Wrestling With Video Games

There is hardly a more pure competitive gaming genre than the fighting game. Two players in one on one combat (sometimes two on two), battle to determine who is the best competitor. Wrestling is arguably the best form of sports entertainment. Well, to some. Wrestling games have been around since the original Nintendo and over the years, I've played most of them. As a wrestling fan (sometimes fanatic) I'm an even bigger fan of wrestling video games. I've played every wrestling game I can get my hands on, to the big retail releases, all the way to the obscure fan made Internet games. For the last two years I have played a wrestling game at least 360 of the 365 days of the year. I wish I could say that was an exaggeration. I have become so absorbed in the Universe mode in the WWE games (starting with 11 and moving to 2K14) that I have lost days to those games. Well with all my time playing wrestling games I thought it was about time I talk about my time with them. Why I play them, what I like about all of them, and what I'm looking for in a good wrestling game.

First I should talk about my favorites. I'll start with the current generation of wrestling games. While WWE'2K14 is easily the most polished and well made wrestling game in recent years, packed with loads of nostalgic hooks and some if the best match mechanics, WWE'13 is easily my favorite wrestling game. It's not that far behind 2K14 in terms of quality, and the roster is by far the best as it represents the best nostalgic era of the WWE, the Attitude era.

While the modern day roster has some obvious gaps, this game is loaded with so many great wrestlers that a lot of the B tier characters that are neglected aren't missed. The only one up that 2K14 has on WWE'13 is the rivalry system which really steps up the universe mode. Looking back to the inception of the PS3 and XBox 360, Smackdown vs Raw 2007 was the first split gen wrestling title (though only on 360 and PS2) and was a phenomenal game. The general manager mode is one of my favorite additions to any wrestling game and the roster was amazing. The gameplay was fast, the hits felt hard, and had an addicting Road to Wrestlemania mode that I played multiple times. Now if we step back a generation to the Playstation 2, Smackdown here comes the pain is easily my favorite game of that era.

Like most of these games for me, it all comes down to the roster and replay ability which Here Comes the Pain has both of. The career mode is a lot of fun with different ways to play to keep it fresh every time you jump in.

Now a lot of people hold the old Aki games close to their hearts and I'm no different. I've probably played Wrestlemania 2000 and WCW/NWO Revenge more than any other wrestling game and these are still two of my favorites. No Mercy is also a game worth hours of time. The Nintendo 64 was one of the best eras for wrestling games and will always be where some of my fondest memories remain.

While I spent days of my life with the Aki games, my earliest and fondest memories of really losing myself to wrestling games was WWF Warzone.  While I had encountered wrestling games before with the Super Nintendo WWF games, I wasn't an addict until Warzone. While nothing about this game would be considered good by any of today's standards, its multiplayer was enough to bring me and my best friend Danny to the same couch everyday after school just to pick our favorite wrestlers (or create our own favorites) and beat each other senseless.  When we weren't playing Warzone we were wrestling on his trampoline with our friends. It was the time of the attitude era and wrestling was our everything.

While eventually Smackdown would come out and be the best wrestling game on the PlayStation, there was less success with the WCW games. When I was watching wrestling as a kid I was watching WCW. I loved Sting and the angle with the NWO so when I was looking at wrestling games, naturally I wanted to play a WCW game. Unfortunately when it comes to PlayStation (which was what I was playing at the time) there were only a handful of bad to mediocre WCW games. I played a lot of WCW Nitro and Thunder even though they were both pretty terrible. However my friends and I found solace in WCW vs The World. A game for PlayStation the combine the big main members of the WCW roster and some Japanese wrestlers. I remember late nights with this game as Danny's older brother consistently stomped me into the ground with this game. I remember WCW vs The World fondly but I recently revisited the game.

Incredibly stiff and bare bones compared to wrestling games today, WCW vs The World is a game that relies on its nostalgia and doesn't hold up well over time but is probably the best WCW game on the PlayStation but really the Aki games are where it's at. I choose to ignore WCW Mayhem and Backstage Assault and you should too.

So now we live in the modern age and have our first next gen wrestling game out with WWE 2k15. The WWE games are the only noteworthy wrestling games being released anymore ( I enjoyed TNA Impact but I doubt we will see another outside of mobile) and if you are looking for something different you have to look to the past or to obscure Internet games which is where I found two shining gems. Two wrestling mobile games that have hooked me like any other mobile game has before. The first is called Wrestling Manager by a company called Serious Parody. This is a game similar to the general manager mode in the Smackdown vs Raw series where you are buying and trading wrestlers and trying to put together the best shows you can. Each show gets a rating and review and you can look at each match on your card to see what matches were better than others. The entire game is played trough menus and the wrestlers are represented by what look like playing cards. All of the characters are parodies of real wrestlersbut there are a lot of original made up wrestelrs as well. You can bid on or buy new wrestlers, match types, and arenas and you try to put together the best shows you can.

