twiztor

i think you mean '70s. even by the early '80s, KISS was in decline and used the gimmick of removing their makeup to get a boost. But besides that, KISS has always been amazing at marketing. I don't know the numbers, but there's no way that they haven't made more money off merch and licensing than their music, by orders of magnitudes. Anecdotally, 15 years ago i was working at this music store that also sold a bunch of tchotchkes. The big three licensed brands we brought in were Elvis, Betty Boop, and KISS. The next tier would be Domo and Hello Kitty. Every other band only had t-shirts and not much else. But KISS had action figures, mugs, plaques, clocks, shot glasses, bobbleheads, all kinds of stupid crap. Plus, in 1998 they were kind of on a revival kick. They had a newer record ("Psycho Circus") which wasn't getting a TON of airplay, but more than they'd gotten for probably a decade. They were just launching a big tour (i remember my boss at the time was very excited to see them, as it was kinda/sorta implied that this was their final tour. HA! their next tour was actually called "The Farewell Tour"! and i think they're still touring in 2024!!) All this to say that on the surface, yeah, KISS was an old tired act and WCW partnering with them to look to the future was dumb. But, there WAS some public interest at the time, so if you squint, you can almost have it make sense.

i think ultimately this will be true, but that doesn't mean that the people along the way should be used and abused.

the pre-Mexi-Cools? where's Super Crazy when you need him? Oh that's right, tearing it up in ECW with Guido and Tajiri. Yeah, if i were him, i'd stay far away from WCW right now too. Vampiro is a weird pro wrestler. He's incredibly inconsistent. When he's on, he's great. But when he's not, he can be meandering, or a bit sloppy, or just telling an unconnected story. But he's always interesting. In some ways, i have him in the same class of guys as Kanyon or Gangrel: they have all the tools, but just never put them in the perfect order to get a real sustained backing. But they're some of my favorite guys to watch. Would it be fair to call them the equivalent of a "cult classic"? Yes. Whipwreck/Regal (the concept of it at least) is exactly what i look for in late era WCW. We all know it ain't for the storylines! maybe this would fit better in the "Conspiracy Theories" thread, but i fully believe that when Shane Douglas signed with WCW, he had a clause in there that he got to face Ric Flair one-on-one. (It happens sometime in 2000). In my head, i also have Douglas demanding a win, but i honestly don't recall if it shakes out that way or not. it is! not sure what was up with the generic name change, but this is something that feels like a cool easter egg for longtime fans. 1999 Madusa is terrible in every way.

interesting take. i hadn't considered the PD status of the characters, but i could definitely see DC mixing it up with their characters more and seeing if anything catches fire. Yeah, it will take 10 years for even all of the Golden Age books/characters to enter the PD, and like you said, that doesn't all happen at once. Stuff that could be considered "core" to the Superman mythos, will take decades. Plenty of that stuff debuted much later in the comics, or on the radio show, or even the 50s TV show. Doing some quick math, the Post-Crisis versions of the characters won't start going into the PD until 2080. Yeah, i'm definitely not planning on living that long. Even the revitalized '60s versions are still 30 years from PD status....whether i live to see that remains to be seen.

i don't know when Shida got new music, but watching Dynamite, the guitar riff seemed incredibly familiar. I couldn't place it and it ate away at my brain. Played it a couple times on YouTube until it finally clicked. That's the X-Men Animated Series riff! (sorry if old news) i popped.

it was a pretty great match. and hey, nobody climbed on top of the cage!

way back in the day, i stumbled across this movie on HBO. i came in about a half hour or so in (must have been just before/after one of the story changes). I was HOOKED. specifically did not watch the ending, because i wanted to see the whole thing. had to scour the HBO schedule for a couple of weeks before they finally repeated it. when i finally got to watch it, in its entirety, i loved it. everything worked for me. 10/10, no notes. also want to add that Streets of Rage is, indeed, awesome.

oh man, the struggle is real. i have been making a lot of progress on my backlog the last couple of years. It helps that most of them are retro games, as if they were current titles i would have zero chance. modern games are WAY too long for my tastes. My most recent completion was the Wario Land series of games on the various Nintendo consoles. but my goal for 2025 is to only pick up THE NEXT game i'm going to play. NWC is my exception, since i thought that had the opportunity to be a limited release. FIrst up: Mega Man 11. Super Mario Wonder, Princess Peach Showtime, Kirby and the Forgotten Land are the big three that i haven't bought yet. And end the year off with Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (also haven't purchased yet... i told you i'm behind!) Also maybe Gimmick! 2 (personally i'm hoping that LRG releases the original game on a NES cart too!) Hell, i might even get around to playing my copy of Bendy and the Ink Machine! (i'm not holding out hope about getting to this one)

that was my experience with NES Remix. i probably won't play this until sometime next year. I'm working on clearing out my backlog this year, and next year jumping into all my Switch titles that have come out in the last 2 years that i'm behind on.

i really got a kick that you wrote this, and in THE VERY NEXT SEGMENT, ICP debuts alongside a returning Raven. The ICP/Raven/Vampiro stable is called "the Deadpool", by the way. it obviously doesn't last long, since Raven is back in Philly in short order. But this did lead to a longtime friendship between ICP and Vampiro. Just last year Vamp and Violent J were involved in NWA75 together! Vamp went on tour with ICP for a while and played bass in a band that was (supposedly) going to sign with their Psychopathic Records label. Never happened.

i hate the overuse of the term "job". To me, "jobbing" always seemed like it should be reserved for squash matches. You, the "jobber", are there solely to make the other wrestler look good. Whether that be taking a short brutal demolishing by Kevin Sullivan or the Steiners, or getting a small shine/comeback segment makes no difference. You are faceless and nobody cares about you. [sorry, longterm enhancement talent!] If it's two wrestlers on an equal booking level, and they have a competitive match, one didn't "job" to the other. i can't stand it when people use it as a stand-in for losing. You wouldn't say the Rock jobbed to Steve Austin at WrestleMania 15. He lost, but they told a story and it was competitive. and that also applies to two people feuding over the TV or European titles. They're wrestling at their level. You win some, you lose some. that's not "jobbing", that's playing your part in telling a story. (hopefully) people care about you. Now, take that same European title challenger and place him against Austin, and you may be able to make that case. But it's dependent on the match itself, and the story told within. LOSING =/= JOBBING

i preordered this the day it was announced. It showed up over the weekend when i was out of town. got a couple games in queue before i get to it. But i loved NES Remix on the WIi-U, so i'm thinking this will hit all of my nostalgia warm fuzzies too.

then nobody would be able to rise in the ranks and "graduate" to the top tiers. likewise, none of the main guys would agree to be "demoted" to the middle class. if somebody like Benoit or Booker T would have happened to break through, how much would the "main event booker" have resented that? would they revamp their character or have them lose a bunch just to 'put them in their place'? i don't think it's necessarily a bad idea, but does come with its own set of issues.

i think the Jake Roberts/Martel Blindfold match is great. they have the crowd going apeshit and eating out of the palms of their hands. The crowd reactions alone add an aura that no other blindfold match i've seen can live up to.

as hard as it may be to believe, the Giant never had a theme song in WCW. He started with the Dungeon of Doom, left them to join the nWo, and when he left just.....never got a theme. even reading these reviews (and even as a non-fan such as myself), the lack of Goldberg is noticable. He must be filming a movie or something? is this when he was gone for Universal Soldier 4? i never watched that. i think i only saw the original. Was this one any good?