General

gosh darn, after last night, the Forbidden Door card looks like it'll be the best money I'll have spent on pro wrestling in quite some time ($20, thanks VPN).

1. IWGP US Title: Kenny Omega (c) vs. Will Ospreay
2. Bryan Danielson vs. Kazuchika Okada
3. AEW World Title: MJF (c) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi
4. IWGP World Heavyweight Title: Sanada (c) vs. Jungle Boy Jack Perry
5. Men's Owen Hart Cup First Round: CM Punk vs. Satoshi Kojima
6. Blackpool Combat Club (Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, Wheeler Yuta), Konosuke Takecrapa & Shota Umino vs. The Elite (Hangman Page, Nick Jackson, Matt Jackson), Eddie Kingston & Tomohiro Ishii
7. AEW International Title Four-Way: Orange Cassidy (c) vs. Zack Sabre Jr vs. Daniel Garcia vs. Katsuyori Shibata
8. AEW Women's World Title: Toni Storm (c) vs. Willow Nightingale
9. Sting, Darby Allin & ??? vs. Chris Jericho, Sammy Guevara & Minoru Suzuki
10. Women's Owen Hart Cup First Round (pre-show): Athena vs. Billie Starkz

That's an all-timer card right there. I could have maybe gone for splitting up some of the guys in the International title match... ZSJ is the NJPW TV champ and Shibata is the ROH Pure champ, so seeing those titles defended on the PPV would have been nice, but that match will absolutely be a banger regardless. Lack of Samoa Joe & Jay White/Bullet Club Gold is a little disappointing, but we still have Collision on Saturday so maybe they'll be added in somewhere. I'd love to see Tetsuya Naito thrown on the card somewhere too but I doubt that'll happen, and I expect Shingo Takagi to be Sting & Darby's partner. Though, Naito COULD fit in there too, being a rival of Jericho and all.

Otherwise, they're doing a great job building to this show despite the fact that both companies have their own busy schedules on entirely different sides of the planet. It's also nice that the majority of the matches have either little stories, or full blown stories, which wasn't the case due to injuries last year. Pumped for this one.

Very excited for Forbidden Door. They found ways to get womens matches on there, which is dope. I'll have to watch it the next day though, I'm taking my daughter to a kpop concert Sunday night LOL. Bummer to miss the card (esp Omega/Ospreay 2) but the concert with kiddo will be absolutely worth it

If I watch it, it’ll be after it’s over. I’ll find a stream of it somewhere.

Dynamite was decent. I thought there was way too much happening all the time and nothing got much time to resonate. The wrestling wasn’t and never has been the problem, outside I think they do too much and they need to save the big stuff for PPV. I liked the opener, that was good. Surprised to see the Ass Boys win, but it was decent. I liked the concession stand brawl, but everyone that we thought would get involved did, and they wore disguises even though everything is legal? In AEW where just about everything is legal anyway? Not having the Elite on the show was a great move since they were in Chicago and I’m done with the Bucks anyway. They can disappear and I’d be cool with that. I still hate the whole enemies as partners thing WWE used to love to do, and it’s not any better here. Adam Cole and MJF haven’t done a damn thing to build each other or themselves up, so when one wins it doesn’t matter. Either a steroid guy beat up a skinny goof who gets hurt all the time, or the skinny goof beat a roided up meathead that he outsmarted along the way. Way to build it up. Liked Taya and Kris, but not sure how Kris is a baby face since she stole the TNT title from Jade in a Wrestlemania 9 carbon copy. The end segment rolled along nicely, though Wheeler Yuta is basically an interest killer. I have no desire to see him. I’m also a little surprised Moxley didn’t bleed somewhere in there. The Jericho and Sting story was nice, and I liked that six man tag match too.

Decent show, need to tighten up storylines.

I disagree with so, so much of that lol, but such is life.

I DO agree the episode was just alright though.

I'll likely try and catch a stream of Forbidden Door. For some reason I thought it was on Saturday night and I was going to miss it because I'll be at a concert.

I apparently need to watch Andrade vs. Matthews again. Everyone is saying it’s great and I didn’t care for it. Might be a me thing. I may have been distracted. I’ll give it another shot if it’s on demand on Sling.

Edit: the match was much better than my initial opinion of it. I was wrong. I can admit that. Sucks Sling doesn’t do the Picture in Picture thing and they just show ads instead.

I thought it was pretty great but I wasn’t blown away or anything.

I’d recommend you give the MJF vs Danielson Iron Man Match from Revolution 2023 a go sometime though. It’s one of my favorite Iron Man matches.

https://www.tokyvideo.com/video/bryan-danielson-vs...

I went to the OKC Pop Culture Con today. Met the wrestlers I wanted to meet. Scott Steiner, Hacksaw Jim Duggan and the Godfather among others. Then I met this guy…

https://youtube.com/shorts/9hMLHW9uJqg?feature=sha...

Lol that rules, is that you with the gorgeous shirt?

