FTR vs. BCG from this past Saturday’s AEW Collision was one of the best tag team matches I’ve watched in a long time. They went almost a full 60 minutes.
Last night I finally finished the second MyRise story in WWE 2k23. Those two storylines were my favorite parts of the game, there was some good writing in there and I feel like the game is worth at least a rental to play through them. Since I don't typically enjoy just plain old exhibition matches anymore and I don't play these games online at all (barely ever did even in the PS2 era when it was first added) and probably won't get around to trying the MyFaction or GM modes, I think I'm just done with the game. Not in a rush to start the AEW game yet so maybe I'll wait another week or two and try and finish up a couple other games I'm in the middle of.
> FTR vs. BCG from this past Saturday’s AEW Collision was one of the best tag team
> matches I’ve watched in a long time. They went almost a full 60 minutes.
Yah it was awesome. Between that match and their Final Battle match vs the Briscoes, FTR & 2 out of 3 fall matches seem to be a winning combo.
Blood and Guts tonight. Wish I could be there, it’s from Boston but the tickets were $100+ with fees. Still looking forward to it big time, gonna be good stuff. Ibushi’s the man.
gosh darn what a great episode of Dynamite. The main event was obviously wild and I loved the brutality of it, but even the first hour was super entertaining. New heel persona for Perry already works far better than his worn out Jungle Boy shtick, Daniel Garcia is worthy of a push imo, & anything Cole/MJF remains a highlight. Only true criticism is that the women’s division got the short end of the stick yet again, only receiving a 1 minute Britt Baker squash.
SmackDown was decent, though it's getting annoying how they're really missing the boat by not pulling the trigger right now on LA Knight, and then having Iyo job to Charlotte...ugh. It's like the future stars are right there in front of them just waiting for the guy in charge to finally realize it. I didn't catch how it looked on TV, but my friend that was there live said it looked like Jey Uso completely missed with his superkick.
Afterwards I just sat through Rampage for the first time since...I don't remember, but definitely the first time of 2023. Always enjoy a nice Royal Rumble, if it hadn't opened the show with that I probably would have closed the tab after SmackDown ended like I usually do. The Acclaimed with an Arby's reference made me think maybe Mickie James was there and I didn't notice. And I never realized it, but Kris Statlander (and Bronson, who wasn't on the show) are both from not far from where I grew up on Long Island.
The ROH PPV was my show of choice last night. Absolute turd for build up (in part due to the card needing to get shuffled for various reasons) but a fudging banger of an event regardless. Athena is the best women’s champ in pro wrestling today. Her vs Willow was the best ROH women’s match bar none. Awesome main event. Claudio/Pac, Dark Order/Righteous & Garcia/Shibata also ruled very hard.
I’ve learned that I don’t necessarily need the strongest build to end up really enjoying a show. As long as AEW/ROH continues producing strong cards like this, I’m here for it 100%. No reason for me to doubt them at this point.
Interview with the developers of WrestleQuest, releasing August 8 at $30 (I'll be waiting on that, hopefully around Black Friday when they do big sales in the eShop) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olliWFpoOAw
For $20, it sure is. I’ll be honest, after beating Road to the Elite within 2-3 days, I haven’t played a ton since that first week or two it was out. That’s pretty standard with me and wrestling games though. Still waiting on the updates to add a little replayability in there.
On the other side of the coin, I ordered WWE 2K23 off eBay for $35 last night. Have been craving Universe mode for a while, and I hear 2K23 has the best version of it yet. I remember having a TON of fun with the Universe equivalent way back with WWE ‘13, to the point that I’d keep track of my cards and results on a booking forum. No Universe mode has been able to keep me hooked like that one did, so here’s hoping 2K23’s is as good as I hear.
Plus I want to try out the new GM Mode, that was pretty much all I played in 2K22.
I’ve had 2K23 on Xbox since like week 1 and I haven’t played a ton of it. I think PS5 is going to be my go to for most games. There were also some curious roster exclusions that have been there for years and years, like no Ric Flair. Oh well. I hope Fight Forever is good.
