Hektik

You know, after seeing these responses and responses in other threads, I am hoping far a Twins/Angels ALCS. It would be a nice change of pace, forcing Fox and ESPN to follow a small market club like the Twins and the bastard child of LA, the Angels. Has there hatred really gotten to the point were they have to compare the size of their genitalia.

It is amazing that the national media will still probably pay more attention to the Red Sox/Yankees. There is another long time rivalry that is very heated and happening this weekend, Dodgers/Giants. Some baseball historians call it the best rivalry in baseball history. I don't know if it's a west coast bias or not, but the national media will overlook it and Red Sox/Yankees will still be treated as the biggest series of the year.

They're doing exactly what I knew they were going to do, crash back down to reality. The Dodgers were an overachieving team that played the best they possibly could. They have no dominate or credible starting pitching. Jeff Weaver and Jose F'N Lima are there most consistent starters. But now Lima is injured and there only hope is Brad Penny coming off the DL after missing over a month.

I am looking forward to the SD/SF series. The Padres took 3 out of 4 from the Dodgers and the Padres have handled the Giants this year. San Diego has gone 10-3 this year against San Francisco. This Saturday's pitching match up should also be good with David Wells going against Jason Schmidt.

Oh, there is no doubt in my mind. I also think that 1980 Steve Williams could take Angle down.

Wow, this has turned into a 'who would win a shoot' thread. It's like were over at the Wrestling Classics message board. Next thing you know, someone will ask if Lou Thesz could beat Kurt Angle in a shoot.

Actually, I have As far as Eddy vs Kurt, I don't know who would win. In the argument of wrestlers kicking ass, I add this, just because Kurt was a wrestler doesn't mean he is a dominating fighter. If that were the case then wrestlers would be able to walk into an MMA promotion and dominate. But that is not the case and wrestlers have to do more training different forms of martial arts to even compete in MMA.

A front face lock is not kicking someones ass.

As a Padre fan I would like to stay optomistic but I don't think this is their year. All things considered, this was a team that lost 98 games last year and to bounce back this year is great. But they could have won the NL west this year. I point to the Steve Finley trade as the killer to the Padres year. Payton was not working out in CF for San Diego and everyone was expecting Finley to come, everyone from the team, to the fans, to Finley himself. He lives in San Diego, he was apart of those good Padre teams in the mid 90s, and it looked like he was going to finish off his career here. But the GM of Arizona has a grudge against San Diego and GM Kevin Towers. It stems back to San Diego breaking up Curt Schilling's perfect game in the 9th with a bunt and Kevin Towers calling Arizona a "very arrogant ball club" during their dominant years. The Dbacks GM was not going to listen to anything San Diego had to offer and instead decided to stick it to the Padres by trading Finley to LA. When that trade occured, the Padres were in the middle of 3 game series with LA and only 2 and a half back of the Dodgers. The Dodgers won the final game of that series in the 12th inning and Dodgers went on a hot streak after it. The Padres floundered with no real centerfielder, having used 5 different players since then. Finley has been on a hot streak since going to LA and has single handidly won games for the Dodgers. The part that gets me is that Finley will more than likely sign with the Padres after this season, but not before helping the Dodgers win the west.

Today is the start of a four game series between the Padres and the Dodgers. Those games are always interesting, especially the fans in the stands. If you put LA and SD fans in the same place you're bound to get some arguments and fights.

I wouldn't say they are fading. They split a 4 game series with the Rockies. In their defense it was in Denver and the Rockies have played all the rest of the NL west tough. Earlier in the week they took 2 out of 3 from the Cardinals and the more games with the Dodgers the better. The Dodgers are not a team to be feared. It is a team full of players who are having career years and average at best pitching.

I would suggest taking up Muay Thai. I took it as a teenager at a dojo in my neighborhood. Eventually I switched over to Ken Shamrock's Lions Den, when he opened it up in San Diego. Try to look for a dojo with a good reputation.

I think Meltzer was fair to Backlund when he wrote his bio for the HOF Observer.

From wrestlingobserver.com Chavo Guerrero was knocked out by Billy Kidman's shooting star press in a Smackdown match taped last night in Fresno. He was out cold for a few minutes. He suffered a concussion and was taken to the hospital and held overnight for observation. He has since been released, but it was a scary situation. Jamie Noble was all shaken up and there were a dozen officials and EMTs in the ring. Both Stephanie McMahon and John Laurinaitis came out and met the stretcher at the curtain area.

