Casual Championship Ambulance Match: Shantae (C) VS. Aigis

Ant

Trying to predict a winner for an Ambulance Match with convincing logic is an uphill battle, but I will say Shantae has been impressive in 2K24. Aside from having a broken-in-a-bad-way finisher in the Six Woman Falls Count Anywhere Match, Shantae is 4-0 in 6 matches and has demonstrated really strong showings in her two 1v1 singles matches against Agnes and Camilla. Aigis can certainly compare though being 3-0 in 3 matches, but that is less to work with especially when 2 of those 3 wins are against Callie and her own tag partner in Tina who she won contendership off of. And I haven’t even mentioned until now that Aigis already failed once to win the Casual Championship last Breakdown against Shantae’s teammate.

I think the Casual Championship is due for a defense and honestly all of Dance Dance Revolution are up which includes Primrose over in Gold. And personally, Shantae should be defending that title at least once if she’s going to win it from Camilla…

Winner: Shantae (unlike certain people, Moogle, I respect all combatants enough to list a winner)

Donuts 

After a disaster class of a 2k22 Shantae is BACK… In the same place she was when I became a fan three years ago. It has made me very happy to see that in this game she has not only met those standards of old but also that she just might be on the cusp of breaking through and taking things to a new level. Her opponent Aigis is very familiar with her position as well, she lost to Tae’s partner Cadence seven months ago for this same belt. Primrose even beat her in 2k22 as well? Sweep for DDR incoming??? God it’d be bad if Shantae were the one to lol. Before 2k24 I was very hard on her in the team, I am still very adamant that she single handedly cost DDR every chance they had at a run to gold in the history of the team. I took matters into my own hands and I made her moveset in 2k24 knowing that if she couldn’t prove herself this year, she would be a strong cut candidate. Efforts are being rewarded, but we can’t stop now.

Gun to my head, these are the most ‘casual’ women both brands can send out. They’re ready for what gimmicky bullshit lies ahead. They’re undefeated. They’re both way overdue for a climb up the card. Cadence might’ve given the download on the robot to Shantae, but considering what happened to Aigis after she lost her Casualette, she better be determined to get the belt and hold onto it as long as she possibly can. Ivy didn’t even get the luxury of an ambulance though…

Ah whatever just don’t kill Shantae forever if you win please? Make sure she sticks around. 

Winner: Aigis (puts an alive body in the ambulance)

Extreme Rules Match: Juri Han VS. Reisalin Stout

Ant

When comparing these two, they are virtually spotless so far in their 2K24 careers. They both have had 4 matches and only lost once in those 4 matches. For Juri, that was a 1v1 singles match with Kula in her first 2K24 match. For Ryza, that was the WVGCW #1 Contendership Triple Threat Elimination Match where Mythra first pinned Lucca and then her. One of these is more understandable than the other. This isn’t to make fun of Kula, but Ryza legitimately feels like one of the Gold Brand’s strongest wrestlers. 

This might be an abstract comparison, but let’s take a deeper look into the singular multiman matches they have won so far. Juri won a Fatal Fiveway Extreme Rules Elimination Match. That is a helpful experience to have when you’re going to be in another Extreme Rules Match. That match also had Junko, Rinoa, and Samus in it. I am a big fan of 2 of those 3, but I’m under no delusion where their strength is at compared to the rest of the WVGCW roster. Ryza won a Six Woman Ladder Match that had Edea in it. Edea. Someone who challenged for the WVGCW Championship in this game and is part of the War Games match for Team Gold.

Suffice to say, Ryza has convinced me more than Juri has of how good she is and an Extreme Rules Match is not wacky enough to change how I think this should end.

Winner: Ryza or Reisalin Stout if we are insisting on government names.

Donuts

We aren’t talking dimes, not even just dollars, MILLIONS of them. 

Some of the hardest earned coins in the roster that weren’t family inherited, FGC money vs grass fed farm grown alchemy money. Hard workers that have earned a big opportunity in totally different ways, Juri by winning and Ryza by losing a contendership match but being a convenient pick for Palutena. Red team had the benefit of selecting matchups and since only the Rogue could handle the sheer mental calamity of losing to BLONDE Terra, Jinx made a business input to get Ju-Ju the hell out of there. I can’t even blame her, I wouldn’t wish that on anybody except The Rogue. More on this one later.

Juri is 2-1 and with that has already matched her singles win total from 2k22. As a team the Rogues have surpassed their 2k22 win total with also a record of 2-1. It feels like within the Rogues the power has flipped a bit. Ryza could have some very high upside, but Palutena basically called her POTENTIAL WOMAN. Cmon now. Out of anyone here it’d be ME who knows best not to chase upside. 

Winner: Ju-Ju or Juri Han if we are insisting on government names.

Ladder Match: Pyra VS. Rydia of Mist

Ant

A Ladder Match can throw things for a loop here, but only one of these wrestlers actually has a win rate above 50% in singles competition. It’s not Rydia who took the pin in a WVGCW #1 Contendership Triple Threat Match to Edea and lost to 2B. It’s Pyra who has beaten Jade, Agnes, and Garnet. I can explain away her losses too as she later avenged her loss to Agnes from their first match and being out first in the #1 Contendership Elimination Chamber to Adeleine is rolling snake eyes. 

Rydia the wrestler has always been average. She can win matches and string them together, but it usually ends right before a #1 Contendership Match or at a #1 Contendership Match. She’s been here since the Pre-Show Era and it’s still surprising she hasn’t won a singles title. Fastforward to the present of 2K24 and she’s won two matches after getting pinned twice and I think it’s about time for a loss to kick in. Checking over records again, Pyra actually handed Garnet her first loss in singles competition in 2K24. Impressive stuff. Beating the weakest Summoner in singles competition should be more than doable for Pyra. 

Winner: Pyra

Donuts

Whatever jubilant Xenoblade 2 music that plays in this contest will surely not be reflective of my heart during this match. Simply put we can’t drop this one. This being a ladder match isn’t gonna make it any easier on my heartrate, this is like the perfect storm to induce salt from me. Rydia has already blazed through my favorites and typically when one summoner doesn’t get the job done, the other plays cleanup. Such is Pyra’s fate, I’m afraid. 

Admittedly Pyra has looked VERY good in her last couple matches. Some of the most decisive clean no bullshit wins I’ve seen in a while. But it doesn’t matter because now it’s not about pinfalls! What matters is being a crybaby and harvesting Duke Nukem pity points while mowing down anyone on the roster. I will say, I think Rydia and PAM would be really funny together. She could learn some things from Pyra. Rydia and Mythra probably couldn’t hold a conversation for two seconds. Maybe that’s just me. I’d prefer if Rydia was a changed person. Sadly being a loser crybaby is the meta currently. 

Winner: Rydia

Steel Cage Match: The Rogue VS. BLONDE Terra Branford

Ant

My predictions thus far haven’t been reaches. Sure, they could end up wrong but I do believe I chose what I thought was the stronger wrestler for the first 3 matches and gave understandable justification. This is not the case here. The Rogue has always looked strong in all of her showings in 2K24 thus far. Even in a loss like a Fatal Fourway Falls Count Anywhere Elimination Match, The Rogue still eliminated Junko and D.Va before falling short to Adeleine. In her wins like against Peacock and Cate she has looked dominant. 

So why am I picking Terra? Besides preferring her, Terra is no slouch in 2K24 either. A 2-1 record in 3 matches where the 1 loss is to undefeated in 2K24 Sophitia Alexandra is more than respectable. More importantly, a match like this presents an opportunity for Terra. A chance for Terra to personally avenge the WVGCW Championship title loss her dear Spellweaver friend Aqua suffered at the hands of Narmaya. One of the greatest things Terra Branford has accomplished in her WVGCW career was main eventing Breakdown 13 with Aqua for the WVGCW Championship and winning it from her. Only for the moment to be ruined by the unfortunately familiar Money in the Bank briefcase. That was Terra’s 3rd WVGCW Championship reign. If Terra sets her mind to it again like she did then, she can avenge a loss, be a 4-Time Champion, and have no Money in the Bank in sight to stop her. A Steel Cage Match can also be the helpful assistance to get started on that world title journey again.

Winner: Terra Branford

Donuts

What do I even do here? One person I really don’t like that’s slowly starting to gain my favor, and the other person I really like that has let me down at every turn. Don’t get it twisted though, this match is special. In fact The Rogue might be GOOD if she can whoop Terra’s ass, not just in my opinion but objectively strong too. She’s exactly the kind of opponent I want Terra to face right now. The worst, most annoying conniving rogue in the gallery. 

And she has a pretty good case to win as well! The Rogue has unquestionably looked the best she ever has. I was there when she got her first ever singles win. It was really bad for a long time! But this is the type of ‘punching above your weight class’ that I love to see and I think pays off more often than not even if she doesn’t win. The type of ambition that often charms me into belief. Terra is pretty much the same as ever, she can have a good match with just about anybody.  A Steel Cage also adds a bit more incentive for Rogue as well too, feels like the type of match she’s good at and gimmicks increase variance. I’m concerned that maybe The Rogue might be simply a tag specialist with a decent singles floor in this game. But really this match is house money… guild gold? All she has to do is beat the shit out of her and I’m a fan.

Can she win though? I can’t believe I’m predicting this really, but 

Winner: The Rogue

2/3 Falls Match: Jack-O’ Valentine VS. Kairi

Ant

If I had to make a bet, this match would be the biggest reach on the card in thinking Jack-O’ will win. And yet, that is what I am predicting. There aren’t even any wacky gimmicks to spice up the result either since it’s a 2/3 Falls Match. Jack-O’ has struggled in the transition to 2K24. If it wasn’t for the kind donation by Miku to give up her spot in the match against Lightning to get into Splat Wres 7’s card, Jack-O’ would still be winless in this game. This includes losses to Panther and Amy. Panther is still rather untested in this game, but Amy is decidedly an average/maybe above-average wrestler.

Kairi is doing pretty great for herself on Gold after making the sudden decision to split Halloween Town to check up on Master Aqua. She won a 1v1 singles match against Lucca through submission and kept newcomer Sanae at bay. By any logical metric, Kairi should be favored to win. 

But I think there’s something to be said about desperation and passion to see a friend again after she suddenly left you without explaining why. Jack-O’ wants this match with Kairi badly while Kairi is simply wondering if she might get to see her again at Splat Wres. A desperate Jack-O’ beat Lightning who has looked impressive in all 4 of her 1v1 singles matches even if 3 of them she lost in wonky ways. The Genesis 3 Finals was a long 4 years ago, but Jack-O’ prevailed in their first encounter – a 2/3 Falls Match just like what the rematch will be. I think Jack-O’ can tap into that magic again. Splat Wres 7 is the week of Halloween too and I’m pretty sure Halloween Magic is supposed to benefit Jack-O’ more than Kairi.

Winner: Jack-O’ Valentine

Donuts

Remember when you read my Pyra vs Rydia prediction? It’s dialed up to 11 now. This isn’t just a must win for my ego, this is a fork in the road for Halloween Town as we know it. The universe has come together and magically this match will happen on Halloween weekend. A team that has historically received the Halloween buff will explode in what I can imagine is probably going to have long term ramifications for the perception of this team as an act and in singles. A genesis championship rematch where Jack-O won, you would like to think she’s favored again?

I told you to read the Pyra vs Rydia prediction. If you did you would know that being a crybaby gives you favor, sympathy and opportunity. Jack-O has held her head up high through being ABANDONED by Kairi, dropping matches. Things are just unfortunate right now. Maybe Kairi is just pretty good after this act befitting of a traitor. It’s very difficult for me to believe in Jack-O for this one. I can trust that Ant is gonna do that for me though. Loyal to his fantasy drafted team until the very end. So I will scoop up the points for this match instead!

Winner: Kairi

Co-Op Championships Match: The Bluetails (C) VS. Air Buds

Ant

Like the previous match, this match also has a very likely winner in The Bluetails. They have had an unprecedented dominance dating back to the start of 2K22 where they ended that game 6-0 in 7 matches with the 7th match they didn’t win being a 2/3 Falls Tornado Tag Triple Threat Match where they still scored a pin in that match. In 2K24, they ended the reign of the 6-0 undefeated Spellweavers to become champions and have defended against the River City Poliwhirls and The Summoners. It’s hard to argue against them not being the strong favorite to extend their winning streak to 10 wins.

That being said, everyone can see how much of a ticking time bomb The Bluetails are. Dizzy’s worsening attitude is even alienating her teammates with Miku not wanting to deal with them at all and Kris hoping everything can remain fine as long as they keep winning. The Bluetails have been much more concerned with each other than their challengers who they have yet to even acknowledge. 

Which makes this a prime opportunity for the Air Buds. They are on the same page, setting aside their issues with Fate/Dark Zero for now, and would love some payback against The Bluetails as well (much like the rest of the WVGCW roster really). The Air Buds are honestly still of an unknown quantity as a team. They were absent for a significant portion of 2K22 and the rest of their matches were pretty much multiman tag matches. There’s not much vanilla tag matches to base a conclusion on for them. And that can be a benefit when The Bluetails’ win streak was partially built off multiple wins on teams they are familiar with like the River City Poliwhirls and The Black Eagles. It’s a reach, but…

Winner: Air Buds (even if I spent more time talking about The Bluetails than them in this prediction)

Donuts 

The Bluetails have been at the forefront of some scenes in one respect or another for the entire time I have been a consistent viewer of the channel. When one of them is in a lull, another is thriving. Well Miku has had her fun in the past, Kris has been a good classic champion. All of the momentum right now is on Dizzy’s side. She has always been the lesser of the trio to me, but I guess it was just a matter of time until she got to eat, and she’s FEASTING. Feasting on the hate and despair surrounding her, driven to not even madness, just emptiness and disregarding any inconvenience. Long gone are the days of trying to make Kris and Miku happy, now Kris is doing anything she can to just keep Dizzy from exploding once they lose.

Air Buds are doing great! Zelda and Bad Girl went away to watch the Houston Astros take on the Toronto Tulins. Frankly this team on paper sounds pretty scary, two former champs and one of them is Bad Girl??? It might surprise you that this team is 2-4 prior to 2k24. But they’ve finally found synergy and seem to have found themselves really where I think they should’ve been from the start; vying for the gold. How can you not be romantic about baseball?

Here’s how:

The Bluetails do not care for your feel good stories.

The Bluetails have not lost a 1v1 tag match since February of 2022.

They are about to implode, and they will squeeze every drop out of this last title reign together.

Winner: The Bluetails

War Games Match: Team Red VS. Team Gold

Ant

There are a lot of ways to approach such a big, star-studded match featuring the WVGCW Champion and Classic Champion as captains. As a whole, the Red Brand has kinda kicked the Gold Brand’s ass in terms of preparation and even cohesion. Sheena was able to obtain valuable information on who is on Team Gold (that being Narmaya, Aqua, Edea, and Sailor Moon) and was even able to relay that Sailor Moon has a secret weapon of some sort. The Red Brand won War Games advantage to send their members out first in the Beat the Clock matches that took place, showcasing better judgment on their own wrestlers and the opposing brand’s. Pearl even mentioned to Fransizka she can talk Marina into having the Red Brand’s preferred matchups in the 4 Red vs. Gold singles matches which Marina agreed to without even consulting Palutena first. I see no way to argue against Team Red being better prepared for this match than Team Gold. Does Team Gold even know Peach has a special surprise for this War Games Match?

Now to talk about overall unity. There is hostility on both teams which both brands are hoping were sorted out in the main events of their respective go-home shows before Splat Wres 7. However, Team Red is more commonly united against an enemy than Team Gold is. All of Edelgard, Jinx, and Sheena want to stick it to Palutena while Peach is playing ball since she got her secret condition for her participation in the match (as well as being coerced on the threat of forcing to defend her title in gauntlet matches if she doesn’t join). Team Gold has Narmaya and Aqua who can’t stand each other and Sailor Moon who the rest of the team just tolerates. Narmaya agreed to let Sailor Moon be on the team to act as a chew toy for Jinx. Hardly respectful of Sailor Moon while all of Team Red can at least respect each other’s skill. Yeah, Sheena thinks Edelgard’s words to her come across as Edelgard not believing in her but Edelgard didn’t intend to come across that way and was very open to being wrong. An unintentional benefit of this is also riling up Sheena and a riled up Sheena is a Survivor Series winner, a Breakdown winner against Palutena’s loyal team of The Valkyries, and a winner against Edelgard who some have predicted to be one of 2K24’s strongest wrestlers.

And speaking of strong wrestlers, Team Red is composed of entirely strong wrestlers in Peach, Edelgard, Jinx, and Sheena. Team Gold may have possibly the strongest wrestler in Narmaya, but they also have the weakest which is Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon’s 2K24 career thus far has been entirely losses except for one match where Moonfall prevailed over The Squid Sisters. That would be great if Kat was in the War Games match, but she isn’t and Sailor Moon has taken pinfalls from Marie in singles competition and Narmaya in the tag team main event of Gold’s go-home show for Splat Wres 7. Narmaya was being accurate to treat Sailor Moon like a chew toy for Jinx. Jinx was also a motivator for Edea to join Team Gold. I think priorities are misaligned when Jinx seems to be the common unifier for Narmaya, Edea, and Aqua. Especially since I believe Jinx is the weakest part of Team Red (which is still really solid). Not acknowledging the threat of any of Peach, Edelgard, or Sheena is a mistake on Team Gold’s end. While on Team Red, Edelgard knows to not underestimate even Sailor Moon. That’s more respect given by a member of the opposing team than Team Gold’s Captain is giving Sailor Moon. I may sound dismissive of the advantages Team Gold does offer for this War Games match, but the way Team Gold has prepared for this match, their overall composition, and their lacking/misaligned unity is asking for them to lose. Team Red has honestly done everything right to win this match including getting people aligned with the Gold Brand like Marina and Rydia to aid against Gold’s success at Splat Wres 7. By my own predictions, this match is the deciding tie breaker on the overall winner of Splat Wres 7. And if they turn out to be true, then we may very well see the Classic Championship Match main event Breakdown XVII.

Winner: Team Red

Donuts

The first ever War Games match in our history. There’s a lot to talk about with this one. Composition wise, both teams are very strong. I’d say gold might even be better tbh. Sailor Moon is not very good (even with crybaby boost) but what do we know for sure about Jinx? Recently she isn’t very tested and she hasn’t scored a pin in a concerning amount of time. Curiously I looked and the last time was…right before the last Splat Wres, where she lost her belt to Aqua, she had pinned…Sailor Moon! Pretty interesting and a lot of parallels right? You might say “well she hasn’t been pinned in almost as long either”, but why? She’s just been a manager on the sides for almost all of 2k24. Now she has to prove herself to who she last pinned and also who she was last pinned by, Edelgard on her team and Aqua on the other. 

It’s TBD how much the advantage red carries, in some ways I would argue it’s not an advantage for Red at all! This isn’t a normal 4v4 elimination match that we are used to seeing at stuff like survivor series. If Red has their members in the match longer than Gold does by sending them out first, what happens? Red members get fatigued faster, and since this is one fall AND you can’t pin until everyone is in the ring, it’s not like Red can gain scores while they have the advantage. Imagine a power play in hockey except you aren’t allowed to put the puck in the net. You just get one more player tired skating for nothing on the ice and then the other team takes a fully energized player out of the box last and they are now allowed to SCORE, they can take the offense with no fear. This sounds like a worse than good situation for the Red Team.

Unless Red is on the same page.

And I think they are. At least much more than Gold is. If Jinx had beaten Edelgard with an underhanded run in from her grunt, this team would have horrible morale. But instead Edelgard pulled out the victory fair and square and the squad has so much motivation to win. Peach gets what she wants and avoids a gauntlet defense. Edelgard, Jinx and Sheena all have a very common enemy. Meanwhile on Gold, Narmaya and Aqua still hold hate, while I think Edea is strong, she feels like she’s just here for the ride. Nobody believes in Sailor Moon and nobody wants to entertain her ideas. Aqua wants to win for Palutena above any grudge, but it’s just all business, no fun, no purpose on gold. Red has the heart, the intel, the advantage, and two strong leaders that combined could make anyone go to WAR for them.

Winner: Team Red

WVGCW Gold: Divine Summer

Semprini

Squid Sisters vs Kat & Sailor Moon

Again, as I said quite often in the previous prediction battle, this can be quite hard to judge based on prior successes so far in 2K24. The Squid Sisters honestly didn’t even do that much in 2K22, and haven’t had much time in 2K24 either. Compared to how busy Sailor Moon and Kat were in 2K22, you could make an argument in that vein that the new team of Kat and Sailor Moon have appeared stronger over the last year than the Squids.

On the other hand, the Squids are kind of wildcards who can’t always be predicated based on their prior results. Out of all the teams to win the tag titles in the past few years, they’re probably the least likely pair to do it and even defended against the Queens back when that appeared like a way bigger deal than it does now. So while Sailor Moon and Kat do seem to pack more punch pound for pound, I’m going to give this one to the Squids on the basis that they’re just way more unpredictable and are fueled by a burning desire for vengeance and justice. I think. Honestly they might just be in a bad mood and need to take it out on someone. Sailor Moon is incredibly bullyable.

Winner: The Squid Sisters

Moogle

Marie & Kat have a 100% win rate. Callie & Sailor Moon have a 100% loss rate. Both teams are undefeated in tags. I believe in Sailor Moon’s new talking cat to carry her bum ass to the dub and deliver the monster Marie her first loss though.

Winner: Kat & Sailor Moon

Shantae vs Camilla

Semprini

Shantae, huh…hmm…both me and Moogle put Shantae on the very of the list of wrestlers we thought would win the elimination chamber match, but considering the alternative in it was Miku I suppose I should count myself lucky to be so completely wrong in that case. Miku would almost certainly have won against Camilla, but Shantae? Way more up in the air.

Shantae has appeared pretty good in 2K24 so far but like with Samus I never really take what happens too early in a game at face value. It’s very easy to see someone who looks good in their first few matches then just fumbles the ball and is utterly irrelevant for the next year or so. That said she’s going up against Camilla who hasn’t been having the greatest streak of luck herself lately after a fairly dismal 2K22. Though Camilla has certainly started her 2K24 run with a big success, it’s also way too early to say whether she’s the kind of obstacle Shantae can’t overcome.

So with no horse in this race and no real reason to pick one way or the other, I choose to actively vote for the wrestler I’m pretty certain Moogle won’t be so we can compete more!

Winner: Shantae

Moogle

Semprini is going to pick Shantae because he thinks he knows me. He thinks I’ll pick Camilla to win solely because I’m a Shantae hater, a Shantaeter.

He is incorrect, for I will not be picking a winner for this match at all.

Loser: Shantae

Double Dash!! vs Mystery Team

Semprini

It’s a little boring that I keep having to say “Well we don’t have much information yet” but in this case I think it’s even more apparent as we don’t know what team Double Dash!! will be facing. Honestly, I’m thinking it’ll be The Spellweavers as Terra and Celes haven’t been seen for a bit and giving them a PPV paycheck makes sense, especially with Aqua on the same show to give the whole trio a spotlight. There are other potential names, but they’re the only team I think would get any sort of decent reaction considering the other teams are, like, The Saiyans or the Queens of Iron Fist.

While the current storyline is about how Rosalina stinks, that doesn’t mean you can count Double Dash!! as a team out as they’re always been a team that’s often been greater than the sum of their parts anyway. Considering how they’ve always been one of the strongest teams in the entire company, even when Peach ditched them and ran off on her own solo career, I think it would be foolish to entirely count them out. It’s a bit risky considering I’m banking on their opponents being Terra and Celes, but I’m choosing to put my faith in the princesses. But if Rosalina lets me down one more time, I swear to Space Jesus she’s going to be off my Fantasy League team so fast she’ll be seeing stars! Probably one with Mario spinning around it going WAHOO.

Winner: Double Dash!!

Moogle

I am picking Double Dash mostly out of sentimental value. I can not be a Rosalina hater simply because she can’t win when she’s consistently been entertaining to watch in the ring for years now. I also think Daisy is sneaky good this game, but whether that translates to tags or not is a question still to be answered.

Mystery Team? Could be anyone. If it’s draft bust Terra then even better!

Winner: Double Dash!!

Aqua vs Morrigan

Semprini

On paper this fight appears highly mismatched, but on paper this fight has always appeared highly mismatched and yet it has never gone in Aqua’s favour. It’s always been a fun little spot of trivia that Aqua just can’t beat Morrigan, but now she’s looking to completely stamp out the fun and get a victory over her longtime rival just to take away the only thing Morrigan really has going for anymore outside of a somewhat creepy obsession with getting into Palutena’s office.

But who am I deny that Morrigan has Aqua’s number? It’s been a long time since we saw Morrigan pull any real bullshit, but if anyone was going to wait until 2K24 to pull out a big surprise and look way better than she usually does, I wouldn’t be shocked if it’s Morrigan. Besides, with Peach winning the title against Lucina maybe this actually isn’t the return of 2K17 era at all. Maybe it’s the return of the 2K13 era! Peach and Morrigan are two of the longest tenured wrestlers still left in WVGCW, and I’m willing to bet on the golden oldies to show the young whippersnappers their place. You know, Aqua? She’s not that old, right? When did she debut, 5 or 6 years ago, yeah? Hey Sanae, when was she in EDBW again? Oh? Oh. Ohhhhh, we’re so old…

Winner: Morrigan

Moogle

I have no idea who to go for here because both of them have been protected from the horrors of 2k24 thus far. Morrigan has had 4 plots and no matches. Aqua has had 4 plots and 1 squash match. While Morrigan does have the lifetime record over Aqua to boast about I just can’t see Aqua going from losing the world title to 2k22’s second best wrestler, to losing to someone who’s been lower-midcard for years now.

2k24 can’t be THAT different to 2k22…right?

Winner: Aqua

Mythra vs Narmaya

Semprini

It’s somewhat poetic that Narmaya is having to defend her title against a bright up-and-comer seeing as she was very much that when she went up against Aqua. Though Mythra has reached the point of fighting for the WVGCW Championship way earlier than Narmaya did, though that’s more down to Mythra completely skipping the midcard and going straight to the top while Narmaya dominated the Classic scene for a year or so.

Anything could happen here with so little to go off, but it would be somewhat shocking for Mythra to rise up and win the title this early in her career, especially over a champion who’s appeared as strong and had such a massive build-up like Narmaya. I also think it could end up being really bad for Mythra in the long run to win the title this early on depending on how things go. Not to say that it’s a certainty, but a lot of early champions struggle to keep up with the expectations on them after they drop the title. Hell, I remember how many expectations were on Velvet and she didn’t even WIN the title. Mythra at least is getting this shot on more of a whim and random happenstance than that, there’s still a chance for her to slip down and build herself up before she sets herself up for a massive struggle to keep the prestige she would get from beating Narmaya of all people.

So with that, and also just because I likes her a whole lot, I’m gonna go for the champion in this one.

Winner: Narmaya

Moogle

The benefit of being the early title chaser in a new game is you have a ton more data points to work with compared to the champion, and all of Mythra’s lean positive. Mythra’s debut match was a losing effort against Edea, which now looks very good in hindsight, and then wins over fellow high-fliers Rosalina & Zelda plus a clutch triple threat win against Ryza.

My heart says Narmaya can pull off a second defense here. But my brain can’t ignore that Mythra’s got the sauce and some clutch factor as well. I’ll go for the ELO upset here.

2k24 can be THAT different to 2k22…right?

Winner: Mythra

WVGCW Red: Chamber of Elimination

Rude_Semprini

Lightning vs Shadowheart

As we’re still pretty early into the cycle of this new game, we don’t really know who the strongest wrestlers are yet. But from what we’ve seen of Lightning so far, I honestly wouldn’t be shocked if she was a heavy hitter in this game. After what she did against Jinx in her first match, Lightning could be a real force to be reckoned with. She seems to be looking more invigorated and threatening than she did through the whole of 2K22…

…but that doesn’t matter with 2K games, baby! What matters is bullshit and bad luck! Lightning could spend 20 minutes feeding Shadowheart her own fists and knocking each tooth out of her head individually, and it would all mean nothing if she gets her finisher reversed twice in a row then goes down in the final stretch. So the question really comes down to this: do I think Lightning is so unlucky she would lose to bullshit three times in a row in singles matches where she looks like the most dominant wrestler in the ring?

Yes. Yes I do.

Winner: Shadowheart

Moogle

Lightning vs Shadowheart

Lightning is going 0-3 because there’s 3 games in her series and all of them range from bad to terrible. I still haven’t forgiven Jamie for buying me FF13 all those years ago and I hope they witness the upcoming events at CoE.

Lightning is about to get sent to double hell from a Turn Undead and we certainly won’t need Guidance to assist with Shadowheart’s D20 victory here!

Winner: Shart

Casual Elimination Chamber: Adeleine vs Amy vs Miku vs Kula vs Pyra vs Shantae

Rude_Semprini

Well, trying to predict a winner in this match based on anything other than vibes is pretty foolhardy. In a clusterfuck kind of brawl like this, there’s no rhyme or reason to anyone winning. I’ll go down the list based on who I think I will win for entirely silly reasons, starting with who I think is the least likely to win.

6) Shantae: I’m sorry Shantae, I don’t think you’re actually allowed to experience joy thanks to the eldritch curse Sypha put on you years ago.

5) Amy: She’s got spunk and heart but she’s been in this situation and won before. She’s likely to get overconfident and fumble the ball.

4) Pyra: Honestly one of the stronger competitors in the match itself as far as I can tell but she’s heavy and slow and liable to get teamed up on if my Smash knowledge is anything to go by.

3) Adeleine: Addy has actually looked pretty competent in 2K24 so far, but not competent enough that I think she can pull off a big upset like this. Cadence stole all the miracle energy with her title reign earlier.

2) Kula: She’s strong, she’s quick, she’s Cate’s daughter. What’s not to like? Kula vs Camilla would likely be a great match too. You all know Camilla would ADORE Kula, she’d be trying to adopt her away from Cate! She’s who I would WANT to win but really we all know the inevitable outcome of this match.

1) Miku: Come on, we know it’s happening. This is exactly the kind of match Miku is only put in to dash your hopes and score herself another title shot.

Winner: Hatsune Miku

Moogle

So I’m gonna do the same thing Semprini has and go down the list since an Elimination clusterfuck is a complete vibecheck;

7) Shantae: To be honest I hope she gets ambushed before the match and replaced with someone else. The Shantae fans need to be saved from seeing her inevitably being eliminated first by one Miku Black Rock Bottom.

