It turns out that Powerhouse Hobbs is not the only notable name leaving AEW this week.
Per a report by Alex McCarthy at Wrestling Intel, AEW has parted ways with Nik Sobic, their Senior Vice President of Business Development, Partnerships, and Video Games.
Sobic had been with All Elite Wrestling since the company’s founding in 2019. He played a large part in the development of the AEW Fight Forever video game released in 2023. Sobic also worked on live events and other operations.
In a 2023 interview with the AEW Unrestricted podcast, Sobic talked about working on the minigames that were a part of Fight Forever.
“Not all development meetings are fun, but one of the best and most fun times was the brainstorming meeting for minigames,” he said. “We came up with 100 ideas.”
“I pushed so hard for Shida’s slugfest. It made me happy that Adam Cole liked it too. That one was a little controversial, but it’s my favorite. I’m not capable of being unbiased on that.”
In addition, to AEW, Sobic has also worked for the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars and other Khan family enterprises. According to his LinkedIn page, since 2022 he has been the Chief Executive Officer at Vino Dolina, a horse ranch and “future vineyard” in Ponte Vedra, Florida, outside of Jacksonville.
AEW released its first console game in 2023 with Fight Forever receiving mixed reviews. There hasn’t been a follow up to the game yet, and it doesn’t sound like there are definitive plans in place for a sequel yet. Khan said he doesn’t know what the future holds for AEW games, but he expects more games will be produced in the future with AEW learning from the feedback it received for Fight Forever to improve the next offering.
“I love pro wrestling, and I’ll be the first to say that I’m not the biggest expert in the world on video gaming. I like to play games, but I’m not the expert,” Khan said. “There are great, great experts in the world about it and I tried to take insight and advice from people in AEW and people around the developers. And absolutely, we learned a lot in the making of the game and could take that in the future, I really believe to make the next game much, much better and learn from the experiences of doing that.
“But I also think that we’re having a great year with our wrestling and our TV, our pay-per-views, and doing all kinds of great things that are our core competencies. It’s a great thought, and it’s a very different question than the ones I’ve been getting asked about the pay-per-view, but it’s a good question. I’m not sure what the future would hold. I do think eventually there will be further AEW forays into gaming, different kinds of games, mobile games, different concepts, different platforms. I can’t say for sure what they’ll all be, because again, like I said, I’ll never claim to be the world’s biggest expert on video gaming. But I like it and I know it’s a huge part of a lot of our fans’ lives. It’s really important to a lot of our fans, and I’m trying to learn from that feedback.”
AEW expects to produce more video games in the future, but the company’s focus still remains on its first installment of Fight Forever.
AEW Fight Forever — the promotion’s first entry into the console video game market — was released to largely mixed reviews in June 2023. While being interviewed by Mr. Wright Way on Monday, Tony Khan was asked if AEW plans to have more console video games in the future and how long it will be until that happens.
“Well, it’s a great question. I think it was a great experience for us. And now it’s going to be something for AEW as a multimedia conglomerate, a worldwide corporation — definitely, it was a great first entry with AEW Fight Forever. People can still play AEW Fight Forever all over the world. And I think, eventually, absolutely we’ll keep putting AEW games into the world,” Khan responded.
“But right now, we’re fully supporting that [Fight Forever]. And I’m excited about AEW Fight Forever. There’s still more wrestlers and exciting things happening with the game. And, you know, I think there’s a lot of opportunities in the world of gaming, to your point.”
Fight Forever was developed by Yuke’s. This September, it was reported that AEW is strongly considering working with a different development partner for its future games.
AEW has also released a few mobile games throughout its history, including AEW Rise to the Top and Figure Fighters.
Wrestling Observer Live with Bryan Alvarez and Mike Sempervive is back with tons to talk about including NXT moving to the CW, the AEW five-year anniversary show, tons and tons of video game discussion regarding AEW’s game and the history of gaming, and tons more. A fun show as always so check it out~!
Mikey Ruckus on X paid tribute to Susie Monk Johnson, who sang Toni Storm’s original AEW, following her passing: “I am saddened to learn that Susie Monk Johnson (aka Suzie Mojo), singer on Toni Storm’s Theme “Watch What’s Next”, has passed away. Humble & kind, she was a local musician from my area. She leaves behind a husband & 2 daughters. My heartfelt condolences.”
On Sunday, Kenny Omega responded to comments on Twitter regarding updates to AEW Fight Forever. Omega said the game will receive continued support.
Omega wrote:
As someone who plays a ton of fighting games and FPS, I’ll always encourage fixes and rebalancing when situations like these turn up. There will be continued support for the game so all this feedback and suggestions are great! Thank you!
As someone who plays a ton of fighting games and FPS, I’ll always encourage fixes and rebalancing when situations like these turn up. There will be continued support for the game so all this feedback and suggestions are great! Thank you!
