Video Gamers Podcast - The ULTIMATE Video Game Character SMACKDOWN! - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

Gaming hosts Josh and Ryan are joined by DKMatt for a hilarious and awesome bonus round! Matt is a great friend of the show and former professional wrestler so what better way to compete than a video game character draft! The goal: To draft the best wrestling team made up of video game characters! Whether you love wrestling, gaming or both, this is one gaming packed episode you don’t want to miss!  Check out DKMatt on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/dramakingmatt  Check out the Rebooked Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5tvMLRps8IVCUcpAusbxZ1?si=d13cafeba6af4775  Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Ol’ Jake, Disratory and Gaius Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on X: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q   Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Intro Hello fellow gamers and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. Some of the best parts of gaming aren't the boss fights or the platinum trophies, but the fun and silly conversations you get to have with your friends about gaming. There's few hobbies that can be so fun and yet so stupid at the same time. Well today we're leaning into both, but first some introductions are in order.

I am your host Josh and joining me, he always kicks out on the count of one and his special move is getting pinned. It's Ryan. Come on, man. You're going to do me like that? One of these days, I'm going to have a really nice intro for you, Ryan, and then you're going to be like, what?

I know. I've got to learn to expect it, but I still am always like, come on, man. I thought we were bros. We are. That's why I can do this to you, man. Yeah, that's true. All right.

And joining us, he's a gamer, a podcaster, a streamer, an announcer, a retired professional wrestler, a singer, and perhaps most importantly, great friend of the show. It's the drama king himself, Matt Rawalt. Hello, hello, hello. And hey, Ryan, you know what? Don't feel bad.

Kicking out at one is a sign of strong style. It is very respected. You know, you don't sit down for that two count and everything. No, you're right up at one. So that's good. See? You hear that, Josh?

See? Strong. That's a professional, man. I tried to tell you it was a nice intro, man. And then there you go, assuming the worst. Yeah, whatever. You had no idea about any of that. You were trying to throw me shade.

Don't you? That might just be being nice to you right now. Right? I got it. Right? Google it. You know. Well, welcome in everybody.

Oh boy, do we have a very fun episode in store for you? We are joined by our good friend Matt Matt. How you doing today buddy? I'm doing fantastic. I've been looking forward to this. We were just saying even before this is we've gone back and forth online, but our first time actually finally getting to chat and everything like that and it's great. I'm really excited. We're excited too, man. We have chatted through text, Discord, online, social media, Twitch, all that. I mean, many, many a time, but dude, we tried so hard

to get a Helldivers 2 group going, and then we just kept missing each other at the time. But here we are, where it really matters on the field of battle. Yes. Yes. A draft. That's right.

We're doing a draft today. This is a fan favorite. This is one of our favorites. We are going to be drafting video game characters to put together for a professional wrestling match, survivor series style. so we are gonna draft four video game characters, AKA wrestlers, and one manager, just to put a little extra touch on it.

We are going up against Matt, who, you know, might know a thing or two about wrestling. A little bit. Professional, that's all. I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. Normally, Ryan, we kind of have the upper hand with the gaming part of something, where we're like,

dude, we're gamers, man. We got, Matt, you're a gamer, buddy. Yeah, I mean, it goes back a ways, man. I mean, I'm not as in the weeds as some, but a lot more than others. I'm an OG PlayStation guy through and through. And then I've been a PC guy ever since 2020 and just gone off the rails in that department.

PC master race or life. Yeah, it's really tough, man. I mean, it's one of those things like, you know, consoles have a special place in our hearts, man. There's always something about sitting on a couch playing consoles, but once you go PC, man, it is really hard to go back. Yeah, it was, when I first got into streaming

is when I was introduced to it, because I was like, all right, I think it's a better setup for that and everything like that. So I got one, I was like, but as someone who's literally, I'd never touched a PC for a video game more or less It's always been a controller between Nintendo and then PlayStation

Keyboard and mouse like yeah was so Disorienting the first time I played a shooter. I was like, how do you do this? Within a year. It's the opposite I went back to try to play an FPS on a controller and I was like How do you do this without as much control as you have with a mouse and everything? It's wild It I can't I love a controller for some games I'm a huge fan of like Rocket League like some games you absolutely need a controller But if it if it's a shooter mouse and keyboard is second to none man

I honestly it's one of the main reasons I I prefer PC gaming over console gaming is I just feel like I've got much more control over what I'm doing. Aim is way better on PC, that kind of stuff. That's the thing. The aim is there. The hard part for me is always the movement. I feel like I get so much better movement with my controller than I would on WASD, you know, on the keyboard.

But the aiming, you can snap aim on somebody's head so much easier with the mouse than you can with, you know, this little thumb stick. If I ever have to drive anything, a spaceship, a car, oh, mousing keyboard is rough some yeah starfield I remember I was spinning around about times before I got my bearings no no driving and flying is our two very very controller oriented tasks for sure man so all right well listen, we're gonna get into this draft,

man, I am super excited about this. We do have a little bit of housekeeping and you know what, man? I mean, this just makes us feel our warm and fuzzy inside. I mean, we have an amazing community of people. You know, people that support the show, that sign up to support the show, are the ones that keep this going, you know,

year after year. So we have a special thank you. We do. We have four people to thank plus another for a first time event ever for us too. Yeah. So thank you to Grant Bacon for signing up for Rare. Also, your last name is amazing, dude.

I kind of wish my last name was Bacon, dude. I know, right? I'm hungry now. I know. So thank you, Grant'm hungry now. Mr. Bacon? I know. So thank you, Grant, for signing up for Rare Status. And then we have not one, not two, but three new Epic supporters. Yeah.

Oh my goodness. So thank you, Tubster000, Hypnotic Pyro, and Dalton Newell for signing up for Epic Status, keeping this podcast going to the world. You all rock. Thank you. And then, Ryan, we have our first gifted sub. What?

