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Can confirm.....

The more teams in for Reilly, the more the price gets driven up. In the short term, that's good for the Bombers. I would imagine, in the long term under a cap system, the market will correct itself back down. Reilly is an exceptional talent and this feels like a unique situation.

Jones staying with the Riders is good news for every other team in the league...

If the Lions sign Reilly, it'll be that much harder for them to sign Bighill so let the bidding begin.

You lost me at the Jets being a mid-cap team that wont push the cap. Can we follow that up with "no one wants to play here" and "Jets cant sign their own free agents" to complete the trifecta.

I don't think Huff is going to be in on the Reilly Sweep stakes either way. This is just a good idea on his part. Let BC/Edm think there are more teams interested, will drive up their cost hurting them other places. If there's no Bo this year I can see Huff making a trade for a younger QB or signing someone like Jennings and surrounding him with a bunch of talent. I don't think there's anyway Huff will pay for Reilly.

He was barely on the team.

Time : Tuesday 7, TSN3 Stats : 20-14-8 @ 26-13-2 Notable Notes : COL has most # of overtime losses, NHL.com free game of the week

4 hours to go until Trump's speech and it's being reported that he still isn't sure if he's going to declare a national emergency to get around the Congressional stalemate. If his intention was to make a strong move to kneecap the Democrats, this is not it. Seems that he (more likely his advisors) recognize the legal pitfalls of such a move. So right now, expect a more "persuasive" argument to sway public opinion in his favour that the wall is necessary to put the heat back on the Dems, rather than the nuclear option of using his absolute power to bypass them. For the viewing public tuning in to see what crazy things the Don will say, the downside is that this is an Oval Office speech and not a town rally. It is hard to imagine him going off script when the only audience is a camera and no living people in his sightlines to feed his ego, and I'm sure Steven Miller has got tight reins on that script and its message. Not that I don't expect there to be majorly inflammatory rhetoric in it - Miller is by all accounts a reprehensible human being (never met the man, to be as fair as possible) and not so secretly racist, but he is savvy in ways Donald is not, so he can craft a devious message and let his puppet parrot the lines. The Democrats have already booked time for a rebuttal from Schumer and Pelosi right after. Won't be much time to script a response cribbing from Trump's comments, but I don't think that should be their focus. They have so many targets to hit here, the question is: will they do it right? History suggests Democrats don't, because they want to appeal to the humanity in Americans, rather than get dirty and call out the liars and hypocrites for fear of retaliation. IMO, their talking points need to be the following, repeated ad nauseum to frame the counter-attack properly: 1. Trump has lied from the beginning. "Mexico will pay for the wall!" Now, knowing that it was a phony and impossible promise from the beginning, he wants the American taxpayer to pay for his lies, and is willing to hold them hostage (Gov't shutdown putting 800,000 out of work and pay) to get his way, and for months or years, just to get his way. This President will destroy the average American he swore an oath on the Constitution to protect, by putting his own needs ahead of yours as Americans. 2. "I own the shutdown". We all saw these words from his mouth. He has repeated them. Not only does he own it, he is PROUD of it. Proud of putting hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work for his own vanity project, and he will do so for as long as he wants - months to years. This is the man who would protect the average Joe from big Government? 3. Crisis at the border: another LIE. Only 4 terror suspect at the southern border, not 6,000. Vast majority of influx of drugs, terror watch list suspects, and crime comes through legal ports of entry like sea, or moreso, air. And what has the President done to protect our airports. Shutdown the Government, leading to zero pay for TSA agents who have now stopped showing up. Our airports are now less secure, all because of the president. HE has caused the greatest threat to our safety now. [it may be gilding the lily to say "Remember the last time our airspace was compromised by those 19 Saudi hijackers - a country our President still upholds as a vital and important economic trade partner (so we can see whose economic interest he DOES care about, if not 800,000 Americans) despite knowing of the implication of that country's Crown prince in the coldblooded murder of an American citizen and journalist" - that statement could generate a lot of heat, but if you are going to get in a street fight, you have to fight to hurt, I say]. 4. Democrats WANT to fix this problem. Border security is important, which is why we voted to pass 1.6 billion in funding in our last bill, to spend on NECESSARY improvements. The Republicans (McConnell) now refuse to bring that bill to the Senate for a vote. Funny though, they passed the exact same bill two weeks ago 100-0 before the President vetoed it. Now they have fallen in line with the President's position to hold the country hostage until he gets his way. Any soft sell that makes this about being a good country and HELPING in a Humanitarian crisis just washes over Trump's misdeeds and plays into his hands ("see, the Dems agree that this is a crisis"). Experience makes me worry that the Democrats will choose this touchy feely route and lose the message battle.

