General

@BucketofJustice Yeah, I just disagree entirely on literally everything you said other than they could have built up this match a little earlier. But yah, otherwise I just don't agree with you. But it's pointless to argue wrestling these days. All subjective, we all have what we dig and don't dig.

It's cool. We agree to disagree. No interest in arguing over wrestling again. If I want to see stupid crap like that I'll open up Twitter haha.

Lol yah, that website is what made me so adverse to arguing about this stuff. The ol’ graps are ultimately all for fun.

I agree with that. Nothing will suit everyone, but I'm glad there's so much of it out there. Also, there's always good in the bad stuff and bad in the good stuff. It's all perspective.

Pretty cool video. Rockstar wanted to make an ECW game, but they just needed to wait for Grand Theft Auto to take off because they knew it was gonna be a hit. Unfortunately ECW couldn't wait and Acclaim approached them and already had the money to offer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3S_JgpYFIk

Gonna have to watch that later.

Allegedly, Vince wants to return to WWE, thinking he got bad advice from people when the scandals came out and everything would've blown over if he stayed. I hope he stays the hell away. WWE has been so much better without him. Also, new allegations and a lawsuit from a returning allegation happened... so I hope his genetic jackhammer keeps him busy forever and he can't come back.

BucketofJustice wrote:

I just wrote about this! Saw yours and deleted mine lol....I agree VKM needs to stay away.

Vince McMahon coming back, even if he didn't undo all of the changes Triple H made for the better in his absence, just might be enough to get me to stop watching. The company's stock dropped just from that news yesterday, and it hadn't even been confirmed yet, that should be all it takes to tell you he's not wanted anymore.

Tony Khan is probably breathing a sigh of relief at that news.

Mandy Rose just made Santa's naughty list.

This has to be great news for Tony Khan. AEW has great matches, but crap booking and it's been that way for most of this year. Great matches is always a good thing, but if it was the most important thing then RoH would've been flourishing for years and wouldn't have been sold off twice and we wouldn't have had to suffer through Chris Jericho: the Ocho. Tony needs to delegate a little bit more, and not delegate to his EVPs.

If Vince returns, and I don't know the law or anything but the amount of stock he still has leads me to think he can do whatever he wants, that company is in so much hot water. I'd also imagine the SEC would also get all up in that ass about it as well.

Mandy Rose getting released is some bullcrap, if you ask me.

Allegedly Mandy had been asking for her release for a while and wants to get out of the business. She most likely took a significant pay cut when sent down to NXT last year because she was unwilling to get vaccinated when the company was allowed to start hitting the road again and I guess she thought this was an easy way to recover some of that.

Do I have someone blocked in here? Or am I just missing the context as to why Vince not returning to WWE would be a relief to Khan? Admittedly feel like I'm missing something, cause I feel like Khan would relish in the infamously out-of-touch McMahon returning to WWE.

Meanwhile, I am gonna touch on the "crap booking" criticism for a sec. Obviously not intended to be an argument, I just type too much. But to be fair, ROH didn't flourish because they never got the backing to allow for that. Sinclair Broadcasting did nothing with the brand, so brand awareness was bottom of the barrel. It was a mistake to sell to them back in 2011. There's a reason Khan promoting the brand on a legitimate TV network has resulted in the 3 most-watched/ordered and most-attended ROH shows in the company's history. They were never going to receive a legitimate TV deal based on that alone, but I just don't agree that their reliance on great wrestling is the reason it didn't reach its potential. AEW's ratings and buyrates have either grown or stayed steady over their few years on TV, and WBD have praised its performance several times - so they're in no trouble, and have only reached the level they're at based mostly on great matches as opposed to consistently spectacular booking. I only mention all that because I enjoyed Jericho's ROH title run and the various ROH segments that'd pop up on AEW TV. In fact, I have no idea why people are so adverse to it - if Khan had never bought the ROH brand, we'd still have the same roster, same matches, mostly same stories. The general wrestling style didn't change, so it really is just the fact that the three letters "ROH" appear on programming and I'm not entirely sure what the issue is there, but folks have criticized it so oh well. Either way, I don't feel there is any true way to measure the quality of Tony Khan's booking in any objective way unless they start hemorrhaging their audience as opposed to growing it - so I don't think he NEEDS to start delegating right now (but totally respect anyone who feels otherwise). I mean, I wouldn't MIND seeing him delegate to other bookers, but I also don't have any HUGE issues with his booking thus far so can't say I'd care either way. I at least appreciate that he either nixes or vastly changes angles that aren't connecting with audiences.

