Lamp, broken circa 1988

man I loved the hideo saito gimmick so fucking much, his G1 run was beautiful, and also the G1 tag match with him and Iizuka vs. Ishii and Don Fujii

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Kazunari Murakami I’m going to back off and let other people be the majority of this discussion because I could yell about this match for hours- everything I think is beautiful about professional wrestling appears in this match. Drama, history, violence, logic, monsters, underdogs, danger, power, shittalking, all of it. That it does each of these things excellently is a bonus. That it doesn’t waste a single second of its 9 minutes is art. Also, sorry about the weird quality dailymotion. My first pick disappeared on me and I had to rip that in a hurry so the aspect ratio is all weird. Dan Kroffat vs. Rob Van Dam It’s still weird that we let “Rob Van Dam” be a thing. I wonder if one day there will be a new wrestler named Braden Statham or something. The armwringer kicks from Rob were fucking funny. Made it look like some kind of proto Low Ki/Amazing Red match. Also loved the super uncooperative rollup segment, because it looked like two athletes trying to pin/not get pinned. Super Green RVD fascinates me, because it’s hard to tell if what he’s doing is out of excitement or if the awkward timing is the nerves of the moment. Either way his athleticism carries it the rest of the way and it makes it feel more real in a way you couldn’t make a career out of. Kroffat’s Cavernaria is one of the most fucked up submissions I’ve ever seen. Rob’s float over on the vertical suplex is amazing and a thing I’d like to see someone pick up because wow. The home stretch is largely great, aside from the martial arts strikes in the corner and the Powerbomb/Gutwrench thing?? Rob DIES off the lariat and gets to go out kicking out of shit looking like a bright prospect who’s strong enough to not stay down but not enough to come back. I dont know what the fuck that finishing move was but I buy that landing on your face like that would put you out, so fair enough. Good match!

I don't know if this is the right place to put this but i figure it's safer to go in the omnibus than in some specific thread. There was a Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi match on youtube just recently. It's a fan cam from the 1992 Champion's Carnival. The video has since disappeared. I've tried to look for a copy of it elsewhere and had no luck. Does anyone have a copy, or could point me in a direction where I can buy a copy?

I wrote this about sony's prestige games two years ago, and also I thought the combat was at best Fine, but was rarely "at best".

yeah of course it does because everyone called it the pinnacle of video games as an artform when it was just big budget Manhunt, why wouldn't they double down

short: i found the story to be at irreconcilable odds with the gameplay. you can't talk to me about the value of human life while you're luxuriating in snuff animations. also hold it accountable for the popularization of father stories in big budget games and therefore directly responsible for god of war 2018, a game so bad i didn't play another single player game for the rest of that year.

the last of us is one of the worst games I've ever seen and played, but because of me and my big mouth I'll be playing through the second one for the personal benefit of a "friend". look forward to my eventual psychotic break and combative review next month! Dark Souls update: I have reached Blighttown. Everyone has told me that it's the worst part of the game. Considering I just got finished learning about the Curse status effect and then creeping through the basilisk dens in the depths to get a ring, I'm going to say there's no way it's going to stress me out as bad as "don't get cursed again, don't get cursed again, for the love of fuk don't get cursed again"

Rollerball Rocco vs. Kung Fu Rollerball rulez ok. I watched this with a deeply crossfaded friend who was having his mind blown by the welsh commentary. It’s the first match with Kung Fu that I’ve seen where he looks kind of good, but I assume you don’t get to the point where you’re working with Rollerball if you’re not at least ok. I wrote that before he started getting really weird with like the eyepokes and the missed irish whip. It was wild to see the Goto misdirection spot. Rollerball’s tombstone sent him to the fucking essence. This is really just the Rocco show until the comeback, where the Hand Based Offense gets brutal. Rocco’s weird ref bump setup is also good stuff, backing into him and then holding him still until the last moment. Quack Vs. ZSJ It’s funny to go from authentic WOS stuff to Quackenbush, who’s managed to be such a dork it’s made jobs and a pocket universe of wrestling where he’s right. I respect the shit out of that. In a way this match is like a celebration of that specific degree of that Tony Gwynn-esque tape devotion. It’s close enough to the genuine article that it may as well be it nowadays. Maybe that’s from the playful nature of this, which is not a thing I’ve seen in a lot of wrestling matches. So it’s at least got that going for it. I do love the point in Quack matches where he gets frustrated and starts getting a little meaner, but I feel like the second we got to that point the match came to a close. Good time, if a little corny. Homicide vs. Orange Cassidy I like the Orange Cassidy gag well enough, and was super interested in seeing Homicide as the straight man in the routine just to see if he’d stab him at some point. I got taken in for a moment in seeing how the crowd has changed and how weird that’s been. I would feel like a mutant in this building. Was this at a chairty event or something? Anyways, Homicide puts orange through the ringer and the whole time it feels like he’s beating up the star of a very supportive community theater or some motivator from a corporate retreat who’s like “taking a licking for the team” or whatever. The orange juice spots were funny in the same way as like the “I have the power of god and anime on my side” thing is. Weird vibes.