And there it is... Double or Nothing. MGM Grand. Las Vegas. May 25th.

All In 2 Double Or Nothing, May 25th at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Im due for a trip to Vegas!

45,000 now.

Over 30,000 watching the live youtube stream (and thats with some streaming issues lol). Forgot to mention Chris Daniels, Frankie Kaz, Scorpio Sky all signed. Billy Gunn is there. Jaguars Cheerleaders! EDIT: Over 40,000 watching now. Cody made an interesting remark. He said in wrestling the wrestlers are the least paid. And its true when you compare it to major sports where the talent have aprox 50% split of revenue. In wrestling its way way lower. Cody said in AEW they intend to change that. More money for the talent. EDIT: Bucks talking now. Said Khan family approached them and Cody and asked them if they really wanted to change the world.

Justin Roberts is involved. He did All In and was a ring announcer with WWE. Todd Pettengill is at the rally hosting as well so he's possible. They used Bobby Cruise, Don Callis and Sean Mooney at All In. I'd expect them all to be possibilities. EDIT: I should add that Jim Ross is rumoured to be apart of this, particularly in some of the behind the scenes aspect (he was VP in WWE and WCW) but he could be involved in announcing. If its me, I try to scoop Tony Schiavone and Don Callis as my TV announcers.

Some unconfirmed rumours that AEW has a deal done with Turner to air on TNT and its big money and multi-year, that AEW will offer health insurance, TV will be Tuesday (I think one of the trademarks they registered was a Tuesday night show). Rally begins at 4pm and apparently there are several hundred people lined up to get in. Bucks flew to Jacksonville on Khan's private jet. Apparently they will reveal some talent tonight that hasnt been mentioned including "surprises". PAC (Neville in WWE) is allegedly one of them. Speculation Kenny could be there. Conrad Thompson (Ric Flair's son-in-law) is one of the hosts of the rally. He produced the Starrcast event at All In.

It's all about the upside for Kenny, though. If he values his freedom and can make near the same money outside the WWE, then why not?

I'm sure there's a price that Kenny can't refuse from WWE but without being able to see the money both WWE & AEW have on the table it's pretty tough to judge what his best option is right now.

It didn't help when near the end WCW was paying a million dollars to draw a low rating with Kiss playing live on the show or when they started massively over paying C level talent. I love reading stories about how a bunch of guys were making 6 figures and were "forgotten" about and would hide at the tapings just so that they didn't notice them still being around. At the start they made wise investments with Hogan and Macho mainly because they brought in other advertisers which helped justify their high costs. It also helped that WWE literally gave those guys away. WCW had the upper hand also by not having the crazy road schedule of the WWF at the time. With Omega if they offer something close to WWE it would make sense for him to go with them. But if the offer is something along the lines of 3.5 million guarantee compared to only 1 million.... then in my opinion he would be unwise to take the lower offer. At some point you have to cash out because at any point his career can be over with one bad accident.

The only reason I would like to see Kenny in the WWE is to see the matches with guys like Styles, Seth and Bryan. I know they've all worked together in some form before but to see them headlining Wrestlemania would be something else.

Bighill’s ties maybe more family and geography than with the previous regime.