All that said, enough folks have been critical of 2022 AEW so I may be in the minority here, I just don't feel they're in "creatively bankrupt" territory or are in any danger of overall failure.

ANYHOW, I'd also be pretty shocked if McMahon returned to WWE and really, really, really hope that doesn't happen. WWE is still working its way out of what actually WAS a creatively bankrupt era and I'd hate to seem them dip back into it. Also Mandy Rose getting released for being naked on the internet is a little goofy. I mean, I get the reason they did it, but don't feel it should be a fire-able offense in the first place. If she wanted out of her contract, more power to her, but in a world where the Usos can drive drunk and still be awarded title after title, this seems like a silly reason to terminate somebody.

theJaw wrote:


No we meant if Vince did return to WWE, that would probably be good news to Tony.

Ahh gotcha, and yah I agree entirely.

This old debate again, WCW/nWo Revenge vs WWF No Mercy. Who ya got?
Personally I haven't played either in a long time, but I can't recall Revenge doing anything better than No Mercy, feature or gameplay-wise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yusGhCkQ6jc

Yea I think gameplay wise No Mercy wins hands down. It really comes down to what roster do you want to play with. I loved (love) them both. Such good memories with WCW vs NWO World Tour. I called around to every babbages/kaybe toys in the Charlotte area trying to find one in stock. Spent $85 on it and assuredly got my moneys worth with how much I played it.

Edit: really hope this AEW game lives up to my hype and brings back this classic wrestling gameplay style

I love both. I had more fun with friends when we played Revenge. No Mercy was a better game, in my opinion. Revenge will win for me now, and maybe later when my mood is different No Mercy may win.

I think AEW's game will be a decent foundation, but it won't be very good. Kind of like TNA had a solid foundation with their first game, and hopefully AEW will get to build on it where TNA was unable to.

I bought Billy Gunn shorts and a WWF lamp.

https://stashpages.us/products/ass-man-shorts-pink

https://stashpages.us/products/golden-era-acrylic-...

These are going to be awesome.

BucketofJustice wrote:

lol let's fudgein go.

Also: I played way more WCW/nWo Revenge as a kid than No Mercy for some reason. I was always a WWF kid back then, so maybe Revenge was just available at my local rental spot. But I love that game and for nostalgia purposes alone, I'd probably choose Revenge.

I remember very vividly thinking it was weird how up to date the game was for the time it was released. It released in October 1998 (yep, I googled it) and it had the Wolfpac and Sting had the red and black and they had Wolfpac gear for Macho Man and I think Goldberg was even the World Champion.

WWF War zone had guys in it that weren't there for like 8 months before it came out. Apparently Acclaim devs fought to keep them in when WWF wanted them out (for obvious reasons). That game was great for its time, but everything they did from Attitude to Legends of Wrestling was bad. I really... really... really wanted that series to work. Those games all felt like a good foundation for something grander, but never got to realize 1% of that potential.

That Jamie Hayter vs Hikaru Shida main event on Dynamite was fudging awesome.

Tonight’s Dynamite delivered such a fun gosh darn night of wrestling.

Guess AEW is doing their first show here in Seattle next week. Want to go but kids don’t get out of school till 3:40 and the show starts at 4pm, assume to hit the east coast live at 7

East Coast should be 8PM air time. You're probably getting a bunch of Dark or Elevation matches first then. Have fun if you go!

Ah yea that makes sense.

RIP Don West

I soured on No Mercy because I had one of the glitched carts that deleted your single player progress. It also have pretty bad slowdown in some instances.