persona 5 is interesting because it gets better but then it makes sure to take a brief moment near the end to have the worst JRPG dungeon ever designed and that soured my entire opinion on the game. Maybe in Royal they fix it! God I fuckin hope so! Anyways. I had an existential crisis a few days ago. I was talking to someone about Dark Souls, a game I'd never beat. I reminisced about how far I got, but something about that felt off so I went and checked my steam achievements. I only had six hours in the game, and I had no achievement pointing that I got anywhere close to where I thought I did. At the same time, Dark Souls is one of my favorite games to watch speedruns and lets plays of. I've watched that game get completed dozens of times. Which means that my mind constructed a memory of a playthrough entirely through other people's playthroughs. These vicarious lives congealed in my head to trick me into thinking I had a lived experience. So I started Dark Souls two days ago and it's going OK. I figure the only way to burn that hideous memorytangle out of my head is to make my own experience beating it. I started Deprived, and I think I'm going to be doing the entire game with the Zweihander and miracles. I also have the Demon's Great Hammer (black firebomb gift) so maybe I'll do that.

Kind Of. There's a match of his where he wrestles as "Jumbo Kiku" (basically doing a Jumbo impression) with Sanshiro Takagi doing a Terry Funk "impression" against Bruiser Minody (misuzu) and (yoshihiro) Takan Hansen. That's halfway to what you're talking about.

as a casual player who has not read a "this week in bungie" in the better part of a year, BOY the gear retirement plan has been a rude surprise. all my shit is masterworked and in September it's all never going to be usable again. what in the fuck have hardcore players been doing with items that have earned me this random asskicking. They've got to start putting that newsletter shit in the game, because to make huge radical changes like that and the only way you'd know is if you check their website all the time? that blows. They got scripts to announce when it's time to buy shit, but not when it's time to change how everyone plays.

Baba/Jumbo Vs. Mil/Dos I haven’t watched a Mil Mascaras match in a minute. The last one was Mil and Dos vs. Hansen & Brody, which is a blast for what I suspect will be a totally different reason than this one will be. Jumbo’s coat is completely fantastic. Someone threw confetti instead of streamers when he got introduced and that’s a new one on me. Dos and Jumbo start and that owns. They’ve got fun chemistry inherently, between Jumbo’s own traditional wrestling training and Dos’s brilliant lucha. It feels like a big style clash that Jumbo is completely down for. A lot of great technical work that ends with Jumbo escalating with the uppercut and the knee before nearly getting pinned anyways. Dos Caras and Jumbo are just so goddamn great, both by themselves and together in this match. Mil and Jumbo is kind of pedestrian and I tuned most of it out. Baba and Mil fascinates me however. It feels like they’re trying to figure out anything they can do together. Baba’s ankle pick is delightful. As is Mil’s block of the double arm suplex when Jumbo tags back in. The stretch is peculiar. The teamwork breaks down- I assume because Mil doesn’t tell Dos what they’re doing for the double team- and so the lucha team start doing quick tags leading to a cross body. When Baba kicks Dos off of Jumbo, Mil runs at him with this like “WHAT’S UP BRO YOU WANNA GO” stance and while they chop at each other, Dos Caras headbutts the turnbuckle and gets pinned? The way that Baba tries to get out of there makes me really curious about how far that just went off the rails because it seems just super bizarre. Fun match, though. Brookes vs. Munny I’m not a great enthusiast of modern wrasslin, and even less of a fan of british wrestling, but I’m not infallible, and I am a good sport. One thing: although youtube is famous for intros that are too long, that intro was WAY too long. Both of these people have get-ups that make me want to see them get beat up. I feel like I’ve seen Chris Brookes somewhere but I have no idea why. I would love for this holds section to not be obligatory, but I don’t think I’ll get what I want. Telling jokes to fake someone into a takedown you have scouted feels like the sequel to a Johnny Saint spot. After that, Chris Brookes does a combo of three straight moves and I am reminded why I have spent so much time watching older stuff. When Munny obliges with some contrived stuff of his own, I adjust my expectations. From here on out I am going to write when I have something positive to say about the match: The commentary saying “we’ve lost the match on our screens” like they’re not sitting on a balcony or something was funny. Munny’s elbows look pretty good, and the load is so subtle that I had to rewind to see it. The octopus hold section felt like an actual contest, with the awkward stretching angles and the struggle over the pin fall was good too. that was it. I'm glad the people in the building liked it, at least!