Also NAITO is Sting and Darby’s partner at Forbidden Door. Hype level just got even higher than I thought possible.

Yes that’s me with the gorgeous shirt haha. That’s what made Ron want to do that video. I was wholeheartedly for it too, it was great! Thank you for noticing! Got it at RSVLTS.com.

Probably way off, but here are my predictions for tonight.

image

I should care about Forbidden Door. The card looks stacked. I couldn’t care less, though. None of it interests me. I think I watched way too much wrestling this week. I watched RAW, Dynamite, Smackdown and was in and out of Collision. I did also go to the con this weekend, so I’m probably burned out for the moment.

Also. Somehow, my video has like 1400 views. I have no idea how that happened lol.

Lol the Simmons effect

But yah I dunno, I’m pumped up for Forbidden Door personally. After last year, this is one of the shows I’ve been looking forward to all year. Sorta stinks that it’s on a Sunday night though, would’ve been nice to have a few pals over to watch.

That might be for the best for a show quality standpoint. I hope Adam Cole is OK. It’ll give some other matches extra time, though.

Yah that’s a shame, I especially feel for Lawlor who’s real good, but it’ll probably help the overall quality. Still 13 matches. Also hope Cole is ok, dude catches the worst luck when it comes to Forbidden Door.

Danielson enters to “The Final Countdown” for the first time since like 2008/09. Let’s fuucking go.

Forbidden Door:

MJF/Tanahashi: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️.25
Punk/Kojima: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ .75
OC/Shibata/Garcia/ZSJ: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Sanada/Perry: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️.5
Team BCC/Team Elite: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️.5
Willow/Storm: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Ospreay/Omega: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
JAS/Allin&Sting&Naito: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Danielson/Okada: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️.25

Overall: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️.5

I didn't get to see all of it but what I did see was good. Stream kept getting taken down (which I expected, but just hit refresh and a new one is up in about a minute) but Sunday nights are game time with my friend, so I knew I wouldn't get to see it all regardless.

I still have not heard anything about when the review embargo is up for the AEW game but I expect it to be tomorrow. Since I ended up not buying any merch at the Weezer concert (it was my first concert in a few years and wow merch is more expensive than I remembered, I don't recall a simple band t-shirt being $40 before) I might get in a last minute pre-order.

@PizzaTheHutt I saw a review on YouTube... but it was clearly an AI-generated voice reading the script so I have a feeling the person who posted it probably isn't any top tier gaming outlet or anything.

That said, it was clear that this person really did have the game and apparently really enjoys it, so that's cool. I guess the "Road to the Elite" mode is a standout, with branching stories depending on your wins and losses.

Alright, screw it. I just went and pre-ordered it from Best Buy. I'm hoping I will get it by release date, but from my past experiences usually I had to have placed the pre-order at least a week in advance to receive it on release date. Best Buy gave me two options for shipping. I can choose free shipping and get it by Thursday, or I can pay $7.98...and also get it by Thursday.

I still have Wrestling Empire and RetroMania on Switch unplayed, and Fire Pro on PS4 and Steam also unplayed, and still need to play through the second half of the original story modes in WWE 2K23. I'll at least do that last one before starting AEW, the rest can wait like they already have been.

A data miner has been going through the files in the AEW game and found a whole mode that THQ has so far never bothered to mention.

"Stadium Stampede is a 30-player, online Battle Royale mode. This is what the Battle Pass is for.
Loadouts, chests, VEHICLES (horse! golf cart!), shrinking circle, the WHOLE NINE YARDS.
Absolutely baffling why THQ hasnt revealed it."

It's likely coming in a post-launch update. The copies sent to reviewers don't have access to the mode, there's only mentions of it in the code.

Apparently Vince is all over Raw, but not in attendance. Guess who just freed up 3 hours.

@PizzaTheHutt That sounds pretty badass tbh. I know folks saw the option on a menu while Evil Uno was streaming the game, but I just figured it was a match type in the stadium. The party game aspect of it sounds really cool.

BucketofJustice wrote:

Lol ugh. I’ll still throw it on for background noise but Smackdown got Vinced and it was preeeetty rough.

I wonder if that’s just half an hour of Undertaker saying he thought Mick was dead, and Mick saying he can’t remember the match. Man that match was brutal.

BucketofJustice wrote:

Watched it yesterday and, yep, it's pretty much that haha

I'm on the fence about cancelling my Fight Forever Amazon pre-order and just buying it digitally. I do enjoy having physical cases for my games, but at the same time I enjoy having games loaded directly onto my Switch if I'm going to be playing them consistently for a long time. Fight Forever seems like it'll definitely be a "pick up and play whenever bored" type game, especially with that Stadium Stampede mode, so I may just want it downloaded to my Switch for convenience.

That and the Amazon pre-order hasn't shipped yet despite the release date being tomorrow, and says it won't be here until Friday.

