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IMPACT Wrestling - Emergence Night 1 & Night 2 (Aug. 25, 2020) -- Results & Afterthoughts



On Tuesday, August 18 and Tuesday, August 25, IMPACT Wrestling’s Emergence took over AXS TV for a two-week special event. Personal rivalries will be settled and championships will be on the line.

Emergence Night 1 (Aug. 18, 2020) Results:



X-Division Championship
 Rohit Raju def. Chris Bey (c) and TJP
Winner: Rohit Raju pins Chris Bey after a double foot stomp to become the NEW Champion!

Rohit Raju picking up the win and stealing the title away from Chris Bey was the upset win of the evening. I thought TJP had this thing pegged to win from how he was dominating this match from bell to bell.

One hell of way to get you pumped for this show in terms of action. The X-Division never seems to disappoint in that regard, despite the fact that almost EVERYONE in modern wrestling works this style nowadays. It's a constant struggle for those guys to continue being innovative and still find ways to stand out in this environment.

Instead of the tagline being "You'll Never See It Coming" for Summerslam, it should have been for Night 1 of this show. Like who seriously saw Rohit winning this match?



TNA World Heavyweight Championship
Moose (c) def. Trey
Winner: Moose retains with the Lights Out Spear

Trey TRIED to put up a good fight against Moose, but the tale of this match was that despite the fact that Trey gave it his best shot, it was ultimately not enough to take Mr. Impact Wrestling down.

EC3 showed up post-match and laid out Moose again, only to take the TNA World Championship into his own hands.



The Good Brothers, Karl Anderson & Doc Gallows def. Ace Austin & Madman Fulton
Winners: Karl Anderson & Doc Gallows with the Magic Killer

Decent match, but I can't say that I wanted to see these two teams fight each other again.



WrestleHouse
Kylie Rae def. Taya Valkyrie (w/ Rosemary as Special Guest Referee)


I get what they are trying to do with Kylie Rae. They want to present her as their "bubbly" babyface like Bayley that has an "edge" about her when the going gets tough. I like that, but her matches tend to be a very hit or miss. The right woman went over here as Kylie Rae is still technically the next number #1 contender for the IMPACT Knockouts Championship before everyone was "trapped" in WrestleHouse

I haven't talked about the Wrestle House concept much if not at all, but I actually really like it. A lot of modern wrestling has a lot of "stupid" things on these shows whether it comes from AEW or WWE that simply insults my intelligence for even tolerating it. This is "stupid" too, but it's not presented as serious. It's a sitcom of sorts presented as a sidebar to the rest of the actual wrestling show, so I don't mind it in that regard. Besides, this makes for a lot of hilarious interactions with a lot of IMPACT's current personalities that wouldn't happen normally otherwise, so I'm all for this in that regard.

As much as I like WrestleHouse as a concept/diversion to what is usually going on the main program of sorts, even I have to admit that a lot of these matches are easily forgettable. I can't knock them too much as these matches never seem to overstay their welcome.


World Tag Team Championship
Motor City Machine Guns (c), Chris Sabin & Alex Shelley def. The North, Ethan Page & Josh Alexander to retain


There were a ton of points in this match where I could have seen this going either way, but I was glad to see the Guns retain. The North can bounce back from this loss and climb back up the tag team ladder that got them to the tag titles in the first place. I doubt they are done with the Guns - not by a long shot. My fear going into this match was that the Guns' victory was just a one-off for the Guns to simply drop the titles back to The North in another month or two at the next PPV.

The Guns can bring some more eyeballs and lapsed fans back to the current product who are curious to see them back with the company. Nothing against The North, but it wouldn't hurt them to work a few non-title feuds in the meantime. Those guys have proven time and time again that they are one of the best tag teams in modern day wrestling right now.




Emergence Night 2 (Aug. 25, 2020) Results:




Impact World Championship
Eddie Edwards (c) def. Rob Van Dam (w/ Katie Forbes)


I wasn't feeling the idea of putting the title onto Edwards following Tessa Blanchard's impromptu departure from the company, but I can't deny the guy is a work horse. These open challenges are already starting to feel stale, despite the fact that RVD can still go like time has stood still for the guy at times. That just can't be helped when AEW already dragged that concept into the ground with the TNT title open challenges with Cody.


I did get a laugh at Katie Forbes' porn star-esque antics at ringside for distractions, but I am more intrigued with what they are going to do with Eric Young's heel run this time around. It makes perfect sense to have him jump Edwards after the match and shoehorn himself into the World title conversation after putting Rich Swann on the bench - seemingly for good.


WrestleHouse
Loser Has To Dress Like The Winner Next Week
Crazzy Steve def. Johnny Swinger
(w/ Cousin Jake as a special guest referee)


Can't say that I have ever have been a fan of these blindfold matches as they tend to be a clusterfuck instead of good in any capacity - no matter what company it is. I didn't care who won this one in either capacity.


Locker Room Talk
Madison Rayne w/ her co-hosts Wentz and Dez.



I would pop to see Rayne in the Clubhouse and she's TOTALLY a Karen.


EC3 vows to destroy the TNA World Heavyweight Championship


Can you blame the guy for wanting to destroy his past? His entire 2nd run of WWE was defined by hype and anticipation of people expecting him to be the same as he was at the height of his popularity in IMPACT, but it never happened - neither in NXT nor on the main roster.


If EC3 truly wants to reinvent the wheel then he has to burn the book and start over anew.


Brian Myers def. Willie Mack


After seeing him job out for so long on WWE programming, I tend to forget that Myers is actually a decent worker. I totally didn't see him going over Mack here at all. I wonder where they are going with this, especially with Myers taking the Brodie Lee approach to his arrival in terms of referencing the "senile old man" who held him down.


WrestleHouse
Larry D def. John E Bravo
(w/Acey Romero as their guest referee)


This was over QUICK. Larry D dropped Bravo like ton of bricks.

This was ultimately just to get to the icing on the cake where Bravo has the balls to confess his feelings for Rosemary, much to the ire of Taya.


Rosemary made an interesting post on social media shortly afterwards though. In either case, I'm anxious to see Taya and Rosemary rekindle their old rivalry next week. Maybe this will bring an end to WrestleHouse as it was a nice diversion, but everyone here should be moving onto other things sooner more than later instead of wearing out the welcome of this unique concept.





30-Minute Ironman Match for the Knockouts Championship
Deonna Purrazzo (c) def. Jordynne Grace with the score of 2-1 to retain

Nice pair of info cards/tale of tape that they made for this match. 

This was easily the best thing on Night 2 of Emergence and rightfully topped off this show. I can't say that this was a full 30 minutes because this match started roughly 9:32PM after the introductions and I'm sure there was some sweetening and clever editing throughout the commercial breaks to make this fit within the remaining time on this broadcast.