Howdy i'm back

Anyway All im going to say i been watching wwe nxt and aew occasionally.

Hopefully aj styles isnt out long with his injury

Don West will be missed

happy new year to all the wresting fans in here

WWE could not have presented a more boring episode of Raw if they actively tried. The opening promised a show that they didn’t deliver, instead opting for 2 filler matches that did nothing to progress the Bloodline story. The main event was a good match that ultimately resulted in a flat finish for the episode overall. Mia Yim was used as a scapegoat to protect the other ladies involved in that match. Alexa Bliss was OFF big time, and the Wyatt stuff is really, really bad.

This is not how I wanted the Triple H era to start, but my fingers are still crossed.

Taking Wednesday off for NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 17. On the East Coast, so I’ll need to nap after work on Tuesday so I can be up by 1:20 AM for the start of the show. Despite that, veeeeeey pumped to watch.

I'll probably try to download Wrestle Kingdom tomorrow. I don't want to have to sit at my PC all night, I'd be more than willing to subscribe to NJPW World if they'd finally put the freakin' app on Roku already.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

I guess it works real well on Xbox One’s browser if you have one. At least that’s what I’ve read.

I just have my laptop hooked up to my giant TV right now. Gonna have to hope my 2 1/2 nap that I woke up from at 8:30 is enough to suffice until the morning haha. No way I’m missing Ospreay/Omega live (unless I pass out and/or away).

Mercedes Mone (Sasha Banks) in NJPW. Ya love to see it!

It was flat for me. I thought her hair looked dumb as hell. I imagine the attention to detail was exquisite and props to whoever did it, but not for me.

Her hair was stupid looking, and the one move they did was a little rushed, but I’m more just excited for the possibilities it opens up. An actually good wrestler getting to actually wrestle without constraints is always good to see. I dunno if you watched it as it aired, but it was also just cool to see happen live. It was a legit moment. She got a huge pop when she entered, despite the WWE internet diehards who are downplaying it because the Japanese-speaking audience who were legit told to only cheer in 20-second spurts didn’t react belligerently for every single sentence of her promo like US fans would.

Anyhow, I doubt any match this year tops Omega/Ospreay. A near perfect match if I’ve ever seen one. And Okada/White was fantastic as well, especially the last 10 minutes or so. The last sequence was out of this world good.

Overall, even with the somewhat short matches in the undercard, Wrestle Kingdom set an extremely high bar for 2023.

I didn't watch live. I don't have New Japan World. I have enough streaming services as it is.

I hope the possibilities she has set the world on fire. It's always great to hear stuff like a good wrestler being able to wrestle without constraints like they have in WWE, but we'll have to wait and see what happens. It could be great, or it could flop.

Alls I need are good matches. That’s all I’m hoping for, and the landscape is huge.

If you ever feel like borrowing my NJPW World or ROH Honor Club login, let me know. You helped me get into this type of wrestling with our old ROH DVD trades haha. Totally down for sharing, and that goes for anyone else in the thread too. If yall feel like watching some good stuff, let me know.

Is it Monet or Money? Seems like no one knows.

I think it's Mone.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/vince-mcmahon-plots-r...

Vince planning to return to sell the company I guess, I don't have WSJ so i'm sorry for the paywall article

Apparently the FTC are looking to do away with non-compete clauses in contracts. I wonder if this will affect WWE/AEW too, or if they can just change the wording around to bypass it.

Fire Pro Wrestling World is on sale for $10 in the PlayStation Store. I bought it last night. I've owned it on Steam for years (since it was in Early Access) but haven't played it yet. I'm much more likely to play it on console (though I was hoping for a Switch port but I guess it's not happening).
https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP4774...

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

Never played these, do they have control schemes like the N64 games, the modern 2k games, or different than both? I've been waiting for more news on the AEW game but still haven't seen a solid release date yet.