One mode I wish they would bring back to the WWE games is the create-a-storyline mode. If I remember correctly, only one or two games in the series even had it and it was in the PS3/360 era?
I do recall making a storyline involving Jim Ross losing a sacred bottle of BBQ Sauce, but I don't remember how it played out anymore all these years later.
The controls are going to take some getting used to, but the gameplay is fun enough. Didn’t see much in the way of glitches. Can’t stand the art style. The Young Fudges are my de facto job guys and that makes me happy. Worth $20 but not anymore than that.
Edit: Road to the Elite is weird. I can’t level up my guy because he’s an official character in the game, which is fudging dumb.
I’m playing as Malakai Black. There was a thing where I could join Death Triangle and I said yes. Something something I’ll stand with you, followed by PAC saying you’re standing up there not with us. Do you think you’re better than us? Good lord the writing here can be terrible. Oh and I won the tag titles with Hobbs and then immediately turned on him because whoever wrote that decided to not give me that choice. But, there’s some cool stuff in there. Overall, Road to the Elite is just OK.
I’ve enjoyed the offline CPU matches. Online is ruined by people acting like jackasses (same reason I hate playing WWE2K online). Couple things I would like to see updated - BIG one (and one that would sorta fix online). In the old games spamming taunts outside the ring would actually lower your stamina. Not the case here and that needs to be fixed - the bigger online fix, start having consequences for quitting matches -some of the moves need to be slowed down a bit - the stamina meter needs tinkering. Its way too easy to go from danger to special - the reversal for punches and kicks is pretty solid, grappling not so much - I hate all wrestling kick out systems, but mashing would be fine but I need some sort of indication I might kick out - tables need to not fall over like leafs - The star system needs some work (and honestly would be a better system for online advancement than win/loses). I can’t get over a 3.5 on Hard mode, yet consistently get 5 star matches on easy. - and last that I can think of, increase CAW options
For the 8 hours I’ve played I’ve still not pulled thumbtacks from the crowd. Paul Wight was a pain in the ass to get, even with it on easy. With all that said, I think the core game is just as fun as the old N64 games and I don’t regret my purchase
The more I play this, the less I like it. I can get A+ ratings after a RotE match but have an overall B for a score? What the fudge. The controls are fine but it’s still kind of awkward. There’s almost no replay value for me. I wish I had gotten something else.
Edit: how do we know how close we are to kicking out of a pin? No meter, just telling us to mash buttons and I do and after two hits I’m fudging pinned? Seriously, how did this get out the door?
Yah that match ruled. The North American title match was good, I’m a fan of Thea Hail & Tiffany Stratton continues to have an impressive moonsault. The less I say about anything else on the show, the better haha
Pretty lame to have the Corbin/Gable match end in double countout, but understandable I guess. Gable has a lot of potential, but also can't make Corbin lose because I don't think he's ever been this over before.
Of course there's still plenty of room for improvement, hence why he didn't go straight to main roster. But Gable looks like he was moving in ways Kurt hasn't been able to in almost 20 years. Now if only they hadn't already wasted that "Kurt's black son" angle on Jason Jordan...
I’m basing the “wish.com Kurt Angle” sentiment off when Angle was closer to Steveson’s age haha. Of course he’s going to move better than Kurt Angle does nowadays. Point being he was given the same gimmick and is attempting to work the same style due to his Olympic background but he’s nowhere near as good or charismatic as Angle was when he first debuted (not that many folks could be).
Apparently Steveson was kept off any kind of TV since he was signed 2 years ago because he wasn’t picking up the pro wrestling element as quickly as WWE hoped and that absolutely showed last night. He may move more fluidly than a 50-year-old Kurt Angle, but he really isn’t that good at all right now.
I forgot all about that Jason Jordan angle. What a goofy idea that one was.
Looking at: Monday - WWE Raw Thursday - WCW Thunder Saturday - AEW Collision Sunday - PPVs for each show
And maybe a smaller ROH show once in a while.
Downloading all the shows/arenas now, then I'll work on downloading past & present roster members. Haven't tried anything else in 2K23 yet, just shot straight for Community Creations.
