Meeting Mickie James, NFL after Week 3, WWE in Reruns, and more!

These four things I know are true…

- I liked WWE’s current storylines the first time I saw them… in 1998.

- The NFL and NASCAR have something in common and it’s not good.

- Someone should not have a TD and DWI in the same week.

- And, I’m Aaron Goins. All my thoughts on those topics and so much more (including meeting Mickie James)… in The Highlight Reel!

NEWS and NOTES
**I recently looked at World Wrestling Entertainment and their top storylines. I know wrestling is filled with repetition of the same angles. It has been that way since the beginning of time. But, usually the repeated angles have some alterations and are less obvious and blatant rip-offs of the past. Not with what WWE is currently producing however. The truth is that watching WWE now is like watching WWE in 1998.

Case in point: SmackDown’s World Championship storyline. The Undertaker is fighting Kane for the World title. Paul Bearer has returned to WWE and is alongside The Undertaker again. These two are going to have a Hell in a Cell match this weekend and will soon have a Buried Alive match. It’s 1998 all over again. But, SmackDown isn‘t alone. On RAW, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin is stunning everyone in his path while holding the WWE title. No wait, that’s “A Tad Chilly” Randy Orton RKO’ing everyone in his path. The Rock is pandering to the youths while beginning a Hollywood career. Wait, that’s John Cena who is reading scripts more than working in the ring. It was as if the booking staff recently got some DVDs from 1998 and are now copying everything word-for-word.

Yet, the thing that kills me most is that a majority of fans will still watch this over TNA. TNA, meanwhile, is preparing for their version of WrestleMania in October with the sixth annual Bound For Glory. Honestly, the event doesn’t have a WrestleMania feel to me but I’m a newbie to TNA in the grand scheme of things. What Bound For Glory seems to me though is a loaded pay-per-view card filled with great wrestling (and a couple of clunker spots). In this day and age, that kind of stability within a wrestling card is something to truly be celebrated as if it is a WrestleMania-quality of event because we all know WrestleMania itself doesn’t deliver anymore.

**One of the people who may possibly have a big night at Bound For Glory is Mickie James. While yet to be confirmed, rumor has it that Mickie James has signed with TNA Wrestling after unjustly being released by WWE in April. The potential for awesome matches in TNA are almost endless with Mickie James joining a roster of sexy and talented women’s wrestlers including Taylor Wilde, Hamada, Daffney, Sarita, Velvet Sky, Madison Rayne, Tara (formerly Victoria in WWE), and current Knockouts Champion Angelina Love.

**The NFL regular season is three weeks old and, as usual, my preview has been proven once again to be the musings of a moron. Okay, while my picks were not that bad, I do admit I was wrong on a few assessments as the first three games of the season have offered a lot of surprises that even the experts did not see coming.

Nobody in their right mind would have predicted the final unbeaten teams would be a Ben Roethlisberger-less Pittsburgh Steelers, Kansas City Chiefs, and Jay Cutler-led Chicago Bears. Nobody would believe that Michael Vick would already have the Eagles’ starting job and look like Tom Brady while the Dallas Cowboys would be 1-2. The preseason-sexy San Francisco 49ers were not supposed to start the season 0-3 and Brett Favre-led Minnesota Vikings were not supposed to be 1-2. Yet, that has been the beginnings of the 2010 NFL season.

While the season has not been as predictable as I would have thought, the season has still be filled with great games and all of the excitement that is only found in America’s favorite sport.

Of course, I wonder how much longer the NFL will be able to claim they are America’s favorite sport. At the route things are going, I will say another three years tops. Why do I have doubt in the lasting popularity of football? The NFL is starting to make some of the same mistakes that NASCAR did in the last decade (and we all know how that turned out for cars going in circles). The NFL has overreacted to the overtime finish of the NFC Championship last season between the Vikings and Saints by creating a confusing new set of overtime rules that are postseason exclusive. Sound like the overreaction to Matt Kenseth’s 2003 Cup Championship that led to the Chase for the Championship? Yeah. Now, the NFL is planning on expanding the already-perfect 16-game schedule in favor of a new 18-game schedule. When NASCAR was at it’s best, the schedule was around 30-32 races. Now, the season is 36 races (not counting the exhibition races). Over-expansion deluded the importance of individual races and this will happen to football with the addition of two more games.