Going into this match, I was convinced that Deonna was dropping the title right back to Jordynne since she's working "per appearance" and hasn't signed an actual contract with IMPACT at the moment. With that being said, I was genuinely shocked to see her retain the gold here. I'm guessing this means that she is set to defend the title against Kylie Rae at Bound for Glory in October.

I wouldn't mind another match between these two women as they have been doing some great stuff here in this feud so far. Jordynne's new ring gear looked great as well. Thicc Momma Thicc (or is it Pump in homage to the jokes that she's Scott Steiner's unofficial daughter?) always lookin' good.


Given the way that Deonna won the match, I'm sure Jordynne could argue that Deonna didn't beat her clean and had to cheat to win, but at the same time, Deonna has the bragging rights to claim that she's bested Jordynne not once but twice now since her debut in IMPACT Wrestling. They could easily go to a third set in this series.

My only knock on this match is that it would have benefited with an uninterrupted format on a PPV instead of on free television, but the Knockouts rarely disappoint and I was definitely pleased with what we got here.
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WWE Summerslam: You'll Never See It Coming (Aug. 23, 2020) -- Results & Afterthoughts



SummerSlam was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and WWE Network event produced by WWE for their Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. It took place on August 23, 2020 at the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida. It was the thirty-third event under the SummerSlam chronology. It was also the first SummerSlam since 2011 to not feature Brock Lesnar, who competed in the main event match for the past six years and in 2012. Additionally, it was the first SummerSlam since 2009 to feature MVP.

The event was originally scheduled to take place at the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Boston mayor Marty Walsh announced the suspension of all large-scale gatherings and that no permit would be issued for an event that could draw a large crowd before September 7. Since mid-March, WWE has presented the majority of their shows from the WWE Performance Center in Orlando with no fans in attendance due to the pandemic. With the move to the Amway Center, SummerSlam was the first major WWE event held outside of the Performance Center since March, although still without fans physically in attendance; fans instead were able to attend and be seen virtually on LED boards in the venue through a new experience called ThunderDome.

The card comprised eight matches, including one on the Kickoff pre-show. In the main event, "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt defeated Braun Strowman in a Falls Count Anywhere match to win the Universal Championship for a second time. After the match, Roman Reigns made his return following a five-month hiatus and attacked both men. On the undercard, Drew McIntyre defeated Randy Orton to retain the WWE Championship, Mandy Rose defeated Sonya Deville in a No Disqualification Loser Leaves WWE match, and Asuka defeated Sasha Banks to win the Raw Women's Championship for a second time after losing her match against Bayley for the SmackDown Women's Championship in the opening bout.


Singles Match for the WWE United States Championship
Apollo Crews (c) def. MVP
Bobby Lashley and Shelton Benjamin were banned from ringside.

Kick-off match, so I didn't watch, but I have a question. Why is MVP still wrestling matches when he's supposed to be the mouthpiece for the Hurt Business? Couldn't Lashley be wrestling these matches instead?


Singles Match for the WWE SmackDown Women's Championship
Bayley (c) (with Sasha Banks) def. Asuka


Out of the three women's matches on this PPV, I have to say that this was the weakest match out of the three. I don't mean that an insult either as there was some great women's wrestling on this show in all three bouts, but the finish here soured my taste on this match in the end.

Sasha Banks no sells three consecutive attacks from Asuka, only to jump up on the ring apron and take the bullet for Bayley during the final exchange off the ring apron, thus allowing Bayley to roll Asuka up to retain.

I thought it would have made more sense to have Asuka dethrone Bayley because that women's division on SmackDown! is on life support, despite the fact that Naomi beat Bayley clean on SmackDown! Friday night. Bayley has gone through that entire roster in terms of challengers for that title and no one has beaten her nor has shown any signs of a glimmer of hope of taking it from her anytime soon. The win over Asuka here just felt like a minor footnote in terms of giving Bayley bragging rights that she overcame her loss to the Empress of Tomorrow from their days back in NXT.

The fact of the matter is that Asuka had Bayley's number and she knew it.



Tag Team Match for the WWE Raw Tag Team Championship
The Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford) (c) def. Andrade and Angel Garza (with Zelina Vega)


There's nothing much to write home about this match as it was your typical Monday Night RAW run-of-the-mill, bland, boring tag team match that went on a little far too long for my taste.

I was expecting a run-in from Bianca Belair for the finish, but no dice. The finish occurred when Montez Ford accidentally bumped Zelina Vega off the ring apron and down to the floor, where Andrade was too pre-occupied with tending to her instead of helping Angel Garza fend off the Street Profits.



No Disqualification Loser Leaves WWE match
Mandy Rose def. Sonya Deville


The decision to change the stipulation of this match came at short notice following the trial on Friday with Sonya's real life stalker being charged in court. This match originally was going to be a hair vs. hair match, but it changed to the current stipulation. To be fair, the loser here was never really in doubt, especially with everything that Sonya Deville has gone through with this stalker incident. I don't blame her for wanting to get off television for a few months and just get away from all of this for a while. That way she can hit the reset button - mentally and physically - before coming back bigger and better for her next big WWE storyline. I'm still bummed out that Fire & Desire never won the WWE Women's Tag Team titles, but the fucking IIconics did? Fuck that noise, especially when they were desperately looking for teams to put those belts on at one point.


Loving Mandy's choice of new ring gear to go with her new hairstyle. 

I got a kick out of Mandy doing the Caterpillar/Worm to celebrate with Otis after the match. I almost died laughing at that. She needs to ask Nikki Bella for some pointers on that.



Street Fight
Seth Rollins (with Murphy) def. Dominik Mysterio (with Rey Mysterio)


This was a fucking master class in terms of storytelling for the evening.

This was arguably one hell of an in-ring debut for Dominik Mysterio. I'm sure his biological father, Eddie Guerrero, was smiling down him with pride (laughs). All jokes aside, Dominik, Rollins, and Rey Mysterio killed it with everything in this match from bell to bell. They even had me going with Mysterio's wife teasing to get involved.


I absolutely adored everything about the narrative in this match. This image alone is worth it's weight in gold. 

The match had the PERFECT ending too. Dominik got so close at victory that he could taste it, but Rollins got the knees up to shoot down those dreams. Rey wanted to help his son, but was helpless as he was handcuffed to the ropes across the ring and was forced to watch Rollins deliver the Curb Stomp that would secure his victory. If this doesn't lead into that father/son tag team match against Rollins and Murphy (The Disciple...LOL) that Rey Mysterio has been begging for, then these people need to be slapped for this booking.