6) ???: Her replacement is getting killed with one Black Rock Bottom because it’s still Shantae’s slot they are replacing.

5) Adeleine: Addy has actually looked pretty competent in 2K24 so far, but not competent to the extent that she’ll kick out of the Black Rock Bottom into Packaged into Black Rock Bottom (she reversed Addy’s finisher to do this).

4) Amy: “I won’t let you down, Panther!” Amy screamed as she laid on the mat after being hit by the Black Rock Bottom, and then completely forgot to lift her shoulders up.

3) Pyra: Pyra’s a pretty funny winner considering the events happening on Gold right now. She’s getting hit by 3 Diamond Cutters in a row though. Miku is stealing the pin.

2) Miku: Actually Kula’s winning so fuck off. Psyche!

1) Kula: Year of SNK baby!

Winner: Kula Diamond

The Summoners vs The Bluetails

Rude_Semprini

This is the match I’m looking forward to the most on the CoE card. Not just because I’ve enjoyed seeing Sheena and Dizzy interacting again, but in terms of raw wrestling strength on display you’d be hard pressed to find a more concentrated amount than between these four. Sheena, Garnet, Kris and Dizzy is pretty stacked in terms of power levels, especially when it comes to tag teams. The Bluetails are one of the strongest tag stables in the history of WVGCW, and The Summoners have been champions with every version of themselves that’s cropped up.

There’s no reason to assume Sheena and Garnet can’t pull it off. In fact, they feel like one of the only teams in WVGCW right now that COULD stand up to The Bluetails. It’s difficult to decide based on skill with this one so I’m going to allow myself to vote based on hopes and dreams instead since I’m assuming the Bluetail luck will be sucked up by Miku. I’m gonna put my hopes on The Summoners to score the double gold again.

Winner: The Summoners

Moogle

I didn’t ask for Sheena to fall down a hole just to get booted in the face and continue The Bluetails Reign of Terror. The only result possible here is Sheena out-dishonestying Kris, pinning Dizzy with the Showstopper, and then enjoying her rise to the bottom of my A Tier.

Winner: The Summoners

Edelgard vs Jinx

Rude_Semprini

Now this one is tricky to decide. We’ve seen so little of either of these two in terms of singles action that it’s kind of hard to judge based on what we’ve seen. We have seen Jinx getting her ass kind of beat by Lightning, but then we saw her in the recent tag match and she looked great. Edelgard has also looked incredibly strong on her end, even if she’s had less successful results.

You could try and base it on their 2K22 successes, which would naturally put Jinx ahead of Edelgard, but Edelgard in 2K22 also looked very dangerous. She has two major wins in singles in that game, and we never saw her go up against someone like Aqua or Jinx so we don’t know if she COULD have actually been a top level threat. As such I’m going to go in to this match assuming that Jinx is going to sneak her way to a victory in some way. Edelgard is too earnest, too serious. She knows Jinx is a fucking troll but she doesn’t realize how that will come into play in their match. Edelgard is a woman with a thousand plans all going in motion at once. Jinx is a woman who has never made a plan in her entire life and has just kind of exploded her way to success. Edelgard might not be a stranger to explosive acts of murder, but she’s also used to them being a bit more organized.

Winner: Jinx

Moogle

Edelgard is the strongest wrestler in the company and if she isn’t going for the title this season due to the ongoing story, then she’s winning it in the next season immediatly. Fire Emblem is a complete menace, and the best one hasn’t even got started yet.

The Rogue might be the best of the Rogues’ Gallery foursome this season and that isn’t really a compliment. I don’t think Jinx stands a chance here outside of praying to Hell Duke for a satanic miracle.

Winner: Edelgard

Peach vs Lucina

Rude_Semprini

Funnily enough, this was a match we were going to get at the last Breakdown before Cate swooped in and shoved her way into the proceedings. Now we get to see the original match-up unless Cate manages to pull some monumental levels of bullshit out of her ass! I’m not saying it’s likely, but I’m not saying it’s impossible! Did we ever REALLY check to see if the rematch clause had been written out? Hmmm?

Lucina and Peach both have a lot to measure up to considering their 2K22 runs. Both of them looked better than they had ever done before, and both reached the top of the singles division in their own right. With that being said, Lucina’s 2K22 run was really something special. She looked like the best wrestler in the damned company, with only Narmaya really looking like she was her superior. While Peach certainly did prove to be a dangerous foe to mess with, her most infamous victory was against Rosalina, which at this point is not quite the achievement is was back in the halcyon days of 2K17, even if that era is making a resurgence.

But beyond that, when you dive into the kayfabe Lucina simply has so much more experience being at this point of the card. While Peach is indeed more of a veteran, being one of the few wrestlers still hanging on from before WVGCW was even an actual show, she hasn’t been a notable singles talent since Shadow Peach. Now she’s being thrown up against one of the biggest stars in WVGCW and has to try and end her incredible run of success with one final major victory. If there’s one thing a Cina is able to do better than any other wrestler in this show, it’s cut off a wrestler’s momentum before it can peak and take it all for themselves! Peach is about to become Umaga, baby!

Winner: CINAWINSLOL

Moogle

It’s a good thing for us that modern Fire Emblem allows the travesty that is re-classing, so Lucina can become a Thief. The Thief class is known for stealing things that don’t belong to them, like say a Classic Title. They are known for their high dodge chance, like say dodging multiple finishers. And they are known for engaging in fraudelent activites, like say Lucina’s entire reign so far.

I am truly grateful I can rely on a Mario character to end the Nintendo topcard menace once and for all.

Winner: Peach

Riesz

• Loss in Riesz vs Kat vs Medusa
• Loss to Sheena
• Win over Queens of Iron Fist
• Win over Nation of Animation
• Win in The Valkyries vs The Bluetails vs Fate Dark/Zero
• Win over Sophitia & Ann
• Win over Halloween Town
• Win over The Rogue’s Gallery
• Loss in Riesz vs Kyoko vs Rosalina
• Loss in The Valkyries vs Double Dash!! vs River City Girls
• Win over Peach
• Win over Kat
• Loss in Riesz/Sheena/Rydia/Junko vs Kris/Jill/Sailor Moon/Futaba
• Loss in Riesz vs Sheena vs Rydia vs Junko vs Kris vs Jill vs Sailor Moon vs Futaba
• Win in Riesz vs Kyoko vs Cate vs Peacock vs Cadence vs Shantae
• Loss in Riesz vs KOS-MOS vs Miku vs Callie vs Camilla vs Poison
• Win in Amy/Riesz/Aqua vs Jinx/Narmaya/Garnet
• Loss to Narmaya
• Win over Rydia
• Loss to The Summoners

Riesz is a very interesting case. In each half of 2K22, Riesz went through a large change to her character and situation that helped add more to her. She started off suffering the bad luck of facing Sheena in the first round of the Tournament of Light and was thus eliminated early, but she bounced back when she was put into The Valkyries alongside Lightning and Lenneth. The young upstart proved herself immediately as she and Lightning went on to win the Co-op Championships from Sophitia & Ann in amazingly quick fashion, ensuring the stable held the Co-op titles and the WVGCW Championship for a time in 2K22. The Valkyries with Riesz as a major member went 6-0 before finally suffering their first loss, and it was in a triple threat tag team match so even then it’s not as true a loss as it would be if they just lost outright. Which they WOULD do, but not until a fair bit later.

After the tag titles loss, Riesz returned to singles action and became one of the rare wrestlers to go out in the first round of the Tournament of Light but then go on to become a legitimate singles force. With a win over Peach and Kat, Riesz was included into the 8-woman multiwoman match to decide the WVGCW title contender, but she ended up not lasting long enough to get a shot. Instead she was able to use a little nepotism to get given a shot at Narmaya’s Classic Championship at Splat Wres 6. Riesz was quite polite at this point, but this would be the last time the emerald Valkyrie played so nice with someone.

Riesz came very close to defeating Narmaya, putting on an excellent match with her that ultimately ended in her defeat. Whether this was the straw that broke the camels back or not, Riesz changed dramatically following her loss to Narmaya. As Palutena’s attitude became more biased and her response to wrestlers she didn’t care for became more aggressive, so too did her royal guard. The Valkyries essentially became Palutena’s hit squad, and no one leaned into this role with more gusto than Riesz. While Lenneth was showing signs of hesitation and Lightning seemed happy to get away from it in the brand split, Riesz was all in on being Palutena’s right hand woman. She happily beat down Sheena, gleefully insulted her foolishness in going against Palutena, and relished the tears of the fans as she defeated Rydia.

Clearly Riesz had developed something of a grudge with Sheena following her early tournament elimination, and she was more than happy to get some revenge at Breakdown 16. That revenge…did not come. In fact, The Summoners quite spectacularly dispatched of The Valkyries, pulverising one of the strongest teams in WVGCW to the cheers of the crowd. Now Riesz goes into the future alongside Lenneth, most likely still eager to serve every one of her Goddess’s whims in the belief she’s finally found a role she can settle into and succeed at. Considering Lenneth has shown more trepidation in being Palutena’s hired goon more than Riesz has, we’ll have to see if the two can remain on the same level when their Goddess inevitably starts ordering them to do some things that Lenneth doesn’t want to but Riesz can’t fucking WAIT to do.

Nero

• Win over Rosalina
• Loss in Nero vs Marie vs The Rogue vs Misako vs Lightning vs Samus
• Win over Jade (BG&E)
• Win over Agnes
• Loss to Sheena
• Loss in Nero vs Hat Kid vs Kat vs Lucca vs Daisy vs Edea
• Loss in Nero vs Lara vs Wagner vs Junko vs Aigis vs Bayonetta
• Loss in Nero vs Sailor Moon vs Wagner vs Marie vs Rydia vs Byleth
• Loss to Rydia
• Win over Jade & Jade
• Win in Nero vs Shantae vs Joanna
• Loss to Fate Dark/Zero
• Win in Nero vs Kat vs Amy vs Velvet vs Wagner vs Lucca
• Loss in Nero vs Rinoa vs Kyoko vs Ann
• Win over Futaba
• Loss in Nero/Jack-O vs Tina/Peacock vs Shantae/Jade (MK) vs Byleth/Edelgard
• Loss to Nyakuza Kid
• Loss in Triple Triad vs Double Dash!! vs Diamonds are Forever

Everyone say hello to WVGCW’s own Miss Irrelevant. Picked last in the draft due more to her attitude than anything else, there was audible confusion as to why Nero would get picked so late even considering she’s so…Nero. Well yes, Nero as a whole certainly is one of the heavier hitters in WVGCW in 2K22, but as you may be able to tell from her results there was a considerably ceiling to her talents that the tyrant couldn’t reach. But as short as she is, she’s probably used to not being able to reach ceilings.

Nero’s 2K22 started off strongly, and she cut through the Tournament of Light with grace while taking out big names like Rosalina and Agnes. Her tournament run hit a wall when she ran face first into Sheena, which isn’t necessarily the way Nero WISHED she could go face first towards Sheena. How do you think Lucina felt watching her teammate flirting with her own rival right in front of her? Must be a strange feeling. Nero vs Sheena was a fantastic match from both sides. Following this loss though, Nero went up against the other side of the Sheena coin and suffered a loss to Rydia as well. That match was also really good!

After that, Nero sank even deeper into Multiwoman Hell. She was overwhelmed with multiwoman matches in 2K22, which explains why she was so successful in the Royal Rumble which is pretty much the ultimate multiwoman match when you really think about it. Nero scored the most eliminations in the rumble and got a chance to fight the rumble winner for a title shot. Sadly for Nero, the rumble winner was Hat Kid. Unless you’re rubbing shoulders with the likes of Aqua or Jinx or Narmaya, you’re just not gonna beat Hat Kid. She’s the mini-boss of the topcard that’s used to make the other members of the topcard look unbeatable.

So while Nero was certainly a strong figure in WVGCW and put on some great matches, you can kind of see why neither Palutena nor Franziska were THAT willing to grab her in return for dealing with her being so damned Nero about everything. Nero is good, there’s no denying that, but she’s really struggled to break out from the crowd of upper midcarders around her. Losing to both Hat Kid and Sheena is a sign that Nero wasn’t able to hang at the tippy-top of the card. Combined with some bad luck with any opportunities that arose and a general sense of being too good for the Casual, Nero ended up not managing to make any major waves in 2K22 in either the tag or singles scene. She seems like the perfect kind of wrestler to aim for the Classic in 2K24 though. You know she’s wanted to get her hands on Lucina for a good long time. Oh, and she wants to fight her too, that would be fun.

Kris

• Win over Poison
• Win over Lightning
• Win over Velvet
• Win over Kat
• Loss to Narmaya
• Loss to Narmaya
• Loss in Kris & May vs Garnet & Miku
• Win over Miku
• Win over Black Eagles
• Win in Kris/Sailor Moon/Jill/Futaba vs Riesz/Sheena/Rydia/Junko
• Loss in Kris vs Sailor Moon vs Jill vs Futaba vs Riesz vs Sheena vs Rydia vs Junko
• Loss to Sheena
• Win over River City Girls
• Win over River City Poliwhirls
• Win over Black Eagles
• Loss in Kris/Aqua/Lightning vs Narmaya/Edelgard/Garnet
• Loss to Edelgard

I’ve brought up before that there are some wrestlers that are simply always good, no matter what game they happen to be in. Well I think it’s fair to say at this point that Kris may be in that exclusive club. Once again, Kris has been enjoying an entire games worth of booting people in the face and pinning them while they’re seeing stars. For the first half of 2K22, The Bluetails as a whole seemed like an unstoppable force. With Kris going into 2K22 as the Classic Champion, she already had a huge lead over everyone else that only got bigger as she just barrelled through the Tournament of Light. No one was able to stop her, and soon she was in the Quarter Finals…and that was when Kris’s luck entirely ran out.

See, it would be one thing if Kris was simply eliminated from the tournament by Narmaya. That would be fine, Narmaya was the silver medallist of the whole thing after all. No, the problem was the stipulation that whoever actually defeated one of the two singles champions in the tournament got a shot at their title. So Garnet defeated May and got a shot at her belt…and since Narmaya defeated Kris, she got a shot at the Classic. Thus did Kris get defeated by Narmaya not once, but twice, losing her Classic championship in the process which went on to fuel an incredibly one-sided feud with Miku that Kris won pretty easily. Like, come on, Miku got eliminated in the tournament in the very first round. By Narmaya, funnily enough. Man, Narmaya is The Bluetail’s worst enemy in 2K22 besides themselves. If Narmaya ever got a tag team, those blue bastards would shit themselves!

But since she did not have a tag team, The Bluetails were free to essentially run wild on the tag scene. Despite their struggles in singles competition, The Bluetails continued to be a monster stable that utterly obliterated the River City Girls, the former champions. It reached the point where Palutena seemed to be intentionally keeping them away from The Returners to avoid having to throw her best assets at each other so early. Now that the show has split into two factions, there’s nothing to stop The Bluetails from going after Palutena’s favourite little suck-ups though. The Bluetails will be getting a title shot in 2K24 and considering their consistency in being a damn near unstoppable team, it’s very likely we may see them scoring their first tag team titles.

As for Kris herself…well after her win over Miku, she didn’t really manage to do much more in singles. She was included in the 8-way Contenders Match but didn’t get a high enough placement to score a title shot, she lost to Sheena and was booted back down the ladder, and then she even lost to Edelgard at Breakdown in a surprisingly big win for the pint-sized empress. Now Kris looks set to crack 2K24 over her knee and kick it into the stratosphere. I have absolutely no reason to believe Kris will be anything but the topcard threat she seems to have always been, and now she even has the concerningly dark-mooded Dizzy around to tell her opponents to fucking kill themselves! Y-Yeah! That’s great, Dizzy! Just what Kris wanted! T-Thanks, girl?

May

• Win over Ann
• Win over Sypha
• Win over Futaba
• Loss to Garnet
• Win over Lara
• Loss in May & Narmaya vs Garnet & Lucina
• Loss in May & Kris vs Garnet & Miku
• Loss to Garnet
• Win over Bayonetta
• Loss to The Bluetails
• Win in May vs Kyoko vs The Rogue vs Shantae vs Primrose vs Ann
• Loss in May & Kyoko vs Lucca & D.va vs Joanna & Cate
• Loss in May vs Medusa vs Lucca

May’s career is pretty neatly split into her heel phase and her face phase. Entering 2K22 as the Casual Champion, May looked more dominant than ever as she made her way through the tournament, slaying Personas and witches and loving every second of it. Unfortunately for May, she lost to Garnet in the tournament and began one of the most one-sided rivalries in 2K22. Garnet’s win over May guaranteed her a shot at the Casual championship should she be free to claim it following the Tournament of Light. May managed to sneak in one more defence against Lara while Garnet was busy, but following Garnet’s elimination all bets were off. Garnet began to torment May, beating her in two different tag matches before taking the title away from her at Breakdown 15. Though May had proven herself to be a legitimate singles threat, Garnet was clearly a level above her and by the time the title changed hands, it really looked more like bullying than anything else.

Following her title loss, May was comforted by the River City Girls and was reassured that they would still be friends even if May had nothing to offer them as they held titles and she didn’t. May was so touched by her two stupid friends that her shrivelled heart grew three sizes that day and she became a face from sheer gratitude. May would go into the second half of 2K22 with a new outlook on life, going into a feud with her long-time rival Kris which sadly did not go well for her. The River City Poliwhirls were crushed in their feud, not managing to score a single win on the tally until they were beaten in a final 3v3 match at Splat Wres.

From the way I’m talking about May you might be surprised by how high up the list she actually is. But it’s important to remember that a lot of May’s losses came after a string of successes. May’s losses to Garnet came after a very successful run in the Tournament of Light while she was still a singles champion. We had no idea how strong Garnet was when the stipulation was first set up, so it was practically bad luck on May’s part that the person who beat her ended up basically being a topcarder. Then the loss to The Bluetails was following on the heels of RCG successfully winning the Co-op Championships at Breakdown 15. The River City Girls had already been successful during 2K22, so them losing to The Bluetails shouldn’t take away their achievements.

Basically, May’s 2K22 was one of harsh balance. Good things could not happen to May without something bad coming along to even the scales. Though in the end, her wins and losses can’t take away the biggest win May had in 2K22 in securing her friendship with Kyoko and Misako. There are many heels in May’s shoes who would end up lashing out at their team after a loss like she had suffered and would end up either being ditched by the team or, in some cases, turning against them. But May was offered a hand by her two bumbling besties and took it, resulting in her going into 2K24 with a fresh character and a lot of possibilities. Even if it’s going to take a long time to convince some people that she’s not just bullshitting them. I mean, May’s whole WVGCW career BEGAN with her pretending to be a nice and sweet young lady, I can’t really blame anyone for thinking she might be rehashing from her old playbook.

Rydia

• Win over Tina
• Loss to Jinx
• Win in Rydia vs Kula vs Lara vs KOS-MOS vs Amy vs Aqua
• Win in Rydia vs Caulifla vs Adeleine vs D.va vs Edelgard vs 2B
• Loss in Rydia vs Joanna vs Cate vs Morrigan vs Medusa vs Narmaya
• Loss in Rydia vs Tina vs Peach vs Medusa vs Miku vs Adeleine
• Loss in Rydia vs Wagner vs Sailor Moon vs Nero vs Byleth vs Marie
• Win over Nero
• Win over Peacock
• Loss in Rydia/Sheena/Riesz/Junko vs Kris/Jill/Sailor Moon/Futaba
• Loss in Rydia vs Sheena vs Riesz vs Junko vs Kris vs Jill vs Sailor Moon vs Futaba
• Win over Morrigan
• Loss to Sheena
• Loss to Riesz
• Win over The Valkyries

You know, it’s never really mentioned how tough Rydia has it in terms of the two main wrestlers she associates with. Rydia has to deal with being compared to SHEENA and GARNET. Like, those are two seriously heavy hitting acts to try and match up to. Hell, she had to sell a PPV based on a main event match with Sheena. You kind of need to be at 2K19 levels of Bad Girl to be able to convince anyone you have a chance against Sheena, but Rydia somehow managed to keep up with two of the biggest names in 2K22.

It wasn’t easy for her. For one thing she ended up suffering an early elimination in the Tournament of Light by going up against Jinx, but after that Rydia went on quite the little singles winning streak. Sure it wasn’t like she was going up against the toppest of the topcard, but grabbing wins over the likes of Nero and Peacock is no small feat. She was included in the 8-woman contenders match for her struggles, and this led perfectly onto finally finishing her longterm feud with Sheena. While you could look over their records and predict with fairly solid certainty that Sheena would come out the winner, Rydia didn’t go down easily.

Rydia’s 2K22 is rather emblematic of her main issue as a competitive wrestler in that she’s always hovering around the upper midcard but can never quite get over the hump she has to be a championship contender. This has never really been a huge issue for Rydia specifically as she’s always had other stuff going on besides hunting down a title. Rydia is, let’s be real, one of the main characters of WVGCW. Even when Rydia wasn’t involved in a title scene, she wasn’t far away from some kind of plot or feud to sink her teeth into. So it’s never been as noticeable for Rydia as some others that she hasn’t actually managed to secure herself a major singles title. But with her two bestest buddies, Garnet and Sheena, both being such dominant champions that the entire title they were holding needed to be either split into two or thrown into a multiwoman match, it’s more obvious that Rydia is trailing behind them.

Speaking of Sheena being one of Rydia’s bestest buddies, this is a very new development as the pair finally settled things in the ring after several years of building frustrations. Rydia and Sheena finally getting round to fighting each other was such a big event that it took the main event spot over the WVGCW Championship match, which is something only reserved for the most important of feuds…one of which was, funnily enough, RPGenie vs The Summoners. Rydia’s main character powers have been in full effect since 2K14 and honestly I hope they keep going into 2K24. That girl makes entertaining television!

2K22 would be big for Rydia even if all she did was end her feud with Sheena, but she’s done far more than just go toe to toe with her. She’s proven herself to be a solid singles hand while her tag team was on the backburner, and she finished off 2K22 with a stunning win over one of the strongest stables in WVGCW to prove that she, Garnet and Sheena are in fact very very good at this whole tag team wrestling business.

But as satisfying as it was to watch The United Summoners all come together to beat the shit out of The Valkyries at Breakdown, Rydia’s story of suffering continues as she alone has to go to WVGCW Gold while Sheena and Garnet head off together to WVGCW Red, likely forming another version of The Summoners as a pair while Rydia struggles on her lonesome. At the end of the day, Rydia’s suffering is good for the ratings. She is the Eddie Kingston of WVGCW in a way. Watching her struggle and chase happiness is more satisfying than actually watching her successfully get it, so you can only have a little bit of the latter so you can enjoy more of the former! Also maybe she’s from Final Fantasy’s version of Yonkers. Did Yonkers ever get burned down? Probably.  

Peach

• Loss in Peach vs Kula vs Samus vs Tina vs Narmaya vs 2B vs D.va vs Jade (BG&E)
• Loss to Jack-O
• Loss in Peach/Morrigan/Juri/Bayonetta vs Futaba/Samus/Sheena/Zelda
• Win in Double Dash!! vs Metroidvania vs Bravely Second
• Loss in Double Dash!! vs The Bluetails vs Dance Dance Revolution
• Win in Peach vs Lara vs Juri
• Win in Peach vs Hat Kid vs Agnes vs Cadence vs Wagner vs Jade (MK) vs 2B vs Primrose
• Loss in Peach vs Tina vs Rydia vs Medusa vs Miku vs Adeleine
• Win over Nation of Animation
• Win in Double Dash!! vs Air Buds vs River City Girls
• Win in Peach vs Lightning vs Misako
• Loss in Double Dash!! vs River City Girls vs The Valkyries
• Loss to Riesz
• Win over Rosalina
• Win over Daisy
• Win over Camilla
• Loss in Peach vs Lucina vs Cate

Dear Mario, don’t come to the castle. You’re a poor piece of shit. Yours truly. Princess Toadstool. Bitch.

To say Peach had a dramatic turn of character is a pretty big understatement. Peach has, for a long time, been the least prominent member of Double Dash!! and was considered something of a big sister that Daisy and Rosalina could rely on when their own overly naïve or emotional states got the better of them. But Peach has had plot in the last few seasons and we have seen a side of Peach that was a little more…unscrupulous than her two teammates. Peach for some time has been the sort who would take a DQ win by taunting her opponent to smack her backstage, or would fight back with backstage ambushes if you pissed her off. So it’s not as if Peach never had an edge to her…but during 2K22, that edge sharpened into a knife that has been lodged firmly into Daisy and Rosalina’s backs.

While Peach’s heel turn has obviously been the main focus of her 2K22 run, it’s not as if she wasn’t doing anything during the first half of it. Peach has been a primary force in the Double Dash!! tag scene, being far prominent than she has usually been. Since Daisy and Rosalina have so often proved their worth as co-op champion level wrestlers, Peach seemed to be attempting to do the same, though we could see something dark and dangerous emerging from her when she crushed Misako and Lightning at the same time in a triple threat. She was involved in the run to Breakdown 15 where Double Dash!! would fail to score the Co-op titles from The Valkyries. Despite the 2 on 1 advantage, she and Rosa lost to Misako at Breakdown 15. Peach seemed to forget the little fact that she was there as well and decided that Rosalina was to blame for this seeing as she was eliminated last.

After Breakdown 15, the full trio of Double Dash!! would fight one last time against Dance Dance Revolution, with Peach being the one to take the fall. This was the last straw, and Peach snapped. She attacked Rosalina and kicked her out of the team, taking a confused and horrified Daisy with her. Peach’s attitude did a 180 overnight, and she became a haughty elitist who considered Rosalina an utter failure. Daisy and Rosalina’s attempts to get her to calm down fell on deaf ears, even when Peach lost a match to Riesz in the same way Rosalina had lost a match to Lenneth. Rosalina and Peach ended up fighting, with Peach coming out the winner in an incredibly close match.

Following her win, Peach rubbed salt in the wound with the Funeral of Rosalina’s Career, a tribute to Rosalina accompanied by circus music that showed her many losses across her career, most of which were honestly due to Edea more than anyone else. Finally reaching her limit, Daisy snapped and attacked Peach. She and Rosalina went off to reform Double Dash!! by themselves while Peach skulked off to go and see to her own career. By the time Daisy and Peach actually fought, it was more of a necessity than a feud ender. Though Peach did end up winning, the main result was that Daisy and Rosalina went off on their own while Peach was let loose to be a singles star for the first time in about ten years. She went into Breakdown 16 fighting for the Classic Championship against Cate and Lucina, but would be unsuccessful in her endeavors while managing to escape being pinned.

While there was an initial panic when Peach lost to Riesz, Peach course corrected her heel turn into becoming one of the biggest breakout stars of 2K22. While her attitude might be quite typically regal for a heel, it’s an archtype that WVGCW hasn’t really had for a while. Hollywood Peach is a big, rich star with her own video game and her own kingdom. She’s a veteran who’s been around since Day 1, and is sick of catering to the upstarts who think they’re worthy of treading on the same ground as her. While there is an argument to be made that Peach’s heel attitude is a bit too different from her original personality to make her turn all that realistic, there’s definitely something to be said with just ripping off the bandaid and having her go full-blown bitch from the start.

While Peach did have a character to her, it wasn’t nearly as defined as Daisy or Rosalina’s. Out of the three, she’s the one who could get away with just suddenly swerving offcourse and becoming a bastard. Clearly it’s been working for her. Having already defeated Daisy and Rosalina, Peach is entirely clear of feuds and has to go find success by herself. Sink or swim, for better or worse, Peach is running solo for the first time in years. Will Peach dominate the Red brand, or will the lack of teammates take away her safety net and leave her struggling? Will her reign be long and glorious? Will she get kidnapped again? Will she use any of the outfits she has in her game as alternate costumes? The answers, of course, are maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe and no.

Hat Kid / Nyakuza Kid

• Win over Wagner
• Win over Lucina
• Win over Junko
• Loss to Jinx
• Loss in Hat Kid vs Misako vs Dizzy vs Edea vs Agnes vs Kyoko
• Win in Hat Kid vs Edea vs Daisy vs Lucca vs Nero vs Kat
• Loss in Hat Kid vs Agnes vs Cadence vs Wagner vs Jade (MK) vs 2B vs Peach vs Primrose
• Win in Hat Kid/Jinx/Velvet/Poison vs Junko/Kairi/Jack-O/Lenneth
• Win in the Royal Rumble
• Win over Peacock
• Loss to Narmaya
• Win over The Rogue
• Win over Velvet
• Win in the Royal Rumble
• Win over Nero
• Loss to Aqua

Before we get into the nitty gritty of Hat Kid’s season, I want to stress something. I think that Hat Kid being Jinx’s hired goon is hilarious and a great fit for her. I think she and Jinx make a fantastic pair, and she works off really well with both Juri and The Rogue at the same time. The Rogue’s Gallery is a great place for her to be. But I want to make sure no one ignores what an absolutely fucking incredible run in 2K22 that Hat Kid has had since she’s inevitably going to be compared to Jinx, who had a very similar rise to the highest heights of the show and is the boss of the stable. Jinx will get her flowers later, but for now we’re talking about Hat Kid and oh boy, what a goddamn show she’s put on for us.

Hat Kid made a niche for herself back in 2K19 as Little Miss Linear. Funnily enough she did manage to score the Linear title in 2K22 as well, but that’s not what she’s known for in 2K22. No, Hat Kid has been an absolute in-ring menace that has been able to take on some of the biggest names in the entire show in some really fantastic matches. The fact that her only singles losses have been to Jinx, Narmaya and Aqua is proof of this. It has taken the literal three best wrestlers in the show to put a stop to Hat Kid’s reign of tiny terror, and they all struggled to do it. Everyone else has fallen to Hat Kid, and that includes some big names like Junko, Nero, Lucina, Peacock…The Rogue. Wow! That match was like 5 minutes long!

If this were Sheena, I’d point out more that she failed to beat the three strongest wrestlers as that kind of thing has been Sheena’s wall for a long time now. But Hat Kid? She was one of the lowest ranked wrestlers in the show back in my Season 14 retrospective, and now she’s in the top ten. She’s not just jumped up the rankings, she’s pole vaulted. Honestly I would say her jump is even more impressive than Jinx’s in a way. Jinx obviously reached a higher peak, but she wasn’t nearly as far down the rankings…though this was mainly due to Jinx skilfully avoiding ever really eating a pin throughout Season 14 rather than her being a solid-set midcarder. So I’m giving Hat Kid a lot more leeway and congratulating her on one of the biggest rags to riches stories in 2K22.

