I think the most likely explanation is that AEW just doesn’t have any discipline, and there are enough examples to back that up.

Jericho was allowed to look terrible for a long time, Moxley was red and bloated, Cole is pale and lost muscle mass, Keith Lee has put on more weight. Even Kingston being pushed sends a clear message “it doesn’t really matter what you look like here in AEW!”

Very accurate

Even Toni Storm who was super hot, looks like someone you pick up on the corner for twenty bucks.

But not gonna lie, despite that Id buy that for a dollar.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FxL4YzYa...pg&name=medium

Ok Eddie looks way better there than that other pic

Yes Destor, that was another joke. You can tell by the laughing emoji :roll:

https://imgur.io/a/1MMRiuL

Miro looks really good

so nothing you say should be taken to have any value. You'll joke in both directions as long as the butt of the joke fits your stance.


Aka intellectual dishonesty

Fair enough. You're not a serious person and you dont have an objective stance. I can work with that.

Check this out

Why aren't you in that thread questioning my stance? Seems like YOU are only taking offense when it fits your stance...

We need STD back to explain the logic behind xrod’s baffling responses.

This logic does not resemble our earth logic

You do you though xrod. I know all i need to know. Im good on this.

Had an AEW dream last night....

Was watching a big PPV live in person... Daniel Bryan vs MJF was the main event and I remember thinking it was a pretty good match but was starting to drag at the end with too much shenanigans... I forget exactly what they were but it was extremely overbooked and MJF won....

But then post-match some mysterious music hit, light show... and then a bunch of straw hats held out by the crowd that were taken away to reveal the highly anticipated debut of.... some old man with a big grey beard.

The fans around me and in the arena were going absolutely nuts and I was just like "who the f is this" before realizing that it was none other than... RICK STEINER! I was just like "wtf" at making their main event drag out and be anti-climactic only to build the PPV to debuting Rick Steiner in 2023, but everyone was just going bananas, and Tony Khan came out and stomped his feet while announcing Steiner/MJF for the next event.

Anyways, then the dream took quite a turn where a bunch of fans were murdered on the highway whilst walking home, and I was driving back weaving around their corpses....

I get where you’re coming from with that. I used to be shocked when I saw him too. But this is just a new level. He used to remind me of someone in “basic guy” shape. But now he looks sick.

TV is an aesthetic business to some degree. There’s area where it doesn’t matter exactly how “great” you look, conventionally. But when your look is a problem, it’s a problem.

you stopped typing just as it was getting good

Didn't remember much more... I remember being creeped out and just wanting to get home, but for some reason getting stuck in some small creepy town instead....

What kind of vehicle were you driving? Were you unable to just drive over the bodies or was it a “respect for the dead” thing?

Police were already on the scene and had it all roped off and there were a crowd of cops/CSI around.... but only in one lane, so had to weave my car in and out of lanes, and really slow down so I got a good eyeful of each corpse....

A believe the dead represent how you feel about AEW and its product. Rick Stiener shows up, a decaying relic cheering by his mindless drones, this is a stand in for their roster. A vanila every man if you will that could be any of their geriatric spandex clad talents. He is the murderer of all those people and the audience corpses left in their wake. And you are the walking dead shuffling through the remains just trying to endure it all without having to bare true witness to the horror.

Xrod will back me up on this

:STONE TEMPLE PILOTS INTENSIFIES:

Seems like AEW's answer to the roster reveal that 2k used to do for their game is to put out a few trailers a day showcasing different guys in action.

Eddie being the first one though is 100% in response to that ill-timed, ill-lighted pic that surfaced over the weekend lol