We kinda didn't even know this was a thing, I'll be honest. It's one of those things where we had a very long time listener of the show. Awesome member of the community. This guy, I mean, this is the guy that introduced me to star citizen where I went, dude, I don't believe that this is a game. And he said, dude, you know what, let me prove it's real. It's real. Yeah. So disritory, we know you're listening, buddy. Disritory is awesome, dude. I mean mean just not only because of the

gifted sub but just as an awesome person but Disritory saw somebody in our community today mention that they were saving up to help support the show and he just went I got you I got you buddy. Yeah. So he gifted a sub there too which is incredible and now that we know that that's a thing, like, I mean, if anybody else out there wants to get the sub, you know, multiplayer squad.com is apparently where you can do this. All right. And then I did promise this person that I would read the review because they messaged me and they said, Hey, did you get my review? And I said, yeah, dude, we're so far behind on reading.

I think legitimately, like, I think we're so far behind on reading reviews. We are a little bit. I think legitimately, I think we have 15 reviews to get to. But this one comes in from Shark the Fart, which. Good name, solid. Great name, great name. And it is titled, You Guys Are So Good, Please Read. And it says, I literally downloaded downloaded Apple podcast to leave a review Lol and then they put a whole bunch of emojis in there and it says I love you guys Josh you better read all of these emojis

and I went deal so There are 65 emojis guys. I read them all. I read them all. Good job. Shark the fart. Thank you for your awesome review. I'm glad you read them. I did read them. That's all you said. See, there you go. Oh man. Alright, that's it for housekeeping. Guys, y'all ready? Y'all ready

to get in the ring? Y'all ready to draft some video game characters? Let's draft, baby, I love it. All right, so that people know we are laying some ground rules, we don't have many though. OK, so this is a, we randomized the order. And so the draft order is going to go Ryan, Matt, and then myself, and this is what we call a snake draft. So because I have to go last in the first round I get to go first in the in the round after that

So we're gonna go back and forth we there's five rounds because we're doing four wrestlers and one manager and Then we will absolutely disparage each other's picks call them out try to slander them whatever, you know There's a lot of strategy over there as well But we will post these lists to social media and we're gonna let the fans decide, you know. We can argue our case, we can argue our picks, but ultimately we're gonna put this in the hands of the listeners and you all will decide who won this draft.

So, all right, you guys ready to get it started? Let's go. I'm ready. Ryan, no pressure buddy, but I mean, you know, you're setting the tone here, man. That's right. I am, I am. So it's hard to, when you're drafting a video game team

for wrestling, and we have some parameters as far as the abilities and the power, I just want raw muscle. I want mass. I want bulk. I want someone who can command a ring and maybe has learned from past experiences in a ring. So I'm going to go with someone. Um, first up for me from the fiery depths of the mushroom kingdom, the king of cruelty, the master of mayhem, the one that rules with an iron fist.

I am going with the one, the only Bowser. Okay, okay. So Ryan's, oh, oh, we did not mention. Oh, right. Okay, there is one other rule. There is, Matt, why don't you take this? Cause this was your idea and I love this idea. Yes, this was and I am glad that we did this rule.

But this ties into actual wrestling. So what was the thing that you said on this one? Yes, so one of the few ground rules that we laid, because we wanted it to be open. I didn't want to limit it too much. But if you do watch wrestling, if you don't, you know it's very theatrical, kind of physical storytelling and stuff like that

And we often will have what we call a baby face and a heel a good guy and a bad guy. It's pretty classic conniving bad guys and righteous good guys It's very old school, but I'm like, you know what? I think that should be a rule that if you decide to go one way you got to stick with that because in wrestling Very few if, you see teams, especially these large teams, where it would be like one heel, two baby faces, another heel, it's usually all good guys versus all bad guys.

So one ground rule was, whatever way you decided to go, everybody on your team had to be like an antagonist, a villain, a bad guy, or on the opposite, a good guy, a hero, et cetera. All right. So shocker, shocker, I'm going bad guys. Man. All right, Bowser, that Ryan tips his hand right away.

He's trapping the heel team. So the little Mario, little Mario, grabbing by the tail and swinging me around. I've learned from my mistakes. Bowser's not going to get that again. Yeah, he has. He's good. So now he can defend anything.

What does it say about Bowser that he can get picked up by his tail and slung around though? By a plumber. He's been stumped by a short Italian plumber a lot for a large mythical being, but okay. Yeah, you do you, Ryan. You do you. Yeah. I mean, not to, I never want to like promote somebody's pick, but Bowser would be hard to pin cause he's just going to teeter totter on that shell, man. That is true. Yeah. Maybe there's more strategy to this than we thought. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. That's all you get. That's the only like shout out you get from me, Ryan. That's the only help you're getting on this one. I treasure it. I treasure it. That's making up for your mean intro. I mean, your really nice intro with your one count, man. That's right. All right. Matt is the wild card on this one, dude, because he even

told us before we started recording, he's like, I got some really good picks. I got some interesting picks. I got some out of the left field kind of stuff for you guys. And then my brain's scrambling to where I was like, I need to rethink my list on this one, man. What am I not thinking about here? So not quite.

So I'm curious how this is going to go for me. I don't really know. Because I think about, again, coming from this actual business and doing this for a living, I think of it very differently. So I didn't want to think of this as just a kid picking up his four biggest toys and smashing them together and whatever is the biggest strongest I wanted to have a little bit more like thought process because that's what we do in our business we tell stories we're trying

to you know weave a tapestry here a little as we can. So, with that in mind, I will start off with every good team needs a leader. Because you're getting a ragtag group of people together. You need somebody who can kind of unite people, lead them into battle, kind of like corral everyone, improve morale, and you know, just, and lead. Cause there are some powerful people, and characters in video games

who are not good at working with others. So I thought I took that into consideration. So I have a couple, but I think since I'm starting off the top here, I think it's hard to pick a better leader, warrior to take you into battle than John 117 himself, the Master Chief. I mean, he's big, he's powerful,

towering over you in that power armor. And I mean, if there's anybody you're gonna get to rally behind a group of people, strangers are no. You know what I mean? He's got Cortana popping out, spitting advice to everybody too. You know what I mean? Calculating the odds of absolutely everything.

