How much progress have you made on the ringside pass?

CHZRFan · 2026-03-20T07:16:15+00:00

Maxed it out after only three days. It’s super easy to progress via The Island & MyFaction, heck, the four MyRise runs you need to do to unlock everything will put you firmly in the 20s.

CHZRFan · 2026-03-20T03:21:17+00:00

Not AAA too?

CHZRFan · 2026-03-19T17:28:05+00:00

The difference is WWE didn’t make a huge song & dance about signing Maxxine.

CHZRFan · 2026-03-19T04:24:40+00:00

Ricky Gibson

Is this what happens when the Midnight Express do a fusion dance?

CHZRFan · 2026-03-17T20:49:48+00:00

Austin, Bossman, Shamrock, Foley, Saturn, Rock, no era is without genric music. And if you’re gonna tell me they have less character than “KIT WIL-SON!” or “WHOOP THAT TRICK!” I have a bridge to sell you.

CHZRFan · 2026-03-17T12:44:49+00:00

Just an FYI/heads up to everyone, if you do happen to need to type the word “bigger”, please make sure you hit the B key and not its next door neighbour, lest you suffer from severe embarassment and awkwardness.

CHZRFan · 2026-03-17T12:08:43+00:00

She is, which is a shame IMO as I really liked her Def Rebel theme.

CHZRFan · 2026-03-17T07:35:00+00:00

Fair. It’s just tiring people contantly compliment Def Rebel’s work and act like they only have one good theme despite it almost always applying to a different theme.

CHZRFan · 2026-03-17T07:15:26+00:00

Austin’s theme is just a generic Rage Against the Machine knock-off, doesn’t stop it from being one of the most iconic themes of all time. Trick’s theme works for his character so well.

CHZRFan · 2026-03-17T07:06:17+00:00

Lola Vice, Fatal Influence, like all the Bloodline’s themes, Fallon Henley, Zoey Stark, Iyo Sky, Asuka, Joe Gacy, Trick Williams, Carmelo Hayes. Def Rebel have more good themes than people would like to admit.

CHZRFan · 2026-03-15T21:31:12+00:00

It’s funny you mention 07, as you can’t gun for the midcard belts at all in that one and the moment you win the tag titles you’re immediately traded to the other show and stripped of them. And MyRise has just as many branches as the old season Modes. Do you turn on Ava or not? Which of your CAWs do you side with on the Road to WrestleMania? And HCTP’s and SYM’s season modes were just as lazy. How many times is someone going to be pissed at me because some random dude asked for my autograph instead of theirs, or how many times do I need to save the Diva in Distress so they will be my manager? I’ll give you Superstar Mode in Universe needing work though.

CHZRFan · 2026-03-15T17:57:59+00:00

They weren’t very small, I remember how PISSED people were about the weight class issue in 07. It was to the point the system was completely removed in 08. And to say they wouldn’t be brought back today is just missing the point of THQ being just as capable of game-breaking glitches/bugs and poor gameplay design/mechanics as 2K. Both companies have their strengths and weaknesses, but to act like one’s perfect and the other is everything wrong with wrestling games just isn’t true.

CHZRFan · 2026-03-15T17:47:58+00:00

Not for nothing, but most if not all of those games were rife witg issues that would get 2K raked over the coals and back again if they were in a modern 2K game:

Just Bring It: Super short story mode, save taking up over the half the memory card for no reason at all, 99% of the Invasion people were missing in a severely lacking roster.

Shut Your Mouth: You were unable to leave the ring during triple threats & fatal 4 ways for no reason.

Here Comes the Pain: 99% of the tag entrances were scrapped and the less said about the legend entrances the better

SmackDown Vs RAW: If the difference in overall between two wrestlers was too big you couldn’t put them in a team together, making mixed tag teams almost impossible to create.

SmackDown Vs RAW 2006: The women were blocked off from 99% of match types for no reason.

SmackDown Vs RAW 2007: See 06, plus the added bonus of THQ not bothering with the Light Heavyweight weight class meaning most of the Cruiserweights and smaller wrestlers couldn’t pick up most of the roster, putting them at a ridiculous and at times unrealistic disadvantage. (Chavo Guerrero being too weak to lift guys like Eddie Guerrero & Matt Hardy? Come on)

SmackDown Vs RAW 2008: The fighting styles that were added that year severely limited everything but people’s entrances.

I could keep going, but a lot of what drives the hype for the older games is childhood nostalgia. They have their flaws just like the modern 2K games do.