That's an excellent idea. Yes.

It's the bi-weekly "Lamp asks for help building a compilation y'all won't actually get to see" post! This time I'm building a bump freaks compilation and I'm coming up short on obvious names. Here's who I have: Sabu Great Sasuke Hayabusa Dolph Ziggler Aero Star Rey Cometa Curt Hennig Shawn Michaels Who am I missing?

I would like to participate in this as well and I already know what I'd put up for mine

I'm trying to find a really specific match and I'm at a loss. I think it's a NOAH match from the 2000s, it might have been in Differ, and I think it was a charity show of some kind? What I remember really clearly are three of the four participants: Ricky Marvin & Shuhei Taniguchi were on one team, and Kotaro Suzuki was on the other. I want to say the other participant was Taue? Also, the match had really specific rules. There was a screen showing the names of several different moves, and you weren't allowed to pin until your team did all the moves. There was one bit where Shuhei Taniguchi kept failing to do a flying cross chop, Marvin gets frustrated and tags in, and gets his whip reversed into an iron claw by Kotaro Suzuki. These are all the things I remember about this match. Cagematch and Profightdb seem to think I'm hallucinating. Any ideas?

ANIMAL CROSSING NEW HORIZONS [3] Instead of a review here's a funny thing that happened to me: I won a contest on twitter that was supposed to send me a switch and a copy of the game. After winning, they basically stonewalled me so I just send them fifteen updates about my black bean burritos. They eventually blocked me, while other people started tweeting at me about how "WE'VE EXPOSED THE SCAM" and I'm like idk man i won a drawing and my prize was annoying this goober about my burritos. I got to have a good time. Anyways I was trying to win the thing for a friend and that's why I have this game anyways, so it's exactly as good as it needs to be. THEM'S FIGHTIN' HERDS [4] "hey lamp i notice that every time you yell about some weird game being your frontrunner for game of the year no one believes you" yes that's true more often than not "and now you feel that strongly about a fighting game that started as a My Little Pony fan game" mhm "are you like... are you trying to make this harder?" I can see your point, inner monologue, but honest to god this game's fucking great. If you can break through the barrier of "Bootleg MLP Aesthetic" everything in it mechanically is pretty ingenious. It's got a great in-depth tutorial, a LOT of different singleplayer content (Story mode, target challenge, combo training), it's got an incredible lobby system and impeccable netcode. This isn't my line (I think it's Sajam's?) but it's still the truth: if you make a checklist for everything you want out of a fighting game, and then play Them's Fightin' Herds, see if you don't check off like 90% of it. The one problem right now is character depth (only 6 characters at launch and no dedicated grapplers) but they're adding more and they wont be charging for them. "ok but how much of saying this is your game of the year is related to you not admitting you've totally lost interest in doom eternal less than halfway through" OOPS GOTTA GO

i'm not out here making new wrestling fans watch shawn michaels, the hell do you take me for

Remember last month when I asked for help putting together a compilation about folklore? Well imagine I posted the once again bernie meme. The compilation I'm putting together right now is on Married Couples. Not literally married couples, but the ideas of matchups that have wrestled each other so many times that they're capable of tighter and more intense matches than irregular opponents. I need help coming up with some more examples of this. Here's what I have now Rey Mysterio & Psicosis Tajiri & Super Crazy Hijo Del Santo & Negro Casas Ric Flair & Ricky Steamboat Eddie Guerrero & Chris Benoit Finlay & Regal Rock & Roll Express & The Midnight Express The Four Pillars of AJPW Anyone else come to mind? Double points for joshi because I have a big blindspot there I'm trying to fill in.

BREAKING: Luchador being caught by Pirata Morgan looks like a million bucks

lol yeah that came off way more like "NO BODY LOVES ME T__T" than I intended. I've got a good & strong support network, it's just bitter to learn about that so far after the fact because of who his circle became. Nothing to be done, I suppose. Kind of you to say that, though.

One of my best friends from high school passed away. In February. No one told me because the only person in his life that still wanted me around was him. I'm gonna be in shock for quite a while, I suspect.

Quick procedural question: Netflix originals are in, right?

Similarly, as someone who loathed the first game and is only playing the second on account of a labyrinthine dare process, seeing the spoilers for the laster of us make me extremely excited. That's probably not great news for people who liked the first one.

Alright, this is inspired by the bombcast and then by me changing one of the answers and bringing it to my friends, only to discover I'm the only person I know to feel this way. Fuck Marry Kill: Procedural Generation (roguelikes, minecrafts, dwarf fortress) "The Meta" (includes Team Comp for team multiplayer stuff, tier lists for fighting games) Deck-building (MTG, Slay the Spire, etc)