SirSmUgly

How about if every time someone types a dumb name to replace Braun Strowman's name, the computer framistan somehow instead takes a physical form that travels through the poster's router and murders the shit out of the poster who typed it so that s/he is as killed dead as this goddamned meme.

You're dead to me.

It comes out the day before Veteran's Day, which I have off. So...yeah, I'll just ignore this thread until some point late on Wednesday; then, I can start to read through it.

If you're gonna live in Idaho, you might as well just live in Spokane at this point, brah.

I feel like since it's Dia de los Muertes, someone should have started the thread with an appropriate lucha video. Not me, because I'll fuck it up and post something that doesn't capture the spirit (ha!) of the day, but you know, someone who knows lucha.

I'm not trying to target you Gregg, but I disagree. The superkick itself is so overused in the company that it comes off as a secondary signature move that will get a two-count for a large amount of its use. See Tyler Breeze as the perfect example of this. Everyone also slaps their things for tons of impact strikes, most of which only get twos because this company tends to indicate that the primary finisher is the only thing that will get three besides a roll-up. In fact, in big matches, sometimes the crowd has even been so conditioned that they won't really get up for the first finisher - see something like Cena/Rock II, where the crowd didn't even buy some of those first finishers because everyone knew that it was too early for the match to end. Anyway, I think that it's hard to pick on these two for doing what most of the wrestlers in this company do - slapping a thigh simply to indicate impact on a strike rather than that a big pinfall attempt is coming up or anything of that nature. Your criticism seems nitpicky and off-base, in this case, and again, I say this as someone who isn't a big fan of Gargano and Ciampa.

Yep. FirePro D is really good, too, and easy to navigate even if you don't know any Japanese. Speaking of, I have a sealed copy of FirePro Wrestling Returns that I need to get around to.

Late to the party, but I agree with Goodear that Malenko did have a character: wrestling savant. That's what made his matches with all those different style guys in '96-'97 so fun from a character standpoint: Could the wrestling savant figure out how to beat all these guys? Plus, he'd do a good job of acting frustrated when he lost or taking shortcuts sometimes when he felt like he wasn't able to solve the new style in time to save his belt. Sure, the matches themselves were basically moves exhibitions, but Malenko had a character there. I don't agree with Goodear that Ciampa and Gargano don't have characters. They're just young, flashy up-and-comers who, despite their tag team experience and impressive moves, are essentially underdogs to the more established NXT tag teams. That's why when they lose, but get their offense in, they will stay over, and eventually (assuming they get signed), they'll start to figure things out and begin winning more matches like most singles and tag wrestlers do on this show. No one seemed to be piling on anyone; there just seemed to be a pretty good discussion about this stuff here.

I'll pick some up when I swing buy to pick up my pre-ordered copy. WOOOOOOOO Fallout: NV is much better than Fallout 3 in a ton of ways including the inclusion of Hardcore Mode. Fallout 3 is still great, though, so there is no slight meant to it. And yes, Obsidian is great, even if their games are sometimes broken. Alpha Protocol and Pillars of Eternity = great as well. I give them a pass on KotOR 2 and NV since their publishers both screwed them on dev time (Bethesda being especially evil since they did it to undercut Obsidian so that they could acquire them on the cheap).

If I'm reading you right, I have to disagree. It's actually the working to the cameras, especially the hard camera, that comes off as inorganic. Take Emma and Dana Brooke spamming poses to the hard camera like someone trying to build up three finishers on WWE 2K. Working to the crowd is an admirable trait, actually, which is part of why Gable is already so good. After that mat sequence that everyone loved, he popped the crowd facing away from the hard camera simply by grinning at them slyly, playing directly to them, not by being aware of where he was on camera. The stuff like when people flip around to face the hard camera before going for a pin or do their same little entrance into the same cameras every time is what seems inorganic. Ciampa and Gargano just seem like they're working a style that I don't really rate more than they seem inorganic, at least IMO. Gable is so good because he elevates himself beyond the limits of WWE-style work explicitly for the TV audience, again IMO.

Gable's so smooth, damn. It looks like he does those mat sequences with absolutely no effort at all. Plus he did a really nice judo throw as a counter, which was only my fourth favorite thing that he did all match. Jordan is great too, but I want him to do more throws and suplexes because he looks really imposing and powerful when he goes into that kind of offense.

