A.M.B.

Just beat Dark Souls 3. So now since January 1st I’ve done Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Demon’s Souls, Jedi Force Order (Soulslike I guess), and now DS3. It definitely has better combat than the originals, but not as fun as Bloodborne. Especially without Bloodborne’s rally system I never see a need to parry and risk the consequences. It’s partly that I got güd and partly that I know how to make an OP build, but this was definitely the easiest of these games to beat. One shotted many of the bosses and nothing besides the Nameless King took more than 5 tries. Level design also reminds me Bloodborne, much bigger and individualized spaces compared to DS1, but less interconnected, even more so than BB. I love how many different play styles there are tho, will definitely have to go back and try a magic based character. Picked up Sekiro on sale afterward and have enjoyed the first few hours, tho I still have to internalize the mechanics more. But then the other day I started playing Dark Souls on my switch just to try fucking around with a Pyromancer build and am now fully sucked in again. It just never gets old.

I played Advance Wars a little when I was younger and really want to play it again, but it’s kind of hitting me how tired I am of Nintendo’s remake formula and how costly they are. World Ends with You is another I want to play but don’t want to spend 60 bucks on. SMT3 just came out and is also 50 bucks. They’re never on sale, whereas I have a giant backlog of PS4 games I find on sale for dirt cheap. You get a few minor graphical updates for a major price update. And I really dislike the graphics, which just drives me to the originals even more. It reminds me of Pokémon how when they went to 3D it felt like it sucked all the charm out of the design. It really just encourages me to pirate, I wish they would put GBA and DS games on virtual console a lot more frequently, because the second hand price is so insanely inflated. I’ll probably end up buying a customized backlit GBA and flash cart soon.

As someone who wrote an essay a few pages back on discovering the Souls series and how I was miffed I had been lead to believe for 10 years that they were just “hard for the sake of hard” games, I must come to defend FromSoft’s honor. Though they will punish carelessness, they are not hard for the sake of hard, are almost always fair and often have an easy way out of tough spots you can discover, and are not even that bad at all if you use a walkthrough. A lot of the Souls-like games even have difficulty settings.

Yeah, these are my feelings. People are acting like the bump is mandatory. You can just do something else entirely if you’re not willing to do a table bump or what have you. These kind of spots are supposed to invoke fear and worry for the well being of the wrestler, instead I just find myself rolling my eyes every time. I’d rather see a legitimate bump off a cage through a table once every 4 or so years rather than the constant big bump into crash pad we get seemingly every month.

Reading some of this thread has reminded me I need to give DQ11 another try. For some reason I have never been able to get into the series like I have with the FF series and other RPGs. I thought 11 would be the perfect start, but petty as it may sound, after a few hours in the overworld I found the music really lacking, with short loops that started to drive me crazy and I just gave up on it. Apparently they changed that in the Switch version, so I wonder if I’d like it more now, as the Switch’s pick up and play style lends itself more to long JRPGs. Part of me would rather just play Octopath Traveller first though, it seems much more pleasing to me aesthetically. Just beat the RE2 Remake, at least Leon’s scenario, and I enjoyed it, but found it underwhelming in some ways. As I said in a previous post, I feel like the Soulsborne binge I’ve been on has really warped my sensibilities and now every boss fight feels underwhelming in other games. I also personally hate the chase mechanic of the tyrant, it made the game stressful in a way I don’t enjoy. It is survival horror after all, so I totally get why people would like it tho. And just like RE7, I was so obsessed with conserving resources and was left with so much extra by the end I wish I had played the game less conservatively. Especially in the police station where save points are so close together and healing items are limited, I found myself reloading my saves and redoing a part to save on a little damage so often that it took me out of the experience. But overall I had fun. It left me wanting to play the original RE and RE2 tho. Those games are perfectly imperfect to me. I never completed 3, as it had the Nemesis chase mechanic, which again I hate, but I’ll give the remake a shot soon as well.

