AboveAverage484

Any reason for leaving Backlund out? I'm pretty sure he has to be included on here.

I would have to suggest Bob Backlund, Vader, and Ted DiBiase for the list.

I've always considered northern Florida and eastern Texas as part of the South. Same goes for some (mostly southern) parts of Missouri and Kentucky, because the further north you go in the former, the more "Midwesterny" it feels. I'm with Ripper on the south ruling for many of the same reasons he listed. A lot of kids in metropolitan or urban areas pretty much go to school with kids of the same race and income. My county seat and hometown has 25,000, which is by no small, but the county only had six high schools, and mine encompassed the entire western portion of the county. We had rich kids, poor kids, rednecks, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians all mixed together, which probably went a long way in developing good relations between different types of people among us kids. We never had any major race related problems and everybody pretty much tolerated everybody else, since we'd all known each other since middle school. That brings up another interesting note about my high school: Every kid who went to West Iredell middle school, went to West Iredell High School, and there were four elementary schools in the middle school district. This meant that there was 25% chance that you'd known a kid since kindergarten in high school and a 100% chance that you've known them since sixth grade. This meant that kids weren't just thrown in with other types of kids in high school whom they weren't familiar with, leading to better harmony between students in high school. Sometimes it's good to live in bum-F nowhere.

GSP totally overwhelmed Serra from the start. Of all the champions in UFC, St. Pierre is probably the least likely to lose his belt any time soon, and that's including Silva. Lutter probably has the worst non-HW gas tank in MMA, at least among reputable fighters. I honestly can't say I was impressed with Quarry's performance, considering he was in there with a guy who ran for 9/10 of the fight and threw basically zero attacks his way. Lei was right about Hironaka dropping Goulet, but for once he didn't get KTFO by the knockdown punch and actually came back and won with a punch himself.

I don't think there has been any serious discussion of Schilt/Fedor, at least with K-1 rules anyway.

I know he may not be as well known around these parts, but I thought it would be disrespectful to relegate this to the "comments which don't..." thread. In case you didn't know, he played keyboards and the organ for Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band since it's inception. He contracted melanoma about three years ago and passed away yesterday afternoon. He had been replaced by Charlie Giordano on recent shows while he received treatment. R.I.P. Danny, I'll be seeing your band mates a week from Sunday in what I'm sure will be an emotional show considering it will be one of the first after his passing.

Schilt is definitely by his lonesome at the top of the K-1 heap. Directly below him are Aerts (has evolved from a KO machine into a very smart and balanced fighter), Bonjasky, and Le Banner (still very dangerous when healthy), while the next group gets a little more muddled as it seems we are experiencing a changing of the guard in K-1. Hari, especially after last night's performance, is the head of this class, with Feitosa close behind, as he is continuing to progress as a fighter. Guys like Leko and Musashi, who's best years are behind them, can still hang with the best but after that it's a jumbled mess of fading veterans (Sefo, Abidi) and either unproven (Pitchkounov, Manhoef) or inconsistent fighters (Karaev, Die Faust). Not sure if anyone will have anything for Schilt this year either, but Hari has as good a chance as anyone but it's still tough to think of anyone who's not a '98 Aerts or a '99-'00 Hoost having any chance against him at this point.

Don't know how you feel about imperial stouts, but AleSmith's Speedway Stout is pretty good and it's brewed in San Diego.

Hunt wasn't really moving much in that fight. He preferred to just stand in front of Sem and eat jabs and low kicks and rely on his granite chin to last long enough for him to connect with something. Unfortunately for Mark, Sem is a complete striker and just totally caught him right in the liver with a spinning back kick. Badr Hari completely dismantled Sefo last night as he continues to look better and better. Ray, on the other hand, looks worse and worse, and unless he totally rededicates himself to the game, he should seriously consider retirement. Not a great night for entertaining fights, but Musashi and Sawayashiki was pretty fun and Feitosa strikes again with the Brazilian kick.

At least they didn't call that technical on CDR at the end of regulation. Dude would have been a bigger goat than Chris Webber. You could see him in the replay looking around nervously after he slammed it, which I found pretty amusing.

Coincidentally enough, me and a buddy and his father had some last night and I noted the same thing. I think my exact words were "This is kind of puss for an IPA." I'm pretty excited because the local establishments have started selling stuff from Bell's, which means I can go to Lowe's and get the Kalamazoo Stout for 9.99 as opposed to the 12 or 13 it'd be at the gas station. Yeah, there is this gas station in downtown Raleigh that just looks like any old shitty Pantry or what have you, but when you go in there you get what is probably the best beer selection in Raleigh.