I'm guessing the rib is having a 43 year old man (who had not worked a regular schedule since the mid 80s) wrestle for almost an hour and do wacky spots. You wouldn't find it funny if they sent the Ric Flair of today out to wrestle an iron man match?

The Rock is still a draw in wrestling and should make the occasional apperance. The problem is that WWE does not hype his apperances. They are very strange about this and Meltzer made a good point about it. They don't hype the Rock appearing, even though announcing his apperance in advanced will boost the ratings. Yet, they hype Shawn Michaels return, even though it won't help the ratings anymore than just making a surprise apperance.

what the fuck? where's that info from? The Observer It didn't say the kliq was behind that particular incident. The kliq did do a lot of mocking behind his back.

The Chargers are going to finally sign Philip Rivers. http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/stor..._len&id=1866077 I say it is about time. River's agent was trying to hold out for more money and was able to manipulate the media in his favor. When the actual facts came out a week ago, the media and the ESPN crowd were forced to side with the chargers. This is a fair contract for the 4th pick of the draft.

There were newsletters and hotlines back then. Anway, Backlunds title reign was a promise from Vince. It was an agreement they made when he came back into the WWE. During his second run with the company he did have the "cool" group, the kliq laughing at him, apparently he was a square backstage. He didn't drink or party and used to do calisthenics in the locker room. As a rib, they kept him in the 1993 Royal Rumble for about an hour, including a spot where he had to act like he was knocked out and sell it on the ground for minutes on end.

San Diego State University has produced 32 major league players. Most notably, SDSU has produced Tony Gwynn, Mark Grace, and Graig Nettles.

No, keep Michaels on Raw where I don't have to see him. That way they can have it be Orton and Michaels against Evolution without any pesky "outsiders" involved. With Benoit going back to Smackdown, he and Jericho can get on the mic and say they switched looking for real competition on the A show. Benoit can say that he originally went to Raw because he knew winning the Raw World title would be easier. You know, the stuff they did earlier this year to put over Raw and bury Smackdown.

Statement: Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho should be on Smackdown. Shawn Michaels and Randy Orton are going to be the super faces anyway, so there is no reason for Benoit and Jericho to be there. Moving them to Smackdown would help in taking away the B show feel of SD. Plus, with those two on SD there will be no reason for me to watch Raw.

This is an excerpt from the 8/25 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: There were a few interesting things teased on the Summerslam show. There was a confrontation between Eric Bischoff and Teddy Long, which seems to lead to another angle between the two at Survivor Series. John Cena and Randy Orton had a confrontation as well (this wasn't good for Cena, because he looked like a mid-card gimmick guy from a weaker show standing next to a superstar). Most figure Mania at this point to be HHH vs Orton and Undertaker vs Kurt Angle as the top match from both sides. On HHH/Orton, I was surprised they shot the angle the next night in London with no build up, expecting a long build up of tension. With so much talk regarding the split in recent weeks, I knew it was coming sooner, but it felt rushed. Angle and Undertaker have an understanding they are going to work with each other, largely because they see each other as the top guy on the Smackdown side, which also makes them strong political allies right now. They apparently want to keep themselves apart, and avoid doing jobs as much as possible to build to a match with two guys who are winning. Apparently Kurt Angle convinced Eddy Guerrero that losing would be better for Guerrero. I was shocked at that one, because Guerrero is fading fast, hasn't scored a major win since Wrestlemania, while losing heat, and a potential talked about program with Luther Reigns (who Angle has been pushing for), will just make him another guy. Now it appears that JBL vs Undertaker is being brought back to headline No Mercy on 10/3 in East Rutherford, NJ Really, JBL and Undertaker didn't have that bad of a match. The problem is, and Undertaker should know this better than anyone, is that the submission holds, even if they are realistic, means nothing unless people have been educated that they are finishes by seeing them work on television. This is not Japanese wrestling where all the fans see Pride and wrestling as the same thing and a "real" finish is instantly recognized by the crowd. This is the U.S., and UFC may as well be underground as far as its influence on the vast majority of wrestling fans. Once the crowd turned in them, they had an uphill battle.

The 8/23 Observer is the Hall of Fame newsletter. The 8/25 is the regular edition of the Observer. There were two different Observers sent out this week because HOF one is a special editon.

Padres: Kevin Brown, Steve Finley, Gary Sheffield, Mark Kotsay, & Oliver Perez.