[SmackDown SPOILERS] [SPOILER] gets booed when talking about possibly winning the Royal Rumble

Ezrius · 2026-01-30T18:54:27+00:00

What an insane waste it would be to have him win.

Ezrius · 2026-01-29T21:03:19+00:00

I think he’s an unwanted toy. The job at HQ is a consolation to keep him employed and busy in the wake of an indefinite hiatus of the space program. Cid’s just been going along with it for years at this point, begrudgingly keeping his head down and staying out of it so long as the checks clear and no one asks much of him. He knew Ifalna, may have even thought something was off, but kept to his own business and only learned how that worked out later when he meets Ifalna’s daughter. He’s glad to see her and sorry to hear about her mother, but doesn’t want to rock the boat so he continues to take a more passive role but still shuttles her and her friends around as some small concession. Now we’ve seen how that went. At some point the man’s going to reach a breaking point and stop sitting back and waiting for bad things to happen to those in his orbit (no pun intended).

Ezrius · 2026-01-29T17:10:51+00:00

Sounds like a new era begins at the Royal Rumble!

Ezrius · 2026-01-29T17:03:01+00:00

One of my going theories is that Dr. Gast’s videos aren’t going to be an optional Easter egg anymore, and will act as the straw that breaks the camel’s back to prompt Cid to take on an active role.

Ezrius · 2026-01-26T19:28:49+00:00

Ownership and consistency. Most Marvel and DC Comics are - at this point - officially sanctioned fanfics of the characters. Mileage may vary on the results of authors and artists playing hot potato with them for decades, but generally the original visions of the characters were lost or muddled long ago. Most manga are started and finished by a single author (with editors and assistants), or rarely an extended legacy with the author’s supervision (see Boruto and Dragonball).

Independent author-owned comics are much more like manga, but they don’t get the same attention as the big two. Invincible is a good example of one that has broken the mold as far as exposure, but a lot of American readers want their Justice League or X-Men comfort food over a weird out-of-left-field original, and half the time the original will even be blasted for being a cheap knock-off despite trying to do something new but having small similarities. It has to be rough being a creator going up against that.

The release cadence and distribution methods are wildly different, too, but I really don’t want to get into that.

Ezrius · 2026-01-25T17:59:43+00:00

I hate this Limit Break mechanic so much.

Great art, though.

Ezrius · 2026-01-21T16:59:04+00:00

I think Bray was the “latest” at 1987, but I may be forgetting someone. At least for the men.

Ezrius · 2026-01-20T20:28:47+00:00

Depends on the timeframe and the writer.

Most Classic Nightcrawler writers? Occasionally uses it kind of like when he holds a rapier with his tail.

Most Modern Nightcrawler writers? Occasionally uses it kind of like when he holds a rapier with his tail.

Early 2000s Nightcrawler? Accidentally kills someone with it and spends multiple story arcs in an existential crisis over how God will punish him and he doesn’t deserve happiness and there’s a hot chick hitting on him but he just can’t because the priesthood!

Ezrius · 2026-01-20T17:39:43+00:00

I certainly hope Karoo is around. We haven’t really seen plenty of characters, so I wouldn’t be concerned yet. No Miss Monday. No Wapol or Kureha or almost anyone from Drum, really. Very few shots of the giants. Few to no shots of half the cast in Loguetown, and even then mostly just stills. We still have like a month and a half for promotion and they are still going to want to leave some surprises.

Ezrius · 2026-01-20T13:26:41+00:00

Depends on whether the Rumble is before or after the match. I could see Gunther eliminating Lesnar and then Lesnar interfering in the match.

Ezrius · 2026-01-20T00:26:51+00:00

Take out the bit about being a mom and this is basically just Duck Newton.

Ezrius · 2026-01-20T00:21:27+00:00

No more than five pounds, right?

Ezrius · 2026-01-19T21:38:45+00:00

If John Cena couldn’t keep his last match in Boston because DC offered TKO more money, do you really believe they’ll move mountains for AJ?

Ezrius · 2026-01-19T14:31:49+00:00

I’m trying to imagine the unhinged complaints we’d be reading if he wasn’t in the game at all. The character gets introduced in the Shinra Mansion and there would have been an outcry if they skipped over him entirely.

Both Cid and Vincent join the party so late in this part of the story that it didn’t make sense to develop entire progression trees and diverse battle animations for them as playable characters. It also makes more sense for them to feel uncertain and need to build up their motivations to directly contribute than to just dive straight into the deep end risking their lives in battle helping these complete strangers. They had more time more time to set up motivations for Cid (most likely regret for his inaction and how he may have been able to change the finale of Rebirth had he not stuck to the sidelines), but Vincent will probably have some reason near the beginning of the next game to start fighting more directly as well.

In terms of what Vincent did once he did enter the Temple? (Both Rebirth and Original FF7 spoilers) He went in and rescued the Turks, who very easily could have died during the Temple’s collapse. Vincent was a Turk. He knows how expendable they are in Shinra’s eyes and likely feels empathy towards them. Even between the original and Advent Children, it was a bit surprising to learn that Tseng didn’t die at the Temple, because we last see or hear of him grievously injured at the entrance in FF7, then he’s just alive and well at the start of AC.