You can choose the winners or just let the matches play out, only represented by watching bars rise and fall. After the show you get a raiting and profit, or loss. Honestly all the game amounts to is buying the better wrestlers and bigger arenas and putting together as many matches as you can until you build up enough money. You do have different tiers of challenges that add a lot of playability to the game and keep you coming back. It's fun and addicting. You want to keep completing your challenges but beware because as soon as you finish the challenges the game has little to offer.

Now the one game I HAVE to mention, and also half the reason I wanted to write this, Is Wrestling Revolution for phones and PC. This game is essentially the most pure and earnest wrestling game. Now the art style is kind of like flash meets construction paper and colored with MS paint. It controls very weird but once you get the hang of it, it's easily the best playing phone game that has buttons on the screen that I've ever played. If that's an issue for you then you can download a PC version which works better. It's not exactly the gameplay that makes this game so much fun though. Yes when you figure it out it is fun to play, however the lifestyle aspect is the draw here. So you start out in wrestling school and you can be contracted by different wrestling promotions that are all parodies of existing wrestling promotions. The wrestlers are also parody. Cm Punk equals Mc Puke and Colt Cabana is Kute Kavana. That sort of thing. So when you finish an event  you get a recap of the week between all of the promotions. You see who leaves, who wins titles, who resigns a contract, and even who died of an overdose. That's right wrestlers will die and then you have to wrestle charity events.

Not real enough for you? You can also injure/get injured during a match, which is signified by a scream and your character having trouble manuvering after. Sometimes however after someone get's injured you might find out afterwards that they went to the hospital and died from their injury. It's easily the most earnest wrestling game and doesn't shy away from the darker aspects. This game even has ten man matches that are pure mayhem and it's incredibly fun in just how much of a mess it can be. It's easily one of my favorite wrestling games currently out and I would love to see this game make it to a Vita or 3DS or something. It's worth checking out and you can tell it's a wrestling game made by a wrestling fan for wrestling fans. There's also a new 3D version out but I haven't had the chance to play much of that yet.

There are so many more wrestling games out there but these are some of the ones I feel deserve some attention or are worth remincising about. While I may have fallen off of actual wrestling for a long time I never stopped loving the games and I will continue to play all of the ones that come out. So what are you favorite wrestling games? Do you know any that a lot of others may not have heard of? Feel free to share it.

No Risk No Reward

So since I've gotten back into wrestling its always felt different and it's been hard to put my finger on why. I checked out around 2000 just before WCW went under. As mainly a WCW fan I lost interest after the company was absorbed into the WWF and formed the WWE. Well skip to 2011 and I turn on wrestling to seriously watch it for the first time in eleven years and I was sucked back in. I love wrestling all over again but it just feels like a completely different beast now. Like a lot of people, I have pined for the days of the Attitude Era but it wasn't until recently that I found out what I missed from modern wrestling. There's no sense of risk or danger anymore. Take out the fact that wrestling is way more PG now than it was before with the exception of indies. I also give TNA a lot of credit for still going bloody and edgy when they need to. That Storm vs Roode match last year was one of the bloodiest I had ever seen. TNA keeps me coming back for these reasons. Aside from the great roster it feels like TNA's struggle is leading to entertainment. You just want to tune in and see if it succeeds or fails. With WWE you always know what you're going to get.

Back in the 90's wrestling was at its highest peak and we had two giant companies that were direct rivals. We saw WWF and WCW superstars appearing on each other's shows, throwing away titles, calling out their respective leaders, it was like the Wild West and felt like war. Well like most wars there was an eventual winner and loser and the WWE was born. This the Attitude Era ended and we entered the era of Ruthless Aggression. This is probably where a lot of people checked out (myself included) but going back and looking at it in retrospective this was a pretty great era in WWE. We saw the rise of unconventional champions and the entrance of nobodies that are now today's superstars. I remember saying to myself "who's this Cm Punk guy? He's no Stone Cold or Rock!" Now I really believe he's the best in the world. Who would have thought a smaller guy like Rey Mysterio could ever be a world champion? These are moves of innovation that we really don't see anymore.