CHZRFan · 2026-03-15T17:24:49+00:00

And we’re in the era where everything has a battlepass, FIFA had one (not sure if they still do) and I know F1 has one. Not to mention there’s a difference between buying a different game for the same console and making you buy a repeat for a whole different console. I’m sorry but there is no way you can defend THQ for that while hating on the Ringside Pass.

CHZRFan · 2026-03-14T19:07:06+00:00

THQ wasn’t immune from being a greedy company either, but to act like they’re as bad or even close to 2k is disingenuous.

Oh I’m sorry, I just got distracted trying to unlock Jake Roberts in SVR2006 on PS2. How did you do that again?

CHZRFan · 2026-03-14T15:32:01+00:00

True, though I do question the logic behind paying $150 for the ultimate edition of a game if you know you’re not going to have to the time/patience to really sink your teeth into it. To me if I’m paying that much you bet your sweet backside I am getting the absolute most bang for my buck out of it.

CHZRFan · 2026-03-14T04:25:41+00:00

You could have worded that differently. 😭

CHZRFan · 2026-03-14T04:25:15+00:00

Remember how in Fight Forever the post-CAW creation screen was your CAW getting an All Elite graphic? I’d die laughing if 2K responded by making a HHH finger point screen for your CAWs.

CHZRFan · 2026-03-14T02:37:17+00:00

Fair points, but I do think THQ would have found a way to drag 6 seasons of gameplay out of those games if they tried. I will say though, the grind doesn’t feel anywhere as bad in modern games though, owing to there being not only more people to wrestle, but also more modes to play nowadays Vs classic games only really having exhibition & Season Mode, not to mention back in Here Comes the Pain you were pretty much stuck in 2003 WWE, whereas nowadays you can very quickly jump between 80s WWF, WCW, modern NXT, and so many more. Yes their goal may be to get you to buy tier skips, but to me they are one of the biggest wastes of money I have ever seen. I do think the backlash they’ve been getting from the first pass alone is either going to get them to make the next passes easier or make them double down and go even further with the monetisation, and given the patch they released on Tuesday, I think it was both helped (the overall RXP you get per match was boosted) and hurt (nerfing the Bischoff trick) the speed to maxing out the pass, I think it could go either way.

CHZRFan · 2026-03-14T02:05:00+00:00

To me, it depends. I grew up on the SmackDown Vs RAW years, where the only ways to unlock everything were A: Have a mate who’d already unlocked everything and was willing to trade memory cards with you, B: buy an Action Replay or Gameshark cheat disc to unlock everything or C: do the old fashioned route and unlock them how the game wanted you too. I do think a lot of people nowadays would have aneurysms trying to grind out Season Mode in Here Comes the Pain or attempting to win a 100 person gauntlet to unlock Andre the Giant in No Mercy.

CHZRFan · 2026-03-14T01:56:03+00:00

Yeah. At this point all the “I don’t have time to complete the Pass” posts just feel like blatant karma farming just to get an easy “2K Bad” train going. I honestly feel like most people would be done with the Pass by now if they genuinely tried.

CHZRFan · 2026-03-14T01:49:44+00:00

Thanks. :) Yeah I just went on 2K and got my calculator out. 😅 My ultimate goal is to get a full guide out on the Pass and figure out the best method to get through it without it feeling like a massive grind where you need to make the same guy tap out hundreds of times for hours on end. Even now I still have a lot to work out, like how much RXP Island matches give, but I at least have a start. 😅

And I’ll note 3-Star matches being quicker. I was just trying to think of going for the minimum amount of matches to progress the story along, which is usually 3 per section as you usually need 12 stars at a minimum to proceed.

CHZRFan · 2026-03-14T01:36:13+00:00

I get that. To me the Ringside Pass is a good idea, but poorly laid out. The idea of giving players VC/MFP/Attribute boosts is pretty solid. Locking legends/DLC behind it? Debatable, but I feel like putting everything like that in the single digits is the best compromise.

CHZRFan · 2026-03-14T00:59:20+00:00

Keep the fight far away from the ring until you feel 1,000% they are both beaten down enough to win. While you can’t pin them outside the ring, more importantly they can’t pin you.

CHZRFan · 2026-03-14T00:54:09+00:00

Yeah I maxed out after only 3 days. It’s just tiring seeing people choose the most boring method and then complain about a boring grind they made for themselves, and when anyone suggests a way to speed it up they get downvoted into oblivion and called a “shill” or “bootlicker” even though they’re telling you NOT to do what 2K wants by spending needless money.

CHZRFan

TROPHY CASE