The Man Known as Dan

Planning to post a longer write up later, but I flew up from St. Louis for this show and it was worth every single penny I paid for the flight and ticket. I’m attending Dynasty in a couple weeks and I find it very very unlikely it will be a better show. The first half of the show was great, but that 2nd half man. It’s a damn small list of shows who can have 3 matches like Priest-Slim J, Mad Dog-Demus, and Daniel-Thatcher on one card.

Traffic around the area today is really damned rough, and made it that are missing the meet and greet. But hopefully should be on time for the show

Getting ready to board my flight in St. Louis to Philly and someone just sat down wearing a Big Japan Pro Wrestling shirt. I’d put it at 40% you are a poster here going to DEANbecause the odds of someone wearing a shirt for one of Deans favorite companies is so minor. If so, hi, the guy in the CITY jersey will see you at the show

Technically speaking not even the same country, as Sinner & Saint are from Vancouver. I've seen a lot of Austin Luke, and he is really good. Like, should be one of the breakout stars of the Northeast good. Mathers is also really solid. I've only seen one match from Williams, but it was against Makabe and it was really damned good and I came away very impressed with him. Basically, this is just a cool ass match.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssss!

I ran into my first "Eddie Kingston isn't fast so therefor he sucks and is being carried" fans today in some discussions. It's amazing how poisoned some fans minds are by the "If the match isn't going 100 miles per hour it sucks" mindset. Really enjoyed the opener and Murphy/Garcia. Murphy has been arguably the most under appreciated great wrestler of the last decade for me.

That is one fuck of a start. Damn.

Let this show be a reminder that any time a company positioned Joe in the mid card in the last 20 years they were absolute fools. Half of why his RoH world title run was so legendary was how he carried himself as champ. No man in the US has been a better true ace of a company then Samoa Joe this century.

Hits keep on coming. Priest is damned good, and super excited he’s on the card. I’ve had similar thoughts as well. I am at the moment figuring out the means to fly out from the Midwest to see this live and would love a hang out before hand. Also, wanted to thank you in person Johnny for introducing a poor lost teenager posting on Prowrestling.net that wanted more intelligent conversation that this was the place for me some twenty years ago.

Actions regular announcer in Georgia is actually fellow DVDVR Alum Dylan Hales. Will be interesting if he makes the trip up to Jersey for this.

So, weird confession time. I think I like Adam Copeland in AEW. Like, I like his as a wrestler. And it feels weird to me. I thought his little match with Griff was pretty fun, and it felt like he did a good job giving Griff something when he had nothing coming in. It was a fun little showcase for him, and it felt like our first real time seeing Edge work a random guy in a promotion that isn't so.... plastic. And I think I like him in this setting. Makes me wonder if he always had an extra gear in him but he did what he thought he needed too in that setting instead.

I'm shocked there are people who thought the reveal today should have been literally anybody but Cole. There was nobody else that could possibly actually pay this off in any way that made any god damned sense. The problem with this "Mastermind Reveal" angles that makes them so impossible to use in general is because you can't really use them to elevate someone. If it's just some random midcarder, who cares? It just comes across as a giant letdown and doesn't get over. The payoff could only be 2 things: A legitimately big name that has never worked with the company before (And unless you wanted this to be Dolph Ziggler or Mustafa Ali, that wasn't going to happen) or someone that is already involved in the storyline that would draw heat for the heel turn. It was always going to be Adam Cole, it was always the obvious decision. The bright side is the payoff went down better then the Black Scorpion or Higher Power. My big problem remains with this angle still is the massive problem that I don't fucking understand why I'm supposed to be rooting for MJF. The dude has been booked as a straight up menace to the company since word go. His actions never really changed, he still tries to cheat incredibly frequently, and not even really in the fun Eddie Guerrero way to cheat. But he's a face now just because he became friends with another guy whose been a prick of a heel almost his entire tenure with the company? I never gave a fuck about their friendship that spawned in like 3 weeks. Guess I'm just hte old cranky man on this one. Really didn't help that this Devil nonsense basically buried one of my favorite wrestlers title attempt.