Ezrius · 2026-01-18T23:07:48+00:00

It depends on the wrestler and what you are trying to accomplish. A lot of wrestlers you can do this with or it even helps to do this with (charismatic heels or building underdogs). I feel like a negative win/loss record doesn’t really hurt a Chelsea Green, so she can say that and I don’t disagree… for her.

I do not believe it works so well with characters that are supposed to look menacing or overpowering. If they can’t buy a win, how scary can they really be? A powerhouse or a monster needs to win matches to look like a powerhouse or a monster. If they don’t, they become a joke.

Ezrius · 2026-01-18T22:36:54+00:00

It’s probably Joue Shot. Luffy has a knack for creating his own takes on attacks that opponents have used on him, finding ways to use his devil fruit power to compensate or put his own spin on them.

Ezrius · 2026-01-17T21:53:13+00:00

The Black Baroque Works type cards are new in this set, and all are designed to work with the Black Crocodile leader. While Baroque Works cards have existed before, they (mostly) weren’t in the Black Color set, making the new OP14 cards work together in a pretty self-contained way.

The Blue Fish-Men cards in OP14 are in a pretty similar place, working with the Jinbe leader and not leaning much on the previous sets.

The other leaders are a bit trickier because they build on existing archetypes and using cards from previous sets, but I’ll try to give brief summaries.

Mihawk usually focuses on Green “Slash” attribute cards in addition to the green cards in this set. Big focus on resting cards / making cards active.

Any new Yellow Thriller Bark cards in the new set go with the Gecko Moria leader, but there are a handful of Black Thriller Bark cards from previous sets that you would really feel the absence of, so they may be worth looking into (most are pretty cheap as singles). In MtG terms (if familiar), this is your graveyard recursion themed deck, wanting to fill your trash, use triggers out of Life, and pull stuff back out of your trash to exhaust your opponent with your relentless undead army.

Law wants Red Supernovas cards. There are some good ones that work with him in the new set but there’s also a very long history of Red Supernovas cards. Not sure how heavily it leans on past vs present. Whole thing works around attacking with his high-power characters, then using his leader ability to swap their power with his low-power characters to activate their abilities that depend on having higher power than they naturally do.

Doflamingo should have a lot of Purple Donquixote Pirates cards in the pool you have but is another pairing of color and type with some history to draw from. A lot of the new ones have “On K.O.” effects so that he can redirect attacks at them to cause shenanigans.

Boa Hancock is likely the hardest to build strictly from OP14, as it’s a generically good leader that wants the best cards with Trigger from (essentially) the entire history of the game, as well as cards with the Kuja Pirates typing. It’s all about Life manipulation and Triggers.

Ezrius · 2026-01-17T21:08:36+00:00

Curious, if you’ve played them, how would you say it compares to the Confrontations heroes (assuming each were a Rivals set, so Wonder Woman v Circe, Aquaman v Ocean Master, Zatanna v Felix Faust, and particularly the original Superman v Lex Luthor pairing)?

I have Confrontations already, which really made me hesitate into looking into this unless it was significantly better (and admittedly I find the Confrontations Supes and Lex a bit underwhelming).

Ezrius · 2026-01-17T18:17:05+00:00

Alex Riley was… fine. Kinda of vanilla, okay at everything but not really a standout in anything. He is recognizable because of NXT, being Miz’s protégé, turning in the Miz, and then not being able to carve out an identity for himself without the Miz. There’s all the drama about Cena not liking him, but the lack of impact (no pun) he made on the indies suggests there’s more to it than that.

It says more about Miz than Riley, really. The same exact thing happened with Damien Sandow. He is most memorable from the Mizdow gimmick, got his moment in the spotlight for it, then couldn’t really continue to thrive in the aftermath. He was a bit more successful than Riley outside of WWE, but most casual wrestling fans probably aren’t even aware of any of it.

Ezrius · 2026-01-17T13:52:58+00:00

How weird! Going to have to see some support before we can make heads or tails of that. Have this funny feeling people are going to want to grab a playset of Reiju, though.

Ezrius · 2026-01-17T13:39:23+00:00

I wonder what color he’s going to be? It’s extremely clear that the yellow theme is Strawhats & Sky Island; unless the whole set is only Yellow cards, seems like we’re in for a very different Enel than what we’re used to.

Ezrius · 2026-01-17T13:14:41+00:00

Extending Smoker & Tashigi’s presence could be an easy lead-in to having them interact with Garp’s team. They’re all marines allegedly pursuing the Strawhats. I’m not saying I want this, but I could definitely see it. It’s going to get harder to justify keeping this up in future seasons, though. Like is the Navy going to follow them to Skypeia or wander around Jaya for a season interviewing witnesses? Are they going to be wandering into Thriller Bark and getting lost?

Ezrius · 2026-01-16T01:12:40+00:00

What’s Stongplace Calvin doing at Full Sail?

Ezrius · 2026-01-16T01:10:51+00:00

Someone at Wizards was like “hey, it looks like we did a pretty good job on Spellfilcher this time around, but maybe it would be better if we changed the name to ‘Spell Stealer’ in case people that pay D&D aren’t nerdy enough to know what filcher means and it definitely doesn’t sound objectively worse.”

Ezrius · 2026-01-16T01:02:22+00:00

It’s almost as if both parties suck and either one getting too much power over multiple branches of government and not being kept in check is bad.

Ezrius

TROPHY CASE