Lurker > NBIceman

There's nothing super significant about it but for whatever reason I find Little Mac's side smash incredibly satisfying.
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StealThisSheen posted...

TheRock1525 posted...

Never what I said but keep spreading those lies.

You made the argument that WWE didn't mess them up, and that they are exactly where they deserve to be

How is that different?

Paraphrasing doesn't count, duhhh
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TheRock1525 posted...

I think people are being way too quick on judging Almas' main roster run.

Especially since he's getting to team with the WWE champion and said champion ate the pin instead of him.

When does it become an acceptable amount of time to judge it?
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No Celeste = Joke list
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I don't even know what to say about people who aren't voting for CIMA anymore. And to a lesser extent, Akiyama. The fact that neither is in is an absolute joke.
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Sent FRs to everyone I didn't have (which was... most of y'all!) and fixed my wishlist so it's public.

It's pretty much in order but I'd be more than happy with anything on there - I try to keep my list from getting too crowded. So obviously feel free to pick your favorite or the cheapest.
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Making my way through Final Battle tonight and I just want to mention that Caprice Coleman is the worst commentator in a major league wrestling company today. And think of the ground that covers.
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FinaIFantasyV posted...

NBIceman posted...

Why did Mickey wait eight games to tell anyone Aqua was in the realm of darkness?

They actually do explain that.

Riku and Sora would have been dumb enough to try and rescue her the second they heard

Why would this have been a dumb decision? Were they not strong enough? And if so, what happened that suddenly made them strong enough now?
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ScareChan posted...

aww man, I sawall the replies I expected at least one to respond to my post

I assume that's because everybody was just in complete agreement. For a company that very much believes it's about the moments over the matches, they really suck at creating moments.
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As a very disgruntled KH fan who's completely handwaved the story, even I have to agree this is a great trailer.

Really hope this defies all my expectations and ends up being good. I'd love to enjoy playing through a new Kingdom Hearts game again.

Also, Kirk Thornton is an incredible VA and I really don't understand why he doesn't get more high profile roles.
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I don't even understand why Jacobs, of all people, still feels this loyalty to Vince.
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Can you believe Steiner is literally SHINE now?
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Why did Mickey wait eight games to tell anyone Aqua was in the realm of darkness?
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Star Butterfly
Klaudia
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Natalia
Vivi
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Maniac64 posted...

Is dalton Castle still a big deal on ROH?

I think they'd kind of like him to be, but he's another guy that can't stay healthy. And his title run didn't exactly blow the doors off the place when it happened.
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Eddv posted...

NBIceman posted...

Jay Briscoe - Just speculating here, but I wouldn't be surprised if they go back to this well. Don't have a good feel for how it'd go. The Briscoes are probably my all time favorite tag team, but they may be approaching the twilight of their career too.

I think Main Event confederate flag waving Jay Briscoe in 2018 would be a remarkably bad idea.

You'd figure, but it didn't seem to be much of a problem just a few years ago somehow.
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Can I hop in the middle here and mention how BTE this week makes it pretty clear that the Bucks turned down WWE (confirmed by Meltzer, btw) and are almost definitely doing the AEW thing?

Not like there was much doubt left in pretty much everyone's mind, but it's good to see.
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scarletspeed7 posted...

They're trying to pick up Flamita too.

I mean, that's nice I guess, but Flamita looks like he's already resigned himself to his fat luchadore years.
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So, ROH seems to be banking their future on the relatively slim pickings of "stars" left on the indies.

Marty Scurll - Doesn't do much for me. I've seen him have a great match with exactly two wrestlers in his career and they're the two best wrestlers on Earth. But he's undoubtedly over, especially with the current ROH crowd, so I guess there's worse guys to have. Problem is, I don't know what guarantee you could have that he's not gonna follow his buddies to their new promotion when his contract's up in a couple months.

Brody King - Haven't seen enough of him to form an opinion, honestly.

PCO - The PCO career resurgence train is losing steam quickly, if you ask me. But I guess they may as well get what they can out of him.

Jeff Cobb - Really like him. Of the guys they have signed, this is the one I'd build around if I was them.

Jay Briscoe - Just speculating here, but I wouldn't be surprised if they go back to this well. Don't have a good feel for how it'd go. The Briscoes are probably my all time favorite tag team, but they may be approaching the twilight of their career too.