In this footage he looks right on par with anyone else that's been unveiled based on the arcadey style graphics they went with. I fucks with the spinning backfist.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">He will put you in the ground and smile! You can play as &quot;The Mad King&quot; Eddie Kingston in AEW: Fight Forever!<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AEWFightForever?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AEWFightForever</a> is available June 29, 2023!<br>For more info: <a href="https://t.co/Nv3IuMUZtf">https://t.co/Nv3IuMUZtf</a> <a href="https://t.co/8SnG7caG0u">pic.twitter.com/8SnG7caG0u</a></p>&mdash; AEW Games (@AEWGames) <a href="https://twitter.com/AEWGames/status/1663940189415243777?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 31, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">SUPERKICK PAAAARTY! You can play as Nick Jackson in AEW: Fight Forever! 🦌<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AEWFightForever?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AEWFightForever</a> is available June 29, 2023!<br>For more info: <a href="https://t.co/Nv3IuMUZtf">https://t.co/Nv3IuMUZtf</a> <a href="https://t.co/dzDrKVujLR">pic.twitter.com/dzDrKVujLR</a></p>&mdash; AEW Games (@AEWGames) <a href="https://twitter.com/AEWGames/status/1663947987892985857?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 31, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">TIME FOR ANOTHER SUPERKICK PAAAARTY! You can play as Matt Jackson in AEW: Fight Forever! 🦌<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AEWFightForever?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AEWFightForever</a> is available June 29, 2023!<br>For more info: <a href="https://t.co/Nv3IuMUZtf">https://t.co/Nv3IuMUZtf</a> <a href="https://t.co/geypOi2BuH">pic.twitter.com/geypOi2BuH</a></p>&mdash; AEW Games (@AEWGames) <a href="https://twitter.com/AEWGames/status/1663954920985317376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 31, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

What arcade game does this remind you of?

So far everything looks really fun. Hoping it’s good.

That is way more hair then Nick Jackson has had in a decade!

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BlJQUd6IHMs" title="WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain - Val Venis VS Bubba Ray Dudley (SINGLE)" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The Bucks have too much hair and the streamers during there entrance dont even hang off them in real life. How can anyone expect this fucking company to buy in with this level of absurdity in a game!

But seriously, it looks fun. How it feels to play will be the deal breaker I think based on whats been seen so far. If it ticks all the visual boxes in its style which it seems too then its all down to controls and the game flowing as you play.

I havent purchase a game since NBZ2k21 so not sure if I will spend on this but stranger things have happened. I am probably due for a wrestling game again.

thats not what arcade means in this context. Arcadey is more in line with surrealism vs naturalism. Arcadey is more concerned with with continuous action for the player oppposed to that of a simulation focused game; one that would focus on creating something that visually looked like the flow of a wrestling match for example. Like the current line of WWE game theyve been putting out the last... decade or two?


You pick up street fighter for example its a reasonably fast game. You're going or reacting from the start of the round to the end. Its not reflective of anything being from an arcade.

Love the hand animatied moves btw. Everything has a real pop. You dont get that with mocap for obvious reasons.

Ricky Starks is counting the days. And they had a meeting over it.

Apparently you can ride a skateboard in the game

Looks sick.

Branching, No Mercy inspired story mode sounds really fun.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FxjVZTYX...pg&name=medium

So that's Chuck Taylor, Dustin Rhodes, Jeff Hardy, John Silver, Lance Archer, Luchasaurus, and Malakai Black confirmed who weren't announced previously.

Gotta say, I feel for Evil Uno right now. Guy is a day one AEW signing, a massive gamer, does tons of work for the AEW Games department including a lot of streaming, and he's been promoting this game heavily through all its various builds and appearances at conferences. At one point he'd said what a dream it would be for him to play as himself in a game.

To not make the game while his stablemate does has gotta sting. Objectively Silver is the most popular of the group, but it still is a bit shit.

Matt Hardy and “Broken” Matt Hardy are pre-order bonus.

3 packs of DLC seem to include 2 wrestlers per pack and extra mini games (cos that’s what you should have been spending your time on).

Entrances last about 10 seconds each.

No 3 v 3 matches…for a company with a Trios division.

Not sure if this is from a full build or not.

That looks like a lot of fun. Story mode sounds cool but im wary the reviewer said he never really got that far into it so feels like a bit of his hopes for it coloring that review.

But overall it looks fun.

The game sounded shit, but then I heard “Broken” Matt Hardy is in and my mind has been successfully changed.

Yeah it looks like a lot of fun and a game I’ll be able to play with my kids. I still wanna see what the CAW feature is like because for me, that’s always been half the fun. Have they released the full roster yet?

Im def curious what the CAW features end up being but thats such a huge undertaking i cant imagine its very deep. Hopefully its on par with WM2k or so. I dont see myself engaging with CAWs too much. If im going that route I'll play fire pro.