Oh, but that’s not all, is it? Just being able to beat LUCINA isn’t enough for Hat Kid. So she went and won both of the Royal Rumbles we had in 2K22 as well. If we’ve ever had consecutive rumble winners before it surely would have had to be all the way back in 2K13, it’s an achievement that might never be replicated. Sadly she ended up losing both title shots that she earned through her rumble wins and subsequent win over the #1 eliminators, but it’s still definitely worth bringing up.

AND THEN as if being a powerhouse wasn’t enough, Hat Kid ended up being involved in basically the main storyline of the entire season, starting an organic and almost endearing apprenticeship to Jinx and becoming her Right Hand Gremlin, eventually taking up the moniker “Nyakuza Kid” and donning a kickass set of purple ring gear to fit in more with her chaotic teammates. Now the entire set of the Rogue’s Gallery are heading off to WVGCW Red, though it remains to be seen if Hat Kid is willing to keep thugmaxxing under Jinx’s orders or if she’d rather try and do her own thing. I would be sad if Hat Kid and Jinx didn’t get some more time together as I think they work amazingly well as a unit, but I also don’t want Hat Kid to just be Jinx’s underling entirely. It’s a fun dynamic, but unless 2K24 goes real bad for her and she’s forced into a minion role out of necessity, I think she has the potential to stand out as a genuine threat by her own right and not just Jinx’s.

Lucina

• Loss in Lucina vs Lucca vs Jill vs Rosalina vs D.va
• Win over Marie
• Loss to Hat Kid
• Loss in Triple Triad vs Fate Dark/Zero vs Air Buds
• Loss in Lucina vs The Rogue vs Velvet vs Aqua vs Edea vs KOS-MOS
• Win over The Spellweavers
• Win over Dizzy
• Win over Jade (MK)
• Win over Terra
• Win in Lucina & Garnet vs May & Narmaya
• Loss to Narmaya
• Loss in Lucina vs Medusa vs Cadence
• Loss to Fate Dark/Zero
• Win over KOS-MOS
• Win over Bayonetta
• Win over Junko
• Win in Lucina vs Cate vs Peach

Lucina is a funny character in modern WVGCW. Debuting long ago after her star-making EDBW run, she was introduced as a mysterious figure with some unclear purpose which is revealed to be her attempting to save the entire damn world itself. Fortunately thanks to Kat of all people, this doomed future was averted. With her timeline and the WVGCW one finally catching up with one another, Lucina has continued to hang around mostly running on good vibes and chill moods. It’s quite understandable that, after averting the end of the world itself, Lucina really isn’t fussed by any kind of wrestling drama. There’s really nothing she can see in WVGCW that’s any worse than that.

But while Lucina’s presence on the show has shifted into a more guidance-based role for various members of the roster, 2K22 brought us a Lucina that was not only an equal to her 2K14 self but actually went above and beyond it. Lucina has never looked better in the ring than she has in 2K22. It would be difficult to bring up any singles match she had and for it not to be a damned slobberknocker. Even ignoring the more obvious 5-star classics like Lucina vs Hat Kid, Lucina vs Narmaya, Lucina vs Bayonetta and Lucina vs Junko, there are less remembered but genuinely great matches like Lucina vs Marie, Lucina vs Jade (MK) and Lucina vs KOS-MOS. Hell, even her less standout matches like Lucina vs Dizzy or Lucina vs Terra (where Lucina just kind of beat Terra black and blue) were still good matches. In terms of sheer match quality, Lucina’s only match in 2K22 is probably Narmaya. Good thing they actually had a match together at Breakdown 15, huh? Guess what! It ruled!

Beyond sheer match quality, Lucina’s actual win rate has been steller as well. Not that Lucina has ever really struggled for picking up wins, but she has absolutely seemed like a genuine topcard threat this time around, more on the level of the likes of Sheena. It’s no wonder that Lucina was a contender for the Classic championship in both Breakdown 15 and Breakdown 16, and she actually managed to win in it the latest one by pinning the champ herself. As if that wasn’t enough, what little plot we’ve seen Lucina in has also been really good. A standout mention to her swordfighting with Narmaya while also having a gentle chat with her.

It’s impressive how glowing her run in 2K22 is, and Lucina didn’t need to have any groundbreaking shifts to her character or situation to achieve it. She still seems tight with Triple Triad and doesn’t seem to have much reason or desire to leave the stable, and she’s had no feuds going on. She’s had a bit of plot before certain big matches like against Terra and Narmaya, but no actual beef with anyone. If anything she’s been making friends as she seemed to get on very well with both Garnet and Narmaya. I’m actually quite sad that she’s on WVGCW Red instead of Gold because I genuinely think Lucina would even be happy to let bygones be bygones with Rydia considering she’s been good friends with Sheena for some time now.

No, Lucina’s just been more Lucina than ever before. She’s got on with everyone, picked up countless wins, and been one of the best in-ring wrestlers in the entire game, maybe THE best in-ring wrestler in the game. Her sheer consistency is insane, and by the time Breakdown 16 was coming around I was honestly totally fine with her even taking the belt off my favorite wrestler since I think she deserved it so damn much. Sometimes you don’t need to have anything explosive happen to have the best damn run of your career. Sometimes you just need to be chill and wrestle good.

Sheena

• Win over Riesz
• Win in Sheena/Samus/Zelda/Futaba vs Morrigan/Peach/Juri/Bayonetta
• Win over Medusa
• Loss in Sheena vs Lili vs Byleth vs Aqua vs Terra vs Cate vs Velvet vs Tina
• Win over Daisy
• Win over Nero
• Loss in Sheena & Garnet vs Jinx & Narmaya
• Loss to Jinx
• Win over Garnet
• Loss to Aqua
• Win over Jill
• Loss in Sheena/Rydia/Junko/Riesz vs Kris/Jill/Sailor Moon/Futaba
• Loss in Sheena vs Rydia vs Junko vs Riesz vs Kris vs Jill vs Sailor Moon vs Futaba
• Win over Kris
• Win over Rydia
• Win over Lenneth
• Win over The Valkyries

I posited last time I was talking about Sheena, back in the halcyon days of Season 14, that we needed to ask specifically WHY Sheena wanted the WVGCW Championship. Back then, this was met with a few scoffing comments about how dumb that question was, and that of course Sheena wanted the WVGCW Championship because she’s a wrestler. What else would she even want? Okay, geniuses, you got me. I guess everyone in WVGCW has the exact same motivations and desires because they all share the same job. Peach, Peacock, Morrigan, Agnes, Kris, Zelda, they all have the same motivations for sure. They all want to be WVGCW Champion so we don’t need to look into their individual reasons for wanting it, they must be exactly the same. Everyone wants the big shiny belt because it’s their job to get it. MUH TITLE is meant to be Cate’s thing, not everyone’s!

My belief was that Sheena was wearing herself down to the bone to become champion because she had chosen that as her motivation for leaving Rydia, and thus she had to do it no matter what. The team wasn’t working, they were both miserable, and they were both holding each other back, so Sheena left to further her own career and let Rydia grow her own. She owed it to herself and to Rydia to finish the job. She had to become champion because otherwise, why did she leave Rydia? Well in 2K22 Garnet wondered…maybe she just wanted to? Maybe she was sick of Rydia? Maybe there were frustrations inside of Sheena due to Rydia being so childish and petty to everyone? Maybe there was never a big, noble reason for Sheena to leave Rydia. Maybe at the time she had simply reached her limit and couldn’t take it anymore. But Sheena couldn’t face the idea that she would think like that. Sheena doesn’t handle emotions well, especially her own. She didn’t want to face the concept that she could act so emotionally. She must have had a better, more noble reason to leave…right?

Sheena was always someone who seemed to be leaving a lot unsaid. She didn’t look back at what had happened with Rydia, never even trying to reconcile or settle things with her because she believed there was simply no way to make it happen. Granted, she was kind of right. Rydia would never have matured enough to actually talk things out with Sheena until she met Garnet, and even then the two still couldn’t settle things with words until they settled things with their fists. For the two to actually get in the ring with one another, things had to hit a breaking point. A more mature and reflective Rydia started to wonder exactly why Sheena had left, and wasn’t satisfied with the answer that it was just “best for both of them.” The truth is that while Sheena leaving Rydia did certainly lead to Rydia growing as a person, that was because she met Garnet afterwards who helped her. There were multiple reasons for Sheena leaving, and part of it was just that Sheena wanted to leave. Sheena couldn’t take teaming with Rydia anymore, but Rydia wouldn’t be able to last much longer either. If the team had kept going and Sheena’s frustrations became more clear and obvious…well, who knows how messy their break-up could have been if things had gone in that direction.

I hope I’m getting my ideas across decently because I don’t want to say this to blame Sheena. No, I think the idea that she left Rydia because she was just at the end of her rope humanizes her a lot. Rydia was a nightmare to deal with, and Sheena was not capable of helping her in the same way Garnet did. She just didn’t know how. She’s not the same person as Garnet. Sheena spun herself a narrative that she was breaking up the team for the greater good but at some point she had to admit to herself that she just…wanted to leave. She’s not a saint, she’s not a martyr, she was in a team that had fallen to pieces with a friend who was going off the deep end and she didn’t know what else to do but break it up.

But the one thing Sheena will not accept Rydia doing is blaming herself for this. In accepting her own selfishness in leaving, Sheena can say with perfect clarity that it isn’t Rydia’s fault that Sheena left. Sheena making the choice to leave by herself takes that pressure off Rydia’s shoulders. It wasn’t one last burden for Rydia to feel guilty about, like Sheena left to teach her a life lesson and that she wouldn’t have had to if Rydia was just perfect from the start. Sheena didn’t sacrifice herself because Rydia wasn’t good enough and she needed that motivation to do better. Sheena just left, it was that simple…and thus, it makes it equally simple for her to just come back. After years of complications and arguments and raging, the two finally managed to just admit how much they truly care for one another and admit they want to be friends again.

With their mutual guilt out of the way, and with them both understanding a bit more about the other, Rydia and Sheena practically reformed The Summoners right there and then as a stable of three. Sheena, Garnet and Rydia got one chance to clown on The Valkyries before their stable was broken up once more, but the bonds between them are stronger than they’ve ever been now. Even with hell itself separating them, the three broken misfits who form The Summoners feel more whole than ever. Between a neurotic, quick-tempered brat, an emotionally-stunted ninja with tunnel vision, and a slap-happy, highly-reactive Mama Bear, it’s no wonder that the more “upright” teams like The Returners would turn their noses up at them. They’re the outcasts who have each other’s backs no matter what, and Sheena can finally have Rydia’s back again after so many years. Once again it’s The Summoners versus the world, and I don’t like the world’s chances.

Also Sheena won a shitload of really awesome matches in 2K22. Sheena does that a lot.

Garnet

• Loss to The Squid Sisters
• Win over Misako
• Win over Primrose
• Win over Lucca
• Win over May
• Loss in Garnet & Sheena vs Jinx & Narmaya
• Loss to Narmaya
• Loss to Sheena
• Win in Garnet & Lucina vs May & Narmaya
• Win in Garnet & Miku vs May & Kris
• Win over May
• Win over D.va
• Win over Celes
• Win over Jill Stingray
• Win over Alice
• Win over 2B
• Loss in Garnet/Narmaya/Jinx vs Amy/Riesz/Aqua
• Loss in Garnet vs Primrose vs Lucca vs Kat vs Amy vs Ann
• Win over The Saiyans
• Win in Garnet/Edelgard/Narmaya vs Kris/Aqua/Lightning
• Win over The Valkryies

So while Sheena and Rydia were butting heads, what was Garnet doing? Well in terms of the storyline she was acting as the support for both Rydia and Sheena, doing her best to lead the dull-headed duo towards some kind of conversations and reconciliation in her usually heavy-handed way. But in terms of what she was doing in 2K22? She was mostly putting a great big full-stop to the entire Casual scene. Woopsie!

The Tournament of Light offered a unique bonus to anyone who was able to defeat the two singles champions taking part in it, May and Kris. Whoever beat them would be granted a title shot later down the line as a reward, provided they didn’t just go ahead and win the tournament or anything. Narmaya did not, in fact, win the tournament though she came incredibly close to doing so. By winning the silver medal, Narmaya got the chance to go back and beat Kris a second time, scoring herself the Classic Championship which she would hold for the rest of 2K22 until she relinquished it for a shot at Aqua’s WVGCW Championship. Garnet ended up being the one to beat May, and thus she was granted a title shot later on at her Casual Championship. One she won with remarkably little effort in a fairly foregone conclusion.

So what’s the big deal here? Well we’ll get to Narmaya and her Classic title later but the long story made short is that the Classic title being held by a super-strong wrestler wasn’t as much of an issue as the Casual title being held by one. Look, this isn’t just a matter of “Garnet barely won the Casual and turned out to be strong later”. We knew from Day One that Garnet was stronger than May. She schooled her every time they fought, even in the build-up tag matches. Everyone knew from the start that Garnet was on another level from May, and you know the absolutely crazy thing? May was a really, really strong Casual champion! May was someone we were considering as being maybe too strong for that belt when she held it, and then Garnet came stomping up and made her look like a chump! It wasn’t like we didn’t see this shit coming, but we had to let it play out just to prove our suspicions were indeed correct.

So one of the presumably stronger wrestlers in the company was holding the title that the midcard wanted. Ultimately, this was one of the sadder title reigns in 2K22 as very few wrestlers really looked like they might be able to dethrone Garnet. She never got a challenger who pushed too far into the higher levels of the card so as to avoid the same thing happening all over again when she lost the belt, but in return for that she never fought anyone who could actually beat her. We were throwing guests at her, speeding up title chances, seeing if Garnet was willing to play ball and give someone the rub. Never happened. Eventually she was thrown into an elimination chamber match with her reward being that she’d drop the belt and get a shot at Narmaya. Amy would win the match and secure the Casual championship, and guess what? Right after that we got fucking Amy vs Kat, one of the best matches in 2K22. That moved right into Cadence winning the title and revitalizing her entire career.

Within weeks of Garnet dropping the Casual belt, it was being used to highlight midcard wrestlers who needed that kind of attention. Like it should have been doing for the nearly 8 months she was holding onto it. Sadly, Garnet’s Casual reign is one that I just can’t look back on fondly. She herself didn’t look better for it, she looked like she was just picking on people weaker than her after losing to Narmaya and Sheena. Her opponents rarely looked very good fighting her either, there’s certainly not as many standout matches to Garnet’s reign like there was to Jinx’s or Narmaya’s. I legit think that Jill Stringray ended up coming away from this reign as the best challenger Garnet had, which is kind of crazy. The fact that the Casual scene picked up the instant Garnet dropped the belt is just kind of further proof that she was holding it hostage, and it was rather a waste of the title and a wrestler as strong and cool as Garnet that she was stuck in that position for so long.

Fortunately this all came down more on the shoulders of weird booking mishaps more than Garnet herself. She remains incredibly popular and likely will continue to be if she ends up teaming with Sheena in the future. Garnet is a very dynamic and proactive character who is helpful in giving some firm kicks up the asses of more static characters like Sheena or more reactive characters like Rydia. While I do wish we got more of Garnet getting the chance to actually punch above her weight rather than kick way below it in 2K22, that doesn’t mean I’m not looking forward to seeing more of her in 2K24.

Aqua

• Loss to Sophitia & Ann
• Loss in Aqua vs Lili vs Byleth vs Terra vs Sheena vs Cate vs Velvet vs Tina
• Win in Aqua vs Cate vs Lightning vs Wagner vs Ann vs Amy (Online Special)
• Loss in Aqua vs Amy vs KOS-MOS vs Lara vs Kula vs Rydia
• Loss in Aqua vs The Rogue vs Velvet vs Lucina vs Edea vs KOS-MOS
• Loss to Triple Triad
• Loss to Medusa
• Loss in The Spellweavers vs River City Girls vs Jade & Jade
• Win over Sheena
• Loss to Metroidvania
• Win in Aqua/Terra/Isabelle/Sailor Moon vs Edelgard/Byleth/Samus/Sypha
• Win over Lenneth
• Win Aqua/Riesz/Amy vs Jinx/Narmaya/Garnet
• Win over Jinx
• Win over Nyakuza Kid
• Loss in Aqua/Kris/Lightning vs Narmaya/Edelgard/Garnet
• Loss to Narmaya

Picture this. You are Aqua. But you’re not the Aqua you know about. No, you’re the Aqua from EDBW long ago. You aren’t a main eventer, you’re barely in a job. You struggle and fight but you get no chance to show off what you can do. The enthusiasm over your hiring is turning into resentment that you’re in this position at all, and only your most ardent supporters are holding out hope for a comeback. Wrestlers like Sonya Blade and Morrigan and Jinx have held the belt but not you.

It makes no sense. You know you’re the best wrestler in the world, you know you’re better than everyone else who is taking the chances you deserve. R.Mika, Sophitia, Jinx. You know you’re better than them. This isn’t right. You see Jinx standing above you.

But that’s fine, because shortly after this you’re in WVGCW. The world makes sense again. You’re fighting at the top of the card, you’re making friends with Terra, the single most popular WVGCW wrestler ever. You’re earning chances and sure, you aren’t always winning them but you’re one of the most quickly rising wrestlers in WVGCW. You lost to Morrigan, how did that happen? Doesn’t matter, you’re sick of Morrigan’s. The other wrestlers from EDBW, even those who were more successful than you there, can’t keep up with your incredible skill that you always knew you had. You see Jinx standing below you.

Now we’re in 2K17. You feel your influence on the show starting to slip. You’re not back in the depths of EDBW, you will NEVER go back to that, but you’re not at the top of the card. You refuse to accept that. You get better, you fight back, and by the end you’re starting to approach the top again as you always knew you should be. Why is Morrigan still beating you? You don’t know, you don’t care. You’re better than them, the ones who you left behind. The ones who took the glory that was rightfully yours. You see Jinx standing below you.

Then you’re in 2K19, and everything you’ve ever wanted is yours. You are the best wrestler in WVGCW, as you always knew you were. No one can beat you, and everyone wants to challenge you. Soon you become the champion, as you always knew you would be, and no one can defeat you. You get to main event Breakdown against your best friend. WVGCW is yours. This is right. This is good. This is how things were always meant to be, and always should be. You see Jinx standing below you.

Now you’re in 2K22. You lose your co-op titles on the first defense. You can’t get any wins even when fighting alongside Terra. You lose to Medusa in a colossal upset. The Tournament of Light takes place without you.

You see Jinx standing above you.

Imagine how scary that would be for someone like Aqua. Imagine crawling your way up from the bottom of the ladder, creating a world where you are always in contention for being the literal best wrestler in the history of the show, and then seeing something as horrifying as JINX becoming the WVGCW Champion. Aqua had seen Jinx wear a singles title only once before, when they were both in EDBW. Jinx had only ever been this successful back when Aqua was wading through the lowest point of her career. The sight of Jinx in particular wearing a title again, YOUR TITLE, would probably make Aqua go white with fear.

Why, you might ask? Why would that scare Aqua so much? It’s because Jinx is proof of change. Violent, horrible change. Change that Aqua doesn’t want to happen. Because if Jinx can go from being a champion to a loser to a champion again…it means the same thing can happen to Aqua in reverse. She could go from a loser to a champion to a loser again. Seeing Jinx with a title is a reminder of the horrors of change. That her perfect world isn’t permanent. That she could fall back to the terrible depths she was in once before.

Why would Aqua throw her lot in so much with someone like Palutena? For Celes? Perhaps that was the reason on the surface, but it goes far deeper than that. Aqua joined forces with Palutena because Palutena represents Order. What does Order mean to Aqua? It means a WVGCW where she is on top. It means she gets to fight the people she considers topcarders. It means she gets to give chances to people she deems worthy. It means that people like Jinx don’t get to be in your league. Jinx is a loser. She must always be a loser. The time she was above you doesn’t exist, it was long ago, it wasn’t fair.

So you join forces with Palutena, hoping to cling onto your beloved unchanging world. You jump right to the top of the challenger queue with only two wins. Two good wins over Sheena and Lenneth, but two wins nonetheless. You defeat Jinx and prove that she was never in your league. Once again you claim the WVGCW Championship. You’re on top again, where you always will be. Where you always should be. Why is Hat Kid so strong now? She wasn’t this strong before. She should be easy to beat. It doesn’t matter, you beat her. Don’t think about it. You’ll always beat her. You’ll always be the best. DON’T THINK ABOUT IT!

Now here’s Narmaya. Narmaya is an up-and-comer. She’s strong. She’s tenacious. She’s what you consider worthy of being in your perfect world. She should want to fight you because you are the best  and always will be the best. Narmaya should respect you, she should look up to you. Wrestling you at Breakdown should be the greatest honour of Narmaya’s life, she should be THANKING YOU for sharing the stage with her. You are an example that Narmaya should want to follow. She should want to do more than just beat you, she should want to BE you.

She doesn’t want to fight you though.

She wants to fight Jinx.

Narmaya denied Aqua’s superiority and rejected her as a champion. Narmaya forged her own path and stood with clear conviction against Aqua’s desperate choices. Despite the title match ending in a draw, Narmaya’s sheer disrespect towards Aqua led to her rejecting everything about her. Aqua’s weaknesses were laid bare. Her fragile ego, her fragile body, her weak mind…and her weak heart. Aqua couldn’t stand it. Despite having every right to leave the ring and take her “victory” with her, the disrespect caused Aqua to snap and accept a sudden death stipulation. The match continued…and Aqua lost. Narmaya defeated her and took the WVGCW Championship away from her.

It makes no sense. You know you’re the best wrestler in the world, you know you’re better than everyone else who wants to hold the belt that is rightfully yours. Miku, Lenneth, Jinx. You know you’re better than them. This isn’t right.

You see Jinx standing above you.

Jinx

• Win in Jinx vs Joanna vs Lara vs KOS-MOS
• Win over Camilla
• Win over Rydia
• Win over Kale
• Win over Hat Kid
• Win in Jinx & Narmaya vs Garnet & Sheena
• Win over Sheena
• Win over Narmaya
• Loss to The Valkyries
• Win in Jinx/Hat Kid/Poison/Velvet vs Junko/Kairi/Jack-O/Lenneth
• Win over Lenneth
• Win over Jill
• Win over Junko
• Win over Sailor Moon
• Loss in Jinx/Narmaya/Garnet vs Amy/Riesz/Aqua
• Loss to Aqua
• Loss to Palutena

Jinx has always been a rather consistent personality in WVGCW, and even EDBW where she first made a name for herself. She’s a chaotic figure who revels in finding interesting things to do and interesting people to break, and the moment she loses that interest she drops whatever she’s doing like a lead balloon and moves right onto the next distraction. Relishing destruction and chaos purely for how fun it is, she’s the very antithesis of a Goddess dedicated to order like Palutena. While Palutena would certainly be able to get on the nerves or antagonize most of the roster, few were her direct opposite in the way Jinx was. Not that all that philosophizing really mattered in the long run. After all, Jinx was a midcarder at best who was more skilled at escaping being pinned than actually winning matches. She would never end up on Palutena’s radar unless, I dunno, she won the Tournament of Light or something crazy…

…something crazy? Yeah, Jinx winning the entire tournament would be crazy, wouldn’t it? Well hot diggidy SHIT, that sounds like the kind of fun Jinx could get into!

So Jinx was good in 2K22. Like, really good. 2K17 Zelda levels of good. 2K19 Aqua levels of good. Round after round Jinx climbed up the tournament until she was facing down the likes of Sheena, Hat Kid and Narmaya and still coming away with the win. In fact, Jinx is the only person in 2K22 to defeat Narmaya in a singles match. She made Palutena sweat as she realized that her noble tournament designed to find the future of her business could end up being won by the most nasty little gremlin imaginable. Despite Lenneth’s stalwart spirit, she fell before Jinx’s might and relinquished the WVGCW Championship to someone very few people ever expected to get as far as the third round, let alone to win the whole thing.

But while the tournament was going on, Jinx wasn’t resting on her laurels. She made things even worse for Palutena by gathering up a squad of like-minded misfits who find enjoyment in causing trouble as much as she does. The actual basis of this team is a fittingly weird one. Back in Season 14, The Rogue was going around recruiting random people into one-off tag teams such as LFG: Hunter/Rogue with KOS-MOS, LFG: Warlock/Rogue with Morrigan, and LFG: Rogue/Monk with Juri. Her fourth attempt, another LFG: Rogue/Hunter attempt was The Rogue teaming with Jinx, and this was the first match The Rogue actually won due to Jinx’s longrunning skill as a tag wrestler. They would lose their next match but after that this strange trio of The Rogue, Jinx and Juri seemed to linger around one another. When Jinx ended up suddenly rising up the rankings, Juri and The Rogue followed after her mostly based on vibes.

The fourth and most dangerous member, Hat Kid, was recruited when Jinx took a liking to her during their tournament match. Jinx clearly saw a spark of mischief worth igniting in the little shit and brought her under her wing to become Nyakuza Kid, the best hired goon that a boss could ever hope to have. With the WVGCW Championship in hand and a stable of chaotic misfits, Jinx set about wrecking Palutena’s day by…well…honestly, just by existing. Yeah, Jinx really didn’t start shit with Palutena. She told Palutena to her face that she knew how much she hated that Jinx was the champion, but she didn’t throw the first punch. Palutena was the one who got so incensed that she started working towards getting the belt off Jinx in any way she could. First she booked a big 8-woman match where the top three remaining in the match got a title shot. So Jinx went up against Jill, Junko and Sailor Moon, coming out as the winner against them all, even if Sailor Moon in particular proved to be an incredibly dangerous opponent for her.

Following that, Palutena hit the Panic Button and called in Aqua. Aqua defeated Sheena and Lenneth in the span of roughly 8 months and that was enough for Palutena to basically declare her as the #1 contender, shoving her well ahead in the line above anyone else with the excuse that basically Aqua could do whatever she wanted because she was the best. Well if anyone had a problem with that, they would have to beat Aqua in response. That was easier said than done. As unfair as it may have seemed, Aqua proved that she was indeed as good as Palutena claimed her to be and defeated the undefeated Jinx to win back the WVGCW Championship.

This was not the end of Palutena’s problems with Jinx though. This was just the start of them. Jinx declared all-out war with Palutena, bombing her offices repeatedly and making sure the Goddess couldn’t get a single day of rest. Hat Kid would win the Royal Rumble to threaten Palutena with The Rogue’s Gallery getting right back into the hot seat, and Aqua only just managed to keep her from taking the title back to DA BAWS. It reached the point where Palutena was forced to try and deal with Jinx directly, a situation that only worked in her favour when Sailor Moon ran in to interrupt the match and cost Jinx the win. Palutena’s victory meant Jinx was never allowed to wrestle in her company again…a problem that was solved quite quickly when Franziska returned to set up her version of WVGCW which she quickly recruited Jinx into during the drafting phase.

Obviously the main thing to take away from Jinx’s season is her dramatic increase in strength. Jinx has had flashes of skill throughout WVGCW but has never seemed that much more than an unlikely tag savant and an occasional bullshit merchant in her matches. But it’s funny how her actual personality hasn’t really changed even as her ability to wrestle has. Rather than taking her sudden topcard status and using it to write her differently, it’s more like it’s been used to offer new avenues for Jinx to explore now she has a wider range of the card to play with. The addition of Arcane as a source for Jinx to base her character off also helps in diversifying her actions.

As an in-ring wrestler, Jinx was among the best of the best but didn’t quite hit the same levels as the Big Two in Lucina and Narmaya for pure 5-star matches. Not that she didn’t have any, her match with Sailor Moon in particular is an equal to many of Narmaya’s 2K22 matches. But the most exciting part of any Jinx tournament match or title defense was the question of if this was where it was all going to end. Surely at some point Jinx’s luck was going to run out, and so many people came soooo close to beating that you’d swear Jinx was doing it on purpose to make people bite. This was something Jinx has always been good at doing though, even back in her EDBW days. Jinx is a troll of a wrestler, with the Surrender at 20 in EDBW and her Double Comeback Bullshit back in her DBGG days to name some. If Jinx thought it would be more fun to make the audience think she was one move away from losing the title just to snap back up and secure the win at the last second…well, it WOULD be pretty funny to see everyone’s reactions to that.

With the introduction of Palutena as her nemesis, Jinx’s rise to the top has been so smooth and well thought out that I’m quite shocked it came from something as random as her being the one to win the Tournament of Light out of everyone else in the company. While the future will always be uncertain as we move into a different game, 2K22 was Jinx’s Game in such a way that it would rival anyone else’s highest peaks. 2K22 is to Jinx what 2K14 was to Sophitia, and what 2K17 was for Zelda, it was THAT good. It’s just kind of funny that, like Zelda did, Jinx ran face first into Aqua who has a knack for reminding even the most unstoppable of wrestlers that they are, in fact, mortal.

But wait. 2K22 is Jinx’s Game? Are we sure about that? Isn’t there one person left to compete for that claim? Well, let’s get talking about her already. We’ve been waiting a long time to do so by this point.

Narmaya

• Loss in Narmaya vs D.va vs Jade(BG&E) vs 2B vs Peach vs Tina vs Samus vs Kula
• Win over Miku
• Win over Poison
• Win in Narmaya vs Medusa vs Morrigan vs Cate vs Joanna vs Rydia
• Win over Jack-O
• Win in Narmaya vs D.va vs Daisy vs Cadence vs Kula vs Junko
• Win over Kris
• Win over Kris
• Win in Narmaya & Jinx vs Garnet & Sheena
• Win over Garnet
• Loss to Jinx
• Loss in Narmaya & May vs Lucina & Garnet
• Win over Lucina
• Win over Hat Kid
• Win over Poison
• Win over Jade (BG&E)
• Loss in Narmaya/Garnet/Jinx vs Aqua/Amy/Riesz
• Win over Riesz
• Win over Miku
• Win in Narmaya/Edelgard/Garnet vs Kris/Aqua/Lightning
• Win over Aqua

With 16 wins as a singles wrestler compared to Jinx’s 11, Narmaya stands high at the peak of 2K22 with the kind of absurd dominance we have never really seen before. We’ve seen people have good seasons, we’ve had people go near undefeated before finalizing their victories at Breakdown before, but when you look at Narmaya’s entire season it’s really clear just how absolutely insane it really is. Narmaya’s run in 2K22 was more of a saga than a season, and it can be cut into three separate arcs just to make it more palatable.

