DE.

That Sting/Vampiro feud sucked so hard. I vaguely remember a stuntman pretending to be Sting falling off the top of the tron (whilst on fire) in one of their matches. Ugh. That was after the Owen Hart incident too, so even worse. This promo video almost makes the feud look passable.

Nope. I don't know if you've seen many of Bayzler's matches in NXT but there's a finish they've done a few times where she locks in her submission finisher, then the opponent rolls backwards and pins her whilst still in the move. It was that. Problem is the match was too short for that to be credible. Yeah, me too. Her badass theme and stable made her an amazing heel, and she looks the part. There are a lot of people who dislike her in-ring style but I think it fits perfectly with her MMA-based character. I was always invested in her matches. The match she had with Sane at one of the Takeovers where Sane beat her for the title was brilliant. Really sad to see how Sane (and Asuka) have been wasted on the main roster, and Baszler losing like this to Lynch doesn't give me much hope for her. Am I the only one who hates WWE trying to make Lynch into the female Stone Cold? It's so transparent and lame. I don't think Vince gives a shit about NXT and I don't think he cares about what anybody has accomplished down there. Generally speaking the people who have done the best after going to the main roster are those who didn't have a huge impact in NXT. I swear Vince sees success in NXT as a bad thing. Can't understand why he treats the call ups so shoddily otherwise. Titus' slip is the best and only good thing to come out of these stupid Saudi shows. I have to admit I found it hilarious that when the Saudis asked for Yokozuna (apparently not knowing he was dead) WWE brought in some random sumo to play the part. Just emphasises what a farce the whole thing is. Asuka has a huge upside but since losing her undefeated streak to Charlotte a couple of years back has gone into a downward spiral and never really come back. She was awesome in NXT but now is just another wrestler, much like Kairi. We've seen so much of Owens and Rollins in the build up (including those never-ending multi-man tags) that the feud already felt tired before the match even happened imo. It also hurt the match that nothing was really on the line. Owens beat Rollins - and what? Are there any consequences? I imagine it'll be as you were on Raw which makes the match itself kind of pointless. No stakes. I've said before that Rollins really reminds me of Hollywood Hogan back in the WCW days as far as his heel work goes - but whenever Hogan wrestled there were always huge stakes involved. Usually the title as 95% of the time he was the champion. But even if not there was always something big to gain from beating him. That isn't the case with Seth so it was hard for me to get especially invested in seeing Owens win.

One thing I do appreciate about P5 and something which most of my favourite games boast is the excellent soundtrack. The music in the game is top notch. The above is pretty much burned into my brain forever after I listened to it for 45 minutes on loop fighting the 'ultimate' bosses in the game. You can only challenge them after completing the game once and doing a second run, and JHC are they difficult. I lost to them at least a dozen times before finally beating them after about 2 months of trying. A triumphant victory but probably too much time invested.

Undoubtedly one of my favourite games of all time, although it really does depend on what you like. I could completely understand someone not really feeling it. I've already logged 50+ hours in Royal having played 200+ on the original - although in my defence lockdown has played a part in the amount of time I've logged on Royal so far! I've had it on whilst doing other things too which will artifically inflate the play time somewhat. Quite a few people in the UK already have the FF7 remake by the looks of things - unfortunately gamecollection look to be sticking to the official release date or close enough. With that said Royal is more than tiding me over until it arrives so it doesn't bother me.

Agree, for the finish to work the match needed to be a lot longer. They've had Bayzler be so vicious and dominant pre-match that an after-match attack would have looked tame, short of practically murdering Lynch. I am not sure where they go from here but I imagine a rematch fairly soon. I genuinely think both Corbin and Elias would have gone down a storm in the Attitude Era. Not as main eventers but as mid-card players. Corbin is fantastic at being a smarmy heel you want to see get beaten up. Unfortunately his matches always stink, which is a problem in the current era where match quality is a big part of the package. Back in the AE Corbin's matches would have been short, screwy and continued developing his character or that of his opponent. He would have been a great henchman to Vince in the way Bossman, for example, was. The other issue with Corbin is modern WWE creative just sucks and the audience ends up just wanting Corbin gone rather than getting his comeuppance. As for Elias, he's not up to much as a face but again an outstanding heel when given the material to work with. Remember that segment a while back where he got mercilessly booed for something like 6 or 7 minutes? I think Owens was there too. That shows Elias has the tools to do the job - but again not really up to it in the ring and shackled by a sub-par creative team. It's a shame for both of them. My view based on how I've seen them use Zayn on the main roster is that Vince just isn't a fan. I don't think he sees Zayn as threatening or interesting, hence relegating him to the role of a manager. I could be wrong and maybe it is injury related, but my gut tells me it's something else. It could definitely work, but they'd need to prepare for it well ahead of time. Next year is probably too soon as I believe they've already announced the date and location. If they want to do a two-nighter again then preparation should start now to get it ready for 2022. Oh yeah there's a lot of ways to make it work, but if there's one thing WWE creative are good at it is picking the wrong option - or picking the right one but still screwing it up (eg. Dean Ambrose' heel turn). No doubt. Unfortunately it is hard to write them off as non-canon if they are changing major titles and setting up WM feuds at these repulsive events however.

