For example, the first project I contributed some funds towards on Kickstarter.com was a country music album from a female professional wrestler (eclectic, right?). She met her funding goal and is now in the final stages of completing her new album. Due to the level I chose to support her project at, along the way I’ve been given behind-the-scenes updates on the making of the album. I was also a member of a group of backers who qualified for a private online concert where she sang some of her new songs and covered some long-time popular hits. It was pretty cool.

Lately, I’ve been trying to put some money behind small video game developers because let’s be honest – without these small developers, the entire video game industry is doomed. Specifically, I’ve been trying to put money behind some action/adventure games and role playing games. The role playing games are really what I look for whenever I browse around Kickstarter.com. After Square Enix screwed up the entire Final Fantasy series by trying to make it too realistic, I began looking for better gaming experiences and the truth is that they’re really hard to come by.

And it’s not just the video game industry that I’m thinking about. Remember, video games are one of the primary training tools for a lot of our high-end military applications and one of the best hand-eye coordination tools that we have at our disposal. Also, more creative minds building, structuring, and restructuring these software applications can also lead to new breakthroughs in the medical field or in scientific research (like the Folding@Home project). There are a ton of great reasons to support these small, independent developers.

Oh – and I support these developers because video games are fun!

I thought I’d take a moment to share some of the latest projects that I’m helping to fund. I encourage you to check out some of these projects and, if you’re so inclined, why not throw them a few bucks to help them along their way? You can pay directly through PayPal (via Amazon) and you’ll get a great deal on a new video game (it usually just costs between $10 and $15 to qualify for a digital copy of a game). Check it out!

Are you active on Kickstarter.com? If so, are there any projects that you think I should know about? Feel free to leave a link in the comments section below. Thanks!

But Kickstarter is better than just feeling good about what you do with your money – you actually get something in return for your dollars.

The first campaign that I put some money towards was a music project. Believe it or not, there is a woman professional wrestler who is an accomplished country music artist. She’s not half bad, actually! Anyway, this woman was trying to make a second album with funding from Kickstarter and was asking for anyone to contribute $5, $10, $50, $100, and so on towards the costs to develop her album. After the word spread around the internet, she reached her funding goal and is now in the process of making the music. The dollar amount that you contribute to a campaign dictates what you’ll get in return. Personally, I only contribute at a level where I’m going to get something tangible. For this woman’s campaign, I contributed $50 (funded from my website company) which gets me both a physical copy of the new album plus the full MP3 version of the album, my name in the “thank you” section of the album, my CD autographed by the woman, and an invitation-only web concert. Sometimes the rewards are much more extravagant. For example, in this campaign if you donated $10,000, then you received all of these items, a 30-minute in-home concert, a hand-painted t-shirt from the singer, an executive producer listing for the album, and a personalized thank you video.

And each Kickstarter campaign is different. Seriously, check out the link above – I think you’ll enjoy what you find on there.

This entry, though, is about a new video game console that I saw on Kickstarter. Here, watch the video for yourself:

Did you watch the video? It’s a pretty cool concept, right? Some of you might be wondering, “Well, what’s the difference between this OUYA video game system and the Nintendo Wii or the Playstation 3 or something like that?” And that’s a good question. I’ve been doing some research on this OUYA concept and what these folks are trying to do and this is what I think the difference is between this console and the others.

It’s open.

When I say it’s open I mean that you can go in and hack it and it doesn’t void a warranty or become an illegal device or anything like you might imagine. In other words, people can go in and hack the core system’s operating protocols (I’m probably not using the right language) and it’s not a problem at all (assuming, of course, that the hacking doesn’t fry the system). The OUYA system is built on the same software infrastructure as the Droid cell phones out there – it’s an Android-based system. What this means is that anyone who can develop an “app” for a Droid cell phone or an app for a Droid tablet (for example, a NOOK) can have that app operationable on the OUYA system. This creates two immediate outcomes – one interesting and one alarming.

The interesting outcome is that since the console is built on the Android system, there are going to be thousands of apps and mobile games available for download on the first day that this thing is hooked up in your living room. The second, more alarming outcome is that I can’t imagine wanting to play any of the time-wasting games on my cell phone on the big screen of my television.

That second outcome is one of the issues that the OUYA development team is taking very seriously. They are talking to a variety of high-level gaming software companies to ensure that there are blockbuster-level games available for this system as soon as it hits the market. That’s going to be a huge task, but with only one week of starting their Kickstarter campaign these folks have already generated over $5.2 million from over 40,000 backers.

That’s a lot of money to make in a single week!