Just wanted to note, as a fan of both Willow and Stat, I think this is a crazy opinion. They botched like half the match. I can't remember a AEW match that went as poorly as that one did.

Opening 8 man was good but not quite as good as I wanted. Christian/Copeland was an amazing reminder that Christian is the god damned best, and maybe Copeland can be a damn fun brawler when he isn't just stuck into WWE style of shitty brawling. Full credit to him, he was fucking game today. Kingston/Mox was great, and I love seeing Kingston win. Nothing else on the show, including the pre-show, was for me at all. The Jericho 8 man should have been changed, because there was no way it wasn't going to go that way. AEW managed to ruin Ricky Starks momentum twice in one year, which is very impressive. I don't even watch WWE and I'm rooting for him to go there, because god damn, you can only fuck it up so many times before I don't blame the guy for fucking off. Super happy to see Joe win the belt, even if it was completely secondary to whatever stupid Devil bullshit. Shame Roderick is stuck in that angle I don't care about now, But whatever, keep that shit on Dynamite so I don't have to pay anything approaching attention to.

A post of mine from 2 weeks ago [quote] Let me just lead with this was an amazing Collision, outstanding weekend of wrestling between ROH and Collision. So, we are deep enough in the game that I think I can tell the direction the booking is going to go last next week. My predictions for the last results on each side Mark defeats Jay to get on the board. Swerve defeats Rush. Feels like that was always the expectation, and draws him even with Mox. White beats Moxley, thus creating a 3 way tie on top of Gold league. This will lead to a triple threat as each of the 3 are 1-1 against each other. Blue league is more spicy. Danielson beats Claudio, eliminating Claudio from the competition and securing Danielson one of the 2 spots. Garcia gets his 1 win of the tournament, upsetting King. this eliminates King and Garcia can feel like he finds himself. Kingston defeats Andrade in the main event. This pulls him to a tie with Andrade, but since he just beat him head to head, Kingston wins the tiebreaker, thus giving him the second spot in the Blue league finals and a rematch against Danielson. Gold League can go a lot of ways. My gut says Moxley wins, pinning White, avenging his loss and keeping Swerve decently protected. The Blue league is Kingston securing the biggest win of his career beating Danielson and giving him his match with Moxley to keep his belts.[/quote] Ehhhhh I can call em. MJF getting beaten by one pipe shot and a Piledriver in 3 minutes after Jay White couldn't beat him in 30 minutes with the same injury and interference. Uh huh.

See, I could see this, but that feels like a matchup were either result is bad. Swerve might be a heel, kind of, but he's got tons of crowd support right now. That turns Eddie basically into the bad guy in the story for the crowd. Those might be the 2 wrestlers the crowd is most behind, so I'd want to avoid that final like the plague. That's why I'm convinced the final is either Eddie/White or Eddie/Mox. If it's Eddie/White, I think Eddie loses, and you can build to rematches with Eddie trying to reclaim his loss. If Eddie is winning, it's Mox. He gets to beat his old rival to get his greatest accomplishment in wrestling.

Let me just lead with this was an amazing Collision, outstanding weekend of wrestling between ROH and Collision. So, we are deep enough in the game that I think I can tell the direction the booking is going to go last next week. My predictions for the last results on each side Mark defeats Jay to get on the board. Swerve defeats Rush. Feels like that was always the expectation, and draws him even with Mox. White beats Moxley, thus creating a 3 way tie on top of Gold league. This will lead to a triple threat as each of the 3 are 1-1 against each other. Blue league is more spicy. Danielson beats Claudio, eliminating Claudio from the competition and securing Danielson one of the 2 spots. Garcia gets his 1 win of the tournament, upsetting King. this eliminates King and Garcia can feel like he finds himself. Kingston defeats Andrade in the main event. This pulls him to a tie with Andrade, but since he just beat him head to head, Kingston wins the tiebreaker, thus giving him the second spot in the Blue league finals and a rematch against Danielson. Gold League can go a lot of ways. My gut says Moxley wins, pinning White, avenging his loss and keeping Swerve decently protected. The Blue league is Kingston securing the biggest win of his career beating Danielson and giving him his match with Moxley to keep his belts.

