Gaiden the Ring: WWE Day of Reckoning - Part 4

Sweet, always like some Rasslin talk.

what was that problematic bit in the beginning about?

Woo!!!

I need my weekly fix of nu-metal.

Wow Dan and Alex BOTH don't like the Undisputed belt? What is this world coming to?? That was probably the best belt design in the history of the company.

It's just so classy and respectable looking.

51:00

Nice of the elder statesman Big Show to put over young talent like Booker T (side note: Booker T is seven years older than Big Show, and he became a wrestler about six years before Big Show as well).

Is it possible to do a travel package and get tickets on the hard cam side? I'm WAY more interested in them playing toward me than being on camera myself.

So I've never liked pro wrestling. I attempted, recently, to make one last try at watching it from the viewpoint of some kind of slapstick comedy routine played straight with soap opera elements. Nope. No go. I still don't get it.

Great show, guys.

There's obviously a lot of bad blood between Punk and the WWE, but the same was true for Warrior and Hogan. Alex and/Dan, what do you think the odds are of 60-70 year old Punk ending up in the Hall of Fame 20, 30 years from now, when Vince is long dead and buried?

They kinda hit on why I became a predominantly PC gamer in the 90s with their "renting games" discussion. Since console games (I had a NES and a Mega Drive) were so expensive I turned to cheap alternatives like PC magazines with full games on them. Got a lot of point'n'click adventure games that way. Another alternative were some great compilations that got me all kinds of shit, from V-Rally to Dungeon Keeper to Fallout 1+2.

Tell me this isn't great value pre-Steam for 30 bucks:

Dan's retelling of the Puder fight is wildly misleading. Angle took massive liberties with the first challenger, seriously injuring him, and Puder wasn't putting up with that shit. Keep in mind this was after WWE fucked him with the "million dollar deal" that wasn't anywhere close, so he wasn't too happy with environment regardless.

I don't know where this idea of Angle being the better man came from.

Such a bummer that I live in the New Orleans area but crippling social anxiety and a lack of money prevent me from going to any of the wrestling shows that are coming here. I've never been to a live wrestling show and would really love to be at the NXT show next weekend.

Still pretty psyched to sit at home and watch everything on the Network, though.

@danryckert The Rundown and Walking Tall were WWE Films 2nd and 3rd releases, fyi.

@alex@danryckert: Oculus is a totally decent horror movie starring Karen Gillan from WWE Studios!

The Daniel Puder story they told forgets to remind everyone that Kurt legit broke the ribs just minutes before of Chris Nawrocki, another Tough Enough competitor. He kinda had it coming, he wanted a legit wrestling match and got worked over in a shoot wrestling match.

Agreed on Dan having a bad take on this story. A fellow Tough Enough competitor won a squat thrust challenge, and that winner's reward was a legitimate (i.e. amateur style, not scripted) wrestling match with Kurt Angle. Kurt won that match, and actually broke the guy's ribs in the process.

Kurt then asked any of the other competitors if they wanted a shot, Puder accepted, and it played out roughly as Dan described. Kurt definitely deserved it for what happened in the previous match, but the whole thing was the WWE's fault for having the whole situation be unscripted.

As for Puder, it certainly doesn't appear that the WWE put the blame on him for what happened, as he did go on to actually win the Tough Enough competition. He ended up sticking around for another year, at which point WWE ended the original contract and offered him a much less expensive developmental deal (I believe that million dollar contract they advertised ended up actually being $250k per year, with the option to cancel after one year). Puder rejected it (understandably so), so it ended up being his decision to walk away, regardless.

...

Between Dan's bad take on the Puder situation as well as his unequivocal support for Vince McMahon's actions during the Montreal Screwjob, I'm just really hoping Dan never decides to become a wrestling promoter.

@jazzercide: Didn't read the messages below when I wrote my comment but agree with everything you guys said, Al Snow who doesn't get enough credit for his knowledge of the business said it perfectly in this interview.

You can't use a kimura in amateur wrestling and Puder was trying to break the arm of one of the top stars in wrestling. You can argue that Kurt shouldn't have agreed to shoot wrestling anyone on tv, but he didn't take liberties with anyone.

Now the Montreal Screwjob is another story entirely. Bret wanted to drop the title somewhere other than Canada and Vince lied to his face--it's not like he was going to walk out with the title.

GBi enters the meta with Vinny mentioning Dan playing Sumotori Dreams on UPF to Dan.

I adore this series!

Alex brings back the beanie for episode 5 or we riot.

First sims with no vinny and now gaiden with no abby.

Fml

A Ricochet gif for Vinny...

The original Walking Tall came out in the 70s and starred Joe Don Baker. It's a great movie, too. The remake... not so much.

Where can I find this picture of Dan flying off the apron?

Vinny comparing early John Cena to Ratchet and Clank was perfect.

Thats because a lot of the story telling that WWE does is bad.

Give DDT a try sometime, its actually ridiculous.

This was the in-ring incident that was Vince's idea:

and this is Daniel Puder getting his comeuppance:

I am all about Def Jam Vendetta for the next game

I would love to see them play through Def Jam Vendetta. People have had nothing but good things to say about those games and I've always wanted to see them for myself.

dan has HEAT with chris masters

Is Def Jam Vendetta considered the better game over Def Jam: Fight for New York? I never played Vendetta, but fucking loved FFNY when I was a kid.

Hell yeah Def Jam

I remember FFNY being a better version of Vendetta, but it's been such a long time I could be remembering wrong.

Con Air is way better than Face/Off

And The Rock is obviously the best of the Cage action trilogy

@vodsel: I'm not sure why it came up this time, but people in the comments can be pretty reactionary about that stuff. Somewhat recent examples would be when Dan thought the name "Dong Song" was funny and that turned into a big argument in the comments over whether or not that was racist. And when Abby was first hired and they did a UPF together or something similar to a UPF, some people in the comments were saying the guys were being sexist because they were explaining the rules and controls to her and they wouldn't do that for a man, despite that happening pretty much every single time the guys play a multiplayer game together. It gets pretty fucking ridiculous, so I'm sure it's nice to spend a week or two away and not have every single thing you do scrutinized because someone will always find a way to be offended by it.

Dale

I'd definitely be up for Def Jam. Just the fact that it has cutscenes with voice acting already makes it miles better, instead of the same fucking song looping 'till the end of times.

where the heck is part 5?