I dont want to make a thread for but since were at the top of the page Wrestle Quest got a release date. August 8th. Here's the announcement trailer, looks the best kind of stupid:


https://youtu.be/bY5xsVgDHxY

I Wonder if they’ll have the option to graph your face onto the CAW. I honestly wish more games did that instead of trying to mold it yourself. We shall see.

Add it stands everything looks great and I’m hoping it’s good.

I just hope the buttons feel good

Not yet but most of it has been cobbled together either by footage, a glimpse of the character select screen, people appearing on the title screen etc.

As far as I can tell they are up to 46 confirmed for the base game:

-Adam Cole
-Adam Page
-Andrade El Idolo
-Brian Cage
-Brodie Lee (Unlockable)
-Bryan Danielson
-Christian Cage
-Chuck Taylor
-CM Punk
-Cody Rhodes
-Darby Allin
-Dustin Rhodes
-Eddie Kingston
-Jeff Hardy
-John Silver
-Jon Moxley
-Jungle Boy
-Kenny Omega
-Lance Archer
-Luchasaurus
-Malakai Black
-Matt Jackson
-Miro
-Nick Jackson
-Orange Cassidy
-Owen Hart (Unlockable)
-PAC
-Paul Wight (Unlockable)
-Pentagon Jr.
-Rey Fenix
-Ricky Starks
-Sammy Guevara
-Scorpio Sky
-Sting
-Wardlow

-Abadon
-Aubrey Edwards (Unlockable)
-Britt Baker
-Hikaru Shida
-Jade Cargill
-Kris Statlander
-Nyla Rose
-Riho
-Ruby Soho
-Thunder Rosa
-Yuka Sakazaki

One of the achievements is to win a match with at least 50 wrestlers, so I'd think they'd have to give you 50 in the base game. Trent is surely in there. William Regal pops up as the in-game tutorial guide so I'd imagine a playable version of him is in there as a lockable legend. Wouldn't rule out guys like Arn or Taz being in-game legends too.

In addition to them, 2 versions of Matt Hardy are the pre-order bonus/presumably you could buy him if you're a completionist. And the first "season" of DLC includes FTR, Danhausen, Hook, Keith Lee, and The Bunny.

I really have no idea what they were thinking making Matt Hardy the pre-order bonus.

Like, Jeff would've made a lot of sense for a spot like that. He showed up later than anyone else in the game so it would've been justifiable. Plus, it's Jeff Hardy. He's perpetually over. I could quite easily see people who didn't pre-order spending a couple extra bucks to add him to their game.

Instead they went out of their way to get Jeff into the base game only to make the less popular half of the team and the guy who has been in AEW for 3 years a bonus character. Really makes no sense. Hell, have Broken Matt in the base game and make both Hardys the bonus, even that would've made more sense.

But just making Matt the pre-order doesn't incentivize anyone who wasn't already getting the game.

You know in the WWE games you get RVD, Doink, Bret, Shawn, etc as Legend characters? Well in this you get Abadon, Cody, Lance Archer, and Miro. AEW is 4 years old, of course their legends don’t go back as far.

It already swayed Noid

I'm a sucker for the bells and whistles so I hope the entrances can be more than 10 seconds.

Otherwise it looks really good so far. Everyone has been clamoring for a No Mercy style game and this looks to be just that. Hope it isn't a mess at launch and gets off to a good start.

Oh I see lol. I thought you were making a point like that, but I just had to be sure.

lots of gameplay has been out in the last day or so. Weapon collision detection is jank as fuck but everything else looks spot on. Couch co-op looks inarguably fun. Im a little hesitant about high level play though. This dodge mechanic might be busted. Hard to say without playing with it.

So the actual playing of it seems really positive, again barring the weapons which can become...an event lol.

The presentation portion is where they've clearly spent the least time and to my taste thats ideal but i think the pomp and circumstance portion of the fandom is going to want a lot more.

And im not shitting on that. I remember when WM2k came out and the improvements over WCW Revenge were like 85% aesthetic and it blew everyones minds. I think if a sequel ever manages to get out there theyll go hard on presentation and just cleaning up the hit/hurt boxes.

I expect metacritic to be heavily mixed though. Presentation is huge with reviewers. High 60s low 70s is my bet.

I saw a video of Moxley tossing a propane tank at somebody, it fucking exploding, and it didnt even knock the guy down lol

Jank as fuck sounds about right.

the propane tank and the skate board look hilariously inconsistent. a patch can fix the propane tank but that skate board is outrageous. There's no fixing it. Its hilarious though. Drunkenly using that with your friends? Looks like a laugh riot.