On a sidebar note, cool throwbacks to Rey Mysterio's WCW Halloween Havoc '97 for Rollins' ring gear while I could have sworn that Dominik was rocking some TJP-inspired gear. I know that kid is thanking his mom's side of genetics to get her height instead of being his dad's height.



Singles Match for the WWE Raw Women's Championship
Asuka def. Sasha Banks (c) (with Bayley) by submission


Sasha Banks was on a mission to have the best women's match of the night and she sure as hell accomplished that feat. Her and Asuka were killing each other in this match from bell to bell. I couldn't give a flying fuck about Sasha's current gimmick and storyline right now, but she hasn't disappointed me in the least when it comes to her in-ring ability. I still think that she does a little TOO much in matches at times, but I can't hate on her ability to perform, even though she tends to go overboard in terms of unnecessary bumps and risks.

I was all for this match being the best thing on the show from the women, but the finish was absolutely stupid. They rehashed the EXACT same spot from Bayley's title defense, only for Bayley to get knocked off the ring apron and Sasha got rolled up instead. I get that they were saying that Asuka learned from her costly mistake in the previous match, but why the fuck is the commentary team going on about this Bayley's fault?


Sasha went to the well too many times in terms of dirty tricks and got owned. Simple as that.


I know the Sasha stans will be butt hurt that she lost yet ANOTHER singles title after her first title defense, but she shouldn't have won it in the first goddamn place. That entire storyline from the last month or so was absolutely stupid. It was only done for Sasha and Bayley can continue parading around together, bragging about having "dos straps" or "two belts". To be honest, I would have went with Asuka taking both of those belts from Sasha and Bayley, but that's just me.

WWE seems to be deadset on stalling and dragging out this split between Sasha and Bayley for over a year (which feels like 2-3 at this point) to the point where I don't see how anyone still cares at this point. Sasha goes back to being a boring babyface while Bayley is the heel this time around. Who cares? I don't doubt the match itself would be nothing short of amazing, but all of this stalling and waiting is killing this in the long-term scheme of things.



Singles Match for the WWE Championship
Drew McIntyre (c) def. Randy Orton


This wasn't a bad match at all. Randy Orton seems to be on a mission to prove that he can have great matches without a ton of dives since his feud with Edge earlier this year. They totally had me going that Orton was going to win the title when Drew whiffed the Claymore completely though. I totally bought into that spot, only for Drew to roll him up with a backslide to retain.



I don't have an issue with a backslide being used, but my main issue was with it being used merely to give the commentary team the excuse to shout "YOU'LL NEVER SEE IT COMIN'!!" as the show's tagline. That had to be a Vince call to have the commentary team shout that right after the finish. Regardless of that call, I wouldn't mind seeing Drew and Randy have a rematch.

As of this posting (8/27/20), Keith Lee has debuted on Monday Night RAW - as advertised in the promo package that aired after this match and is set to face Randy Orton one-on-one at WWE Payback this Sunday (8/30/20). Seems like they are scrapping the rocket on the back of the Limitless One right off the bat.




Falls Count Anywhere Match for the WWE Universal Championship
"The Fiend" Bray Wyatt def. Braun Strowman (c)


I'm going to be honest. At this point of the show, I had mentally tuned this match out for the most part. For what I did pay attention to, I thought it was decent, but I can't say that I'm a fan of these slow-prodding big man matches in WWE. They never seem right on execution. Kross and Lee had a match in the same spot that left a lot to be desired and while this match wasn't as highly anticipated as that one was, there were some good spots to this match. It just felt like they completely shit the bed on the finish.


The talk of the town of this match was the big return of the "Big Dog" himself - ROMAN REIGNS. Now THAT I didn't see coming at all. I thought he was staying FAR, FAR away from this company as long as COVID-19 was a threat, especially with his previous battles with leukemia.


Roman Reigns returns.

I suppose since the Thunderdome is in an open air arena, it's safer for him to perform. WWE has that rented out for the next few months, so that's long enough to get the ratings back up before taking him off TV for a while. You don't want to overexpose him before WrestleMania season. If I was Charlotte Flair, that's what I would do. Stay far away until close to that magic hour of 2021 when they need her for the WrestleMania builds while establishing her some new opponents and new faces to face.




Afterthoughts:



With the ratings for Monday Night RAW and Friday Night SmackDown! both reaching record lows, you knew Vince McMahon was going to hit the panic button and bring back someone from off of the bench at home. I wonder how long it's going to take before we see Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman show back up on TV? I would pay to see him bare knuckle brawling in that RAW Underground thing at least once. Either that or call him down for a NXT TakeOver special to have a Fight Pit match against Timothy Thatcher, but I know we won't see that anytime soon.

All in all, I think WWE delivered on both fronts with both NXT AND the main roster for once for Summerslam weekend. This show was far from perfect, but they had several matches that I was genuinely invested in. This was the first main roster PPV during the COVID-19 era that I have thoroughly enjoyed since the two-nights of WrestleMania back in April.
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NXT TakeOver XXX (Aug. 22, 2020) -- Results & Afterthoughts



NXT TakeOver XXX (originally NXT TakeOver: Boston) was a professional wrestling and WWE Network event produced by WWE for their NXT brand division that took place on August 22, 2020 at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida and was the 30th NXT TakeOver event.

The event was originally scheduled to take place at the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, mayor Marty Walsh announced the suspension of all large-scale gatherings and that no permit would be issued for an event that could draw a large crowd before September 7 (Labor Day). As such, the event was moved to NXT's home base of Full Sail University.

Six matches were contested at the event, including one on the Pre-Show. In the main event, Karrion Kross defeated Keith Lee to win the NXT Championship. On the undercard, Io Shirai defeated Dakota Kai to retain the NXT Women's Championship, Damian Priest defeated Bronson Reed, Cameron Grimes, Johnny Gargano and Velveteen Dream in a Ladder match to win the vacant NXT North American Championship and Adam Cole defeated Pat McAfee.



Match Results:


Triple Threat Tag Team Match to determine the #1 contenders for the NXT Tag Team Championship
Breezango (Fandango and Tyler Breeze) def. Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch and Legado del Fantasma (Joaquin Wilde and Raul Mendoza)


I didn't watch the pre-show since I was watching AEW Saturday Dynamite prior to tuning into the main show for this card, but I'm surprised to read that result when WWE tends to lean towards factions all having championship gold all at once. This just sounds like an easy title defense to fill time between shows until the next TakeOver special. I don't understand the point behind this Breezango push. Nobody cares - I hate to say it. I get those guys wanted some sort of "redemption" after being misused and mismanaged on the main roster, but don't do that at the detriment of getting other tag teams over on NXT. Nothing makes me hit the fast forward button or change the channel quicker than when I see this team show up on my television. It's a darn shame too, because I actually liked these guys when they were coming up as singles stars.