I admit that I’m not technical enough to know much more about how this thing is going to work, but I do know that if you Bing “OUYA” you’ll find a bunch of positive and negative press for the not-yet-created console. For my part, I like supporting these Kickstarter campaigns and I’ve supported a variety of independent video games on that website already. So I supported the OUYA campaign at the $99 level. This gets me the ability to reserve my username before the console goes live to market, a “Founder” emblem emblazoned next to my username forever, and an OUYA console plus one controller. That’s right – a brand new video game system (expected to be delivered some time in March 2013) for $99 (plus $20 for shipping).

You can’t even buy a used current generation console for $99!

If you’re interested in the OUYA or in at least learning more about it, check out their Kickstarter page. This is a very interesting concept and I’m glad to support it!

The name of Foley’s latest book is Countdown to Lockdown. Lockdown’s focus is a short, six-week period of time leading up to Foley’s match against Sting in the main event of TNA Wrestling’s Lockdown event which was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Younger wrestling fans will love reading about Foley’s state of mind as he recounts his actions in the ring promoting this match and during the match. Older wrestling fans will enjoy reading Foley’s commentary on the wrestling world, including his frequent references to and shots at Vince McMahon. However, I think all consumers of good literature will like reading about how Foley’s life is intimately informed by the world around him and how he interacts (and gives back) to that world.

My favorite story from the book isn’t actually wrestling-related. In fact, my favorite story recounts how Foley donated money to a small area of Africa to help build a school for the children there. Yet, Foley didn’t stop by just donating money to build the school – he actually went over to Africa for a site visit. This is my favorite story in the book because Foley recounts how he was treated like a king including having choirs of young children singing his name and being greeted and thanked by all of the local townspeople.

There’s something about envisioning the “Hardcore Legend” being exalted in sub-Saharan Africa that the wrestling fan in me really enjoys. The philanthropist in me, though, loves the fact that Foley gives away so much of his income to worthwhile, charitable causes.

I also enjoyed the frequent references to Tori Amos and her song “Winter,” which you can listen to by hitting play on the video below. Foley talks about how this song is his go-to song to amp him up for the biggest matches in his wrestling career. And yet, he says that he’s only listened to this song a small handful of times before his matches. In other words, he only uses this song to get prepared for a match when it is an especially important match to him, personally. Pretty amazing.

From a wrestling fan’s perspective, the constant jabs at McMahon are really fun to read. And when I write that the jabs are fun to read, I’m not suggesting that I enjoy reading about someone taking shots at McMahon. Not at all, actually. Instead, I’m more suggesting that so few wrestling books take the time to comment on how McMahon interacts with his talent backstage that Countdown to Lockdown provides a refreshing alternative to the pack. Of particular entertainment is the discussion around Foley’s time as an announcer on WWE Smackdown!

As a reader and wrestling fan, I felt bad for Foley when he recounted his story about McMahon almost ruining a planned family vacation by yelling and screaming at Foley through his headset during a live show. In fact, Foley talks about how McMahon used the type of language that he wouldn’t even dare to repeat in his book, which is pretty amazing considering that all manner of craziness is usually included in wrestling books. After reading that story and reading about some McMahon’s other pet peeves when it comes to announcing (for example, he doesn’t like the use of “he” or “it” or “she” – instead he wants proper names always used), I watched a few minutes of WWE RAW this past Monday night and I couldn’t help but laugh to myself a little bit. Not only was Foley right on the money about McMahon’s pet peeves, but it was really funny listening to Michael Cole have to say things like, “Jack Swagger comes off the ropes into Daniel Bryan and Daniel Bryan, King, seems like he’s ready to launch a comeback against Jack Swagger. I wonder if Jack Swagger will be able to hold off the brunt of the offense being unleashed now by Daniel Bryan!? And Daniel Bryan with a few big right hands against the head of Jack Swagger; Jack Swagger reeling from this assault from Daniel Bryan and Daniel Bryan is on top!”

It’s ridiculous to listen to the announcers on WWE programing when you’re listening after reading this chapter in Foley’s book.

There are a lot of gems in Countdown to Lockdown and I think that readers of all types and ages will enjoy reading this book. It’s one of those rare pieces that starts in one literary world (wrestling books) and crosses over into a variety of other worlds including inspirational piece, autobiography, historical commentary, and work of art. If you’re looking for a good, solid read, then I highly recommend you pick up a copy of this book.

If you don’t know, that suite of websites consists of the blog that you are currently reading and a variety of professional wrestling websites. When I was younger, I was a big professional wrestling fan. However, as I was in college and then graduate school, I began to grow apart from watching the sport. Plus, I was a big fan of the old World Championship Wrestling (WCW) promotion and once it was bought up by Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) group, I gradually stopped watching the shows. Once the wrestler that I hated watching the most married his way into the McMahon family and, essentially, wrote the scripts so that he always won at the end of each feud, I was turned off to professional wrestling completely.

