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Thoughts on the Teaser of Sonic the Hedgehog 4

I use to love me some Sonic back in the day of the Genesis, back when Sonic games were actually good and in 2D where Sonic belongs. The poor blue hedgehog has certainly been dragged through the mud over the years, with one bad 3D game after another. Finally, we’re looking at a return to old-school Sonic fun with Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode I. Coming this Summer to Xbox LIVE Arcade, Playstation Network, WiiWare and an unannounced platform (I’ll assume PC), Sonic 4 looks to be a classic 2D side-scrolling, platform adventure that serves as the sequel to Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (the last good Sonic game, IMO).

For someone who grew up playing and loving the first three Sonic games, this is certainly wonderful news. Been waiting a long time for a new 2D Sonic game. New Super Mario Brothers Wii last year, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 this year… good times.

I still wish Sega would come out with a new console. And I mean a REAL console, not this $50 Wii-rip off called Sega Zone. I’d definitely buy a new Sega system, and they should seriously consider entering the market again.

Anyways, the brief few seconds of game play in the teaser trailer above looks fantastic and like the old-school goodness I remember (just with a better coat of paint). Can’t wait for this to hit. Can’t say I’m crazy about the episodic part, but I can’t complain at the moment, since I don’t know exactly what Sega has in store there. Should be good though.

Impact Venom: TNA Impact Preview for 02/04/10

TNA Wrestling returns to Spike TV tonight with another all new episode of Impact. Tonight, the Knockouts Championship is on the line, plus two more will qualify for the Against All Odds “8 Card Stud Tournament”. I haven’t read the spoilers, so I’ll only comment on the things TNA has advertised for the show.

- Don’t care about the Mick Foley keeping his job storyline, at the moment. Bischoff fires him one week, he’s back the next and Hogan is telling him and Bischoff to work it out. I like Foley and all, but he’s really not a guy who should be getting a supposedly big storyline at this stage of his career.

- After shaking hands with Hogan last week, Angle was immediately attacked by Scott Hall and Syxx-pac, so it makes sense that he’d want to know if Hogan is in control of “The Band”. This, I’m actually looking forward too. I know a lot of people hate on Hall and Waltman being around, but so far they have been pretty good in their role. Plus, as an NWO mark, it’s still cool to hear NWO music and see “The Band” running around causing trouble. I like Hall and Waltman, sue me.

- Kurt Angle will also see action tonight, against Tomko in an 8 Card Stud qualifier. Tomko really improved when he went to Japan and in his first stint with TNA. So I’m glad that he is back in TNA, and I hope they give him a fair shake at Angle tonight. I think it’s pretty much a given than Kurt Angle advances to Against All Odds, but I’m hoping for a good competitive match tonight. Tomko could be a player for the company in the near future, so he needs to look strong tonight against a credible opponent like Kurt Angle. This could be a good match.

- The other 8 Card Stud match pits Brutus Magnus against Mr. Anderson. I’m still not real big on Brutus, but I’ll admit that he has grown on me over the past couple of months. He actually shows signs of potential now, and that’s a good thing. Anderson looked good in his debut at Genesis, he looked even better last week in a great match against Jeff Jarrett. He has a lot of momentum and he’s getting over as a heel in TNA, so I feel it is a safe bet that Anderson goes over Magnus tonight, and probably pretty quickly. I love that Anderson has kept his complete Kennedy shtick from WWE.

- Tara defends the Knockouts Championship against Angelina Love. It’s great having Love back in TNA. I’d prefer her as a heel back leading The Beautiful People, but she has made a pretty good babyface to oppose TBP since coming back. Too soon for Love to win the title here, and TBP will probably interfere anyway to set up a tag team match in the near future. With that, I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Angelina get a shot at the tile on an upcoming pay-per-view, where The Beautiful People will help her win the title in the OMGZ SWERVE! Which will be fine with me, since The Beautiful People need someone who can actually wrestle a quality match.

I have enjoyed Impact the past couple of weeks, so I’ll definitely be tuning into the show tonight. Will post my thoughts on the show sometime tonight after it airs, and after I post the Superstars thoughts.

Superstars Venom: WWE Superstars 02/04/10 Preview

WWE Superstars airs tonight on WGN America, and three matches were taped for the show (no spoilers here).

Eve and Kelly Kelly vs. Alicia Fox and Katie Lea – I adore Katie Lea, she is my favorite diva in WWE and I think she is a great wrestler. So I’m obviously glad that I’ll get to see her on TV tonight. But the other three women in this match just aren’t good wrestlers, so I don’t particularly care to see this match. I haven’t read the spoilers, but if Katie Lea is involved, I think it is unfortunately a safe bet that she’ll get pinned by one of the talentless divas. This will be a throwaway, so who cares?

