WHERE CHATTERS GO TO TALK ABOUT OFF TOPIC STUFF!
www.cbssports.com/wwe/news/2020-wwe-tlc-tables-ladders-chairs-predictions-card-matches-start-time-date-location-ppv-preview/ I am being lazy. It's after 5, on a Friday afternoon, and I am tired...so instead of actually taking the time to manually write up each match with a prediction, I am just gonna post CBS Sports' article, with my predictions added on to theirs. Credit goes to Brent Brookhouse and Adam Silverstein over at CBS Sports. One of WWE's most iconic matches returns this Sunday at the TLC pay-per-view. Both the WWE and universal championships will be on the line in TLC matches with expectations high for both to deliver big thrills. In total, five championships are on the line at TLC, including Roman Reigns defending the universal championship against Kevin Owens and Drew McIntyre putting the WWE title on the line against AJ Styles. All the action goes down from the ThunderDome inside Tampa Bay's Tropicana Field. TLC will begin at 7 p.m. ET with the show expected to last approximately three hours, not counting the kickoff show, which starts one hour prior to the main card at 6 p.m. CBS Sports will be with you the entire way on Sunday with live results, highlights and analysis. Let's take a closer look at who our CBS Sports experts predict will come out on top at WWE TLC. Women's Tag Team Championship: Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler (c) vs. Asuka & TBD With Lana being pulled from the match due to kayfabe injury, there are a finite number of women who can take her place: Nikki Cross being the one that makes the most sense followed by Charlotte Flair and Naomi, either of whom would be making their return after injury layoff. More likely is that WWE resets its women's storylines as it initially planned before Mandy Rose was injured. I believe Rose & Dana Brooke were supposed to face and defeat Jax & Baszler with one or both of those women moving into a feud with Asuka for the Raw women's championship entering 2021. So with Lana sidelined and Rose back, it makes sense to run an angle with Jax & Baszler taking out Asuka before the match, allowing Adam Pearce to choose a replacement team that gets the job done as initially planned. Pick: Mandy Rose & Dana Brooke win the titles -- Adam Silverstein (also Brent Brookhouse. Dave won't predict who the winners will be, but will predict that Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler will lose. Their entire tag team run has been just to set up the rivalry between them about who is better...the answer is obviously Shayna, because Nia is one of the sloppiest wrestlers in the company, but I digress) Raw Tag Team Championship: The New Day (c) vs. The Hurt Business The build to this match has been convoluted with New Day going 2-0-1 in title matches against Cedric Alexander & Shelton Benjamin before the requisite singles victories from Alexander earned Hurt Business another title match. Hurt Business needs the boost of the titles, while New Day is getting a bit boring with the straps on Raw. I'm not sure why the storyline would have run this way if it was not for a change to come at this pay-per-view. Pick: The Hurt Business win the titles -- Silverstein (Dave agrees.) I could absolutely see the titles switching here, but I think this is where the seeds they've been planting with Cedric Alexander's selfishness start to pay off. Alexander was tagging himself in as Bobby Lashley was dominating in a six-man, he has celebrated wildly several times in a way that seemed to upset the rest of the Hurt Business and so on. I can see him making a decision that backfires, allowing New Day to retain and causing internal issues with the group. Pick: The New Day retain the titles -- Brookhouse (Dave disagrees, you save the backfire stuff for later. Give Hurt Business the belts, and THEN have Alexander's antics cause them to drop the belts, say at the Royal Rumble next month.) "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt vs. Randy Orton Wyatt is on the standard path of facing a rival in a match as himself before the payoff match as The Fiend. Orton was getting the better of the initial match before Wyatt disappeared and was replaced with The Fiend. Then Orton lit a box containing Wyatt on fire only to see The Fiend emerge. Given Wyatt's "victories" on Raw, Orton would usually get the win at the pay-per-view. But The Fiend is a special attraction and