The calendar has officially turned to April, and for the WWE fanatics in the world, that means it’s a second Christmas and Super Bowl wrapped into one four-hour pay-per-view.

WrestleMania 29  is upon us.

Now I’m not here to argue that WWE is suffering from having the old stars pop their heads in for the run to WrestleMania. In fact, pay-per-view buys are growing. Dave Meltzer reports that the number of overall buys worldwide has grown in the last three years by more than 600,000 buys. Overall revenue and the gross income of the company has held fairly steady for the last three years, too, and according to marketwatch.com, has exceeded $140 million each of the last five years.

The talent department has done an excellent job finding and developing main-event level talent. Dolph Ziggler has the charisma and in-ring ability to be the next Ric Flair. Daniel Bryan can wrestle with anyone on the roster for any length of time as a technical clinician and has the comedic chops to compete with a top heel. Wade Barrett can bully any top babyface into submission. The Shield and Ryback have made a huge splash in their debuts this year. And yet all of those names are clawing and scratching to have the fifth biggest match of the night. The World Heavyweight Championship between Alberto Del Rio and Jack Swagger – also two, relatively new stars – will likely open the show.

Are these names selling pay-per-views? No, of course they aren’t, not yet. The Rock is a household name that transcended the pro wrestling business and made himself a top-tier Hollywood star. He’s largely responsible, as are Cena and CM Punk, for making WWE programming exceed the quality and mediocrity of the years 2008-10.

But this success is short-term, and can’t possibly last forever. Triple H is headed to take over the company from Vince McMahon. The Rock is here (kinda) for two months and leaves for eight months. Same goes for Brock Lesnar. The Undertaker looks to be on his last legs, and his streak has been a huge selling point for Vince and company for the Mania run each of the last ten years. Chris Jericho (much like Austin and Rock figured out) is using his years on weekly TV and turning into a much more schedule-friendly rock music and hosting career.

This year’s Mania will succeed. Millions of buys and tens of millions of dollars will enter the pockets of the hundreds of WWE employees that make the show possible. But why would I, and many long-term fans, be concerned with the lack of chances given to newer, younger stars when the company is succeeding?

Look at the competition. While WCW was kicking WWE around from 1995 to early 1998, the main stars of the company were older, more-established names. These older, more established names dominated the World Heavyweight Title scene, had the prime TV-time slots and main events, and yes, made booking decisions. With an unlimited cash flow from Turner and complete control of their broadcast rights, it looked like the Federation would be driven out of business. It took new names, built by the stars of the past, to bring out Stone Cold Steve Austin, Kurt Angle, Edge, and many, many other top-level performers. WWE was successful because the young guys were given a shot at the top billing at all pay-per-views, including WrestleMania.

The comparison is not apples-to-apples; WWE in 2013 has a virtual monopoly on the professional wrestling brand worldwide. And WWE has a lot going for it: they seem to recognize that there is in fact new talent and that they should get TV time. Sorry, Hulkster, but the WWE ship isn’t sinking to the likes of TNA. But how many times will people have to sit through Rock vs. Cena at WrestleMania before the buys drop off?

Cena is not new, and when the old(er) guys are off to their other endeavors, he’s busy carrying the load of building the new generation. But at some point the load gets too heavy. He’s closer to 40 than 30, and eventually he can’t wrestle 200 times a year and never take a day off from appearances and charity work. Mixing the young and the old launched WWE to new heights (see: Bret Hart vs Steve Austin). People will get tired of seeing the same name in the marquee year after year. WWE will not succeed long term if it can’t get people to buy Sheamus and Miz merchandise, or if they can’t convince the casual fan to watch a 30-minute classic between Cody Rhodes and Antonio Cesaro.

The answer? Simple. This time next year, WWE Creative and Triple H would be wise to book the Rock with a Dolph Ziggler, Brock Lesnar with a Daniel Bryan, and the Undertaker with a Wade Barrett or Sheamus. This answer echoes the words of Seth Mates, former WWE Creative team writer. Should we take away the dream matches? No (now see: Steve Austin vs CM Punk). But this year, it seems like we have one too many.

Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco doesn’t have to worry about money anymore. This past week, Flacco became the highest paid player in NFL history by signing a six year, $120.6 million contract. Flacco, the Super Bowl MVP, will be paid a $29 million signing bonus, and will receive $52 million of guaranteed money, while earning $51 million in each of the first two years of the contract.

While Flacco is certainly a good NFL quarterback, some would ask the question if Flacco is being paid too much. Until his playoff run, Flacco was rarely thought of as an equal with the likes of Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers. A short period later he became the first NFL quarterback ever to make the playoffs in his first five years in the league.

Flacco’s playoff record is one of the best in history. He has a playoff winning percentage of .692. This puts him with a better playoff record than Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Aaron Rodgers, and Drew Brees. In fact, the only active NFL quarterbacks with better winning percentages are Ben Roethlisberger and Tom Brady, who holds the highest winning percentage for a quarterback in NFL history at .708.

What I find most surprising about Flacco’s contract doesn’t happen to be the amount of money, but rather the team who will be paying him the money. Since their previous Super Bowl victory under offensive minded head coach Brian Billick in 2000, the Ravens have been one of the top five teams in total defense in the NFL eight times. In that same time period they have not once been ranked once in the top five in the league in terms of total offense.

This season the Ravens ended the season ranked 16^th in total offense. Their offense showed improvement throughout the year though. This improvement may be contributed to a change at offensive coordinator in the middle of the season, when head coach John Harbaugh fired Cam Cameron and replaced him with quarterbacks coach and former coach of the Indianapolis Colts Jim Caldwell.

Flacco’s contract shows that the Ravens organization expects him to be an elite quarterback in years to come. For Flacco to live up to the millions of dollars he’ll be paid, he will have to play at a high level consistently. For at least this offseason he will not have to deal with the criticism and talks of the Ravens needing a new quarterback. Flacco has proved he can play at an elite level. Now he has to do it every Sunday to prove that he deserves to be the highest paid player in the NFL.

For some, the combine is a time to shine. For others, the combine performance is a moment of disappointment that ultimately leads to scrutiny from the media and the average fan.

Manti Te’o had one of those disappointing performances in this last week’s NFL combine. Out of the five drills he participated in, he failed to finish among the top five at his position in any of them. The biggest disappointment for many was his 40-yard dash performance. He ran the 40 in an official time of 4.82 seconds, ranking 20th of the 26 linebackers who ran at the combine.

The poor performance of Manti Te’o won’t necessarily have a huge effect on his future NFL career. It’s obvious the odds are stacked against him, however. According to nflcombineresults.com, of the inside linebackers at this season’s Pro Bowl, three of four had 40 times under 4.55 seconds in their NFL combines. Of those four, the worst time was from Navorro Bowman, at 4.7 seconds.

NFL teams will also keep in mind the ever-evolving spread offenses in the league. These offenses are usually focused more on speed or a pass-heavy game, making a slow linebacker a liability for any defense.

The combine wasn’t Te’o’s only bad performance of late. He struggled in the BCS National Championship Game vs. Alabama and ultimately missed his moment on the national stage.

This all comes in addition to a hoax that exposed the fact that Te’o’s girlfriend didn’t really exist. This wasn’t just any girlfriend either. This was the girlfriend who had supposedly died near the beginning of the football season and who Te’o spoke about commonly throughout his impressive senior campaign.

Many people expect big things of Te’o in the NFL, and rightfully so. He was a Heisman Trophy runner-up, as well as the winner of the 2012 Defensive IMPACT Player of the Year Lott Trophy, the Maxwell Award, the Chuck Bednarik Award, the Bronko Nagurski Trophy, the Butkus Award, the Lombardi Award, and the Walter Camp Award.

Despite his efforts, nothing seems to have gone right for him recently. While the unfortunate events he has gone through are easy to make fun of, I wish nothing but the best for Te’o. Despite his recent issues, he has continued to handle himself well. While he may always be remembered for a hoax, he is one of the few athletes who will have the opportunity to play professional football, and ultimately the opportunity for redemption.