Not surprising that a man that preaches the importance of good hygiene, cleaning your room and having proper posture would make a good villain to Marvel fans.

I recently discovered the Dark Souls series and went to type out some thoughts and it quickly turned into an essay. Spoilered for size.

Now that’s a HOT TAKE I do feel like the quality of strikes has gone down a lot in the last 10-15 years and that switching the camera is kind of necessary many times given the giant whiffs on a lot of kicks and punches, but god damn do I get nauseous watching the camera work

Man I love watching UFC on the actual fight night, but when it comes to hype it’s just so hard for me to get invested until weigh ins are complete. Jones/Ngannou is certainly exciting, but at this point I’m expecting them to book Francis vs. Lewis in the summer, and Lewis could very easily win that and squander all the big money fights.

(Hopefully this hasn’t been done before) I’ll start with... -Kenny Omega was never the best in the world (if you choose to believe that) based on his talent, he was simply in the best spot to be the best when he was in New Japan. Any of the top 20 (hell maybe 50) wrestlers in the world could be the best if they were given the position and push he had. His acquired knowledge working in Japan/fluency in Japanese does help him greatly in getting that push, though, and he does deserve credit. Styles also had his best career run there. New Japan doesn’t burn out the crowd before their main events and saves the bigger near falls for them, the fans aren’t fickle or impatient and let the match properly build without “pick up the pace claps” every time there’s a hold applied, and they have the best talent pool for a top guy to work with. In general I wouldn’t say Japanese wrestling isn’t better, but the crowds (pre Covid) are, and that is maybe the most important aspect of a great match to me. -Jon Moxley is not a great wrestler at the moment. His best match since leaving WWE was against Ishii in New Japan (ties in to my first point) and besides that I’d actually say I’ve enjoyed his big matches from WWE more than his big matches from AEW. -Most modern shoot style comes off to me as pretentious and self indulgent, and usually borders on boring to awful. There’s a mindset of “this is how wrestling is SUPPOSED to be” and then the matches get like zero reaction from the crowd. Most of the matches on Bloodsport shows are really bad, though I did really like Suzuki/Barnett and Takeda/Gresham from that one show. -Modern TV wrestling (not just WWE) is way too reliant on promos, 90% of promos are boring or bad, and the amount of angles and non wrestling segments we see nowadays is way too much. -They always say it’s easier to be a heel than a baby face, I feel the opposite applies currently. -Cruiserweight Classic from 2016 was the best wrestling tournament ever. Maybe would have to rewatch some G1s to confirm here, but in terms of single elimination bracket, there’s no doubt. -Less steroids gives wrestling less mainstream appeal. -Shinsuke Nakamura never mailed it in or got lazy when he went to WWE like so many people claim, he was just older, working a ton of dates, stiffness doesn’t get over like it does in Japan, etc. He just adapted. A lot of his spots were more over in Japan so some of his stuff doesn’t resonate with the crowd as much and therefor comes off as underwhelming. I don’t think it’s for lack of effort. -90% of matches more than 20 minutes go too long

I just rewatched it to see if I missed anything and there’s not really anything there that breaks kayfabe at all. He said he’s a workhorse, Moxley realized how little he knew about wrestling when he got in the ring with him, and that he makes wrestlers level up. These kind of lines all have real sport parallel if you look at UFC, where people don’t realize how little they know till they grapple with Khabib, how a guy like Kamaru Usman is a workhorse, or how when facing a champ like GSP you level up. I mean when OSP faced Jon Jones they were talking about him getting the rub just by getting to experience what an elite fighter is like. It’s more a “rising tide lifts all ships” line rather than a “I’m gonna get you over” comment.

Second the Fire Thunder, also Thunder Fire! Psycho Driver was a good one, surprised no one has stolen it yet Pearl Harbor Splash would be bad, but for Jun Kasai it’s perfect Zandig’s MOTHER F’N BOMB is a guilty pleasure Everest German Suplex is great cause Takayama literally means tall mountain. basically a lot of Japanese moves. I don’t understand them but they sound good. D-Geist, Axe Bomber, Pumping Bomber, Ranhei, Sliding D, and plenty more.