those rules don't always apply. Additionally, Alexa Bliss has been off screen since Orton threatened her as proof he found The Fiend's weakness (she was actually just off filming for the new Punky Brewster show). This would be a good spot for her to pop back up, cost Orton the match and prove that she is not a weakness. Pick: "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt wins -- Brookhouse (also Silverstein and Dave, who sadly has to pick against Randy Orton, who has been the freaking MVP of 2020 for the WWE) SmackDown Women's Championship: Sasha Banks (c) vs. Carmella WWE is finally giving Banks a run with a championship after her history of being unable to hold on to the title. It's hard to see that ending at the hands of Carmella less than to months after Banks won the belt. Carmella has come off strong through the story and that's great for the division, because SmackDown needs more players at the top of the women's division, but she's not ready for a title run and Banks' run hasn't developed enough. Pick: Sasha Banks retains the title -- Brookhouse (also Silverstein and Dave...Carmella is FUGLY.) WWE Championship: Drew McIntyre (c) vs. AJ Styles (TLC match) Styles is a great utility player at this point. You can slot him into any situation and he's a credible threat. That said, it's hard to see McIntyre losing the belt before WrestleMania, especially after he already briefly lost the belt to Orton. This should be an excellent match and could set up a Miz Money in the Bank cash-in attempt, which would also likely fail in the interest of keeping McIntyre a strong champion. Pick: Drew McIntyre retains the title -- Brookhouse (also SIlverstein and Dave) Universal Championship: Roman Reigns (c) vs. Kevin Owens The simple fact of the matter is that Reigns is the top character and storyline going in WWE right now. It has been an incredible new character that is captivating audiences and making people excited about SmackDown. Reigns will lose the title at some point, but it won't be to Owens at a B-level PPV. It will likely be at WrestleMania against another current superstar (like Daniel Bryan or Big E). if WWE follows through with the rumored Goldberg match, perhaps Reigns holds the title for a calendar year until SummerSlam. Owens has been revitalized by this feud, but the change we will see in him may be more of a heel turn than Owens becoming the new champion. Pick: Roman Reigns retains the title -- Silverstein (also Brookhouse, and Dave, who just doesn't get Kevin Owens. WHY IS HE INTERESTING?)
Comments
Whenever you see a list of the best wrestling video games, WWF No Mercy for the Nintendo 64 is usually listed as #1. It's status is almost legendary, and gets the highest marks for gameplay and it's CAW (Create-A-Wrestler) system. No Mercy is absolutely an AMAZING wrestling game. There are some games that have come after it that have also become beloved by the fans, including Smackdown: Here Comes the Pain, various entries in the Smackdown Vs. Raw series (especially 2007 and 2011), as well as WWE 13, 2K14 and 2K17. (Any WWE game after 2K17 is utter crap). However, if I had to pick ONE wrestling game to own outside of No Mercy, it wouldn't have the WWE label on it anywhere. Instead, I would go with Spike Chunesoft's Fire Pro Wrestling World. The Fire Pro series is actually quite old, the first game coming out for PC (Japan only) in 1989, with Super Fire Pro Wrestling being the first console game, available on the Super Famicom. Over the years, multiple Fire Pro games were released for the Super Famicom, Playstation, PS2, Sega Saturn, PC, Xboxes. etc, but for the most part, they were Japan-only releases, and those of us here in the United States had little idea the series existed. If you have never even heard of the game until reading this post, it's perfectly understandable. And then something amazing happened. Spike Chunesoft put the game on Steam for PC users, and released it in North America for Playstation 4 owners. And Twitch streamers started to play it on stream, which is how I discovered it. OK, but what does the game actually look like??? Graphically, it's not trying to be photo-realistic like the WWE 2K series does...and in my opinion, that's a GREAT thing. Not having to be photo-realistic allows you a lot of freedom in your Create-A-Wrestler features. (More on that later). The isometric view takes a bit to get used to, but once you do, it feels normal.
