Eoae

I was wondering how WWE make sense of the title trade for the belt histories. And, now that they've explained it.... I'm still wondering how they'll make sense of it. I'm sure I'd have follow-up questions, but at this point, I'm probably just better off whacking my thumb with a hammer, What I watched of the show seemed inoffensive until the women's battle royal. Thought that was kinda bad. The last four (five) women being four people you'd never expect to win a battle royal on tv kinda tipped off that something was odd. Natalya and Lacey Evans playing a contrived game of Twister on the apron instead of actually trying to get back in or shake the other person loose was... something. My wife walked by during Lana's victory and wanted to know what was up with the bright pink "clown lips" (her words, not mine). I probably enjoyed that more than the battle royal.

I feel like Vince probably understands the internet about as Dusty Rhodes. There's an episode of FCW out there where Dusty's co-host (forget who) mentions email, and Dusty mechanically comments that he goes to his email every day and watches his old matches. Er, what? From his tone, I assume Dusty had no clue what email actually is.

I'm surprised Vince hasn't gone all in and made Seth-Dominick a HiaC match. Not disappointed, mind you. Just surprised.

Wrestlers seem to not watch the shows even when they're wrestling on them - unless they're forced to so that a camera crew can film a "natural" backstage segment showing them watching a monitor.

I'm assuming it's punishment by proxy for Rusev/Miro signing with AEW.

Yes. Literally. They did a segment where New Day handed the Profits the blue belts and the Street Profits handed New Day the red belts.

Mary Jane was just trying to save Pete from that elderly-looking nosferatu in the right-hand corner.

One of the IGN guys (Ryan McCaffrey) has been writing reviews/previews about DiRT 5 and Yakuza: Like a Dragon on the Xbox Series X/S. There's an article up on the IGN site and also some comments in his Twitter. Basically gist of his comments is I'll really hoping developers don't half-ass it on the PS4 versions of games. I'll almost certainly play some of the launch titles on PS4 first. Haven't really decided about when or how I'm playing the triple-A third party stuff, but I'll be playing Sackboy, Miles Morales, and The Pathless next month on PS4. You can crank out some damn good games on PS4, so I'm hoping the PS4 versions are good games in the own right. It seems like it would make sense to make the PS4 versions as good as possible. I didn't follow sales figures when the Xbox One and PS4 were first released, but I'm guessing the multi-gen titles might have sold better for the older consoles. I mean, Sony is hoping to sell 7-15 million PS5 consoles through next Spring. So that leaves at least 100 million PS4 owners who might buy Miles Morales before Christmas. Hopefully I'm not being overly optimistic. I imagine the only thing studios hate more than developing 4 versions of the same game (PS4, Switch, PC, and Xbox One) is developing six versions of the same game since they have to release the game for both the new gen and the old.

As a lapsed Catholic from a devout family, this is pretty much my feelings about God in this nightmare year. Minus Richard Pryor's involvement, of course.

I mean, I'd settle for a six-month build but we don't even get that anymore. Most feuds last a PPV cycle or two, if that. I even miss the WM builds of 10-15 years ago. when the company would start building WrestleMania storylines in January. Now, they give a title match or two a three-month build and slap the rest of the card together in mid-Match.

Well, yeah, but then he couldn't be a DVDVR favorite. No one has ever kicked their way into popularity with this crew. Several wrestlers have punched their way. (Granted, Eric isn't a favorite with the board anyways. All the more reason to work on his punches!)

I laughed.

Anyone else really like Mortal Shell? I had reasonably high expectations for it, but I'm never thought about it as a GoTY contender or anything. I still wouldn't rank it that high, but it's in my top 10 of the year so far. It's definitely one of my favorite Soulslike clones. I'm guessing it won't end the year in my top 10, but it will be close. It's a ways behind the heavyweights and I'm expecting November to be loaded with contenders for GotY games. I'm sure the PS5 versions will be a little better, but I'm still expecting The Pathless and Miles Morales to be outstanding PS4 titles. Not sure what to expect out of AC and Cyberpunk. I'm in wait-and-see mode until the reviews start rolling out. I really don't have any interest in Cyberpunk even though I quite like the Witcher games and expect CD Projekt Red to turn out something special.

Not really into the idea of Bayley/Sasha being Hell in a Cell. Seems like they're hotshotting the feud. I'd be ok with Sasha still being out to sell the beating Bayley gave her, but..... Roman and Jey being hotshotted to a HiaC match makes some feud because of the family connection and because Roman is only giving Jey another shot so he can try and brutalize Jey as much as possible. Hopefully, they go the route someone on her suggested. Bayley retains somehow but is drafted to Raw. Sasha wins RR to get another shot, and finally takes the title at WM. I don't have any confidence they'll go that route, though. I won't be surprised is Sasha wins and the feud is dropped.