Thank you for reminding me to rewatch this, my favorite women’s match ever. I tried my playing my drinking game doing 1 oz pours of Hamilton Jamaican Pot Still Blonde rum for every cliche I listed on the first page, and then after 2 in the opener I realized I’m fucking 30 now and I might be on pace for cirrhosis by 7 PM. Decided to call it quits and just watch the show later. Glad I did cause I think I would have been way too wasted to pay attention to the main event. Opener was bad, echoing what everyone is saying here. Cody has gotten progressively worse to me. Also didn’t really like the 10 man with the face teams fighting. I’m starting to worry with how much I agree with Cornette on some things, Marco Stunt especially is so god damn insufferable. MJF’s promo was probably the best one I’ve seen from him. Really liked this segment. Only minor nitpick, since I’m a wrestling fan and you know I gotta, is that I find the “The Something” names for stables played out. Just feels really unoriginal since 10 or so years ago. It’s always The North, The Dynasty, The Embassy, The Acclaimed, The Revival, The Way, etc. Reminds me of how every promotion now has to be one word like Evolve, Progress, Shimmer, and so on. Minor complaint, but it seems derivative to me (I know I know, what’s not derivative in wrestling). As someone who wasn’t excited for his debut, I found Christian’s promo really well delivered and made me remember how there are levels to this. Nothing crazy, but I felt like he could read my mind that I was skeptical and cut the fat and unnecessary dramatic pauses that I find cringey in so many interviews. Another Sting promo interrupted is unforgivable at this point. If I were still playing my drinking game that would be a double shot. At least Darby addressed the elephant in the room and is gonna get some defenses in. Fenix beating Angelico was the first segment that didn’t have an overt angle on the show, and I really wish they had just a few more of these. I’m not oblivious to the fact that you need angles to set up future bits, but sometimes the angle should be that this guy just won and is on his way to something greater. I would just keep Fenix building subtle momentum, have Darby beat all those established challengers, and have Fenix swoop in and beat him for the title. Can’t say much more about the main event that hasn’t been said, but I would go so far as to say it’s the best women’s match I’ve seen since Akira Hokuto vs. Meiko Satomura in 2001. Of course I’ve only seen a negligible amount of quality women’s wrestling since then (haven’t followed joshi in a decade), but the compliment still stands. I do wish AEW cut back on the juice, thumbtacks, and gimmick matches in general so that this felt more special, but I do think it was all fitting here. That finishing was absolutely brutal, no idea how Baker’s neck isn’t broken. Great stuff. Now please no intentional blood (and I say this as a BLOOD SUCKING FREAK) for like 6 months at least.

Happy St Patrick’s Day! Here’s the drinking game I’ll be playing tonight (feel free to add, I know there’s many more cliches) -Run in during or after match -Ref distraction -JR commenting on someone’s physique -Promo being interrupted -Heel rubbing their palms together -“you see” uttered in any promo -Canadian Destroyer -Lights go out -Jab at WWE -JR getting someone’s name wrong

If we’re going to town on wrestlers we think are overrated, I’ve always been amazed at the seemingly unanimous love of Pentagon. I haven’t seen a single original thing about him besides the little hand gesture he does while his opponent just stands there and takes it like a chump. It’s so drawn out I cringe every time. I’ll never forget that tag ladder match where he had a chance to grab the belts but opted to do his dumb hand gesture on the top of the ladder instead. I’m not sure I’ve seen a ladder match with less attempts to actually try and grab the belts. His move set is based around Canadian Destroyers, Package Piledrivers, apron bumps; it all feels so uninspired. So yeah, needless to say, him vs. Cody is the feud I’m most uninterested in now.