The WWE has become comfortable. We've seen John Cena and Randy Orton over and over, we've seen John Cena win the championship over and over, and we've seen a number of young, talented, and well deserving stars pushed aside over and over. We all know The WWE is in the John Cena business. He's been the number one guy for years. And I won't deny he's earned that spot back when there were other superstars to compete with but now Cena is the only superstar. The WWE has done a poor job of building up other performers to be just as big a star as Cena, so when a lot of the wrestlers we know and loved started to retire, we now have a much narrower playing field that has only recently started to widen but the ones in charge still love to throw objects into the cogs of a well oiled machine. Ziggler, Bryan, Cesaro, Sandow, are all examples of of wrestlers that have had short burst pushes that were shut down. Instead the WWE would rather concentrate on a "sure thing" rather than push what they have. There are some lights in the darkness, looking at the Shield and Wyatt family, but there are so many stars the WWE could trust as top guys if they only took more risks!

With out the need to compete with other wrestling companies (TNA is an alternative, not a competitor) the WWE has become lazy and comfortable at the expense of their talent. Why take a risk and put over a young talented wrestler when you can keep bringing in retired wrestlers or John Cena every chance you get? This is not what wrestling fans want, is to see the same matchups over and over. The WWE is a billion dollar company and they aren't going anywhere, and they know that. The only incentive for them to take any risk is to please the fans, which they haven't been in the business of lately. Guys like Daniel Bryan and Cm Punk have clawed their way to the top through shear talent and charisma and the WWE has failed to recognize the smart moves throughout the way. Hopefully in the future the WWE will see through their recent blunders and take some bigger risks to keep the wrestling business interesting. In the meantime TNA is putting on the biggest events they've ever done before in New York City and taking an exciting risk so I know where I'll be keeping my attention. So what do you think? Is there enough risk in today's wrestling or is everyone just too complacent? As always feel free to share your thoughts in the comments and you can find me on Twitter @advent_crash.

The Problem If Cm Punk Returns

So RAW came to Chicago, and there was some buzz (there always is) that Punk was supposed to come back. Well RAW ended, Punk didn't come back, and guess what he probably won't for more than a year. Fact is fact, Wrestlemania was Punk's goal, his desire. He has said many times that headlining Wrestlemania was the last thing he needed to achieve, and this year was just the last straw. For three years running we have had part time wrestlers stepping into the picture and taking the Wrestlemania main event spot. Guys who had their day and decided to come back for a short stint. Granted Batista is signed for two years but it's the same story. He just walked in and got the main event spot. It robs the younger, more deserving, talent their chance to shine and I can't fault anyone for being fed up with it. Punk held the championship for over a year and didn't even headline a lot of the PPVs in favor of part time wrestlers returning. He more than most had a reason to be fed up, and he left. 

So it's been a big mixed bag of feelings regarding the Punk situation. Part of me (as a Chicago area resident) throws my fist in the air and screams YES! Wrong wrestler I know. I love that Punk did what no one else really does. He saw his position in the company, evaluated his future, and said see ya. He knew the WWE just didn't care enough about him the way they should, they haven't been listening to their fans, and Punk saw no reason to stick around. I say good for him for standing up for himself. Now another part of me feels betrayed. I'm a fan. Punk is a very talented wrestler and it goes beyond home town love. He walked out on the company that belittled him but he also walked out on his fans. Yeah it's really unfortunate that I can't see my favorite wrestler every week. Should I be mad that he walked out? Sure. Should I be happy that he stood up for himself? Sure. Its a double edged sword no matter how you look at it. Now a lot of people don't want Punk back, most people do, among those that do is Vince McMahon who is smart enough to see the financial pull that Punk brings in. He was the number two seller of merchandise and the number one heel. Obviously Vince doesn't want to let that go. Well with RAW in Chicago it was the perfect time for Punk and Vince to have a meeting and work things out. Well it sounds like there was some kind of offer and Punk turned it down. My guess is for Punk it was Wrestlemania main event or bust. 