Flip Gordon - They're certainly building him, but they might have taken too long. By the time he'll really be ready for his big top of the card push, his contract may be almost up and he could easily follow Scurll out the door to All Elite or whatever that thing's gonna be called.

Jonathan Gresham - ... I guess? He's got a decent following among the section of wrestling fans that ROH probably needs to go after at this point, but I don't think I see him as a main eventer.

Mark Haskins - New signing, my favorite UK wrestler not named Will Ospreay. Is he a money-drawing wrestler at the top of the card, though? I think he could be, but they've gotta get there through his awesome ring work and that doesn't seem to be the ROH MO these days. Plus, his injuries are a major concern. The only reason he hasn't been scooped up by someone else is because he's basically held together by tape and who knows how many surgeries.

Bandido - New signing, not super high on him personally. Like many lucha wrestlers, I find him kind of sloppy and unrefined a lot of times. But he's over as hell everywhere he goes, and he's the most innovative guy out there right now, so they could certainly have something with him.

There's a looooot of question marks on that list.

I don't understand why ROH hasn't backed up a dump truck of money to David Starr's house yet. Great worker, great talker, can play face and heel equally well and wrestle in pretty much any style... I get that he's kind of obnoxious on Twitter sometimes but in the days of every indie star getting scooped up by greener pastures, he seems like the kind of guy you should lock up and build your entire product (no pun intended) around.
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Jakyl25 posted...

MWC you should apply for that writer assistant job

I can see it now.

Some low level team member innocently suggests a story than involves Alexa Bliss winning a match and MWC immediately flies into a spittle-spewing blind rage, demanding to know how many times she had to sleep with the guy to get him to say that.
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Jakyl25 posted...

Its amazing how bad Dean is at being an unhinged heel considering thats how he made his name in the indies

The problem is probably that he just doesn't know how to be WWE's version of an unhinged heel. His indy act wasn't exactly PG.
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Dels posted...

SuperNiceDog posted...

this is another example of why video gaming is dying. It's way too hard to surprise people now in the age of pirating, trailers, open betas, alphas, PTR(public test realms).

ok sure you have a point that it's hard to have surprises in this day and age

but how is video game dying

where's your proof of this

There's no proof.

Revenue is growing in the industry every year and it's projected to continue growing faster than most other forms of entertainment.
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NBA > NHL > MLB > NFL
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Natalia
Vivi
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I am, stop yelling at me!
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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Kevin Dunn with time to prepare and knowing exactly what spots to plan is actually really good. Like the Festival of Friendship recently.

On spur of the moment and largely unplanned things like a generic run in and brawl, he is impossibly bad.

Right.

His fetish for camera cuts is legitimately nauseating.
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https://streamable.com/0dd93

Take notes, WWE. This is how you do camera work.
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Not a surprise. Thorne has the obvious star potential of the two and Miller is one of the few guys in the bloated company they can safely release without fear of him bringing attention anywhere else.

Shame they never got behind them as a team.
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Natalia
Vivi
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I second Celeste.
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The thing with filling time is... it's wrestling. You've got a very talented roster. Just let them go out and wrestle.
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Warrior (2011)

I'm pretty far from a movie buff but I'll argue to anyone who'll listen that it's one of the best films of the decade.
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Natalia
Vivi
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Movies have a designated beginning and end. They don't have to worry about putting out a consistent product week after week year after year and keeping a near-endless rotation of characters interesting. They have defined arcs where they can develop naturally without ever changing their basic good guy or bad guy alignment.

New Japan is gaining new fans every year while WWE is losing them. There's a multitude of reasons for that, but in my opinion, they can all be traced back to a willingness to do something akin to what I've been saying. They let their characters breathe. They have complex motivations that change a little bit at a time. They don't act the same way toward every opponent of one alignment or the other. And they evolve within themselves. Tanahashi's been a face for a long time, but he's been a different kind of face. In the beginning of the so-called "Okada era," he was the valiant, pure hero who always stuck to his ideals and conquered the impure villains who challenged him. Once Okada showed up, he got a little frustrated at his spotlight being stolen and showed a willingness to play a little dirty - but only against Okada. Against everyone else he was the same old Tanahashi. As the years wore on, that edge showed up more and more often. Then last year, and earlier this year, he was essentially a midlife crisis dude who refused to accept that his time was over. Fans loved him now because he was an earnest underdog most of the time who just couldn't quite get the job done in big spots anymore. And now, he's got a little bit of that valiance back in his clash of ideals against weirdo Omega as he gets ready for what could be his last shot at the top.