Singles Match
Finn Bálor def. Timothy Thatcher


This was a solid opener for this show, but my only knock against this match is the fact that Thatcher worked Finn's legs the entire match, only for Finn to no sell the damage to execute his Double Foot Stomps without any issues. Like c'mon, man. Plus I honestly don't agree with Thatcher losing like this when they are supposed to be getting his "shooter" gimmick over. One loss isn't going to hurt Finn at this stage of the game, especially when he should be moving back up to the main roster at this point. It's obvious that we're not going to get that Balor vs. WALTER match anytime soon that we were promised for the NXT UK TakeOver Dublin event that was set for earlier this year, but was cancelled due to the travel bans and quarantines due to COVID-19. Send Balor back to the main roster where he can do some more good there for some of the struggling brands with the lack of star power right now.


Ladder Match for the vacant NXT North American Championship
Damian Priest def. Bronson Reed, Cameron Grimes, Johnny Gargano, and Velveteen Dream


This was a stupid good ladder match with a lot of stupid, yet entertaining spots to boot. On top of that there were a lot of ugly bumps in this match where I'm sure that these guys will be feeling in the morning. I'm surprised Gargano took as much punishment as he did to say that he had that close call on the last set of TV tapings. That was a truly gnarly spot between him powerbombing Cameron Grimes on top of the ladder bridged between the ropes. Grimes' body only hit the corner of that before bumping onto part of the bottom rope. Man, that shit was scary to watch. Not to mention Candice LeRae holding onto Bronson Reed's back for dear life as he splashed Gargano from the top of the ladder. Jesus F'N Christ, man. I cracked up laughing at how Velveteen Dream was dumped off the top of the ladder and down out through the commentary tables at ringside.

Say what you will about Dream, but he - along with his fellow competitors in this match - definitely brought it in this match from bell to bell. I would love to see any combination of these five men go at it again in the future, stipulations or not. This was an all-round fun match from bell-to-bell.


I would've told Triple H to get lost while I was about to have my "celebration"...

FYI, the women in the hot tub with Priest for his "celebration" were Brandi Lauren (formerly IMPACT's Ava Storie, who feuded with Shotzi Blackheart in EVOLVE and happens to be one of Jay Lethal's students) and Jayme Jameson, who appeared on RAW Underground the week prior. Jameson is the ex-wife of Gunner/Jaxson Ryker of the Forgotten Sons.


Singles Match
Adam Cole def. Pat McAfee


My anticipation for this match was low going in, so I wasn't really blown away (at least not until that fool busted out a Senton Bomb into the crowd at ringside) like most were at McAfee's in-ring ability. Jim Cornette pointed out on his podcast that Pat McAfee was trained by Rip Rogers, so he's definitely going to know at least how to work in some capacity. The story of this match has been saying that McAfeee has only had a mere TWO WEEKS to prepare for this match when in reality he has been training for wrestling for several YEARS now.

As good as McAfee looked in this match, I thought it was major disservice to Adam Cole to have McAfee last as long as he did. Cole has been the longest reigning NXT Champion in the history of that brand before losing that title a little more than a month ago to Keith Lee. This match had no business going on as long as it did, but I guess NXT was doing the same thing IMPACT Wrestling did a while ago with DeAngelo Williams to show off that McAfee could go with the best that NXT has to offer.

I'll admit that they had me doubting Cole was going to win for a second there off the punt kick for the near-fall. In the end, it was the Panama Sunrise (Canadian Destroyer) that sealed the deal. That made me happy to see a Canadian Destroyer finally win a match for once on this brand instead of being a fucking transition spot.

I have a question for people to think about though. Who actually benefited from this match and build? Pat McAfee pretty much solidified himself as the top heel for the NXT brand in the segment on the go-home episode prior to this PPV. Adam Cole and the rest of Undisputed Era were made to look like fools during that segment as well when they allowed McAfee to talk all of that shit for roughly ten minutes, only to do absolutely NOTHING and go home with their tails between their legs. Sure, Cole said that line that he would make McAfee his bitch at TakeOver, but I can't see any positives to this feud at all. Where does Cole and the Undisputed Era go from here? I guess they could have them feud with Legado del Fantasma, but that would be a step down for the longest reigning NXT Champion in history to be in a feud for the Cruiserweight Championship - not to mention that would highlight McAfee's comments about Cole's size or lack of thereof.


Singles Match for the NXT Women's Championship
Io Shirai (c) def. Dakota Kai (with Raquel González)


There was a scary moment early into the match where Io knocked herself loopy off a backflip of all moves while evading one of Dakota Kai's attacks. Forunately, it didn't seem to hinder Io's performance for the rest of the match though. I hope it doesn't come out that Io suffered some sort of a concussion from such a simple maneuver.

"King Kota" dominated a lot of this match to the point where I was starting to question whether or not Io really was going to retain here. I remember Dakota Kai from back when she was wrestling as "Evie" back in Shimmer and on the indies and it's great to see how far she has evolved her character and in-ring abilities. That being said, I don't see her as NXT Women's Champion - BUT I do see her ready to take on the main roster if they want to move the pairing of her and Raquel Gonzalez up with the upcoming WWE Draft right around the corner. I don't see why don't they call up Tegan Nox and Mia Yim up there too.

I felt the ending here fell flat when Raquel took FOREVER to come in and lay out Io following the referee bump for the near-fall. That just made it look silly when Io popped up hit her moonsault on Kai and Raquel at ringside, only to roll in Kai and hit the same move again for the win. It just came off bad in execution when it seemed like those events were done out of sequence or something. Maybe Raquel was in the wrong spot at the wrong time? I dunno. I just know that it didn't look good at all.

Seeing Raquel and Rhea Ripley of all people stare down was interesting. I'll say that much. I can't say that was a match that I was clamoring to see. I'm disappointed that we didn't get Rhea Ripley vs. Mercedes Martines one-on-one for this TakeOver event. If we don't get that on free TV over on WWE NXT on the USA Network in a few weeks, then that's going to be stupid booking in that regard. It seems like they are planting the seeds for Io and Rhea one-on-one down the road, but I don't know if I like the idea of her going for the NXT Women's Championship so soon, especially when they could go with an idea from one podcast/online comment I remember reading. The idea was to have Rhea and Shotzi as a tag team and would challenge for and win the Women's Tag Team Championships from Bayley and Sasha Banks. If you ask me, I like that idea much more than the makeshift team of Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler that was half-assed together on Monday Night RAW (8/24/20) following this event.