And then this upstart promotion out of Nashville and Orlando started putting out a product. I watched here and there, but my watching habits were nothing worthy of merit. Then about two years ago I started watching that TNA Wrestling promotion more and more and more and you know what? It began to grow on me. It reminded me of the old WCW and the old Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) and it was fun to watch. More than that, though, it made me want to get back into the business of professional wrestling websites. When I initially started making websites back in 1996, I was making primarily professional wrestling websites (The Balrog’s Lair, The Brood, and Wrestle Universe were the three wrestling-themed websites that I worked with back on the old GeoCities platform).

But this entry isn’t supposed to be a history lesson, so I’ll get on with it!

These days I own three professional wrestling websites – TBLWrestling.com, XHeadlines.com, and TNAStars.com. Of the three, I actively manage and operate the TNAStars.com website. TBLWrestling.com has been around the longest as it has existed in one incarnation or another since 1996. XHeadlines.com was the next site that I created and I think that, for a long time, it was my best work in terms of laying out the design of a professional wrestling website. However, I began working on TNAStars.com on and off during the summer of 2008. Once it was announced that Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff were moving to TNA Wrestling during the fall of 2009, I kicked the development of that site into high gear and we went live completely live on January 1, 2010.

On the first day that TNAStars.com was live back in January, it received 2 hits. And believe it or not, that is where this success story begins.

Viewership on the site gradually increased as the news articles were picked up by the various search engines. By the middle to end of January 2010, TNAStars.com was routinely pulling in around 500 hits per day and I was really pleased that the site had a decent presence with less than a month of existence underneath its belt. However, my goal for all of the new websites that I start is for them to be at 1,000 hits per day on a consistent basis – then grow from there. Sometime in March 2010, TNAStars.com began generating 1,000 hits per day, but then the summer months came on and – as has been my experience with professional wrestling websites – the hits began to go down until August, when they started to pick up again.

But I’m always looking for a consistent 1,000+ hits each day and I knew that TNAStars.com was so close. I’m not sure what it took to make the jump, but sometime around the end of September the website began consistently generating 1,000+ hits per day. Then on October 1, 2010, TNAStars.com generated 1,989 hits in a single day – the most in the site’s history. I was very pleased!

Until October 7, 2010 (last Thursday), when the site drew in 3,189 hits in a single day. I was floored at the great response, but knew that hard work always pays off in the end. Last Thursday I began to wonder – how high could this thing go? Then on Friday, the site drew in 3,147 hits – only a small decrease from the day before. But it didn’t stop there…

On Sunday, October 10, 2010, TNAStars.com drew in some 5,017 hits in a single day. Phenomenal! I was convinced that this number was going to be the high mark in the series of banner days for TNAStars.com. Then yesterday came around and wouldn’t you know it, but the website drew in some 8,500 hits in a single day!

Let me put this in perspective and explain why this is significant and worthy of celebration. The most hits that any of my websites ever received in a single day was on June 26, 2007 when TheBalrogsLair.com (which eventually became TBLWrestling.com) received 25,305 hits due to its thorough coverage of the Chris Benoit double murder suicide. Not really something to go screaming around about, but it’s true. The next highest day of hits in the history of my suite of websites? That would be the day before – June 25, 2007 – when the Chris Benoit coverage began. Blech. The story is the same with the third highest day in my suite of websites’ history – June 27, 2007 – Chris Benoit coverage.

You have to go to the fourth highest day in the history of my suite of professional wrestling websites to find a banner day in terms of visitors that were not drawn to the site because of a tragedy! And that day was Monday, March 15, 2004 when TheBalrogsLair.com took in some 7,299 hits in a single day due to its excellent coverage of WrestleMania XX. That was a good day for my professional wrestling websites.

Incidentally, the fifth and sixth highest traffic days in the history of my suite of sites are both Chris Benoit double murder suicide. Annoying.

But all of that changed over this weekend when TNAStars.com’s Bound for Glory 2010 coverage took the number one traffic spot away from the original TBL’s post-WrestleMania XX coverage. And it changed again when the post-Bound for Glory coverage pushed TNAStars.com ahead of one of the Chris Benoit coverage days back on the original TBL.

I hope that the momentum stays with TNAStars.com as it’s a great little website that isn’t bogged down with crap and annoyances. If you’re into professional wrestling, I highly recommend heading over there and seeing what we’ve done. Here’s hoping that the days of growing hits continues for the entire suite of professional wrestling websites that I own!