There are plenty of match types available, for both single and multiplayer experiences, as well as story modes and a Promoter mode, kind of like Smackdown vs. Raw's GM mode. From traditional wrestling matches to straight up MMA rules inside the Octagon... Now, the actual game play itself is HARD AS HELL. If you are playing the game, there is a steep learning curve. The moves themselves are fairly simple, but everything is timing based, and CPU controlled wrestlers don't give you much leeway on your timing, even on the easiest difficulty level. CPU wrestlers simply DGAF if you are noob. However, the fun of wrestling games isn't you against the CPU anyway, it's you against your buddy. And if you both suck at getting the timing right, it's balanced, LOL. But, honestly? I never actually wrestle any matches. The fun of Fire Pro is in just setting matches up and letting the CPU wrestle the CPU, while you sit back and watch the mayhem. This game has moves in it that you have never seen in a wrestling game before, and that's before you ever even touch the downloadable content. You sim the CPU against the CPU, and you have no idea what kind of match you are going to get. It might last 5 minutes, it might last 50. It could be a technically perfect match or a flat out brawl, the AI kind of goes with the flow. It's incredibly fun to watch. Technically, you can do CPU vs. CPU in the WWE games too...but it's really not the same... Before I get into the absolute best part of FPWW, I do have to mention a criticism that I have with the game. You have a very small selection of championship belt designs available, and while you can download "belts" as part of a wrestlers clothing design, the belts you can actually win or lose in the game is very limited. I hope a future DLC allows people to expand the number of belt designs, as I think it's the game's biggest weakness. And now, for the best part of the game: Create-A-Wrestler/Steam Workshop. The game is worth it for wrestling fans just for the depth of this one feature. First, the game has built in, an incredible amount of choices when it comes to designing your own wrestler. From faces, masks, costumes, materials, You can make just about any wrestler you want, just from what's available to you initially. You can create separate promotions to organize your wrestlers in, create stables within those promotions, move wrestlers from one to another, just a lot of freedom to play promoter (outside of the previously mentioned promoter mode). But, what if you don't want to take the time to learn how to make really cool created wrestlers to use? Well, then you can just hop on Steam, and go to the Fire Pro Workshop...where you can download thousands of characters, clothing, faces, ring mats, logos, and moves. You can download just about any wrestler you can think of, chances are someone's created them already. But who wants to download wrestlers one at a time? BORING! Want to create a wrestling promotion based on the classic 1980s WWF? No problem. Instead of trying to remember all of your favorite old school wrestlers, just find a 1980s WWF collection or 10 to download...Preferred the NWA or WCW? There's a collection for that too. World Class? ECW? TNA? Ring of Honor? Collections! Why not simply download entire rosters? But what about non-wrestlers? Can you include those, just for fun? ABSOLUTELY. My own personal game has ex-Presidents, Transformers, He-Man characters, DBZ characters, G.I. Joes, Marvel/DC comic characters, Star Wars and Star Trek characters, the Bee Gees, KISS, Kratos, all of the wrestlers from the NES Pro Wrestling game, MMA fighters, boxers, Martial artists like Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris, celebrities, the Ninja Turtles, Freddy Krueger, Jason, old timey movie creatures from those 1930s-1950s schlocky movies, Robocop, the Terminator, Conan the Barbarian, just all kinds of weird non-wrestling characters. You wanna know who would win in a fight between Skeletor and Cobra Commander? No problem! Set up a barbed-wire match between Galactus and Unicron? Sure! Wanna see how Daniel LaRusso from The Karate Kid/Cobra Kai would do against Marty McFly inside of a UFC ring? You can make that happen...Deathmatch between Bob Ross and Mr. Rogers? I dunno why you would ever be that sadistic to put them against each other in a fight, but if you really wanted to... Lastly, where else are you gonna see Hulk Hogan against Duke Nukem inside the Octagon, with a bear as the referee? |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
February 2021
CategoriesOur sister Sites:
NCAA Chatters ncaachatters.weebly.com/ NFL Chatters nflchatters.weebly.com/ Patriots Place patriots-place.weebly.com/ MLB Chatters mlbchatters.weebly.com/ |
Photo used under Creative Commons from ColinD13