Agree, the match was getting good but felt cut short. I have also seen the way Becky pinned Bayzler done a few times in NXT so that was a bit underwhelming. I also feel like the wrong person went over. I imagine Shayna will get the title soon, maybe even at the next PPV, but she should have won it here imo. All that build to lose in her first attempt is very WWE and part of the reason I much prefer AEW. Their booking is far more logical. Problem is you have two wrestlers here who aren't particularly good at wrestling. Both great at character work but boring as hell in the ring. Without a crowd it just enhances those flaws. I was actually hoping that with it being taped and the ability to edit and redo things that WWE would have a longer Goldberg match with some unusual spots. Instead it was the same old boring formula. Strowman as champion is fine but they've waited at least a year too long to give him the belt, and everyone knows he's only holding it in Roman's place. Considering it's the Undertaker I'm willing to give them a pass on the fantasy stuff. It can work in the right circumstances (some of Matt Hardy's TNA stuff for example) but it's baffling that they have a graveyard match and decide that's the time to bring back ABA Taker. Imagine the pop he would have got coming out as ABA Taker at a normal WM with his old music. Would have been epic. This not so much. WWE barely seems to see Zayn as a proper wrestler any more tbh. He's basically a slightly buffed up manager. Would have been cool for them to put on a clinic but considering the context I understand why they did it this way, even if I disagree with it. 100% agree with that. I hope they make this the norm in future although I get the feeling they won't due to logistics. Yeah she really is irritating in this role. She was great with Sanity back in NXT but this Alexa sidekick gimmick is the worst. It was clear when it started that the idea was eventually for Alexa to double-cross Nikki after using her, starting a proper feud, but that got shelved and instead they've stuck with this for a while. I'm sure eventually they'll go back to the original intention (probably when they lose the titles) but as it stands their team sucks. Styles has looked insanely weak the entire feud to be fair so at least they're being consistent. Remember he got beat with a single Chokeslam in Saudi Arabia!

Just finished WM night one. Overall the empty arena makes it difficult to grade as wrestling just isn't the same without a crowd. With that said an admirable job by all involved. Most of the matches I felt were pretty meh, but I enjoyed Owens/Rollins. Also really liked the Taker/Styles Boneyard match. It'll polarise opinion for sure but I thought it was a great and creative way to get around current restrictions and move away from the empty arena setting.

I already have the Network for old WCW/WWF stuff so I'll just watch WM on there. Going to be a really weird show.

New Jack is in work mode 99% of the time so it's hard to take a lot of what he says seriously. Especially that incident with Vic Grimes when he threw him off the scaffold. He admitted in a shoot interview years ago that it was just a botch from Grimes and nothing to do with him, and he didn't have any hard feelings towards Grimes over his brain injury. If you watch the footage it's clear that Grimes propels himself over the scaffold and just jumps too far and nearly misses the ring. A monumentally stupid stunt regardless, but Jack barely throws him at all so I don't buy the story that he tried to kill Grimes.

I can remember a long time ago (when I was still playing it on the PS1, so at least 20 years ago now!) I went through the whole process of creating the best chocobo. Can't remember if it was golden or black now but it took forever. I eventually did it though. I think you gain access to a specific island by doing so. Also makes winning the races at the Gold Saucer very easy Midgar Zolom is practically impossible to beat without the battle hack early on in the game. I just used to run past it, but yeah it's strange that it instantly respawns after you've beaten it. You also see it impaled on a tree from memory so I guess there are just a lot of them living in that little pond ? One thing that always stuck with me regarding the cutscenes was the one where Cloud puts Aerith in the water at the end of the first disc. **SPOILERS AHEAD FOR ANYONE WHO INEXPLICABLY DOESN'T KNOW THE STORY AND IS PLANNING TO PLAY THE GAME AT SOME POINT** I remember somebody saying that if Aerith was dead her body would float, not sink, so the fact she sunk to the bottom suggests she was still alive and Cloud technically drowned her ? makes that scene a bit darker in retrospect!

