WWE’s recent booking in this “New Era”
So there’s been talk going on within the pro wrestling and especially WWE fandoms saying that Vince and creative doesn’t think that there are any unique character personas anymore. They think that once wrestlers like the Undertaker and Kane truly retire, there will be no unique characters left in the WWE. My question is whose fault is that? You have a Becky Lynch, who is trying to forge her own character path within the WWE, and what does creative do? They are holding her down for storyline’s sake. They have wrestlers like Nikki Cross (and Sanity as well) coming in who have their own unique personas, and what are they doing with her? She’s hasn’t been on TV in the last few weeks, and when they did have her on, they made her a tag partner with Alicia Fox, who has a unique personality as a crazy person, but she isn’t the best wrestler in the world, so she’s rarely on TV, except for when they need another body in the ring. Cross could easily be put in a match with Asuka in order to reignite their amazing feud from NXT—since it seems that at least half of the audience of the main roster don’t watch NXT. You have the New Day, the Iconic Duo and frankly, others like Rusev who are trying to break out of the WWE mold and forge their own unique personas, but especially in the case of Rusev, have been held back time and again for trying to do so. How can Vince now complain about not having enough superstars or unique, character personas when he has actively tried to turn each talent into the same old, boring ass homogenized wrestler time and again? How can he say that basically there’s no saving the current lot of talent when he’s made a point to hold back natural pushes in favor of only pushing those few that he feels deserve it? If this new era is supposed to be about what the audience and fans want (as we are supposed to be the “Authority” now), why would he make a point to swerve and screw us at every turn?
Which brings us to the current matches that are being set up for this year’s WrestleMania. So far, there’s Charlotte vs. Ronda, which most fans still want Becky vs. Ronda in a singles match to main event this year’s Mania. Creative is trying with all their might to turn the audience towards wanting a triple threat match between Becky, Charlotte, and Ronda for the main event, which honestly is ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think that it will be a bad match, but frankly it still smacks of Vince not trusting the women’s division to put on an amazing singles match to main event a pay-per-view as big as the biggest of the big four (those four being the Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and the Survivor Series), when they’ve proven time and again to the contrary. There is so much talent on the current main roster, but it seems that Vince is bound and determined to slough them off to the side in favor of new talent coming from NXT, and old favorites like Batista (who I love) and Kevin Owens, who returned for injury on last night’s Smackdown to take Kofi Kingston’s spot in the WWE Championship match against Daniel Bryan, which pissed many fans off me included. I just hope that this will set up two things—1) an eventual match at WrestleMania that involves Kofi going for the title, and 2) the forming of a disgruntled faction within the WWE. There are just too many disgruntled wrestlers on the main roster right now, regardless of whether they have belts or not. I’m really hoping that these disgruntled people are leading to something good, and not just another screwing of good talent.
It seems that yet again Vince doesn’t get it. As was proven with the way he rushed Gargano, Ciampa, Ricochet and Aleister Black debuts last week, Vince has once again shown that he just doesn’t get it, when it comes to today’s wrestling. He has also proven that if it’s not on RAW or Smackdown, he doesn’t watch his own shows, and that’s a shame, because now he has caused problems for Triple H and the creative of NXT, who are now moving up the timeline for Gargano and Ciampa’s eventual move up to the main roster. Frankly, I don’t know how Triple H and NXT’s creative are going to write/book themselves out of this problem and that’s a shame because it could have been avoided if Vince wasn’t so shaken by All Elite Wrestling and the success that they are having.
Apex Legends and why I like it
Let me start by saying that I am not normally a Battle Royale player or fan. One of the main reasons being that I don’t like that I as a player can’t keep the items that I find in the matches. I am a long time player of FPS like Battlefield, Gears, Halo and to a lesser degree Call of Duty. I’ve always loved the single player stories of these games. I was frankly saddened and pissed when the makers of Call of Duty decided that fans of their games didn’t want immersive and engaging stories within the variety of worlds that they’ve built. It’s the reason that the last Call of Duty that I personally played was Ghost, and I reluctantly tried it, because frankly, the last CoD I played extensively was Modern Warfare II. I didn’t really like MWIII or Black Ops II nearly as much, and the story of MWIII pissed me off, because of the deaths of certain characters, but I digress.
When Apex Legends was released, I was hesitant to try it at all, because no previous Battle Royale game has ever piqued my interest, except for maybe the Battlefield BR mode that is supposed to be released soon, because of the reasons I’ve already given. So, it was quite odd that out of a sense of wanting to play an FPS style game, and currently not having enough money to buy Anthem, I thought I’d try Apex Legends. It’s not a story-driven game, but I’d give it a try.
It’s funny. My first time playing it, I was ridiculously rusty and had to get used to playing an FPS game again, as the last game with any type of shooting of this style in it that I played was Mafia III. I mean I play Warframe and LOVE that game, but Warframe is a different style of shooter than games like Apex Legends, Mafia III and say FarCry 5. The thing is as I continued to play Apex Legends, I began to understand why many gamers like BR games. It’s the thrill of the hunt, and a bit of the thrill of uncertainty as well. Will I be able to find a weapon before I am thrust into battle with an opponent? Defeat or be defeated…that sort of thing. I like that in this game there are twenty squads of three, instead of the free for all of games like Fortnite or PUBG. That being said, if a squad doesn’t work together, a player could find themselves just as alone as they would in those games. I actually found myself liking the game for what it was for me—a game that I can play when I’m kinda bored, or when I want something quick to drop in and out of, before going to bed.
This game by no means makes me want to play it for hours on end, because outside of the Meta of the game, there’s no real story to immerse me into, but for what it is, I can see myself, and have found myself playing this game, as a bit of a palette cleanser of sorts when it comes to gaming. There’s nothing to really keep me playing this game for hours and hours, but for what it is, I can happily say that I have fun playing it and will play it again from time to time, and that’s something that I never thought I’d say about a Battle Royale game.
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