AEW: Fight Forever currently has a 6 out of 10 rating on IGN.
Granden Goetzman was removed from AEW’s roster page recently. The former MLB player had been performing as Trench in Swerve Strickland’s Mogual Affiliates faction. The group debuted in December but Strickland would merge them with Prince Nana’s Embassy in April and Trench and Parker Boudreaux disappeared from television. It was reported last month that both Boudreaux and Trench were dealing with injuries. Trench never did make his in-ring debut with the company. He had been training with Jay Lethal earlier this year. PWInsider is reporting that Trench’s contract expired and was not renewed.
AEW programming will once again air in Mexico beginning this week. Dynamite and Collision will stream on the Vix streaming service.
AEW will be available again in Mexico starting Wednesday, as part of the Televisa owned VIX streaming service. Both Dynamite and Collision are airing. https://t.co/tLuVhFfsbv
Editor’s Note: This was recorded on Saturday prior to WWE Money in the Bank.
It’s Saturday and that means Wrestling Observer Live. Happy Canada Day!
We have lots of stuff to cover: two incredible Stardom cage matches, WWE SmackDown in front of a red hot crowd in London, a preview of what should be a great Money In The Bank, a few interesting things on AEW Rampage, and some thoughts on the AEW Fight Forever video game release..
Also, following the latest episode of Dark Side of the Ring, people are talking about the career of the Junkyard Dog which had its ups and downs. The question is should JYD be in the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame? Check it out.
Wrestling Observer Live with Bryan Alvarez and Mike Sempervive is back with tons to talk about including the Collision rating and what is being advertised this week, our main man BRYAN ROSE appears to talk the AEW Fight Forever video game, your weekly Dynamite report, plus Bryan’s video game history. A fun show as always so check it out~!
It’s a brand new We’re Live, Pal! with myself and Andrew Zarian.
We opened up the show talking about a recent bet made between the two of us and how I will pay it off. We then talked about the new AEW Fight Forever video game that is set to come out later this week. Will it be a literal game-changer for the company and what will fans think?
We transitioned into discussion about last Sunday’s AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door and how perfect the show was for the AEW fanbase.
We discussed which Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay match was better between last Sunday and last Saturday’s Tokyo Dome match at Wrestle Kingdom.
Lastly, we dug into a preview of this weekend’s WWE Money in the Bank show from London.
After waiting three years since its inital announcement in 2020, AEW’s first home console game has arrived, one of the first viable alternatives to WWE’s long-running 2K series in quite some time. The good news is that the gameplay is excellent, harkening back to the Nintendo 64 era of wrestling games. The bad news is a lack of content makes Fight Forever feel like the bare minimum.
It’s obvious from the get-go that the development team fully focused on making this a spiritual sequel to No Mercy on the N64. Every aspect of the gameplay feels like the old AKI wrestling system, right down to some of the animations and taunts. Unlike recent WWE games that lean heavily into realistic simulation with submission systems and stamina bars, Fight Forever has an excellent quick-paced arcade feel that has been missing from wrestling games for decades.
Fight Forever’s key matches, aside from the standard tag team, multi-man, and ladder matches include the Casino Battle Royal, which in Fight Forever is essentially a Royal Rumble match where entry is determined by the card selected in the beginning of the match. There’s also the exploding barbed wire death match where the object is to throw the opponent into, you guessed it, exploding barbed wire. After 120 seconds, the ring will explode, causing total mayhem. There’s even a fun easter egg in this match type if you look hard enough.
Then there’s the Lights Out match, which is fun as the weapons (skateboard!) are fun to use. And good news for those that like extensive blood in pro wrestling games: this is an extremely bloody game if you choose to go that route. That pretty much covers it for match types. Some notable omissions include cage matches and Blood & Guts. It’s been quite a while since there was a pro wrestling game that didn’t have a standard cage match.
Road to Elite is the game’s story mode, and it too borrows aspects from No Mercy. You can choose either a created wrestler or an AEW star to play a one-year period where wins and losses send you into different storyline branches. The mode also encourages you to play mini-games (which can be silly, but fun), do sightseeing at the locations you travel to, take selfies with AEW stars, and train to replenish health and unlock more skills. It doesn’t take long to clear the mode, maybe a few hours at most. There’s a replayability factor here in that other storyline branches can be explored. But I wish it was a little more in depth, like how No Mercy had separate stories for each title.
Speaking of created wrestlers, Fight Forever’s creative suite is amazingly shallow compared to most recent games. WWE 2K22 and even Street Fighter 6 had plenty of ways to make creative, original characters, something that will be hard to do here. Fight Forever only gives a handful of options to alter a character’s facial features and body. The clothing selection feels minimal, and creating an entrance is kind of moot as the game doesn’t have full entrances, only short ones that last a few seconds. Extra taunts and entrance poses that can be purchased in the game’s shop for in-game currency, but it doesn’t make up for the limited options.
