The Buscher

Wonder if it's still 5 people to a stable for Universe Mode. Gonna make the nWo to go along with Nash. Hollywood Hooligan, Scott Hill, Sean Walter, and Macho Man Randy Sanchez. Eric Bison to be their manager.

Storms? Why the fuck would anybody want it to be plural? It's like it was done for seemingly no reason other than to fuck with people who might want to make Beer Money.

Meh, I don't think it's too big of a deal. Won't stop me from using him if he's fun to play as.

Yeah, online play will likely suck as per usual. Even if they fix lag, there will always be cheaters. Don't think I played a single online Rumble last year that didn't have at least one person using a turbo controller and eliminating people in half a second. As long as they've fixed the servers so that I can actually get onto Community Creations whenever I want, I'll be happy.

Create-An-Arena looks pretty cool. You can edit the ring, announce tables, and barricades. You're stuck with the default Raw/SD set, but I don't think it's too big of a deal. Probably a built-in fix for 2012 where they'll probably change it next year so that you can use any stage.

Wouldn't be shocked if Cole is DLC. If not, you'll have Cole in the game but will need to wait to download Lawler.

Yeah, I doubt there's a demo, but I hope they change their mind. As promising as this looks, I refuse to sink $60 on it if I feel like I'm going to be bored of it within a month as I have been after the last several games. I'll probably give it a rent and decide from there.

For the record, the smaller roster actually doesn't even bother me given the cuts that were made. Half of the cuts were divas (5 less than last year) who I NEVER use, I wouldn't even bother buying them if they come in one Diva pack with nothing else. Plus guys like Primo, JTG, and DH Smith who I would seldom use anyway. I utilize certain jobbers a lot, but they aren't among them. HBK will probably be DLC but until then his non-inclusion is more than made up for by the Legends that were chosen. Hell, I normally don't even like the Legends and prefer using current guys...but the crop of Legends they picked for this year changes my opinion. I could see myself using pretty much all of them regularly.

Ledesma announced that the remaining 14 spots are all Legends and Divas...and with the exception of the Mystery Superstar, they are all DLC. So between Rock being pre-order, Lawler being DLC, and the other 13 DLC.....there's already more DLC this year than last year. But at the expense of that, the game that ships has about 10 less people than last year. And you gotta figure people that were in last year like the Bellas, Alicia, and HBK will be amongst the DLCand should have simply been in again since there's clearly enough space.

Absolutely incredible legends list.

LOL @ none of the Nexus guys having armbands

Probably not gonna actually see any of the reveal since they are taking ridiculously long at getting on with it. I'll just check out the list once it's out.

Yeah, like I said, I think they'd go with Nexus. The guys I cut were doing absolutely nothing whereas Nexus were at least doing something somewhat important in being Punk's lackeys/Orton's punting practice. Be funny if they put in Otunga but not Harris, McGillicutty, or Ryan. Would pretty much expose that them having your model already is the biggest criteria. -edit- Now that I think about it...perhaps the 62 person reveal isn't counting people like Kozlov, Smith, Masters, Chavo, Melina, etc. - they've done the reveal for 2 years now and each time they just ignore mentioning anybody who was released who happen to still be in the game.

According to Ledesma, there will be 62 wrestlers revealed tomorrow. Regular roster, divas, and Legends. Plus the one mystery character that won't be revealed until September. So 63 characters in all...need to make some cuts to my predicted roster. I'll go ahead and guess that the roster was finalized earlier than expected - so Sin Cara doesn't make it and winds up being DLC later on. Still need to make 4 more cuts, so sayonara JTG, David Hart Smith, Primo, and Goldust. Alternatively, they might just not include any of the New Nexus - except for Punk obviously. Wouldn't totally surprise me given that being in the previous year always gives you a great chance of staying in. Anyway - this is awesome:

I'm not even going to blame the owners on this one. They obviously didn't like what they saw in Smith's knee. They made him an offer and intended on giving him more next offseason when the cap situation isn't as bleak and he's more healthy. Moreover, Smith is coming off like a total phony. All offseason he's been saying that NY is where his heart is and that he's only going to play for the Giants. Hell, even yesterday he and his agent said that a deal with the Giants will definitely be reached and they are moving closer to an agreement. But it's one thing to jump ship...even to the archrival Eagles. My main issue is that he's now done a total 180 and is ripping the organization - claiming the Giants didn't want him and that their offer was insulting and that they could have easily matched the Eagles' offer (funny proposition since the Giants have no cap room). He not only jumped ship, but he burned his bridges on the way out - and that's a shame. Eagles are definitely now at the point where the season will be viewed as a catastrophic failure if they don't win the Super Bowl. Good thing buying titles has never worked in the NFL.