So chances are we won't see Punk until at least next year, maybe around Royal Rumble time. If I could sidetrack for a  second, my dream scenario is that the number 30 entrant to the Rumble wins and starts celebrating but the bell never rings. Suddenly another timer kicks on and Punk is a 31st entry. Then these two fresh wrestlers have a full match where Punk wins, winning his first Rumble and moving onto Wrestlemania. That would be an amazing Rumble wether you love or hate Punk, and dare I say best for business. Now we have some issues. Punk coming back is what we all want but it's not that easy. The guy turned his back and walked out while under contract. Some people backstage sympathize with him but there are plenty who were happy to see him go. It was no secret that Punk honestly felt he was the best and had a chip on his shoulder, it's the nature of the business he's a part of to show confidence. So let's say he does come back and gets the Wrestlemania main event. Most likely scenario it becomes a three way match that he loses. Fair enough. He forces his way into the main event through his antics, we can't expect him to win. The WWE has their clearly strict and laid out plan and that never included having Punk in the main event. They want Orton vs Batista and are in now way showing any desire to change it, though I'm unsure why. It really feels like they don't watch their own programming. I picture Vince McMahon leaning back in a chair in a dark room locking his fingers saying outloud "You'll all see at Mania." But I think he's going to be very surprised when his heel vs heel match is booed and torn apart. What a great way to end your biggest show of the year.

So would Punk being entered into that match fix it? Absolutely. The fans have shown that they want Cm Punk. We hear the chants. Naturally Daniel Bryan is the real go to for the crowd right now but Punk in the main event would solve so many problems for the PPV, but I'm guessing a lot of people in the back may have a problem with that. There are a lot of younger guys that deserve a main event shot just as much as Punk does. If he was handed the main event because of his temper tantrum it would probably cause a lot of bitterness among the talent. 

The real issue with the Punk situation is the crowd. Of course I want Punk back, and of course I love the chants for support, but the WWE didn't make him leave. He made his choice and did it on his own. Now you could argue that their decisions made him to leave, but honestly it really falls on Punk. Punk wants to be the number one guy but do we really believe that he would want to do the talk shows, and live events the way someone like Cena does? I highly doubt it. Now I love the support and fandom for Punk, but the chants are pretty disrespectful. As much as I love Punk, I love wrestling as a whole more. Now there are plenty of good matches and great wrestlers are performing to Cm Punk chants and not getting the recognition they deserve. Now I fully support Cm Punk chants when the authority is present, but when the Wyatt's and Shield are putting on one hell of a match, why would you want to rob their recognition? I don't get it. 

So do I want Punk back? Absolutely, but I think he should wait until next year. Things need time to cool down. Let his contract expire and come back next January with a contract garunteed for Wrestlemania. The only answer for this year is to put Daniel Bryan in the main event, otherwise Wrestlemania is going to get ripped apart. So what are your thoughts on Punk not coming back in Chicago and the prospect of his future? Sound off in the comments and as always you can find me on Twitter @advent_crash.

HCW: Hardcore Championship Wrestling Episode 3.

The first Season of a new machinima series I am working on called HCW Hardcore Championship Wrestling. This series is meant to be played off as a small off shoot of the WWE. Here all originally created wrestlers, and some parody based wrestlers, will compete in completely undetermined matches controlled by the computer. I will set up the universe mode and let the matches and rivalries set themselves. I will use the story creator to create cutscenes and build the stories but I will craft the stories out of how the computer reacts to each other.

HCW will also have a user interactive component. Basically just by watching the show you can affect the future. As you may notice in this episode that the arena is fairly small looking. Well as the show gains views I will create bigger and better arenas to reflect the increased interest. The show will grow like a real company with rosters expanding and changing as well as the arena. Since HCW is also billed as a smaller part of the overall WWE family, as the show grows I will also include run ins from WWE superstars. So just watch the show and tell your friends to watch the show and let's bring in some changes!

This machinima is created using WWE' 13 and uses WWE imagery but is in no way licensed or affiliated with the WWE as a company. Hardcore Championship Wrestling is completely fictitious and inspired by true wrestling fandom.

Darkstation Talks Wrestling Eps. 4

So for a while now me and Jon Fisco, fellow Darkstation.com writer, have been meeting up to record a wrestling podcast in our free time. The problem is, I don't have a way to post to iTunes, and I don't know where else to post it that offers an embed code to put in this blog. So far I've been using sound cloud but I only have the free subscription and can only post one episode. So I can only have one work at a time which makes the archiving of this blog pointless because those links will become dead. However for now, sound cloud is what I have so in the meantime I hope you enjoy episode 4 of our podcast. I'm going to be working on getting the previous episodes up in a listenable fashion. For now, enjoy the show. As always leave comments for questions, concerns, or opinions and you can find me on Twitter @advent_crash and my co-host @fisco.

WWE Program Spitballing

The WWE Network is happening. It's now a thing. For real. It gives us access to an amazingly extensive library of wrestling programming, but what else are they going to feature? What kind of shows will the WWE pick up? Word is they are looking for more ideas for original programming so I thought it would be fun to sit down and spitball some ideas on the Internet. So let's start off with the easy ones.

