Pool Cue News and Review

The GenerationPool air dates have been announced by the BCA. It looks like we’ll be having a pool marathon on July 19th. Here’s how it all breaks down hour by hour on ESPN.

2008 GenerationPool.com 9-Ball Championships ESPN Schedule:

This is a huge improvement over last year when ESPN buried the men’s programming in the middle of the night (that was the one where Van Boring got skunked 7-0 in the finals). The Archer v Wiseman match should be pretty interesting, especially if they capture the whole “sharking” thing that got Wiseman’s panties in a bunch.

Well… the final numbers are out for the BCA Expo and they aren’t good.

Exhibitors - 178 down from 234
Booths - 626 down from 1003
Buyers - 1111 down from 2156

In my efforts to not to be such a “callous dick” as one of my readers called me, I’m not going to go doom and gloom on this. Well, really I’m not going doom and gloom because there’s no need, but I’ll use this as an opportunity to show that I’m all sunshine and lollipops anyway.

So here’s the deal. Charlotte was a disaster before the ink on the contract even dried. You can’t move this show out of Vegas and the old regime who booked this and Houston should’ve known better.  It could’ve been worse… much worse.  A lot of the smaller booths on the edges looked pretty miserable, but there was some brisk business going on with the bigger players.

All I can say on this one is live and learn.  Next year, the show moves back to Las Vegas where it belongs.  Attendance will be up because store owners in every industry use the annual trade show as an excuse to write off a vacation as a business expense.  No one wanted to go to Houston for a vacation and Charlotte in the summertime is a pretty miserable experience.  Next year the show will be at The Sands on the strip, people will come to the show, get loaded, lose lots of lettuce gambling and will have a good time.

Seriously, how f’n hot is Loree Jon Jones?? I got to peep her at the BCA Expo and seeing her in person really makes me want to reconsider my initial Top 5 countdown. I don’t think there’s a woman in pool that exudes more pure sexiness and class as Ms. Jones.

Anyone who hasn’t seen her in person simply can’t understand the hotness factor that she brings. Just because I’ve got such a giant crush on her, I dug up this old promo. Yeah, I can’t stand KT and the IPT, but she just looks so fine in this clip I had to put it up.

It ain’t good folks. I’m still gathering notes and such from the show, but I’ve gotta tell you, there isn’t much on the horizon to look forward to. I didn’t see much in the way of exciting new products other than the new Predator P3, which looked pretty cool, but I’ll be throwing some additional bones out from what I saw at the show. I’ve got a list though of why we’re pushing the Threat-o-Meter back into orange:
1. The show was pretty thin in the way of attendance. Not Houston bad, but bad nonetheless.
2. The men’s tour is completely in the toilet. The top stars donked early and we were left with utter garbage for the championship.
3. The young guns of the women’s tour are playing inconsistent and some don’t know how to behave in public.
4. For the most part, the new stuff was all “been there, done that”.
5. Retailers and manufacturers are apparently hurting in a very big way.
Not to be the prophet of doom and gloom, but something needs to happen to kick the industry’s ass back into gear. I know, its cyclical and we’re at the bottom of a down cycle, but if things don’t turn around, you might start seeing some fairly well known companies hittin’ the bricks.

Wow… I could’ve picked ‘em better by flipping a coin or throwing darts. In the early match, Jeremy Jones took down Ronnie Wiseman in one of the sloppiest matches that will ever be televised. ESPN is going to have a real challenge on their hands trying to make this watchable, because it was some serious bush league action going on.

The ladies performed quite a bit better than the men, with Xiao Ting Pan taking down Ga Young Kim. XTP played some good pool, but ultimately GYK really gave this one away with a combination of a few key misses and one horrible roll. It’ll be interesting when the Nielsen ratings come out, because the Jasmin/GYK and Brit-Anna/XTP matches were far superior in watchability. I’m not even gonna talk about the men’s matches, since the only one that was even remotely entertaining was the Archer match. The two Jones matches made me want to claw my eyes out and run for the hills screaming.