John E. Dynamite

I could go on about WayForward. They were a small company that did a lot of cheap licensed games, but they usually managed to do a better job than anybody expected (Wendy the Witch as a gravity-flip platformer? I love it.). They made Shantae at the tail end of the GBC's life cycle, so it barely sold but it was so out-of-nowhere great that it instantly became a major "hidden gem" and has been one of the most expensive and sought-after physical games for collectors. When the series got revived the Shantae sequel became the defining DSiWare game. It is a legitimately great game of no small historical significance. They did Ducktales: Remastered, Contra 4, the Boy and His Blob reboot, Aliens: Infestation on DS, Mummy: Demastered, the Advance Wars remakes, Migty Switch Force, they did this real neat RPG/horizontal shmup hybrid on GBA called Sigma Star Saga that I guess is getting a remake next year? Even a lot of their "bad" games are pretty interesting and worthwhile, like the GBC WWF beat em up and the Silent Hill dungeon crawler. They're also making a brand-new GBA game, they're finishing a half-completed Shantae game from back when and it looks great. No chance in hell it beats Good Boy Galaxy as the best brand new GBA game (masterpiece~) but I really hope those two games can kickstart a modern GBA scene.

Shades of when the Styles Clash was breaking people's necks. This is a perfect example of the "wrestlers instinctively tuck their necks" problem that has led to less front bumps and flapjacks/back body drops.

The announcement of the Trails in the Sky remake is a pretty big deal. Trails has become thee story-driven traditional JRPG series of the last 20 years (the worldbuilding is frankly ridiculous), but there's always been the issue of their accessibility and which game to start with first. Before this, Sky First Chapter was only available on PSP and Steam and it looks and plays like a 20 year old game. Trails of Cold Steel 1 (sixth game in the series) was Trails' commercial breakthrough and is a decent introduction, but it 1) isn't on Switch 2) pushes the anime cringe + bloat boundaries. The Crossbell games ARE on Switch and they're great but they outright spoil the Sky trilogy. Add that to the daunting length and sheer amount of lore, they aren't exactly the easiest sell. A full 3D version of the relatively approachable first game, apparently using the good old translation and likely having English VA is exactly what the series needs. And I gather that the newest-to-the-US Trails Through Daybreak is both real good and doesn't deal too much with the other games' plots, so hopefully a lot of Switch nerds go Daybreak -> Sky FC.

Rest In Half The Peace That I Have It says something about modern wrestling that Sid's work and character is so resoundingly fresh to watch in 2024. I don't know *exactly* what it says, but I don't watch Sid for coherence. Maybe it's that we don't have anybody that gigantic, crazy and loud anymore but Sid set a high bar.

I'm of the opinion that Ronda is a decently fascinating psychological study, and that the hate against her is disproportionate to her transgressions and deeply grounded in sexism. But I started following her back before she was a champ in Strikeforce, so approaching it from the MMA side makes the patterns easier to see. I never intended to be a Ronda defender, but things kept popping up. Somebody somewhere was dogging her promo abilities and quipped that she "must have a speech impediment or something". And then I looked it up and found out that she was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck and developed a speech impediment so severe that she couldn't complete a proper sentence until she was six. I remember somebody claiming that she had "daddy issues" because that's what we accuse all women we don't like of having, and then I looked up the circumstances around her family life and her biological father's accidental paralysis and eventual suicide. Even her transphobic comments of yesterdecade seem informed by her stories of being bullied for being a muscular child athlete and being called "Miss Man" by other kids, and all of the body image issues and eating disorders she talked about growing up with. And I'm not saying all of that makes her comments correct or makes her a wonderful human being, but it does paint a decently human portrait that can at least contextualize why she is the way she is. If you haven't seen it, this is a screenshot of Ronda's profile on a Pokemon Stadium 2 fansite from when she was 16 years old, very much using the cringey language of the 2003 internet. She's mentioned it in public discussion so it isn't some part of her past she's trying to keep buried. https://imgur.com/2AXpsSG And if that's our best snapshot of a pre-Olympics Ronda Rousey, then yeah, she seems like a 'normal' high school millennial geek girl. I think she had a really weird childhood as a judo prodigy, came out the other side of it not-so-well adjusted, and then wound up in the absolutely gross, amoral, alt-right clutches of MMA gym culture which led to her getting temporary Sandy Hook brain worms before shutting the hell up about it for eleven years. I think about the number of my favorite MMA fighters who have completely disappointed me as human beings and Ronda doesn't even come close to the top. That sport is not good for people. The toxicity she dealt with during the dying days of Vince's despotism probably doesn't come close.

There's a long held belief that JJ was born to be a babyface but circumstances broke the other way for him. It probably gets recommended a lot, but Jarrett vs. Angle No DQ from Genesis 2009 is the babyface blueprint for a universe of Jarrett matches we never got.