Some of you may know that I already posted this information on the wrestling website that I own at TNAStars.com. If you’ve seen this all already, then I apologize, but I wanted to share the pictures with all of my audience! Enjoy!

Source: TNAStars.com

What’s up, everybody!? Most of the time, we scour the internet looking for the best set of house show results to share with you great fans. However, for the Asbury Park house show I was actually in attendance with my roommate, my buddy, and my younger brother (and about 1,200 other TNA fans) so here are some results and notes on the show directly from me!

Attendance: I’m not the best estimator of attendance at these types of shows, but I would suggest there might have been about 1,200 fans in attendance. When I went to the Asbury Park house show in 2008, there might have been half as many people there so to more than double the amount of attendees in two years shows tremendous progress in this fan’s eyes. When the official attendance numbers come out, I’ll report them here.

Excitement: While the action in the ring was mediocre at best (the house show two years ago had more exciting action), the fans seemed into almost every big move from the start of the show through its completion. I’ve been to two TNA house shows and a TNA pay-per-view thus far and I think that this crowd (comprised mostly of younger fans and their families) were the most “into” the show that I’ve seen for this company. Frankly, they were more into the show than the people at the iMPACT! Zone ever seem to be (and why is there always a high pitched girl screaming in the iMPACT! Zone? Somebody shut her up already!)…

Acoustics: Just like two years ago, I found the acoustics in Convention Hall completely over modulated and hard to understand. For some reason, all of the wrestlers and knockouts that opted to use the sound system also opted to yell into the microphone which, to my ears, resulted in an electronic muffled sound that had way too much reverberation on the output. No one normally writes about these things, but for me it was such a pronounced pain in the neck that I felt compelled to put it on here.

Pictures: Coming soon in another post – I’m going through them (I took over 300 pictures) and weeding out the crappy ones (about half). When I have the pictures weeded out and uploaded, I’ll place a link to them right here. Update: The pictures are available below this post!

Sightings: My buddy, roommate, and I met Jeff Hardy at The Beach Bar which is connected to Convention Hall and overlooks the Atlantic Ocean and Asbury Park’s southern beach. It was about as brief a meeting as you could imagine – he walked by, shook our hands, and went on his way. In my view, he was shorter than I thought he’d be; all of these online listings show him at 6′ 1″ or 6′ 2″ tall and I’d say he’s maybe 5′ 9″ or 5′ 10″ at most. Either that, or he was incredibly slouching when my buddy, roommate, and I met him (and I don’t think he was slouching).
 
 

This match was a pretty strong show opener and it got the crowd excited. I admit that I didn’t get a chance to really watch the full match because I was looking for my brother, roommate, and buddy during this match, but I did manage to see The Amazing Red jumping around like a crazy person. Brian Kendrick also had a few good moves, too. Red took the match in the end.
Winner: The Amazing Red
 

I’m pretty sure that Angelina Love took on Sara Del Rey in this match, though I didn’t catch her name and I can’t see facial features too well. The match wasn’t so bad and in my humble opinion I think that the action in this match (and the one following) was among the best on the entire show, period. Angelina Love was quick and smooth with her moves, as always, and Sara Del Rey certainly did the JAPW organization proud in her loss. The winner of this match was awarded with a title shot against Knockouts Champion Madison Rayne.
Winner: Angelina Love
 

As soon as Angelina Love beat Sara Del Rey, Madison Rayne came out and beat the hell out of her to begin their match. Apparently, the match was “supposed” to take place later in the night, but Madison Rayne took the opportunity to beat up on a weakened Angelina Love and eventually beat her in about 5 or 6 minutes. Overall, though, it was a good match and even though Angelina Love was fresh off of her match with Sara Del Rey, she did a good job fighting back against a fresh Madison Rayne.

Earl Hebner was the referee (he received a decent reaction when announced to the crowd) and this match ended with a spot where he happened to catch Madison Rayne in a swooning position and the crowd egged him on to kiss her (which he did). Then he did this weird dance that got the crowd going. Angelina Love was laughing at it until Earl went up to her and smacked a kiss on her, too. More dancing after the kiss, of course, Madison Rayne used the distraction to roll up Angelina Love for the win and Earl Hebner did a little more dancing out of the ring area.
Winner: Madison Rayne
 

Lots of “Woooooo!” hollers from the audience for Jay Lethal, who was way over with his home state crowd. I would say that next to the Knockouts, Jay Lethal was among one of the most “over” guys on the night’s card. Lots of good back and forth action in this match that ultimately saw Jay Lethal pick up the victory. Jay Lethal did some of his Ric Flair impressions by strutting a little bit on the ring apron before the match started and chopping Desmond Wolfe throughout the entire contest. I would have liked to see these guys fight for another five minutes or so.
Winner: Jay Lethal
 

Kurt Angle came out and thanked the audience for coming to the show. He said that people in attendance may be WWE fans, but he’s here to tell everyone the truth – that TNA is better (mixed reaction from the fans, but mostly in agreement). He was holding a can of some type of energy drink in his hand during the entire promo, which he eventually tossed across the ring on his way out. Nothing major to report here.
 