Going to the conference final was a windfall for True North. All their business interests are tied to the Jets doing well. If they are a cap team that misses the window and begins to suck, sure, we can talk about trading guys away due to money and rebuilding. But every team would feel the same way in that scenario. Chipman did manage expectations in year one when he said the Jets would NOT be a cap team unless they had a chance of winning the cup. They're basically a cap team now. And will be for the foreseeable future. If they trade Laine it wont be because they cant afford him. It might be because they feel his market value isnt worth what he brings. But if they really want to keep him, they will keep him.

Wally is gone as well as most of the Lions coaching staff so Bighill's ties to that organization have been greatly diminished.

Also when WCW added Thunder, the big stars wanted more money to work. So a guy making millions says he's only contracted to work 4 TV's and a PPV per month so wants more money to work Thunder. Eventually Thunder sucks because no "stars" are willing to work it. WCW used to fly their entire roster to TV as well because they often had no idea what the show line up would be until show day. Massive expenses. Lanny Poffo had a huge deal and never worked one single time for WCW. WCW could have rebounded. They were still getting a 2.0-3.0 rating on Nitro (RAW gets less than that now). They were just badly mismanaged and a Turner executive killed the TV (some say maliciously to allow a sale to WWE because of a relationship with someone there). It makes you realize how badly Dixie Carter screwed up TNA. They had that sweet Spike TV deal and she just didnt get it. She could have had Paul Heyman but instead chose Hogan/Bischoff and Russo.

It's funny but the nWo in WCW actually made McMahon a billionaire. No way wrestling climbs as high as it did without the Attitude Era. It forced Vince to push things out of his comfort zone. WCW paid too much, to too many guys and you always felt as though the roster was too big. I mean, they couldn't even get all the nWo into the ring. Trying to give everyone time on the mic was challenging and it seemed like they were rarely even wrestling. I hope Kenny signs with AEW. I fear he would be ruined in the WWE.

Guaranteed contracts existed before Turner signed Hall & Nash but his huge guaranteed deals to both of them made WWE walk away. One year later, WWE wouldn't have walked away (especially if they could predict how the nWo would hurt their business). Its not that Turner gave MORE money to guys, its that in WWE you were guaranteed less but could make more. In WCW the guarantee pay caused guys to miss work and not care. WCW had a bad habit of giving big deals to guys they never used either. When Benoit, Eddie etc jumped to WWE it was for really good deals, but less than WCW offered. They jumped for the opportunity to make more because there was an opportunity to be a bigger star. Same with Jericho. We havent had any rumours yet on what AEW is paying. They wanted Bandido and he signed with ROH and ROH does not "over pay" so that would tell us AEW wasn't offering unreasonable contracts. Bucks and Cody turned down $1 million from WWE but their involved in management of AEW. I suspect, if the rumor of WWE's offer to Kenny is true, his deal with AEW would be for less money but probably has the chance to make up the difference. I have had some local guys tell me Kenny is crazy if he doesnt take the bigger money deal. But average people every day make decisions where they accept less pay for a more rewarding job. When you're talking millions, if WWE offers $3.5 but not going to WWE results in him making $2 million but having more control, more time off, more fun, more rewarding experience and part of something historic...is he really sacrificing a lot? How much do you need to be happy? Thats the question. The Khans are business people. I dont think they're being worked by Cody. They will have a budget. They will know what they want in a TV deal. What they need for PPV buy rates etc. If WWE gets $1 billion for TV, can AEW get $100 million deal? And if so, if they draw 1 million - 1.5 million viewers, what does the next deal look like? Its really exciting to think about a legit alternative to WWE. And I guarantee if AEW is a legitimate alternative to WWE, it will make WWE a lot better than it currently is. And the boys will benefit greatly. So will the fans. In fact, if you like wrestling you HOPE Kenny signs with AEW.

This seems in line with what Turner did - throw a lot of money at talent to get some of the best names in the industry. It worked for a while and lead to the wrestling revolution. Khan doesn't own the means to distribute it, though.