Singles Match for the NXT Championship
Karrion Kross (with Scarlett) def. Keith Lee (c)


From the moment I saw how elaborate Kross' entrance was for this match, I uttered out "This dude is fucking winning this match" to my friends that I was chatting it up with over Discord. There was no doubt in my mind that they would go through all of that for one guy's entrance as the challenger no less and NOT have him win the title here. That shit was fucking incredible. Then Keith Lee comes out to pretty much nothing added to usual banger of an entrance theme he normally has. That was the tale of the tape right there.

Then the bell rung and Lee showed that he was ALL business, knocking Kross across the ring. I like this no nonsense Keith Lee more than the gentle giant that he is normally portrayed by. This is the change in demeanor that I crave to see from Big E whenever he decides to kick the New Day to the curve and go all in on a singles push. I'm not talking about that silent, just stand there and look tough bullshit he was doing with AJ Lee and Dolph Ziggler either. I'm talking about this strictly business (shout out to Nick Aldis in NWA), Hulk Smash attitude that Keith Lee brought to this match.

Lee's rage got the better of him as he smashed his arm against the plexiglass at ringside and trapped his arm between the barricade, which allowed Kross to smash it between those two surfaces. From here on out, Kross systemically tore down Lee's defenses as he continued to target that limb - from Lee's wrist to his elbow and up to his shoulder. The irony of that is that Kross suffered a legitimate shoulder injury (separated shoulder) during this match, but continued on and powered through the rest of this match regardless.

The story of the match was that no matter how hard Keith Lee powered through, Kross' sheer brutality and ruthlessness was too much to overcome for the Limitless One. In fact, Kross proved that Lee DID have limits as he succumbed to the Doomsday Saito from off the top rope. I thought the finish was rather anti-climatic, especially given the build-up to this match. That being said, NXT got where they wanted to go with this mega-push for Karrion Kross, even though I don't necessarily agree with pushing the guy so fast at this point.

The following night, Keith Lee was announced to be the newest addition to the Monday Night RAW roster, so we see why NXT was so dead set him to drop those two titles so fast over the past two months. (Crosses fingers) I'm praying that they don't fuck this up. I honestly see him being Apollo Crews' "back-up" to deal with the Hurt Business, but I wouldn't go that route with him. I would debut him as a part of the Hurt Business and naturally have him split away from the faction to go on his own down the road, much like The Rock with the Nation of Domination. You want this guy to go in as a wrecking machine and that's definitely the group you would want him to be a part of and learn from in terms of veterans in the business.

As for Karrion Kross, I hope his shoulder separation isn't too serious as I would hate to see that his monster push was all for nothing if he has to open NXT on Wednesday night by forfeiting the title.



Afterthoughts:


As of this posting (8/26/20), Keith Lee has officially debuted on Monday Night RAW and is set to face Randy Orton at Sunday's WWE Payback PPV while the verdict is still out on how serious is Karrion Kross' separated shoulder injury. Io Shirai and Rhea Ripley are set to face against Dakota Kai and Raquel Gonzalez, making me wonder what the hell are they thinking not booking the one-on-one match against Rhea Ripley and Mercedes Martinez following what happened on NXT last week. Has Triple H finally ran out of good ideas for this thing or it's becoming painfully apparent that the same shitty booking from the main roster is starting to infect NXT just the same? If we can all be honest with ourselves for a minute, but NXT has been "borrowing" ideas from early to mid-2000s Ring of Honor, Shimmer, and New Japan for a while now. Sooner or later, we should have all seen it coming with the well running dry eventually. That just means that NXT is going to have to start getting creative or actually cook up their own original ideas.

If Kross' injury doesn't require surgery and he can work around it, I suggest opening tonight's (8/26/20) NXT with him and Scarlett laying dominion over NXT and just sit out on the stage watching matches from a pair of thrones like Mil Muertes did at the start of Season Two of Lucha Underground, Shao Khan-style like this is Mortal Kombat as he surveys the landscape of potential challengers worthy of his time. 
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REVIEW -- Superman: Man of Tomorrow (2020)



Superman: Man of Tomorrow is an American animated direct-to-video superhero film produced by Warner Bros. Animation and DC Entertainment. It is the first film set in the second incarnation of the DC Animated Movie Universe and the thirty-ninth film in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies and was released on Digital on August 23, 2020 and on Blu-ray, DVD and set to be released on 4K Ultra HD on September 8, 2020.



Premise:


The film chronicles the early life of Clark Kent, before he became known as Superman.


Voice Cast:


Voice actorCharacter
Darren CrissKal-El / Clark Kent / Superman
Alexandra DaddarioLois Lane
Zachary QuintoLex Luthor
Ike AmadiJ'onn J'onzz / Martian Manhunter
Ryan HurstLobo
Brett DaltonRudy Jones / Parasite
Neil FlynnJonathan Kent
Bellamy YoungMartha Kent
Cristina MiliziaMaya, Petey and Kaylie
Eugene ByrdRon Troupe
April StewartMrs. Ross
Piotr MichaelPerry White




The Verdict:


Right off the bat, I have to say that I adore this new art style for these direct-to-video DC Comics animated films. At this point, I was growing sick of them rehashing the same animation style from Young Justice for roughly a dozen films at that point. In that regard, I found it refreshing to see a new art style being used here to kickstart this new animated continuity.

As for the narrative, they played things a little too safe for my taste and didn't change much from the traditional Superman origin story. That's fine for the most part, but on paper it comes off really boring at times.

Hear me out though. While I enjoyed the battles against Lobo and Martian Manhunter early on, I couldn't help but feel like everything in between was dragging along at a snail's pace. I wanted to get engaged with Lois Lane's budding career as a reporter while Clark Kent was coming up as the mere intern at the Daily Planet, but the film would have this stuff playing out as it normally should. Then things would be going on and on until I ultimately found myself not even caring for the majority of the plot until the third and final act.


Man of Tomorrow's Lois Lane.

It's a darn shame too as Ma and Pa Kent are very likable characters during Clark's tenure at home while he comes to grips of his Kryptonian origins. I wanted to like Lois Lane too, but she seemed to lose her hardened edge that she had when she debuts in the film to confront and expose Lex Luthor. She went from bad ass to borderline fangirling over Superman at one point. I get that she saw the guy naked after his battle with Lobo, but c'mon girl, get a grip. Call me biased to Dana Delany's Lois Lane from Superman: The Animated Series, but that Lois Lane, along with the one in the Justice League: WAR continuity (voiced by Rebecca Romijn), are tough acts to follow. Maybe she'll find her "voice" - even though I didn't have a problem with Alexandra Daddario's portrayal like most early reviews and reactions I saw online after the film streamed for free during DC Fandom - in time as this was her first canonical appearance in this new continuity. Lois Lane, much like Superman/Clark Kent, are younger and not as seasoned as their established counterparts. They still have time to grow into their iconic roles and personality traits that we know and love. I know that some people will find it being a knock against this film for portraying a less experienced Superman than we are used to, but after seeing the character broken down physically and mentally from the horrors done to him and the rest of the Justice League in Apokalips War, we deserved a more lighthearted narrative for the Man of Steel to remind us why we root for this character. Superman/Clark Kent, at his core, is just a good ol' Southern boy who wants to do good by his Ma and Pa. He wants to return the kindness and compassion that his parents instilled into him to those around the world, especially after coming to terms that he has the power to do so unlike anyone else.