The most annoying part of this match was that Jeff Hardy seemed to thank every single fan that had their hand out during his introduction. Seriously, his entrance might have lasted almost ten minutes – they had to restart his music. Abyss did a good job of playing the monster heel, which is a role that I think he is more naturally suited for than the Hulkamaniac shtick. Jeff Hardy brought some fan signs in the ring before the match started – not sure what they said but you can check them out after I post the pictures.

Not much to say about the match here. Both men did their signature moves and Jeff Hardy eventually won by hitting The Swanton. After the match, Jeff Hardy took one of the cameramen’s camera and went around ringside taping the fans (I assume this is for TNA Today on TNAWrestling.com and YouTube.com).
Winner: Jeff Hardy
 

Before the Intermission began, Don West came out and hyped his brown bag special and his super duper exclusive Ric Flair t-shirt that “you can only get here tonight and nowhere else!” During the break, Angelina Love had a line for autographs that literally wrapped around the entire inside of the arena. My buddy said that they were going for $10 each, so TNA and Angelina Love definitely made some money off of her signing autographs. There were hundreds of people in line to meet her – it was pretty nuts. My group and I took the opportunity to get up and go to the other side of the arena during the intermission.
 

Team 3D was extremely over with this crowd. After they were introduced, the “E-C-W” and “We Want Tables” chants were deafening. So… this match became a tables match. The action was crazy to start this one as Brother Ray beat the hell out of Jesse Neal in the ring and Brother Devon took it to Shannon Moore on the outside of the ring. At one point, Brother Ray ran into the back and came back with a shiny new steel garbage can, with which he promptly smacked Jesse Neal in the head. After some posing, Jesse Neal took the garbage can and cracked it over Brother Ray’s head completely bending and destroying the can.

Once the match got along a little bit, Team 3D hit their “What’s Up!” headbutt to the balls before the crowd yelled for Brother Devon to get the table, which he did. And once the table was set up in the ring, it wasn’t too long before Jesse Neal went directly through it and Team 3D picked up the win. Funny note from after the match – Brother Ray asked Brother Devon to get some kids to give pieces of the ring to and he went up on the stage to grab a kid, but the kid was horrified and grabbed his Dad. Brother Devon tried to tell him what was going on, but in the end settled for a different kid off of the stage and a kid from the front row. Team 3D posed for pictures and thanked the crowd as Brother Ray said he was heading to Bar Anticipation in Belmar to find some Jersey girl (he used other words) for the night.
Winner: Team 3D
 

Rob Van Dam was easily the most over guy on the card tonight, thanks in part to his entrance theme which encourages the fans to chant and yell for him. Both of these men looked good during the match, but A.J. Styles may really be taking his new heel role too seriously since he stalled the beginning of the match by about ten minutes (which was probably longer than the entire action part of the match). It was a bit excessive.

The match came to a head when A.J. Styles missed his flying punch from the top rope and Rob Van Dam hit his Rolling Thunder which set him up for the Five Star Frog Splash. At some point, A.J. Styles went to hit his Pele Kick and I have to tell you – it didn’t look so good. Anyway, Rob Van Dam picks up the win and the show comes to an end.
Winner: Rob Van Dam
 

After the show was over, Rob Van Dam stayed around and posed with fans in the ring with the championship belt for $20 per each group. This is the same thing that Kurt Angle did after the Asbury Park house show two years ago.

A final comment – the interwebs sometimes say how TNA’s house shows are the most profitable part of their business. Well, after attending my second TNA house show I can clearly see why. These people (led by Don West) sell, sell, sell! They are selling t-shirts, DVDs, autographs, meetings with the wrestlers, etc. TNA shows really have a type of fan interaction that you don’t get at WWE shows, but it would admittedly be hard for WWE to pull off this type of interaction with 15,000+ people at their shows. Overall, I thought it was a fun show even if the action in the ring was mediocre at best.

