Royal Rumble Results

The 2006 WWE Royal Rumble took place last night, and I decided to have a guess at who’d win each match. Let’s see how I got on…

Mickey James vs. Ashley (with Trish Stratus as Special Guest Referee). My winner: Mickey James. Actual winner: Mickey James. Get in there. Ok so the double cross didn’t happen, but Mickey still won and I’d still be surprised if we don’t see Trish versus Mickey at Wrestlemania.

JBL vs. The Boogeyman. My winner: JBL. Actual winner: The Boogeyman. Ok we’re back at 1-1, but what a joke. This time last year JBL was the king of Smackdown! and now he’s jobbing to the latest Papa Shango wannabe? Hmmm…

Edge vs. John Cena for the WWE Championship. My winner: Edge. Actual winner: John Cena. Down to 1-2 and not happy about it. I cannot believe they put the title back on Cena. The only logical thing I can think of is that Cena’s perhaps more media-friendly so he’ll be better for the ‘Mania press conferences (plus it also sets up Triple H doesn’t it? Coincidence?). Even so, you have to feel a little sorry for Edge. He’s been done over like Orton was in 2004.

Kurt Angle vs. Mark Henry for the World Heavyweight Championship. My winner: Kurt Angle. Actual winner: Kurt Angle. Back at 2-2 but there really was only going to be one winner here. I’m not entirely sure on the logic of setting up Angle versus ‘Taker unless the Royal Rumble winner loses his title shot (or switches brands).

The Royal Rumble Match. My winner: Rey Mysterio. Actual winner: Rey Mysterio. 3-2 and all’s well. I predicted that the person who drew #1 would still be around when #30 made his entrance, and so it proved to be. I liked the idea of drawing Triple H #1 and Mysterio at #2 seeing as they’d been heavily tipped to win.

I also realised that I forgot about he Cruiserweight Title match, so I guess I’ll have to settle for 3-3. A successful first attempt I think.

Happy Winter-een-mas!

I can’t believe I got almost the whole way through Winter-een-mas without mentioning it. I have been celebrating this Winter-een-mas season by playing Football Manager 2006 on the PC (guiding the mighty Canaries to 8th place in the Premiership, which I think I’ll have to post more on sometime), and Pro Evolution Soccer 5 on the Xbox.

I’ve also been getting in some retro gaming courtesy of Sensible Soccer and Sonic on the Megadrive as well as Super Mario Kart on the SNES. God bless the emulator.

Royal Rumble

I know it’s not exactly “cool” for a 26 year old man to still watch wrestling, but the fact of the matter is I find great entertainment, so with that in mind the 2006 WWE Royal Rumble takes place tomorrow night and while I’m here I figured I’d give my take on the various matches…

Mickey James vs. Ashley (with Trish Stratus as Special Guest Referee). The obligatory Diva match sees psycho stalker Mickey James up against the 2005 Diva Search Winner. The way things have been going the smart money would be on Trish calling the match in favour of Ashley, so I’m going to go for the double cross to set-up Trish versus Ashley at Wrestlemania. My winner: Mickey James.

JBL vs. The Boogeyman. The only thing you can guarantee about this match is that it’ll be weird. The Boogeyman’s an interesting gimmick but I can’t see what benefit there could be to Smackdown! if JBL loses. My winner: JBL.

Edge vs. John Cena for the WWE Championship. Since losing the title Cena seems to have regained some momentum and Edge has really grown into the role of champion so this one could really go either way. WWE usually seem to favour the heel champion being chased by the face going into Wrestlemania though, and I think that’ll be the key. My winner: Edge.

Kurt Angle vs. Mark Henry for the World Heavyweight Championship. The words “foregone” and “conclusion” spring to mind with match. Since Batista became injured you sensed this angle cannot end soon enough. My winner: Kurt Angle.

The Royal Rumble Match. Always one of my favourite matches of the year, I just hope the big guns are still left towards the end otherwise the end will be completely telegraphed (tip of the day: the person who draws #1 will still be around when #30 makes his entrance). I’m really hoping Rey Mysterio gets his chance, but it’s a struggle to picture a Wrestlemania main-event that doesn’t feature Triple H. My winner: Rey Mysterio.

Ashton and Out

So that’s that then. Dean Ashton has returned to The Premiership (and to West Ham of all places).

I don’t think too many City fans will blame Ashton for jumping ship, but there are a few things about the situation that I find frustrating.

First is the fact that the club seem to have absolutely no choice but to sell. A lot’s been made of player power over the last few years, but seriously, why even bother having contracts? Ashton signed a contract extension at the start of season, but still left in January!

The most galling thing of all is the amount of money we paid him to go! I believe that it was part of the terms that brought him to the club a year ago, and while I gather Ashton waived around £150k to make the move happen there's got to be something wrong when you pay your best player to leave hasn't there? I understand there’s a rule that says a player is entitled to be paid off if they don’t ask for a transfer, but if claiming to want to jump at the chance when you know West Ham are in for you isn’t asking for a transfer, it’s the nearest you’re ever going to get.

And Worthy? Not exactly a PR guru (pun intended). “If we have any chance of gaining promotion we have to keep Dean Ashton”, “West Ham could never afford Dean Ashton”, and my personal favourite “We have not agreed a fee with West Ham for Dean Ashton” (Saturday morning), “We have agreed a fee with West Ham for Dean Ashton” (Saturday evening). Talk about making a rod for your own back.

But having said all that, £5.5m (after the various pay-outs) and a 15% sell on clause for a striker playing for a mid-table Championship team is good business at the end of the day, and should give us a nice little war chest to go out and buy a replacement with – and a right winger wouldn’t go amiss.

And therein lies the problem. Who are we going to end up with? More worryingly, who’s going to want to come to Norwich? Only time will tell, and there’s not much of it left.

To blog or not to blog?

That is indeed the question.

I always thought it would be kind of cool to have a webblog (even if I am the only person who'd ever look at it). I think I've always got something interesting to say about something, haven't? I guess we'll soon find out.

But then I got to thinking about it a little more. Should I write about personal stuff? About football (and more specifically the mighty Norwich City Football Club)? About movies? About games? About wrestling? I don't know...

After literally minutes of thought, I've come to the conclusion that I'll just write about whatever pops into my head. Right now, sleep occupies my thoughts more than anything else, so it's off to bed methinks. I've got a big game tomorrow...

My First Blog

So, this is what it's like to have a blog account? Very nice. I'll be back with more when I have something interesting to say.