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Bunch of interesting coincidences likely to happen with Mania going to Philly, I would hazard to guess. Happy thanksgiving to those who celebrate!

Joaquin Wilde as Shiima Xion the Filipino supermodel was a tremendous gimmick. Always wished he’d go back to that in an updated way. As for the current incarnation of Damage CTRL…I’m so here for it..

Been listening to this (local?) band Mindwash and what I believe is their debut album. Good stuff.

Fans know what they want/like and what’s bullshit and forced. Case in point, Kairi came back and it was instantly loved by everyone. JD has been trying to weasel his way into Judgement Day seemingly for months and fans aren’t into it and aren’t buying it. I’m of the opinion that non-demon Finn doesn’t even belong in the group so imagine my feelings toward a knock-off Dollar Store Finn like JD.

Man I’ve been begging WWE to rip off Stardom’s Oedo Tai for years. In 2017, OT was my favorite thing in all of wrestling. In 2023-2024, the concept could be EVERYONE’s favorite thing to watch.

Would be a sweet addition to the games, as would this:

My peak post may have been lucky-guessing that The Fiend was gonna be the preorder for 2K20. Shame such a cool moment in time was wasted on such a bad game.

Just to be clear, nothing I say on here has ever or will ever come from a “bunny leaker”.. it’s about the time for those types of posters to start appearing on Twitter and such. Anything I hear, I didn’t hear from them. I literally heard the Rocky Balboa thing from an anonymous source and he popped up as a playable character in an official WWE mobile game not even a month later, so…I’m still putting my money on there being something to that lead. I got the Wyatt thing from a Cultaholic article. They don’t seem like the types to pull random game news out of their ass.

The current gameplay style may be a bit controversial but it’s something to behold to live in a time where we’ve gotten so many of the things we’ve asked for in WWE games over the years that we can focus on the littler things and complain about them because there isn’t much else to complain about. Lol. The gameplay will get back to being more wrestling-based in time I believe. How could it not? It’s like one poster said….they’ve started from scratch and now it’s gonna take until the end of the decade to get back to the level of gameplay we were at, but it is what it is. I like the gameplay and the amount of moves I can now assign someone. Have just been thinking about everything I’ve wanted for the series over the years, everything we’ve all asked for in droves, and the fact that a lot of it made it in, and yet there’s so much more to be implemented. It’s exciting. I would love/hate working on this series because there’s never a chance to get stagnant or complacent. I might’ve just said a whole lot of nothing but I’m excited to see the next chapter. At my age, I don’t have many more of these installments to get excited for.

I like these

If we don’t get the holy grail ECW edition I’ve been asking for the past number of years now that Mania is going to Philly and ECW is gonna be on people’s brains more than ever with a likely Heyman HOF induction, then a Wyatt special edition with all the incarnations of Bray Wyatt would be cool in my view. If an ECW set of DLC was ever in the plans, maybe move it to the DLC schedule and make Bray the special edition out of respect and because, as a multiple time top merch mover, you can’t really go wrong in assuming people would mass preorder to play as Bray and especially the Fiend again.

Dont shoot the messenger. I have no clue how they would pull off a Wyatt showcase with all the supernatural stuff that happened and what not; it just came from a source that usually posts legit wrestling news. They have no dog in the fight that I know of, so it would be weird if they just casually mentioned the Bray stuff, rattled off some names of who had been scanned (albeit safe names) and that some of them did voiceover work, which should be expected anyway. A tribute to Bray of any kind of would be neat I guess. Don’t forget I was also the one telling people to lower their expectations of anything special Bray-related just because of his sudden, tragic death. You don’t find it odd that I would change my tune on the matter?

Word is they’re heavily considering a Bray Wyatt showcase, more likely for 2K25 than 2K24 but you never know. I would go with Taker first because he’s the bigger name and more match types could come with that and that would please everyone who wants returning match types, alt attires for Taker, Kane, Foley, guys like that. Personally, what I would do if the time, money and resources were there, is have an Undertaker showcase on disc for 2K24 then have a Bray Wyatt showcase as late DLC. *shrugs*

I turned on Raw just to see it was Seth doing another one of those long Raw soliloquies and I tuned right back out again. I miss the days when a really interesting match or something really wild was happening on my tv screen. These days I’d rather watch crime dramas than wrestling. I just can’t stand to watch what American wrestling has turned into. Or atleast I’d rather stick to PLE’s and live events that aren’t ruined by the timing of commercial breaks. I can’t even remember the last PLE I watched, now that I think about it.

Phoenix 630: https://x.com/puroresuflow/status/1715343940956606877?s=46&t=Rgw9JjhzoMWL2xM_XJmLgQ was lowkey hoping Ninja Mack was one of the guys on the mocap team for this coming year but, following his schedule, doesn’t seem possible Standing Boston Crab: https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxKHfCAj_4yKNUe6PkGER9lipc97GBqx4K?si=eCGq3UcXrdaumtRf

It’s so late in the game cycle, they could’ve/should’ve saved a Bad Bunny Edition for the next game imo. You’re throwing away buys, in the sense that people are gonna excitedly get this game only for a new one to come out in a few months, rendering this game and it’s Bad Bunny Edition obsolete. Interesting move.

Everyone is certainly entitled to their opinions and it’s okay to like what you like.. I just think that if your input is “they should go back to this thing from the past” instead of figuring out a way to innovate and/or streamline it going into the future, then you’re doing it wrong.

I think it’s case by case. Gimmicks should be the person with the volume turned way up, most of the time. Some people need a booker to instruct them on every detail of their character, some can and should be allowed to run with their onscreen character a bit. Overall, it’s a mistake for talent to have any sort of complete creative control imo but I’m not a billionaire booker so what do I know?.. I just think it should be a collaborative effort between people who know what they’re talking about for it to be a success.. I don’t like most of what’s going on NXT these days, but I still think that when a gimmick in WWE sticks, it really sticks and gets crazy over because WWE’s marketing machine is on point..always has been. AEW for the most part is too haha, too much of a rib on the business, meaning there’s too much elbow nudging and winking, so to speak. With few exceptions, I don’t believe what I’m watching. Like I’m an Orange Cassidy fan since the indies when he first started doing the character, but does his character draw new fans in? Not sure. I gave the WWE the edge, no pun intended, as evident by how huge they can make someone like Jade Cargill or Cody Rhodes look. I never used to watch AEW just for Jade, and I now find myself watching entire blasé WWE programs to get a glimpse of her. Very telling to me.

Not to knock their body of work over their careers or anything like that, but it goes to show you that names are just names. Casuals aren’t gonna tune into AEW no matter who’s there because it isn’t on their radar and they haven’t done anything compelling enough to get on the radar.