Smallville
I’m a big Smallville fan, but I’m not a fan of how they break up the seasons each year. This year they went from January to the end of February, took off for March, and then started up again in April. What’s the point in doing that? It doesn’t make any sense? Anyway, I like the way that Smallville is trying to focus more on the actual comic book relationship to the series and less on the stupid, cheesy storylines. The more that they move in that direction, then the better and brighter this show’s ratings future becomes. Speaking of ratings, Smallville is one of those shows that gets a big bump each week thanks to people who DVR the show and watch within 7 days of the recording. Just goes to show you how new technology helps to keep good shows on the air!

Lost
I was talking to my Mom the other day and I said that the first season of Lost will probably go down as the best single season of a show in the history of television. That show had people riveted to its every move and plot twist – watching the show was actually fun! These days, though, while I like that we’re only a few episodes away from the grand finale, I’m annoyed that there is no possible way for the writers to address every single storyline and loose end before the show goes off the air.

So, while the first season of this show will probably go down in history as the best season of television ever, the last few seasons have to go down in history as a major disappointment. And how do you kill off Sun, Jin, and Sayeed? Good grief…

Fringe
I love it. This show is amazing. The idea that there is another universe that parallels our own should be enough to make any science fiction nerd happy. But showing that alternate universe and the relationship that it has with our own is what Fringe does best. Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, and John Noble are out of this world (pardon the pun) in terms of their performances. A better cast couldn’t have been assembled for this show. My only concern about the future of this show is that it was created by and is currently executive produced by J.J. Abrams. Why might this be a problem? Well, Abrams created Lost and, well, see my review above…

24
On the one hand, it’s sad to see Jack Bauer and Chloe Sullivan canceled after this season, but on the other hand I think that this is the best thing for the show. In reality, there is only so much that you can do in terms of terror plots that have to cover 24 separate episodes. If I’m not mistaken it has already been confirmed that there is a 24 movie in the works, so that’s good news.

This season, I was shocked that they showed the aftermath of the assassination of Omar Hassan (played by the guy who was the game show host in Slumdog Millionaire). That made for some shocking entertainment television. I was also surprised that they killed off Renee Walker right after she and Bauer began a romantic relationship – I didn’t see that coming. However, I was glad to see good old Kara Thrace (the character’s name in Battlestar Galactica) a.k.a. Dana Walsh (real name Katee Sackhoff) added as a member of the cast. Okay, sure, she winds up being a bad guy and a mole for the Russians, but she’s one hell of an actress.

TNA iMPACT!
Well, if you know me then you know that I’m a wrestling fan. Sure, I’m not as big of a fan as I used to be and I don’t regularly watch the shows (thank God for DVRs), but I still get some enjoyment out of the “male soap operas” that are professional wrestling shows. For a variety of reasons, I’m not really interested in watching WWE any more. Not only has the show fallen to a PG rating (and thus puts out a product a bit below my age group), but I’m sick and tired of seeing some of the same people over and over again (Triple H comes to mind).

TNA, on the other hand, is showcasing some pretty great talent in Abyss and A.J. Styles. They’re also bringing us Desmond Wolfe, D’Angelo Dinero, Rob Van Dam, Jeff Hardy, and any other number of great performers that are getting to rub elbows with wrestling legends Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair in on-camera appearances. For that reason alone I enjoy watching TNA’s flagship show iMPACT! However, if you actually sit down and watch the show for what it is – as a fan of sports entertainment – you really see how entertaining the overall product can be. TNA recently decided to retreat to Thursday nights after trying to take on WWE’s Monday Night RAW head-to-head. TNA is really still pretty young and the move to Monday nights was pretty ill-conceived, but I’m glad that they listened to their fans and moved the show back where they wanted it – on Thursday nights on Spike TV!

V
I like this show. In fact, sitting through Lost is made more palatable because I know that after the show is over I get to see the actress who played Juliet as one of the main characters on V. The concept behind this show is interesting – aliens that look and talk like humans have come to earth in these spaceships and they are offering all of these great technological advances in the name of peace. Sounds great, right? Meanwhile, the aliens are really these reptile creatures that have the sole intent of invading the earth and destroy its people. In fact, a fleet of enemy ships are on their way to earth and no one knows about it!

There is a certain overall feeling of hopelessness with sporadic glimmers of hope throughout this show that reminds me a lot of the Battlestar Galactica series. All of the actors on this show put out great performances and it really is a good show to watch if you’re into the science fiction stuff.

Caprica
This is another show that was stopped mid-season by the SyFy Channel for a break. Why do these channels do this to upstart shows? What’s the purpose? Caprica aired its mid-season finale on March 23rd and the word going around is that there won’t be any more new episodes until the fall. The fall?! Really? What’s the point in that?!