First is her run in the Tournament of Light. Unlike Jinx, Narmaya wasn’t entering this entirely as a no-hoper. Narmaya debuted back in 2K19 and was already pretty good. With wins over the likes of Shantae, Camilla, Rinoa and, funnily enough, Jinx. The two competed in a triple threat for a Casual Contendership shot that ended with Narmaya pinning Jinx, two ships crossing in the night with no idea they’d be meeting up again down the line. But while Jinx’s 2K19 was considered more her punching above her weight via mostly bullshit and sneaky tactics, Narmaya was considered to be generally solid. I said in my Season 14 write-up that I saw a bright future for her, but I had no idea just what she was cooking up.

When Narmaya entered the Tournament of Light in 2K22, she went on a total tear across some of the bigger upper midcard names in the show. Poison, Miku and Kris in particular since Jack-O was a tag exclusive and unknown wrestler. During the tournament itself, Narmaya had more going on than potentially any other wrestler there as she also defended her Linear title long enough to get a title shot of her choosing, deciding to cash it successfully on Kris and defeating her to win the Classic Championship. In a fun twist of fate, Narmaya then fought Kris in the Tournament of Light and defeated her again, ensuring there was no hope of a salty Bluetails runback.

After defeating Garnet in the semi-finals, Narmaya met up with the only roadblock she was ever actually stopped by. Jinx had been enjoying her own miracle run and had no intention of slowing down, even for someone as strong as Narmaya. Narmaya and Jinx would actually get on quite well despite their rather contrasting personalities, with Jinx coming up with a rather adorable nickname for her if you don’t think about it too much in “Horny Girl”. Jinx would successfully defeat Narmaya in the Tournament of Light, meaning all poor Narmaya got out of the whole thing was a silver medal, one of the best winning streaks if the game so far, and the Classic Championship. Aww man…

This moves onto the second arc of Narmaya’s 2K22. Her Classic run. Funnily enough, while Jinx had a frontloaded Tournament and then faced more unknown elements in her title defences, Narmaya basically did that but the opposite way around. After facing off against mostly upper midcard foes in the tournament, Narmaya faced a slew of topcard talent while defending her Classic championship such as Lucina, Hat Kid and Riesz. Her title run went on for so long that old foes from the tournament even came back for a Round 2 like Miku and Poison. Hell, she even took the time to gave Jade (BG&E) the best retirement match in perhaps the entire history of WVGCW, or even the network itself.

It really cannot be understated just how good Narmaya’s title reign with the Classic run. Unlike Garnet with her Casual championship, the Classic was considered a title that deserved to have someone this strong defending it, and certainly Narmaya was defending against some very worthy opponents. But by the time we ended up with Miku throwing herself at Narmaya again, I think both we and her had taken about enough. As fun as it must be to beat up the Bluetails multiple times over the course of the season, at some point you need to look past them and towards another goal. Namely, the WVGCW Championship.

Narmaya had watched on as the Classic champion while Jinx, the only woman to ever defeat her in 2K22, defended her title over and over again. Narmaya must have felt an itch growing even then to challenge Jinx, the two unstoppable champions facing off against one another to decide who truly is the greatest of the great. She was probably getting herself really hyped up to offer her Classic title for a shot at her rival…until Aqua suddenly burst onto the scene and took that moment away from her. As if from nowhere, a wrestler who had only won two singles matches in a row was being given a title shot at Jinx? To make matters worse, she WON it? That wasn’t supposed to happen! Jinx was the only one who had beaten Narmaya, and then suddenly this blue haired asshole shows up and steals her thunder?

As a relative newcomer, Narmaya was in a position where she had no real reason to respect Aqua nearly as much as the keyblade master assumed everyone did. As longtime viewers, we do understand why Aqua was in fact a reasonable choice for a contender, and that she did have the accolades worthy of getting the shot. But for someone who had fought all the way to the second place of the Tournament of Light, watching someone who didn’t even compete in it suddenly get given this incredible chance must have made Narmaya’s skin crawl. It’s not as if Narmaya wasn’t around in 2K19 to see Aqua at her best, but what did that matter? So she’s strong, she’s got a legacy. Does that give her the right to get a title shot just because she’s that big of a deal? According to Aqua, yes it does. According to Narmaya, it certainly does not. As she herself said to Aqua’s face, she WANTED to fight Jinx but would SETTLE for fighting Aqua.

I’ve talked about Jinx and Palutena being perfect foils for one another, but Narmaya and Aqua made perfect foils for one another just as much. Aqua is someone who clings to history and an image of herself as unbeatable, using it to excuse basically everything she does. Even if someone doesn’t like her getting these opportunities, that hardly mattered to Aqua. She considered herself the best of the best, so even if she had to cut corners to win the title it was just cutting a shortcut to the inevitable outcome. If Aqua being the champion was a foregone conclusion from the start, you might as well just hand over the title to her right there and then, as far as Aqua is concerned.

Narmaya, of course, does not agree with this claim. She has worked up from the very bottom as a newcomer who’s biggest claim to fame was being compared to Camilla. She had to work harder than most to stand out and become her own person, and what a person she’s become. Narmaya is not only one of the strongest wrestlers in the company but often one of the best in terms of work-rate as well. She’s a 5-star general who has managed to look vulnerable and unstoppable at the same time. She’s put on some of the best matches in 2K22, pulling out some amazing skills from several wrestlers like Jade, Poison, Lucina, Kris and Hat Kid. She had been given nothing and earned everything, and because of that she stood there in the main event of Breakdown being cheered by the world while Aqua, who had once enjoyed that adulation herself, skulked in the darkness wondering why Narmaya didn’t respect her as much as someone like JINX.

But of course, the same reason that Narmaya has no reason to idolize Aqua means she has no reason to judge Jinx. She never saw Jinx at her lowest, she never saw her scraping along the lowcard. All she saw was an incredible wrestler who put in the work just like she did, MORE than she did in fact as she beat Narmaya, and was beaten by an arrogant old fossil who was so lost in the ideals of the good old days that she didn’t care whose future she was stepping on now. As far as Narmaya was concerned, Jinx was far more worthy of her respect. This culminated in the moment of truth at the end of their long Iron Woman match where Aqua was ready to take the draw and slink away with her title, winning on champion’s advantage and not her own ability to win.

Narmaya called Aqua out in one of the best moments of her career, hitting Aqua exactly where it would hurt the most and exposing all the nastiest instincts that had begun to fester in the keyblade master. Enraged by Narmaya shining a light on her own weaknesses, Aqua rashly agreed to extend the match for sudden death. This would be her undoing, and this led to Narmaya just barely managing to overcome her and claim the WVGCW Championship for herself. Pride and ego led Aqua to take the easy route to the top, thus pride and ego were the reason for her fall back down to the bottom.

This match not only emphasized how amazing Narmaya is in the ring, but also what an incredibly strong character she is too. Narmaya might be sleepy and laid back at the best of the times, but when the worst of times occur she’s more ready to throw down than anyone else and will never back down from what she believes is right. If it means defending a mad bomber like Jinx, she’ll do it. If it means calling out one of the single greatest wrestlers in WVGCW history during your first PPV main event, she’ll do it. If it means staring down a literal Goddess, she’ll do it. Not only will she do it, but she’ll do it so damn well that the same Goddess will later have no choice but to pick her to fight in her company after she’d taken the title from her literal hand-chosen knight.

So yes, 2K22 is Jinx’s Game but Jinx doesn’t get to have it all to herself. 2K22 is also Narmaya’s Game. Narmaya was so damned good in 2K22 that I have to give her the highest form of praise I can give when talking about it: she made me forget I was watching 2K22 and made me think I was watching something good.

The Squid Sisters

• Win over The Summoners
• Loss in Squid Sisters vs Nation of Animation vs Fate Dark/Zero
• Loss to Metroidvania
• Win over 2B & Junko
• Loss to Fate Dark/Zero
• Loss to The Valkyries

It really doesn’t feel like we’ve seen much of the squids throughout 2K22, does it? They’re tag exclusive wrestlers who will sometimes appear for Linear matches, so outside of those we don’t really see them until Splat Wres comes around and they emerge to advertise that. Not that taking a season or two in the background is necessarily a bad thing for a tag team that’s been around for as long as they have now. We’ve reached the point where the Squids can be considered a rather veteran team as so many stables have sprung up around them, them taking a more backstage approach to 2K22 means there’s less chance of people getting bored of seeing them. I think seeing the Squid Sisters is something of a treat in fact. There’s a reason that Palutena got so much heat for deciding to punish them for not throwing themselves on a bomb for her, Callie and Marie are very well loved.

But it would be nice to see the Squid Sisters get something to do in 2K24. It’s rare for a pair of wrestlers to seem less like tag exclusives and more like seasonal exclusives. It rather feels like the Squids are here to be the faces of Splat Wres more than they’re here to be wrestlers. As such, it feels like they’re slowly being relegated to just taking the role of the Splat Wres hosts. I think they do a good job of that, but at the same time I think Callie and Marie are a very fun pair of personalities and also just generally pretty good wrestlers. I understand that part of their lack of matches is due to them just losing to losing to Fate Dark/Zero a bunch and having to give them the spotlight, but it would be nice to see them get a bit more story focus like we saw at the end of the season when they were suddenly being bullied by The Valkyries. You have a pair of wrestlers that pretty much everyone likes, it’s well worth making use of them like that a little more. Otherwise we could always bring in Pearl and Marina. We could honestly just make up a Tag Team Survivor Series match of girlfriends if they joined in. Whoever loses, GAY WIN.

Triple Triad

• Loss in Triple Triad vs Air Buds vs Fate Dark/Zero
• Win over The Spellweavers
• Win over Jade & Jade
• Loss to Fate Dark/Zero
• Loss in Triple Triad vs Diamonds are Forever vs Double Dash!!

The Triad are another team that’s had a relatively quiet run in 2K22, or at least as quiet as a team with Nero on it can be. They showed up a little bit early on back in 2022, but when both Nero and Lucina reached the part of the Tournament of Light where the entrants started getting some actual plot and focus, their stable was put on the backburner until they were eliminated. Following their tournament eliminations, the Triad returned to action against Jade & Jade before losing to Fate Dark/Zero, who would go on to score the Co-co championships. Following this was a loss to Double Dash!! during a triple threat match where Rinoa ate the pin and that was about it for them.

Triple Triad are an established enough team that they can get away with having a slow season, especially considering Nero and Lucina have had things going on in the background. Rinoa though…well, she’s probably thanking her lucky stars that she got drafted to WVGCW Red alongside Cina and Nero as she doesn’t really have as much going on for herself. It’s not as if Rinoa is a weak link in the team or anything, Triple Triad are as likely to win with her on the team as when Nero and Lucina are teaming. She’s just something of a clear outlier when you see Nero fighting Hat Kid for title shots and Lucina scoring herself the Classic title.

I do really like Triple Triad though, I must admit. Their personalities have all grown on me, and while I think that Lucina kind of does the same job as Rinoa in the faction but better, I do think having two straightwomen around to deal with Nero’s enthusiasm and braggadocio balances things out quite nicely. I feel like Lucina’s general chill aura has affected her own team and these guys are just one of the more chill stables on the roster. They’re just here to have a good time, wrestle some fun matches, ogle some nice ladies…Nero please, we’ve spoke to HR about this.

Bravely Second

• Loss in Bravely Second vs Double Dash!! vs Metroidvania
• Loss in Bravely Second vs Air Buds vs The Saiyans
• Loss to The Rogue’s Gallery
• Win in Bravely Second vs Dance Dance Revolution vs The Saiyans
• Win over Big Iron
• Win over Dance Dance Revolution
• Loss to Double Dash!!

Oh how the mighty have fallen…well, not really “fallen”. More like how the mighty have stumbled following a pretty slow start. Bravely have, let’s be real, not made much of a splash in 2K22. While they’re normally a rather consistent force in the tag scene, and at least one of them usually makes some kind of big impact in the singles title scenes, none of them have really stood out in this game. But one of Bravely’s biggest qualities, or more specifically Edea’s qualities, is striking back just when everyone thinks you’re out of the game. Bravely had a last-minute run of wins, culminating in them coming second in the Tag Team Tournament heading into Breakdown 16. Hey, Bravely Second place!

Sure, on paper it kind of feels like Bravely reaching the finals was a foregone conclusion considering they went up against DDR and Big Iron, but that’s only in hindsight looking back over the season. Big Iron were a huge name in 2K19 and DDR have honestly been a better team than Bravely themselves throughout 2K22. Bravely Second earning the silver medal was actually a solid achievement, though it did end up Rosalina finally getting some much needed revenge on Edea. The future of Bravely Second now though is very up in the air. Edea and Camilla have been drafted to WVGCW Gold while Agnes is on WVGCW Red. The stable has been split, and it remains to be seen if Edea and Camilla consider it worthwhile to keep teaming while Agnes is away. Are they still Bravely Second if there’s only one Bravely character in it? Are they Bravely First? Cowardly Second? Will Solo Sikoa take over as the stable leader??? THE BRAVELINE HAS BEEN FRACTURED!

River City Poliwhirls

• Loss in River City Girls vs The Bluetails vs Diamonds are Forever
• Loss to Halloween Town
• Win in River City Girls vs The Spellweavers vs Jade & Jade
• Loss in River City Girls vs Air Buds vs Double Dash!!
• Win over Air Buds
• Win in River City Girls vs Double Dash!! vs The Valkyries
• Loss to Fate Dark/Zero
• Loss to The Bluetails
• Loss to The Bluetails
• Loss in River City Poliwhirls vs Joanna & Cate vs Lucca & D.va

The River City Poliwhirls are the culmination of May’s character arc. Well, maybe not so much an “arc” as her just being stunned by the fact that Misako and Kyoko didn’t instantly ditch her when they had belts and she didn’t. May was pretty much her usual piece of shit self right up until that moment when she was so touched by genuine friendship that she turned good right there and then. Before that, the River City Girls most obvious moment of triumph was their shocking victory over Double Dash!! and The Valkyries thanks to the Passion of the Misako. They won the Co-op championships but sadly dropped them on their first defence to Fate Dark/Zero, which then led them into a feud with The Bluetails that, hoo boy, did NOT go well for them. In a 2v2 and a 3v3 match, The Bluetails won both times and left the Poliwhirls feeling and looking blue.

But that doesn’t take away from their overall achievements as a team. While 2K22 did feature a lot of Co-op championship title changes, the River City Girls win was certainly one of the more notable upsets. RCG weren’t really considered a champion-level team before this, never quite managing to get the run of wins they would need to be considered a big name. But when they were given a chance, they did what several other teams that were more well regarded than them like DD!! and the Queens couldn’t. They just went and won, and now they can hold the fact that they’re former champions over The Bluetails at the end of the day…unless The Bluetails win the titles. Which they probably will. In which case the Poliwhirls will just have to slink away sheepishly and hope no one is watching. They’ll be back in 2K24 as the River City Poliwraths when they find themselves a few Water Stones. Ahh shit, Kyoko swallowed one of them thinking it was a gummy bear.

Dance Dance Revolution

• Win over Big Iron
• Loss in Dance Dance Revolution vs The Bluetails vs Double Dash!!
• Win over Double Dash!!
• Loss in Dance Dance Revolution vs The Saiyans vs Bravely Second
• Win over The Saiyans
• Loss to Bravely Second
• Loss to The Phantom Thieves

I think when you take a step back and really look at how these guys get booked, you start to understand that the show really doesn’t have much of a place for them. DDR are a popular stable but it feels like they simply haven’t found their place in WVGCW despite debuting all the way back in Breakdown 12. Season 13 was a really crazy time, that was another season where there were four different tag champions at different points so DDR just never managed to slot themselves into the running. After that they’ve been overshadowed by so many other teams, and all three individual members ended up failing to make any kind of impact, that they just feel like they’ve been totally forgotten about. If not for the tag team tournament at the end of Season 16, this stable would have basically been dead in the water. DDR regularly just vanish for 5 to 6 months at a time, and as much as a treat it is to see them when someone remembers they exist, they never stay for long before vanishing again.

I’m being overly harsh because I actually really like DDR. I think this team is one that we should have been seeing a lot more, but I can’t get invested in them anymore because it feels like they’re never going to be seen for long before vanishing again. They beat Double Dash!! of all teams and it just didn’t matter. They vanished for four and a half months after that win and then got booked in a triple threat tables match that they lost and that was that. It’s honestly a miracle we got their really awesome match against The Saiyans in the tournament because this stable regularly goes anywhere from 5 to 6 months just not getting booked and they genuinely could have been forgotten about and left out. Think about this! They lost a triple threat against The Bluetails and Double Dash!!, then went missing for six and a half months (cutting out the break between seasons). They then beat Double Dash!! and went missing for another four and a half months. I’m not crazy am I? You can say “Tournament of Light” this or “Just win the matches” that but that’s BAD, right?

And now it’s over. Primrose is on WVGCW Gold while Cadence and Shantae are on WVGCW Red. Maybe Shantae and Cadence will stay teaming up, but a stable in this dire need of some kind of direction losing their third member? It’s bleak, folks. It’s really bleak. It’s really hard to picture this team losing their strongest member and getting booked better for it. Cadence winning the Casual championship has been the only signs of life DDR has had in years and they’ve been split up right afterwards. Nothing has ever gone right for Dance Dance Revolution. What started as one of the funnest and most lively teams in WVGCW has turned into a sad example of what happens when creative has nothing for you. The fact that Shantae, Lucina and Terra all went and found new stables following RPGenie and this is how Shantae’s presumably ends? One last chance of getting some actual spotlight and then the stable is ripped in half? I’d dance off a fucking pier if I were in her shoes.

The Summoners

• Loss to The Squid Sisters
• Win over The Saiyans
• Win over The Valkyries

While there is a heaping helping to talk about regarding the Summoners as individuals, Garnet’s run as the Casual Champion mostly put the brakes on any tag team progress they could have had, and by the time it was over Sheena and Rydia were starting to build up their feud again. Their actual performance as a team is heavily dominated by one single match. What a match it was though. Not only did they defeat The Valkyries at Breakdown 16, they did so in the kind of way that made one of the strongest stables in WVGCW look like total chumps. The United Summoners only had one match to show why they could have been one of the deadliest forces in WVGCW, and they took it.

Now though, Rydia has been separated from Garnet and Sheena so the trio can’t continue to wreck havoc across the tag scene. Instead, it’s entirely likely that Garnet and Sheena are going to take up the mantle of The Summoners. Unlike Bravely Second, who I feel could suffer a crisis of identity with Agnes gone, Garnet and Sheena feel like they have enough of a history that they could end up working together with little issue. Though Garnet did start off a little…murderey…towards Sheena, the duo have made up since then and Garnet has attempted to help Sheena through her issues in much the same vein that she helped Rydia. The two of them teaming up seems like a very likely outcome, and would probably make Rydia feel a little light-headed if she thought about it for too long. Garnet and Sheena teaming together…wrestling all over the place…heading off for a post-match shower together…it’s enough to make a disaster summoner need to lie down for a while.

Halloween Town

• Win in Halloween Town vs Black Eagles vs Jade & Jade vs The Saiyans
• Win over River City Girls
• Win in Halloween Town vs Black Eagles vs Diamonds are Forever
• Loss to The Valkyries
• Loss in Halloween Town vs The Returners vs Cate & Dizzy
• Loss in Halloween Town vs Camilla & Byleth vs Marie & Velvet vs The Rogue & Lara
• Win over Big Iron
• Loss to Diamonds are Forever
• Loss to Double Dash!!

Here lies Halloween Town, a team that came close to the top but just couldn’t cut it. Kairi and Jack-O started strong, earning themselves enough wins to get a title shot at The Valkyries. They came close to ruining the River City Girls shocking win by just right up taking the belts right there and then, but they couldn’t handle the power of L and Riesz. Well…specifically, they couldn’t handle the power of finisher reversals and double tap pinfalls, but then really what team can? Maybe just The Returners and that’s only due to Terra Privilege.

This was a trend that continued to the end of the 2K22. Every time the Genesis duo tried to go up against one of the heavier hitters in the scene, they found themselves just about lacking. They lost to The Returners, then lost to the Diamonds, then lost to DD!!. Their 2K22 run certainly wasn’t a bad one, but they had clearly hit the ceiling and were struggling to push past it.

Outside of some really fun plot to demonstrate their dynamic, there’s honestly not a huge amount to say about Halloween Town. They were just a pretty good team! Normally I would just sum up by expressing a hope they’d do a bit better in 2K24 but now they aren’t even going to be in it as Kairi broke up the team to go follow Aqua. I wonder if we’ll look back on Halloween Town as being a very clever way of introducing both Kairi and Jack-O into the show at once, or if we’ll look back and wonder why the two of them spent the whole of an entire game pretending they weren’t singles wrestlers. Maybe one day we’ll see the two reunite as a team again but honestly, I’m not sure Halloween Town has done enough to really be worth a big story about them reuniting. I’d be more interested in building up to a big damn fight between them! Let’s reenact their Genesis match, but this time let’s get some BLOOD!

Diamonds are Forever

• Loss in Diamonds are Forever vs The Bluetails vs River City Girls
• Win over Big Iron
• Win over Metroidvania
• Loss in Diamonds are Forever vs Halloween Town vs Black Eagles
• Win over Queens of Iron Fist
• Win over Halloween Town
• Loss to Fate Dark/Zero
• Loss in Diamonds are Forever vs Double Dash!! vs Triple Triad

So it turns out that Cate Archer isn’t actually bad at tag team wrestling. She was just really bad at tag team wrestling with Jade. Put her with someone else like Kula or Joanna and she starts rolling! Debuting at Breakdown 14 against Air Buds, it’s funny to see how much better Diamonds are Forever have done as a team despite losing that initial match. Though eagle eyed viewers may not that the Diamonds do not have any wins over The Big Three. While Cate and Kula were able to bully the tag team midcard pretty handily, they couldn’t overcome Fate Dark/Zero in their Co-op Championship match. Cate’s path to the triple crown was thus closed…for a couple of months. Then she just cashed in her linear title and won it by default. Please don’t be too sad, Kula. If you had the linear, Cate would absolutely suggest you do the same thing.

Cate and Kula have been kept together going into 2K24 so this team doesn’t seem to be breaking up any time soon, and I’m delighted about that. Cate’s shift into being a protective face has been a breath of fresh air for a character who hasn’t really had that much different to do for a long time, and Kula benefits from having someone to watch her back during any feuds she wanders into. As a 2K22 tag team, we never did see if the two could take on the likes of The Valkyries or The Returners in a regular tag match, so I can’t really push them into upper echelons of the division without that data to judge. But they remained a constant presence in the tag scene and managed to score enough wins to at least climb out of the murk that is the lower half of the tag teams list for 2K22. Considering how few teams were really allowed to be good in this game, being pretty decent is still an achievement.

There’s still plenty for this team to do in a new game. Cate needs a fourth title to her name before she shrivels up and turns to dust, so hopefully they remain a force to be reckoned with in 2K24. Kula can learn the shocking truth that she has an orange sibling and her step-dad is an octopus. Though that sounds like a storyline that we’d be stealing from DDT…I don’t know which version, probably both.

Double Dash!!

• Win in Double Dash!! vs Metroidvania vs Bravely Second
• Loss in Double Dash!! vs The Bluetails vs Dance Dance Revolution
• Win over Nation of Animation
• Win in Double Dash!! vs Air Buds vs River City Girls
• Loss in Double Dash!! vs The Valkyries vs River City Girls
• Loss to Dance Dance Revolution
• Win in Double Dash!! vs Diamonds are Forever vs Triple Triad
• Win over Halloween Town
• Win over The Phantom Thieves
• Win over Bravely Second
• Loss to The Returners

While other teams and stable’s fates are up in the air after being split by the Red and Gold draft, Double Dash!! ended up having a split and sorting it out during their 2K22 run itself. Double Dash!!’s 2K22 career was split into two stages, both of which featured them getting a title shot funnily enough. The first half was very much the Peach & Rosalina era. Daisy wasn’t involved in a single tag match up until Breakdown 15, it was entirely left to Peach and Rosalina to try and score the big golds. They very nearly did but came up short against the sheer unmatched power of Misako and thus lost at Breakdown 15.

After this, Peach turned on Rosalina and thus began their second half of the run, where both Daisy and Rosalina tried and failed to defeat Peach, then decided to just keep tagging together as a pair. They would win a tag team tournament that led to a title match against The Returners at Breakdown 16. They would also lose this one.

So I really don’t know if I can say that Double Dash!! has a bad season since they were, as ever, a dominant force pretty much from the start to the end of the game. But getting the Co-op title shots at BOTH Breakdowns and failing to win even one of them is definitely a mark against them. The first time you could weakly argue it was a triple threat tag match as an excuse, if you conveniently ignored them going 2 on 1 against Misako at the end and losing. But there was no such excuse against The Returners, they just straight up lost. The main boon of this season for DD!! was, funnily enough, their split-up. Without Peach leaving them behind, I think we’d be looking at DD!!’s season with a lot more judging eyes as it would be a lot more noticeable that all they did was bungle their title matches. But with Peach ditching them, that does a good job of distracting from that rather unfortunate fact. They should also really be thanking the Queens of Iron Fist for drawing the audiences attention as the major title shot bunglers so no one has really taken the time to address DD!!’s bad run of title attempts. They should also also be thanking Bravely Second for giving them that mini-feud to win right before Breakdown 16 which at least counts as one major dub in the column. They should also also also be thanking Stone Toad Steve Austin for getting that damn Mario to come and help Goombella on Rampage, with a little bit of JUMPIN (WHAT), a little of PUNCHIN (WHAT) and a little bit of ASS WHOOPIN’! (WHAT)

Fate Dark/Zero

• Win in Fate Dark/Zero vs Triple Triad vs Air Buds
• Win in Fate Dark/Zero vs The Squid Sisters vs Nation of Animation
• Loss in Fate Dark/Zero vs The Valkyries vs The Bluetails
• Win over The Squid Sisters
• Win over Triple Triad
• Win over River City Girls
• Win over Diamonds are Forever
• Loss to The Returners

Before we get to The Big Three, we need to talk about The Relatively Large Fourth. Fate Dark/Zero were the only team that could have crawled up to stand on the peaks that the main three tag teams of 2K22 did. Unlike The Spellweavers, Sophitia & Ann and the River City Girls, they managed to score a title defence and it was against a legitimately strong team in Diamonds are Forever. They unfortunately went on to lose their titles to The Returners before retiring from 2K22 action with their heads held high.

Even though Terra and Celes came along to steal their lunch money, it’s worth keeping in mind how well this team did throughout 2K22. They at least managed to score the tag titles as a mark of their ability but…well…there were SIX different tag champions across 2K22 so it’s maybe not the most prestigious title right now? Still good to have that on your resume though, especially since Fate Dark/Zero are a relatively newer team. They both have a solid level of charisma to them that allows you to forget that Medusa is from the same series as Nero for a while and avoid being sapped by her incredibly uncool energy.

This is a good example of a team punching above its own weight, which is really impressive as Medusa and Joanna aren’t even bad. Hell, Medusa has wins on some of the biggest names in the show…and also losses to Jill and Miku so she’s just kind of weird. Joanna and Medusa are clearly in sync with one another despite their differing characters, though the two do have very different opinions on their new boss, Palutena. It’s kind of a testament to how much of a badass Joanna is that her plot point for 2K22 was trying to be a corporate suck-up and she still managed to look cool doing it. Medusa, for various divine reasons, was far less inclined to play buddy-buddy with Palutena.

If Joanna does end up having to pick between her boss or Duse later down the line though, it would be hard to imagine Joanna not siding with her snakey sidekick. FD/Z are one of the teams that you can feel get on with one another properly, you can totally picture Joanna dragging Medusa out for drinks after the show. Joanna always asks if Medusa is getting her drink “on the rocks” and laughs just a little too loudly while Medusa quietly wishes for death.

The Valkyries

• Win over Queens of Iron Fist
• Win over Nation of Animation
• Win in The Valkyries vs The Bluetails vs Fate Dark/Zero
• Win over Sophitia & Ann
• Win over Halloween Town
• Win over The Rogue’s Gallery
• Loss in The Valkyries vs River City Girls vs Double Dash!!
• Win over The Squid Sisters
• Loss to The Summoners

Well goddamn, look at these girls go. Back in my Season 14 write-up, The Valkyries were the literal lowest ranked team of the season. Now here they are right at the winners podium .At one point in time, this stable ruled WVGCW with an iron-clad gauntlet. The Valkyries cut through every team they came up against with precision and power, and that was even without having the WVGCW Champion fighting in the team. With Riesz and Lightning holding the tag belts and Lenneth holding the WVGCW Championship, they were practically the Bloodline of the show. Including having a main champion who didn’t bother with trifling things like “defending the belt” as Lenneth was waiting until the Tournament of Light was done before going up against her challenger. It all came crumbling down on the same episode, as Lenneth would lose her title to Jinx while Riesz and Lighting would lose their titles to the River City Girls at Breakdown 15. Hell, The Valkyries even went out first in that match.

Following a period of absolute dominance, the Valkyries took a step backwards in terms of their appearances and even their reputation. At the start of 2K22, The Valkyries were holy warriors with a noble cause and unyielding discipline. By the end of 2K22, they were basically Palutena’s hired thugs convincing themselves they were still totally holy and righteous while sucker punching people who Palutena decided she didn’t like the look of. As far as hired thugs go, you couldn’t really find better than The Valkyries. While it is true that Palutena technically had all of The Big Three under her thumb in various ways, only The Valkyries were truly loyal to her. The Returners owed her a favour for keeping Celes on the books, and generally just had beef with her enemies. The Bluetails were openly out for themselves. The Valkyries were far more committed to Palutena’s whole thing, and this was what led them to fight The Summoners at Breakdown 16…and thoroughly get their divine asses whupped.

Ass-whuppin’ (WHAT) aside, The Valkyries stand as one of the most dominant forces in 2K22…for the first half of it, at least. After they all dropped their belts, their appearances fell off to retain their image as strong wrestlers. They were used to bully the Squid Sisters and The Summoners, but mostly the source of their intimidation came from sending out Riesz or Lenneth in solo outings. Lightning…well, bless her undead heart, she tried but she was not much of a singles force this time around.