I'm feeling motivated already, man. I know. I'm like, I want to join your team. I want to wrestle. That's right. That's right. I believe Master Chief is somebody everybody on that team would lay down their very soul for if necessary.

So that's your manager? No. No. No, no, no no no no I'm gonna do I'm doing for what it's worth. I'm doing manager last I have Reach pick but so I'm starting with the leader. You're good like the team captain if you will gotcha. Okay, gotcha. Gotcha Gotcha. No, that's I mean, that's it. That's a team captain. That's for sure. I Freaking love him and you're right, dude Oh, I feel like all it would take is just some very short because he's not a man of many words but just this really

inspirational I need a thing that he says yeah that's all I gotta say try to suplex Bowser that's all I gotta say in the spot yeah yeah now I'm also not gonna look up how heavy the power armor is you know cuz pick yeah Master Chief might be I think I read one of the books I actually I actually read one of the halo one or two of the halo books They say something like two tons or like something like that or what or it it was something ridiculous Because they were like seven feet tall and the armor was like yeah, 700 pounds or something. I don't know yeah It's a great pick and also tipped your hand. Matt is going with the baby face.

Which is rare. I am on air, I've always been a bad guy. Yeah, I would absolutely be a heel man. And this is funny because Ryan's the same way, super nice guy in real life, but it's like, I just wanna play the bad guy man. Fun fact, it's a little bit of a trope. It's not 100% true, but like in in wrestling often the bad guys are usually the nicest guys behind the

scene and I have heard that as well bad guys are often very giving right because you usually have to get beat in the end yeah yeah yeah all right great pick okay so we have Ryan with Bowser and and then Matt with the master chief himself. So this also means that Ryan, you and I drafting these heal teams are going to be fighting for these these picks here against each other. Well, I got you haven't given away. Wow. Everybody knew. Not a surprise.

But yeah, we knew we were like, but surprise? What is? Yeah, we knew. You were like, but we don't know. Yes, you did. Everybody knows. Everybody knows. I didn't say this like two days ago. Like, we know what you're going with. Come on.

You know me, man. I ain't hiding nothing. All right, so I mean, I need, so I get back to back picks here, but that also means that I have to go a long time before I get another pick. So I need to, this is where strategy comes in for me because there are two very clear people or characters that I think I need on my team. And then I have to

kind of go into the, I don't think Ryan is going to think about these other picks you know or at least I hope not I mean completely on point for me there there may be some argument here over whether this guy is a heel or a baby face but if you've played the earlier games you absolutely know that this guy was a heel let's just add another beautiful bald-bearded man to the mix on this one. I mean there's two of us already. Why not add a third? I'm picking Kratos for my team. Now now I know there's people that are gonna go but Josh Kratos is a good guy. Right? No, he ain't. Have you seen what Kratos did in God of War 1, 2, and 3. This man has slaughtered towns. He killed his own wife

and child. Okay? Spoiler, by the way. So I'm leaning into the fact that Kratos was a heal in the early games. Now, you know, part of the buy I love the God of War 2018 so much is maybe he turns, maybe he's trying to turn over a new leaf. But man, you can't erase your past. He's the heel back then. And I'm leaning into it, so I'm taking Kratos with my first pick. I mean, this guy's strong, he's buff. He doesn't wear a shirt.

I mean, he's basically making, he's the perfect wrestler, you know? I love that you said he doesn't wear a shirt. He's gotta show off the muscles, man. That's right. Like not wearing a shirt like that's plus 10 strength. Like look, this is this is Rastafari. It's an aesthetic business. It's a TV business. This is true. In the part two. That's right. That's right. You're right. All right. All right. I got Kratos for my first pick and then another I got a theme going my first pick and then another.

I got a theme going on here, guys. So another character that a lot of people would go, but no, he's a good guy. No, he's not. If you go back to the very first game, this character was a complete jerk. He stole somebody and you spent the whole game trying to climb up them little ladders while he's chucking barrels at you. I'm taking Donkey Kong for my pick. You talk about strength, agility, I mean, personality. All right, maybe Donkey Kong doesn't have the best personality. Yeah, but I'm taking Donkey Kong as my second pick. He was a heel in the earlier games.

Okay. And you know what they say, man? The strength, the strength of a gorilla is second to none, man. He's a gorilla, right? Is he a gorilla? Yeah, I mean, right? I don't know. We'll call him a primate. How about that?

Yeah, there you go. That's the one I was going to say. He's a primate of some kind. Who am I to label Donkey Kong? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, man. The endurance. The endurance to continually throw,

I'm going to assume full barrels down. Oh, yeah. Constantly. Over and over and over. As long as it takes for you to climb that stuff up. Those long arms, that reach. I mean, ooh, that reach is something special too, man. And if he can chuck a full barrel, it's nothing to lift somebody up

That's true All right. So all right. So for me Kratos and Donkey Kong starting off with Ending the first round with Kratos starting round two with Donkey Kong Matt. We're back to you buddy. Okay All right. So round two we've got our leader in place again, I'm thinking of this in terms of that We've got a leader someone to command you some to corral everybody now We got to fill out the ranks and you know every team especially if you got those four slots You need a powerhouse you need that big guy who's willing to throw some meat around You know what? I mean, and so I I do have my

Kind of pick of the litter here, but you know what I mean? And so I do have my kind of pick of the litter here, but you know what? I'm going in a totally, totally offbeat direction. I'm skipping past my first three. I'm looking at them right now. I'm skipping past all of those, because I want to shake things up. Anybody remember a little game called Katamari?