With the NBA already nipping at football’s heels with the emergence of new stars and the creation of a superpower that will either be loved by bandwagon jumpers or hated by purists but will be a constant source of interest, the NFL adding to their own demise by following NASCAR’s blueprint is only going to accelerate the NBA’s ascension to the top of the American sporting food chain. I’m calling it now. The NFL is going to be around forever. But, the glory days with football as America’s pastime has got three years left max.

**If anyone has ever doubted the NASCAR agenda of having Toyota get their first championship in 2010, look no farther than the Ballad of Clinton F. Bowyer. Much like the sad tale of Jeremy the unborn fetus (“Until we keeled him.”), Bowyer had aspirations and dreams of winning the 2010 Chase for the Championship. In fact, it all started with a victory in the opening race at New Hampshire. Bowyer passed all of the post-race inspections and he was within 40 points of Denny Hamlin, Toyota driver. Then, two days after the race, NASCAR said Bowyer failed inspection by the width of a quarter and saw his championship dreams go up in smoke with one of the largest fines in NASCAR history.

Clint Bowyer drives a Chevrolet. So, he paid the price for playing the game and waiting until the Chase to show up and win. While Jimmie Johnson was successful with a win in the second Chase race, I still have no doubt in my mind that Johnson will also pay the price if he passes Hamlin or Kyle during this season’s Chase because the corporate agenda in 2010 NASCAR is all about getting Toyota a championship. Everyone who thinks I’m crazy needs to remember that this is also the sport that fixed a race in Daytona for Dale Jr. to win because he was driving a Wrangler car. NASCAR fixes races more than Don King fixes boxing matches.

**At Night of Champions, WWE started their latest in grand mistakes with the unification of the Women’s and Divas Championships. Of course, The Undertaker’s old lady Michelle McCool walked away with both titles (even though she was neither the Women’s or Divas Champion going into the event). With the unification of both titles, the WWE has continued the lineage of the title as the Divas Championship. This means that the Women’s Championship, dating back to 1956 with 54 years of lineage, has been replaced by a giant butterfly title. Disgusting.

The Women’s Championship had the names of some of the classiest and most athletic women in wrestling history behind it to give the title credibility. Hall of Famers The Fabulous Moolah and Wendi Richter along with legendary women like Trish Stratus, Lita, Victoria, Molly Holly, Ivory, Jacqueline, Beth Phoenix, and Mickie James all gave credibility through their blood, sweat, and tears spilt inside the squared circle for that championship. To see it replaced with a ridiculous butterfly championship with a lineage that is cemented through who The Undertaker is sleeping with at the moment absolutely sickens me.

“The retirement of the Women’s Championship breaks my heart. The nostalgia and the legacy built off the backs of every woman who paved the way for women like me… Who gave it credibility… Honor… Prestige… & Truth! For every woman who’s carried the championship through the generations… Who know the power & history you feel in holding it high above your head… That can never be replaced by anything in my mind… In my heart… I am truly honored and forever grateful to be among the women who have graced its presence… Thank you…”

Mickie James is a performer who understands the business. Her tweet about the retirement of the Women’s Championship showed to me that she gets something that current WWE management simply does not get. Fans want to respect titles. Fans want to respect the history of the business and recognize those who have wrestled before today’s stars more than just one weekend in late March. Yet, with the unification of the WWE titles, all of the history behind these titles will be replaced by whatever snazzy belt design some idiot in Stamford can come up with next because Vince McMahon and company don’t think fans care about anything but the here and now. Once again, Vince is wrong.

