Cliff Hanger

On Flair's limitations: I remember a story about Flair being hugely disappointed that Ray Stevens didn't do Flair's favorite spot the first time Flair saw his idol live and never wanting to disappoint a fan that way, but that is a half-remembered Dave Meltzer story from eYada-era WOL, so who the fuck knows if it's true. It's entirely plausible given Flair's body of work, but that doesn't mean it's accurate. Picked up my historical NXT watch that got cut off when Peacock deleted the archives, and I'm up to the end of Jan 2013. I know who wins the inaugural tag title tourney, but everything else going on is entirely new to me. Bo Dallas, Nice Southern Boy Who Is Also A Hardcore Masochist, is a fucking weird gimmick. The original Wyatt Family is better than just about anything Bray did without them. And Summer Rae, the worst ring announcer i can remember ever seeing, ambushing Paige from behind after a match was probably not supposed to make me laugh like it did.

Complete 2k25 roster coming from IGN on Monday. This probably will not include DLC. I may preorder the Deadman Edition on Tuesday; being a federal employee, I do not particularly trust our direct deposit system right now. But I have enough PSN credit to cover nearly half of it.

I am all over that Shinobi game. Lots of "well that was neat but who the fuck knows how it'll play" stuff.

This is a bummer. The LSH from Zero Hour to Legion of the Damned is "my" Legion, a big part of why I went from a casual fan of cape comics to a Wednesday warrior in the mid-90s, and while i was only briefly on AOL before my town got a real ISP, I remember those Legion chats well. My heart goes out to Johanna.

It was really fun to see some New Texas/Inspire talent, though I wish they had been in 5 minute squashes instead of 90 second ones. Did Brick even get in the ring?

I was digging Cedric as Je'Von's mentor "Uncle Ced" and between him, Duke and Bea/Blair I'm wondering if I should just stop liking midcatders for their sake.

I never owned it (borrowed and returned it, never had a burner til my DC was mothballed) but I think Fire Pro D is my favorite too, simply because it has the promotion by promotion ladder mode (meaning it was a very good zombie game for the year after college when i was unemployed and zombie gaming was an even worse habit for me) and a roster that hits most of my favorites from the era when my fandom was peaking.

. Rad thanks. I was really afraid that, like the weirdo Darkstalkers games it'd be untranslated. I was, initially, really disappointed that Tech Romancer isn't here but tbh more than anything actually included, that's the 1 game where I don't give a fuck unless you include the Dreamcast port with its 9 billion unlockables. I do think it's really strange that we're getting Projext Justice and Plasma Sword, but not their antecedents Rival Schools and Star Gladiator. I've seen it suggested that this is very much a NAOMI-focused set for the 3d games, and so they may have been left off because they'd be more work to emulate. Still 100% sold.

I just hope SF Alpha 3 Upper has the translation from the console and PSP versions. If it's JP-only (the arcade version was only ever released there) I'll be so incredibly bummed.

I feel like they've pretty much given up on her as a proper heel, and now she's Donald Duck--someone who you are supposed to want to watch touch the stove and suffer for it, but love anyway. (At least that's what I hope they're going for, because that's how I feel about her)

The teaser has me very cross. Lexis getting even more noxious is great, I hope he hangs onto the better work he was doing as a face. I watched the Rumble with the old friends i usually watch AEW but who don't watch WWE much, and they were not ready for Stephanie Vaquer's neck-fucking spot. Juvenile Detention Center showing up while Jordynne Grace didn't was a real surprise. So the V-Day card is the men's world title four-way, the women's world title three-way, Fraxiom vs the winner of NQCC vs Belly Boys vs Briggs and Inamura (NQCC would probably deliver the best match but we saw that at Deadline), Vaquer vs Henley, and the new kids making their presence known. Probably either a men's North Am or a semi-random grudge match. Lola hasn't been on in a while, did I miss her getting hurt? Or was she on more recently and the time dilation associated with my day job just got me? I was genuinely expecting to see her Sat.

I have to say, nobody has really sold me on the idea that last night's Raw is a good investment of 2.5-3 hours

Per the Playstation Blog, Capcom Fighting Collection 2 has a final date of 5/16.

I watched today's UUDD (plus Dom and Kofi) reveal stream. They fooled with showcase a little, then did a mixed-gender Rumble. Of note: 1) the third person camera looks incredibly disorienting, even though we only saw it in an entrance 2) characters not previously confirmed and not in 24: Wild Samoans and Alundra Blayze (with a '94 indicating there's more than one version of her in the game.) Kelani Jordan also popped up in the Rumble but everyone had assumed she was a lock when they used her in the NXT edition of the "who will be on the cover" videos. Oops, meant to include the YT link. https://youtu.be/Xy4roVLG0Sg?si=IJsG_NotprCPlPib

Well that's pharma-grade bullshit. The MVP deserves better.

Trish is the mayor of women who were hired to have slap fights in their underwear but were really fuckin great wrestlers once they were given the chance to be. Her 2023 run showed it and I hope she sticks around a little while this time too

The LVLUP successor show (WWE Evolve, starting 3/8) being a Tubi exclusive makes me happy because I have an irrational love for the garage sale of streaming services

Only really 2 thoughts about the show. 1) MCMG/DIY was not the banger I expected 2) fuck yeah Roxy, my #1 favorite showed why, despite the last year playing heavily to her weaknesses (her heel ring work is fantastic, her heel mic work peaked over a year ago and has not improved since) she remains my favorite.

This ties in to something I've been rolling over in my head for a while and almost posted in this thread and few times but never actually done it. Old heads in cape comics fandom will talk about the ways the genre changed when the people making them changed from writers who'd wanted to do prose SF and artists who wanted to work in advertising (but didn't make it, or were slumming between legit jobs) to people who'd grown up dying to work in comics, and how it preceded the decline of the American comics industry. When Bart Sawyer died a while back and Meltz was talking about the old days, and your average wrestler was a high school or college football player or wrestler who wasn't going to make it at the next level and was plied by a local promoter with promises of money, groupies and such, it struck a nerve. I love my indy geeks, but it makes me think about what we lost without realizing it.

Assuming the "one musician from last year's soundtrack returns as a DLC character in this year's game" tradition continues, i kind of hope we get Grimes because as much as I dislike her getting paid more, I quite like the idea of having Raquel throw her off the Cell. (I suspect Busta Rhymes or one of the country guys is more likely.) I kinda hope they go deep enough in the NXT back bench to get Dante Chen, but not deep enough for Cutler James.

The Pounce is a move that was perfect for the hex ring but never works in a square one, IMO. Having him come from a crazy angle instead of 90 degrees MADE Monty's Pounce. My timely hot take is that I've never loved the Rumble. It's too long and while it usually has some neat angles built and little character moments, I never get as hyped as a lot of people do. The best thing about the inevitable 2-night Rumble weekends of the future will be not having 2 of them on one day.

That is DEFINITELY not what it was like the first year they did it (I don't remember when they started but it was after the PS4 version came out, because I played it the first year they did it.)

Man, I don't like only having one story. Fight Forever had intergender matches but still had a women's story and a men's story. So yeah, right now I think I'm most excited about the Parking Lot of Death and finding out all the new song titles for 2024 debuts, heel turns, etc. The chances of me not buying it at all are zero but I'm kind of thinking about waiting til the Summer PSN sale when the Deluxe and super deluxe versions usually go for half price.

Pitbull 1 or Pitbull 2? (Ducks)

She can make "The Killing Jar" her signature match, a Last Woman Standing inside an airtight clear booth which contains cotton balls soaked in "poison" and you have to win before you run out of air