't want to get paid gigs, get free beer, upgraded seats, and the like, just because he dances at games? Give me free tickets, some beer and cash, and I'll do the fucking macarena in the bridges if you want.
While it didn't take long, Larry is now a fixture at Ranger games. You know you gotta stand up after "BABA O'RILEY" plays, because the national anthem is coming up. You know you gotta run to the staircase during intermission to get a smoke in. You know you gotta get to the beer line before the third period starts. And you know you got Larry dancing around the Foxwoods Final 5 mark of the game. It's tradition now. Do your thing Larry!
Ok, this has gone on long enough. I'll be back Wednesday with reaction. Until then, spread the word about the blog and thanks for reading.
Sean McCaffrey
BULLSMC@aol.com
@NYCTHEMIC on the twitter
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