If that was supposed to be Mercy Graves, then WTF is wrong with her goddamn face?

Zachary Quinto's Lex Luthor didn't get to shine until the film's last act, where Superman is forced to ask him for help in dealing with the threat of Parasite after he absorbed most of his powers. Luthor reveals that he has enlisted Lobo as an informant of sorts, who provides the information that Kryptonians like Kal-El are vulnerable to kryptonite. Naturally, Luthor uses this information to weaponize the kryptonite ring that Lobo used on Superman in their first encounter into a powerful energy rifle. Luthor's few scenes in this film were good, but much like a lot of characters in this film, left a lot to be desired. There was only a split second where I doubted that maybe Luthor would have a change of heart in this continuity and actually be Superman's ally, but that went out of the window the second that Lobo revealed what Superman's weakness was - firmly establishing him as the rat that Lois Lane exposed him as in the early moments of the film. I mean, damn, this film didn't give us any lee way to think otherwise about Lex Luthor. Even Rise of the Supermen and Justice League: Apokalips War gave Lex Luthor some semblance of humanity and had him opt to do the greater good for the sake of saving the planet rather than his own skin.


I could almost literally hear Superman shouting, "BIIIIIRRRRDDDDMANNN!!" when he would fly up to soak up the rays from the sun.


I couldn't help but laugh that this film acted like Superman instantly heals himself by standing in front of the sun's rays as if he's Birdman from the old Hanna-Barbara cartoons. Where the fuck did that come from? If that's a new age/modern take on his powers then that's news to me. I am familiar with the effect that solar radiation has onto his body and his unique Kryptonian cells and biology, but I didn't think the effect on his body was instantaneous like shown in this film.


Parasite sporting a design that I definitely wasn't used to seeing.

I'm sure someone will chime in but was Parasite always able to absorb energy as well in the comics and other mediums? That threw me for a goddamn loop for the first portion of their battle. I ended up reading up on the villain after this viewing and found out that he's always had that ability in the comics, just that it wasn't never exploited in Superman: The Animated Series or the rest of the DC Animated Universe to my knowledge. He didn't use that ability or the ability to transform into a more monstrous state after absorbing a wealth of life-energy. I know the biggest critique against the Justice League: WAR era of DC Animated films was the extreme violence, but we can't shy away without mentioning how gruesome Parasite's victims looked after he was done feeding off of their life-energy. Not a single one of his victims survived. Instead, they were rendered as lifeless husks. That was on the same vein of nightmare fuel as The Joker's toxin/laughing gas victims in Batman: The Animated Series. (Laughs) I'm just sayin'.


I doubt this is the first nor last time that we will see Lobo in this continuity.

I was surprised at the inclusion of Martian Manhunter and Lobo in this film, especially to say that this is the first film in this new movie universe. They aren't wasting any time whatsoever at establishing that everything is all connected and that's a GOOD thing. There's no reason to keep all of these heroes segregated to their own corners of the DC Universe when they are all moving pieces in it that can easily all operate at the same time. In that regard, I thought it was great idea to establish that Batman was already active and established while Superman was in the infancy of his heroism and exposing himself to humanity - in more ways than one. Lobo and Martian Manhunter's inclusion added to something I thought that the Supergirl TV series did well and portrayed the struggle of being an alien hiding on Earth well. Martian Manhunter dealt with the same thing Kal-El did but only saw the worst of humanity. He was fortunate to say hidden with his shape-shifting powers since he wasn't born with a similar appearance to humans like Kal-El. Lobo's arrival made humans perceive aliens as invaders seeking out nothing more to harm mankind, when there's good-natured aliens like Superman who wish to protect mankind against any and all threats to their well-being.

That contrasting opinion/public reception played into the film's climax, where Superman came face-to-face with the film's primary antagonist, Parasite - who was transformed into a Godzilla-sized monstrosity thanks to how much life-energy and raw energy as a whole that he has siphoned off his victims and throughout Metropolis. Despite all of the powers at Superman's disposal, brute strength couldn't defeat this foe. Instead, Superman allowed this creature to absorb his powers once more and appealed to his humanity, the man that he once was to see the error in his ways. Parasite absorbed Superman's sense of justice and righteousness along with the obligation he felt to do good for those around him. That was more than enough to force Parasite to sacrifice himself to save everyone from being wiped out from the potential overloading reactor by absorbing the raw energy into himself. The energy ended up being too much and reduced his body to dust to be scattered to the wind. I went into this thinking that Superman was going to have this back and forth slobber knocker with this foe after coming up with a means to prevent Parasite from stealing his powers, but instead, I found myself a little underwhelmed that this was a problem that wasn't solved by a Superman, but merely one resolved by a good man. I guess that's the lesson/moral of the story that this film is trying to teach its viewers. You don't need to be a Superman, you merely need to use the tools at your disposal to be a good man. That can save just as many lives, if not more.



Watch It or Don't Bother?

Everyone needs a helping hand every now and then.


For those anxious to see how this "reboot" of the DC Animated Movie universe is going to begin, it's a no-brainer to check this out. For everyone else, I honestly can't suggest going out of your way to check this out, especially when it was available FREE legally as part of DC Fandom last weekend. This isn't a very exciting movie, especially after the high stakes and action-heavy narrative of Apokalips War that preceded it, but to be honest, that's to be expected for anything that would follow-up that film to start this animated movie universe over anew. This film does plant the seeds for things to come as Batman already exists in this continuity and has been active for quite some time. Then Lobo left Superman and Martian Manhunter both with the information that they aren't the last of their kind. That was merely something he stated to sweeten his bounties on their alien races, so that leaves the door open for more Kryptonians (Supergirl, General Zod, etc.) and more Martians (Miss Martian?) to join this continuity down the road. Superman finds himself left with a twisted ally in the form of Lobo with his own brand of humor.
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FIRST IMPRESSIONS -- Marvel's Avengers (Open PlayStation 4 Beta)



I played the beta exclusively on PlayStation 4 over the past weekend (Aug. 14-16), so I can't comment on regard how the game performs on PC nor Xbox One. I spent the most time in matchmaking/War Table missions with Hulk and Ironman the most out of the four available heroes - Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan), Black Widow, Ironman, and The Incredible Hulk. Thor and Captain America were briefly playable during the introduction/tutorial sequence that kicked off the beta.