Maybe when Lightning returns in 2K24, she’ll feel like the ickiness of being Palutena’s hitwoman will have washed off and she’ll be back to her old self. Out of the three Valkyries, L was always the most quiet and clearly put off by what was going on. She herself doesn’t seem to have much care for Palutena’s way of handling things and seemed honestly quite happy to be away from it all. Lenneth, while clearly uncomfortable with some of Palutena’s decisions, isn’t willing to stand up to her and profess her issues at the current moment. Riesz is the most interesting example as she’s gone the complete opposite direction to Lightning, gleefully taking up the banner of Palutena’s minion with such enthusiasm you’d swear she’d been waiting for this all along. At some point Palutena is going to take a nasty bump in a PPV match and Riesz is going to jump on the announcement desk to declare “PALUTENA IS DEAD! BY HOLY LAW I, RIESZ, AM NOW YOUR GENERAL MANAGER!” and go full Starscream.

The Bluetails

• Win in The Bluetails vs Diamonds are Forever vs River City Girls
• Win in The Bluetails vs Double Dash!! vs Dance Dance Revolution
• Loss in The Bluetails vs The Valkyries vs Fate Dark/Zero
• Win over The Black Eagles
• Win over River City Girls
• Win over River City Poliwhirls
• Win over The Black Eagles

There’s no big shift in the rankings like with The Valkyries here. The Bluetails have ALWAYS been an incredibly strong stable, and they only haven’t won the Co-op titles before mostly due to often being too busy for them. They’re either heavily involved in plot and feuds like in Season 13 or they’re all hanging around various singles titles scenes like in Season 14. I would call them the “Strongest Team to never win a belt” but I think we called the Queens that for a while and look how they ended up for it. Perhaps people will start saying it hoping the same effect will happen to The Bluetails but I promise you it will not. These three resist any forms of curses and misfortune unless it’s specifically brought on by themselves.

When they started getting some plot in the backend of 2K22, we saw them easily dispatch the River City Poliwhirls. Kris lost to Edelgard at Breakdown 16 but that was more of a singular issue than a team issue. Yes, it does feel rather like the biggest enemy to The Bluetails as a unit has never been any other team and has always been The Bluetails themselves. Even in 2K22, The Bluetails kind of screwed themselves over by allying with Palutena in the first place. Kris was clearly hoping to get some kind of leeway for her team, but this entirely backfired on them when The Returners ended up winning the Co-op belts. The Bluetails didn’t really get anything out of allying with Palutena in the first place, and as soon as Palutena’s golden gooses were holding the titles it was obvious that she was never going to let The Bluetails anywhere near them. Edelgard herself brought this up to Kris, telling her she was getting screwed over by Palutena while Kris huffed and puffed and mostly just struggled to admit she had made a massive mistake.

It’s kind of funny how the two Pokegirl stables started in such incredibly similar situations yet diverged so dramatically over time. Both May and Kris started 2K22 as heel singles champions leading their own stable. But when May lost her belt, she managed to accept the friendship that Misako and Kyoko offered her and used it to improve herself. Misako and Kyoko had always been clearly on the same wavelength as May, and they never considered her as anything but a friend. When Kris lost her belt…well, as Miku puts it, she prefers to offer her “tough love” instead of actually comforting or supporting her. Kris didn’t get the same kind of support that May did when she was down on her luck. The Bluetails have, for a very long time, been a stable built up on fighting each other for the right to lead and arguing with one another over how they should do things. At this point, and seeing how all three of them act with one another, I would struggle to call them “friends” in the traditional sense. They don’t really seem to get on too well, they’re constantly talking about one another behind their backs, and despite their shared origins in BWA you don’t get any sense that they really feel a long-term connection with each other. While this certainly doesn’t stop them being a force of devastation across the tag scene, it does mean that when one member is suffering, the others really don’t know what to do about it and sometimes aren’t really that fussed at all.

Dizzy is currently the best example of this. She has spent a long time watching Kris and Miku bicker and argue, and when she finally thought she had done something to put it all behind them and unite the stable in a common direction, it really didn’t change much of how they acted with each other. It’s little wonder she’s become so bitter and negative now. The Bluetails have worn Dizzy down to sand through constant bickering, a singular desire to be the best with no actual titles to show for their single-minded fervour, and being hated by the audience and most of the roster itself.

While Kris and Miku seem content to be small-time thugs, Dizzy is starting to get a lot more aggressive with her insults and why wouldn’t she? What exactly have Miku or Kris done to suggest that this isn’t a good thing for Dizzy to be doing? She’s just learned that being a total piece of shit is the way to go, and now both Kris and Miku may be side eyeing each other wondering which of them is to blame for her change in attitude. With a title match coming up and the potential to finally score the Co-op belts they’ve never held, it remains to be seen how The Bluetails will react when they actually win the damn things…or even worse for them, if they come all this way only to stumble at the finish line and lose. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them tear their own team to pieces in the resulting arguments from that one.

The Returners

• Win over The Phantom Thieves
• Win in The Returners vs Cate & Dizzy vs Halloween Town
• Win over Nation of Animation
• Win over The Saiyans
• Win over Fate Dark/Zero
• Win over Double Dash!!

The tag scene started with Terra, and thus it must end with Terra. All is cyclical, and all is Terra. It’s Terra all the way down.

First of all, let’s just deal with the truth of the matter. What we’re seeing here has happened before and will happen again. A new team debuts and goes on an amazing undefeated streak, looking like an unstoppable force before inevitably being stopped at some point down the line. Dragonball GG did it. Nation of Animation did it. Big Iron kinda did it. (They lost a triple threat in their run to the titles) I can’t stand here after seeing so many teams do this and act like it’s never been done before, as impressive as it totally is to get this many wins going and then win and defend the belts in a single season.

I also feel like I have to take a few points off The Returners due to them having Terra as a member. Like, come on. It’s Terra, of course she’s going to go on a massive tag team win streak. She’s one of the greatest tag team wrestlers in WVGCW history, literally every team she’s involved in turns into one of the best in the roster…okay well except The Witches Three but we surely aren’t going to hold that against her.

But you know what IS unique? The sheer ludicrousness of Celes still being around on the show to get the chance to pull this off. Baring in mind the statistical unlikelihood of Celes managing to stay around long enough to put this all together, I think we can give The Returners some major kudos for that. Celes had to win the 6-way linear match as a guest, defend it long enough to get a title shot, be well received enough to score a chance to team with Terra for the season, then win enough to actually win the belts in that same season and thus extend her tenure. Celes is always standing at the edge of the door, about to be booted on, but she clings on so tightly that it’s impossible to get rid of her.

Obviously these two have been putting on good matches as well, they’re both great wrestlers who clearly vibe with one another way more in 2K22 than Terra and Aqua were doing. Their presence has also added a ton of extra points to the story, even beyond their actual involvement. Aqua joining Palutena initially seemed to be based on her agreeing to let Celes stay around, and her employment status is being held over the entire trio even if Terra and Celes don’t seem to be taking notice of that fact. They’re simply enjoying themselves, Terra in particular seems to be having the time of her life right now. One of her best friends has shown up out of nowhere and now they’re the tag champions? Wow! Finally things are going good for Terra again! That’s definitely never going to end! She’s finally, at long last, going to be happy forever this time!

Look, for all their differences Rydia and Terra’s lives work in very much the same way. They’re only allowed to enjoy a modicum of happiness for very brief periods before it all comes tumbling down, and frankly Terra has been riding this happiness high for too long! It’s only a matter of time until something breaks, whether it be through her team losing or through Aqua going off the grid or through Palutena breaking her deal. The Returners are going to be a big deal in 2K24, with or without the belts. At this point there’s no way it’s as simple as just telling Celes to not let the door hit her on the way out. This trio of Spellweaving Returners are going to struggle when the chickens come home to roost.

Marie

• Loss to Lucina
• Loss in Marie vs Samus vs Lightning vs The Rogue vs Misako vs Nero
• Loss in Marie vs Samus vs Lightning vs The Rogue vs Callie vs Rosalina vs Sailor Moon vs Edea
• Loss in Marie vs Rydia vs Byleth vs Nero vs Sailor Moon vs Wagner
• Loss in Marie & Velvet vs The Rogue & Lara vs Camilla & Byleth vs Kairi & Jack-O
• Loss in Marie vs Junko vs Byleth vs Peacock vs Kyoko vs Alice

Okay here we fucking go. Time for a full 1000 words about SINGLES MARIE! This is gonna be big. This is gonna change the face of my write-ups forever. It’s time to shock the system. IT’S TIME TO FUCKING RAGE!

Marie and Lucina had a really good match. Cina won with the Five Moves of Doom, it was great. It won Match of the Night in fact!

Uhh, the rest was all multi-matches so they don’t really matter OKAY BYE

Callie

• Loss to Lucca
• Loss in Callie vs Misako vs Lili vs Alice vs KOS-MOS vs Camilla
• Loss in Callie vs Marie vs Samus vs Lightning vs The Rogue vs Rosalina vs Sailor Moon vs Edea
• Loss in Callie vs Kat vs Sailor Moon vs Lighting vs Amy vs Joanna
• Loss in Callie vs Riesz vs KOS-MOS vs Miku vs Poison vs Camilla

Okay here we fucking go. Time for a full 1000 words about SINGLES CALLIE! This is gonna be big. This is gonna change the face of my write-ups forever. It’s time to shock the system. IT’S TIME TO FUCKING RAGE!

Callie and Lucca had a good match. Not as good as Marie vs Lucina but that’s not really a fair comparison, Lucina was all kinds of cracked in 2K22…

…

…look, just humour me here okay? Not all tag exclusive teams are born equally in WVGCW. I’d feel bad not at least glancing at the Squids just because I’m working my way towards the likes of Edelgard and Jack-O. Everyone loves Callie and Marie anyway, they don’t you owe you singles wins!

Lili

• Win in Lili vs Misako vs Callie vs Alice vs KOS-MOS vs Camilla
• Loss in Lili vs Byleth vs Aqua vs Terra vs Sheena vs Cate vs Velvet vs Tina
• Loss in Lili vs Tina vs Byleth vs Kale
• Loss in Lili/Agnes/Aigis vs Amy/Kale/Edelgard
• Win over Kula

Lili’s entire season is basically carried by the one time she decided to stomp on Kula and outside of that, she’s not got a huge amount going for her. She has one win at the start of 2K22 to brag about but other than that, Lili’s not been doing all that much. She and Asuka weren’t allowed into the Tournament of Light since they lost to The Spellweavers on a house show following Breakdown 14, so they didn’t get many chances to do much. But then Kyoko wasn’t allowed in the tournament either and she did just fine. Honestly, Lili’s main issue is more that no one wants to book the Queens in Linear matches, so she barely showed up outside of the plot based singles match she had. That one singles was a good showing for her at least, but she can’t really rely on telling everyone about that one time she beat up a kid forever. Then again that’s kind of the Queen’s MO right now so maybe she will.

Asuka

• Loss in Asuka vs Wagner vs Edea vs Primrose vs D.va vs Amy
• Loss in Asuka vs Daisy vs Edea vs Edelgard vs Alice vs Miku

Christ, two linear matches? Two? That’s just dire. This section is becoming an example more of who’s over and not than who’s good at singles or not. Asuka didn’t even GET any singles matches. She may well be the only tag exclusive wrestler in 2K22 who didn’t get at least one singles match. Turning into heels did not make people want to pick either of the Queens more often for their linear picks, but at least Lili won one and has her win over Kula to talk about. Asuka has precisely jack and shit to brag about. I’m getting depressed just writing this section now, can we have someone with a bit more oomph to them?

Misako

• Loss to Garnet
• Win in Misako vs Samus vs Lightning vs The Rogue vs Marie vs Nero
• Loss in Misako vs Lili vs Callie vs Alice vs KOS-MOS vs Camilla
• Win in Misako vs Jack-O vs Lara vs Futaba vs Poison vs Aigis
• Loss in Misako vs Hat Kid vs Dizzy vs Edea vs Agnes vs Kyoko
• Loss in Misako vs Peach vs Lightning
• Loss to Miku

Ahh, some wins on the board! I knew you’d come in clutch, you beautiful brainless girls, I can actually talk a bit about you two! She had a good start against Garnet but when that girl gets going, it takes a miracle to stop her so she ended up getting her ass beat. Funnily enough it was a coin flip decision based on whether Misako or Kyoko got put into the tournament and Misako won it. Didn’t matter in the end, she was out after the first round.

Misako went on to win the Linear twice in 2K22, and her first time winning it was genuinely great. It was a 6-woman Hell in a Cell Iron Woman match which Misako won by getting, like, ten pins in the match. She lost it to Lili, then won it in another Hell in a Cell by pinning Jack-O which is a pretty funny series of opponents to lose and win against. Tag exclusives vs Tag exclusives. She then lost it to Edea since Misako was too busy beating up Agnes to notice Edea climbing the ladder to get the briefcase. Getting your holy face punched in counts as a distraction!

She was involved in the triple threat that Peach dominated, then suffered a loss to Miku where she kind of got her ass beat…aaaand that’s kind of it for singles Misako. Hey, I said she something to write about, not that she had a lot to write about! If you really want to nit-pick, you could always say Misako’s greatest singles achievement was winning the Co-op Championships as she had to carry the team on her back and defeat both Peach and Rosalina to score those belts. It’s not included in her results since this is singles only, but honestly it kind of counts as she had to 1v2 a tag team. Not just any tag team in fact, but Double Dash!! of all teams.

So if Kyoko ever starts an argument about who the Jannetty of the team  is, Misako kind of has the ultimate comeback ready to go since Kyoko was the FIRST to go out in the entire match. Honestly if I were Misako I’d be bringing that up in every argument, not just regarding their tag team. Oh, Kyoko wants pizza but Misako wants Chinese? Maybe the girl who SOLOED DOUBLE DASH!! should decide, huh? How about that?

Kyoko

• Loss in Kyoko vs Bad Girl vs Sophitia
• Loss in Kyoko vs Agnes vs Edea vs Dizzy vs Hat Kid vs Misako
• Win in Kyoko vs Riesz vs Rosalina
• Win in Kyoko vs Nero vs Rinoa vs Ann
• Loss in Kyoko vs Riesz vs Cate vs Peacock vs Cadence vs Shantae
• Win in Kyoko vs Junko vs Marie vs Byleth vs Peacock vs Alice
• Loss to Futaba
• Win over Futaba
• Win over Futaba
• Loss in Kyoko vs May vs The Rogue vs Shantae vs Primrose vs Ann
• Loss in Kyoko & May vs Lucca & D.va vs Joanna & Cate

Okay I know we’re not including the tag matches to show a comparison here, but can we really say Kyoko was tag exclusive with this kind of match record? Two triple threats? A fatal fourway? A three-match singles feud?? Most of the actual singles wrestlers would kill for a three-match singles feud! Why do the tag exclusives keep getting these kinds of feuds? I remember when Asuka and Lili had one as well and that was SEVEN MATCHES LONG!

As we can see from these results, Kyoko isn’t just skilled at going out first in championship matches (Misako paid me $5 to write that) and she’s actually got a knack for smaller multiwoman matches. She picks her moments well, choosing to pin when all her opponents are on the floor or trying to climb out of the cage. Winning a cage match via a pinfall feels exceptionally stupid which is just Kyoko’s style. Through a mixture of gimmick and regular wins, Kyoko continued to surprise others and presumably herself with her regular successes, which led to a natural feud building up between her and Futaba when they faced off against each other in a backstage brawl and a 2/3 falls tables match for a 1-1 score. It came down to a close 8-6 win in a 15-minute Iron Woman match for Kyoko to win the rubber match and indeed the feud itself, which she would then drop in her next defence. Fortunately May took revenge for her and scored the belt by pinning The Rogue who had pinned her.

So Kyoko has won the Linear title three times across the whole of 2K22, which is not bad going at all. Capping it off with an actual singles feud and winning it is especially impressive. Frankly, I’d consider these results as being pretty damn solid even outside of the fact that Kyoko won the Co-op titles without even being there for half the match (Another $5). If this kind of momentum keeps up, I’ll have more to say about the tag exclusives than the first quarter of the actual singles roster! Who’s coming up next…ahh christ, it’s the Saiyans. Fuck, I barely had anything to say about them as a team, you want me to write about them as singles stars??

Kale

• Win over Cadence
• Win over Jill
• Loss to Jinx
• Win in Kale vs Lili vs Byleth vs Tina
• Win over Bad Girl
• Loss in Kale vs Shantae vs Peacock vs Edelgard vs Morrigan
• Win in Kale/Amy/Edelgard vs Aigis/Lili/Agnes
• Loss in Kale vs Alice vs Kairi vs Jack-O vs Ann vs Aigis

Ahh, memories. I remember this, this was one of the “breakout” moments of the Tournament of Light. Was Kale going to go on an undefeated run to the top? Was Kale going to show us all the true power of the legendary Super Saiyan? Was Kale, in fact, based??? Turns out no, but she did go out against the person who won the actual tournament so you can’t say it was an embarrassing loss. Actually I’d go as far as to say she did pretty good against Jinx all things considered.

After that, Kale did actually score a couple more wins across 2K22, though her momentum stalled following her tournament defeat for the obvious reason that she wasn’t really going to be allowed back into the singles scene. She scored the Linear championship in a tables match, then even defended it against Bad Girl of all people in a match that probably did more to kill Bad Girl than to help Kale. She was going to eat the pin in the fatal fiveway but Edelgard broke it up, only to get clocked on the jaw and pinned by Peacock while Kale was still dazed and on the floor.

That was that! Kale got over a bit as a meme at the start of 2K22 but her status as a tag exclusive wrestler meant that it was never really going to go anywhere unless she actually pulled off a miracle and won, or at least ranked high enough to get a few more singles matches as a test. I can at least say that Singles Kale was more successful and more memorable than Tag Team Kale was in 2K22, which is kind of damning her with faint praise but it’s still true. Kale did indeed get some good wins by herself. Hell, she got better wins than a lot of the lower ranking singles wrestlers, beating Jill is no small feat. But being tied to Caulifla always meant her luck could only go so far.

Caulfila

• Loss in Caulfila vs Rydia vs Adeleine vs D.va vs Edelgard vs 2B
• Win in Caulifla vs KOS-MOS vs Rosalina
• Loss in Caulfila vs Rouge vs Celes vs Sailor Mars vs Namine vs Lilith

She dropped her Linear title to Celes, and she was replaced in the Tournament of Light by Kale as a birthday favour to Doom.

There, that’s everything interesting about Caulifla in 2K22. Next!

Jack-O

• Win over Peach
• Win over Samus
• Loss to Narmaya
• Win in Jack-O/Jade(MK)/Junko/The Rogue vs Samus/Zelda/Rosalina/Camilla
• Loss in Jack-O vs Lara vs Misako vs Futaba vs Poison vs Aigis
• Loss in Jack-O/Kairi/Lenneth/Junko vs Velvet/Hat Kid/Jinx/Poison
• Loss in Jack-O vs Rosalina vs D.va vs Kula vs Lucca vs Kat
• Loss in Jack-O vs Kairi vs Alice vs Aigis vs Ann vs Kale
• Loss in Jack-O & Nero vs Tina/Peacock vs Shantae/Jade(MK) vs Byleth/Edelgard
• Win over Velvet

Now we’re in the final four of the tag exclusives section, otherwise known as the “Why are you tag exclusive again?” section. Well, that’s not going to be an issue going forward as Kairi has ditched Jack-O to go and wring her hands over Aqua instead. But given her performance during 2K22, I wouldn’t be too worried for Jack-O’s singles chances. She clearly knows what she’s doing. While it would take quite a bit longer for us to realize how big a win over Peach actually is, Jack-O took a victory over her and Samus before crashing out of the tournament by running into Narmaya. Really, really hard in fact, she kind of got her ass beat.

I wouldn’t normally include the 4v4 in the rankings here, especially since it was actually The Rogue who got the pin over Rosalina to score the victory, but since Jack-O got the linear belt from it I kind of have to. How did this work? I don’t know, I don’t care. That’s the Linear, baby! Anyway after that she got a few more linear matches on her record before finishing off 2K22 with a win over Velvet, seeing her off as a fellow Genesis winner and taking up the torch for them. It’s a tough world out there for Genesis winners, you know? They think that winning Genesis guarantees themselves a spot in WVGCW, then they turn around to see that they hired The Rogue instead. Genesis wrestlers have to stick together…DID YOU HEAR THAT, KAIRI?

Anyway, Jack-O will be joining the rest of the roster up in the singles part of the write-ups next time around as she probably should have from the start. I understand that Halloween Town allowed for both the Genesis 3 finalists to debut at once, and the actual team is great to have around. But it’s always felt like a matter of “WHEN” rather than “IF” the two would eventually go into singles competition. With the recent firings, there are now more slots available in singles matches for both Jack-O and Kairi to fill. Jack-O stole Velvet’s match slots when she beat her, absorbed them right out like Shang Tsung sucking out some souls.

Kairi

• Loss to Aigis
• Loss in Kairi vs Primrose vs Velvet vs Edea vs Edelgard vs Sophitia
• Loss in Kairi/Junko/Jack-O/Lenneth vs Velvet/Hat Kid/Jinx/Poison
• Win in Kairi vs Agnes vs Morrigan vs Poison vs KOS-MOS vs Lucca vs Adeleine vs Sailor Moon
• Win in Kairi vs Ann vs Aigis vs Kale vs Jack-O vs Alice
• Loss in Kairi & Jack-O vs The Rogue & Lara vs Velvet & Marie vs Camilla & Byleth
• Loss in Kairi vs Edea vs 2B vs Byleth vs Lightning vs Rinoa vs Junko vs Peacock

As for Kairi, there’s not as much to say. Kairi vs Aigis was a very solid match that Kairi made a good effort in, but unlike her former tag partner she didn’t manage to find many chances to slip away from tag exclusive status and play at being a singles star outside of some linear matches. She did in fact get very close to scoring a linear cash-in, if not for Byleth pinning Jack-O and ending her linear run without Kairi even being pinned. Hey, maybe that’s why Kairi dumped her!

To be honest, out of Jack-O and Kairi it does feel like Kairi is the one who’s less prominent by herself. Jack-O has a bit more presence to her and has appeared in more singles action, she can stand on her own two feet a bit more. That may be why Kairi has been linked with Aqua in the way she has, it’s a personal plot point that can be tugged on and give her more of a story to follow. Jack-O doesn’t really need the crutch as much. For example, there’s never been any big rush to connect Jack-O and Dizzy together in the same way there has been to connect Aqua and Kairi. Kairi needs the help a bit more. If anything, she’s going to REALLY need it now that she’s involved a storyline that’s making her look like a total jerk and Jack-O like an abandoned puppy left out in the rain.

I do not envy Kairi right now, because the way she’s been written to leave Jack-O behind and essentially pick Aqua over her is going to follow Kairi around like a bad smell for some time. It’s very difficult when your first major plot incident involves you breaking up your team, we’re honestly more used to seeing heels do that while Kairi is doing it for an incredibly face reason. The most likely outcome is a Kairi vs Aqua feud down the road, or Aqua breaking off from The Spellweavers to form The Norty Guys with Kairi. Time will tell. Just don’t be surprised to see a lot of the audience frowning and tutting at Kairi for a while when she appears in 2K24.

Byleth

• Loss in Byleth vs Lili vs Aqua vs Terra vs Sheena vs Cate vs Velvet vs Tina
• Loss in Byleth vs Kale vs Tina vs Lili
• Win in Byleth vs Wagner vs Sailor Moon vs Nero vs Rydia vs Marie
• Loss in Byleth vs Adeleine vs D.va vs Callie vs Agnes vs Daisy (Online Special)
• Loss in Byleth/Edelgard/Sypha/Samus vs Sailor Moon/Isabelle/Terra/Aqua
• Win in Byleth & Camilla vs Jack-O & Kairi vs The Rogue & Lara vs Velvet & Marie
• Loss in Byleth vs Tina vs Agnes vs Juri vs Primrose vs Dizzy
• Loss in Byleth & Edelgard vs Shantae/Jade(MK) vs Tina/Peacock vs Jack-O/Nero
• Loss in Byleth vs Peacock vs Junko vs Kairi vs Rinoa vs Lightning vs 2B vs Edea
• Loss in Byleth vs Alice vs Kyoko vs Peacock vs Marie vs Junko

Byleth has appeared in a lot of linear matches. Like, a LOT of linear matches. As in, every single match Byleth has appeared in as a singles wrestler has been a linear match. Clearly there are people out there who really, really want to see their professor taking some chumps to school. While she herself has been willing to act as more of a sidekick to Edelgard in terms of plot, Byleth herself has been seen all throughout 2K22 in multiwoman matches and various tag matches. Through the tag scene, the linear scene, and their regular appearances in plot, The Black Eagles have become an incredibly common sight in WVGCW very quickly.

I would reckon that part of the appeal of picking Byleth for the linear is that she, Edelgard and Sailor Moon count for some of the newest members of the roster. While Edelgard and Byleth didn’t debut in 2K22, they may as well have as they debuted on the very last 2K19 show before the conversion. Our communal love for Newcomer #1 and Newcomer #2 draws us to give them matches, and I would honestly say at this point that Edelgard and Byleth might as well not even count as tag exclusives for it. With eight matches as a singles wrestler in her first two seasons, she’s really not that far off a lot of the other roster members when you take into account overall match numbers. If you told Byleth now that she’s meant to be tag exclusive, she’d probably tell you she had absolutely no idea that was the case while heading out to the ring for her umpteenth linear match. Oh wait, shit. The linear is dead now…well, she had a good run! Time to hire Lilina!

Edelgard

• Loss in Edelgard vs Sophitia vs Edea vs Velvet vs Primrose vs Kairi
• Loss in Edelgard vs Rydia vs Caulifla vs Adeleine vs D.va vs 2B
• Loss in Edelgard vs Kale vs Shantae vs Peacock vs Morrigan
• Win in Edelgard/Kale/Amy vs Aigis/Lili/Agnes
• Win over Sailor Moon
• Loss in Edelgard/Byleth/Samus/Sypha vs Sailor Moon/Isabelle/Terra/Aqua
• Win in Edelgard vs Miku vs Alice vs Asuka vs Edea vs Daisy
• Loss in Edelgard & Byleth vs Shantae/Jade(MK) vs Tina/Peacock vs Jack-O/Nero
• Loss in Edelgard vs Cate vs Joanna vs Junko vs Jill vs Rinoa
• Win in Edelgard/Garnet/Narmaya vs Kris/Aqua/Lightning
• Win over Kris

But talking about Byleth and her pseudo state of tag team exclusivity, it honestly works out better that she wasn’t jumping into singles matches. Because if Byleth could take part in singles matches, then so could Edelgard. Oh boy, this season would have been thrown for a loop if Edelgard could be in singles as well.

Within the span of 2K22, Edelgard has practically taken over WVGCW or at least is one assassination of a lawyer away from doing so. Not like it’s the first time Franziska has tangled with hitmen. Since debuting in WVGCW, the Black Eagles have not only been working as a tag team but Edelgard herself has been involved in the plot pretty much since day one, working to undermine and attack Palutena mainly due to bad vibes and hunches. Turns out she was totally correct on that front though. Edelgard has also been involved in several linear matches like her very much beloved professor, but she has also been involved in certain special matches like the Team Red vs Team White Christmas matches, or her PPV matches against Team Palutena or Kris. Basically, take everything Byleth has done and add even more to it, and you have Edelgard. This empress has done a LOT, and she’s only three apples high!

So if Edelgard could also fight in singles at the same time as doing all of this? Well, I’m not going to spout hyperbole and say that Edelgard would have had exactly as many matches as she had in 2K22 plus a heaping helping of singles. Doubtlessly some of her linear appearances would have been denied, or her tag matches changed, if she was actually doing stuff as a singles wrestler as well. What I AM going to point out is that, if Edelgard was allowed to be a singles wrestler, there is a significant chance she’d have done very well indeed. She’s undefeated in singles and her two matches were against Sailor Moon and Kris. They’re pretty damn good!

So if Edelgard had been let loose on the singles scene, there was a significant chance that her own plot against Palutena might have been affected by Edelgard having to fight for some kind of singles titles on big PPV days. While it would have been hilarious to see Palutena seething about that, we kind of already had that going on with Jinx anyway so it wouldn’t have hit as hard. Basically, being tag exclusive kind of helped Edelgard from being overbooked to the point of ridiculousness. As such Edelgard has joined the roster without too much friction, which is impressive considering just how much she’s been around. She’s fit in quite naturally, and I don’t see anyone comparing her to, say, Adam Jensen in terms of her new role on the show and regular appearance in matches. Edelgard has appeared just enough without becoming overbearing, and by foregoing on singles matches she’s had more time to hang out backstage and ogle her wife. GRUG LIKE LONG MATCHES! GRUG WIFE PRETTY! GRUG WANT SNU SNU!

There are some people who may say my work is needlessly derivative. That it takes little skill to simply discuss the details of a show that’s already ran and regurgitate it onto the page. That all the hard work has been done for me. That it’s a “big wall of garbage nobody reads”. Well maybe so, but not today! Today Semprini has put his journalist hat on and gone looking for a scoop! I decided I wanted to get something unique today, something a little different from lists and bullet points and hating on Jill. That’s when I discovered Moogle rooting around the back of Tescos trying to gather up some leftover meal deals to stock up the Rampage cafeteria. As a fellow Brit I figured I’d be able to get some decent conversation out of her, and thus I began asking her questions about the hottest show on the VGCW Network, the one on everyone’s lips!

Anyway, after I was done asking her about Home & Away I decided to ask her about VGCW Rampage instead. DIS IS RAMPAGE, BABY! DIS IS THE SHOW YOU BEEN WAITING ON!

Many thanks to Moogle for the interview!
————————————————————–
Rude_Semprini: Finally those fatcats in WVGCW will take me seriously when I get an interview with a real showrunner. Notty will stop making me do the griddy and saying “Go Write Boy go”

Moogle: Oh lord we starting now?

Rude_Semprini: I was slipping into an interviewer mode I didn’t even realize I had as a feature. To start us off, can you talk about how Rampage first came to be?

Moogle: Rampage is intended to be the show to cover for gaps in the schedule. This can allow, say, Notty more time to write plots, Doom more time to get a match, or Nap more time to go to Disney World; which is how the pilot episode came into existence. It can cover certain Friday’s too when Genesis isn’t running.