-MIZ TV- Make Miz TV a talk show for wrestling. This seems like the most obvious choice to me. I mean TV is right in the name. Think what you will about the Miz in the ring (personally I've come around) but the guy is a good host and a goods talker. Give Miz TV about a half hour and let him run things for a while and see how it goes. Could be fun. Question is does to go kayfabe or not? Personally I think with this it would be kind of boring if it was just a bunch of guys talking about who they are going to beat up. I guess with this it could really go either way but personally I would rather them break kayfabe.

-The Steve Austin Show- Stone Cold now has two reality shows, Redneck Island and the Broken Skull Ranch. However he also has a very successful podcast that I think she just be recorded with video and made into its own show. Its Howard Stern but with your buddy Stone Cold. That sounds fun to me. Let him do his interviews the way he does (masterful) and give him a nice studio with cameras to do it in. Minimum work and you have gold! Now Chris Jericho could also dip into this a little because he does a podcast on the same website but let's let him build up his chops a bit more. I'm sure there's something else he could do in the meantime.

-The Road Show- Now this idea is borrowed from Kevin Steen's Weekend Escapades and Colt Cabana's Wrestling Road Diaries but the idea is simple. Just follow a couple wrestlers on the road. If you've ever listened to any stories from wrestlers on the road, they ways have crazy or funny stuff to talk about. The problem with this idea though is its the WWE and that means it's PG. So a show like this might get old pretty quickly but there's potential to see people like Daniel Bryan and Bri who like to check out hotspots, or maybe follow CM Punk to a comic book shop. There's enough different personal interests in the roster, and enough combinations of different people driving together that there could really be a mixed palette of content.

-Documentaries- All of those DVD compilations that the WWE has put out through the years, put em' all in one place. This also gives them the opportunities to creat new documentaries and interviews. I could get lost for days in this stuff alone.

-Tough Enough- Remember that show? Where wannabe wrestlers would compete for a contract? And then remember how they canceled it and then brought it back (with success) and then canceled it again? Well, now is the time to bring it back! But here's the thing. There's no reason for a show like Tough Enough anymore as far as getting a WWE contract goes. That's what NXT is for. Maybe just rework the show into something a little different. Maybe take normal people instead of independent wrestlers and treat it like. Wipe out sort of thing. Or maybe Biggest Loser is a better comparison because then they can tell you you're the worst kind of human for not being Tough Enough! See what I did there? Pure gold. (Nailed it!)

-Any Reality Show- Does Steve Austin want a show? Done. Does Daniel Bryan want a show about beard grooming? Sure. Does Cm Punk want to cruise comic books stores across the country? Let him. Just give a reality show to any one of their superstars that wants to try something and let the good ones weed themselves out. Not all at once of course. Let's not get crazy. I love watching any behind the scenes action I can find. It's the only reason I watch Total Divas really. Let's face it, reality shows are in. So let's use that.

Well the wheels keep turning but this is what I have off the top of my head. The WWE is looking for content and I just hope they find some interesting ideas. Maybe they will even hire me for my ideas! Yeah and then I'll be the next WWE World Heavyweight Champion while we are still in fantasy land! So what does everyone else think about my program ideas? What kind of shows would you want to see? As always sound off in the comments with ideas, or if you just want to talk (I get lonely) and you can follow me or berate me on Twitter @advent_crash. (Seriously guys. Really lonely!)

The WWE Network is Real!

So for weeks the WWE has been teasing a big, company changing announcement to take place in Vegas. We heard a lot of talk about the future of the business ad all of that kind of stuff, and they managed to pay off the excitement. Now we've heard about the possibility if a network for years and what we got wasn't exactly what we expected, but is more than likely the smarter move. The Network is not its own channel on TV. It's more of a Netflix app but for wrestling. A 24/7 streaming service. This actually makes a lot more sense in the grand scheme of things. Less hassle, less hoops to jump through, and more control on their end. However if the service is as good as their love stream I don't have a lot of hope because it crashed on me multiple times and I had to refresh. Maybe that was just my end, I have no idea. For now I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. So what is the Network? It's an app. Pure and simple. You will be able to use it on your gaming consoles, any smart device like a phone or tablet, and TVs that allow apps. However some devices like certain TVs and the X Box One won't be getting the app until around the summer.