Through it all, sometimes he's been overwhelmingly cheered in his matches, sometimes pretty overwhelmingly booed, sometimes somewhere in the middle. But no matter what, it's made money. I don't believe Tanahashi would still be drawing the way he did five years ago if he was still written the way he was five years ago. But they've kept him fresh without ever really getting away from the core of his character.

THAT'S what I want more of. But the face/heel system makes it too tempting to take the easy way out instead of finding a way to keep guys interesting with subtle changes like NJPW does.
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TheRock1525 posted...

Heels can still show face-like qualities. It's why NXT works so well because heels aren't asked to wrestle slow-plodding styles with lots of rest holds, taunting and momentum killing maneuvers. They still use them, and they're still present, but they're not beyond flurries of offense and face style "comebacks."

Look at all the MotY candidates Gargano was as a face and one as a heel. There's a subtle shift to denote the change in alignment without throwing out the entire repertoire.

In the match I was talking about, my complaints had nothing to do with style. There were multiple times where Zayn was clearly done, struggling to get on his feet, but refusing to let himself get beat.

Repeatedly, Joe would shake his head remorsefully and get the ref to check on him while he retreated to the corner until, after like the fourth or fifth time, he finally just put him away.

Compare that to how he was before and after that match. A monster who would mercilessly go after his opponents in and out of the ring, beating the living hell out of them, oftentimes having to be forcefully pulled off when they'd had enough. He just liked to hurt people. Except in this one match, for whatever reason. They could've gone somewhere with that, but instead they decided, "nope, he's a heel, we gotta just go back to having him hurt people." And it was still entertaining, because Joe's awesome, but it could've been so much better. There could've been a match down the line where the two united for one night only against a common enemy because Zayn was one of the few who'd earned Joe's respect. But NOPE, CAN'T HAPPEN, ONE'S A FACE AND ONE'S A HEEL!

HashtagSEP posted...

NBIceman posted...

As an outsider, I have no idea what's actually going on with Becky or that segment, but the whole thing was caused apparently by semantics born out of the binary face/heel dynamic and the extent to which people even think it exists or has to exist.

To be a bit more clear, my argument wasn't that face/heel should or has to exist. My argument was moreso that WWE is very much keeping Becky in a place where they can easily tell fans "You shouldn't cheer her now" at any point and against any opponent, be it Asuka or Rousey or whatever, and thus I couldn't get on board with the thought of giving WWE the benefit of the doubt on stuff that's happening now because they're still going to try and tell fans what to think regardless of what they actually think, instead of just embracing the reactions.

And because of that, it kinda dampens my enjoyment of the product a bit, because I know that even though I like something now, next week I could get WWE going "Okay well now you have to boo her because X."

Right. I understand. MY argument is that the entire issue could be avoided, both in WWE and elsewhere, if nobody felt like they had to tell the fans anything in regards to who they should or shouldn't cheer for.

Like, we're on the same page in regards to "telling fans what they should think." Elimination of face/heel dynamic would also eliminate anyone feeling like they need to do that at all. It wouldn't fix every problem with WWE's storytelling, but it'd be a nice first step.
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scarletspeed7 posted...

NBIceman posted...

This argument is really good evidence for why the outdated conceptions of face and heel characters need to be done away with entirely.

Write compelling, logical, three dimensional characters and stories to surround them. Then let the audience decide who to cheer for and go from there.

Hey, another reason why bad writers are killing WWE!

You don't even need to necessarily get rid of faces and heels so much as provide consistent, logical booking and reasoning to the characters. It's like how characters like the Horsemen became faces during the NWO era when they were against the NWO and remained heels against the rest of WCW. Just find natural progression. I will always argue that the character of Lex Luger in the latter half of the 90s is one of the most nuanced characters in wrestling, and it's because he eschews the normal role of a heel and develops microrelationships on the roster that have grayer histories.