Yeah, barley wine will fuck your ass up. My favorite is probably Victory Old Horizontal.

I'm hard pressed to even think of a good match in WCW circa '95, let alone a great one. I have Guerrero vs. Ohtani from Starrcade at ****, but that's pretty much a 1996 match. Shoot, next best ones I have from that year are Flair vs. Arn and Pillman/Badd at ***¾.

Did you check PWTorrents? I have an invite if you are not a member.

Strange that the one sub forum with little to no moderator influence is the best behaved forum on the site. Maybe not so strange. I have no complaints with your changes, Mik.

Has anyone seen 21? If so, what did you think of it?

I thought Shamrock probably had the third. It was mostly a sparring bout until Shamrock landed that good right hand, after which he flurried and connected with a few shots including two nice elbows. Cung did have the kick at the end of the round that wobbled Frank, but I thought Frank did the most damage in the 3rd. Thinking about it now almost seems as if Shamrock fought this fight in a way which would ensure a rematch and hence, a bigger payday. But that's just the conspiracy theorist in me talking.

If Shamrock would have fought smart rather than trying to beat Le at his own game, a la Baroni, it might have been different. I don't know why Shamrock thinks he has something to prove by standing and banging with someone like Le. He finally started to get aggressive by the third round, but his hands were down almost the entire time, allowing Cung to score almost at will with the head kicks.

What a breakneck pace so far. I figured it would just be a matter of time, but I don't want to say anything for fear of jinxing them like last year.

I am seriously advocating not going to colllege. The point of college is to get the skills and degree that will allow you to get the job and career that you want when done. Why in the hell are they going if they want to be a pro basketball player and have the opportunity to do so? Its like if you wanted to be an animator for Disney, they saw what you could do and said "Hey, we are hiring you". You are saying that you should say "No...you guys are my dream job, but I think I am going to wait a year and keep sending in work so you can nitpick over it and might not even want to hire me anymore instead of taking the job now." College is not a necessity in life. If I want to be a blacksmith and that is what is going to make me happy, I don't need to take 2 years of Special Education to do so. There are legitimate risk to going to play for free. And with the proper donation, I am sure the millionare ex NBA player with the bum knee could still get into Duke if he really wanted to. Robert Swift and Shawn Livingston, if they had their injuries in college, would have gone from lottery picks to Euro league all stars. There is no legit reason to FORCE these kids to risk their professional lives for free. Now if the NCAA instituted some pay scale for these kids or at least programs where their struggling families can get some help while they are forcing their kids to wait 1 or the proposed 3 years to become millionares and get their family out of poverty, I might sway back to the other side. But as of right now, the NCAA is only offering these kids a mean to get known, which some of them don't even need, and thats it. And its not fair. Hell, OJ Mayo just went from a maybe top 3 pick to a top 6-7 maybe...that is a change in payscale there. Rip, is playing overseas for a year and getting paid rather than going to college and not a better option for these kids? I don't really know the details involved in this, but I would think that if a player is highly touted by pro scouts he shouldn't have a problem getting on a team in Europe.

Snazzy

Facing a wrestler who can strike is one of the toughest things in MMA, at least IMO. I know Josh's striking isn't on the level of a Gomi or Anderson Silva but it's progressed enough to the point where not only does Lytle have to be careful in exchanges, but he has to alter his stand up to defend against Josh's take downs as well. Kicks and knees are both susceptible to being caught and countered with a slam or a take down, so Lytle might be a little more susceptible to Josh's strikes because of the danger of Josh's wrestling. Now this is all null and void if Lytle displays excellent take down defense, but I've seen enough of both fighter's bouts to believe that Josh shouldn't have a problem taking Chris down whenever he wants. Anyway, I love matches with a lot of unknown factors, makes it all the more dramatic when watching as far as I'm concerned. Edit: Woo-hoo! My two weeks is up, bye bye Ru!

I don't think so. I believe this one was around November. Edit: Quick check of Cawthon's site shows that they had a match on the 16th where Juvi won the title. Anyone else remember this match?

See also: Heath Herring

I seem to remember Guerrera and Kidman having a pretty good match in late '98 on Nitro. Around November maybe?