Reminder, Shad Khan owns the Jacksonville Jags and is worth $6.4 billion, a figure that puts Vince to shame. His son, Tony, who will head AEW is 36 years old. They're certainly saying all the right things. I had heard that they were negotiating with a couple of guys who received offers from Impact and in response, AEW "tripled" their offer. If true, they're very serious. Getting Omega will certainly be the biggest feather in their cap.

Just a reminder tonight is a NHL.com free game of the week

They could probably get a deal done pretty easily if they offered more freedom, not more money. They used to have guys that were able to do Japan tours but that was before the era of guaranteed contracts (not entirely, but for most people).

Trump and Bolton playing now Abbott and Costello. "Who's in Syria?" Pence trying to walk back Trump's claim about former Presidents telling him the need for the Wall ("The President got the impression, that previous Presidents, wanted to build the Wall") Serving in the Trump administration, requires that one must follow Trump around 24/7.....with a plastic bag and a scooper.

What a prediction to get behind, that the incumbent is most likely to win. lol tell me last week's Lotto Max numbers too. Anyway, of course, the Dems didnt screw up at all. They ran a good campaign and had Trump beat. They lost a narrow Electorate College, won a very large popular vote. If the Dems can be blamed for Trump conspiring with Russia and Wikileaks, Russia's anti-Hilary campaign and help to Trump, Rudy's conspiring with the New York FBI to pressure Comey into a ridiculous undermining of Clinton (which he tried to walk back like a week later) and the imbalanced media that covered Hilary feeling faint one day as the worst thing ever vs Trump's lack of...well, lack of stable mental faculties...then, sure, the Dems better figure something out. Minus the Russia interference, Hilary wins running away. Even with the Russia interference, she very likely wins without Comey's BS. She might have won had Trump not paid off his mistresses. The Dems should examine the 2016 election very closely but not because they ran a bad campaign. They need to be united from the beginning and stop cutting each others balls after in the primaries. They need to be prepared to be dirty and use social media better. Its always a long uphill battle against an incumbent. But if they run the same campaign, 9 times out of 10 they win.

I predict they’ll start a National elsewhere & then look down south for his replacement.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/07/politics/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-facts/index.html Nice to see CNN keep the dems to account.

Pleasantly surprised we signed Medlock. Quality guy to have. How quickly we forget the days of Serna, Westwood, Etc

Please tell me this is a joke.

WITCH HUNT!!

I think that some people have quickly forgotten just how unreliable our kicking situation was just a few years ago. That we have secured Medlock for two more years is huge. Well done Walters!

I always thought it was written by the Victors, but then I realized that it was supposed to be "small v" and not guys named Victor. Other than Victor Hugo of course.

The same rhetoric was spun when Obama won his second mandate. Trump - did actually win an election.

Not sure why Laine goes through these annual bouts of self-confidence issues...but then again he's 20. What was Scheif doing when he was 20?

I thought last year was his best punting of his career...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marshall-medoff-the-unlikely-eccentric-inventor-turning-inedible-plant-life-into-fuel-60-minutes/ Not only turning Bio-mass into fuel, but creating single-use-plastic substitutes that can bio-degrade in weeks.

Man i forgot about Ken Pleon. I probably mentioned this previously but I grew up in Des Moines Iowa and delivered papers for the Des Moines Register. If we sold enough papers (subscriptions etc.) we got free tickets and a bus ride to Iowa City to see the Hawkeyes play. That would be in the late 1957's as we moved to Dallas early 1960's. Ken was the Iowa QB and I can remember him to this day. Even now (I am in my 70's) I still remember those trips to Iowa City and the the Hawkeye teams from those days. He had long retired when I ended up in the Peg in 1981 but I still remember him on CJOB back in those days.

