Vic Boss

Roman Reigns and Kenny Omega Buddy Murphy had a banger on SDL

Ye. OG Sin Cara, OG Mistico, former Observer Wrestler of the Year, caused the last big boom period in Mexico in the '00s, former IWGP Jr Champion (fun fact: NJPW originally established a working agreement with CMLL about 10 years ago just to get to him).

ZSJ working Tana's guilt to submit him through kindness

E6

Raw was an above-average short-matches show. Did kind of feel like a 2 hour show that had to be stretched to three, but they mostly filled it out with squash matches so it's fine

The o/g star rating system only went to 4, Cornette (who has done a surprising amount to destroy the kayfabe he holds so dear) originally suggested to the person who was doing one of the first wrestling newsletters and all of the others started copying it. Dave first broke the 4-star system with a 5-star rating for Tiger Mask vs Dynamite Kid in 1983, then broke the 5-star system with a 6-star rating for Kawada vs Misawa in 1994 (I think there was another match, maybe a Joshi match that was listed as "5+++++" or something like that). The rating system isn't meant to be out-of-5, but has no upper limits if the things that wrestlers do and the stories they tell significantly surpass what came before. I've also heard it said that a 5 is a Match-of-the-Year candidate, a 6 is a Match-of-the-Decade candidate, a 7 is century/greatest match ever/etc. His 5+ star matches are basically saying "this is almost match of the decade, but not quite." Or it's like you say, jumped the shark and now the system has moved upwards so his 5-star matches are really 4.5-star matches and his 5+ star matches have to be differentiated somehow out of the 10-20 matches that get 5s the last few years because he fucking loves the current style of wrestling and can't help himself

Have you heard the arguments Dave has made about "breaking" the star rating system?

1. Lost Odyssey 2. Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD (Hero Mode) 3. Mega Man 11 (Normal Mode) 3a. Mega Man 11 (Superhero Mode) 4. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings [Dark Mode] 4a Easy Mode/Roche Path 5 Pokemon Sun 6. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD 7. Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga 8. Berserk and the Band of the Hawk 9. God of War 1 (Platinum Trophy) 10. DuckTales Remastered 11. God of War II (Platinum Trophy) 12. God of War: Chains of Olympus (Platinum Trophy) 13. Shadow of the Colossus (Trophy Clean-up) 14. Final Fantasy XIII (Platinum Trophy) I think third time beating the game (I had two other profiles that I played it on on Xbox 360), first time 100%ing/Platinum'ing it. I still think story and gameplay were okay, and still think if this game released under a name that wasn't "Final Fantasy" it'd be held in a higher regard than it is (though without the name "Final Fantasy", it doesn't get the production values). There's parts around Chapter 8 that's obnoxious because you've experienced all the roles by then and it's just obnoxiously making you hate playing with two players on purpose just so it feels momentous when you finally get three... only to pull back to two again. Fuck offffffff. I also originally thought that the drama built up between the characters was pretty well done (for anime-inspired storylines, anyways) and that they got over their various gripes too easily, and that still holds true. Barthandelus remains one of the weakest FF villains that I've experienced so far I actually spent a good chunk of the time wondering how they had enough material to create sequels because I remembered the storyline more or less being wrapped up, but then the analects/little text pieces that you get for monster-killing later (which I mostly didn't do the two other times I played this) dropped a few interesting tidbits and hints. Thinking of playing XIII-2 and Lightning Returns after this to finish off a sub-series from my backlog.

Ohhhh. No connection beyond Fredericks having obvious top-guy potential (looks + athleticism). This is their first Japanese tour and they made a point to make sure he locked up with Okada, that tells me they see it in him too.

Fredericks and Connors are LA Dojo Young Boys.

G1 Final/Rest of the Card

Also OH MY FUCKING CHRIST

G1 Final/Match

1. It was backed up in promos and stuff too, wasn't just random. 2. Here we go. The sidebar doesn't appear to give results away

Nakamura was Ibushi's primary rival when he moved to Heavyweight, the guy Ibushi was chasing. They only wrestled twice (once in the G1 when Ibushi was still a Junior I think, and the 5-star at Wrestle Kingdom, Nakamura won both times), Shinsuke would bully him a bit because they have similar kick-boxing style backgrounds, Ibushi would show no fear and give it back to him. Nakamura left, Ibushi started using the Bomaye

You were gonna skip Ospreay vs Okada? Absolutely worth watching.

B Block Finals Prelims

It's gotten to the point where if Sept rolls around and there's a news report on the people who showed up for the Area 51 raid and Bad Luck Fale and Chase Owens aren't there in their wrestling gear, I'm going to be disappointed

B Block Finals/Block Matches/Prelims Later

A Block Final yesterday, B Block Final right now, Final on Monday

I couldn't get it up for this show for whatever reason, just skipped around to see results.

God damn, the production values somehow went up in this episode and it's already got good production values

A Block Finals Prelims

A Block Finals - Just watching Tana/Ospreay and Okada/Ibushi for now, the rest later (oh god, this weekend)