Song is Rising Force by Yngwie Malmsteen Yoshihito Sasaki appears to be a tamed, pudgy house husband at this point, looking nice and happy, with a forehead that looks like laffy taffy. He married a former idol and has a huge family with her, and they regularly update a YouTube channel about their daily life. Bit jarring to see one of the most violent wrestlers I've ever seen being such a jovial dude, but I'm happy for him that he doesn't appear brain dead and bitter. He recently did a review of his Wikipedia entry and confirmed or denied things. From what I can understand, he said he blew out his knee around 2013 and the surgery/rehab did not go well, to where he couldn't do basic in ring drills. He didn't renew his contract with Big Japan while he was injured, and then quietly left the business. He says he's not retired, since he didn't have a formal retirement match/ceremony, but it also doesn't seem likely he will ever do one.

I just found this old Big Japan video from around 10 years ago I thought I lost forever, and thought some people here would appreciate it. AKA the watch Yoshihito Sasaki bleed more than any deathmatch wrestler Music Video. Sadly there's many others I made that are gone forever. I stole the song from an old Michinoku Pro music video that I also sadly can't find.

Scorpio has done nothing to get me excited for him winning the title, but I will try and be open minded if he does. To me I’d be more bummed on the fact that Darby’s reign almost made me less into him. We went from Cody having awesome matches every week to Darby having (at least according to my poor memory) 2 defenses in 4 or so months, which didn’t really make him look like a fighting champion. I just want to see him wrestle and go crazy in the ring, but instead I’ve just been subjected to a bunch of vignettes and run ins of him, while Cody’s reign looks downright legendary in comparison. And another Sting segment, ugh. This one is actually kind of warranted, it’s just too bad I’m sick of them. This is the first Dynamite I can think of where I’m most looking forward to the women’s match.

Not seeing a blue background, though the text looks large. I forget this board can’t handle me pasting something from Notes on my iPhone, but I also am not seeing a way to edit it, if a mod wouldn’t mind assisting me.