Oh my goodness. An unexpected powerhouse in Katamari. The prince, the key character, who can literally roll entire objects into mountains, into countries, into planets together to form a giant ball if needed. He can literally combine celestial bodies to use as a rolling pin, a weapon. He can combine all of that and I can only imagine how unstoppable that level of compaction,

whatever it would be, could be. I mean, he would just get a ball rolling, he could just steamroll the entire other team. So while on the outside, on the surface, seems like a little itty bitty Sprite League character turns into a gigantic powerhouse to steamroll the competition. The second you said Katamari, I was like, oh my goodness, dude. Now, I never played this game, but I know this game. And I know that you, yeah, like you said, you wind up just piling together the biggest ball of matter

that you have ever seen. That's a, I like that pick man. That's, that's creative. Now is Katamari a good guy? Is he a baby face? It's, I played a little bit of it. I don't know, so you could literally say anything. I think it's a little bit more like amorphous. Just feel free. It's kind of just like, it's less, it's less of a like, good versus bad story of more of just like, it's less of a good versus bad story,

more of just like a mechanical type of thing. So since he's the protagonist, I kind of took him as like the good guy of the thing. He doesn't have any moral twinge bad, bad moral, you know. I wanted him, so I'm gonna take him. Just destroying planets and you know. That's all. Okay, now because it's my job to slander picks here, gentlemen,

Katamari starts off like really, really small, right? Don't you start off with like just kind of rolling over like dust and leaves and stuff like that? So start sure. OK, start. OK, slow. All right. We just have to like in the ring with Kratos and Donkey Kong and Bowser and so roll those three up together and you're already going to a good start. Thank you for making my point for me. Dang it.

Yeah, see like boom that's three. No, just splat. They would just splat. They would stomp on it and be done. Yeah. So this is one you got to get out of there quick before they start really gaining steam on this one, right? You would have to stop him before he gets on a roll. Oh. Ah, there you go. Very nice. Very nice. The ring is what? It's 20 by 20. That's right. Like Chris would have to go and he just jumps out real quick. I'm going to get out of here. That's true too. He'd have to make sure he goes fast. That's true. Yeah. I like it. That's a creative pick, man. I like going, uh, going, you know, for those, those, uh, off the wall ones for sure. All right, Ryan, don't mess this up, buddy,

but you get back to back picks here, man. I do get back to back picks, and I'm kind of excited because the couple that I wanted, which probably aren't what you guys wanted because this is such a crazy draft that people aren't gonna take what I want anyways, I'm gonna go with a character that I'm just, I think I'm just in it to win it with mass. I want mass, I want girth, I want to take up the ring,

I want to be just abominations to take over everybody. So I'm going to go with a character to take over everybody so so I'm gonna go with the character that may not be the most articulate may not be someone that can really say much to you I'm gonna go with someone from the pit of rage a monster with four arms a warrior who only dominate I'm going with the one, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only, the only. I want, I mean, forearms are better than two. Just going for mass, strength, girth. How many submissions could you get on with forearms like that? I mean, you can go- A lot, dude.

You need a lot going on there. Yeah, dude. There's just, there's so many opportunities, and I love it. Damn, I really, I was taking Goro Literally next dude. Yeah on my pick. Yeah, so there's our There's the snipe. That's that's that is the best part ladies and gentlemen about the drafts is you can steal other people's picks And they get angry and it makes the pick that much better. We love it

I have two characters left on my list that I really want. And if if you take another one, I might need to start scrambling a little bit here, buddy. So well, I got one more here. I'll tell you one thing I'm going to go for for my next my next pick. It is going to be my manager. So I'm going to I'm just going to I'm just going to take it out early. It's one that I think is going to go well. It is a brilliant, genius scientist, someone that knows no bounds. I'm going to go with Dr. Robotnik. OK.

OK. That is Mr. Eggman, the one, the only vengeful, vindictive, angry, crazy, and also played by Jim Carrey. So that just kind of maybe swayed me a little bit there. But, but uh, man, how can you go? Who else would you want to be your manager? Oh, not him. Not him. I got a way better pick for mine. It's villains. It's villains. What do you mean? Yeah, he's smart. I mean, he is a genius. But what's he going to do for you, man?

What do you mean what is he going to do? He's going to set everything up. If I just knock his back butt out of that little flying machine, he's done? No. What is he without his little... Yeah. He's going to bust out the wrist watch thing and then he's going to do all these kind of little calculations and you're going to add up your chances of losing this draft. Oh yeah. Well, we'll see. I already got one of your

for me, man. I'm a little bit right now. I'm going to take another Goro man. Dang it. All right. Doc Ryan with the manager pick. I will say I did consider like I don't want to lose my manager on this one But since you already took your manager, I am now safe You know cuz Matt can't draft the manager that I'm thinking of either So and it is your pick Matt, but we're gonna take a quick break real quick All right, we are back it is Matt's. We are in the third round of our draft. Matt, what do you got, man? All right. So again, now we've got, I've got my leader. I got my powerhouse, unconventional

as he may be. But now to fill out the team, you need someone who's a little bit of a juxtaposition to that. You need a finesser, you know, someone who's a little bit maybe more of the athletic side, someone who akin to like the luchador role, the high flyer kind of thing to complement the power of your powerhouse. And man, I got a couple of choices here. I'm trying to think of what I want to do. You know what? I'm going to go, who is a good, oh, I don't think they fit I'm gonna move on no who is a good

sneaky still strong incredibly athletic has the power to like beef stealthily but also when necessary chop a tank in half I am going from the one who started off in his original Metal Gear Solid appearance as a little bit of a surprise and unexpected lead, but turned into quite the powerhouse in Metal Gear Rising. I'm going with Raiden, the ultimate cyborg-netic ninja who's just going to beippin', floppin',

swingin' swords around, non-lethal swords for our wrestling audience. But- Just training swords, training swords. Yeah, right? Be the foam swords or whatever, yeah. But yeah, he's got enough power in there to do it, but is super sneaky and athletic

and just a dangerous opponent. I started to put a list together and I legitimately went, I need an athletic guy. I need the guy that can do the back flip off the top rope. I need the Jimmy Superfly snooker of old where you can leap off the rope, you know, the top and cover three quarters of the ring in one leap kind of thing.