So what is featured on the WWE Network? Simply put, everything. Original programming and reality shows, PPVs will be live streamed, you have access to the entire libraries of WWE, WCW, ECW, and NXT, and they announced other shows like Top 10 Countdown and Monday Night War. Overall its a loaded package. The best part? It's only 9.99 a month! That caught me with an actual wow! I only hope there is a yearly subscription option. So if you're a wrestling fan, it's about to become a lot harder to go outside. Why would anyone anymore? I'm going to need. Lot more pairs of sweatpants and underwear, not to mention stocking up on cereal. On the images they showed during the press conference they listed Total Divas as well which is curious since that is currently on the E! Network so I'm sure there was an interesting deal going on there.

So now let's talk about the actual press conference. Stephanie McMahon was doing a lot of the heavy lifting as the host of the event. Honestly, I was expecting either a complete shit show, or a lot of boring executive talk. I was pleasently surprised. It felt a lot more like an E3 press conference on a condensed scale. We got plenty of stage talking with a screen presentation, but we also got Triple H and Shawn Michaels as DX stealing the show. These two guys have always been hilarious and that was obvious here. Its hard to tell if their mix up with the teleprinter was staged but it came off hilarious and clever nonetheless and I'm not going to ruin it. If you didn't see the video, this part alone was worth watching. The show wasn't incredibly long, or rather didn't feel that way, I think it was only an hour and a half. All honesty I missed the first few minutes because I was late. I'll say two hours at most. There were only a few superstars involved with the show including Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Stone Cold, and naturally John Cena. Otherwise me mostly saw Stephanie introducing everything. There were some interesting train wrecks however. The MLB guy on stage seemed like he was having a stroke (and that relationship wasn't clearly stated either) and there was an awkward segment with an exec that just felt horribly staged with another Teleprompter gag and then him be intimated by DX. It was just awkward.

So what is all of this going to mean for the WWE and their talent? After the announcement I saw a lot of wrestlers and insiders questioning about their pay. Wrestlers get pay bonuses based on PPV buys. Well if everyone is using the app PPV buys might see a drastic drop. How many people are going to pay fifty to sixty dollars when you can pay that for the entire year? Well if this is successful chances are you will get millions of people buying the Network subscription versus the hundreds of thousands that buy PPVS. You do the math. Now as far as the pay boosts for PPVs. Well that's more insider talk that we will probably never hear about but in a perfect world the WWE will be pulling in a lot more money because it is going directly to them trough their own Network versus paying out to other networks. So hopefully they will have more money to throw at their talent. Again, in a perfect world. Those guys and gals have earned it so I just hope they don't get screwed. And what of how TV will work? Will the show lose ratings when people are watching on the app? Will they track ratings on their own Network? What if this Legends House show doesn't work? Will they cancel immediately or let it ride out? The main thing about their own Network is that it's now all on them. They have a lot more responsibility but a lot more control so maybe if their first season of something isn't working then they can keep it around longer than most other networks would and see if it picks up. It's an interesting time not only for the WWE but for television. And now we get to the cherry on top. The release day. February 24th right after Monday Night Raw, the WWE Network goes live.

So what do you think? Are you excited for the WWE Network? Was it a good presentation? What were the pros or cons? Are you going to subscribe or at least check it out? Feel free to sound off in the comments. As always you can reach me on Twitter @advent_crash. Don't have a Facebook but I am on Youtube with my own Wrestling Machinima called HCW: Hardcore Championship Wrestling. Its kind of on hiatus right now but I promise more episodes are coming soon! 

**UPDATE** So looking back on the pricing, they were purposely a little vauge. They said it was 9.99 per month but also said that's if you go in for six months. So it sounds like its 60 for 6 months and 120 for a year. Most subscriptions have a 60 a year deal so this could be twice that, but honestly, there's so much content that it's still a hell of a deal.

Wrestling in the Past, Present, and Past?

The Attitude Era. The NWO era. Both one in the same and we and we can just call it the Monday Night Wars. It was when wrestling was golden. Every Monday night you could tune into Raw or Nitro and see amazing wrestling with some of the biggest stars to ever enter the sport. These men and women are now all part of a group that we would classify as legends. The Rock, Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold, Sting, Kane, The Hardy Boys, Edge and Christian. These are all major players of the Monday Night Wars. However it all changed when WCW went out of business and was purchased by Vince McMahon. Wrestling changed very quickly. Fast forward to the present and the WWE is unrecognizable compared to it's past self. Lets just call it what it is, its PG. You won't see a Stone Cold come out and throw around middle fingers like we used to. It's toned down and that's not neccarily a bad thing because if there's one thing I'm sick of its the pining for the return of The Attitude Era.

