The Chicago Bulls and the Utah Jazz were in London, England yesterday, playing a pre-season game against each other. Being a Bulls fan, and since the game was on during the afternoon, I decided to watch. One of the reasons that I wanted to watch was so that I could see our two new rookies, Taj Gibson and James Johnson.

And wow, am I ever glad that I did watch. This was one of the best pre-season games that I’ve ever watched. Both Gibson and Johnson had good games, with each player also throwing down a sick dunk. And despite letting the Jazz back into the game in the fourth quarter, my Bulls managed to pull out an incredible win… thanks to a last second shot by Johnson. (And yes, even though the one announcer was doubting that the shot was put up in time, it definitely was. The ball was out of Johnson’s hands and in the air with 0.1 seconds left on the clock.)

So we’re about a month away from the start of the new NBA season. Like all other seasons, I’m certainly looking forward to this one and looking forward to watching as many games as I can. With that in mind, here are my picks for how each team will finish in their respective divisions.

Nothing to get excited about though. Chances are pretty good that I won’t get around to updating this thing too much. I did, however, want to write something for the site since I haven’t done that in months. So with that in mind, let’s take a quick look to see what’s happened since my last post.

The 2009 CFL season started up in June. My Riders are currently tied for 1st place in the West with a record of 6-5. That record should be a bit better than it is but we let a few games slip away from us when we really should have won them. However, with the way we are playing, and the way the Eastern division is, it’s a pretty safe bet that we’ll be in the playoffs come November.

My Chicago Bulls have had a pretty uneventful off-season. In July, we lost Ben Gordon to Detroit thanks in part to unrestricted free agency (and also because we weren’t willing to pay him enough). I’m actually fine with that though. He was a great player but not as consistent as we needed him to be. However, the Bulls have done little else in this off-season. It’s like we’re losing players but not bothering to try to bring anyone new in and that’s a bit worrisome.

In wrestling news, Bryan Danielson and Nigel McGuinness… two very important pieces to the Ring Of Honor roster… have signed with the WWE. Their last shows will be this coming weekend. I’m trying to stay positive about the whole thing though. ROH still has plenty of great young talent and I’m sure at least a few of them are more than ready to step up and carry the company into the future. However, part of me is worried that the loss of Danielson and McGuinness is just the beginning of the end. It really depends on how well the rest of the year goes, how well the start of 2010 is, which wrestlers decide to step up, and whether or not the WWE (or TNA) decides to raid any more talent from the roster. But let me tell you, it will be a VERY sad day if ROH ever closes up shop.

And finally, the fall TV schedule is under way. It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia and Supernatural are both back on the air and I couldn’t be happier. My life feels a little bit more complete now that they’re back.

While this past Friday was a fun filled, pro-wrestling experience, Saturday was the exact opposite. Late Saturday morning, I learned that Japanese wrestling legend Mitsuharu Misawa had died. From several reports that I have read since then, it seems that Misawa took a moderately dangerous back suplex in the ring. This ended up causing some spinal damage which lead to Misawa having a heart attack in the ring and dying shortly after.

The whole wrestling community has obviously been affected by this tragic news. Misawa is a legend in the sport, and his presence will definitely be missed for years to come. I know how deeply I’ve been affected by this news and I can’t even say that I was a huge fan. I’ve only seen a handful of Misawa’s matches, but I have really enjoyed them and could easily see how great of a performer he was. I can only imagine how this news has been affecting people who were bigger fans and who were close to him.

R.I.P. Misawa.

It was a pretty busy, crazy, emotional weekend for me when it comes to pro-wrestling. This will be the first post of several that I type up over the next day or two as there is just too much to talk about for one blog entry.

Ring Of Honor in Manassas: Flair Autograph session
So this past Friday evening was the Ring Of Honor show / Ric Flair autograph session in Manassas. I jumped in the car and left the house shortly after 5pm, and pushed through rush hour traffic for about 45 minutes. I got to the arena shortly after the autograph session had started. I parked, grabbed my stuff, and went inside to get in line. The line was long but it moved pretty quickly and after about 40 minutes, I was standing in front of the Ric Flair! I had him autograph a copy of the ‘Ric Flair And The Four Horsemen‘ dvd. I then shook his hand and thanked him for coming out. It was definitely a great experience and one that I will not forget.