There will be a final open beta session from August 21-23rd for those who wish to try the game out for themselves in this last go-round before the game drops next month on September 4th.





The beta allows players to play the A-Day event that kicks off the events of the main narrative in the campaign. This level serves as a tutorial and formal introduction to how each of the heroes play and their distinct powers and playstyles. This mission is capped off with that boss fight with players in control of Black Widow in pursuit of Taskmaster.

Ironman can hover above battlefields and rain fire down from a distance with his unique combination of repulsors, lasers, and rockets. If that's not enough, he can summon the Hulkbuster armor to deal even more damage. Thor can deal massive damage with each swing of Mjolnir and summon it back and forth as if you're controlling Kratos from the God of War (PS4) game. Captain America excels at hand-to-hand combat, which was highly reminiscent of his gameplay in the Captain America: First Avenger movie tie-in game, Captain America: Super Soldier. Black Widow and Ms. Marvel have their own unique takes on close-range combat as well. Widow utilizes her speed for devastating hit and run attacks with her grapples and melee attacks when situations get too close for comfort. According to some players, she's being regarded as the most broken character in the game currently. Ms. Marvel on the other hand is a combo powerhouse with her "embiggened" limbs dealing massive damage. She can also grow in stature as well. Last but not least, the Hulk is slow, but can easily demolish everything in his way with his raw destructive power. He can grab enemies and use them as weapons against their allies, along with picking up pieces of rubble and hurling them like projectiles.




After the events of A-Day play out, the beta fast forwards a bit into the game's narrative where Kamala Khan joins Dr. Bruce Banner in investigating one of Tony Stark's safe houses in hopes of finding the means of locating him. Kamala's powers were awakened by the Terrigen Mists that she was exposed to during A-Day, so players are able to take her out for a ride throughout the course of this story mission. Kamala acts as the eyes of the audience, much like Jubilee did in X-Men: The Animated Series.



Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel is voiced by Sandra Saad, even though I thought most of her lines sounded like she was doing an impression of Ashley Johnson - at least that's how it comes off with her material in this beta. I'm more surprised that they didn't go with Kathreen Khavari, who voiced the character in just about every Marvel medium to date, especially when she's no stranger to working with some of the voice acting talents of the few cast members reprising their roles from Avengers Assemble - Laura Bailey (Black Widow) and Travis Willingham (Thor).

Newcomers include but not limited to Jeff Schine (replacing Roger Craig Smith's Captain America from Avengers Assemble), Nolan North (replacing Adrian Pasdar's Ironman from Avengers Assemble), Troy Baker (replacing Kevin Shinick & Jesse Burch's Bruce Banner from Avengers Assemble), Darin De Paul (replacing Fred Tatasciore's Hulk from Avengers Assemble), and Edmund Kingsley (replacing David Kaye's J.A.R.V.I.S from Avengers Assemble). I thought I heard Jennifer Hale as SHIELD Director Maria Hill too, but I could be mistaken.




The mission to find and search for J.A.R.V.I.S. in Stark's safe house turns into a battle against A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics, who have been pegged as the primary antagonists for this game by the developers) who have overrun the area, looking for any clues to find Tony Stark/Ironman as well. From here, you play the first part of the mission as Hulk as you destroy everything in your way to get inside first before A.I.M. After things turn for the worse, you find yourself in control of Kamala as she's pulling switches to find her way into the inner confines of the safe house until she is able to find J.A.R.V.I.S.' original hard drive among Stark's archived Avengers memorabilia.



After this, Kamala is confronted by the Abomination, where control switches back to the Hulk for a boss battle. This wasn't hard by any means as the six generators in the room deal massive damage to him and stun him long enough for Hulk to get a few attacks in. Hulk repeats this several times in succession before defeating him. Once Abomination is defeated, Kamala accesses some footage from A.I.M scientists who have somehow uncovered the means to reverse the widespread mutations that were caused by the events of A-Day.

It's obvious that the Inhumans are going to have a heavy emphasis in this narrative given the fact that a Terrigen Mist bomb was the "cataclysmic" event tied to the A-Day tragedy. With that being the focal point or rather subject manner for this game, I can easily see why they went with Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan as the "main character" in a sense, instead of the "political statement" that people were quick to jump to conclusions about. Whether people realize it or not, but Ms. Marvel has been a VERY popular character since her introduction into the comics continuity in 2013. Same goes for Miles Morales/Spider-Man back in 2011. Kamala and Miles tend to get shoehorned into the "forced" diversity that Marvel Comics was criticized for during their All-New, All-Different Marvel Comics reboot/rebranding from 2015-2019, but those characters were proven to be successes without being tied to that rebranding. I'm actually glad to see these newer heroes getting the spotlight for once.

Before he is fully operational, J.A.R.V.I.S wants Hulk and Kamala to investigate one of the SHIELD installations to get some more components for he can properly access the global network and possibly locate Tony Stark. At this point, you can roam around the Avengers' make-shift base of operations out of the safehouse. Each of the Avengers have their own quarters, with players only being able to access Hulk/Dr. Banner's room and the make-shift room that Kamala claims as her own. When you're ready to undertake missions, you can go to the War Table and access the panel where you find a wealth of missions and tasks to undertake.

It was at the point of the beta where it feels a little daunting at everything that's going on. It's a little much to take in at once as the beta gives you little to no explanation of what all of this means once you gain access to the War Table.


Don't be fooled but all of those pretty gadgets don't change a darn thing about your hero's individual appearance. 


Some missions reward your heroes with better gear. Others reward you with collectible comic while some reward you with a rare artifact that boosts your heroes' skills and abilities. But there's one thing consistent about these War Table missions across the board. They are ALL bland and boring. Nothing but slogging through uninteresting environments, beating up a few bad guys, combing over even more boring environments in hope of finding chests to get new gear from, otherwise you're not getting much in terms of drops from enemies. I couldn't see myself holding any interest in this game long enough to grind for "legendary" gear, even though I was rewarded with "epic" gear from one of the Hulk-themed character missions.

Character management is done through menus in and out of missions where you customize stat-increasing gear and cycle through the available options on your designated hero's skill tree. Since this is beta access, you are unable to access the full scope of your hero's skill tree, but invest in one portion of the tree at a time. I'm guessing that this will change with the full retail release for next month as a lot of these skill trees reminded me much like those found in Borderlands or Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Speaking of Marvel Ultimate Alliance, that's exactly what the gear system reminds me of. The only difference seems to be that gear can be "boosted" depending on how much resources you have available from accumulation from completing missions, opening hidden chests, and smashing stuff in the environment across the various locales. The biggest disappointment about this gear/loot system is that the gear doesn't change how your heroes look visually. It's nothing like Injustice 2's gear system where you wanted to complete your next match in hopes of seeing what new gear you could unlock to customize your heroes and villains to your liking. In this game, the gear is merely there for boosting your stats. Nothing more. That's pretty underwhelming if it wasn't boring enough that very few of the available missions provided any gear to unlock.


