fullMETAL

Here comes the first update with the first brand-new set of custom straps, many of them with full-length versions, and almost all of them in multiple colors each! https://imgur.com/a/mgWE2FN

It says Kikansha. Don't immediately know the kanji though.

Those look really cool! Do you have any plans to do a layout akin to NoDQ(dat cam) or a super slick WWE.com-looking one?

Even jobbers have their day in the render spotlight sometimes, I guess ;)

No prob, thanks for the credit Here's a couple behind-the-scenes notes on that design: 1 - As you might be able to tell from first or second glance, I actually based it a bit off the WCW 1991 design. 2 - Dan wasn't the first person I submitted that design to (the humps on top and bottom are an esoteric design choice I made geared more toward the first guy I submitted it to), but he was the person who ended up using it -- he's even made it for 2 collectors! http://leatherbydan.com/product/egreen http://leatherbydan.com/product/csc

Those new belts of yours look sick! But, uh...*ahem*...you should know that this one here is actually one of my actual designs.

Why, hello there! It's been a while! Back in TEW2016, I provided some free-use leather straps for you aspiring belt-makers to put your plates onto, and boy did you make use of them! (Want them again? Check here for the original thread: http://www.greydogsoftware.com/forum/showthread.php?t=536330 ) WELP, I'm BACK and I've got some good news: I'll be providing MORE free-use leather straps! Starting here, with PNG cuts of the Create-a-Belt straps from WWE 2k19, some in multiple colors/textures, if you're wondering why many look similar to each other: https://imgur.com/a/VHQdtg9 This thread will be updated once I've made some more straps in my own inimitable style you've come to know and love, including multi-colored versions of some of those 2k straps (again, in my style), and the straps for many of my recently done belt-works. Please look forward to it! - FullMETAL

I thoroughly enjoyed the finale to DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths, and if they're gonna go forward with "Lex Luthor occasionally helps the good guys to further his own nefarious plans" like they implied at the beginning of the Legends episode, I am 100% on board with that.

WCW in the 90's was quite prolific with having the TV Title being defended on TV, most notably during the title runs of Eddy Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Chris Jericho, Booker T, Fit Finlay, and (believe it or not) even Disco Inferno at his most white-hot. As a related thing, Championship Wrestling from Hollywood (NWA's go-to TV affiliate thing) has done a remarkable job making sure the UWN Television Title actually gets defended ON their CWfH TV show. Not as remarkable a job in having it defended very often (if at all) on their Arizona show though.

That's probably the correct assessment. They need to show us more "wrestler's background" packages for us to familiarize ourselves, but that would probably involve having to get the rights to the footage from a ton of different feds. Like, in July '18, Matt Taven defended the CMLL Welter belt against Ultimo Guerrero (who totally looks like comedian Joey Medina, btw), and we were supposed to already know who Ultimo Guerrero was (I mean, I DO know who he is, and the Hammerstein crowd probably had an alright idea in general, but you get what I mean). Commentary for the home viewers gave us enough info to get "oh, Ultimo's a legend in Mexico" but also wound up giving us "that's cool and all, but why hasn't he wrestled in the US way more often for us to immediately recognize him?" vibes.

Finally watched Night 1 last night, probably gonna try to catch Night 2 tonight and Dash tomorrow. My thoughts on Night 1: - Kojima looked GREAT, both physically and in-ring. Dude's absolutely still got it and could probably hold his own in short "make the main-eventers look good" feuds over the next TEN years if he keeps himself in this condition. Tenzan and Nagata looked fine and held their own, and Nakanishi was really slowed down, but Kojima was very clearly the star of that tag match, especially with what felt like the WHOLE crowd chanting along with him for his big spot. - The Young Lions looked great in their match. I boldly predict that at least one of those 5 guys will eventually main-event WK, probably even this decade. - I played "Ikari no Jushin" over Liger's dubbed theme during his entrance and actually started tearing up. Glad Taguchi was the one who got the win on that. - After watching the Suzuki-gun/LIJ match, a long-term Sabre versus Sanada feud is something I didn't know I needed in my life until now. This match itself looked kinda messy to me though, even for a 4-on-4. EVIL is low-key one of NJPW's best overall assets. - You know that thing where rainfall and erosion naturally wears a giant craggy boulder down to a smooth almost spherical shape? That's what Ishii's head looked like that night, and it made me chuckle. Also, I will never not want to see Pieter on my screen, she is literally one of my #goals. Additionally, Yujiro looked surprisingly excellent in this match and even though he's been BC4Life since a year into the group's run, it really feels like only this past year where he's really come into his own, elevating his ring-work to the level of his character work; plus, he and Chase Owens actually work pretty well together as a team, more of that, please! - I understand why NJPW referred to Juice and Finlay as FinJuice, but I would've preferred them being called Lifeblood even though Juice left ROH. Everybody looked great in the Tag Title match and worked rather well together -- FinJuice and GoD should face each other more. The selling in general on Pulp Friction really needs to be worked on, though -- not enough people doing the proper face-first bump like for the Unprettier. - Mox/Archer was sick. Lost in the chaos of the Death Rider through the tables was the fact that Archer's knees went right into the frame; if he managed to even walk the next day as a result, I consider that a miracle. - I consider Hiromu/Ospreay as the Match Of The Night, no matter what anybody else says about Naito/Jay and Kota/Okada. That Time Bomb II at the end was sick. Their attires and entrance gear (Hiromu in Asuka's robes? Nice.), especially Ospreay's popped me big time, and Ospreay played the sentai villain perfectly in this match. - Naito/Jay was my runner-up for Match Of The Night, and the Gedo interference enhanced the drama for sure. If I didn't already look up the results, I would've probably been even more invested in whether Naito would overcome or not, but that didn't lessen my enjoyment of the match as a whole. I do wish Naito would permanently debut an "end the match for realsies" version of the Destino at some point though (my vote is for a spinning version after the backflip sets him up), because even doing a 4th regular one to end it kinda looks less than devastating and only gave me a sense of "oh, this is still a regular one, there might be a kick-out even though it's the 4th one". - How is Kota Ibushi even ALIVE right now? Seriously! You know that part in his pre-match promoing where he went all "Even *I* don't know what I'll do in the match"? He literally transformed into THAT guy after those first 2 head drops (I absolutely think Kota accidentally slipped away on that first Tombstone because the relative chasm of space between his body and Okada's -- leave room for JEE-ZUS -- as his head just spiked onto the mat didn't look worked at all). Auto-pilot and adrenaline, and I couldn't watch the rest of the match without wincing and cringing the whole time. It didn't even feel like that was even Kota Ibushi anymore in that match and it took 2 more why-the-eff-is-he-still-taking-these head drops to transform him BACK to Kota Ibushi. But big props to Okada for learning from his past year and change of character development, because he went through the first 75% of this match as all-business, dismantling Kota with clinical detachment to simply get the win as soon as he could to keep himself fresh for Night 2, THEN the frustration and emotion came through near the end and the "come on, STAY DOWN" look on his face for that final Tombstone-and-Rainmaker pretty much said it all on Okada's end. I wish I could've seen the Stardom match though. :/

