Firebreaker Chip

As much as that was the single most brutal one he ever hit, it had an an interesting dynamic because he'd never used it before so a lot of the crowd didn't immediately react to it as the scary deathblow it was Vividly remember watching it at the time and as the ref's hand hit 2 being like "oh holy shit that's the finish isn't it" I liked how over the preceding couple of weeks, Bryan sneaking out the win with a small package had almost booked itself as the 100% obvious finish, and that they then did a false finish off that and put him over 100% more decisively watching the Orton MITB cash-in still kind of bums me out restrospectively! Death to Money in the Bank imo

Smh at the Hardys having pyro for a no-touch run-in Also doing the run-in after the beatdown was over Liked Cesaro getting in a sneaky last stomp on the outside while the Hardys were looking away then doing a little excited happy saunter

A couple of Jinder's elbows and knees against Sami looked really reckless, is he just there to squish the brains of all the troublesome indie guys for Vince

Kevin Dunn's misogyny is becoming a real liability at this point

Ngl ever since the Takeover original I was hoping they'd do the Herald of Nakamura thing for his main roster debut A Miz feud does provide a lot of scope for arrogant Miz tirades getting deflated by an inscrutable one liner from Nak

That match was a time limit draw, Omega could still hold his head high

Did the crowd pop for Goldberg winning? I feel like even if I was favourably disposed to him I'd smell a bit of a rat at another ~1 minute main event that people paid money for

what the

The Cena/Nikki promo seemed designed to appeal to people's deranged relatives who post Facebook image memes about how terrible haters are I liked the "if I had stroke you think I'd be wrestling you at mania" zinger but the fact that he said he'd rather be wrestling Undertaker instead of the guy who's world champion right now was maddening

RevPro now have ZSJ vs KUSHIDA and an as yet unconfirmed Kenny Omega match for their 13/04 London show, which is close to selling out The Bucks are also announced so I guess it might be a 6 man

I like that when Ambrose grabbed Permanently Worried Ref's hand and told him not to cost him the title by disqualifying Miz, he had this look of intense deliberation like he was literally the first ref to have ever considered that it might be better that way Tommy Young sitting bolt upright in front of the TV going "oh...shit."

Great show. Punch aficionados: are Corbin's punches good? I like them but am relatively easily pleased I hope they recreate that End of Zig Zag spot in a four way match with a fourth guy on the end superkicking Ziggler

Has he reviewed Takeover or said if he's going to yet? I really kind of want him to do a minute by minute breakdown of Revival vs DIY while steam comes out of his ears

Yeah no kidding, AoP aren't stiffs at all. Their matches have obviously tended to follow particular formulas because of how they're being built up, but they've done everything they needed to really well. Their finisher looked a bit better in that match to me as well. Lowkey one of the better TV matches of the year imo Always weirds me out when I see them that they aren't in fact twins, or indeed brothers, or even the same the same ethnicity

Hero repeatedly punching Ishii in the forehead while everyone winces at the noises, man One of the rolling elbows looked particularly heinous too didn't realise how short Ishii was til I saw him at a merch table and he...wasn't taller than me

Game's settled down a bit with the patch, although there's still lots of stuff that's outstanding or has been newly broken by the patch Cautiously optimistic that the tweaks to universe mode do make it a lot funner to play through without constant micromanagement to correct stupid stuff. Struggling with the submission system a bit still; I got a tapout win with Chad Gable with a regular bow and arrow on Simon Gotch after a 20+ minute barn-burner elimination tag match, but when I tried switching to the purportedly improved button mash system I couldn't tap anybody no matter what. Had a couple of frustrating PPV matches where I couldn't tap near-death inferior opponents with Becky or Sasha with either system. With the default system, tapping L2 to boost and catch up helps, but if the AI icon changes direction it just feels like it becomes unresponsive and refuses to go in the direction you push no matter what. They could really do with having EA-style tutorials that let you practise this stuff repeatedly in canned scenarios. (Also just let me switch it off for pins and submissions and let the computer handle it all, the results are more realistic in the AI sims anyway cos they don't twitchily kick out at 1 all the time like I do) The matches are frequently pretty amazing, and the way the major reversals are now easier but become trickier as the match goes on seems pretty well-pitched to me. I had a mostly simmed Seth vs Roman rivalry where Seth won every match, so I played the PPV blowoff so that Roman could decisively crush him and keep his title, but after a massive match (including having to restart it because Seth tapped me with an ab stretch at about 4.5 snowflakes), I beat Seth senseless with a chair only to have him counter by slamming Roman onto it then busting him open with a superkick to win the title - when I checked his stats screen he'd won so many matches in a row he'd accumulated a ton of insane stat boosts and I now have a 103 OVR God-King spot monkey for a US champion Another thing is that there are a lot of properly incredible CAWs that look as good as in game models already; the TJ Perkins, Zack Sabre and TM61 edits I have from PS4 community creations are so fuckin good