**The Atlanta Braves were leading the National League East the last time I wrote an edition of The Highlight Reel. Flash forward almost a month and they are still looking like a postseason team. Sadly, they are a postseason team still suffering from another Bobby Cox-led choke job. The Philadelphia Phillies are the NL East champs for a fourth straight season after Atlanta squandered the division lead and are now at least six games back. They still look prime to get the NL Wild Card but are going into the postseason injured and with the momentum of a stalled train. Hopefully Bobby Cox, the Marv Levy or Andy Reid of baseball, will finally retire and allow this talented franchise to have a chance at capitalizing on their skills in 2011.

**Since the last edition of The Highlight Reel, two of wrestling’s most infamous characters passed away as Bastion Booger and Giant Gonzales died in the month of September. While neither man will be a Hall of Fame performer, both will be forever remembered as the walking incarnation of WrestleCrap.

Mike Shaw died on September 11th at the age of 53 after a heart attack. Shaw will forever be remembered in the wrestling world by the horrendous gimmicks which he suffered. Shaw wrestled as Norman the Lunatic (a teddy bear-clinging escapee from a mental asylum) and Trucker Norm (a truck driver, duh) in the early 1990s for the NWA. Then, he would become Friar Ferguson (a wrestling monk) and Bastion Booger (a slob) in WWE in the early-to-mid 1990s. While Shaw wasn’t a great in-ring performer, he should be commended for not murdering anyone after having the indignities of those gimmicks thrust upon him. Still, none of those featured an airbrushed taint.

Jorge Gonzales passed away on September 22nd at the age of 44 after a long battle with diabetes. Gonzales, a legitimate 7’6”, was originally drafted by Ted Turner and the Atlanta Hawks to play basketball in 1988. When basketball fizzled for Gonzales, Turner moved his giant investment to NWA and he wrestled as El Gigante from 1990-92. Gonzales then moved to WWE in 1993 and was repackaged as Giant Gonzales, a caveman-like giant with an airbrushed bodysuit that was complete with an airbrushed taint that Vince McMahon had shown on television at least once during every Giant Gonzales appearance. The Giant Gonzales-Undertaker feud of that year set wrestling back 40 years and further added speculation that the booking of Vince McMahon is the booking of an idiot.

While I don’t have any fond memories of either Shaw or Gonzales for their in-ring performances, I think of them fondly because they come from a kinder and gentler time when wrestling’s terrible booking came in bad gimmicks and not the horrendous storytelling with nepotism, backstage politics, and pandering to non-wrestling audiences that have turned me off WWE today. RIP, Pillars of the WrestleCrap Community.

CHEERS and JEERS
Superstar of the Week: Denard Robinson

When the 2010 college football began, nobody believed the University of Michigan would be a winner. So far, the Wolverines are 4-0. When the 2010 college football season began, nobody mentioned the name Denard Robinson in the same conversation as potential Heisman Trophy winners. If the award was handed out today, chances are high that Robinson would win the award. Denard Robinson has set the college football world on fire through the first month of the season.

Nicknamed “Shoelace” because he refuses to tie his shoelaces, Robinson has thrown for 731 yards, rushed for 688 yards, scored four touchdowns, and is responsible for more yards by himself than over a third of the colleges in Division I football. Robinson is a one-man highlight reel and a joy to watch on Saturdays. Plus, if you are worthy enough to have the amazing Michelle Beadle rock your jersey during an episode of SportsNation, you are clearly a Superstar.


Denard Robinson is the best thing going in a wonderful beginning to the 2010 college football season.

Jerk of the Week: The New York Jets

On Tuesday, September 21st, New York Jets’ wide receiver Braylon Edwards was charged with a DWI in New York after being pulled over at 5AM and blowing twice the legal limit in a breathalyzer test. On Sunday, September 26th, Edwards caught a touchdown for the Jets in their 31-23 victory over the Miami Dolphins. While Edwards committed the crime, I am more disgusted with the way the New York Jets treated the matter than the criminal himself.