Upon loading up the beta for the first time, all players have about 3450 points to spend on in-game cosmetics to change your nameplates, hero outfits, or your emotes to use in matchmaking during co-op missions. 


If what was locked in the menus are any signs of what will be available in the retail release, I can't say that I'm overly enthusiastic about the hero skins that can be earned throughout various means. For those who don't know, every playable hero has multiple alternate costumes/skins that change their appearance of how they look when you are using them in combat. Everything that I have seen in the beta for the four main heroes that were playable (Hulk, Ironman, Black Widow, and Ms. Marvel) doesn't look good at all. It's not that the costume choices are bad. It's that the in-game character models still don't look good to me. I didn't like the character designs for this game back when it was announced at E3 last year and I STILL don't like the designs now. To be fair, there's moments in the cinematic cutscenes and story missions where I don't have a problem with how these characters look, especially on current-gen hardware's visuals, but holy fuck does this game look like something on the tail end of something on PS2/vanilla Xbox or last-generation consoles when things really get chaotic onscreen.

After you complete one more go-fer mission for J.A.R.V.I.S. for his systems to be fully operational, that's when he introduces Kamala to the H.A.R.M. challenge rooms. In these missions, Kamala can step into the shoes of any Avenger and battle against waves of enemies as the player familiarizes themselves with each hero's skills and unique abilities. Completing all of these challenges unlocks a bonus item for use in Fortnite for your participation in this beta.




There's character banners/titles to unlock from character usage/progression as well, but out of the weekend that I played the game, I only managed to level Hulk to level 13 (out of a maximum of 15, but gear can be leveled up to a max of 45 power in this beta) while only leveling Ironman to level 7. These rooms are a blast with a full group of human players controlling the available heroes, but much like a lot of things in this game, it gets pretty old quick. I'm not faulting that aspect on the developers but just in general that games like this tend to get very redundant, especially these looter-shooters or gear-grind games like this, where it's stomp the floor with a group/room of enemies then rinse and repeat. It was redundant in Borderlands and other shooters like that and it was VERY redundant in the Marvel Ultimate Alliance/X-Men Legends series too.




I have seen a lot of people describe the combat as "button-masher friendly" but I want to clarify something. I don't know what drugs those folks were smoking but you will get stomped royally if you're merely mashing buttons, especially during the prologue/A-Day section. There's a method to the madness so to speak in the combat. Some enemies have shields that must be either maneuvered around or broken through with the sheer force of special skills/abilities or by charging up heavy attacks by holding the corresponding button. Other enemies have an indicator to allow you to know that you can either parry or dodge their attacks with a precise input of that corresponding button. This is where the problem lies in my honest opinion.

Some characters are designed very well to take on these particular opponents while others will face some sort of shortcoming of doing this consistently. The vault-over mechanic is extremely flawed when your lock-on targeting indicator barely even registers long enough to even execute this maneuver. There would be times that you would trigger your characters' abilities and they wouldn't connect at all or would play out on invisible enemies while your allies are pummeling the actual enemy. Dodging (excellent with some characters but completely nonexistent with others) and parrying attacks was a complete mess when playing with other human players as the timing would get muddled up with inconsistent frame rate during the more hectic battles with everything going onscreen. When combat actually worked well, it was a thing of beauty. It wasn't on par with some of the over-the-top craziness found in the Devil May Cry games or anything from Platinum Games' vein of action games, but there's a lot of potential for combos to really get ridiculous, especially with human-controlled heroes working together. That was something I loved about Marvel Ultimate Alliance/X-Men Legends games when each of the human-controlled heroes would bring their unique powers and abilities together for devastating effects. At times it was truly chaotic because my teammates and I would be more caught up in creating the most insane combination of attacks rather than worrying about anything else. Acquiring gear and/or alternate costumes/skins came secondary to the fun that aspect of gameplay provided.

(Laughs) I have friends who complain about the grind for weapons and armor in Monster Hunter World being a slog, but you haven't seen shit until you've grinded for gear in this game. At least Monster Hunter World's battles are downright fun and interesting with different ways to approach them. This is just the same shit over and over again with lackluster objectives.




The last thing I'm going to touch on are the visuals for this game. There's moments where this game looks absolutely amazing in cutscenes during the story missions as you are watching conversations and action sequences/set pieces play out, but there's others where this game looks like something from two or even sometimes, THREE console generations ago during gameplay. I have a love-hate relationship with a lot of the character designs in this game too. I get that they wanted to distance themselves from the traditional Marvel Cinematic Universe looks of these iconic characters, but at the same time, I know that they have DECADES of material to pull from in the source medium to be inspired by instead of creating some very cheap-looking costumes and character models that come across more as actors COSPLAYING as the Avengers rather than the actual Avengers.




I'm sure that's going to be the excuse the developers will go with, but you can't look at models like Hulk/Bruce Banner and Black Widow and not tell me that they look spot on to their Marvel Cinematic Universe counterparts if someone was doing a poorly made cosplay of those characters. I can't give the visuals a pass in terms of environments either. So many stale, lifeless corridors and cramped up rooms to do battle in. You have to be kidding me that they couldn't come up with some better locales, especially given the subject manner of this game.


You're going to see this loading screen a LOT during gameplay.

Closing Thoughts


After spending the weekend playing this, I was more interested and optimistic about the actual narrative than anything to do with the multiplayer mission format. If Crystal Dynamics thinks that they can keep players engaged for several years with that type of content in the current form that it stands then they must be delusional at this stage. With the actual retail release date right around the corner, I doubt much is going to change despite the complaints and player feedback. Playing this beta pretty much confirmed my thoughts and predictions from my first reactions to the trailers for this game, the story will be worth a look, but everything else leaves much to be desired. It's a darn shame too as there's some good ideas in terms of aspects of the combat gameplay, but everything else about this game outside of the narrative feels like a complete afterthought with the idea that this game will be sold solely off the Avengers marketing label.

(Laughs) Just ask some of the Marvel Netflix TV shows (namely Iron Fist Season 1 and The Defenders) and The Inhumans TV mini-series, you can have the Marvel label attached to your property and people call it out for its bullshit. This is no different.

I will say this much though. Playing this beta made me really happy to know that I don't have to put a dime down onto this game anytime soon. With the way that it's looking right now, this could easily be the 2020 version of Anthem's release all over again.
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