Setting the entrance music as the menu music on the jukebox (in the brief window before turning it all off) has given me a chance to properly appreciate how hilariously awful Zack Ryder's newer entrance theme is Love that it's supposed to be all smug fake tanned guy admiring himself in the mirror in a narcissistic reverie but Downstait guy is all screaming "I LIKE THE THINGS I SEEEE" like a furious teenager, because he only has one setting Maybe they could redo Tyler Breeze's theme next, detuned guitars interlocking as dude bellows "PART MAN / ALL MODEL" in a way that subsequently necessitates throat surgery

Yeah, I might give my career guy a submission signature so I can always just hit a pinfall finisher after if needed. I probably have no business tapping Cesaro at 66 OVR at this point anyway, but it gets a bit annoying playing as Becky and Sasha against a jobber-level wrestler and having your matches run insanely long because your finisher never ends the match. There are lots of very neat looking subs added this year so hopefully it gets easier with practice Ugh, I also just had my game wiped because I downloaded a Bobby Roode with too many textures - back up your saves people

Do any of you know how to win by submission this year? Last year you could tap people out by rocking left and right, but this year you kind of catch up to their icon for a bit and then no matter what they just change direction and outpace me no matter what I hear the button mashing one is impossible if you're not turbofingered I wish they'd give an option to set pins and submission escapes to automatic, the AI vs AI matches with no meters reflect the progression of a real match far better most of the time and the meters look terrible and distracting anyway

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ww2wdyoFELc YEP

Not totally sure that releasing three weeks earlier than usual was a good idea, like it took them an 11gb day one patch just to get it to the point of extreme glitchiness it usually is with a late October release Just had a fatal 4 way match in a created Smackdown arena where it was at half speed throughout, and Tyler Breeze levitated for a bit, later manfully overcoming the tactically inconvenient elevation to pick up the win

It's kind of insanely annoying that they block you from downloading CAWs that contain moves or CAW parts from things on the disc that you haven't unlocked yet, and don't even tell you what you need to unlock to get it; I can't download the only Rhyno that actually looks like him on PS4 In the old days unlocking wrestlers on disc was kind of OK if they were bonus characters and there was a degree of fun in finding out they were in the game etc; for a 2016 game that heavily markets its roster in advance to then lock half of it behind a space-dollar paywall and constantly taunt you with the unavailability of content you already paid for is not a good look I'm not buying the unlock-all/attribute editor stuff until there's some DLC out that I want that it's packaged with game's good so far, though I had a ref dive backwards through both sets of ropes to make a count on the floor like he was doing a Sami Zayn DDT tribute spot or something

I like the sound of the improvements to Universe mode, the main stuff I wanted was promos, beatdowns and for it to be tidied up and made more logical and user friendly I spent so much time in previous games navigating tons of different menus to reactively edit contendership settings, change stats and finishers, get rid of downloaded New Japan CAWs there were turning up on Raw unannounced because I forgot to check what their brand was set to etc etc. Sometimes I would then not even play a match and do something else for a week I like that now you could properly write someone off TV for a month by having Owens do a post-match run in and powerbomb them on the apron etc etc. Seems like the promos are bit corny and video gamey and need a bit of scripting so that certain guys substitute in their own catchphrases instead of the generic shtick - Undertaker doesn't need to be cutting promos all like "I'm sick of being ignored round here! You're all ugly! Wehhhh!". Also Rock needs something that Ctrl+replaces "I" with "The Rock" (I did kind of love that on the outsidexbox video Andy had the option of cutting a relentlessly antagonistic heel promo then signing it off by saying "party downtown" though) Otherwise my main thing is wanting to know how many of the new tope rope major reversals there are. Both of the ones I saw put the victim on the mat with the reverser standing on the second rope - hopefully there are some that put them on the top rope, and I'm holding out faint hope for some rarely-seen mad shit like powerbombs and AAs off the top

Asuka can counter a kick into an ankle lock German suplex ❤

On the Keller show Austin sounded like he has finally lost any ability to feign enthusiasm for DraftKings and DDP yoga He was on like "Krusty having to talk to the audience" levels of profound spiritual despair as he went through the motions