The NFL doesn’t allow a team to suspend a player for a first-time offense and this was Edwards’ first DWI. However, the Jets could have deactivated him or simply sat him for a week as a punishment for his immature and idiotic act; an act that could have killed himself or an innocent bystander. Instead, Edwards played and scored for the Jets in an important divisional game and looked like a hero to many Jets fans. That is why I’m more disgusted by owner Woody Johnson, coach Rex Ryan, and the management of the Jets than Edwards himself. They put winning over doing the morally responsible thing and that is why Edwards won’t be the last star athlete who breaks the law without any sense of remorse.

POWER RANKINGS - Best Shows on Primetime Television
5. Glee (Tuesdays at 8PM on FOX)
4. The Amazing Race (Sundays at 8PM on CBS)
3. How I Met Your Mother (Mondays at 8PM on CBS)
2. Modern Family (Wednesdays at 9PM on ABC)
1. The Office (Thursdays at 9PM on NBC)

BIG A RECOMMENDS…
Luigi’s Real Italian Ice - available in freezer sections everywhere


These are crazy delicious. Enough said.

WHAT I LEARNED THIS WEEK…
There is an old saying that I’ve carried with me since the first time I heard it: “You should never meet your heroes. They will only disappoint you and let you down.”

I carried that saying with me because of the fear it installed in me; a fear of wasting my devotion into someone to only be let down by them. In most cases thankfully, I have been able to meet heroes (or simply people I admire) of mine and find them to be truly as wonderful as I hoped. Shawn Michaels and Kevin Nash were both really awesome when the Beavis and I met them in 2003 in Roanoke, Virginia before a house show. Jenna Fischer, Pam from The Office, was so cool when she took the time to respond to an email (something so simple but rarely done by a Hollywood star) twice in 2008 along with sending me an autographed photo. Plus, while I’m not a huge fan of his, I will always have a fondness for Jimmy Spencer after meeting him twice in the 90s and having Spencer be an absolute joy.

Now, while Ole Anderson, Road Warrior Animal, Ron Killings, and Virgil were less-than-stellar experiences, I have been very lucky for the most part to leave an encounter with as much respect for the person as I came with. On September 18th, 2010, I had the chance to meet someone I have admired and loved for years when I met Mickie James in Eden, NC at Riverfest. After holding her in such esteem for years, I feared I might have a let down. Instead, I left loving her even more.


By the time we got to meet Mickie, I was already a bit of a wreck. Everyone who knows me well knows that I worry about every little detail. So, of course, I had ran the encounter through my mind and, of course, I expected the worst. I expected the worst the same way that characters expect the worst when playing out scenarios in their mind on television. I was full of questions while working my way through the line. Would she be stuck up? Would she not make eye-contact? Would she ruin every bit of the love I had for her as a fan? Would she not be as pretty in person as on TV? However it went, I was nervous, excited, and still in disbelief that I was going to meet Mickie James.

Shaking her hand, Mickie’s smile immediately melted away every bit of doubt and worry I had in meeting her. Mickie said “Thank you” when I mentioned how much I supported her and she genuinely appreciated it when I let her know how she is one of the few people in the business that I still watched and loved in the way I loved my favorites as a child. She never spoke without making eye contact and, for a brief moment in time, made me feel like I was the only other person in the world. Okay, I may be over-selling it just a bit but it was a magical moment for me.


There is an old saying that I’ve carried with me since the first time I heard it: “You should never meet your heroes. They will only disappoint you and let you down.”

After meeting Mickie James, I think I’m ready to stop putting stock in that saying. I had a chance to meet a woman I admire, respect, and cheer for without question and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Meet your heroes when you get the chance. Let them know how much they mean to you. While it is just one in millions of fan encounters for them, it will be a once in a lifetime moment for you that you’ll never want to forget.

- Aaron Goins