Evan Bourne vs. Carlito – I like Bourne and I like Carlito, so these two could have a good match if given more than a few minutes to work with. Both can be very exciting in the ring, especially Evan, so I’m looking forward to this one. I wish they’d do more with both of these individuals. There’s no reason Carlito shouldn’t be an upper-mid card guy; he’s talented in the ring and good on the microphone. He deserves better. Evan is a small guy, but the fans love him and he’s easy to get behind. He doesn’t need to be WWE Champion, but there’s no reason he shouldn’t be elevated up the card in a Rey Mysterio type of role. WWE should be damn glad to have these two on their roster.

John Morrison, Matt Hardy and Great Khali vs. Drew McIntyre and The Hart Dynasty – I’m a big fan of Morrison, Hart Dynasty and McIntyre. Matt Hardy is alright, I’ve just never been big on the guy. I don’t understand why they feel the need to include Great Khali in this match. Sure, I get that he is “teaming” with Matt Hardy as of late, but that’s ridiculous. He’s a comedy act, keep him away from the smaller guys who can actually work a really good match. I’m positive Khali won’t see much action in this match, but the time he is in the match will just take it down a notch. I’m rooting for McIntyre and the Dynasty in this one, hopefully Morrison and McIntyre get a good few minutes to lock up here. Should be a good 15-minute main-event, despite Khali’s involvement.

Superstars is usually a solid hour of wrestling, and this weeks show looks like it could be pretty good (putting aside the divas tag match). I’ll be watching tonight, will post my thoughts sometime after TNA Impact.

AVFR #94 “The Next Generation of WWE Programming” Now Posted

It has been over a month since #93, but the 94th edition of A View From the Rafters is now available in the LOP Columns Forum by clicking here. Opening paragraph teaser is below:

ECW is proudly going off the air in three weeks time, per Vince McMahon’s announcement on ECW Tuesday night. This announcement was hardly surprising to anyone who had read wrestling news sites over the past couple of months. Now that the official word is in, I’m left feeling both disappointed and excited. I’m disappointed because ECW was always a good hour wrestling program. I could tune in to ECW on Tuesdays to and get a good show, putting some horrible RAW’s out of my mind. ECW was dependable, and it introduced the “WWE Universe” to the likes of CM Punk, Jack Swagger, Kofi Kingston, Sheamus, Evan Bourne, Mike Knox and The Hart Dynasty. Hell, ECW helped launch John Morrison and The Miz as well. So I’m disappointed that a show that was good and did a lot of good things, is ending.

(Read the rest in the LOP Columns Forum…)

Mint Condition: Bendable! Poseable! Collectible! Jus Toys WWF Bend-Ems

Jus Toys’ classic WWF Bend-Ems series is quite easily my all-time favorite series of wrestling action figures. They weren’t worth a damn if your goal was to take them out of the package and play with them. Despite the packaging claiming to the contrary, they’re neither poseable nor real moveable, so you weren’t going to be putting on a classic match simulation with these bad boys. But they are absolutely perfect for collecting, much like another series we’ll discuss.

The Bend-Ems ran throughout the mid-90s and onto the Attitude Era of the late 90s, for 15 installments of the series. The figures, from series 1 through 13, stood about 5 inches. The 14th series was changed up for some unnecessary reason to make the figures taller, about the size of normal action figure and they looked ridiculous. You can skip that series, unless you’re a completionist. In addition to the regular series, Just Toys also bundled two wrestlers together in a really sweet package called “Famous Fights”.

Before we examine these little beauties further, let’s go over the complete set throughout the whole series.

ECW Venom: ECW 02/02/10 Thoughts and Results; ECW Going Off the Air in Three Weeks

Tonight’s edition of ECW was once again a solid hour of wrestling. Tony Atlas was hilarious during the Abraham Washington Show, which itself was pretty good (a rarity). The Zack Ryder/Christian verbal interaction was solid enough to set up the main event of the night.

Shelton Benjamin and Vance Archer had a decent outing. I’ve never cared for the whole “added leverage with the foot on the ropes” nonsense, it never makes the pin look any less weak. So that’s my complaint with this match, it didn’t need Archer to win by cheating. I suspect sometime within the next three weeks, Benjamin will pick up the clean win to finally end this feud before moving onto something better (hopefully on Mondays or Fridays).

Yoshi Tatsu vs. Trent Beretta was okay, but nothing memorable. It was a short match, and that’s about it. I will say that I hated Beretta when he first debuted (and his tag team partner Caylen Croft), but he is improving on this stage. He had a nice little “run the ropes for a huracarana” that was pretty sweet. In time, he’ll develop into a solid mid-card wrestler. Yoshi won, and despite liking him initially, I find myself disliking him more and more as time goes on. He’s failing to capture that spark that Evan Bourne had on the program.

Obviously the big news of the night was Vince McMahon’s announcement that in three weeks ECW is going off the air and that airing in the same time slot would be the “next evolution in WWE programming, the next evolution in television history”. McMahon says this new program will be “innovative” and “never seen before”. Color me intrigued to see what exactly they have in store for WWE NXT (Vince didn’t say that was the name of it, but it was more or less implied with the amount of times he said “next”). Short and sweet, and completely vague, the announcement was essentially a tease, and good enough for me.

