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Post by Chilling Nightmare on Feb 13, 2013 11:58:50 GMT -5
So there are some guys in Legends whose cards might not quite match how you think they should be. List your top 5 or so underwhelming cards.
5. Frank Gotch-I know vintage guys are hard to rate against the more modern, but I think his card should have been a bit stronger than it turned out.
4. Samu-I know Alofa isn't anything good, but Samu held the WWF tag team titles and yet his card is a total jobber. If we ever get Fatu/Rikishi, maybe we'll get a better one.
3. Buddy Rogers-not for stats, but the artwork has never been up to snuff.
2. Claudio Castagnoli-after his awesome Chikara card, his LOW card just seems to be a bare upgrade past his LOTF card.
1. Ray Stevens-he totally dominated California, was huge in the AWA, and yet his card is barely a midcarder. His art also is one of my least favorites.
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Post by bizarro on Feb 13, 2013 20:02:27 GMT -5
Interesting selections... 3 of those (Gotch, Samu and Stevens) would also be on my list, so in favor of leaving them off for some different names... here we go
#5. Rikidozan. There is nothing I can specifically "put my finger on" but as the Great great grandfather of Japanese wrestling and the man who is responsible for launching both Inoki and Baba, he just seems rather meh.
#4. Larry Hennig. A fantastic tag-team wrestler and very capable singles wrestler, he (IMO) kind of just got a lackluster card
#3 and #2. The Briscoes. Arguably the best true tag-team of the last 10 years. Their LOTF cards make them just about competitive with the Killer Bee's, lol. I know some will argue that they got upgraded with their ROH cards, but as I am one of "those guys" that doesn't mix colored and B/W, I think they really need an upgrade.
#1. Buddy Rose. I know a ton of people are only familiar with him as the Blow Away Diet type guy, but before his weight got away from him, he was one of the best in the biz. His ability to bleed, take bumps and work an hour long masterpiece of a match made him a star. His mic work was fantastic and his charisma was such that he could determine to be face or heel on a moment's notice. Even Curt Hennig many times gave him the props for so many things in his career, often quoted as (when deciding how to work a match) saying "What would Buddy do with this?" I could prattle for hours about Buddy (God rest his soul), but in an ugly and often cut-throat business, he was a genuinely good and decent person. And an absolute general in the ring...
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Post by Todd on Feb 13, 2013 21:13:45 GMT -5
Hacksaw Duggan always seemed a little weak to me. I think just increasing his finisher to a plus two instead of a plus makes a big difference. I always felt that Antonio Rocca should have a better card also
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Post by Chilling Nightmare on Feb 13, 2013 21:18:39 GMT -5
As a fan of Buddy in Portland (he was so amazing...why I like teaming him up with the Sheepherders..they were a great group)
Yeah, his card is kind of a strange mix....not quite strong enough to cover his Portland/AWA days, but stronger than his WWF jobber days.
Still one of my favorite guys to book.
I understand your point with the Briscoes, though sadly, we'll probably not see them in LOW proper.
The Axe is rather bland, unfortunately.
Rikidozan....yeah, another interesting one.....I don't complain too much about his performance for me, but I can understand wanting him to be a bit better. He was bigger than Hogan in the day, probably Thesz level.
Duggan and Rocca are also good choices. +2 Flying Spear would have been a minimum for me. I think he suffers from being an early guy before they clicked on how they wanted to do stats.
Rocca...I just never have understood why a guy who was HUGE in the day got such a mid-level card.
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Post by chewey on Feb 13, 2013 21:47:25 GMT -5
#1. Buddy Rose. I know a ton of people are only familiar with him as the Blow Away Diet type guy, but before his weight got away from him, he was one of the best in the biz. His ability to bleed, take bumps and work an hour long masterpiece of a match made him a star. His mic work was fantastic and his charisma was such that he could determine to be face or heel on a moment's notice. Even Curt Hennig many times gave him the props for so many things in his career, often quoted as (when deciding how to work a match) saying "What would Buddy do with this?" I could prattle for hours about Buddy (God rest his soul), but in an ugly and often cut-throat business, he was a genuinely good and decent person. And an absolute general in the ring... I was one of those guys that only knew Buddy Rose for his Blow Away Diet work, until you pointed me into the direction of some Portland stuff and had to concur that Buddy Rose was indeed a helluva worker. I really think Ed "Strangler" Lewis deserves a better card. He was a guy who basically invented pro wrestling as we know it, and basically held the world title whenever he felt like it. Lou Thesz idolized the guy, and in my opinion, Lewis deserves at least as good of a card as Thesz. I'm okay with his triple finishers, I think his defense could be better because he was a guy who was charismatic outside of the ring but kind of boring to watch. |
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Post by Mark on Feb 13, 2013 23:22:58 GMT -5
My Hacksaw Duggan card has (+2) finisher. He also has a PIN 6(3). That's because I bought the online version with the upgraded stats and made a physical card using those. I have no complaints about either Rose or Gotch: they seem to do as well as expected for me, and Gotch was a dominant world champion for a while. Rose was a great personality and very talented as a wrestler; but his most success nationally was as one-half of the AWA tag team champions, and his most well known period was spent as basically an undercard guy in the WWF. If they were making cards good based on who was a better performer as opposed to where they fit historically in wrestling guys like him and Curt Hennig would be elite, while a few of the main event level guys may have enhancement style cards.
Samu: The fact that he got shoved into the LOTF category even though he's been around for decades and is a former WWF tag team champion kind of shows me that his card was an afterthought. Without Fatu he just got relegated to nothing.