And then I just went the heel route. There's not too many on that side. I do love the agility like quick guy type pick to round out a team too. So that's no that's a killer pick. I know personally with Raiden like that and Melgar solid too that aerial like cartwheel that you can do that's I mean I was like I want to learn gymnastics I don't want to do this, you know when that happened I was like I know I mean ultimately I never did Yeah, but I wanted to you know Alright Okay, so I'm okay. I'm gonna breathe a sigh because I got Go ahead I needed these Ryan really scared me with the Goro pick.

I still wish I had the Goro pick, but I want a guy that is just a seasoned veteran of the ring. I mean, a guy that knows every wrestling move out there has the power to pull them off, is used to combat. Let me just throw out a couple moves and see if you guys can maybe think about who this is. How about one of his moves is the double Lariat? How about the spinning pile driver?

Any of these ringing a bell? The Russian Suplex? Oh, my man. I'm going with Zangief from Street Fighter. You talk about a guy that's got all the experience in the world! Yeah buddy! I'm taking Zangief! Also, epic chest hair by the way. He just sits there, like he's holding DK's barrel and he just sits there with his chest hair.

Oh yeah, I'm taking that spinning pile driver dude. Oh yes, there's no move in Street Fighter that sucked more to have done on you than that spinning pile driver. And also, getting into the strategy, I need a guy that can train the rest of my team. He's the veteran, man. He's the guy that's gonna teach Kratos how to do a Russian suplex, or a pile driver,

or a DDT, or any of these other moves. Kratos, he's got the strength, but he doesn't know these moves. Donkey Kong might be a little bit harder to actually teach, but I got the veteran on my team here. So I'm happy with that one. Pretty solid. Fun fact, I basically, I used to work with a guy who was basically the real life WWE version of Zangief, which is a guy named Rusev, his name's Miro, but he's Bulgarian, he's big, he wears, he's almost very similar trunks,

he's a super funny guy by the way, but was just that big bear of a man, and had that accent and everything like that, it was, he was awesome. Yeah, well, all right, good, good, I love this pick. Okay, and then my, my last pick for my wrestlers. And since we got to, you know, I can't just, again, I'm taking strong people here, but I need, I need the one that's going to put the fear into people, the,

you know, the one where he climbs into the ring and people go, uh-uh, uh-uh, I'm not, I'm not messing with that man. You know, height is always an advantage. I'm pretty sure this character is like 12 feet tall. But when I talk about putting the fear into people, what better character than the Lord of Terror themselves? I'm taking Diablo to round out my team. Yeah, buddy. I mean, talk about the ultimate heal also. Yeah, literally like the devil.

Right? El Diablo is his, you know, his wrestling name but yeah. So he's a luchador. He's a 12 foot luchador with horns. Okay. Yeah, so I'm taking the Lord of Terror themselves. Ryan you really scared me dude because I was like if he takes Diablo after Goro, Yeah, so I'm taking the Lord of Terror themselves. Ryan, you really scared me, dude, because I was like, if he takes Diablo after Goro, I'm in trouble, man. I didn't have anything else. I mean, I did have one, but it's not where I wanted to be on that. But I've got my wrestling squad and I'm going to land the manager that I wanted after this as well.

So I am darn happy, boys. That was a double is a good pick. Not even death can save you from me. after this as well, so I am darn happy, boys. That was a, Diablo's a good pick. Not even death can save you from me. Let me see, can I find, I mean, Google, can I find some characters with holy water or something? I was gonna say, Matt's Googling, like, who are the angels in Diablo?

Tyrael, Draft Tyrael. Yeah, right? Yeah, right? I can't. I gotta, I gotta heal. I don't need to be helping Matt on this one, man. I've switched. I just wanna kill you. We're all against you now. Yeah. Oh, man.

That's a good one. That's a solid pick. Yeah, Diablo. Geez, Diablo. Hey, man. Don't underestimate the old veteran buddy. Yeah, whatever. That's right. All right, Matt, we're back to you. All right, so I'm going to round out my wrestling team here. And again, I'm going to go on a different route that I think a lot of people expect.

And because again, when I'm putting a match together, I want to tell a compelling story. And unfortunately, one of those things as part of being on the good guy team is there's a point in every match where one of the things as part of being on the good guy team is there's a point in every match Where one of the good guys gets beat up. It's called the heat of the match, but you need a good Sympathetic baby face that the people want to clap and see make the big tag To the rest of your team to turn the whole match up around so you need somebody people just they care about They know can withstand it, but they're gonna go through some trouble right? You know what I mean? But they have the will to get there to get

back to their corner and make the tag. And so there's a couple really good ones, but I think sometimes you can just go with an obvious choice. Someone who's been through a lot, but made it through, suffered, suffered, suffered. And it's just somebody I think we all feel for when we play the game. I feel for this guy already, man. I want him to get there. Well, it's not a guy. It's the very brave, young, but tempestuous Ellie

from The Last of Us. I mean, can you imagine? I mean, she's tough, she's spunky, but like, if she's in there getting beat up by Diablo, you horrible, horrible person, Josh. Diablo's in there beating up Ellie. It's not me, it's Diablo. That's his like, MO, man.