Rude_Semprini: Did you have an idea from the start who you were going to put in the show?

Moogle: There’s a lot of history to who ended up on Rampage through the years. I had Athena in mind since 2019 at the latest.

Moogle: I believe this is pre-smash version existing too. Her current theme is the first 10 seconds of the casette version, and then it goes into the Smash Version. So that old idea came to fruition and evovled with the passage of time

Rude_Semprini: You need the vocal opening, yeah.

Moogle: The casette version has the more GLASS SHATTERS start to it, so its great for an opening. Smash Version for the rest of it because it’s more clear than a 1986 song (Athena is really REALLY old!)

Rude_Semprini: It feel like it’s quite rare nowadays for a fighting game CAW to have their original-original theme. I think Guile did but I dunno who else, maybe I’m just bullshitting with that statistic.

Moogle: Athena is a mishmash to showcase her history. Her opening is from the 1987 Psycho Soldier game, while the rest of it is from the Smash Ultimate Remix. Her outfit is from KoF 2002, and her sigs & finishers are from a variety of KoF games. Psycho Ball is from her first appearance in those games in 1994.

Rude_Semprini: That’s really cool, I didn’t think about how you could make fighting game wrestlers who take from so many different eras nowadays. What was it that drew you to Athena? Her legacy or are you into KoF as a series?

Moogle: I actually knew Athena’s song before Athena herself as a character, and I remember liking it a lot as a potential intro theme. I have never played a KoF game at all, I get inspiration to do quite a few characters BECAUSE they have great themes that suit the wrestling environment. Athena also had like 20+ costumes for me to go through too, and she just looks nice in general. Really stands out. She was also used on Belmont’s old indie show as his interviewer and sometime wrestler, but I wasn’t actually aware of that until she debuted.

Rude_Semprini: Ohhh shit she was, I think I remember that from years back. I imagine Belmont’s had some good music to suggest for her matches.

Moogle: Yeah he sent me some, but I did a lot of research for myself (KOF ’02 UM OST is so dope, and so are a lot of the official arranged OST’s from the 90’s KOF games)

Rude_Semprini: Problem with searching through KoF music for the best ones is that shit is too good, I’d be too tempted to grab more KoF wrestlers just to use it. Episode of Rampage where King (KoF) debuts in one match and King (Tekken) debuts in the one after

Moogle: That’s my new mixed tag team. They are just simply called Kings of Fighters

Rude_Semprini: Stu Pickles you are fucking deceased my dude

Moogle: Athena is important to talk about because she really was just hired because I liked her theme song LOL

Rude_Semprini: Having a good theme song has carried wrestlers through more than 10 years of wrestling at this stage, it’s pretty vital.

Moogle: I wasn’t even aware of her new looks or anything personality wise. I had to go out and research so much once she started doing well. That leads into the tournament and how I came up with the idea to do pre-match “plot”. This shit is all a big butterfly effect

Rude_Semprini: God we have got to talk to talk about the plot because the reveal of plot on Rampage was so good. Did you have Athena’s character in mind when Rampage started or did that build up when she won the tournament?

Moogle: I didn’t hire a single character with plot in mind. Only that

a. they were made

b. they had a good theme

c. I was at least sure that SOMEONE would appreciate them being here

Athena was in the curtain jerk of the very first (real) episode of Rampage. She lost because her standing finisher (very important!) got reversed by Linkle into a rollup.

That’s right, the very first real match ended up being between the likely two strongest people on roster.

Rude_Semprini: And then you nearly called the tournament Queen of Fighters? Damn, Athena was one of the most important wrestlers on the show before she even got the title shot.

Moogle: The tournament is officially called Queen of Fighters and I consider it an achievement to win. People did infact have to qualify for it and have a good record. I didn’t officially name it when announcing it because I didn’t want it influencing people into voting Athena as the winner, she’s still very much an underdog at this point.

In fact she was the LAST person to qualify for it! That Jupiter match in the prior episode before the tourney? If she lost that Jupiter takes her place, and boy was she losing that match HARD to start with before she made a miracle comeback.

Rude_Semprini: Yeah, even though Rampage doesn’t have that many episodes yet it did feel like everyone in the tournament belonged in the running. Also hey I just remembered Linkle fought Athena in the semi-finals, and now will probably be the #1 contender so we may be getting the rubber match.

Speaking of Linkle your Genesis picks for Rampage are all really damn good. Feels like you got a good mix of fan favourites and wrestlers who feel like they’re pretty big deals when they’re thrown into an untested roster.

Moogle: I don’t think people will contest that the Genesis person to benefit the most from coming to Rampage is the little minging robot girl, Rebecca. She also gained immensely from the pre-match plots. I guess it was fitting that her vs Athena was the finals of that then.

You mentioned if I knew anything about Athena’s character early. The answer is no, I used youtube and KoF wiki to pick up pieces of how she’d act. This also applies to Rebecca, where I watched Cyberpunk Edgerunner, But It’s Just Rebecca to get how she works in plots

Rude_Semprini: I also haven’t watched Cyberpunk but Rebecca is my fave wrestler on the roster right now. I really love how her CAW stands out and now she gets to be the main heel of Rampage too. I love how Athena specifically mentions she isn’t invited to the celebration concert.

Moogle: I tried not to think of Face or Heel dynamics when I was doing the writing, I like to think more on how certain characters would act towards each other. I’m a character writer more than a wrestling writer. We are essentially watching an Arcade Mode of a fighting game unfold. At least, that was how I tried to portray it all. Athena got an Arcade Ending of “congrats you won, now you get to do idol singing on top of Roll’s airship”.

Actually I’m not a writer at all. I just think how characters would talk to each other and go with the vibes. Drop some references in to their home games if I can too.

Rude_Semprini: I like it, the pre-match snippets does give it more of an arcade feel. Are you planning on incorporating more dedicated plot scenes like WVGCW or are you thinking of keeping it as pre and post battle dialogue?

Moogle: I actually do all of my plot in Sony Vegas rather than using a dedicated VN program like Ren’py. This takes a long time so likely their won’t be the long plots like WV does (they also have a dedicated person doing them, I am just 1 person)

Never say never though. I might get random inspiration for something that warrants more longer form plot. I do prefer more slice-of-life skit style plots to long term things too though.

Rude_Semprini: Suppose it would depend on the situation, could be used in feuds to up the stakes but otherwise yeah, I think the pre and post battle banter gives Rampage a more unique flair. More snappy, less wordy.

Moogle: Athena’s character was why I was looking at KoF13 videos in the first place. I wanted to see how she acted when against the rest of the cast, and that’s when I saw how they did the pre-match banter layout

Rude_Semprini: So it was through researching Athena that you got inspired in emulating her games plot scenes.

Moving on to the second most important figure in Rampage right now, I have to ask about Roll. When and why did you decide to bring her back for Rampage, even putting her in the very first match?

Moogle: Check out THIS SHIT from 2017

Rude_Semprini: Roll was in the very first match of the first episode wasn’t she?

Moogle: Yes, Roll was in the very first match of what I’m retroactively going to call “the pilot show”. That was only ever supposed to be a one-off thing to cover for Nap going to Disneyland. She beat former Genesis and future royal rampage winner, Miu in it!

Rude_Semprini: Roll was a lock on from the start then?

Moogle: So ever since like 2017 I’ve been on the Bring Roll Back train because the reason she left in the first place was entirely manmade and preventable. She never came back too despite that last plot saying she’d be back!

As we can see by sagely advice from 2017 Captain here. This was all the reason I needed to bring her back for 2k22 Rampage. I made her and I felt like people would respond warmly to her returning.

Here is 2018 Notty asking an important question

And here is 2018 Moogle answering that question. Funny how things work out in 2024!

Rude_Semprini: Ha, Palutena could have ended up on Rampage in another timeline then.

Moogle: So I brought Roll back, revamped her moveset based around rolling, gave her a theme that’s from her game too (she had Classic Roll theme in WV), and she was ready to go again. I’ve liked Roll ever since she was a main feature on TOH’s @Home. My fave character on there before I even knew about WVGCW being a thing.

Rude_Semprini: Everyone did seem very willing to forget about the past bullshit which is good because Ridge Holland has since taken that terrible gimmick

Moogle: Salvagable vs Opportunity Cost. WVGCW didn’t bring her back later on because of a newcomer list a mile high and those don’t come with ‘baggage’ like Roll had. Genesis used Classic Roll as a sorta bridge between them, but Rampage was a fresh clean show and that felt like the right time to just push the trigger. I’d look silly if I kept asking for her to come back and then not be brave enough to commit to it too!

Rude_Semprini: Glad you did, I was always pretty uncomfortable with how she was treated back in her retirement. I think nowadays we know to be more careful about what labels you stick on a wrestler because an online audience NEVER lets shit go.

Were there any other former WVGCW stars you were considering throwing into Rampage/are considering?

Moogle: I believe Tifa was of interest thanks to Remake/Rebirth doing a better job with her than the original. Sadly she also has to compete with Aerith (A Genesis winner) and Yuffie, who is so Moogle-coded people thought she was always on my roster despite her just showing up for the season ending rumble!

Rude_Semprini: Yuffie was just hiding the whole time she was employed. You never knew it Moogle, but she was always…there.

Moogle: Didn’t show up for work today!

But yeah going through my messages that have “Roll” in them it looks like I’ve been asking her to come back every year since like 2017.

Me keeping the memory alive for years to come.

Rude_Semprini: Roll fucking left the show because she was too depressed to wrestle anymore. That is just insane looking back

Moogle: I think wrestling having emotions in like that can work, but there has to be at least an ending to it. Roll just left depressed, said she’d be back, and then never returned

Rude_Semprini: Glad that she finally got a happy ending to all of that and that she managed to get a good 2K22 run before we all jump to 2K24.

Moving onto a bit of a different topic, Rampage has men! Was that always part of the plan for your show or did you decide to include the lads as you were working up to it?

Moogle: So at the time of the pilot airing, there was zero men content on the network. BWA was off because Belmont hated 2k22, Genesis was doing a women’s season too. That did leave men open to be used somewhere.

The pilot episode of Rampage was done on a 2 day turnaround. That meant I had to fill 5 match slots with women and I didn’t have that many that I wanted to showcase at the time. But I DID have Illidan and Vivi fully made with movesets and entrances ready to go! It wasn’t a conscious decision at the time to use men, but well limitations breed innovations and all that, and then the middle of the card mens match was born!

Rude_Semprini: And once men were allowed it was only a matter of time until STU PICKLES was hired, of course

Moogle: The very first mixed tag was a match between Trucy/Phoenix and X-23/Wolverine. This also won match of the night! So the concept of doing more mixed tags blew up from there.

Rude_Semprini: Mixed tags don’t really feel like they’ve been used too much outside of Rampage. It’s an untapped well that you’ve used to great effect. Leaf and Snorlax is such a fantastic idea for a team

Moogle: There’s been murmurings of some people preferring humans in Pokemon, and some people preferring the actual Pokemon. So why not utilize both! WV already has Kris and May. So I wanted Leaf to do something different to those two since there’d inevitably be comparisons. I didn’t want her to be pokegirl #3. So I found a Snorlax CAW and put them together as a mixed tag act.

And of course Leaf/Snorlax vs Angelica/Stu went on to win MOTY for Rampage. It’s probably the most defining Rampage match for people too!

Rude_Semprini: Yeah, I go back to that one every now and then for the entrances at the very least. The TOHNA reference in 2023, we’re so fucking back

Moogle: I already stole @Home from TOH, now I stole his Rugrats.

I was like 14 when I watched TOHNA the first time. It’s funny how things that happened really early still influence you a decade later. The concept of men just existing to be in a funny match while surrounded by women would have been influenced from Doomgate too.

I just remember silly things like that from decades ago and think they’d be fun to utilize in the giant sandwich maker that is Rampage

Rude_Semprini: Personally as someone whose favourite VGCW wrestler was Illidan I am very happy seeing him come back and KO three people in a single match

Moogle: His legends contract stated “I must go over or else I go to NJPW” so I had to oblige.

Rude_Semprini: Illidan gonna go join DPW. Finally, this IS Deadlock

You also have a number of wrestlers who’ve popped up on Genesis throughout the years. What made you decide on which ones to grab?

Moogle: Sun Tzu once said in The Art of War “Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight.”

Basically he’s saying “they had CAW’s and were ready to go!”

Miu was chosen as Roll’s opponent on the very first show simply because Heim made her in 2k22 and she had an entrance and moveset. I know nothing about Danganronpa other than what’s appeared on the network.

The greatest victory is that which requires no battle, and that is me seeing CAW’s made so I don’t have to make them myself and witness the horrors of the 2k22 CAW Creator. 700 of my 1000 hours on 2k22 is probably because of how long I spent in that! Augh!

Rude_Semprini: At that point you’re earned the chance to just use whatever CAW you have to hand yeah.

Fuck it, Roll Casket vs Alexa Bliss to open Rampage! I wouldn’t argue after 1000 hours of this shite

Moogle: There’s a couple I made myself because I had ideas for them. Sakura with some help from Doc, so I could finally get my Alpha 3 team of her and Karin together.

Trucy, because the AA people constantly need feeding and being able to have a matches with her legendary father sounded fun in my head.

Yuffie was made by me to begin with so Genesis team cannot claim her, all they did was make her catphobic.

Rebecca is a funny one because I had to make her entire moveset from scratch, me and Meka could not figure out why she was unable to be DL’d with her Genesis moveset.

Rude_Semprini: Just another example of it being a good game. It is quite funny how many Genesis wrestlers BESIDES the actual winners get hired into shows.

Moogle: Genesis Winners and Losers only matter in the moment for me. If I feel like they can add something to my roster, regardless of their win rate, then they have a higher chance of appearing.

And hey it’s been working in reverse too. Linkle went back to Genesis to have a match, Stu & Angelica went for a mixed tag match, Raven has been there TWICE!

I’m also more open to keeping Genesis lore intact when they are on Rampage too. Rebecca & Linkle was built around them being BotR winners and they mentioned their BotR opponents prior to their match at the finale too, and of course Yuffie is a canon cat hater now thanks to her matches with Meow Skulls. Charlotons reunited on Rampage too (thanks Biff for these CAW’s)

Rude_Semprini: Rampage adds lore to the Genesis wrestlers and adds lore to Poison and Roll’s friendship meanwhile WVGCW adds lore that the Rampage roster is a bunch of squatters who just took over an old arena and set up camp.

Moogle: The homeless needed a home, empty territory is free real estate for sure!

Rude_Semprini: Everyone on the roster has a homemade shiv ready just in case WVGCW try to take their shit back. Especially the oomfies.

Before we finish up, I do have to ask who your own favourite members of the roster are, and who you’re the most excited to work with going into 2K24?

Moogle: Figuring out how to answer this without just going “Everyone is my favourite 🙂 “

Rude_Semprini: If that is your answer that is also fine, you’ve only got a small roster and you haven’t been going long enough for anyone to really annoy you I’d think!

Moogle: The people know I’m a big Yuffie stan. That’s why she’s losing all her matches next season so I avoid the favouritism allegations!

anti-rigging rigging

Rude_Semprini: Ahh the AEW Cody method. My final question is, what are the plans for Rampage going forward with 2K24 on the way?

Moogle: Every showrunner is currently on break now after dealing with the horrors that some of 2k22 inflicted upon us. Rampage plans are wait til the CM Punk patch hits before going fully back into it, some stuff really needs to be patched and fixed still.

I have a lot of ideas for what I want the show to look & feel like entering this new era, but it’s gonna take time and it’s gonna need 2k to give me back something too. I could handle 2k22’s warts because it was my first rodeo, but I don’t really wanna do it again!

Definitely a cliche way to end things but the answer of “Watch This Space ™️ ” feels apt here

Bayonetta

• Win over Edea
• Loss in Bayonetta/Juri/Peach/Morrigan vs Futaba/Samus/Sheena/Zelda
• Loss to Agnes
• Loss in Bayonetta vs Juri vs Poison vs Jill vs Rinoa
• Win over Amy
• Loss to Terra
• Win in Bayonetta vs Sophitia vs Velvet vs Miku vs Camilla
• Loss in Bayonetta vs Aigis vs Nero vs Junko vs Wagner vs Lara
• Loss to Junko
• Loss to May
• Loss to Lucina
• Loss in Bayonetta vs Isabelle vs Primrose vs The Rogue vs Junko
• Loss in Bayonetta vs Cadence vs Cate vs Joanna
• Win over Lara
• Loss to Zelda
• Loss to 2B

We’re gonna start and end this little segment with the two characters who have retired that I consider to be the most important of the batch. Let’s begin with someone who is no stranger to being on the first match of the card. The one and only Botchanetta has been around in WVGCW for years upon years now. Her influence on the show has varied throughout her tenure, as has her overall level of skill. Bayonetta has been all over the place, and been seen around the Co-op championship scene, the Casualette scene, and even the WVGCW Championship scene at various points in her career. Even as far as Season 9, Bayonetta was main eventing PPVs. She came close to beating Sophitia back when she was champion in fact! In the twilight years of her life, Bayonetta aimed lower down the card and in fact successfully became the inaugural Casual Champion as it was formed following the Casual/Classic title split before dropping it on her first defence to Medusa.

Bayonetta in the days of 2K13 and 2K14 was something of a wildcard who could go up against the likes of Terra or Ayla and nearly come away with the win. In fact, despite her falling reputation later on in years as we pushed into 2K17, 2K19 and 2K22, Bayonetta has never truly been a full-on jobber. Bayonetta has often scored a handful of singles wins in pretty much every game. You might forget about this though, because Bayonetta was fucking weird. Getting a read on her is nearly impossible, and at least in 2K22 the variety of her opponents wasn’t wide enough to judge her outside of the lowcard.

Bayonetta has, for a long time, been a phantom in WVGCW. She appears in a match, she wins or loses, and she goes away. Whenever she got any kind of potential momentum, chances are she simply would not win. Bayo did not get any plot in modern day WVGCW, because Bayonetta has been on the show for so many years that all her friends are either gone or ditched her. We talk about the likes of Cate or Jill or KOS-MOS feeling like loners, but Bayonetta was a ghost. No one talked to Bayonetta, no one talked about Bayonetta. People were more likely to talk about The Rogue and they actively try to avoid doing that in case she shows up. You could give her something to do, certainly, but you could never be sure if it would be worth it. Like, would you really prioritize someone who’s been here for over a decade over someone new? What do you do with Bayonetta when the overall love for her series has dwindled and her prospects as a wrestler feel so slim? Well what you do is you keep her around, twiddling her thumbs and throwing her out for a random match here or there…but here’s the thing…

Those random matches? Chances are they were good. Like, really good. Like, weirdly good for someone of Bayonetta’s skill level. 2K22 was actually a showcase of Bayonetta at her wildest in the ring. Her match with May, her match with Junko, her match with Lucina, her match with Amy. Bayonetta in 2K22 had a series of matches that were seriously great. If you look purely at win rates and momentum then yes, Bayonetta is pretty much stuck in the mud as she never managed to keep any kind of winning streak going whatsoever. But as a pure in-ring figure, Bayonetta’s run in 2K22 was like a Daniel Bryanesque farewell tour. You’d almost be convinced Bayonetta KNEW she was on the chopping block and wanted to make sure she ended 2K22 with some of her best work because damn, she put her working heels on for this game.

But in the end, I agree that it was time for Bayonetta to go. Her presence on the show felt dated, she didn’t feel like she fit in with the overall state of the roster, and she couldn’t string two wins together to save her life. But you know what? I’m glad Bayo gets to go out after a pair of seasons like this. Compared to some other names on this very list, Bayonetta went out while showing us her best form. If she had kept going on into 2K24, I’d be more harsh on her role in the show itself. But as she steps away from the ring with those ludicrously long legs of hers, I feel like we can see Bayo off as one of the most inconsistent but potentially incredible workers in WVGCW history. Go on Bayonetta…botch that move for me…one last time…

Velvet

• Win over Adeleine
• Loss in Velvet vs Sophitia vs Edelgard vs Edea vs Primrose vs Kairi
• Loss to Kris
• Loss in Velvet vs Lili vs Byleth vs Aqua vs Terra vs Sheena vs Cate vs Tina
• Win in Velvet vs KOS-MOS vs Edea vs Lucina vs Aqua vs The Rogue
• Loss in Velvet vs Rinoa vs Lara vs Alice
• Loss in Velvet vs Sophitia vs Bayonetta vs Miku vs Camilla
• Win over Kula
• Win in Velvet/Hat Kid/Jinx/Poison vs Junko/Kairi/Jack-O/Lenneth
• Loss to Medusa
• Loss in Velvet & Marie vs The Rogue & Lara vs Camilla & Byleth vs Jack-O & Kairi
• Loss in Velvet vs Nero vs Lucca vs Wagner vs Amy vs Kat
• Loss to Nyakuza Kid
• Loss to Sailor Moon
• Loss to Edea
• Loss to Jack-O

I had the same feeling that most people had upon seeing that Velvet was being retired. This one hurt. Potentially more than any other name on this list, losing Velvet hurt the most. Partly this is due to how fresh she was compared to some of the other retirees, partly this was due to how Velvet was the first Genesis hire on the show and indeed the winner of Genesis 1, part of this was due to seeing Velvet hit the height of her career so soon into it and that she never managed to match that level again.

Velvet’s initial run on her debut was potentially one of the greatest of all time. Coming in hot after winning Genesis 1 right at the end of 2018, Velvet went on an unstoppable hot streak that involved getting wins over Sheena, Edea, Zelda and Sophitia. Winning the Queen of the Ring tournament, Velvet stamped her ticket to Breakdown 11 to face Sypha in the main event. Despite her best efforts though, Velvet would lose that match…and though we didn’t know it at the time, she would never again hit those same lofty heights.

Velvet was still treated like a big deal going forward, but she got lost in the sea of uppercard talent with little to do as this was before the Classic title had been implemented and the topcard was under a Bad Girl lockdown. Whenever Velvet had the chance to score a big singles win and reignite her momentum, it spluttered out. Outside of a PPV win over a raging Rydia, Velvet would lose to the likes of Rosalina, Lucina, and Agnes. She would miss her chance at the Classic contendership that Agnes would in fact go on to win. Yet despite her struggles, there was always a sense that Velvet was going to bounce back at some point. She felt like too big a deal to stay down forever. At some point people figured things would change…but as much as Velvet had that Edea-like aura of someone who could always rise up from the ashes, she was also cursed with even worse luck than her.

Velvet was given a big chance however going into Season 14, one that stings with how close she came to reigniting the old flames. She quite aggressively put herself into the Sheena vs Sophitia Survivor Series match, and was the key figure in Sheena’s team coming out victorious. Following Sheena’s embarrassing defeat at the hands of Bad Girl, an enraged Velvet ended up challenging Sheena to a match…and she lost. The first match Sheena fought after being so absolutely squashed by Bad Girl was a win over Velvet. This was probably the death knell for poor Velvet. Being used as a rebound win for Sheena ended her momentum before it could truly start again.

She would potter around a bit longer, scoring wins over lowcarders and taking part in big multiwoman matches, but the damage to her image was done. Velvet felt like a wrestler who should be standing in the topcard, or at least the upper midcard, and as patiently as people waited for her to climb back up to that level she simply couldn’t do it. The idea of Velvet being a lowcarder just didn’t sit right. Someone like Velvet spending her career scoring wins over Kula and Adeleine? It felt wrong. When her name was announced as part of the squad of retirees, people were sad but mostly understanding. I think out of all the people on this list, Velvet was the one I’d be the most fine with going into 2K24. Giving her one last chance to see if she could make it work would have been fine with me, but I don’t know how long I’d have been willing to watch her if she’d ended up being a lowcarder again. It would have stung even worse, so maybe this was for the best.

Velvet was a bright flame that burned out quickly, lingering around in WVGCW while struggling to hit the same heights she had once come so close to touching. She came a hairs breadth away from the WVGCW Championship within her first season and never got a sniff of it again. Since her debut, more Genesis wrestlers have debuted and gone on to have brighter careers than her, but Velvet will always have her achievement as the winner of the big one. The first Genesis winner, and the benchmark that all other winners had to contend with. She burst onto WVGCW in a blaze of glory and I only wish she’d left a little fuel in the tank for afterwards.

KOS-MOS

• Loss in KOS-MOS vs Lara vs Jinx vs Joanna
• Loss to Daisy
• Loss in KOS-MOS vs Camilla vs Alice vs Callie vs Lili vs Misako
• Loss in KOS-MOS vs Aqua vs Amy vs Lara vs Kula vs Rydia
• Loss in KOS-MOS vs The Rogue vs Velvet vs Aqua vs Lucina vs Edea
• Loss to Joanna
• Win over Poison
• Loss in KOS-MOS vs Cauliifla vs Rosalina
• Loss in KOS-MOS vs Sailor Moon vs Adeleine vs Lucca vs Poison vs Morrigan vs Kairi vs Agnes
• Loss to Lucina
• Loss in KOS-MOS vs Riesz vs Miku vs Callie vs Camilla vs Poison
• Loss in KOS-MOS vs Agnes vs Wagner vs Cate vs Morrigan
• Loss to Dizzy
• Win over Junko

But we can’t really talk about wrestlers who hit a peak they simply couldn’t hit again without talking about KOS-MOS. Ohhh KOS-MOS. Rare is it to see a wrestler have to struggle against so much to prove her worth, only to end up with her biggest enemy being her own success. Debuting back in Season 3 of EDBW with a win over Aqua, KOS-MOS would arrive in WVGCW in Season 9 to debut against Casualette Champion R.Mika, actually defeating her and advancing further in the WVGCW Championship tournament. Not a bad start for a first match at all! She would be eliminated by Aqua in the Quarterfinals in a dramatic show of revenge booking, I assume.

KOS-MOS was most famous for her attack on the Ringside Reporter back in the 2K14 days, a move which led to RR being retired. The overly robotic wrestler faced off against Aigis in a losing effort in a Casualette contenders match and that was basically it for her season. No one really knew what was up with her and we wouldn’t get any answers until Season 10. The answers were a little nutso. After literally murdering Lightning, KOS-MOS went into hibernation for defragmenting for most of the season, only showing up for a qualifying match after about 4 months to ensure she wasn’t on the shelf for the ENTIRE season. Then it turned out that KOS-MOS was in fact Junko, hitching a ride to EDBW. She got beat up by 2B who proceeded to keep an eye on her while the now uncorrupted KOS-MOS basically just joined the show as herself and decided to gather some combat data.

So what did the ACTUAL KOS-MOS do in WVGCW? Well she started picking up a few wins here and there, building her momentum slowly through Season 11. She was actually doing pretty well, though the stink of her retiring RR lingered around for a while. If she had been given the time, she might have been able to start making a solid place for herself…but then something rather odd happened. Mosaic, a former member, won the chance to just pick a challenger to Sypha’s WVGCW championship and he decided fittingly enough to go with KOS-MOS. This was quite an out-there pick as KOS-MOS hadn’t exactly gone up against any major topcard wrestlers at this point. Coming off a win over Velvet at Breakdown, Sypha seemed to be almost certain to defend her title…and yet, she didn’t. Somehow or someway, KOS-MOS actually defeated Sypha and scored herself the WVGCW Championship practically out of nowhere!

This was a big thing to happen of course. Seeing a seemingly strong champion go down to a supposed midcarder at best was a shock to everyone. But it was also a rather unpopular thing around some of the audience. Certainly KOS-MOS fans were more than happy with the result, but if you didn’t really like KOS-MOS…well, her winning in an Extreme Rules match, her getting handpicked for the shot…a lot of people were watching to see how KOS-MOS did in her upcoming fatal fourway title defence to see if the robot warrior was worthy of such a prestigious title. Well she did her best. She certainly did better than Aqua who got eliminated about halfway into the match, but KOS-MOS did indeed get eliminated and thus lost her WVGCW Championship without defending it once.

This title loss was the beginning of the end for KOS-MOS, not because she was jeered for losing it but because of what it meant for her to have been a WVGCW Champion during this period. She couldn’t just be booted back down to the lowcard where she had been before after she successfully beat Sypha, so KOS-MOS had to be booked like a topcarder…and hindsight tells us that she probably wasn’t one. KOS-MOS was thrown up against Aqua and Nero in losing efforts before facing Zelda and actually managing to beat her. Okay, so she’s beaten Sypha AND Zelda. She’s a topcarder for sure then? Well, then she went on to lose to Sophitia, Edea, Rydia and Riesz before entering 2K22. So…honestly, it was kind of hard to say. KOS-MOS beat Sypha and Zelda back in the games when they were champion-level wrestlers so you can understand why she had to stick around the topcard, but with two wins and six losses to her name as a topcard-level wrestler, KOS-MOS struggled to prove herself and ultimately she never managed to convince the audience she belonged up there.

If she only hadn’t beaten Zelda, I think KOS-MOS could have been shuffled back down into the midcard. But she was a victim of her own success. She could only be booked as a topcarder and she just couldn’t win against that level consistently. When she did drop down the card in 2K22, it was too little too late. The audience weren’t reacting to KOS-MOS, her robotic manner of plot wasn’t particularly interesting, and it was decided that it would be better to let her go. Truth be told, I have never been a fan of KOS-MOS. I don’t find her a particularly fun wrestler to watch and her characterisation has always bored me. But looking back over her career I’ve seen some sparks of great work from her, and some really good matches that may have gone forgotten like her matches with Poison and Lucina. Her history is an incredibly unique one, and a testament to why just winning the biggest title in the show isn’t all that’s needed to secure your legacy. But she still managed to shock the world nonetheless. I might not have been a fan of KOS-MOS, but I do respect what she did and the difficult situation she found herself in.

Wagner

• Loss in Wagner vs Lightning vs Jack-O vs Cadence vs Peacock vs Amy vs Morrigan vs Cate
• Loss to Hat Kid
• Loss in Wagner vs Cate vs Lightning vs Amy vs Aqua vs Ann
• Loss in Wagner vs Terra vs Bad Girl vs D.va vs Aigis
• Win over Bad Girl
• Loss in Wagner vs Hat Kid vs Agnes vs Cadence vs Jade (MK) vs 2B vs Peach vs Primrose
• Loss to Terra
• Win in Wagner vs Bayonetta vs Aigis vs Nero vs Junko vs Lara
• Loss in Wagner vs Sailor Moon vs Nero vs Byleth vs Rydia vs Marie
• Loss in Wagner vs Amy vs D.va vs Primrose vs Edea vs Asuka
• Win over Camilla
• Loss in Wagner vs Poison vs Juri
• Loss in Wagner vs Lucca vs Velvet vs Nero vs Amy vs Kat
• Loss to Alice
• Loss in Wagner vs Agnes vs KOS-MOS vs Cate vs Morrigan
• Loss to Amy
• Loss to Dizzy

BUT YOU KNOW A WRESTLER I DON’T RESPECT? LEMME TELL YOU, PEEEEEEEE-YEEEEEEEW! LEMME TELL YA ABOUT A GAL WHO JUST STRAIGHT UP STINKS!