It's the same "people" who spent high-round draft picks on Naomi and Ricochet when they could have drafted multi-time world champions Randy Orton and Daniel Bryan. Or a dozen other uppercarders. WWE Draft's make less sense than WWE booking. (By "people", I mean one of the Vince's alternate personalities.)

I don't love the Wii's controls ("gimmicky" is a good word to describe my feelings towards motion controls and a lot of games that would benefit from a standard control scheme - Donkey Kong Country Returns, for example - don't support the Classic Controller), but I rather like the catalog. Wii seems to have more Nintendo IP's than some of its other consoles (3 great Mario platformers + a Paper Mario title, 2 new Kirby games, 2 Metroid shooters, a Donkey Kong reboot, 2 Zelda titles, etc.) plus a lot of underrated titles. Most of the games I liked are platformers, admittedly, so your mileage may vary if you don't like the genre. There were a couple action-adventures I really love and wish would get remade or remastered. Twilight Princess is available on other consoles, of course, as it Xenoblade Chronicles. But I really liked The Last Story and Pandora's Tower too. I'd recommend a WII justf for it's best 30-50 titles. But, again, it prob. depends how much you like platformers. I don't think I'd buy a Wii just for the Zelda games. I preferred Twilight Princess on the GameCube and Wii U and think Skyward Sword is probably the weakest of the 3D Zelda console games. Even without the virtual console, the Wii is an easier recommendation for me.

Ricochet being drafted in the third round is easily the most unrealistic angle the company has done.

I laughed when the studio head said he's confident players will com back when fresh content is released (the number of players online is apparently dwindling rapidly). Later, I'm going to reach out to him on Twitter and see if he wants to buy some swampland off me or trade me a cow for one magic bean.

Sony released a list (complete?) of PS4 games that will not be playable on PS5: Sony also says select PS4 games will be boosted on PS5 and run at a higher frame rate.

Bobby Walker doing his best Too Warm Scorpio impression.

I've never gotten the lasting appeal of Undertaker-Sting. A UT-Sting match in the late 2000's or anytime in the 2010's most likely would not be good. I don't have a lot of faith in a UT-Sting match in the late 90's or early 200's being more than average. Sting's a top 10 guy for me, but you can skip his career after the nWo angle without missing much. I kinda feel like you'd need a time machine to get a good Sting-UT match. I would have liked to see Surfer Sting in the WWF, but I dunno that he'd get a good match out of early 90's UT. UT's matches during the early 90's were generally... not good. Best you could probably hope for out of a UT-Crow Sting feud would probably be some cool promos and segments leading up to the actual match, but Vince would probably never allow that Sting to get over on UT or look like an equal.

Sony announced they are rolling out a new version of the PSN Store & app which will not include PS3, PS Vita, & PSP games. For now, the Vita, PS3, and PSP stores will stay online, but users will have to use the app installed on their console. I'm wondering if this won't be the end for digital support for the older consoles. KInda bummed if they discontinue the PS3 online store entirely (and I expect this to be the beginning of the end for it). I probably have most of the dlc and digital exclusives I want from the PS3 store, but I still buy a few PS3 games a month. Mostly picking up digital editions of games I originally bought retail (about two years ago, i decided to go mostly digital). Microsoft seems to be planning to keep the Xbox 360 digital store online, so this is just another factor pushing me towards them this gen. I'll still end up with a PS5, of course. At the end of the day. Sony will have the games. Microsoft still doesn't have studios I like as much as SIE Japan and Santa Monica, Naughty Dog, Media Molecule, Insomniac, Sucker Punch, etc. But, yeah, I'm not digging anything else the company is doing right now. I've thought Microsoft has had better hardware and been more forward thinking for a long time now. Doesn't look like that's going to change this gen.

Tried to watch a episode of ROH over the weekend. Sinclair needs to spend a few dollars for for piped-in crowd noise or something. Taping the show with what appears to be 4 people in the building and no noise makes for the most lifeless wrestling I can remember seeing. And I've been to more than my share of tiny indie shows with a couple dozen people or less in the crowd. For some reason, crowdless ROH reminds me of..... uh, the moveset edit mode in the WWE games were it's just two generic dudes previewing moves. Maybe ROH should put two guys under masks and dress them in red and green bodysuits to complete the effect. At a minimum, Sinclar needs to go to go to the flea market and buy an INXS album on cassette or something to play during matches. You could probably get The Swing and a used cassette player for $20-$30. That's probably in Sinclair's range.