Other than the dumb break in the season, this show is actually pretty good. I think that it needed some time to find itself after the first few episodes and it did. The only carryover character (not counting the Cylons) from the Battlestar Galactica series is Admiral William Adama, though Adama is a young boy in Caprica. At one point, Battlestar Galactica was the best show on television, bar none. I think that if Caprica is given the right room to grow into itself, it can easily become one of the top shows on cable television and probably compete with the network stations for audience.

The story thus far is pretty compelling. A genius scientist and a rugged attorney each lose their daughters in a train explosion set off by a religious separatist group claiming that there is only one God and not many Gods as most people believe. As the first half of the season progresses, we find out that not only are one of the daughters actually involved in the separatist group, but that she (being a genius herself) created an avatar of herself and has it stored in an online world that her father created for entertainment purposes. In fact, once her father finds this out he is able to create an avatar of the other girl that died in the bombing and he shares that avatar with her father – the lawyer – who then becomes obsessed with finding his daughter in this online world.

That’s a trivial explanation of what’s going on and I’m obviously leaving out major plot points, but this is a good show and I hope SyFy gives it a chance.

The Biggest Loser
This is one of the best reality shows on television, if not the best reality show, period. What makes this show so great is that not only do you learn the back stories of each of the contestants, but you actually get to watch them transform themselves into a new person. Anyone who is watching this season has to be impressed with Sam and Koli’s transformations. The same for Michael.

Actually, Michael is an interesting case. He’s the biggest contestant in Biggest Loser history starting the show weighing in at 526 pounds. And here he is a full 16 weeks into the show and he’s lost 192 pounds and is weighing in at 334 pounds. Yet, that’s the weight that most people start at on the show! Quite frankly, Michael can still lose another 130 – 150 pounds before his weight loss journey is over. Imagine that for a moment. Here’s this guy on this weight loss show and he’s lost nearly 200 pounds and yet he’s only a little past the halfway point in his transformation.

Amazing.

For this reason alone, Michael is my pick to win the whole thing this season, although I think his stiffest competition may come from Ashley.

House
You want to talk about great shows? House is the best medical drama on television. Hugh Laurie plays the best crazy doctor that anyone could ask for and he really makes the show complete. Whenever I flip over to my DVR and see what I have stored up to watch, I’m always glad when there is an episode or two of House waiting for me. This is one of those shows that you can watch one time and wind up getting hooked. In fact, I even began watching some of the first season episodes online so I can catch up with all of the storylines.

This season has been good and I think I find myself enjoying the individual episodes and the individual patient storylines more than the overarching stories behind all of the main characters. Maybe I like medical dramas, I guess.

Anyway, there’s my report on what I think of this season’s television shows and how they’re progressing. What do you think about these shows?

Because I was disenfranchised by WWE, I began watching Total Nonstop Action (TNA) which is based out of Orlando and Nashville. It’s pretty entertaining, though the writing seems to be questionable at times. This is the same TNA that Hulk Hogan recently announced he would be working for as a management consultant (in fact, he makes his debut tonight).

Anyway, I began watching TNA a few years ago and at some point during the summer of 2008 I began working on a TNA-only wrestling website. Many of you know that I began my foray into the wrestling website world with a personal website called The Balrog’s Lair, which eventually morphed into TBLWrestling.com. That website is more like a wrestling supersite with information dating back over a decade. I intended for TNAStars.com to be a different type of site – one that has news, rumors, results, and opinions, but also one that has profiles of wrestlers from the promotion. I didn’t quite accomplish my goal to have a bunch of profiles of the wrestlers on TNAStars.com, but I did manage to put together what I think is a pretty bad ass design for a small wrestling website.

Anyway, this pet project of mine is now live so if you have any interest in learning some more about TNA Wrestling, then head over to TNAStars.com and enjoy!

As a part of the grand opening of this new website (which won’t happen until late December 2009 or possibly early January 2010) I am giving away a bunch of DVDs to randomly selected subscribers to the TNAStars.com Mailing List. The DVDs include:

– The 50 Greatest Moments in TNA History
– Knockouts, Volume 1
– Unstoppable: The Best of Samoa Joe
– Best of the Bloodiest Brawls (Scars and Stitches)

You can win one of these DVDs simply by signing up for the TNAStars.com Mailing List on the front page of TNAStars.com! This mailing list is completely safe and operated out of the Google Groups system so you can be sure that your e-mail and information are protected. So go on over and sign up for the mailing list today!

As a wrestling fan, I’m excited for this news. I stopped watching World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) programming around two or three years ago. Honestly, it got to a point where Triple H was winning every single feud that he was in and where he and his wife were trying to write him into some mythical figure week in and week out. I couldn’t take watching the utter bastardization of the sports entertainment industry, so I stopped watching. Hey, there are a lot of ways for people to express their support or dissatisfaction with a company or product. With sports entertainment, I decided to vote with my dollars and my leisure hours by taking them away from WWE and giving them to TNA.