You set it up, bro. You set it up. But that crowd would just be Ellie, Ellie, Ellie. And then she's crawling. She's crawling slowly. Diablo's just towering over. I'm in this, Ellie. And then she's crawling. She's crawling slowly. Diablo's just towering over. I'm in this, man. Waiting, waiting for that big hot tag

to master chief for somebody to help turn it around. So that is my underdog heartfelt babyface final pick for the wrestler portion of my team. Because that's it. I love it. And you're right, man. You need that person that can just, that has the will man that has just is no quit there's no quit in them whatsoever yeah all right I mean you did you did promise you said I'm gonna have

some out of out of the left field picks on this one and I also feel bad because it's like, like Diablo go get her. Diablo is going to be like, oh man, I can't do that. The disease child? You know, sure. What if I get infected? Yeah.

All of a sudden he's a germaphobe. Diablo's a germaphobe. Yeah. Ew. He's just like, I'm not touching her. She's itchy. She might be infected. Tags back out to Kratos.

Goes and hand sanitizes right away. You're so wrong with you. Throw some stones back. You got some Clorox wipes, anyone? Oh my goodness. All right, Ryan, these are your last two picks, buddy. Your team is done after these two. OK.

I'm pretty excited so man so so this one this last pick you want someone who is you know a protector someone who will watch over your crew your team that that will dedicate their lives if necessary to just make sure that everyone else survives. I'm gonna go with someone from the dystopian future of the world of rapture, the terrifying protector of the little sisters, a monster like no other, BIG DADDY! Daddy! Okay. That's a good pick, Ryan. That is a good pick. Bro. Are they bad?

That's a bad. What do you mean are they bad? They kill everyone in the rapture. Yeah. They only kill you if you attack a little sister. Right. Yeah, they're protectors of the little sisters, but anyone with it there.

Won't that make them a good guy then? No. No, because the little sisters. Ryan's like, no, because I don't wanna scramble for another pick. The little sisters are full of Adam, No No because Because I don't want to scramble for another little sisters are full of Adam and anyone Give me that Adam. Yeah so the big and then and then in Bioshock 2 I do I do view a big daddy is like not a good daddy's not a good guy

Yeah, good guy no doubt just wanted to see you scramble a little bit. Certainly not clean cut, yeah, good guy. No doubt about that. They toe the line a little bit, you know. I don't know though. There's always a gray area that we try to toe. If you're not on the gray area, you're not doing it right. That's true. That's true.

Life is shaded gray. So a big daddy as a heel, I... Yeah. My initial thought is a big daddy is like a mean evil thing You know I think you could argue that they're protectors, and so they're good, but I my initial thought is also yeah They're probably not nice Yeah, so they just they they you know it's big daddy. I just wanted to see you scream I just got it. I but I got it not that my righteous

Holier than now baby face team would ever do this, but if you were up against a team like Josh's, I mean, what would stop them from maybe snatching one of your little sisters up, you know, and holding them in front of you, and now, the human shield of the little sister, that kinda renders Big Daddy a little. What I'm hearing is Diablo now has a full dose of atom

and can now inherit some powers. Oh, man. Diablo with atom, and we're in trouble. Good god. Oh, man. All right, so Big Daddy, Ryan, one more, buddy. OK, so for the last one, I'm going real real, and I'm going real current.

So this is someone who is in the wrestling world, someone who is larger than life, someone who is greater than great, bigger than big, someone that does more than you can ever imagine. 16 time world champion, 13 reigns as WWE world champion, the new heel, you can't see me, John Cena. Da da da da, da da da da. Okay.

All right. I can't. Yeah. I can't even. Yeah. Kudos for bringing up the very topical very recent Yeah, if you've been that's recent wrestling that's recent the big heel huge heel It's huge heel such a fun story like when when the baby faced her like back in my day

It was Hulk Hogan. Yep, you know Hulk Hogan was the people everybody loved Hulk Hogan and then all of a sudden Yeah, I mean everybody lost their minds about it so that's a good pick man That is a good pick You gotta do the purebred at the end The man himself, alright He was called super Cena for everything You can't see him, like how are you gonna beat him? You can't see him, you know?

That's you know You know An actual yeah current wrestler on round and I didn't expect that one man. That's a good pick Ryan so fair enough Alright Matt last pick buddy. Alright gotta close it out. It is manager time now My list is like all over the place Because I'm like, what do I want in a manager? Do you want just like heartfelt? Just encouragement? Do you want something off the wall? Do you want something just really aggress someone really aggressive? Whatever it is And like I got choices again because I'm the good guys here. So

I'm gonna do another kind of off-the-wall pick and I'm gonna go with someone who's a bit of a wild card himself you know what I mean he's unpredictable I again he's not the roughest toughest I mean he's a little rough around the edges but I mean you could probably beat him in a fight if you had to but he would absolutely distract you confuse you discombobulate you at certain times if necessary, depending on how many drugs he's had that day. I am talking about everyone's favorite addict and wild man from Grand Theft Auto V, Trevor Phillips, watching our back.

Lovable Trevor. He would just be the wild card on the outside. That's the best manager ever. Just running around in his dirty underwear. Look over here. Look over here, man. Whatever it is. Yes. He would just do whatever it takes to draw the attention to him. He's not a bad guy either. No. Like you might say like, oh, I don't like that guy. But I mean, hey, he'd be a fun dude to hang out with we've already established that in a few episodes too so oh my goodness Trevor Phillips I what a manager that I I will say I did not wake up this morning

thinking Trevor Phillips would be selected as a manager for a five crew wrestling team that's for sure Running around the ring and dirty drawers All right, that's a good pick Phillips I freaking love Trevor Phillips me. All right. Okay. Well, it's I'm the last pick boys This is my manager pick. I was a little worried on this one, but Ryan took Dr. Robotnik.