After the autograph session, we had to wait outside until they officially opened the doors. It wasn’t too long of a wait. No more than 30 minutes before they started to let people in. I was near the front of the line so I got in quickly. I bought a ticket to the next Manassas show (in December) and then I went and found my seat. After waiting about 20 minutes, the pre-show started.

There were only two matches on the pre-show but both were good. Match #1 saw Brandon Day beat Ninja Brown with a variation of the Brainbuster. The second match was Bobby Shields & The Set versus John Kermon, Atsushi Sawada, and Bobby Dempsey. Dempsey got the win for his team.

After the pre-show, we had another small break of about 5 or 6 minutes before the actual show started.

Ring Of Honor in Manassas: The Show
Match 1 – Colt Cabana, Necro Butcher, and Grizzly Redwood versus The Embassy of Jimmy Rave, Claudio Castagnoli, and Ernie Osiris (with Prince Nana at ringside). It was a good, fun opening match. As the match was going on, there was some sort of bug flying around the area. It eventually found it’s way into the ring where Cabana smacked it with his hands, killing the bug. The dead bug then found it’s way to Necro Butcher. At that moment, the whole place started to chant ‘EAT THE BUG’….and Necro did, which grossed everyone out. The match continued and the good guys won when Cabana made Osiris tap out.

Match 2 – Alex “Sugarfoot” Payne versus Shawn Spears. This was the first of two matches that I felt bad about simply because I forgot to take my Canadian flag with me. Spears is from Canada so it would have been a great time to show my support for all things Canadian. Anyways, the match was kind of uneventful. I don’t really like Payne at all but Spears looked decent, and he ended up winning the match.

Match 3 – Bryan Danielson versus Kenny King (with Rhett Titus). Some good action from this match which I wasn’t surprised by. Both guys can put on a show. And, if I remember correctly, this match also started off the snapmare obsession for the night*. Danielson picked up the win, despite some sneaky tactics by King and Titus.

(* A bit of history about Manassas and the snapmare. At the very first Manassas show, there was a guy there who called for and cheered every time a wrestler hit a snapmare on his opponent. The same guy has come to every other Manassas show and his calls for snapmares have slowly caught on with the rest of the fans as well as some of the wrestlers. At this recent Manassas show, the guy was sitting in my section once again but he brought a ’snapmare’ sign this time around. This definitely caught the attention of a lot of the wrestlers and several of them started to use snapmares…which got HUGE cheers from all us fans.)

Match 4 – The Young Bucks v Kevin Steen and El Generico. In my opinion, this was the match of the night. It was also my first time seeing both teams in action, and I was definitely excited to see Steen and Generico as they are both Canadian wrestlers. Steen and Generico also won the match after their Package Piledriver/Brainbuster combination finisher.

Match 5 – Austin Aries v Roderick Strong v D’Lo Brown v Eddie Edwards. Another good match, and my first time seeing D’Lo Brown live. The match started out as a 3 on 1 against Strong but quickly turned into an all-out brawl between the four wrestlers. Roderick Strong eventually got the win by making Aries tap out. After the match, we gave D’Lo a huge round of applause which I think really meant a lot to him.

Match 6 – Sonjay Dutt v Jimmy Jacobs. I was probably the most disappointed with this match. I love watching Jimmy Jacobs wrestle, and I know that Dutt is a good worker as well. But for some reason, this match really never got off the ground. There were some good spots and some good action, but it just didn’t ‘feel’ right at all. Jacobs eventually got the win by making Dutt tap out to the End Time.

Match 7 – Jay Briscoe v Davey Richards. This was the match that I was looking forward to the most. I expected a hard-hitting match and this certainly didn’t disappoint. The only disappointing thing about this match, actually, was that Briscoe won.

Match 8 – Tyler Black v Jerry Lynn. The culmination of the Snapmare-fest. Both guys fed off the crowd’s energy, and entertained us all with a series of snapmares. There was even a tease of a super snapmare off of the top rope. The match itself was pretty good. We didn’t get to see Black’s “Phoenix Splash” or Lynn’s “Cradle Piledriver” though. Black eventually won the match.

Overall, this was one of the best Manassas shows, right up there with the first Manassas show and much better than show #2 and #3. I’m definitely looking forward to the next show in December.