For those keeping score at home, this elimination leaves us with El Gordinflon Negro Uno and Vinny LaGrazo on Team 17E and just Dick the Bastard on Team 32J. Way to bleed out all of your blood, sustain a head injury, and leave your partner hanging, Ron. Ass.
Vinny LaGrazo is a character who began his existence as a create-a-wrestler on various early 2000s wrestling video games before I brought him out of retirement for HEAT. There are a few more of those on the way in the future, by the way, but why I actually bring that up is because the majority of his big moves are lifted from his Fire Pro Wrestling for Game Boy Advance incarnation. The Sickle Hold was his finisher, because Fire Pro was the first wrestling series I played where submission wrestlers were actually effective and not just a crapshoot. I mean, there were definitely elements of luck involved, but if your character’s offence focused on a body part and then your submissions did as well, you’d get the tap-out. The Fire Thunder Driver was a move that I first saw in video games, since nobody in North America that I was aware of was using it at the time, and was Vinny’s pinfall finisher. Not that he really needed one, but that was how I built create-a-wrestlers at that time. I’ve started playing Fire Pro again recently, and holy crap is that game way better when you actually know who the Japanese guys are. Audience matches might also be one of the most interesting single player modes ever, since most other wrestling games promote winning. In the audience match, you actually have to wrestle a particular style, and you’re graded based on how good your match is in that style. So in the Strong Style mode, which I’ve been playing recently, you can’t just go out there and crush people or your rating will tank. To have a good match you basically need to recreate any match Kobashi had during his two year title run in NOAH.
Next week: Dick the Bastard is the last man standing on his team. Although “standing” is a metaphorical term, as he doesn’t spend a whole lot of time on his feet. Or not in pain.