Now don't get me wrong. I LOVED the Attitude Era. Some of my favorite matches to revisit are from that period of the 90s. A good amount of my wrestling DVD collection covers this time period, but that's just what it is at this point. It's a period in time and a period that's over. We are in a new era and whether you call it the Universe Era or the Modern Era, WWE is whole new beast from what it once was. One thing, however, has never changed. We seem to be doomed to forever suffer through the return and push of old superstars. A one night return or a few month stretch its consistent year by year. Sometimes it works for the best and feels fresh, like Goldust's current return, and other times it just feels forced, like The Rock for the last few years. I will admit it can be nice to see some old faces again, or for the first time when it comes to the younger generations, but its hardy ever worth it and just doesn't have the same spark. I love ECW, but I don't need to see an ECW reunion show every year. Tommy Dreamer has the right idea with House of Hardcore. Keep it fresh and don't exist solely to give these older guys a job.

Wrestling is full of nostalgia and that's not a bad thing. It becomes a problem when the younger worthy stars lose a push over an older star. WWE and TNA both have a lot of young great talent that gets pushed aside for the sake of focusing on the older talent that has already had their day. As much as I love Sting and The Rock I'd much rather watch Austin Aries or Wade Barrett get a bigger push. Things have gotten better in the last year. Aries was a successful heavyweight champion, Daniel Bryan had a great feud that was eventually squandered, CM Punk had his amazing title run, but he lost to the Rock, Bryan lost to Orton, Aries lost to Hardy, all people who have had extensive runs and multiple chances. Not that they don't deserve a good story either but it starts to feel tired. TNA is being forced into a position where they have to bring in more unknowns for monetary reasons and maybe that will be best for them. Its time someone took a risk as brought in some fresh talent. Bring back Christian York and Crimson, give Sam Shaw more TV time, hire Brian Cage over Jay Bradley (still bitter about that), and just maybe let Sabin hold the title longer than a week. The only thing worse than not looking at great talent is already having it in your roster and not utilizing it. Maybe Zack Ryder could be the most entertaining wrestler in the world and he just needs TV time! We may never know.

The WWE has been notorious for not listening to the people. I understand that they are a billion dollar company and try obviously know what they are doing, but I just feel like they may be a little old fashioned. Triple H taking the reigns may be the best thing for the company because he seems more likely to look at some deserving talent, and William Regal has sure picked some great superstars in his scouting, maybe just a younger mind is all that's needed. Too often the WWE is giving a newer star a great run and letting them shine, only to hit the stop button and start over. Not every star is going to blow up over night and you need to let things play out for a bit. Maybe one match in a feud is a dud but what if their next match is amazing and you don't let it happen because Pay Per View buys were down? So instead of letting someone like Bryan keep feuding with Orton instead he gets attacked by Shawn Michaels and he's no longer in the title picture. What?! Still don't understand that one. You just need to let things play out sometimes and see where it goes. When an entire crowd is cheering YES, in a way I haven't seen since *clears throat* the Attitude Era, maybe what you're doing is working! Instead we get another Cena and Orton feud. Oh yippee! Like we haven't seen this a million times.

The Attitude Era was magical. Older superstars always have a place in our hearts. A lot of them are still amazing too! Do I want to see Ryback face Goldburg? Sure, about right years ago. Do I war to see that at Wrestlemania 30? God no. I want something new. Give me something fresh! Even Ryback vs Lesnar would be better because at least Lesnar is still wrestling and proved he can still put on a five star match. Seriously, Summerslam was awesome guys! The bottom line (because Stone Cold says so!) is that if the WWE wants to honor the Attitude Era then give us a good documentary and keep pumping out those compilation DVDs. Personally love The Most Electrifying Man Rock DVD myself. Otherwise it's time to push some of these younger guys! Wrestling needs to be innovative and not keep dipping back into the same well. So what do you think? Where do you stand? Do you want to keep seeing the stars of old dragged back every year or would you rather see a flood of new talent? Be sure to sound off in the comments. Also you can follow me on Twitter @advent_crash.

Introduction and Unification

Hello everybody. My name is Jeremy Meyer and I'm an editor for the video game website Darkstation.com but more importantly I'm a huge wrestling fan, a mark for wrestling if you will. Now that I've proved my wrestling worth (nailed it) I thought you should know a little about me. Yes I'm a video game journalist, no I'm not involved in the world of wrestling aside from being a fan, but I believe wrestling lives inside the fans. So I'm writing this on December 15, the night the pay-per-view Tables Ladders and Chairs (TLC) airs, though I am writing this before it goes live. Tonight is hopefully a moment of change for WWE as it marks the first time since 2002 that we are having title unification. John Cena vs Randy Orton both hold the World Heavyweight title and the WWE Championship respectively but the winner of tonight's match will walk away as the sole Undisputed Champion. This is an event I have been waiting and screaming for years!