Tons of other people are going to disagree with me here, but I've been dreaming of a game with this exact concept for 15 years, so no game called out to me like this one did. Jurassic Park: Survival

Game looks incredible, but I was expecting that to begin with. GTA VI has an such an insane tightrope to walk. GTA V was huge, GTA Online is still played 10 years later (Also holy shit it's been 10 years), and they had such an obscene amount of content in the game by the end of the day (to the point they've actually been removing some for a while). But unlike the other games that have been as ambitious as this one HAS to be, Rockstar has steady income coming in from GTA Online so they shouldn't have to rush to make the game as good as it really needs to be at launch. It's why I'll never be annoyed about this game taking forever. Make it amazing at launch. Also, "Florida: The Game" is in and of itself a brilliant concept.

Brody is very well protected, but Kingston is one of hte 2 favorites in his block in a booking perspective. It's also 100% the right call to put him behind early. Makes the Kingston/Danielson match being next really interesting, my gut says that one might be a draw.

On the "what's next for them" front, Ali to AEW is such a big no brainer that I'd be stunned if it doesn't happen. They already run Chicago tons, and I'll die on the hill his upside is still a guy who could main event pay per views. He can talk, he can work. Easy pick. Dolph probably does get the AEW call, as his brother already works there and he has a natural fit. I do question the upside of his role at this point though. Benjamin probably gets the call as well, and I always feel like I'm weirdly low on Shelton compared to others while still liking him. He's a good tag wrestler who I can't remember much in the way of a great singles match in well over a decade. I'd love to see him try running as a more traditional technical wrestler, but he had the opportunity the last time he was cut (which everyone seems to forget), when he had chances to be a top indy guy and simply didn't. With Benjamin and Ali both getting their papers I'm legit surprised Cedric Alexander is still around. He's also in the "If he gets let go, AEW should be calling him within 10 minutes" club. Give me the the best days of 205 Live again on Collision please.

I have been going through my “Activity” tab to try to do some fresh stuff and happened upon a mission I don’t want to spoil too much. Let’s just say it’s high level area, it’s one hell of an interesting mission, and I have an absolutely fascinating new co-pilot.

Just hit level 35 tonight. Still no combat perks taken, have only done stealth to level 2 on physical. Starting to work more in Social but honestly the only things in that tree that interest me are level 1 perks until we get deep in 3 and 4. Everything else still remains in Science and Tech. My Frontier is the terror in the skies. Over 2,000 Shields, a massive Hull, while still keeping full Mobility and a Top Speed around 150 before boosts. I’ve had 4 Bounty Hunter ships all level 30 or higher try to take me down at once and I wiped all of them out before they took away half my shields. I also figured my answer out for the weapon question, and think I can give recommendations: You want Particle Beams and EM Weapons. Particle Beams are about 80% as effective as Laser Weapons on Shields and 80% as effective as Ballistic Weapons on Hulls. No need to switch out the allocation system when you have 1 weapon that is damn good at both jobs. The EM Weapons are there if you wanna board, as a strong system can wipeout your targets engines in no time flat.

This game and Baldur’s Gate 3 both made me institute a “only play this game when you are willing to put your day into” rule. It has served me well.

I ended up playing till 7 in the morning yesterday. I was completing a personal quest for a companion who might not be revealed yet, as well as continuing the Vanguard story, and I literally voiced to myself "Man, this game is really fucking good" like 5 times because it just needed to be said, even it was me to the void. So I'll post it here too: This game is real fucking good. Joined Craig on the "having done the Mantis mission" train. Loved it loved it loved it. Enjoy the Razorleaf, but I've invested so so much into the Frontier I just can't change it out as my regular ship. I'll eventually upgrade it to the way I want, but well, I've turned Frontier into such a beastly machine I can't change now. On other ship news, I got into a fight with a Va'ruun Eulogy with my Frontier, and managed not only to defeat it, but capture it. That thing was a behemoth and had a crew of at least 25, and I barely got out with my life.... but I did. And that ship is a machine, can't believe I took it down with so little ship weaponry investment.