Make no mistake though you're laughing at it not with it. The weapons need way more time in the oven

The best part of No Mercy was getting the giant cheese wedge weapon and chucking it at your opponent. So bring on propane tanks and skateboards I say.

The skateboard reminds me of HCTP where you could pop into a motorcycle or jump out of a plane or other shit like that. Genuinely some of the most fun I've ever had playing wrestling games with friends.

I know we'll be popping an edible and playing batshit deathmatches and having a blast with it (lol bomb, blast)

Feel like worst case scenario atm is my buddies and I will get this with a price drop, just because the chaos you can wreak looks fun as shit

If I hear good things I'll probably get it earlier, especially if the career mode really does branch as much as it sounds like it might - would be fun to purposely throw matches here and there to "control your narrative"

When they talk about branching story mode, they probably mean a few matches where it doesn’t matter if you win or lose and it all ends up at the same place.

The skateboard looks fucked. That shit gets old REAL fast when there are good games to play with friends. Does anyone even know 3 other people who would want to play this game in-person? I’m pretty sure most of the multiplayer is going to be conducted online.

Nah, looks like theyre using no mercy's structure. Branches end up in completely different places. Its easy to do, they arent long campaigns. Pick a belt (in no mercys case, isnt clear how you'll pick trees here.) 8 matches or so. 50 branches give or take. Some matches dont impact the angle completely others do. Tons of variety discovering which ones lead to new plots. We've seen Hideyuki Iwashita use this in the past, we know how it works.

Couch co-op isnt as fashionable but i can def get a group together of 10 or more people to play a "new no mercy." Its the most asked for thing in the genre for 20 years. The hype is real for sure, getting a couch session going wont be an issue at all

But yeah online will dwarf couch play globally. Yukes have a pretty good track record with online so im not toooooo worried but it'll need to be good to keep the game alive after the 1st 90 days.

Ideal I'd like to get this on the switch, seems perfect for a portable console, but switch ports of sports titles skew real bad. 2k has proven completely incapable of developing for it and i dont think yukes has tried before now. That version will likely be a dumpster fire, though i doubt its worse than 2k20 was.

Yeah very little is known about the campaign aside from the brief few minutes IGN posted about it but the whole gist is that you pick a wrestler, get invited to AEW’s inaugural PPV and then work your way through the ranks with branching stories. One of the achievements is to hold multiple titles at the same time so there are obviously different title paths at play too. If done correctly there are tons of directions you could go in any given career.

Plus it’s been shown that you can rank up your wrestlers’ attributes. So you might have a HCTP type of deal where if you start a new career with someone else, the dude you ranked up the last time might now be prominently featured since you effectively “pushed” him in your last play through. Even if you play some of the same angles, they’ll feature different people and you can branch new outcomes etc which I dig.

HCTP ran for a calendar year and you largely wound up playing through the same angles each time, but just seeing new faces involved from my various run through as led to some funny results.

I remember one storyline where it was pretty clearly programmed that you’d be attacked by the top 3 stars from the opposite brand. Which meant in one game I was attacked by the unlikely trio of Stone Cold, Sean O’Haire, and Ultimo Dragon.

Hate the idea of having attributes and ranking up and all the stuff they had about doing press conferences/stuff in between shows to level up stats..... making it too complicated...

Love that more info is coming out and the game is looking better and better, but Noids hold on to the a skateboard issue in the game as some big deal. Thank god for destor and his great insight.

Agree with the weapons, but everything else looks dodge as shit too. People have seemed to have trouble locking on and executing even basic shit. The whole axis the game runs on looks dated as fuck. In No Mercy it was necessary for shit to behave that way. It’s not now. Plus people can still whip out No Mercy and it will probably play better.

The presentation does look shit. Everyone’s entrance looks whack. I watched a video where Bryan Danielson got bloodied and I swore he was CM Punk.

I’ll be absolutely shocked if this gets over 75%. We seem to be in agreement about the score, but I don’t find that range of score impressive lol.

That’s about the only thing I have liked. Sounds like they’re trying to kayfabe their roster not working out.

None of it will make a real difference to gameplay, I bet. It’s just punch, tie-up, do your move, hit them with a weapon. But they’ll essentially focus as repetitive mini-games.