Also, I've read a few reviews for the game, namely Game Informer and IGN. The reception has been lukewarm. Across the board, the gameplay is apparently very fun and nails the arcade style that the game goes for. So that's cool, and really the most important factor for me, but there are apparently some major issues with other modes.

I guess Road to the Elite consists mainly of goofy angles with no real meat to them, and only lasts 4 months (which is admittedly alright for a mode that stresses replayability). I also read that if you play the mode as a female wrestler, the women-centric angles only last a month and then it just switches to male opponents as if Yuke's got bored of writing a unique story for the women's division. That's fairly lame.

The creation suite is also apparently as barebones as has been reported. While there are a ton of moves and animations for existing wrestlers, there's no face-sculpting, so that alone will severely limit who can be made in the game regardless of the moves/animations. I guess you also can't create custom designs for the limited gear selection either.

That said, I'm still fairly excited for the game. If the gameplay is fun enough, I imagine I'll get my money's worth what with all the match types and whatnot. And apparently the mini-games are a welcome addition. Plus, if they really do intend to patch this game consistently instead of focus on annual releases, I imagine at least some of these issues will be mended in future updates.

Got 20 min with it before I left for my flight to Japan. Played a singles offline and singles online. The game plays exactly like the N64 games. They need to clean up the hit detection for punches and kicks a little, but other than that it’s pretty smooth

Not shockingly for a just released game, online is gonna need some stabilization. Match was a bit glitchy at first but steadied out. That is until we we got frozen in a grapple which lasted for about 2 min. Eventually he broke away but couldn’t grapple me as my character was still convulsing. Ended up having to quit the match. Hopefully they release a couple of patches while I’m away.

Pretty glad I didn’t preorder. Not saying I might not pick it up at some point on sale when it gets some patches, but this isn’t worth the initial price. They didn’t hardly speak about the mini games on the IGN review, and what was discussed and shown didn’t look great. This is more or less exactly what I thought it would be: a decent start that needs some sequels to flesh it out. I hope it gets better and sells well enough to warrant a sequel, but what I saw in that review isn’t worth full price.

To be fair, lots of YouTubers who got review copies are loving it, claiming the actual wrestling gameplay is about as good as it gets when it comes to that arcade style.

There are no planned sequels, they said a bunch of times that they’d just be updating this game for a while yet. Which is way better imo, assuming they iron out the kinks and add more content to the CAW/new modes/more match types. All easily doable via updates.

Nothing I’ve seen/read has me feeling like I’ll be disappointed overall, so I’ll still be buying it tonight on Switch. Last time I trusted IGN with a review was like a decade ago, and Game Informer even longer than that lol

For example, this YouTuber (who devotes a ton of time to wrestling game retrospectives and whatnot) seems to really love it. He also mentions how the Road to the Elite mode straight up incorporates the fact that you’re playing as a woman/participating in intergender matches into the narrative, which makes IGNs review come off fairly hyperbolic.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VKJmfoK54jg

That channel has a bunch of great videos I recommend giving a go.

Giant Bomb is playing it live right now. I'm not watching because I'll just play it myself since it's already paid for. "It's fine but maybe a little overpriced" was a line I heard when I first opened the stream. Then they're mocking Jim Ross because he sounds like he's either bored or half asleep when recording his lines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mIy2dGvvbQ

RGT85 showing specifically the Switch version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9Tl8O6lZ60

I know Ian at 616. He has good videos. I’m still waiting for a sale if I buy it at all.

OSW review is live now. This is my favorite wrestling related YouTube channel.
Right now they're just poking fun at some of the character models. Jericho lost a lot of weight but his in-game model is still the chubby version from 2021. Like the Giant Bomb group, they also crap on Jim Ross' voice over work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g_XTxMLJMw

Is this blind eliminator thing basically Battle Bowl from WCW spread out over time instead of done in one night? I always thought that was an underrated concept.

BucketofJustice wrote:

Yah pretty much, just without the actual "bowl" of it all. Randomly selected tag team pairings wrestle in a tournament with the winners getting a shot at FTR and the tag titles.

On one hand, I sorta wish they were just putting an emphasis on their already-stacked tag team division, but on the other hand, this is at least an interesting concept where little micro stories can be told within (Cole/MJF and Swerve/Lee for example).

Just played my first match on Fight Forever. Hangman vs. Andrade. gosh darn was that a fun time, the gameplay feels very tight (in the good way). It's nice to have an arcadey game like the old 90s games but with much more fluid gameplay, everything flows really well.

I'll note that there are very mild "hiccups" from time to time on the Switch version. Just little drops that don't really hinder the experience at all and that could easily be patched out, but they're definitely there.

Haven't gotten to play around with any of the other modes or anything yet but I can definitely see myself putting some serious time into the game, just playing exhibition matches and whatnot. If they implement some major changes in the updates (a better CAW mode, multi-man options for some of the match types, cage/blood and guts matches ,etc), I could easily see this placing in my top tier for wrestling games.