Fire Pro is way different than other games. You can't just spam moves and whatnot, and it's not like the old 16-bit WWF games where you just need to wear an opponent out. The gameplay is molded around building an actually good MATCH, the way a wrestler would. So you need to start with "light" moves, and build to the bigger stuff and then finishers. It actually incorporates wrestling "psychology", which is real neat. I love that they grade matches afterwards.

Fire Pro World is a great game, but all FP games have a definite learning curve. Button mashers need not apply.

There's a heck of a learning curve with the strikes in particular, mostly due to its isometric viewpoint. It's still really good, but it'll take a bit to get there.

Vince coming back to sell it... I don't know. I can see him saying now that he's back in power, he doesn't need to sell it and he can make it the best it could ever be. He has shown that while he can be a good businessman, he can also be inept. Look at the DirecTV thing from a ways back, or how it came out that the last time TV rights came up that he got more money when he was removed from the negotiations. I can also see the FCC or SEC or whoever it was investigating the accusations last summer getting back up in their ass about everything. I guess we'll see what happens.

I have no faith in Vince McMahon in WWE and it’s ridiculous that he’s coming back.

What exactly are the details there? He’s straight up selling WWE? To who? What happens after the sale?

What I recall reading a few weeks ago, I think the intended plan is for NBC to end up eventually buying the company, but were waiting for Fox's deal with SmackDown to end in 2 more years so NBC can snatch it up and be home to all WWE programming.

From this tweet I just read it says "Vince said unless he has direct involvement as executive chairman of a strategic review, he won’t approve a sale or any media-rights deals"

Would his stock allow him to veto that kind of thing? I know he's majority owner and all, but would he have to approve since he doesn't "hold any power" in the current power structure?

There's way more questions than answers. This is just starting. This could really suck.

Edit: well nevermind me. He's already back on the board. I didn't think it would be that quick. Still, way more questions than answers.

Kinda weird that the company's stock dropped when the original rumor of Vince wanting to come back started making the rounds, but it went up 16% today now that he actually is back.

Real weird, considering the dude is out of his mind.

Ehh the market is fickle. Going down is a good time to buy, especially with talks of a sale that could increase revenue. Although with Vince in on it I’m sure it will be a cluster fudge. People think he is a great businessman, but he hasn’t really made great decisions since 05. The pandemic was a very good event for him, basically WWE was the only sports on tv and he was getting a lot of eyes on the product. But that was just situational.

Stephanie resigned
https://twitter.com/StephMcMahon/status/1612956533...

This totally needs to happen someday.
https://twitter.com/AndrewZarian/status/1612971271...

Haha but not RF Video. Fudge RF Video and fudge Rob Feinstein.

Yah fudge RF, ROH’s best decision was to separate from that creep.

Anyhow, Vince is back in charge. Think I’m done with WWE.
image

McMahon apparently literally just sold WWE to Saudi Arabia. RIP WWE.

I hope that's not true.

https://twitter.com/arielhelwani/status/1613173749...

It's still most likely an ongoing thing.

Yeah, it's just a report for now, but it seems like several legit sources believe it. But who knows? Fingers crossed that crap doesn't happen.

I know I'm not big into wrestling anymore myself, but i figured I'd let you guys know that a buddy of mine from High School I hung around with is now getting paid to present wrestling related articles and he's done a fair amount of interviews with professional and independants alike. Give him a look or maybe you've heard of him. His name is Bob Colling and he runs https://wrestlingrecaps.com/

RIP Jay Briscoe.

This sucks.

Looks like a car accident in Maryland. Totally sucks

100% cried. That fudging sucks so bad.

This still sucks. I cried some. Kind of emotional right now to be frank. I can’t explain why.

I’ve thought about Jay a lot for the past couple of days. Cool story… I met Jay and Mark in 2004. I went to the RoH show where AJ Styles became the Pure Wrestling champion. The Briscoes wrestled the Backseat Boyz for the RoH Tag Team titles. It was great! I met them after the show when they were leaving. It was just a quick deal but they were cool. I was grinning ear to ear.