Like you said, you need a manager that's going to, he's smart, right? He can put together the team. He can manage the team. There's some logistics stuff there. But you also want a manager that is charismatic, can distract the referee, you know, can, can, can, can, you know, talk on your behalf at times. Um, you know, and,

and if he maybe is, is filthy, stinking rich, you know, it can bribe the refs or some of these other things that's good too. But this is one of the most charismatic characters in video gaming. Some would say he's handsome. I'm taking Handsome Jack as my manager. He's filthy stinking rich. He's charismatic as anything. What better guy to have as the manager of my heel team to put it all together and tie it all together.

I'm taking handsome Jack I I literally spent the last five minutes trying to look up if he's got any kind of powers or anything Apparently if he does I don't remember what they are. I just know he's really smart He can be almost like almost like a million dollar man style character. Yeah paying everybody off. Oh, yeah million-dollar man style character just paying everybody off. Oh yeah. You don't know if the ref's in your corner or not. That's a good one. He was on my like big list of overall, you know, top 10-15 or whatever, but that's a solid manager pick for sure. Yeah, he's not getting in the ring. I mean, that's the main goal here is don't put this man in the ring because we all know how that ends. Lord knows he can fund the training. Yeah exactly you know yeah yeah top tier training facility like out of Rocky 4 with Ivan Drago all that future tech stuff man. A bunch of steroids. Just get juiced in. It's a heel team man. What do you think? Yeah there are no rules for you guys. Exactly. I got Dr. Robotnik dude we're gonna get cyberneticsnetics, and you don't know what we're going to have, man.

Oh, man. All right, boys. Well, let me run down these teams here because this is the list. So Ryan, you have Bowser. You have... No, wait. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

So you have Bowser, Goro, Dr. Robotnik as as your manager you have a big daddy from Bioshock and you have John Cena Mass oh my goodness, man Okay, and then Matt's team is the Master Chief himself. Katamari Damacy, I guess is it just Katamari at that point? I think Katamari Damacy is the name of the game. The name of the character is the prince,

but the game is the other. Is the prince, I think you're right actually. That does ring a bell. So that's the true wild card of this. Like honestly, when we talk about this, there's gonna be people that are like, Katamari's just gonna roll everybody into oblivion. So I hope they go with my reasoning

that they're gonna start off very small. And then you've got Raiden from Metal Gear Solid. You have Ellie as your no quit, heart of the people part of the team there. And then quite possibly the other true wild card of this is Trevor Phillips as your manager. Oh my goodness. I love it. Love it. And then my team, I have the one and only Kratos. I have Donkey Kong. I have Zangief, Diablo, and I have handsome Jack rounding out my team as my manager. That's a meaty team too to be fair.

It is a meaty team. I went beef. I went beef with just that side of a ham hocks. Yeah. Yeah. So awesome fellas. Well that is going to wrap up this draft. Listen after this episode airs or the, you know, I'm going to give it, I is going to wrap up this draft. Listen, after this episode airs, or the, you know,

I'm going to give it, I'm going to give it a little bit of time to stew, but then we are going to post a poll on social media. So make sure you look for that because we want to know who you think put together the best team in this draft for wrestling. Can I ask gentlemen, can I ask, like, were there any like, uh any notable mentions or honorable mentions you wanted to throw out from your team that didn't make your list?

I had Balder from God of War because he doesn't feel any pain whatsoever. So he's kind of hard to take down. But then I was like, I can't lean into God of War stuff too much. Ryan stole Goro from me. I did think about Vader as a manager because then he's just sitting over there using the force to do whatever, but that's, that's, it feels

like such a cheese pick. And then I did have Magneto waiting in the wings in case anybody drafted like, uh, you know, to deal with like Dr. Robotnik for instance, so that he could just be like, nah, get out of here, man. That's not that idea. Those are the only other ones for me. Ryan, who'd you have in reserve? Um, oh man, I had a few. I just, the biggest thing was, um, I was trying to keep it to like a theme. So like, I just went with the meat theme and I just took like big guys and I actually had a few more that I could have picked and I was deciding between, you know, who to pick. But if there was a couple others, you know, I was thinking maybe like someone like a little bit of speed. So add Sonic in the mix to bounce around because you know, everybody's played

that bounce level where you had to get the gems like on the, on the, you know, the rings that bounce. Can you imagine Sonic coming off the ropes, man? Yeah, off the ropes. Just bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing,, off the ropes, just bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. You know, so there's a few like that. So that was the main thing. But no, dude, Josh, your manager pick is pretty dang good. It's solid.

Honestly. Yeah. I know. Matt, what about you? Do you have any backups? Yeah, so I had, like, for my powerhouse, I mean, something like Doomguy, right, was the original, was one of mine. For the finesser, I almost decided to go with Agent 47.

Ooh. Ah. Because he could just like put on like the popcorn guys outfit and walk right past the enemy team and like trip them up without them knowing and just switch disguises or something. Oh, that's a great pick, dude. You would've made a good manager pick, actually.

Could've been a good manager, too. Yeah, good manager pick actually. Could have been a good manager too Yeah, yeah, good manager. Of course. Is he a good guy though? I mean, I guess that that's debatable. He's the protagonist. I don't know if you yeah good is probably Little shaky there. Yeah, um, I was gonna for my sympathetic baby face I was gonna maybe go with Arthur Morgan, of course. Or Princess Zelda herself. Ooh, okay. And then my other manager was gonna be more clearly, dog meat.