Chicky Starr vs Invader 3? Bill Dundee vs. Sweet Brown Sugar? I feel like I'm forgetting another decent scaffold match, maybe from ECW.

Let's be fair - the album is kind of better than it has any right to be. Not as competent as the John Cena album. Not as capivatingly absurd as the Terry Funk album. But certainly in the conversation.

Oh, just life is hell and my interests have slipped away from me. I can't post anymore, the words don't come, it's like I have some block and I can't make opinions happen if I'm not bitter and failing to be sober. Never my intent to become some bearer of negativity or seeker of conflict. I very much miss being able to sit down and watch a bunch of wrestling and talk about why it's good. I can't focus on it anymore, and I don't have anyone to watch it with. I'll stop trying to wear the asshole hat. It isn't me.

Maybe it was a metaphor for all the polls shifting to the left.

double edit: hey, this is only the second worst post i've ever made in a wrestling forum so, y'know, go about yr days

The undisputable third gender - Athletes. Fuck you Rick Steiner.

Nudo, Golpe, Castigo, Esquina, POR POQUITO, Ojo por Ojo, Diente por Diente... if Duolingo asks me what "sphinx" is in Spanish I'm gonna walk around feeling like Chente.

As much as we want to be bitter old tape traders who damn the Fed in all ways, there are some WWE signings that make way more sense. AEW has plenty of ex-ROH guys and other such 40+ lost generation indie talents - or more generally, too big of a roster to fit into 5 hours of weekly TV. The NIL jockesques in NXT gain way more from working with Shelley and Sabin than a roster who's for the most part already worked with them, MCMG have a small history with NXT and the TNA crossover stuff puts it over the top. AEW doesn't need any more workrate guys on the back end of their career who can produce more snowflakes than storylines.

Tony bad, click click click, I actually use Twitter, etc.

Mariah May is 25 years old, and yet the word is still somehow Psychobiddy.

Who needs the Hangman vs. Swerve payoff when a guy I like can win?

I always knew about the SMW Sullivan vs. Kanemura bloodletting but I'm just now discovering that the feud continued through the rest of 1993 in W*ING, complete with 2 Korakuen singles matches (well, really one and a half). It's just so cool there's more of it, half a world away. Their match from the "Dog in the Box" tour feels like a true, full sequel. I love it when wrestling loves me back.

Has anybody ever fishooked Tsuji to an extreme extent, to see how far that grin can really go? It would be a hell of a visual. Hope I get to see it at the Dome show main event

Ending every line in a verse with the same word and having the actual rhymes be the preceeding words has been common in rap music for over 30 years. This is beyond the "no one has ever heard of Bad Bunny" thing. The wrestling bubble is real and it weirds me out.

I do not shill for Ospreay, but. His willingness to sell his completely busted ability to use the Hidden Blade and have his head patted by the man about to murder him belied an understanding of how to put the champ over. And neither hammed too hard on it - "too" being a funny word in 2024 PPV main event wrestling criticism, but imagine the same spot happening in Shawn's NXT. IMAGINE IT.

Takeshita's scheduled for the G1 so my smark-ass brain knew he was a non-factor. New champ isn't gonna be off TV for a month, but those that book heard the reaction. Crowds are dying for him to actually win a belt.

edit: nah

Have I *ever* seen a better preshow? Granted I (and we) am the ideal viewer for whatever 500 hour AEW/NJPW/CMLL/STARDOM dream card they're planning here, but if Lucha Bros buddying it up with Mistico vs. TSUJI and the boys is the best thing I see all week that I'm just peachy. Momo-shiki.

I'm not going to say AEW "lives or dies" based around fan interest and opinion of the WWE product, but I think it's by far the biggest factor in their ebbs and flows - and I push that belief because it's the most boring answer. Unless Tony's negotiating hard for the sort of deal that beats RAW to streaming (even if it's older episodes and PPVs or maybe Rampage and/or Collision on MAX), I think the biggest factor to win back viewers would be the New Bloodline or the Wyatt 6 struggling to keep the momentum going. This last Mania season is the hottest the company has been in decades, it was an obvious peak. HHH is nearing the bookers-have-three-good-years-of-ideas zone that he already hit with NXT Black & Gold. Contrary to the above point, another long term factor could be the chance that RAW on Netflix doesn't work out. It would essentially be treating RAW as a serialized TV drama instead of a live sport, which might make viewers less likely to watch RAW live when they know they can just stream it later. Then they're avoiding spoilers, then they aren't engaging, then they get used to missing episodes. I don't think it's likely, but it's possible. All I know is that nobody on Earth has time for 12 hours of WWE & AEW TV content weekly, and if WWE puts out competent content they're going to have the edge over anybody.