I remember more about that trip now. It’s not important now. Jay Briscoe is important now.

https://www.givesendgo.com/campaign/grabwidget?url...

Yah I've been pretty much nonstop thinking about him and his family. Never got to meet him, but I was lucky enough to get to see him wrestle live five times.

Jay & Mark Briscoe vs. Kevin Steen & Steve Corino (ROH Tag Title Classic II - 2010)
Jay Briscoe vs. Roderick Strong vs. El Generico vs. Homicide (ROH Defy or Deny - 2011)
Jay & Mark Briscoe & Bully Ray vs. Dalton Castle & The Boys (ROH Best in the World - 2017)
Jay & Mark Briscoe vs. Jushin Thunder Liger & Flip Gordon (ROH/NJPW War of the Worlds Night 1 - 2018)
Jay & Mark Briscoe vs. FTR (ROH Death Before Dishonor - 2022)

Jay put his all into each of those matches (and really any match he was in), even when they weren't the marquee match of the night. I still can't believe I saw the dude face Jushin Liger, that's so surreal to me. I mean the match was just a low card match with no real story but still, how wild. And of course seeing the second match in the immediately-legendary trilogy vs. FTR will always stick with me. I'm happy that I got to experience that, probably the best match I've ever seen live (if not one of the best I've ever seen, period). Guy could work with legit anybody and get the most out of them.

Gonna miss him a lot, and miss The Briscoes as a tag team in general. Feel awful for Mark and the rest of his family.

Here's one of my favorite Jay Briscoe matches, coincidentally vs. Mark Briscoe at ROH Fifth Year Festival: Finale. Just about the only match I can think about that deserved the finish it got. Hearing the small smattering of disappointment transform to thunderous praise within seconds is great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28--GlSE9SA

Mark Briscoe vs. Jay Lethal signed for AEW Dynamite tomorrow. LET'S FUDGING GOOO.

Weird, Meltzer had just said earlier today that the network didn't want Mark Briscoe on TV.
Glad they changed their mind and saw it was unfair to keep him off of TV for comments he didn't make. I'll be tuning in for that match for sure.

Yah Meltzer is infamous for being right and wrong in equal parts haha. But it is possible Tony Khan just got the network to get the frig over it and change their minds. No reason Mark shouldn't be allowed to wrestle regardless.

About time WBD weren’t being butt-holes about it. Jay said something really, excessively dumb. He owned it, apologized, and by all accounts became better for it. That’s all anyone should be asked to do, and it shouldn’t have been held against him like it was ever since. I don’t know if I’ll be able to watch, but I’m super happy that it’s happening.

Raw XXX was terrible last night.

I’m sorry you feel that way. I felt pretty opposite, aside from the cage match jankiness.

It was a fine show. Some fun stuff. Some terrible crap. Was glad Imperium didn't get the Revival treatment and get beat down by elderly-DX, but also wish they won that 6 man match. The cage match stuff was fudging stupid, no excuses there. Bray Wyatt is not hitting at all the way I hoped he would have. Otherwise it was a normal Triple H-booked Raw - not much substance, not much to re-watch, but fun enough to pass time.

Kinda bored of DX using that "we're old" shtick again after just using it a few months ago.
I wonder why Hornswoggle isn't around for these little DX reuinions? That was by far the worst version of DX, but fans who are young adults now were kids/teens during that era and that's probably the version of DX they'd have nostalgia for.

lol (horn)Swoggle is a little sarcastic crap and I love him. He shows up on the Major Wrestling Figure Podcast shows with Matt Cardona and Brian Myers a lot. I'm sure he'd show up if WWE asked, but he also seems like he couldn't give less of a crap nowadays haha

Welp, that main event was about as sad as I expected it to be. Great showing by Mark Briscoe, can't imagine how hard it was to go out there tonight. Kudos to him and AEW, that was classy.

I just got Sling TV back and I had to DVR Dynamite since I wasn’t home. I watched one of the Jay Briscoe videos on YouTube and I was emotional, I’ll admit. Without spoilers, is it a good tribute show? Did they do right by Jay this week?