Technical question: I'm taking a flight in a couple of days and wanted to download some back podcasts for this show and a couple others on PTBN directly to my phone. Some of them have direct download links, but others only link to a SoundCloud streaming audio file, which I can't play in my shitty, no-wi-fi-having coach section. Is there a link to an archive that has direct download links for all of the shows that PWO does for PTBN? I looked around on my phone, but I certainly could have missed it. Thanks for the help in advance if anyone knows the answer.

Can you believe that some people actually complain about this? People (well, the Wreddit types) complain about "too many squash matches" on NXT television. If you can't get hyped for someone busting out a bunch of awesome offense on a hapless jobber, you may secretly actually hate pro wrestling.

I hope it's okay to post about today's show in here since there's no separate thread for it that I could see. Emma beating the shit out of that jobber was full-on awesome. Ciampa and Gargano are still too cutesy, which I thought was true of each guy's work pre-NXT as well when I caught ROH shows or whatever else they were on. The match itself was sort of about cute spots sometimes, but even though that's not my personal taste, it worked big time for the crowd. Gable makes even the contrived stuff look so good and seem so fun that it almost doesn't matter. Gable and Jordan are my favorite tag team in the company, no small praise from me in today's company. Nia Jax is trying stuff out from her attire to her moves. Some of it looks not that great, some of it (like that legdrop) looks good. It will be fun to watch her develop. Bye bye Tyler Breeze. This feels kinda like when I see a college basketball player I really enjoy watching play his last game knowing that I won't see him ever play again since I don't watch the NBA. Tyler Breeze = James Harden or Stephen Curry or, if those first two don't work for you, Trey Burke, at least in my household. Well, I guess I do have PPV at the very least (or for Breeze, PPV pre-shows more than likely). The match was good. Rookie move turning your back to Joe, Breeze. Good finish. I enjoyed this show.

Third Strike is even better, even though I suck at all SFIII versions as evidenced by my reliance on Chun-Li. Might be the best game on the Dreamcast, though.

I believe they had Leo Burke on as a trainer as a sort of favor to Bret.

Watching through '97 and the Legion of Doom are so painfully out-of-place and dated in WWF, particularly that terribly '80s cartoonish look that they have. It's funny because when they were in WCW in '95-'96 for a cup of coffee, even then they fit in just fine. The changes in how Nitro and RAW were presented in just over twelve months are incredible if you look at it through the lens of the Road Warriors, who so quickly and suddenly look old and goofy instead of like badasses.

I skipped '15, but I'm thinking that I'll get '16 after reading this thread. You guys make this game sound like it's got good sim-style action. These games ALWAYS go on sale at Amazon on Black Friday, so I'll just watch for it to come up and order it then.

I like Bray throwing stiff strikes. I think he's definitely progressed since he had to be carried as a singles competitor. He's actually solid when on top because he has solid, hard-hitting offense. I actually hate him in plundah matches because it gets in the way. It seems like he should be a good worker in that environment, but he's actually pretty awful in it and works better in shorter, violent matches built around striking and the babyface firing up after being beaten down.

I thought Hardwork Bobby Walker pitched the Stang character. ...nope, just looked it up, it was Hardbody Harrison. Not a terrible idea, but it was really a better idea for Darren Young to play John Cena's arch-nemesis, Black John Cena (and that's how I would have named him, too).

I personally prefer the idea/fantasy booking of a Savage WWF return in 1997, but Vince McMahon so undervalued Savage as a performer that it probably would have sucked.

Was this the contract he scored by leveraging a return to WWF as it began to heat up? In an ideal world, someone over at WCW could called his bluff as WWF had already blown past them with Austin on top by the time he signed this deal and WCW had DDP and Goldberg coming up as guys who could probably carry the company along with Sting and Flair.

I just re-read Bret's book and came here for Karl Moffat. He was an alright worker from the little I've seen here.

Maybe ADR has a Rhyno-style deal or the type of deal that Joe was initially reported to have? Probably not because I don't think he goes over Cena like that if he does, but it might be possible.

So has anyone found out the deal with this ADR return to WWE and how pissed AAA must be yet? I haven't read anything substantial about it, but I thought that maybe someone else here has.