Listen up!

Class is in session.

We here in Professorville hope you're having a dandy holiday weekend. As you're heating up those turkey and eggs, here are a few things I'm thankful for -- and a few things that are simply terrible. In other words: thanks, turkeys.

Thanks: Main Event Mafia
I have to tell you, TNA has been a train wreck for way too long. Kurt Angle, Kevin Nash, Sting, Booker T and Scott Steiner working as a group may get it on track again. This new heel group gives the promotion focus as it tries to make stars out of the TNA Front Line, the younger stars who used to populate the X-Division. Kudos for this fine effort. I really hope it goes somewhere.

Turkey: TNA's X-Division
The Main Event Mafia is a good thing. It really is. But TNA shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater and totally ignore the high-energy cruiserweight division which made the promotion so different than WWE. Right now, the once proud X-Division is a joke, when it still should be a main event powerhouse.

Podcast: 'Old School, New School' -- Episode 93

Thanks: Bobby Heenan
A few weeks ago, I read Heenan's recent autobiography. I was laughing out loud every other paragraph, it seemed. Mrs. Professor thought I was on drugs or something because I would giggle out of the blue. Nope, it was just Heenan's story, told in a sweet, matter-of-fact way. The book wasn't art -- but it was funny, just like Heenan.

Turkey: The WWE Annouce Teams
Why is Jim Ross on "Smackdown!"? I don't get it. His home is on "Raw," and that's where he should return. Tazz and Michael Cole seem like a good fit, so why break them up? Tazz with Ross isn't working, either is Cole with Jerry Lawler. This is a perfect case of WWE trying to fix something that wasn't proken.

Thanks: YouTube
A few weeks ago, I told you the story of how I spent a few hours just looking at Mean Gene Okerlund clips. This week, I spent way too long dialing up Heenan gems from the past. YouTube, hands down, is the greatest site on the Internet when it comes to getting free glimpses of American popular culture history. Don't believe me? Search for Beatles clips. Or the Rolling Stones. Then look up Muhammad Ali. Swing back over to wrestling, and search for Andre The Giant. Time well wasted.

Turkey: Women's Wrestling
I've come to the conclusion that women's wrestling has never been good. Not in the grungy past where everyone looked like your mother. Not right now where everyone looks like a stripper, but can't act or tumble. There was a time in TNA a few months ago when Gail Kim and Awesome Kong put on some intense matches, but that time is gone. Maybe some things were never meant to be.

Thanks: Dr. Mike Lano, George Schire
These are the guys who do the heavy lifting on the Professor Wrestling podcast, "Old School, New School." This is an odd little show, where we talk about what's going on now -- but also delve into wrestling's history. There's really nothing like it out there in podcast-land, and I'm thankful these two are always there for some offbeat audio gold. Never heard it? Well, elsewhere on this page, you can go to a link which lists all 93 episodes. Or you can listen to the latest installment, hosted by yours truly, RIGHT HERE.

Well, that'll do it. Time to get off the computer, get in my sweatpants and grab that sixth piece of pumpkin pie. That's what you call a simple pleasure.

Class is ... dismissed!

(Professor Wrestling is a masked employee of Internet Broadcasting, hailing from Parts Unknown. Got a question, comment, complaint? E-mail him right here. )