I'm guessing you meant FF7, unless there's a special version of FF8 I haven't played ? but yeah the original FF7 is still an absolute classic and a blast to play through. Some of the graphics look very outdated nowadays but it has enough nostalgic charm for me that I can ignore stuff like that. For me everything about the original game is close to perfect, with only the translation and at times abundance of random battles a bit of an annoyance. Good thing is on the rereleased PS4/XBOX/Steam version you can turn off random battles and also speed the game up with helps immeasurably with the more tedious parts of the game.

Nothing controversial at all. The segment was hit or miss depending on how much you like the 'broken' MH character but absolutely no reason for anybody to censor it.

Yeah it was. That's really strange.

FF7 remake has been released early in Australia due to Coronavirus. Wondering if I'll get mine earlier than expected now. Considering I already have P5 Royal taking up a fair amount of time I'm in no rush tbh.

I don't use FITE - I have no idea why they'd cut the show short, I don't think they usually do?

Yeah they are taping WM this year in advance, I guess it'll still air whatever time it was originally scheduled to? Completely agree on WWE, it's so boring and stale. There are still some good moments (Edge's return at the rumble and his program with Orton has been very well done) but overall their product just seems out of touch and bland when compared with stuff like AEW Dynamite or NJPW. I'd say even NWA Powerrr, a retro-themed show, somehow comes off as more innovative and fresh than WWE!

Looks like the supposedly ITK reddit guy got some bad info, as Edge, the Usos, Miz and Morrison all did tape their stuff for Mania.

Edge is apparently refusing to do the show.

So, looks like Roman Reigns has pulled out of Wrestlemania. He has concerns over his health after the Miz came in sick, which is fair enough considering the bloke has just recovered from cancer. All for nothing if he gets COVID-19 and dies. Some guy who seems to be ITK on reddit suggesting Kevin Owens, Edge, the Miz, John Morrison and the Uso's are also out, Reigns/Goldberg and Edge/Orton being off the card is pretty brutal. Just cancel the fucking thing already, jeez.

I'll keep my pre-order on for now as the digital editions will always be available should there be a huge delay. Fingers crossed it won't be an issue though.

There is a "Phantom Thieves" edition where you get a mask, OST, etc... but I know that stuff would only end up going in a pile somewhere so happy enough just to have the game. I bought the original with all the DLC though so this will be a different challenge for me, as having all of the DLC at the start of the game last time made things easier than they would have been otherwise. I have seen a lot of people overseas saying they are going to cancel their physical FF7 Remake preorder as they don't think they will be able to get the deliveries. I'm assuming/hoping that won't be the case here. Gamecollection haven't given any indication that it will be late anyway.

Very impressed with ShopTo who have (quite literally) delivered by getting P5 Royal to me today. I believe the official release date in the UK is 31/03 so that's good going. Will be cracking on with this as soon as I finish work!

No idea but probably not ? I got the 'complete' version on Blu Ray a while back and I have to admit it's much better than the original cut. The story makes more sense and the extra scenes make it feel a lot more fleshed out. A lot of people rip on AC but I've always thought it was decent enough. Granted I've never watched it with the english voices, so it's possible the dub is just a pile of shit.

I just finished watching both parts and yeah, really heavy going, but very well done. There isn't really any new information but in the last 13 years pretty much everything that could come out has come out so they can't be criticised for that. I thought they did a good job with Eddie's part as well, although he really deserves his own episode at some point.

Enjoyed this week's Dynamite overall, but have to admit I'm not totally sold on the Broken Matt Hardy character. I'm not sure it fits particularly well with the AEW aesthetic, although the lack of crowd and reaction plays a part in that. To be honest I've never been all in, so to speak, on the 'Broken' character. It was fine in TNA as an experimental thing, but I'm not convinced it translates well to a bigger company. I guess we'll see if AEW can do a better job than WWE in that regard. Brodie Lee's parody of Vince was pretty funny too! Especially the reaction to the sneeze.