So this PPV sure as hell changed a lot over the last 48 hours!
A backstage outbreak of either viral meningitis or (now reportedly) mumps, that we’ll just call “Mumpingitis,” has felled both Bray Wyatt and freakin’ Roman Reigns, causing them to miss the TLC PPV completely. Now AJ Styles is subbing for Bray, in a match against Finn Balor that’s got just about every fan super-excited, and Kurt Angle is making his return to a WWE ring for the first time since 2006 to team with Seth and Dean in the 5 on 3 handicap main event. It’s all nuts!
How will they account for Kurt wrestling against his own RAW guys when he’s GM? How will they protect the dude in a match that’s filled with giant, dangerous table spots? Will he get knocked out backstage, spend most of the match off-camera, and then come down for the clean up win at the end? Will he get taken out and replaced by Jason Jordon? They wouldn’t promise us the moon and then deliver Uranus like that, would they?
40 of the world’s top players squared off last night in a two-hour PUBG Duo tournament battle royale in The OMEN Challenge: PUBG Edition at TwitchCon. Two games filled with big upsets, masterful tactics, and one flying car. Here is our recap of the event, but you can also watch the full replay here.
It’s time for tables, ladders, and chairs–oh my! The Raw brand-exclusive event hits the WWE Network at PPV today, and while two of the matches had to be changed because of illness, it ended up being for the better, as Kurt Angle returns to the ring for the first time since 2006.
TLC comes to the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As of this time, there is one match appearing on the Kickoff Show, which starts one hour prior to the main card. In total, there are seven matches on the card.
Aside from Kurt Angle making his first appearance in over a decade, one of the biggest matches of the night is Finn Balor vs. AJ Styles. Originally, Balor was going to fight Bray Wyatt, but because of an illness, The Demon will take on The Phenomenal One for the first time in WWE. Both men led the New Japan stable Bullet Club prior to coming over to WWE. In addition, TLC is the debut of Asuka, who held the NXT Women’s Championship for over 500 days and currently has a win-streak longer than Goldberg, who dominated the late-’90s.
Alexa Bliss (c) vs. Mickie James (For the Raw Women’s Championship)
Cedric Alexander & Rich Swann vs. Gentleman Jack Gallagher & The Brian Kendrick
Kalisto (c) vs. Enzo Amore (For the Cruiserweight Championship)
The Demon vs. AJ Styles
Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, & Kurt Angle vs. Braun Strowman, The Miz, Kane, Cesaro, & Sheamus (TLC Handicap Match)
The Kickoff Show starts on the WWE Network at 7 PM ET/4 PM PT today, October 22. It’s followed by the TLC event itself at 8 PM ET/5 PM PT on the WWE Network.
In case you’re not caught up, don’t worry; we put the final results in spoiler blocks.
Kickoff Show
Sasha Banks vs. Alicia Fox
Banks wins by submission at 10:12.
Main Card
Asuka vs. Emma
Asuka wins by submission at 9:26.
Cedric Alexander & Rich Swann vs. Gentleman Jack Gallagher & The Brian Kendrick
Alexander pins Kendrick at 7:52.
Alexa Bliss (c) vs. Mickie James (For the Raw Women’s Championship)
Bliss pins James at 11:23.
Kalisto (c) vs. Enzo Amore (For the Cruiserweight Championship)
Enzo wins by pin at 8:50.
Finn Balor vs. AJ Styles
Balor wins by pin at 18:14.
Jason Jordan vs. Elias
Jordan wins by pin at 8:47.
Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, & Kurt Angle vs. Braun Strowman, The Miz, Kane, Cesaro, & Sheamus (TLC Handicap Match)
Australia and New Zealand are finally getting their own local servers for the massively popular free-to-play tank-battling game World of Tanks. Developer Wargaming has announced that the local PC server for both countries will open on November 1.
This is good news for players in these regions, as they can expect a better experience overall when it comes to network connectivity and matchmaking times. Wargaming Australia/New Zealand manager Travis Plane said the local server is the “number one request” that it had from its community in those countries.
The local World of Tanks server won’t be available 24/7. Instead, it will be available from 6 PM through 12 AM AEDT, so a period of six hours. Wargaming added that it hopes to extend the hours in the future, leading up to a “full-time local server” in 2018.
“It’s a long time coming but we hope that our players and the community can see that we’re truly committed to investing in Australia and New Zealand,” Plane said.
World of Tanks has more than 130 million players worldwide on PC, so it’s easily one of the biggest games on the planet when it comes to player figures. Adding the local server is a nice treat for players on that side of the world. “Some of our most passionate tankers are based in Australia and New Zealand and it’s exciting to be finally giving our community what they’ve been asking for,” Wargaming Asia-Pacific GM Jungwon Hahn said in a statetment.
Wargaming celebrated the announcement in Auckland with a party on October 20, while there is another celebration scheduled for October 26 in Melbourne. Then on November 1, Wargaming is throwing a party in Sydney. Wargaming also released a silly promotional video to hype this announcement, poking fun at itself for the lack of local servers. Check it out in the embed above.
Also bear in mind that the local World of Tanks server for Australia and New Zealand is only available for the PC version of the game. World of Tanks is also available on consoles like Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
The Walking Dead’s Season 8 premiere, “Mercy” (which was also the 100th episode of the series), was overflowing with intense action as Rick coordinated a multi-pronged attack on Negan and the Saviors. This plan was also a major part of the comics story arc of “All Out War,” some of which we’ve already seen back in the Season 7 finale and Sasha’s transformation. Set-pieces have been shifted around a bit, for the sake of the TV series, but Rick’s assault on the Sanctuary remains mostly the same.
Jens Matthies has made a name for himself by showing the gaming world his spin on IPs that may not be his own, but that have been forever changed as a result. Today, Matthies is the creative director at MachineGames, and is about to release Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. Before his work on Wolfenstein: The New Order and its sequel The New Colossus, Matthies worked at Starbreeze Studios.
In its infancy, Swedish studio Starbreeze cuts its teeth on original IPs The Outforce, Enclave, and Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade. For its fourth title, Matthies and the rest of Starbreeze worked on an unoriginal IP, which had some cult-classic street cred, at least for movie fans. Writer/director David Twohy’s sci-fi action-horror Pitch Black was about to have a cinematic sequel, and Starbreeze was in charge of creating a game prequel that would tie in to the universe – The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay.
The Walking Dead opened up its eighth season (which also fortuitously synced up with its 100th episode) with an action-packed episode that dropped us right into the center of Rick’s cunning plan to take out the Saviors. “Mercy,” like all season premieres since Season 4, was directed by Executive Producer Greg Nicotero, who often tries to bring something artistically different to his episodes – for better or worse.
The most staggering thing about “Mercy,” despite all the bullets whizzing and cars exploding, was how dry it was overall. I’ll always give The Walking Dead points for the moments when it tries to elevate itself over run-of-the-mill horror fare, and it’s given us some truly mesmerizing moments over the years, but this assault on the Sanctuary, in an attempt to take out Negan and his group of marauders from all angles, wound up feeling a touch toothless. Sometimes the show just needs violence to be violence and not an artistically cut-up piece of meandering meditation, overly steeped in the gravity and sentiment of the moment.