I liked the beat-down on Gregory Helms by William Regal and Ezekiel Jackson, and the subsequent save by Christian. The beat down carried over towards the main-event, which I both liked and disliked. I liked it because it keeps Jackson in the title hunt, I disliked it because I wanted to see Ryder get a pin on Christian to set himself up for a championship match. Instead we got Christian winning by DQ. Decent enough, I guess.

The entire show was a pretty good hour, so if you missed it, be sure and catch it on Hulu. Oh, and Rosa Mendes was looking exceptionally HOT in that tight and short white dress. SMOKING!  The countdown is on to the end of ECW, and the birth of NXT (Next Generation). I’m looking forward to it.

ECW Venom: ECW on SyFy Preview for 02/02/10

What is the future for ECW? That question will be answered by Vince McMahon on tonight’s edition of ECW. I guess you could joking state that “the fate of ECW is in Vince McMahon’s hands now”. From WWE.com…

Tonight Mr. McMahon himself will appear in the Land of the Extreme to address the WWE Universe on the future of ECW! Don’t miss this important announcement, tonight at 10/9 CT on Syfy!

I’ve always enjoyed the ECW show, ever since WWE brought it back in 2006. It has consisentally be a great hour of wrestling, each and every week. ECW gave us CM Punk, Jack Swagger, Sheamus, Kofi Kingston, Evan Bourne, The Hart Dynasty, and to be honest it gave us The Miz and John Morrison too. ECW has been a tremendous asset to WWE, by basically serving as a developmental television show that introduces new superstars before sending them on to RAW or Smackdown. This formula works, and there can be no arguing with its success.

I’m looking forward to seeing what Vince McMahon has to say about the future of the ECW brand tonight. If the rumors of the rebranding and overhauling of the show goes through, I’ll certainly be fine with the name “ECW” going away. But, the basic formula should remain the same; a good to great hour of wrestling with a focus on making new superstars.

Tune in tonight to see what McMahon has in store for the land of Extreme.

Welcome to Stinger’s HeelZone Blog, aka Deadly Venom

The HeelZone Blog has been dormant for almost two months, until today. The HeelZone Blog is back in business, only there has been a change. All the post from my Deadly Venom blog have been imported here, that’s because Deadly Venom is being dumped and HeelZone is taking its place. This blog is now my personal blog, it’ll no longer be centered around wrestling news and results. If you want news and results, visit Lords of Pain.

The new HeelZone is entirely centered around opinion pieces (wrestling and non-wrestling), plus the latest news and announcements regarding the column series’s I write and/or co-write.

Sports Entertainment 360 Previews the 2010 WWE Royal Rumble

“The Road to WrestleMania starts at Royal Rumble. Who will be the one to win a guaranteed Championship match at WrestleMania XXVI? Don’t miss John Cena, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Undertaker, Randy Orton, Rey Mysterio, Batista and all your favorite Superstars at Royal Rumble, Sunday, January 31 at 8pm ET/5pm PT, only on pay-per-view. A World Wrestling Entertainment Production.”
- – Royal Rumble synopsis courtesy of InDemand.com

“Sports Entertainment 360″ explores the issues at hand, taking an in-depth look at the world of professional wrestling…

“The SE360 Preview of the 2010 WWE Royal Rumble Extravaganza”

Dr. Chad: – When I was but eight years old, I was hanging out with my dad and we decided to go Blockbuster. As we perused the aisles, we eventually got the wrestling section. I saw this cover for one of the tapes with all these big stars on it. Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Sid, Macho Man, Million Dollar Man, British Bulldog, and Jake the Snake just to name a few. I had not watched wrestling in awhile, so we decided to get that tape…it was the 1992 Royal Rumble. I remember seeing a young Shawn Michaels in that Rumble and rooting big time for him to stay in as long as possible. I knew he wouldn’t win, but I just got caught up in picking a guy and really rooting for him until he was eliminated – then picking a new star and doing the same until he was eliminated. In the years that followed all the way to the present, the Royal Rumble has been my favorite MATCH of the year. Wrestlemania eclipsed it as my favorite event, but the Rumble is – HANDS DOWN – my favorite match of each and every year.

It is a match that holds many memories for me…Austin cheating to eliminate my hero, Bret Hart, and win in 1997…the star-studded 2002 match with guys from seemingly each and every era…the classic confrontation between Hogan and Warrior…the ending in 2005…and the last 8-minutes featuring Taker and HBK in ‘07…just to name a few.

So, as we approach another Rumble and the start to the next Road to Wrestlemania, let’s preview the entire card for this year’s show…

College work and the end of the MAG IGN …

College work and the end of the MAG IGN tournament got the best of me this week, resulting in me not posting the 4th AVFR Mini Issue Thursday. That’s okay though, I should have one written and posted on Monday.

The next edition of Sports Entertainment 360 will be coming out near the end of next week, just in time for the Royal Rumble. For those wondering, Dr. Chad and I will be previewing and offering our predictions for the 2010 WWE Royal Rumble pay-per-view.