That said, it hasn’t been an easy ride as a fan of TNA wrestling. There is a strong argument to be made that these guys have spent the last few years blowing their opportunity to be the clear alternative to WWE programming. For most of the last few years, there was no way that TNA could compete with WWE on a global level. Today, even with signing Hulk Hogan, I think that fact remains. However, bringing in Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff (more on him in a minute) gives TNA a real chance to compete with WWE domestically and, specifically, on the all-important cable television medium. As a fan of TNA, I hope that they don’t blow this gigantic opportunity.

Now to Eric Bischoff. When news broke last week that Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff had signed contracts to partner with TNA, most of the people that I talked to were saying that Hogan is too out of shape and getting up there in age to make an impression on TNA. Well, that’s true. But if you ask me, the real value of this transaction is Eric Bischoff. Forget about the fact that he has connections in the entertainment industry through Bischoff Hervey Productions. And you can even forget about the vast connections that Bischoff brings as the former President of World Championship Wrestling (WCW). What Bischoff brings to the table is a unique view on the wrestling business that is not only proven to be successful, but it is proven to be profitable.

The real value of this deal is Eric Bischoff’s brain with Hulk Hogan’s instant mainstream credibility. The only misstep that I’ve seen so far in this whole thing is the fact that while Hogan was on almost every major media outlet promoting his new book last week, he wasn’t wearing any TNA merchandise. I know that this announcement was a bit last minute and that TNA doesn’t even have a marketing plan built around Hulk Hogan yet, but it would have been nice for the company’s fortunes if Hogan was wearing some red and yellow themed TNA merchandise, you know?

However, that’s only a minor hiccup. Hogan was sure to talk about TNA in almost every interview and he talked about how he has a partnership with them and that he may or may not get back into the ring. In these interviews, he was very realistic about his body and how it has broken down over the years. That’s a good sign for Hogan who, as his new book details, has been battling some mental demons lately.

Anyway, the word is that Hulk Hogan will be featured on TNA Impact on Spike tonight, so if you get a chance be sure to watch the show!

Are you ready for some incredible action this Sunday? On October 18, 2009, TNA Wrestling will offer a free 30 minute preview of TNA Bound For Glory.

Plus, as an extra feature of the preview show, the tag team of Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley known as the Motor City Machine Guns will take on Lethal Consequences (“Black Machismo” Jay Lethal and Consequences Creed) in tag team action in the six sided wrestling ring.

All of this takes place at 7:30pmET/4:30pmPT immediately prior to TNA Bound For Glory. You can watch it for free, exclusively at mycontent.com.

That’s not all, as a special feature, TNA Wrestling will offer a post event press conference live with the main event Bound For Glory wrestlers. If you’ve ever wanted to ask your favorite TNA wrestler a question, this is your opportunity.

Send your questions to the wrestlers now by emailing us at HYPERLINK “mailto:tna@mycontent.com” tna@mycontent.com or via twitter @mycontent.

The TNA Bound For Glory post event press conference is available only on mycontent.com at 11pmET/8pmPT.

Be sure to login early so you don’t miss a minute of the action.

Enjoy the show,

I received that e-mail a few days. Earlier this morning, I received the following e-mail which has more of the same information in it.

Tonight is the night for TNA wrestling and you’ve got the best seat in the house. Be sure to login by 7:30pmET/4:30pmPT sharp, so you don’t miss a single minute of this incredible action.

Part of this preview show includes the tag team of Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley known as the Motor City Machine Guns, taking on Lethal Consequences (“Black Machismo” Jay Lethal and Consequences Creed) in tag team action in the six sided wrestling ring.

Remember, all of this takes place at 7:30pmET/4:30pmPT immediately prior to TNA Bound For Glory. You can watch it for free, exclusively at mycontent.com.

That’s not all, as a special feature, TNA Wrestling will offer a post event press conference live with the main event Bound For Glory wrestlers. If you’ve ever wanted to ask your favorite TNA wrestler a question, this is your opportunity.

Send your questions to the wrestlers now by emailing us at HYPERLINK “mailto:tna@mycontent.com” tna@mycontent.com or via twitter @mycontent.

The TNA Bound For Glory post event press conference is available only on mycontent.com at 11pmET/8pmPT.

Be sure to login early so you don’t miss a minute of the action.

Enjoy the show.

There you go. For those of you looking for some free coverage for your wrestling website or for some free information regarding TNA Wrestling, I hope that you check out the content from MyContent.com. Enjoy!