It’s Mike C., back to recap the results of the 3rd portion of the “YES! Wrestling Superflight Night” OP (overpowered) simulation. To touch base on what’s going here; 6 of WWE 2k18’s best, the top-rated, superstars in-game are being put to the test via a 4 match “type” tournament. There are 25 matches of each type that are simulated for a total of 100 matches. Two awards (belts) have been created and will be given. The awards are as follows: OP Champion and OP Eliminator. The OP champion will be the wrestler with the most wins overall throughout all 100 matches. The OP Eliminator will be the superstar with the highest total of eliminations, cumulative between rounds 3 (battle royal) and 4 (elimination chamber).

After many days of watching these hour to hour and a half matches a winner has emerged. Through the hard fought Battle Royal’s in YES! Wrestling Gym, Brock Lesnar has captured another round victory. “The Beast” snatched the lead overall in the process as well taking that coveted spot from “The Phenomenal” A.J. Styles.

To give a slight recap of the 25 matches, Brock achieved the first elimination by tossing Randy Orton over the top rope via a stunned rope grapple reversal that sent Orton flying to ringside. Cena came out strong with a second victory, total within the tournament, inside the first three matches of this variant. He faltered afterwards only seeing one more victory during this match series.

Lesnar was on a mission in the 7th match, performing with one goal in mind, VICTORY! He succeeded by making three of the five eliminations needed for the win, a precursor to his overall victory. The interesting part, however, is that Lesnar and Styles were the last two and both without a win at this stage of the competition within this match type. Styles responded back in grand fashion eliminating “The Big Dog” for his first victory of the Battle Royal matches.

In the final match, the last three were Orton, Cena, and Reigns. The match ended in epic fashion with Cena and Reigns going at it center ring. Reigns lands a samoan driver on Cena and Orton out nowhere, RKO, elimination. “The Viper” then stalks Cena as he lay center ring. He lifts him up and irish whips him over the ropes, only to finish him with a running clothesline.

As per the usual, I will have a link to the spreadsheets keeping track of both eliminations as well as score below. Some of the stats from this round were actually pretty accurate in my opinion of the superstars in reality as well as their digital counterparts.

Roman proved up to the task to claim the highest number of eliminations this go round with a total of 25, followed by Lesnar with 23.5 and Cena with 21.5. The latter two competitors were the only two to finish with a shared elimination; only time will tell if those halves have a role to play in the OP Eliminator run. In a twist of fate, Cena gained that half with Rollins rounding out his total to 19 sharing 4th with Styles. “The Viper” although finishing last in eliminations achieved better results in the number of victory column.

I noticed a few things this segment that is of mention and I believe are signs that the development team is actually trying to make the game more realistic in some aspects that are not simply connected to game modes. I will include my observations and look forward to any rebuttal that you guys and gals might have.

I have brought up Styles’ size numerous times throughout this simulation. I will have to address it again. This affects his ability to lift and carry opponents within the new system and can lead to extra elimination opportunities. However, this is apparently not a problem because the programming compensates his speed, running offense, and momentum fill speed allowing him to make majority of his eliminations using a running clothesline finisher against those stunned on the ropes. Lesnar escapes eliminations at an alarming rate; most likely due to his high strength and toughness modifiers.

Seth Rollins also has a tendency to take a lot of high risk moves during the matches, which is extremely dangerous as the corners are hotpoints for eliminations. Again, this did not affect his standing in the simulation badly, but if this would be a larger situation say a Rumble then this could lead to him being eliminated at a higher rate and thus a lower win percentage. Lastly, according to the ratio of wins to eliminations it is clear that this match type was any of the competitors to take.

I would like to take this time to apologize for the delay in this follow up. There was things in life and technical issues with my system that played major parts in this along with the longer match times. I typically was able to get five matches a day when I could. So again, my apologies. I would also like to take this time to announce that upon completion of the OP Challenge the first “Dream Match” as polled on the YES! Wrestling Superflight Night Facebook page will begin. The participants in that series will be “The Legend Killer,” Randy Orton facing off against “The Yoga Master,” Diamond Dallas Page. As always folks, Stay Frosty!