“The game is unacceptably brutal; can I say it any more clearly than that?” Bob Costas said this in an interview with sportswriter Bob Lipsyte in December of 2011. While Costas was of course referring to the NFL game rather than college, the message resonates across all levels of football for obvious reasons, and this past week the NCAA took a step towards changing the brutality of the game.

The NCAA Football Rules Committee unanimously approved the strengthening of a penalty for intentional above the shoulder hits. If approved by the Playing Rules Oversight Panel, the new rule would have an ejection tacked on. According to Air Force coach Troy Calhoun, there were 99 targeting penalties called last season in what I hope you still know as Division I-A.

Under the new rule, if the penalty occurs in the first half, the player would be ejected for the remainder of the game. If the penalty occurs in the second half or overtime, the player is ejected for the remainder of the game and the first half of the next game.

In addition, the new rule would allow for the ejection portion of the penalty to be reviewed, but not the 15-yard portion of the play.

Some may not like the proposed hit rule, but in the grand scheme of football it is much needed.  According to the NCAA, the concussion rate stayed steady from 2004-2012. The NCAA’s Injury Surveillance Program states that there were 2.5 concussions reported for every 1,000 game-related exposures during the 2011 football season. The NCAA defines exposures as the periods of athletic-related activity when injuries can occur.

But how the NCAA releases concussion statistics is a sweet attempt at the cover up of how many concussions actually happen. After all, car accident statistics aren’t released in a percentage, but rather a specific number that is easier for the general population to relate to.

Besides concussions, other injuries are also a concern. Last season Tulane safety Devon Walker broke his neck in a game against Tulsa.

In an era where the talk is about how football can cause long term brain damage, this rule change isn’t surprising. In preparation for the Super Bowl, President Obama expressed his concern for football players. Even hard hitting Ravens safety Bernard Pollard said that he is concerned about someone possibly dying on the field from a hard hit. Football is the favorite sport of many Americans, but for the sport to become a safe one, rule changes like this are needed.

Names pour in for each school and ultimately the school that gets some of the best recruits seems to be the school that is dominant years down the road. Need proof? Alabama has landed the Rivals.com top ranked recruiting class five out of the last six years. They ultimately have won three national titles in four years to accompany those recruiting classes.

But this should be expected, Alabama has a storied history of great football teams that many recruits find attractive. With this in mind, how did a school like Ole Miss, who hasn’t won a conference title since 1963, land the seventh-best recruiting class in the country?

The first thought that comes to my mind for many is they are doing something wrong. That was also the same thought that came to mind for many after Southern Methodist landed a recruiting class full of blue chips in 1979, that included the likes of Eric Dickerson and Craig James.

SMU was of course penalized with what is known as the Death Penalty in 1987 after years of notorious violations that included paying players.

Ole Miss Coach Hugh Freeze claims that no rule breaking was done. He claims that he simply relentlessly recruited blue chip players regardless of geographic location, and it paid off. This tells us nothing though, as any coach would have denied rule breaking. If Ole Miss didn’t cheat, then how did they get all these players?

The fact of the matter is multiple blue chip recruits had connections to Ole Miss and that was why they were recruited in the first place. Robert Nkemdiche, the top ranked recruit for 2013, was one of the players with an Ole Miss connection. He committed to Ole Miss, but his brother Denzel Nkemdiche is a nickelback who thrived in Oxford as a redshirt Freshman this last season.

Laquon Treadwell, a blue chip receiver who is listed at 6’3” and 198 pounds verbally committed to Ole Miss weeks before signing day. He didn’t help Freeze’s defense of honest recruiting by posting a photo on Instagram of him with several hundred dollar bills. The photo was deleted quickly and the Chicago Tribune was told it was a joke.

For the time being, Ole Miss’s recruiting class is simply a phenomena created by honest and relentless recruiting. Over the next several weeks, months, and years questions will continue to arise regarding this class. “How did they get all those players” will be the talk among college football enthusiasts, as well as coaches in the SEC. If an inevitable NCAA investigation proves improper benefits were used, Ole Miss will fall into NCAA sanctions that may be destructive.