One of the most poorly executed shows I’ve seen maybe ever. Part of me feels sorry for Kingston and Mox, but there’s so many bad ideas here that were consciously made that it’s hard to give the company a pass. It’s concerning to see people like Meltzer cover up how many mistakes were made and act like things would have been fine if the final explosion worked. Pre show match was alright. Ito’s mic was too loud and her singing bit came off a bit awkward as a result. Interference count at 1 already. Opener was my favorite match on the show. Could have gone a little shorter and the finish was anticlimactic, but I didn’t have any major complaints here. Interference from Wardlow, though pretty minor. Didn’t get on my nerves yet. Tag battle royal was a bad idea. It should have been a 4 team scramble or something. Finish was good but the body of the match was typical battle royal bs that is much more fitting for an episode of Dynamite or the pre-show, not a paid, special show. Interference count hits three for three here, is Marco Stunt even supposed to be a baby face at this point? This is what I mean about this company being too equitable. Everyone’s friends with each other and seemingly doesn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings by leaving them off the show. Please leave Marco off the show, and half these managers getting their shit in. Shida vs. Ryo went way too long for me. Ryo’s Kojima spot was embarrassing and makes Shida look like an idiot for selling. Excalibur trying to cover it up by saying she’s mocking Shida, but this was way too goofy for me. Biggest tournament they’ve ever done and a big effort to give credibility to the women’s division ends not with a definitive moment of celebration but instead with a heel beat down, and once again, let’s get everyone on the show. 4/4 for interference/fuckery now, at least if we’re including post match. Page/Hardy also was a good match for a Dynamite blow off. Ending bit was nice and conclusive, but with limited spots on a limited PPV schedule, I would have much rather seen a up and comer get this spot instead of Hardy. 5/5 for interference. Miro match was a fine Dynamite segment. Blood 3 matches before a big deathmatch seems like a bad idea. Another match with interference. At this point any hype I had for the remaining matches was gone, was really just hoping to not be completely let down. Christian was a terrible disappointment. Even if you do like him, this would have been better unannounced on Dynamite. Unnecessary hype created for another veteran who brings the company closer to TNA comparisons. Please stop. Ladder match was awful, they really need to stop doing these. They have devalued gimmick matches so much. MitB was a good idea back in the day, but at this stage a ladder match should never be for anything but a title. Also, fuck right off with the “brass ring” bit. Didn’t Khan say at the start they weren’t gonna take jabs at WWE, and that they would just focus on being the best version of AEW? Then don’t do cute shit like this. They keep trying to make Scorpio Sky work and so far I haven’t seen any reason why. I should be behind him since I’ve followed his career since 05 but especially after that commentary last week where he was cringe worthy levels of bland, he just doesn’t have the charisma to be a top guy. Debuting Ethan Page (ugh) in a ladder match was a bad idea, he should have been debuted in a singles match where he can talk after. I’m assuming his gimmick is similar to MJF, and I’m not excited but we’ll see. Interference from Jake was unnecessary. 100% interference rate at this point is driving me insane. Street Fight was terrible. The music was so corny, the commentary over it was a bad idea, Sting didn’t look good, more interference, just bad. I don’t like these matches and didn’t even care for the Boneyard match, but this was still worse than it should have been. Main event was eh. I actually appreciated the tension and build, liked little things like Moxley bringing a flask, Omega getting blinded, the rope break explosion, and the bumps were good but I thought the explosions looked awful, they weren’t even attached to the ropes. Surprised some people didn’t mind them, but this entire match would have been much better if there weren’t any explosions and they just did barbed wire. The underwhelming explosion from the landline made the insane bump off the apron come off as a disappointment, which is the last thing you want. And of course, gotta make it 9 for 9 with interference. The ending made me feel so bad for Kingston and leaves me wondering what the actual intended explosion was supposed to look like. I would call this show cursed, but bad luck has nothing to do with my problems here. It’s a series of bad decisions. There should never be this amount of interference on any show, let alone a PPV, let alone what they call their “Wrestlemania”. It’s already a problem on TV, and I do get that you need to have heels cheat sometimes, but this is inexcusable. Who are the agents okay’ing all these bits, and how is this not the lead? Fuck a pyrotechnic mishap, this company can’t do a single show without shoehorning in convoluted and downright outdated interference. He’s easy to pick on, but this company really needs a mind like Gabe Sapolsky behind it, who was always great at not overusing gimmick matches and getting the most out of them (like the ladder war and CZW feud) and made sure to not overuse fuck finishes. If this show was setup different it could have been so much better. Instead of the battle royal just do Jurassic Express vs. Death Triangle (you could add in Silver/Reynolds as a 3 way but risk it being a clusterfuck). Make the women’s match (and most of the matches) 5 minutes shorter. Instead of the ladder match just do a fatal 4 way. Miro’s match deserved a stip more than the ladder match to set it apart. I’m happy people like him but Sting can’t go. Let the young eat the old. Darby and Starks have great chemistry, I really just wanted to see more of that combo in a regular wrestling context. Main event could have had a better stip. Anyway, I really hope this company starts to reign a lot of this shit in, but it seems like a lot of fans don’t even notice it somehow. For me the product in the last 6 months or so has been tilted far more towards bad than good, but I’ll keep watching for now as I really don’t have anything else, unless I like shows without any crowd heat.

So either this match is going longer than 30 minutes on what’s likely gonna be a 4 hour show and their last death match already suffered from being too long, or there’s not gonna be a time bomb explosion. Damn, kind of a lose/lose here to me. I feel like the trauma involved with deathmatches necessitates shorter matches, and this kinda guarantees the nearfalls won’t be believable until 30 minutes in. I’m far from an Omega hater, but his first match with Moxley and the hardcore slog with Janela from the first Dark kind of temper my expectations here. I can only think of one deathmatch that went longer than 30 minutes I enjoyed and that was Takeda/Isami vs. Miyamoto/Sasaki from 2009. Rewatched that recently and it actually could have used some trimming down too. Kasai/Ito was also a 30 minute near-draw (even though it was a shoot 27 minutes) but they also had to fill some time.