Look, I’m trying my best. I want to be as non-biased as I can be. I’m happy to talk about wrestlers I didn’t care that much about like Bayonetta and KOS-MOS in respectful, glowing terms. I want people to remember them at their best. But Wagner? Did she even HAVE a best? How many Wagner matches do we really remember? She hit the BIGGEST STEPPY on Terra after running in the 90’s but that was more the game than her. She’s had matches with the likes of Poison and Hat Kid that were thoroughly mediocre which is almost impressive. She was thrown into match after match after match and for the life of me I’m struggling to remember a single one of them outside the ones like her win over Bad Girl where she won thanks to Bad Girl’s shitty Ai, and her loss to Alice where she just got her ass thoroughly beat.

The sheer amount of Wagner matches, as Moogle will happily tell you, is ridiculous. She kept getting thrown out into that ring to try and get a reaction out of anyone beyond Ant and it just wasn’t working! “Oh but Semprini, the crowd was always hype for Wagner!” you wouldn’t say because you’re not stupid but I’ll act like you are for the purposes of this paragraph. No, IDIOT, they were cheering for a different Wagner! The ONLY audience reaction Wagner has ever gotten is when people are spamming Von Wagner memes. He’s more over with the WVGCW audience than Wagner herself ever was, and Wagner sucks so much that she couldn’t even utilise that! People have gotten popular over wrestling memes or chat gimmicks before. M.Bison’s entire career was based around people cheering TUESDAY at him, but Wagner still couldn’t make the audience care about her! I hate that idea!

My lord she’s had some stinkers across her career. Wagner was one of the wrestlers who you’d often see just not get a single vote on the MOTN poll. She often didn’t even have bad enough matches to get past our irony sensors and make us vote for it out of Stockholm Syndrome, she was just boring! She had like one singles MOTN and it was when she glitched out fighting Terra. There’s a long list of bad or just boring aah matches from this girl. Wagner vs Morrigan, Wagner vs Dizzy, Wagner vs Bad Girl, Wagner vs Kula. That one is notable as being one of Wagner’s only feuds and it STUNK! Kula kicked her ass and Wagner just fucked off! It’s almost impressive! How do you manage to be this boring this consistently? She never even had her own Kyle O’Reilly to work off, and that’s for the best as her character was just ANGRY GIRL. Who would willingly hang out with her? You’d either need the patience of a saint or the masochistic streak of a sinner!

But in the end, as we look over the dust of Wagner’s career, I’m glad she was here. You know who Wagner was? Wagner was our Decapre. Wagner was our Impa. Wagner was someone we could point to and say “Well at least my favourite doesn’t suck like them” and we’d feel a little better about ourselves. A wrestling roster needs some losers, is what I think. If you don’t have any losers on your roster, then the audience will decide who is one for you. Wagner was a lightning rod to absorb the haters ire while others like Morrigan or Rinoa managed to sneak by mostly unzapped. Now that Wagner is gone, the heat will be back on the rest of the roster. The biggest stepper of them all has gone, and the Wagner experiment ended up a failure. But by God, there was an attempt. You never know until you try if a wrestler you know nothing about is going to stand out and shock the world…and boy, did Wagner shock us. Then, now, and forever. It will always be Cum Tuesday.

Lara

• Loss in Lara vs Jinx vs Joanna vs KOS-MOS
• Loss to Jade (BG&E)
• Loss in Lara vs Aqua vs Amy vs KOS-MOS vs Kula vs Rydia
• Loss in Lara vs Peach vs Juri
• Loss in Lara vs Jack-O vs Misako vs Futaba vs Poison vs Aigis
• Win over Futaba
• Win in Lara vs Alice vs Rinoa vs Velvet
• Loss to May
• Loss in Lara vs Bayonetta vs Aigis vs Junko vs Wagner vs Nero
• Win over Camilla
• Loss in Lara & The Rogue vs Marie & Velvet vs Camilla & Byleth vs Jack-O & Kairi
• Loss in Lara vs Morrigan vs Poison vs Junko vs Peacock
• Loss to Bayonetta
• Win over Samus

God, what do you even say about Lara? How lucky we were to be around when Lara Croft was wrestling in WVGCW. I don’t think there’s going to be another one like her, and I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. It’s fitting that Lara and Jill are on the same list as their careers were honestly similar in some very strong ways before they diverged. Debuting all the way at the start 2013, Lara survived a full decade of wrestling before finally heading off to the big shower in the sky. Her early career was spotty, trading wins here and there while never really getting a sniff of any titles. She was in the MITB matches a few times but would never win them. She was certainly most famous for her feud with Samus at this time, a feud that I have discussed before and refuse to do so again…

…THEY HAD TEAMED UP FOR ONE GODDAMN MATCH WHY DID SAMUS WANT LARA DEAD THAT MUC-

Anyway, Lara’s career began to go through a resurgence around the same time as Jill’s did in fact. During the years of 2K14, Lara ended up becoming a genuine topcarder that would challenge for the belt unsuccessfully on a few occasions. She got wins over the likes of Jill and Carmen Sandiego throughout the late 2K14 seasons that kept her in the higher reaches of the card. Her new music and remake-styled appearance gave her a boost in popularity, but as time went on and Lara’s chances began to dwindle that support began to fade. Lara was overshadowed by the likes of Lucina and Sophitia, and by the end of 2K14 she was mostly known for becoming a victim of Cate’s shoot No Leg Drops Forever.

In 2K17 though, things went really sour for Lara. She returned to her 2K13 level of skill and struggled to get wins or plot appearances. She had lost her prestige of being a title contender and fell down the card, with no one looking to PROTECT HER. But she didn’t simply accept her place. Around Season 12, Lara really leaned in to her messy appearance. Following what seemed to be an awakening by Juri, Lara became an unhinged menace to society that craved blood and loved taking part in the BLOODY HUMAN COCKFIGHTING that was WVGCW. This is where we see the major split between her and Jill’s careers. Jill never really went through the kind of low point that Lara did, she didn’t get that much weaker going into 2K17 like her. Jill remained exactly the same character as ever, for better and for worse. Lara though? She was ALL SMILES. Lara’s career was reinvigorated by the change in her appearance and personality, and the crazed monster would go on to…basically lose every match she was in.

Yeah, Lara’s turn didn’t really affect her wrestling at all, but damn was she more fun to have around. She became something of a wildcard in terms of what she would actually DO in the ring, but it would pretty much always end with her taking the loss. She won one singles match in 2K19 and it was against Bayonetta. In 2K22 we seemed to be on the verge of a miracle after Lara defeated Futaba and then went on to win a Casual Contenders match. Lara ended up in an actual title match for the first time in several long years, but despite a very good showing she would lose to May. Eventually Lara was pushed towards the door and retired, though not before she got a win over Samus Aran to finally end their decade long feud with her victory!

Lara was a fucking trainwreck. She could barely wrestle, she was a bizarre plot figure, and she never seemed to be any better than the lowcard outside of one peak in 2K14. But my god was she funny. ALL SMILES Lara has to be one of the most entertaining character shifts in WVGCW, and if anything it was almost funnier that she still didn’t win shit. I still remember how hyped everyone was for Lara to get that chance at May. If she had won that title match, she almost certainly wouldn’t be on this list and would be dragging her muddy boots into 2K24 in one way or another. But in the end, as fun as Lara was, I think we’d about reached the point where we’d seen enough of her creepy grin. You can’t let someone like Lara grow stale, better to leave while she’s on top…well, not on top, but not scraping the bottom of the barrel at least. Godspeed Lara. Hopefully you don’t get shipwrecked again on your way out of WVGCW.

Jill Valentine

• Win in Jill vs D.va vs Rosalina vs Lucina vs Lucca
• Loss in Jill vs Sypha vs Sophitia vs Adeleine vs Camilla vs Samus
• Win over Alice
• Loss to Kale
• Loss in Jill vs Bayonetta vs Juri vs Rinoa vs Poison
• Win over Camilla
• Win over Medusa
• Loss to Sheena
• Win over Agnes
• Win in Jill/Sailor Moon/Futaba/Kris vs Riesz/Sheena/Rydia/Junko
• Win in Jill vs Sailor Moon vs Futaba vs Kris vs Riesz vs Sheena vs Rydia vs Junko
• Loss to Jinx
• Loss to D.va
• Loss in Jill & Rinoa vs Junko & Edelgard vs Joanna & Cate
• Loss to Bad Girl
• Loss to Lightning

Now Jill…Jill, Jill, Jill…Jilly Jilly Jill Jill Jill…I hate Jill. I really hate Jill. Over time I grew to hate Jill probably the most out of any wrestler in the show. Jill was as much of a “close the tab and come back 20 minutes later” wrestler as you could get for me. I felt my energy get sapped away when I saw Jill, and I felt it evaporate from my body entirely when I saw Jill win, and oh my goodness did Jill win a lot. In terms of pure win-rate, Jill is most likely the strongest wrestler in this list. But in terms of my own personal feelings, I would rather watch Wagner squash Cate in 5 minutes than see Jill beat Cate in a 15 minute Match of the Season contender. My hater energy has almost entirely been saved so that it could be spent on hating Jill Valentine.

Why is this? Well lets start with Jill’s early career. Jill’s career was on the rocks as early as 2K14 when she went up against Ulala in an I Quit match to determine who got to stay in the show. Looking back, it was honestly unfair Ulala was even IN an I Quit match after only 5 losses but either way Jill sent her packing and regained her job security. Later on in 2K14 she would be reworked and became a notable topcard figure. She would join the likes of Cate and Chie in the title scene, but she would be unsuccessful in scoring the WVGCW Championship. After suffering losses to the likes of Lara and Sophitia on the path to the title, Jill was intentionally kept out of the Season 9 Contenders Tournament by GM Lightning who believed Jill had lost too many times to be allowed into the tournament without some kind of stipulation. If Jill was put in and lost, she would be set back for potentially the whole year catching up again. Unfortunately due to thus having a lack of contenders, this meant Lightning ended up taking Jill’s spot and this was not a good look for her. Jill went into a rage, accusing Lightning of stealing her spot and taking away Jill’s right to fight her own battles. She demanded a match with Lightning with the stipulation that she’d quit if she lost, which Lightning had been actively trying to avoid happening.

Lightning agreed to the match, putting her own position as GM on the line as well. Jill and Lightning fought at Breakdown 9 where Jill would be victorious, ending Lightning’s run as GM and once again winning an I Quit match for her career…

…she then proceeded to do precisely jack and shit with that win. It never really factored into anything Jill did. Jill went to 2K17 in her old uniform and just went back to being Jill. Lightning went on to do stuff with her character after Jill beat her, even if it did involve coming down with a sudden case of death, but Jill basically just got to keep her job and that it was it in terms of how it affected Jill as a character. Jill’s entire character trait was “Being Employed”.

Jill was actually very successful going into the later eras of the show, scoring the Casualette Championship from Morrigan in Season 11 via defending the Linear only to later lose it to Cate Archer who also cashed in with the Linear. Cate sure has had a lot of success with that thing over the years! This was around the point where the concept of Midseason Jill really set in. Jill had an odd habit of scoring enough wins to become a threat around the mid-season PPV’s but never make a mark on Breakdown itself. She was the Casualette Champion mid-season 11 for Nero Fest. She was the Linear champion going into The Royal mid-season 13. She won the Classic title off Agnes mid-season 14 at Splat Wres V, and most recently she even scored a WVGCW Championship shot against Jinx. Her reputation was so set that we just assumed it was mid-season when she scored the title shot even though there were no seasons at the time!

But through all of this, through title win after title win and contenders shot after contenders shot, Jill remained exactly the goddamn same. The world changed around her, new faces appeared for her to fight, and Jill remained the same as ever. A strong, boring, stoic wrestler who, win or lose, was going to be in the exact same situation she’s currently in by that time next season.

See, here’s the thing with Jill. Jill wins a lot. Jill wins over people you really wish she didn’t a lot. Jill will beat rising stars and popular wrestlers and stomp on ahead, unthinking and unfeeling like a lumbering beast. She’s not a particularly fun wrestler to watch, though she’s certainly not the worst. She might win in a strong fashion, she might just eek out a win. All of it makes no real difference to her. Her last plot scene was to build up her match with Jinx and she’s basically a brick wall of charisma. Jill haunted the singles title scenes, an ever-present spectre ready to score the odd title shot here or there as if it’s her god-given right to do so. Almost never did Jill fight a wrestler you would actually want her to win over, and almost always Jill would score a contenders shot, sometimes over literally seven other wrestlers you’d prefer. The reason I’d hate to see Jill win, even in a good match, even in a GREAT match, is because every win Jill scored was another chance for her to shove someone I liked more out of the way and run charging towards a PPV paycheck at full speed. Jill was simply inevitable in WVGCW.

But now she’s gone. Gone, gone, gone! No more inescapable Jill title matches halfway through the season, as regular as clockwork! No more dreading the momentum of a rising star hitting a Jill-shaped brick wall and faltering out! No more dread at seeing Jill go into a multiman while knowing in the back of your mind she’s definitely going to win! This black hole of charisma, this cop-shaped mass of walking boredom, this card-jumping asshole who somehow managed to get booked against the lowcard and uppercard as she pleased…she’s finally gone, and I hope the door hits her on the way out! We’re free! WE’RE FINALLY FREE!

Jade (Beyond Good & Evil)

• Loss in Jade (BG&E) vs D.va vs 2B vs Peach vs Narmaya vs Tina vs Samus vs Kula
• Win over Lara
• Loss to Nero
• Loss in Jade & Jade vs Halloween Town vs Black Eagles vs The Saiyans
• Win over Amy
• Loss in Jade & Jade vs The Spellweavers vs River City Girls
• Loss in Jade (BG&E) vs Joanna vs Kula vs Amy vs Sophitia vs Peacock
• Loss to Triple Triad
• Loss to the Queens of Iron Fist
• Win over Dizzy
• Loss to Narmaya

Thus we come to Jade (BG&E). I’ve spent a long time having to add those parenthesis marks and it’s going to be strange moving forward without them. I had to put Jade at the end, there was never any doubt about that. Is it due to nostalgia? Her last match swaying me? Perhaps they’re an influence, but Jade’s accomplishments are still tangible. Only Bayonetta and Jill can match her, though KOS-MOS is the only other person on this list to be a former WVGCW Champion. Jade spent a lot of her early career getting overlooked. Time and again people would ask for Jade to be given something to do as a popular fan favourite, and when her time came she certainly made a big impact. She would challenge the seemingly unstoppable Cate Archer, giving herself the kind of dynamic character that she’d been missing and setting up a long-running feud that would last for years. She would go on to defeat Cate after defeating Lucina and Lightning for the contendership, and would win her first WVGCW Championship.

Sadly this didn’t last as Cate would discover a totally reasonable and not at all contrived clause in the Championship contract that granted her a rematch. Cate would go on to win this rematch and secure the WVGCW Championship while Jade’s momentum was cut short by a returning Ivy Valentine. However, Cate herself would lose the title once more on her first defence to Chie and end up being thoroughly mocked by Ivy as well. This led to one of my favourite matches in 2K14 actually. Ivy vs Cate vs Jade at Breakdown 777. Cate and Jade decided that, as much as they hated each other, they hated Ivy more. This would be something of a theme for them going forward as the two would team up as often as they would fight each other. In the end, Jade hit Cate with the Scissors Kick and had her on the ropes, but decided to turn right around and hit the Tiger Bomb on Ivy to pin her. After being seen as the lesser of the trio in the build-up, Jade proved herself big and won the three-way feud outright.

While the remainer of 2K14 wasn’t particularly outstanding for Jade, what stood out was her surprisingly cool head about it. Jade wasn’t one to grumble or throw a tantrum, she simply came out to put in some work and sometimes it didn’t go as she hoped. She hung around the title scene in Season 8 while sadly never managing to score herself a major title match because Chie vs Jade would have ruled, but by the time Season 9 came around she was being invited into a tag team by Kitana. Jade HAD tried making a tag team with Cate earlier, and it went so horribly wrong that they never tried again until several years later.

But Kitana never actually made it to even having one match teaming with Kitana. Kitana outright left the show and decided to send Jade a replacement tag team partner: her green reskin, Jade (MK). Debuting in Season 9, the team of Jade & Jade would lose a contenders match to Nation of Animation, and the two teams would go into 2K17 with…rather different outcomes.

Thus we get to 2K17, a period of some real bad luck for Jade. For one thing, she got booked in singles less due to having a tag team to fight in as well, and when she did get enough singles wins to start sniffing the title scene again she got put into a Battle Royale contendership for it of all things. She came really close to winning it too but TERRAWINSLOL as it ever was. Contenders matches, tournaments, tag teams. Jade just couldn’t get a consistent streak going. Even going into 2K19, Jade was scoring wins here and there but struggled to retain enough of a streak to earn any kind of title shot. She wasn’t booked into Linears enough for that to be much of an option either. It really did seem like Jade’s star was falling down. Despite being generally popular, people lost interest in Jade. Looking through her career, a large portion of this may be due to the team of Jade & Jade. Being in the tag scene took Jade away from singles, which she was clearly better at. Sadly, Jade & Jade as a team was never as good as the sum of its parts. Both Jade’s fared better by themselves than as a unit.

Jade would help out Cate one more time, joining her in a tag match against the Queens of Iron Fist that was…a wild experience, to say the least. It would be a losing effort, and Jade was at risk of fading back into the shadows once more. So instead, she decided to make a gamble. Years after her star-making run in 2K14, Jade put everything on the line for a shot at Narmaya’s Classic Championship. If she lost, she would leave WVGCW.

I don’t think this match needs too much explaining. At this point it’s been voted Match of the Year and is one of the best matches of Narmaya’s career and almost certainly the best match of Jade’s. Jade threw everything she had at Narmaya and came inches away from taking down the strongest Classic champion WVGCW will likely ever have before finally succumbing. Jade would be given a round of applause by the WVGCW roster before setting off and retiring from the show with her head held high.

Jade’s career is a weird one looking back. When you consider the massive amount of time between 2K17 and 2K22, you realize that Jade truly didn’t do that much in terms of impact on the show. Her highest peaks in 2K14 were the heights of her career, and while Cate went on to continuously impact WVGCW in various ways, Jade simply never managed to keep up. There is definitely an argument that Jill was more impactful to the show overall…but damn, the way Jade went out on her own terms and decided to leave with her dignity puts such a neat bow on her career that I can’t help but be swayed by it. There’s a timeline out there where Jade & Jade never happens, and Jade remains a singles star going through 2K17 and 2K19. Would there have been any difference if she got more singles chances? Would she have fizzled out even faster or were there depths to her in those games we didn’t see? We can only speculate.

Jade spent a lot of time being forgotten, not just by the bookers but by us. She would often skip several Linears as she wasn’t being chosen, and there were big stretches of time when Jade just didn’t show up. I remember picking her as the choice for a Linear pick back in Season 11 and people were shocked to even see her show up. She had a great match with Nero and actually beat her, it was awesome to see her. The reason I hold Jade in such high esteem is that, the way her career was going, she was going to just be another quiet firing before 2K24 that would get a write-up about half this size. But in her final moments, Jade did more than just prove herself as a wrestler. She rewrote her own legacy. She’s considered to have the best retirement that WVGCW has ever had and considering some retirements have involved leaving from sheer depression or being evaporated into dust, it’s not particularly close.

Part of me will always be unsatisfied with how much I feel like we missed from Jade throughout her career, but after seeing the way she left the show I feel a lot better about it. Even if she had gone on to have championships later in her career, she still couldn’t ever ask for a better send-off than the one she got.

Sophitia Alexandra

• Loss to Primrose
• Win in Sophitia vs Camilla vs Samus vs Jill vs Sypha vs Adeleine
• Win in Sophitia vs Bad Girl vs Kyoko
• Win in Sophitia vs Edelgard vs Edea vs Velvet vs Primrose vs Kairi
• Win over The Spellweavers
• Loss to The Valkyries
• Win in Sophitia vs Peacock vs Amy vs Kula vs Jade (BG&E) vs Joanna
• Loss in Sophitia vs Bayonetta vs Velvet vs Miku vs Camilla
• Loss to Oracle

It was kind of a toss-up as to who went before each other, Sophitia or Lenneth. While Lenneth does have the singular win over Rosalina, I went with Sophitia since she was actually involved in the Co-op title match that her team won. Plus, while I don’t put as much stock in multiwoman matches as I do in regular singles, winning three multiwoman matches in a row stands out as something more than PURE luck to me. Mostly luck perhaps.

Context and prestige is also once again important when it comes to Sophitia. The fact that she ended up going on indefinite leave halfway through 2K22 means she only ended up having two singles matches, and one was…a little different than most. It’s not like we could assume SOPHITIA of all people would go through the rest of 2K22 without a singles win. If she had actually been given some more to test her out in, I’m sure we’d have seen her start picking up some victories. But Sophitia was purely caught up in her own plot throughout her 2K22 run, becoming gradually more overbearing and self-obsessed to the point of cruelty.

Sophitia’s heel run has been entirely about her believing herself to be the pinnacle of wrestling achievement and so very patiently showing the roster and the audience this undeniable fact. She is arrogance to the extreme and that attitude could be seen in how she treated her “daughters” as well. Using Futaba’s cripplingly low self-esteem and deep-rooted mother issues to recruit her under her wing, then looking set to ditch her for Ann while not caring in the slightest how much it would affect Futaba to be abandoned by her own mother figure…yeah, Sophitia was running on a heel level that few other wrestlers could ever match. She wasn’t just a physical powerhouse, she was a psychological manipulator who targeted the most vulnerable wrestlers she could find and twisted them to fit her particular mould of what she considered to be a good wrestler. It’s somewhat up to your own interpretation whether you think Sophitia genuinely was trying to make Ann and Futaba into “better” wrestlers or whether she was just using them for own advantage outright. Ultimately whether she had “good” intentions or not, Sophitia’s actions led to the same horrible outcome and it took a visit from the Phantom Thieves to finally stop her reign of traumatizing terror.

But now that the Phantom Thieves have come a-calling, where does this leave Sophitia? Anyone who knows about Persona 5 knows that people who’ve had their hearts stolen like Sophitia has tend to have rather abrupt changes to their motivations and desires. We never found out the reason for Sophitia going on indefinite leave but it could be assumed that she was so crippled with the guilt of what she’s been doing that she literally couldn’t function enough to wrestle. We haven’t heard a peep from her since that announcement, even though she’s been drafted to WVGCW Gold so Palutena clearly thinks a return is in the cards. What state she’ll be in when she returns remains to be seen, but it likely won’t be as the same heel she was when she left. So I hope everyone appreciates the time we spent with Heel Sophitia. She was an unstoppable dynamo of body breaking and mind corrupting wickedness that likely won’t be repeated. Everyone salute her as she goes, and then show her the middle finger. FUCK YOU MOM!

Sailor Moon

• Win over Morrigan
• Loss in Sailor Moon vs Edea vs Rosalina vs Callie vs The Rogue vs Lightning vs Samus vs Marie
• Win over Joanna
• Loss in Sailor Moon vs Wagner vs Nero vs Byleth vs Rydia vs Marie
• Loss to Edelgard
• Win in Sailor Moon/Isabelle/Terra/Aqua vs Edelgard/Byleth/Samus/Sypha
• Win in Sailor Moon vs Kat vs Lightning vs Amy vs Joanna vs Callie
• Loss in Sailor Moon vs Adeleine vs Lucca vs KOS-MOS vs Poison vs Morrigan vs Kairi vs Agnes
• Win in Sailor Moon/Futaba/Jill/Kris vs Junko/Rydia/Sheena/Riesz
• Loss in Sailor Moon vs Futaba vs Jill vs Kris vs Junko vs Rydia vs Sheena vs Riesz
• Loss to Jinx
• Win over Velvet

Meatball Head has gone and made herself a pretty central focus of the show in her time in WVGCW. You can’t say she hasn’t earned it either, she’s been putting on some incredible matches and scoring some decent wins pretty much from Day One. Despite her relatively short tenure so far, it does feel like Sailor Moon is a very established character on the show already, bringing a unique naïve innocence to the show that meshes very well with some of the more serious or chaotic wrestlers she’s been interacting with. It already feels like the show has greatly benefited from having a character like her around, and she’s added some top quality wrestling on top of that too.

Debuting around the back end of 2022, Sailor Moon has consistently been featured in plots, helped lead Team Palutena to victory over their foes, and even been involved in the main title scene. Getting a WVGCW Championship shot when your biggest singles win is against Joanna is what we call the Protagonist’s Advantage.

But to her credit, Sailor Moon’s match with Jinx was likely the best one of the three challengers that emerged from that 6-woman contenders match. There is certainly a universe out there where Jinx was dethroned by the sailor scout and we had Palutena more openly screwing her over by throwing Aqua at her afterwards. To be honest in terms of both how close the match was and the potential fallout following the match, Sailor Moon vs Jinx is one of the best matches of 2K22. But since she lost, Sailor Moon didn’t end up becoming the unwitting People’s Champion standing up to her Goddess and instead became a teary-eyed second-banana who felt like she had been quickly ditched by Palutena for the new hotness in Aqua. To be fair, she was totally right. She’s managed to alter the power dynamics now as she ran in on the Jinx vs Palutena match to help her Goddess boss win. This also has the knock-on effect of making sure Jinx can’t be hired to the same company as Sailor Moon to come and beat the shit out of her for doing it.

Palutena clearly feels like she owes Sailor Moon, though the feeling is very begrudging. It’s very interesting to see her actually using her two open draft picks to appease Moon rather than just telling her to piss off and choosing Narmaya and Aqua out of the gate or something. Clearly Palutena has now decided having Sailor Moon around her is more useful than not if she’s willing to actually pay back the rather massive debt she owes her instead of just skipping out on it. Maybe Palutena has just watched her show and realized that things can go very badly for villains who decide to fuck with Sailor Moon. That Moon Prism Power will rip you to shreds faster than a grenade going off in your pocket.

Futaba Sakura

• Win over Morrigan
• Win in Futaba/Samus/Sheena/Zelda vs Morrigan/Peach/Juri/Bayonetta
• Win over Dizzy
• Loss to May
• Loss in Futaba vs Jack-O vs Lara vs Misako vs Poison vs Aigis
• Loss to Lara
• Win over Sophitia
• Loss to The Returners
• Win over Primrose
• Win in Futaba/Sailor Moon/Jill/Kris vs Riesz/Sheena/Rydia/Junko
• Loss in Futaba vs Jill vs Sailor Moon vs Kris vs Riesz vs Sheena vs Rydia vs Junko
• Loss to Nero
• Win over Kyoko
• Loss to Kyoko
• Loss to Kyoko
• Win over The Rogue’s Gallery
• Loss to Double Dash!!
• Win over Dance Dance Revolution

The Artist Formerly Known as Oracle has come out of her shell in a big way during her 2K22 run. She started following up on the 2K19 Sophitia storyline wherein she was acting more mousey and submissive than ever before, practically throwing a tantrum in front of her opponents in a desperate bid to be useful to her “Mother”. It was a sad sight considering Futaba’s normally fun and light personality, watching her descend into her own insecurities to the point she started to resent her best friend for taking sweet Mother’s attention away from her. The entire Sophitia plotline was based around the Wicked Witch of Greece using Futaba’s own weaknesses against her and manipulating her into being a weak-willed servant. Futaba finally managed to break the chains around her thanks to Ann’s support and she ended up facing off against Sophitia in Sophitia’s own mindscape. This counts as PPV win for Futaba even though technically no match ever took place. Palutena wasn’t best pleased! I still wonder if there was untelevised interim match that we never saw instead during their spot on the PPV card. Probably Amy vs Kat, that feud does big numbers on the house show circuit.

But beyond her Sophitia situation, Futaba has been putting in some real work in 2K22 regardless. She’s got wins over Dizzy, Morrigan and Primrose…but also a squash loss to Lara which is just kind of funny. Futaba definitely had a chance to go further into the Tournament of Light but fell to the meat grinder that was May in that tournament. The biggest turning point for her was her win over Primrose that put her into the 6-woman WVGCW Championship contenders match. Even she didn’t know what the fuck was going on and seemed entirely confused as to how she got there. Sadly she didn’t make the top three of the match so never got the chance to go tustle with Jinx. That would have been a fun one. I don’t know how Meka would react to Jinx losing her title via a crotch shot.

Following that Futaba’s momentum was stalled by a loss to Nero and a Linear feud loss to Kyoko. With her singles hopes dashed, Futaba and Ann reunited as The Phantom Thieves to score the bronze medal overall and remind everyone they still exist, so 2K24 seems like a land of fresh opportunities for Futaba. With her best singles season so far under her belt and her tag team finally getting back together properly, there’s plenty for the neet to do provided she avoids any other mother figures. We do still have a few around to watch out for. Camilla is basically one. Cate just adopted a daughter. Samus will probably leave you alone as long as you have no connection to aliens…what, your Persona is a UFO? Aww shit, watch out for her then. THE BABY THE BABY THE BABY

Junko Enoshima

• Win over Zelda
• Win over Kula
• Loss to Hat Kid
• Loss in Junko vs Narmaya vs Kula vs Cadence vs Daisy vs D.va
• Win in Junko/Jack-O/Jade(MK)/The Rogue vs Samus/Zelda/Rosalina/Camilla
• Win over Miku
• Win over Queens of Iron Fist
• Loss in Junko vs Bayonetta vs Aigis vs Nero vs Wagner vs Lara
• Loss in Junko/Kairi/Jack-O/Lenneth vs Velvet/Hat Kid/Jinx/Poison
• Loss to the Squid Sisters
• Win over Bayonetta
• Loss in Junko/Riesz/Sheena/Rydia vs Kris/Jill/Sailor Moon/Futaba
• Loss in Junko vs Riesz vs Sheena vs Rydia vs Kris vs Jill vs Sailor Moon vs Futaba
• Loss to Jinx
• Loss in Junko vs Peacock vs Kairi vs Rinoa vs Lightning vs Byleth vs 2B vs Edea
• Win in Junko vs Bayonetta vs The Rogue vs Primrose vs Isabelle
• Loss in Junko vs Alice vs Kyoko vs Byleth vs Marie vs Junko
• Win in Junko vs Morrigan vs Lara vs Peacock vs Poison
• Loss to Lucina
• Loss in Junko vs Cate vs Joanna vs Edelgard vs Jill vs Rinoa
• Loss in Junko vs Dizzy vs Aigis
• Loss to KOS-MOS

I think it’s fair to say that Junko has not had a particularly star-studded career thus far. She has had very few highlights and has generally always retained a spot lower down the card. Her one big hurrah before 2K22 was a plot scene dunking on Sheena. But at this point…come on, dunking on Sheena is like the go-to for every heel. She’s an easy target. People dunk on Sheena even when they seemingly have no reason to do so. Palutena just dunked on Sheena for fun, she didn’t benefit one bit from doing it! Considering Junko then went out and got her ass beat by Sheena in response, Junko didn’t gain too much from fucking around and finding out.