Let's say for the moment, for argument's sake, that this is not a joke. How would this look? Trading Laine would be a seismic event, no doubt. And were this the old NHL or a Toronto or New York team, this is never happening. The fallout is too great. But we are not in Toronto or New York, and this sure isn't the old NHL. The salary cap era and the reality of small market hockey in Winnipeg dictates that. Don't scoff, the Jets freely admit that at best they can compete as a mid-cap team only - they will never push the upper end of the cap except for a once in a generation run for the Cup, and even then, they won't chase free agents to do it, they'll sacrifice draft and develop for a trade deadline acquisition - they'll chase a Paul Stastny short-term rental but never bid for a John Tavares (or Paul Stastny, for that matter) long term free agent grab as a building block. So why trade a budding superstar? Well, perhaps the track record of "lone superstar" vs. "complete team" negates that star's impact. Ovechkin has his Cup, so that is a ringing endorsement for the superstar route, but let's not forget that prior to finally breaking through after 13 years, he was largely seen as the player who, despite great personal numbers, couldn't win the big one. Washington was synonymous with playoff chokes before last year. The champions were more complete teams with multiple stars (Pittsburgh with Crosby, Malkin, Letang, Kessel, and Fleury, Chicago with Toews, Kane, Seaboook and Keith, or Detroit with Lidstrom, Zetterberg and Datsyuk) and strong cheap support, or a team concept like Boston or LA. So with Wheeler, Scheifele, Byfuglien and Hellebuyck already fitting the "star" mode (or at least the star-sized salaries), do we have room for another? We have all heard that this team cannot stay together in its current iteration due to pending contracts. Is Laine worth more to the team than keeping Kyle Connor? Of course he is. Roslovic? No question. Trouba? Harder to say since the positions they play affect their respective values, but for argument's sake say yes, especially given everyone's fear that Trouba is going anyway. Morrissey? Again, positioning makes it tough to compare apples to oranges, but I think we can agree that Laine can carry this Jets team more than Morrissey can. So debate over, right? Wrong. The debate isn't Laine over any one of these players, it's keeping Laine at the expense of losing MORE THAN ONE of those players. Keep Laine over both Morrissey and Trouba, I say this team is demonstrably worse off. Laine vs. either d-man and both of Connor and Roslovic, or Lowry and/or Tanev and maybe a future free agent signing? I don't think the theory that locking in to Laine for $10 million plus for the next 8 years wipes out our options for building those secondary pieces is that far-fetched. Is Laine the first choice to go, then? We have Scheif and Ehlers on extremely cap-friendly contracts, so they would be equally movable. And Trouba would be a big asset for any other team as well (Morrissey too but less perceived value right now to the average fan), so does it need to be Laine? Well, are you giving up Scheifele to keep Laine? Does Ehlers attract anywhere near the trade value of Laine? Are Wheeler, Little or Byfuglien going to be as attractive as trade bait given their respective ages and contract sizes? And if you lose Trouba and/or Morrissey at the expense of Laine, is the team worse off as a net effect given the defensive deficiencies we would face? The big con to the trade is marketing - Laine is a brand, and he will be worth a lot of money to the franchise as the face of the league (chicks dig the long ball, they say - scoring sells in the NHL, and Brett Hull was much more fun to watch than Adam Oates). But if the bottom line is winning, maybe the superstar trade for the building blocks of a powerhouse team is better. Dallas flipped Hershel Walker for 6 players and earned 3 Super Bowls as a result - Minnesota, not so much. Philly went all in to get Eric Lindros and parlayed it into a sweep at the hands of the Red Wings in 1995, otherwise no glory. The Nordiques, ahem, Avalanche, have 2 Cup banners to show for their efforts in that swap. In the cap era, I'm not sure one superstar can carry a whole team to ultimate glory when all other pieces are sacrificed to keep then there. Let's see if McDavid proves me wrong or right (for now I am winning that race). I'm not saying or advocating that we should trade Laine, but there is at least an argument to be made that it isn't a joke to consider it. The funny thing is we already have a current example of the result of re-signing Laine at all costs, and it is the Maple Leafs. Having married themselves to Tavares and his massive contract, Austin Matthews is no longer the centrepiece of this franchise, and I cannot fathom how those 2 plus Nylander, Marner and Morgan Reilly all stay together much longer once their ELCs run out, much less adding the woefully missing defensive pieces that are needed to round out the team.