It could be transcribed as Lyo or Ryo, the Japanese r is essentially in between those letters. I can forgive just saying Riyo, that’s close enough, but Riho is a completely different name.

I enjoy Mizunami, though some of her mannerisms (like the mime bit) are too over the top for me, but I don’t see the wider audience taking to her like they would with a lot of other Japanese talent. I’m thinking the ladder match mystery wrestler will be Mike Bailey. Excalibur randomly name dropped him a few weeks back and I’m starting to think that was intentional.

Last nights show did a great job in feeling like a build up and a blow off at the same time. Some of the past go home shows felt predictable or overly gimmicky to film bits for the hype videos, but this one held my attention the whole time. I think not having Shaq’s match on PPV was definitely for the best. The biggest problem with the show is still the pacing and production to me. I’m so sick of the entrance music with run ins (they always do this with Darby Allin) and then playing them off as soon as one small string of offense is hit. The lights out bit is also really overdone and especially with no crowds feels unnecessary. Really wish they would slow things down and let post match angles fade out just a few seconds longer; often times it feels like a hectic episode of Impact to me. Even on an episode like this that I really enjoyed, I’m always looking back in amazement at how many matches have some form of interference or post match beat down. I’d be really interested to see some statistics since Dynamite’s inception, but it seems like 75% of the matches have some variation of a manager interfering, a heel cheating behind the refs back, or someone getting beat down post match and chased off. It’s getting tiring fast.

Edit: Sorry for the large text, C&P’d this from notes on my iPhone. Too busy at work rn to change it, if a mod wants to thanks in advance. I enjoyed the show but am slightly conflicted in feeling like it was rushed and had way too much going on but also feeling like WWE shows are way too plodding, boring, and a chore to get through. Just like All Out weekend NXT has the best match but the shows feel too predictable and sterile. These two hours flew by and left me wanting more. But three out of four matches had post match beat downs and at times it reminded me of TNA Impact and how they always had to cram too much shit in. Plus the other two matches had heels going over as well. I would have taken the Nyla Rose bit out and let Riho’s title win sink in more but instead it just felt like they were overly committed to establishing bad guys. The Moxley interference lacked foresight as well. They didn’t even attempt to explain why there was no DQ. You could say something like the refs are free to give leeway as they see fit and have the Bucks pleas with Knox not to stop the match but to then not even attempt to explain it again reminded me of TNA when I use to (try to) watch. The Kevin Smith segment was unnecessary IMO and Pentagon and his stupid 0M bit makes me cringe as usual. Nothing will top him doing the 0M when Matt Jackson had his fingers on the title belt in the ladder match though. Peak stupidity. Tony Khan said they weren’t gonna try and fit every character in these shows and rotate people in but these bits felt a little shoehorned, especially when it felt like everyone was rushing their ring entrances to save TV time. SCU are fantastic tho so that helped at least. Nyla/Riho was probably MOTN for me but it’s really gonna hurt the quality of the matches when the crowds get more burnt out, as they really encourage matches to come off better than they are. Nyla is pretty hit or miss but her presence does add a lot to the face/heel dynamic. She definitely belongs but I chortled when Cody and Brandi said in an interview that Kenny recommended her as one of the best in the world and that none of them knew she was trans until she disclosed it. Yes, Mr 6 star match who’s a joshi connoisseur thinks she’s better than the hundreds of more proficient girls there are in Japan. And then when Cody on the conference call said the women’s battle royal was far superior to the men’s, “soft bigotry of low expectations” comes to mind. Also the Orange Cassidy kid made me pop. Somehow Cassidy and Jurassic Express are my favorite acts in a company that’s filled with elite level “pure” wrestlers and I can see them bringing in a lot of younger fans.