 The title picture in the WWE has been in dire straits for a long time. One thing I feel that TNA has always done well is making their titles matter. They have a limited number of titles and I feel like they do still hold some prestige within their company, thigh TNA is something I will write a separate post about in the future. The WWE, for a long time, has had too many titles. This is something that has affected their company in some pretty negative ways. It's left a weird perception of the different levels of the roster and almost completely changed the game for the mid-card in some positive and negative ways, depending on your own opinion (mine being negative.)

 Let's face it, the Intercontinental and United States Championship mean very little. What do these titles mean when compared to each other? It's not like only US wrestles compete for the US title. It's meaningless. The US title needs to go! The Intercontinental title has been around forever and holds some prestige. The name even has some meaning, Intercontinental, a title that travels or is competed for by competitors from around the world. You can bring in feuds about a wrestler from one country trying to prove he's better than a wrestler from another, tons of compelling story ideas. However this name only works if we eliminate the name for the World Heavyweight Title. Weight classes don't mean anything in wrestling anymore. Take a guy like Bully Ray in TNA who weighs in at over 300 pounds, and then we look at someone like CM Punk who comes in about 218 and both have been great world title holders. We look at guys like the Big Show, AJ Styles, Great Khali,Rey Mysterio, Daniel Bryan, Mark Henry, Chris Jericho: Weight limits don't matter anymore, it's all about the talent. Unless you are going to have a title for the little guy, we don't need a title for heavyweights. The Undisputed Champion, or the Undisputed WWE Champion (my personal preference) is the perfect way to signify the best of the best. Its undisputed after all so we know they are the real deal.

 The idea of a unified championship title in 2013 is a major step in the right direction for the WWE. It's time to start weeding out some of these belts. The way I see it you only need about five different championships. One Upper tier championship, one mid-tier championship, one set of tag team titles, one women's championship, and then one specialty title (EX, Hardcore, Television, Cruiserweight)Though a Cruiserweight title raises the weight class argument again so that one shouldn't be brought back into the mix. As much as I like the idea of splitting up the roster, we have to remain consistent. This is something that TNA has pulled off with their X Division and I say let them handle as they already do a good job of that. I say we need the Undisputed Title, the Intercontinental Title, the Tag Team Titles, the Diva's Championship, and I would love to see the return of the Hardcore Championship but with this new PG era of wrestling I think we have to go with the Television Title. This would give us more title matches on Monday Night Raw and Smackdown and also open up some interesting story concepts. TNA has actually done some great TV Title vignettes if you watch Eric Young's 2011 run. But this is all we need. Five titles, that's it! So what does this do? Well it narrows the field first of all. That Undisputed Title already gains a great amount of prestige as the one top title in the company. We have harder competition and winning it is more likely to put over a wrestler in the fan's eyes. Two, it makes the mid-card title more prestigious. Now we will care who holds the Intercontinental Title because he will be the next person we can see aiming for the top championship instead of just handing these belts across the roster for any reason at all like they are doing now. Again it's about the oversaturation! If we have less titles they mean more to the holders. Maybe next we can eliminate the US Title.

 I don't think WWE will be the only company to benefit from this. NXT is also going to get a boost. The point of NXT is to develop performers into the next level, being the WWE, and bringing them in to a narrower playing field puts them into a whole new spotlight. It's a tighter competition so a win for them on RAW or Smackdown is huge. Competition will appear a lot tougher just from the idea of having fewer chances at championship gold. So tonight we go into TLC with a match that hopefully unify the titles and creating one of the most significant events in modern WWE history (since the last time Jericho did the same thing!)

There are multiple ways the WWE might try to go about this and hopefully WWE avoids the obvious title switcharoo option just to get the WWE Title back in Cena's hands. In fact the whole backing of Cena by the WWE is another post to talk about in the future. I love Cena, but it's time to mix things up! Well needless to say I'm looking forward to TLC tonight and will probably post my thoughts about it tomorrow night if I have time. I hope to post as often as possible and would like to do some TNA and Ring of Honor coverage as soon as possible just to get my opinions known on all of the products and so repeat readers can understand my general feelings on wrestling. So what do you think of the idea of this title unification? Do you agree with me that it's a great move for the company? Or is this a doomed venture that's destined to backfire in their face? Feel free to let me know what you think. We'll talk more wrestling soon!