To be fair, Bateman usually gets announced by his full name of Tyler Bateman, but my completely-out-of-nowhere guess is that, like his contemporaries Watts in CWFHollywood and Watson in CWFArizona, his name is truncated in a "he stands out more as a single name" manner? Literally just a guess though. As for comparisons to Marseglia, Bateman's gimmick has always been a more controlled-chaos "do bad things to win" type while I feel Marseglia's is more of a less-controlled "do bad things for fun" type. But in the broad-strokes world of pro wrestling, the distinction between those two MO's doesn't often come across unless a person makes their own effort to pay closer attention. Inevitably, they're both using each other, Bateman using Vinnie for utilitarian purposes, and Vinnie using Bateman because I'm guessing he doesn't in-character see the distinction between their goals/philosophies/methodologies, and their eventual breakup will likely be for this reason. ("I thought we believed in the same thing!" "Nah brah, you do it for fun, I do it for wins and titles, but also for fun.") I'm basing this entirely on my previous viewings of Bateman in CWFHollywood, where that was exactly his operating philosophy. I'll even quote this when (not if) that happens, and grudgingly take the L if it's not how it goes down.

If WCW was anything to go by, my guesstimate is that TV Title matches will have hard-coded time limits of either 15 or 20 minutes, with any changes to that number being for "special" title matches. Additionally, I think the TV Title should ONLY be limited to being defended on Powerrr, on the TV shows of the NWA affiliates (maybe not even that, maybe only Powerrr), and on the annual Anniversary show, and never be defended on any other PPVs or special events throughout the calendar, to give people a championship reason to invest in Powerrr long-term. It's called the Television Championship for a reason (not the PPV Championship or the TV & PPV Championship). That's just my own opinion though.

At the very least, Okada is cemented to no longer be the unconquerable mountain he was nearly 2 years ago, which is actually really good in the long term, and probably a better storytelling tool for his opponents to use in a standalone feud than for, say, Tanahashi's whole thing. (But to be fair, "Beat Tanahashi in a major match = you have the potential to make it" leading INTO "Beat Okada in a major match = yup, you've made it" is still a good progression to strive for in the NJPW main event scene) I think I've previously added my own two cents the whole "always the bridesmaid, never the bride" problem with Hirooki Goto, but at this point, while they focus on like 5 or 6 not-Goto dudes for the big belt, I'll settle for him holding ANY singles belt. That feud with Suzuki last year really should've put him in the conversation for the Heavyweight belt. I wouldn't mind seeing him run with the US Title for a while in a short-but-sweet hard-hitting feud with Mox though -- it would get more eyes (especially here in the US) on how good Goto really is when he's not being overshadowed by Okada, and show NJPW that we really do care about seeing him make it to the top. The Naito/KENTA feud over the two belt(s) is going to absolutely RULE ASS this year, as WARHORSE would put it. Only an idiot would screw this sure thing up.

<p>So...following Eddie Murphy's episode of SNL (and specifically his Gumby segment on Weekend Update), NWA's own Dave Marquez may have wound up stepping back onto the minefield that was the fallout from Jim Cornette's joke...</p><p> </p><p> </p><div class="ipsEmbeddedOther"> <iframe data-embedid="5f5c88c1084e1051ae6fab5e17f1a1e4" allowfullscreen="" data-embed-src="<___base_url___>/index.php?app=core&module=system&controller=embed&url=https://twitter.com/CWFHMarquez/status/1209014610533027841"></iframe> </div>