If not, the SEC West  may have a new power that may be able to compete with the likes of Texas A&M, LSU, Auburn, and Alabama, and maybe even make a run at a National Title in years to come.

The Wild were on a three-game losing streak coming into last Saturday and the crowd made sure the team knew they weren’t happy. The first period showed a sluggish Wild team and for most of the period I could have heard a pin drop–I attended the game–when the fans weren’t yelling boos. I didn’t even hear one “Let’s Go Wild! Clap, clap, clap clap clap,” which is the main chant at every game. Some drunken fan usually has the gall to start that one up.

The downtown Minneapolis water main broke, which put water bottles at $2 instead of $4.75, so maybe everyone was staying hydrated instead of sucking down $8 beers.

Cal Clutterbuck finally turned things around in the second period when he had a perfect tip-in goal off a Ryan Suter wrist shot. No doubt Suter would have liked the goal for himself against his former team, but hey, a win is a win right?

The game was tied 1-1 as it went into overtime and then things got really interesting. Usually when it comes to post-regulation, the referees just stand by and let the men play the game and hold off on petty hooking and interference calls as to prevent shootouts. Instead there was a penalty called that had everyone scratching their heads.

Paul Gaustad of the Predators was whistled for a hand pass penalty with 2:12 left giving the Wild a 4-3-player advantage for all but 12 seconds of overtime. Turns out that that was just what the Wild needed against a defensively strong Predators team.

I took a look at the NHL rulebook on handling the puck and could find nothing about it from the faceoff. It happened so quickly I couldn’t comprehend it, but the refs must have thought Gaustad passed the puck with his hand to another player from the faceoff instead of batting it down. This is a new edition to the rulebook this year so details are sketchy.

Personally I thought the call was absurd and the game should have continued at full strength, but a power play ensued and Devin Setoguchi tallied his first goal of the season, which was much needed to his confidence.

The Wild finished up this week going 1-2 with both a win (2-1 over Calgary on Monday) and a loss (4-3 against Colorado on Thursday) via shootout. The Wild also fell to Vancouver on the road 2-1 on Tuesday night. Minnesota returns home for a Sunday tilt against the Detroit Red Wings who have won three of their last four outings.

With the shortened NHL season an enormous amount of pressure now weighs on players to perform every minute of every game. Minnesota’s first line has seemed to take this to heart while the rest of the team, not so much. The first offensive line for the Wild has scored 21 of the team’s 38 total points this season making them a very threatening team for the 25-plus minutes they’re on the ice.

The Good

Mikko Koivu, Zach Parise and Dany Heatley. Three names that fans will be hearing every game the Minnesota Wild score a goal this season. Parise has scored five goals in five games this season while Heatley has tallied four himself. And then there is Koivu who has been feeding these goal-hungry monsters by recording five assists and a score.

The Wild is a team with a lot of depth throughout the first three lines yet they have become the poster child for a “one-line” team. If the other lines can take some of the burden off the first and even out the scoring then the Wild are not only one of the best teams on paper, but one of the best teams on the ice as well.

The Bad

Two minute minor for too many men on the ice. That was one of a handful of bad penalties the Wild recorded in the third period against the St. Louis Blues on Sunday night. They spent most of that period looking sluggish on defense when they didn’t have players in the penalty box. Ryan Suter hasn’t performed up to his potential yet and was responsible for giving up the OT goal against St. Louis by not covering his man. Suter’s fellow defenseman Devin Setoguchi has been a ghost.

Defense is the biggest concern for the team right now considering they lack the depth there that they have on offense. Guys like Clayton Stoner and Cal Clutterbuck, who are normally very physical, were losing battles and turning pucks over against the Blues giving them more opportunities than they should have.

The Ugly

The bad and the ugly for the Wild comes down to poor defense and below average goaltending. Nicklas Backstrom and Josh Harding have been alternating starts every other game, but as of now Harding is the clear favorite. Through two games he has a .902 save percentage and allowed only five goals. With the way the defense has performed, those numbers aren’t all that bad.

Minnesota plays the Columbus Blue Jackets (1-3-1) team tomorrow night at 7 at home. The Blue Jackets are on a four game skid since they won their season opener against Nashville.

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