To me, the problem is that unless you're making a concerted effort to move away from face/heel, it's impossible to truly commit to layered characters, because two things are pretty much always going to happen.

First, from a booker's perspective, the temptation for shaking up a stagnant character is always going to be switching them towards the opposite alignment. If they're written as generally heroic and people get bored with them, the natural inclination is to make them more "heelish," even if you're not technically thinking in terms of a "heel" character or necessarily intending them to be booed. If you free yourself completely from that way of thinking, you'd be more open to instead making them a different kind of hero. Remember the Depressed AJ Styles storyline in TNA, where they tried to make him into a heel by just having him grow his hair out, ride a motorcycle, and be a loner? That didn't make any sense. He could've still been a face with all those characteristics. But because accepted wrestling logic dictates that a character shakeup can (usually) only occur by an alignment swap, the whole thing ended up just being laughed at.

The second, and more important, point is that fans are always going to get caught up in inane arguments like the one we just saw. If no one was concerned with what alignment Becky was, everyone would've just agreed that the segment was effective. As an outsider, I have no idea what's actually going on with Becky or that segment, but the whole thing was caused apparently by semantics born out of the binary face/heel dynamic and the extent to which people even think it exists or has to exist.

I also remember that Samoa Joe vs Sami Zayn 2 out of 3 falls match in NXT. I loved that match at the time because Joe was showing some face tendencies in it and I thought it was actually a clever way to get to a more nuanced Joe character. Instead, they completely ignored it afterwards because "well, he's a heel, we've gotta get him booed, better make him an unrepentant asshole still." What was a MOTYC for me fell way down my list because of the internal logic inconsistencies. So the face/heel dynamic can even bleed into matches sometimes.

I'm not saying that there's not already a bit of a sliding scale in some companies, but I think that until bookers are willing to cast it off entirely they'll still be hamstringing themselves by a natural instinct to abide by some of its conventions.
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This argument is really good evidence for why the outdated conceptions of face and heel characters need to be done away with entirely.

Write compelling, logical, three dimensional characters and stories to surround them. Then let the audience decide who to cheer for and go from there.
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Are we just going to ignore scarlet's post, then? Because he was 100% right.

What about a brawl to the back? Those have fallen out of favor too and they're usually great.
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It's actually kind of impressive that Rock manages to start a different argument in this topic series every day.
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TheRock1525 posted...

No one should be lamenting the fates of Rusev, Cesaro, or Zack Ryder. They basically ended up where they deserved to be.

This is absolutely fucking ridiculous and I refuse to believe any intelligent human being would actually believe that those three failed entirely because of their own deficiencies.
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Alright, let's just go really weird.

Diablo Swing Orchestra - A Tap Dancer's Dilemma
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Always fun trying to figure out which TDH song to throw at someone since their style is so varied. Glad you liked that one well enough.

On mobile now so I can't link but I'll toss in another.

VOLA - Applause of a Distant Crowd
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The Dear Hunter - A Night on the Town


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I absolutely hate Incineroar as a Pokemon but he's actually pretty fun to play in Smash.
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We had one, it was called User of the Year heyooooooo
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Gentlemen you can't fight in here, this is the war room!
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Ashe
Marle
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@Steiner

I'm probably not the right person to ask - not a very big Thatcher guy. Just watched BOLA over the last couple days though and he had a pretty brutal match with WALTER. Wasn't as good as the PROGRESS effort from earlier this year but definitely still worth a look. The Ring Kampf tag match against Shingo and Ilja Dragunov from the prior night also got pretty stiff at points.

I've got two more tag matches on my spreadsheet for 2018 - one in PWG against the Chosen Bros back in January and one against Daisuke Sekimoto and Munenori Sawa from EVOLVE 102. Honestly though I don't remember too much of those matches. I'd expect the latter has some good grapple stuff in it since Sawa's involved and he probably got into it with Riddle a couple times in the former, but I couldn't tell you for sure.

Sorry I can't be of more help with this one! I'm looking back over my 4*+ ratings over the last few years and there's very little Thatcher at all that's not in PROGRESS and/or tags. One against Chris Hero in EVOLVE, one against Gargano in EVOLVE, one against Gulak in PWG.
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Vivi
Natalia
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