I must have played through HCTP's season mode over a dozen times. I definitely remember using Brock at one point, and finishing a season in a matter of hours because most of the matches were under 2 minutes long.

Screw it, I'll go ahead and do a roster prediction since the reveal is on Saturday. Last year's game shipped with 66 playable characters on the disk, plus it's been said that Hurricane was intended to be playable and Carlito was still buried on the disk somewhere. So I'm gonna use a cap of 68. Raw Alberto Del Rio Alex Riley Beth Phoenix Big Show Brie Bella Chris Masters CM Punk David Hart Smith David Otunga Dolph Ziggler Drew McIntyre Evan Bourne Eve Gail Kim Goldust Husky Harris Jack Swagger John Cena John Morrison JTG Kelly Kelly Kofi Kingston Maryse Mason Ryan Melina Michael McGillicutty The Miz Mr. McMahon Nikki Bella Primo Rey Mysterio R-Truth Santino Marella Triple H Vladimir Kozlov Zack Ryder SmackDown Alicia Fox Chavo Guerrero Christian Cody Rhodes Daniel Bryan Edge Ezekiel Jackson The Great Khali Heath Slater Justin Gabriel Kane Layla Mark Henry Michelle McCool Natalya Randy Orton Sheamus Sin Cara Ted DiBiase Tyson Kidd Undertaker Wade Barrett William Regal Yoshi Tatsu Legends Booker T Bret Hart Diesel Jerry Lawler Shawn Michaels Stone Cold Steve Austin Trish Stratus ??? (Token Random Playable Character ala the Druid) --- No real glaring omissions this year. Guys like Curt Hawkins, Trent Barreta, etc. could get in at the expense of guys like Primo and David Hart Smith, but I'd give the edge to people who were in last year on priciple. Only reason they'd make the changes is if they were looking at the roster disbursement at Mania time and purposely tried to give SD some extra jobbers to even out the rosters slightly (kinda like how Vance Archer got in last year since ECW wasn't dead yet when the rosters were finalized). I'm sure I put too much logic into the Legends selections by picking mostly people who have been on TV during the year. Doubtless some of those guesses are wrong. Also there's said to be a character that won't be revealed until September but I have no clue who would be "important" enough to warrant the special attention.

David Wright is now playing shortstop. And for the first time in his career...Derek Jeter is the 3rd best shortstop in New York.

Ben Patrick retires 5 days after signing with the Giants. He's not particularly good or anything, but still...what a miserable offseason. Honestly think the Giants might be lucky to go 8-8. Still can't wait for Week 1. Love me some football.

The roster is set to be revealed at SummerSlam Axxess. Really hoping the footage they show is better. Been largely unimpressed so far.

I'd love for the Giants to sign Tatupu, but it's not going to happen. Tatupu asked for his release because he was scheduled to make $4 million and he wouldn't restructure. He'll go somewhere where he can make that much. Giants are already in cap hell and they still have yet to re-sign a large chunk of their own free agents plus Amukamara. It's looking more and more likely that what you see on the roster now is what you're gonna have come opening day. For that reason, this is probably the least optimistic I've been about a Giants team going into a season since like 2003. There is talent there, but it's still essentially the same exact group that slogged through 2 huge collapses while the Eagles improved massively.

Clearly, NL > AL

All Star Game lineups announced: AL CF Curtis Granderson SS Asdrubal Cabrera 1B Adrian Gonzalez RF Jose Bautista LF Josh Hamilton 3B Adrian Beltre DH David Ortiz 2B Robinson Cano C Alex Avila P Jered Weaver NL 2B Rickie Weeks DH Carlos Beltran CF Matt Kemp 1B Prince Fielder C Brian McCann RF Lance Berkman LF Matt Holliday SS Troy Tulowitzki 3B Scott Rolen P Roy Halladay

Yeah, the entire system is flawed. It's clear that not only do most fans ignore stats, so do the players. Correia wasn't even a Bochy selection, he was next in line for the player voting. If you want the best quality game, I'd say let the managers in the respective leagues vote, and you aren't allowed to vote for your own players. Have them vote in 2 players from each position, 5 starting pitchers, and 3 relievers. The rest of the roster will be filled out by the WS managers, as winning the WS should give you the perk of picking a few guys on your own. Not to say they wouldn't still make some dumb decisions, but they would actually, y'know, READ the stats instead of voting in Russell Martin like the players did.

Kimbrel gets the nod as Cain's replacement. I also just realized that Jon Lester was also added as a player-elected replacement ala CC, but he's DL'ed so he can't pitch. So that brings the grand total to 84 All Stars. Yikes.