Oh! Everybody loves a dog! Just the inspiration! Just sitting in the corner, right? Yeah. It's funny because I started to put together- Bringing you stimpaks? I started to put together a baby face teeth

because I was like, everybody's going to expect me to go heal, so I'm going to think about some baby faces. Whatever, dude. I know, but then I was like, I can't. I can't do it. One that I did think about, because I was with you, Matt, is that agile guy. I was thinking the Prince of Persia.

So like, Ghassan from Prince of Persia. Ezio from Assassin's Creed was like another one where I was like, you can't catch this guy, man. Yeah. You know? Especially with the can't catch this guy, man. Yeah. You know? Especially with the ropes, just, oh, yeah. Yeah. Just diving.

Just eagle diving from the top. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I love it, man. Dude, I love these drafts so much, man. They're so much fun, dude. They're just fun to get stupid with. They're so goofy and so much fun.

Oh, it's great. Yeah, absolutely. So dude, Matt, what a pleasure, man No, so great. We're gonna have to I'll be honest man We're gonna have to have you on again, dude, cuz you like I said, we've been we've been chatting for a while, man We are we're friends man, you know, we share a lot of the same loves in life and stuff like that too, man So no huge. Thank you for joining us on this one Absolutely. This is something I was looking forward to.

Again, like all the people say in your guys' reviews, it's all true and then some, it's hard to find people who just talk about this hobby and everything, positively, but not like uselessly positively. You still critique, you still honest, I appreciate that, but just coming at it from a really place of love for the hobby and the appreciation of it Which in this world today, there's not nearly enough of it and especially in our social media sphere Oh, so like just yeah here. I try to do very similar things

Cuz honestly, yeah, it's the same thing. You see it honestly we do. Yeah That's one reason we get along so well that That toxicness, I try to avoid it. I go, look, we've got enough of that. Let's talk about why we love this stuff. And so I totally connect with you guys on that. And I've very much been looking forward to this. So thank you for having me. This has been awesome.

Now, I would be remiss, Matt, because I did shout it out at the top of the show, but you actually have a podcast of your own. So shout that out, tell people what that is. Sure, yeah, no. So if you are into the wrestling scene at all, when we made this podcast, there are tons of wrestling podcasts all about,

like, just who's good and who's bad, and people, again, just arguing, arguing, arguing, but we're like, we love this, and we wanted to put it about the storytelling that the shows are doing each and every week. Not the backstage politics, not whose contract's expiring, and not the inside baseball stuff. Even though I work inside the industry,

we wanted to keep it more focused on like, oh, this character, like, oh, John Cena's heel turn. Narrative beats, and like, oh, is this story working? Is it not working? Do these characters work for all the major promotions? So it is called Rebooked. It is on YouTube and all the major promotions. So it is called Rebooked. It is on YouTube and all the podcast platforms. It's myself, Golden Boy Alex Mendez,

who works a lot in e-sports, as well as our friend Jake, who is a writer and producer in Los Angeles. So yeah, Rebooked Wrestling Podcast. Look that up absolutely everywhere and come join us each and every week. And I got one more thing to say because I do not say this lightly, but I, you know, I'm,

I'm one of those people where I would rather play video games than watch video games. But I gotta say, buddy, you are, you, you put on a heck of a stream dude. Like, I do not say this like legitimately, this is not stoking your ego or like saying thank you for joining us for this episode. Cause honestly, I hope I kick your butt in this draft, but, but for anybody that likes a very good entertaining streamer to just hang out with and watch. And again, the same energy that we bring to this podcast, you bring to your streams, you were there because you have a, a true love of video games. You want people to have an awesome place to hang out with,

to talk about what they're passionate about. No toxicity or any of that garbage. You are who you are and I absolutely love that. And I have actually personally tuned in to many of your streams to just have a good time. And I do not do that. So that is a testament to you as an entertainer and a streamer.

So we will put a link to your podcast and to your Twitch in the episode description. But take it from me as a lifelong gamer, this guy is a blast to hang out with and watch play games. So definitely make sure you join him for that as well. Thank you very much, I appreciate that. Absolutely, I just wanna second that. Yeah, as you know, we very much, I appreciate that. Absolutely, I just wanna second that, yeah.

As, you know, we're dads, we have jobs, we have careers, we have families, you know, all that stuff goes on. So the little bit of time we have, a lot of times we wanna play the games ourselves, but I still like watching Matt do these games and playing stuff that, you know, people are interested in, and even hopping into Destiny, like a while back when I was watching him.

So, like, it's to a level to where you're like, oh, I feel like I'm playing the game. I feel part of it, I feel involved. So it's definitely something everybody should check out and just take a peek at, man. It's really cool. Yeah. The nicest thing I ever, like,

I don't care anything about like me personally, but the nicest thing you ever see in those streams, and I've seen it in other streamers' stuff too, is when people come in and they're like, oh, man, I either I haven't played this in a while or I haven't played this before, but now I really want to. Like, that's like the greatest compliment. I don't care what you think about me personally, but if that environment is being shot out to you,

then that mission accomplished. Because you're making it fun and that's what video games should be. They should be fun. Fun, fun, absolutely. Yeah, awesome. Well listen everybody, make sure you check out, again, they'll be in the episode description,

but again, if you're a fan of wrestling, check out the Rebooked podcast. If you're a fan of video games, we know you are because you're listening to this podcast. Make sure you check out Matt's stream as well. It really is a very good time. That's going to do it for this episode. Everybody remember to follow the show. Click that plus button. Click that follow button in your podcast app. If you want to be like shark, the fart and leave us an awesome review. We will get caught up on these. We'll read those. How many emojis? 65. Shark, I counted them. You know a deal's a

deal man. I said I'd read them all and I did. Alright everybody thank you for joining us. Matt, dude this was awesome. So amazing to hang out with you buddy. We hope to do it again soon. That's it for this episode everybody. Until next time, happy gaming! See ya! Peace!