It was a bit glitchy, but the Skateboarding actually looked pretty smooth, moreso than their actual running!

Danielson vs Okada at forbidden door

That's the one match I really wanted last year.

It’s a no-brainer to do that match.

Believe Forbidden Door is now up to:

-Danielson vs Okada
-Omega vs Ospreay
-Samoa Joe vs ZSJ
-Daniel Garcia vs Shibata

And MJF vs Tana is heavily rumored as well…though who knows, maybe MJF ducks out and it ends up being Punk vs Tana which was supposed to happen last year

Oh damn I missed joe vs zsj getting set up. That could be really good.

This is starting to look like what had hoped it would be last year.

MJF vs Naito would be my pick. Just to see MJF's reactions to his early match shenanigans.

I want Sanada vs. Punk and MJF vs. Goto. That latter one might sound weird, but I like the idea of MJF disrespecting Goto and New Japan and calling him a mid opponent from a mid promotion. Would be good contrast to Punk who would probably be really respectful.

LOL @ Matt Hardy saying Jeff botching the top rope dive the other night was completely intentional and a planned spot from the beginning.

There are a few wrestlers who can never shut the fuck up, and Matt Hardy is certainly one of them.

I wouldn't feel too bad for him; from what I understand, he's supposedly DLC. As are FTR. And a few others.

I saw some random YouTubers screwing around with the skating. I seriously got vibes of the Downhill Jam portion of the original Skate Or Die! with updated graphics.

Now would be a time for Konami to actually try that. You know, if they weren't busy corpse humping Metal Gear or pachinko-ing it up.

You could have stopped there.

Uno isn't announced for DLC yet. First DLC "season" is FTR, Hook, Danhausen, Keith Lee, and The Bunny.

Buuuuut apparently there's some mini-games included in the season and one of them is called "JoinUs" which surely sounds Dark Order themed.

Be cool if Uno could be a surprise unlockable for completing that game. Really these mini-games don't sound like anything I'd care enough to play if not given incentive to do so. But having hidden wrestlers in the mini-games would be cool and give me a reason to try a mode I would've otherwise skipped.

https://i.imgflip.com/7oc534.jpg

Fucking Matt Hardy :rofl::rofl::rofl:

I’m willing to guess what he actually said was more reasonable, even though he’s an idiot

You would think, but it was as dumb as it seemed lol

I mean he never said OC has drawn like Taker. It’s a stretch but he’s just pumping one of his own guy’s tires.

Guys are allowed to say shit without it being a big deal. What the fuck does it even matter? I say this as someone who doesn’t really care about or like Matt Hardy.

Yeah, think we might be blowing that up a little bigger than it is.

X-Rod taking a nothing burger and blowing it out of proportion so he has a chance to use a bunch of rofl emoticons? Get the fuck outta here

Stunned I tell you

You guys have weird reactions to stuff. I said Matt Hardy never shuts up, and not even a day later he is comparing O.C. to Undertaker. That shit is funny.

Yeah you really nailed Matt Hardy.

No he didn't.


But you know that already.

If guys are allowed to say shit without it being a big deal then why are you giving cumdorx the business rn sir?

I detest OC. I think he's a blight on the industry. There's a difference from saying OC is used as a special attraction like the Undertaker and saying he's a special attraction on par with The Undertaker. Now should he be a special attraction at all is another conversation but he's objectively booked like Taker.

Orange Cassidy fucking sucks. Even throwing the gimmick in the trash — his shit has so much daylight in it. Matt Hardy was done in 2010. Fuck them both.

Holy shit at how underwhelming that DLC roster is for the game too.

He isnt good enough to be booked on national tv. He isnt good enough to be booked in a backyard. The only booking id like to see him get is a jail cell for crimes against art.

OC is great, guy works entertaining matches and the crowd loves him.

Meanwhile the gates shrink, the buyrates shrink, and each passing generation shits just a little bit more on the corpse of kayfabe and the cycle repeats.

The phrase "you're killing the business" isnt a euphemism. It can literally die. There are fewer eyeballs on wrestling than ever and the only thing keeping wrestling afloat is that TV is a dying medium clinging to any live content it can get.

When TV dies it takes wrestling with it.

By guys I meant wrestlers. Cumdorx not allowed to get away with anything here.