But in 2K22, Junko has decided to pull up her stockings, straighten herself up, and make sure everyone knows her name…while begging you to stop cheering it and start booing it instead. Junko has both developed a character beyond her typical despair-loving self and also developed the in-ring skills to actually be a threat. It just so happens that Junko winning matches is no longer a threat. Everyone wants to see our beloved Junko win it all, she deserves it so much for being the biggest and best face around! It started with a win over Zelda in what was considered the best match of 2K22 up to that point.

Following this win, Junko noticed that the audience were actually praising her for winning and she did not like that one bit. Thus Junko’s gimmick for the rest of 2K22 was trying to find ways to get the audience to hate her more openly. Naturally this just led the audience to want to go against her wishes and cheer her instead, further sending Junko spiralling into insanity as she constantly failed to make anyone feel any kind of despair. Junko has been putting on absolute bangers against the likes of Hat Kid, Jinx and Lucina. Her match quality has jumped up dramatically along with her frustration.

What’s incredible about Junko’s abrupt shift in fortunes is that her in-ring skill and personality change have come at the same time. If she had simply gotten better in the ring, people still wouldn’t care about her. Junko has always suffered from what I call the “Despair Clause” wherein her wins and losses don’t really matter. If she loses, she feels despair and ultimately gains a victory. If she wins, she gains an actual victory. There was never much chance of a consequences for Junko as it seemed like she would get what she wanted regardless of whether she won or lost. So if she had instead changed her character to this new more comedic role and not gotten any stronger, she would have far less chances to showcase her new fun personality as she wouldn’t be getting as much plot.

No, Junko’s rise has required her to be both better in-ring and more fun as a character to create a topcard-teasing babyface who is cheered in both victory and defeat. She’s certainly one of the more unconventional faces we have as she will swear screaming that she’s NOT a face but we all know she’s just being humble. She is the face who runs this place and it’s going to take a long time for that to change. Basically until the audience suddenly decide we’re bored of it. It can happen at any time! The true despair we give is no longer to Junko, but to the writers!

Kat

• Win in Kat vs Medusa vs Riesz
• Win over Cate
• Win over Amy
• Loss to Kris
• Loss in Kat vs Edea vs Daisy vs Lucca vs Nero vs Hat Kid
• Loss to Amy
• Loss in Kat vs D.va vs Rosalina vs Jack-O vs Kula vs Lucca
• Win over Shantae
• Loss in Kat vs Sailor Moon vs Lightning vs Amy vs Joanna vs Callie
• Loss to Riesz
• Loss in Kat vs Lucca vs Wagner vs Velvet vs Nero vs Amy
• Win over Juri
• Loss in Kat vs Ann vs Amy vs Lucca vs Primrose vs Garnet
• Win in Kat vs Kula vs D.va
• Loss to Amy

Just to let you all know, I’m writing this at a point when I’ve only written four entries so far in the write-ups. This is because I needed to write about how fucking great the concept of a failed heel turn is in WVGCW early. The levels it works on are so many that it baffles me it hasn’t happened before.

We’ve had so many heel turns in WVGCW. We’ve seen so many people suddenly turn on their friends and declare they were losers all along. We’ve seen so many wrestlers get frustrated with their lack of success that they just snap and turn into assholes. We’ve seen so many people doing this that it makes total sense we’d see someone try and emulate that who wasn’t really committed to the bit, someone who’s seen the success it has brought others and tried to emulate it but just can’t bring themselves to do it.

Kat has watched people like Peach and Joanna and Sophitia all turn heel when they were under pressure and in a moment of weakness decided to join them. She attacked Lucca and was probably dead set on stomping out to the ring and blaming YOU PEOPLE for not believing in her. She was probably all riled up and ready to do all the typical heelish things that would have given her career a supposed breath of fresh air.

Then she saw someone who was upset and needed a shoulder to cry on. Her attempts to play the heel instantly crumbled into dust.

This works on many levels. For one, it gives Kat a unique turn that no one else has done before. A failed heel turn is so funny and so great that it’s honestly more memorable than most actual heel turns. Secondly, it makes Kat look like MORE of a face than ever before. She’s someone who genuinely can’t be a heel even if she tries to act like one. She’s just too nice, too empathetic, too affectionate to even PRETEND she doesn’t care about people. She saw that turning heel was a way of giving your career a boost and couldn’t commit past seeing one person who was upset. Can you imagine how she would have acted when someone ended up being upset through her own actions? She’d have been inconsolable!

Combine that with some absolutely stellar matches, the most prominent of which was the incredible Amy vs Kat Casual Championship match, and honestly? Kat ended up having a sneakily great 2K22. She can go into 2K24 with something fresh under her wings and potentially a new friendship depending on how things go with Sailor Moon. Her failed heel turn may well invigorate her career more than any regular heel turn ever could.

Amy Rose

• Loss in Amy vs Jack-O vs Lightning vs Wagner vs Cadence vs Peacock vs Morrigan vs Cate
• Win over Shantae
• Loss to Kat
• Loss in Amy vs Cate vs Lightning vs Wagner vs Aqua vs Ann
• Loss in Amy vs Aqua vs KOS-MOS vs Lara vs Kula vs Rydia
• Loss to Bayonetta
• Loss to Jade (BG&E)
• Loss in Amy vs Peacock vs Sophitia vs Kula vs Joanna vs Jade (BG&E)
• Win over Kat
• Win in Amy/Kale/Edelgard vs Aigis/Lili/Agnes
• Loss in Amy vs D.va vs Primrose vs Edea vs Wagner vs Asuka
• Loss in Amy vs Kat vs Sailor Moon vs Lightning vs Callie vs Joanna
• Win over Edea
• Loss in Amy vs Kat vs Lucca vs Wagner vs Nero vs Velvet
• Win in Amy/Riesz/Aqua vs Jinx/Narmaya/Garnet
• Win in Amy vs Kat vs Ann vs Lucca vs Primrose vs Garnet
• Win over Kat
• Loss to Cadence
• Win over Wagner
• Loss to Miku

Amy has been suffering from what I call the “They’ve Been Here That Long?” syndrome where I honestly was surprised to hear she’s been in the show since 2020. We’re 3 and a half years into Amy’s run now and as much as I enjoyed seeing her around in 2K19, she didn’t do much to stand out from the crowd apart from…you know…look like Amy Rose. She had a Classic contenders match with Kris, she won the Linear, she pattered around getting wins on the lowcard. All in all, Amy was a novelty that seemed to lack any kind of upwards momentum. It’s nice to have someone like her around, having a rep from a franchise as big as Sonic is good, but she was just generally liked. I don’t think anyone would consider Amy all that impressive or even important.

But during 2K22, Amy feels like she’s been settled into the fabric of the show much better. Not only has she been in more plot scenes with people and confirmed that a walking talking hedgehog is considered way more acceptable to be around than The Rogue ever was, Amy has been putting on more standout matches and picking up more consistent wins along the way. While Amy still struggles here or there, and never actually got the chance to fight any kind of major upper midcard presence in a one on one fight, she’s definitely not someone you’d choose to mess with nowadays. Speak softly and carry a big hammer.

Amy ended up in the running for a place in the 6-woman contenders match that was designed mostly to get that damn belt off Garnet and onto someone a bit lower down the card. Amy went into that Elimination Chamber and came out the other side with a shiny new belt and the prestige of being the person to finally take the Casual championship off the seemingly unbeatable Garnet. Being the one to dethrone Garnet was a massive achivement for Amy, though it comes with the caveate that she wasn’t able to do so by herself. Amy took the Casual championship in a 6-woman match and so we never saw Garnet pass the torch to someone in an actual one on one fight.

Amy’s first defence of her new title came when she went up against her eternal rival Kat. Over the course of 2K22 it became clear that Amy and Kat had continued to face off against one another in various fights, with each of them having a singles win over the other by the time their title match was set in stone. This culminated in a feud ending Casual championship rubber match where Amy just barely managed to score the win over her rival in one of the best matches of 2K22, defending her title and winning the feud 2-1. She would unfortunately go on to lose her title in her next defence to Cadence, but at least she was willing to show a willingness to put over someone who needed a win. REALLY needed a win. As in, kind of desperately and serioulsy needed a win.

After her title loss, Amy did end up scoring a Breakdown match in some way though. She defeated Wagner for the Linear title and went on to lose it to Miku in a Breakdown Backstage Brawl. Bitch. Amy goes into 2K24 with a more solid foundation than ever before, and she has the potential to shine even harder as a singles star. Lord knows she’s not pulling a rivals-to-friends thing with Kat and teaming with her, those two will rip the goddamn arena to pieces if they have to so much as share a locker room again.

Medusa

• Loss in Medusa vs Kat vs Riesz
• Win over 2B
• Loss to Sheena
• Win in Fate Dark/Zero vs Air Buds vs Triple Triad
• Loss in Medusa vs Narmaya vs Rydia vs Joanna vs Cate vs Morrigan
• Win in Fate Dark/Zero vs Nation of Animation vs Squid Sisters
• Loss in Fate Dark/Zero vs The Valkyries vs The Bluetails
• Win over Aqua
• Loss in Medusa vs Tina vs Peach vs Rydia vs Miku vs Adeleine
• Loss to Jill
• Win over Velvet
• Win over Squid Sisters
• Win in Medusa vs Lucina vs Cadence
• Win over Triple Triad
• Win over River City Girls
• Win over Diamonds are Forever
• Win over Terra
• Loss to The Returners
• Loss to Miku
• Loss to Agnes
• Win in Medusa vs Lucca vs May

Medusa, baby, what the fuck happened? If you want to talk about stop/start momentum, there’s few better examples than looking at Medusa. How the hell does a wrestler go from beating AQUA to losing to JILL? I’m more mad at Jill for that one, stealing away the momentum from better wrestlers to piss it away doing nothing is kind of Jill’s thing. But to then go from beating Terra to losing to Miku? Medusa could have been one of the biggest break-out stars of 2K22 with some of her wins, but she ended up fizzling out before she could even get started.

Not that her season was bad by any means. She and Joanna successfully scored the Co-op Championships from the River City Girls and defended them against Diamonds are Forever before dropping them to The Returners who would hold them until the end of 2K22. But as a singles star, Medusa is one of the bigger examples of a wrestler who could have been so much more than she was bottling it before we got to see her heights. Now look, Jill and Miku are not exactly pushovers even if Medusa fought Miku at a time when Miku was considered a big ol’ fraud. Certainly, the match where Miku actually BEAT Medusa was like she was fighting against 2K22 itself at the same time. But in the end, you can yell at the game and yell at Miku and yell about unreversible finishers till the cows come home. Medusa lost to Miku, then she lost to Agnes, and her 2K22 ended with a pity triple threat win before she slithered off back to her nest.

Does it sound like I’m being harsh? Maybe I am, but I’m being harsh because Medusa’s 2K22 was a good one that could have been amazing. Medusa is one of only two wrestlers in 2K22 to defeat Aqua in a singles match, and considering the people Aqua beat include the likes of Sheena, Nyakuza Kid and Jinx, that’s something very fucking impressive. The fact all that potential momentum was passed to Jill…JILL of all people…makes me grind my damn teeth. For it to even happen again later when she beat Terra was just proof that of Medusa’s stop/start nature.

If you can’t follow up on a big win with another win, you ain’t got no business in the 2K22 topcard, kiddo. Sure, you can beat Aqua once, but can you beat her twice? Can you beat her three times in a row? Jinx beat Hat Kid, Sheena, Narmaya and Lenneth all back to back to win her title. Sheena beat Jill, Kris, Rydia and Lenneth in a row. Hell, Aqua herself beat Lenneth, Jinx and Hat Kid in a row before losing to Narmaya. If you can’t string big wins together in a series, you won’t be SNIFFING a singles title! That’s your homework, Medusa. That’s what you gotta work on. Learn to actually get some proper back to back wins in 2K24 and maybe we’ll see you back here again, only this time I wanna see you at least score yourself a singles title match before we’re due for a new game!

Inactives

Sypha

• Win over Rinoa
• Loss in Sypha vs Jill vs Sophitia vs Adeleine vs Camilla vs Samus
• Loss to May
• Loss in Metroidvania vs Double Dash!! vs Bravely Second
• Loss to 2B
• Win over The Squid Sisters
• Loss to Diamonds are Forever
• Win over The Spellweavers
• Loss in Sypha/Samus/Byleth/Edelgard vs Sailor Moon/Isabelle/Terra/Aqua

We gotta do a bit of spring cleaning before we get towards the back end of the active roster. Let’s start off the leftovers with those who left of their OWN volition rather than it being decided for them. Well actually, I don’t think Sypha fits that description since she really only seemed to leave due to Samus dragging her along. While Sypha certainly has no love in her heart for any kind of God or Goddess, she probably wasn’t thinking about running off to the Underworld rather than work for her. But Sypha has mellowed out considerably since days as a champion. The formerly hot-headed mage is now willing to be bossed around by Samus of all people. Amazing how much being out of the title scene can affect your mood. It is rather funny that a tag team that started based on them both using one another purely for their own gains ended up being the team that literally went to Hell together to save Samus’s friend. I’m pretty sure even teams that LIKE each other would think twice about that.

As for her actual performance in 2K22, it’s pretty hard to say. Losing to May isn’t a big indicator of any issues since May was an absolute menace early in 2K22. Her loss to 2B says a little more but again, we would have needed more time to tell. In terms of tags, Metroidvania was actually doing pretty well during its short 2K22 run, with only a loss to Diamonds are Forever to really go off. It’s entirely possible they could have ended up being in the running if Samus hadn’t decided to get the fuck outta dodge. But since they had been champions already back in 2K19, there was less issue to giving them some time off and letting the other teams battle it out over who got the big pair of golds in 2K22.

Samus

• Loss in Samus vs Kula vs Tina vs Narmaya vs Peach vs 2B vs D.va vs Jade (BG&E)
• Win over Bad Girl
• Loss in Samus vs Jill vs Sypha vs Sophitia vs Adeleine vs Camilla
• Win in Samus/Futaba/Sheena/Zelda vs Morrigan/Peach/Juri/Bayonetta
• Loss in Samus vs Lightning vs Misako vs Nero vs Marie vs The Rogue
• Loss to Jack-O
• Loss in Metroidvania vs Bravely Second vs Double Dash!!
• Loss in Samus/Zelda/Rosalina/Camilla vs Jack-O/Jade(MK)/Junko/The Rogue
• Loss in Samus vs Edea vs Sailor Moon vs Rosalina vs Marie vs Lightning vs The Rogue vs Callie
• Win over Squid Sisters
• Loss to Diamonds are Forever
• Loss to The Rogue
• Win over The Spellweavers
• Loss in Samus/Sypha/Byleth/Edelgard vs Sailor Moon/Isabelle/Terra/Aqua
• Loss to Lara

She got squashed by The Rogue.

…

…what, you want some more after that? Fine then! Samus laughs in the face of consistency. Even when the game she’s in deigns to let her be relatively competent and pick up some wins here or there, Samus will never be able to escape moments of being Samus. Things started out looking like Samus was going to go on a tear in 2K22. She beat Bad Girl in a genuinely really good match. Yeah, hindsight tells us that 2K19 Bad Girl and 2K22 Bad Girl are entirely different beasts but it was still a strong win over a big name in a good match. She even put on another great match with Jack-O and put over the new star in a damn good way. Things were coming up Samus!

Then she got squashed by The Rogue.

Okay in the interests of fairness, this was the games fault. Rope Breaks, baby! The AI will “sometimes” reach out and grab the ropes while they’re getting pinned, and “sometimes” when they do this the ref will just not notice them do it. So the ref keeps counting, and the person being pinned is now…locked into grabbing the ropes and kinda sorta can’t kick out? Anyway, this is what happened to Samus. She got fucked over and ended up with a squash loss to The Rogue thanks to 2K22 being a “GOOD GAME”.

Samus only returned to singles action at the end of 2K22, letting Lara Croft go out of the show on top and come out as the longterm winner of their decade-long feud. As such we never got to see too much of what Samus could do as a singles wrestler in 2K22 which is something of a shame as we saw some flashes of genuinely good stuff from her. On the other hand, we’ve seen flashes of genuinely good stuff from Samus a few times now in various games and it never led to anything concrete back then, so I guess we had no reason to believe it would now? Samus has already proven to be a WAY better tag wrestler than a singles star in about 2 seasons anyway. Guess we’ll see which way the wind blows for Samus going into 2K24. I’m thinking she goes on a tear early and then gives a win away to a struggling lowcarder who really could use the rub. That’s right. Lightning.

Zelda

• Loss to Junko
• Win in Zelda/Samus/Sheena/Futaba vs Bayonetta/Morrigan/Peach/Juri
• Loss in Air Buds vs Triple Triad vs Fate Dark/Zero
• Loss in Zelda vs Rosalina vs Alice
• Loss in Zelda/Samus/Rosalina/Camilla vs Jack-O/Jade (MK)/Junko/The Rogue
• Loss in Air Buds vs The Saiyans vs Queens of Iron Fist vs Black Eagles
• Loss to Ann
• Win in Air Buds vs Bravely Second vs The Saiyans
• Loss to Cate
• Loss in Air Buds vs River City Girls vs Double Dash!!
• Loss to River City Girls
• Win over Bayonetta

Well this doesn’t make for very good reading, huh? With her only singles win being just barely scraping a victory over Bayonetta in the last stretch of 2K22, Zelda would be joining the likes of The Rogue and Tina down in the bottom 10 if she and Bad Girl hadn’t left midseason to go watch some baseball. As such she gets to escape that fate and instead get her name slotted in here, but don’t think your losses will go unnoticed just because of that, Zelda. You gotta pay the piper at some point.

I mean, there’s not a huge amount to say other than 2K22 really butchered Zelda. I don’t really recall Zelda having any stand-out moments in her singles or tag matches, often relying on her teammates to get the job done. Her only real saving grace was that the level of her opponents were generally higher than Bad Girl’s were when comparing the two. Losses to Ann, Junko and Cate feel like they’re losses a number of people in WVGCW would suffer, so it’s not like she was giving wins to The Rogue like Samus did. But for someone who has been historically known for some fantastic matches and high-level wins, it was just a big shame to see her struggling so much in 2K22, especially considering that Air Buds as a unit hasn’t really been around for that long.

To go from starting a fresh new tag team to having to go on hiatus to avoid racking up too many L’s is pretty bad, so I hope that 2K24 is much kinder to Zelda. I don’t think she can just go watch some baseball again next time if it turns out she’s still struggling in the next game, not when there are so many other Zelda’s out there ready to nab her spot like she nabbed Twilight Princess Zelda’s spot. It’s a Zelda-eat-Zelda world out there! Tears of the Kingdom Zelda will hit you with the Dragon Cutter. Ocarina of Time Zelda will hit you with the Future Shock. CDI Zelda just has a fucking gun!

Bad Girl

• Loss to Samus
• Loss in Bad Girl vs Sophitia vs Kyoko
• Loss in Bad Girl vs Jade (MK) vs Shantae vs Miku
• Loss in Air Buds vs Fate Dark/Zero vs Triple Triad
• Loss in Bad Girl vs D.va vs Terra vs Aigis vs Wagner
• Loss in Air Buds vs The Saiyans vs Queens of Iron Fist vs Black Eagles
• Loss to Wagner
• Win in Air Buds vs The Saiyans vs Bravely Second
• Loss to Kale
• Loss in Air Buds vs River City Girls
• Loss in Air Buds vs Double Dash!! vs River City Girls
• Win over Jill

But when we talk about people that 2K22 absolutely bullied to hell and back, it’s got to be Bad Girl. It’s honestly quite rare for someone as dominant as Bad Girl to become THIS bad in a new game. Some wrestlers are just blessed with eternal luck like Terra, Aqua and Sheena. Some wrestlers go from being great to being good like Rosalina. Primrose and Lenneth. But Bad Girl went from being one of the most defining and dominant wrestlers in WVGCW to being someone who can’t beat Samus.

Whatever happened to Bad Girl was reason enough to yank her away from 2K22 so it can’t hurt her anymore. She needed to be gone and stay gone, and it’s only by the grace of the game finally taking pity on her that she was actually able to come back and beat Jill in the end, doing so in actually a stronger manner than Zelda had beat Bayonetta. But one win over Jill in the twilight hours of 2K22 doesn’t make up for what was shaping up to be a legacy-wrecking run.

That’s why I agree with just putting Bad Girl on the shelf for as long as she was there. Bad Girl was one of the most popular and fun wrestlers in 2K17 and 2K19, a powerhouse force of nature that defied the conventions of the narrative and just couldn’t be stopped except for that time Miku stopped her. Seeing Bad Girl dropping back to 2K14 levels of skill and then drop even below that felt like a massive regression. I know we can’t save EVERY wrestler. Sometimes a wrestler goes from being good to being bad and that’s just the roll of the dice. But if we’re able to keep Bad Girl’s prestige strong enough for her to make it 2K24 and not look like a laughing stock, I’m glad the team took that chance. If Bad Girl is just crap in 2K24? Well, an attempt was made. At that point she’s just gotta take her lumps like a champ.

Guests

Palutena

• Win over Jinx

Wow. Now this? This is what you call a wrestler. A 100% win rate over one of the strongest wrestlers of 2K22. The fact that she didn’t win her Genesis is proof that the Genesis team are all a bunch of corrupt heathens who booked her to be pretty crappy. Soon they shall taste the flames of the Underworld but until then we get to bask in the glow of Palutena’s holy light.

Obviously Palutena isn’t a “guest” but she’s not a wrestler either. Taking over the show and banishing it’s former manager to a firey pit, Palutena swiftly began setting up what she thought would be her crowning achievement and actually ended up being the source of her constant frustrations. Palutena set up the Tournament of Light to find a worthy contender for her champion, Lenneth. Palutena sort of just declared Lenneth was working under her when she came in and Lenneth couldn’t really argue, what with Palutena being a Goddess of Light and all. Unfortunately for Palu, that very tournament was what brought Jinx from the doldrums of mediocrity up to the rising ranks of champion. Jinx used the Tournament of Light as a platform to propel herself to the top, and she spent her entire tenure as champion mocking Palutena for it.

Though Palutena is bound to the laws and regulations of the show, she’s quite happy to stretch them as far as they’re capable of going to get what she wants. Thus she gave Aqua the #1 Contenders spot and had her dethrone Jinx. There was a point where Palutena had The Bluetails, Sailor Moon, The Returners, The Valkyries and Aqua under her thumb, so it’s understandable why she thought she was completely untouchable. She certainly never expected someone as powerful as Narmaya to decide she had a stake in the situation. But once again, Palutena can thank Jinx for being the catalyst that led to Narmaya stading against Palutena. Narmaya just couldn’t resist her roguish charms, and when Aqua got a quick boost to the title scene without having to actually fight a contenders match, costing Narmaya the chance for a rematch with Jinx…well, the horny girl took that one personally.

Now with a cheap win over Jinx thanks to Sailor Moon meaning Jinx is presumably out of Palutena’s hair, it remains to be seen how her own WVGCW Gold will fare and who will end up being involved in that doesn’t take kindly to Palutena’s way of handling things either. As a noted control freak and someone who hates when her employees have opinions that don’t match her own, Palutena will naturally be looking to hire as many people as possible who she thinks will fit into her mould. Just how many will do that is anyone’s guess.

As for Palutena as an actual figure in WVGCW, I think she’s done a fantastic job. Her role as a heel has been great to watch, she plays off well with everyone she interacts with, and she’s constantly raising the stakes with who she decides to fuck with. Her allies are a mix of hateable bullies and…well, mostly it’s just hateable bullies and Sailor Moon who doesn’t really get what’s going on, and her enemies are all dynamic and proactive wrestlers who the audience might not consider faces but will happily watch them beat some holy ass. Honestly my main worry with WVGCW Red is that they won’t have their own Palutena around to rally against. Franziska, bless her heart, is way too competent and professional. She needs to start getting on Palutena’s level. She needs to snort some coke and call Palutena the Jeffrey Dahmer of wrestling management or something crazy.

Jill Stingray

• Loss to Garnet

This was a fun little interlude. When I say we reached a point where we were just chucking opponents at Garnet at random, I meant it. Guy_Fiati had a pick as to who got the next shot at Garnet and he made a wildcard choice. Jill has not been in any Genesis shows, and outside of perhaps appearing on an online special at some point has never been seen in WVGCW. But I gotta say, Jill made a good impression for her showing on WVGCW. She had a good match with Garnet, nearly beating her in fact. Would she have come out on top if not for 2K22 being 2K22? Who knows! That particular timeline exists beyond us now, where Jill has gone on to defeat Garnet, Narmaya and The Returners alongside Dana Zane.

Along with the plot scenes we got with Jill acting as the bartender to a long-suffering Garnet, it makes me realize that’s a niche that honestly no one is really filling in WVGCW. We’ve got an interviewer in D.va but the people on her show have very work-based interactions. The idea of having a bartender around that the roster could vent to, giving us a better insight into their feelings and worries…well, that honestly could be a very interesting avenue to explore. And hey, we just lost the other Jill so we wouldn’t even have a Jade situation where we need to call one Jill (RE) and Jill (Val) to differentiate them. Maybe Jill should keep her phone on while she’s working, is all I’m saying.

Isabelle

• Win in Isabelle/Terra/Aqua/Sailor Moon vs Edelgard/Byleth/Samus/Sypha
• Win over Rinoa
• Loss in Isabelle vs Primrose vs The Rogue vs Junko vs Bayonetta

Palutena wake up, your dog is cracked at wrestling! As you would expect from someone with a head for business, Isabelle puts in the work specifically during PPV’s. This dog is a draw and two of her three matches have been at PPV’s, and she won both of them. The only time she lost was when she was contractually obligated to wrestle on the show after her Splat Wres win over Rinoa. I didn’t really bring it up in the Rinoa section because it’s a bit unfair to go “Ha ha you lost to a non-wrestler” when we’re talking about CAW’s. We have no goddamn idea if Isabelle or Mercy could be as strong as a topcarder. Could Isabelle perhaps squash Narmaya like a bug under her paw? In this reporter’s opinion…yes.

I don’t really know if Isabelle is contractually obligated to work for Palutena since her last boss was obliterated before her eyes, or if Palutena just kind of keeps her around as a slave. Either way she has been handling the rather surprising situation with typical grace, and has gotten on Palutena’s good side to the point where the Goddess will likely bring her along to WVGCW Gold. She will not, however, be allowed into the afterlife as dogs don’t have souls. Don’t blame Palutena, she didn’t design it that way! Well actually she did but to be fair it seemed way funnier at the time.

Celes

• Win in Celes vs Caulifla vs Rouge vs Sailor Mars vs Namine vs Lilith
• Win over The Phantom Thieves
• Win in The Returners vs Halloween Town vs Cate & Dizzy
• Loss to Garnet
• Win over Nation of Animation
• Win over The Saiyans
• Win over Fate Dark/Zero
• Win over Double Dash!!

Then we get to this one. The “guest” who has caused no few number of headaches across the roster and the person who may well have sent Aqua spiralling into the depths of darkness in order to keep her in the show. Celes Chere may have debuted as a funny guest character during Breakdown 15, but by the time Breakdown 16 rolled around she was coming out as one of the Co-op Champions.

Listen, I’m not going to stand here and say that Celes doesn’t have a fairly big advantage over other teams by way of having Terra as a partner. Terra is gonna Terra, and when she gets rolling there’s literally no one in WVGCW who can stop her. But Terra was also teaming with Aqua and literally won no matches in 2K22, so it’s not like we can attribute the success of The Returners to just our favourite Esper. Celes has been putting in the work, and The Returners successfully went undefeated in their run-up towards the Co-op Championships. We’ll discuss more about how great The Returners have been when we get to them as a team. Focusing more on Celes as an individual, she only had two matches where she wasn’t in a tag team. She won the Breakdown 15 Linear match to secure the title that she would defend until she cashed in on Garnet. This was the only time we saw a true singles match from Celes, and she did really well. She very nearly beat Garnet before getting caught getting back into the ring and taken out…hmm…feels like I’m saying “They nearly beat Garnet” quite a lot lately…we’ll need to check up on that when we get to Garnet’s entry.

Following this loss, Celes WAS meant to leave the show. But Aqua worked out a deal with Palutena that allowed Celes to stick around teaming with Terra for an unspecified amount of time. As such, Aqua became Palutena’s loyal stooge and she earned the support of The Returners as well. Celes and Terra went on an undefeated tear, like several tag teams before them, and ended up securing the Co-op titles. They even defended them at Breakdown 16 against Double Dash!!, one of the historically stongest teams in WVGCW.

I’m not gonna say that what Celes and Terra accomplished as a team was something new and unrepeatable. Hell, Dragonball GG went on an undefeated run to the titles! But it’s incredible just what Celes has managed to achieve considering she literally would have just vanished without a word if she had dropped the Linear title during her run. Celes constantly winning and refusing to quit led to her being involved in two separate title scenes and even get involved into the fabric of the main title scene by way of her connection to Aqua. Celes refused to be a flash in the pan and ended up turning what was meant to be a one-time thing into a situation that could potentially lead to her actually being signed onto the show. Maybe. We’ll see. Perhaps Celes and Terra will simply never drop the belts and Celes remains hired up to Season 53 like that. She finally has to retire after jumping off the top of the titantron to score a pin on Double Dash!!.