Riot 589: TADOW! How Ya Like Me Now!

Some werdz about the show.

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RPs!

First up, I've gotta say the Colin/Mugen stuff has been an absolute pleasure to do, and one of the reasons why is the opening RP, it's great to be served up all this mad stuff, and it got the show off to a really great start, particularly as (spoilers) I found the written parts of the show to be a bit dry and serious as a whole, but we'll get into that with more highlights.

Antonio had a really solid promo towards the end, and it got me excited for Cide pretty quickly. It feels clear to me that, unless there's a big twist, this is really the bow on the Dominion story, and it looks like it'll be a nice neat ending. Content was great, made me smile at Everett saying we aren't used to the heat in the UK when I am currently losing a battle against heatwave 2: birmingham drift, and it made me consider the various spellings of the word 'pussyole' around the UK. Fun stuff, probably my favourite 'call out' promo of the night.

Now, I'm loathe to heap praise on promos from this general arc right now, as I am outright not convinced by either the 'work shoot' 'academy is falling apart' story, or the potentially very real 'this story has gone completely off the rails because of some personal drama' event. However, I really did like Jasmine's RP with Marcus. Marcus has been finding a really strong voice as a character for a while, and with Jasmine seeming to come from a very different direction to Marcus, this segment just fed the 'universe is alive' feel where anyone can interact with anyone that makes me love wrestling/reality tv with fighting.

We also got a Scotty X promo here, rough around the edges, but it's nice to see a new guy jumping in and giving it a go. First promos are hard if you've not got a gimmick, so I get why people go to the 'I am the greatest, new heights' well over and over again, but hopefully he finds his feet and Stops capitalising Every Other word, Because Proper grammar Can make People Believe the Content is better Than It is! Presentation matters, and it's something you can always be working on, even if you aren't inspired in terms of content.

Video segments!

My segment of the night, Mark Reese on the microsoft clipart tractor! I love vehicles, we've had the Ice Cream Truck, Harri's golf cart (later driven by Ashley) which sounds like a ferrari because my sound design is just memes at this point, now we've got the Reese tractor. Love it, it was stupid in the best way.

Man, rewatching it, I don't even know why I enjoy it so much, it was just some dialogue and 5 seconds of Mark Reese looking like a Lego Island loading screen, but jesus christ if it isn't the thing I remember most from last night.

Nate's promo was really enjoyable, too, I'm always into this live action Nate promos, especially now he's got such a strong character motivation against John Carter's looming threat of cashing in. This story has probably been my favourite one of the last month or so, truth be told, I've fully bought in on the Marisa/John/Mac stuff, it's got a serious foundation, but it's not afraid of being silly, or hamming it up a bit. Just great work.

We also got the Hanzo segment, and while I do, maybe, think it's a bit early for him to be given the H2O rub, and while the segment was dangerously close to 'new heights', the effort and vision is undeniable with the GTA cutscene stuff, the talking cutouts and whatnot, he's off to a solid start, and there's some good stuff to build on, here. I'll also say that while, yes, too early, H2O being willing to appear in a new rookie's segment like that speaks to how well suited he is to being a world champion. I think not enough is said about how much it does for OCW to have world champions who are always happy to listen to rookies and get involved with their stuff. That was Quartz and B17 to me when I was coming up, and I hope future rookies have that too.

The chop-off made me feel inadequate, here's me doing songs and shit to try and get a segment of the year candidate, and these two guys spend six minutes slapping each other and keep my interest for every second. OWEN has fully won me over, I have been on the 'I wish Sanctum was more Owen/Sheldon with Fraser overlooking things' train for a while, but honestly, that might be a blessing in disguise, OWEN as a bit of a wanker, bit of a heel, that's hugely winning me over, he's consistently getting big reactions out of me, and I really hope he's in huge demand as a singles star soon, I love it. DOC was the perfect foil for all of this, both guys looked hard as nails, and yeah, loved it.

Matches!

Match of the night for me was clearly Cort vs Maxx. This is the best I've seen Cort play in this game, as I remember, and everything surrounding Kasstianity Maxx was just incredible to watch, the chain animation was fantastic, the general mood on VC made this match really exciting to watch, and the fact that this all got a lot of us to cheer for Maxx to lose after he's just had a face turn just shows how effective this story has been. I do want to see where this goes, as it feels like there's still more we need to know about why Kasstianity was luring Maxx in if they're just gonna set him free after one match, or if they even did set him free, but we've got a go home show and a PPV to tie up those loose ends.

Derek vs John. I get that people were really invested with the 'Derek has loads of momentum' story, but personally, I always wanted to see a bit more writing, and bit more of him stepping out on his own, I was worried that the stuff with the GOAT Academy and him was maybe telling me something that I wasn't being shown, and while he did get tossed around a fair bit in this match, he got to show off some of his identity, the grand moves always get a little pop off the VC and a smile out of me, and I think that this is exactly the sort of refresher he needs going into Cide, there's no pressure, and he's working with two fantastic handlers, so he's in an excellent position, and I just want to see the writing improve, and then he'll have a really solid place, as it's clear that he can hold his own in-game. It's also good to see John with momentum, Mac got a huge reaction out of me with the post match stuff. Loads of stuff to unpack in this match alone for all three characters involved.