Finlay is probably the one I would most like to have seen upgraded a little. I have trouble getting him wins over all but the lowest level guys. I'm not indicating I think he should be "elite" level, but I would have liked to have seen him upper mid-card status.
Of course Rick Rude should be better than Andre The Giant, but that goes without saying.
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Post by Todd on Feb 14, 2013 8:00:27 GMT -5
I never had an issues with Gotch either. His Gotch Toehold has been a pretty deadly finisher and almost never fails to do the job. The same goes for Giant Baba's neckbreaker drop
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Post by Chilling Nightmare on Feb 14, 2013 8:28:45 GMT -5
Gotch's offense is good (though I miss his level 2 offense move being -3 (ch D) instead of -2 (ch C)), it's his defense that bothers me. If he's on offense, yeah h'es deadly (he holds my most titles ever), but if he's on defense, he can be dominated and has real trouble with anyone agile.
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Post by Swarm on Feb 14, 2013 10:38:14 GMT -5
I don't play much LOW so my opinion doesn't really count, but great topic.
Stat wise, I think there will always be arguments to be made for most characters. That's just part of being a fan. So I won't comment too much about them. I will say I have always thought it was bogus that ANY FG card stats get "changed" Online, but especially LOW. I guess when you need people to buy stuff they already have, you have to "alter" it, so I get it. I just don't agree with it. I'd be pissed if I bought online and found out the stats were different. I guess that's the conservative traditionalist in me.
Commenting on some of the name already mentioned -
Frank Gotch - Probably one of my top 3-5 all-time favorite LOW guys so no complaints from me. In the few times I've played the card, it's been super strong and always have great matches.
Buddy Rose - I remember him from his AWA Tag Team Title days. He was a decent character. I like the art for him.
Claudio Castagnoli - I don't like anything about it. Bandwagon card that was rushed out.
Samu - I never realized it was THAT Samu. Ya, not good representation. Always thought he was just some Indy unknown playing the part.
Ray Stevens - Other than seeing him in PWI, I have no memories of his career. Art is meh.
Briscoes - Bizarro, dude you don't know what you're missing. Photo copy them in B&W if you have to. New Dem Boys is imo the best and coolest FG tag team ever.
Hacksaw Jim Duggan - Art is pretty cool. I thought he was pretty cool in UWF and still pretty good in the WWF before he strictly became a comedy character. I would use that card.
others come to mind...
Andre - I like him, but missing out/not releasing the widely more recognized 80's WWF Andre is a classic FG mind-boggler. Every other "game" in the world with right to Andre uses 80's WM Andre, but not this one. Sigh.
Steve Williams - Art is meh. Seems like a REAL easy guy to draw too. Came out just awful.
Lou Thesz - Ok, I lied, I have one comment about stats. IMO Thesz has "Goldberg stats" with those two +2 finishers. If we ever got Goldberg, I'd imagine he would have SPEAR and JACKHAMMER, double +2 or something. For a guy who is known for wrestling hour long matches or more, Thesz really has a lights-out, squash card. I would have liked to see him with a card along the lines of a Thraxx (with a finisher), Davey Richards etc...low finisher(s) maybe double (0) or just one (0) then litter his offense with Add 1's. Add 1's were created for guys like Thesz, guys who wore their opponents down for long periods of time. One day I might like to take a stab at writing a Thesz card in this mold just for fun. I can't say this would make him "better", so it's not really on-topic. Just different.
Iron Sheik - Such a colorful guy and such a blah drawing.
Curt Hennig - There are a billion awesome "Mr. Perfect" pics floating around out there and somehow we got a WCW US Title version?
I'm sure there are more. As a whole, LOW has imo some of the poorest art put out by FG. Especially a lot of the early stuff, and at least half of the new stuff last few years.
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Post by Mark on Feb 14, 2013 11:13:05 GMT -5
To be fair about the Legends online stuff (as a guy who has stated on the O-board that I will never again buy an online product if it's available in cardstock), they quit doing the upgraded/altered stats after first round of releases. Now it's just straight conversions, with the exception of Werner fixing some of the card art for (I think) series 6 when they did the LOTF series.
Every bad drawing mentioned (Williams, Stevens, Hennig), except for Iron Sheik, was by that Scott Rosema character. There was NO excuse for the crap that guy put out: he is a pro who has worked for several comic book companies and has been a working artist for a long time. If you look at his portfolio stuff online or just do a search for his name you'll see hundreds of examples that will make you wonder how this is the same artist. He either didn't take the job seriously, he has a heavy drinking problem and was drawing drunk, or Tom pissed him off and he didn't care. Either way, that damn Buddy Rogers drawing that he did for the second edition of the Legends intro set was a total joke. I can tell just by looking at it that he just did a quick ink sketch without even laying out pencils first, and he should have been ashamed to even accept money or put his name to half of what he drew for Legends. I'm relived that he did a halfway decent job on the Rude drawing, but I wish Tom Filsinger would hire a decent artist to redo everything that guy did and re-release those editions with new art. Kangaroos, Red Berry (used a photo reference of Red as a younger wrestler for his older manager card even though I spoke with Chad Olson about this and he assured me they provided him with a pic of Red as manager for reference), Williams---just virtually everything Rosema did is sub-par.
PS: Briscoe ROH cards are awesome. As Swarm wrote, even if you need to copy them in black and white USE THEM. "Dem Boys" are the baddest tag team on the planet right now, and those cards represent them well. Also, "just about competitive with the Killer Bees" regarding the LOTF cards? Killer Bees were the greatest freaking tag team of the mid-80s, sir!
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