I should mention that some aspects of Fight Forever are also pretty dated. Wrestling’s breakneck pace make matches and storylines even from a year ago feel extremely old. One storyline in Road to Elite had me embroiled in a battle between The Inner Circle and The Pinnacle, groups that were relevant in early 2022 but feel like ancient history in mid 2023.
Nonetheless, AEW Fight Forever is a blast to play, more fun than WWE 2K22 or any other recent pro wrestling game. But limited modes, options, and creative content make the experience feel rather shallow. The idea appears to be that new match types, modes, and playable wrestlers will be rolled out over time. If the development team can follow through with that, then Fight Forever has lots of potential as the core gameplay is solid. The spiritual sequel to No Mercy is finally here. I just wish there was more to do!
AEW Fight Forever will be released on June 29 for Xbox One & Series X, PlayStation 4 & 5, PC, and Nintendo Switch. A PlayStation 5 code was provided for this review.
Positives and negatives about working for AEW and WWE
The Collision announce team
The most detailed look at Collision ratings and what category was it tops among sports during the week
What TNT was doing in the time slot, what should be expected and what would be considered good
How each segment did
The Marc Raimondi ESPN piece
Punk talks Adam Page
Contradictory stories
Original idea for Collision that changed
Full rundown of both Chicago shows with business notes
Preview of Forbidden Door and what business mark for AEW may be set and where it ranks all-time among Canadian gates
Notes on Danielson vs. Okada and Omega vs. Ospreay
Notes on PPV
The rest of the card
The Owen Hart tournament
Update on Wembley Stadium
Rickson Gracie battles Parkinson’s and a look back at a fighting legend in the underground days as well as his battles with a famous pro wrestler in Brazil
Money in the Bank update
Notes on Saturday’s UFC show
Tons of new major matches announced by UFC for the summer and fall
The most detailed look at the ratings for all the wrestling and MMA shows over the past week, how they do with different age groups, segment-by-segment and what WWE stars moved numbers big this past week
First wrestling company in history to hit 90 years consecutively in business
Multiple cities doing a 40th anniversary celebration for a Hall of Famer
Konnan talks heavily about Bandido and Rush
An issue with women’s wrestling fans in Japan
How the women’s wrestling fan base in Japan has changed multiple times
What happened to the key young Dragon Gate talent that was let go
Two wrestlers who started together, became big stars in different companies, have a dream match that sold out instantly
N-1 tournament including surprise entrants
New Japan Strong shows in Japan
A bill introduced in New York regarding regulating pro wrestling
Lots of injury updates
More on the MLW lawsuit against WWE
Impact stars on major television show in Canada
More on B.J. Whitmer case
Tony Khan talks working with Gedo and where AEW stands among start-ups in the sports brand space
Tony Khan talks Bill Goldberg
Update on Bandido
International TV ratings and streaming numbers for WWE and AEW
Ticket sale updates for all the major shows for WWE & AEW
Talks regarding the sale of Bellator, rumors about Tony Khan being interested and he shoots them down
Tons of drug suspensions handed out this week
Gable Steveson debuts on TV and what his goals for 2024 are
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Tuesday Update
WWE
WWE’s Most Wanted Treasures on Sunday did 333,000 viewers with a 0.11 in 18-49, up from last week’s 276,000 and 0.09. Stone Cold Takes on America meanwhile did 230,000 and a 0.06, down from last week’s 211,000 and 0.06.
Prior to Raw on Monday, Matt Riddle issued a challenge on social media to Gunther for the Intercontinental title at Money in the Bank. Later on Raw, Gunther accepted.
The company filed a new trademark for ‘Judgment Day’ on June 22.
Sami Zayn is raffling off a shirt from his run with The Bloodline, signed by the entire group and other WWE stars as part of a Pro Wrestling Tees live raffle drawing on July 14. Proceeds will go to Sami For Syria.
THQ Nordic released a FAQ ahead of Fight Forever’s release on June 29. In the FAQ, it was revealed that the game will not support crossplay between consoles. Regarding Steam Deck compatibility, the company said that they will be working on getting Steam Deck verification shortly.
Other Wrestling
Showbuzz Daily, which provided daily cable ratings including those for professional wrestling, is shutting down after this week.
Impact announced that they will be holding a Pride Night at Impact’s event on July 16 at St. Clair College in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. More information can be found here.
Mark Haskins on his radio show challenged KENTA to a match for the DEFY Championship. DEFY teased it may take place at their The Splendid & The Vile event on August 26.
Nick Gage has been added to GCW’s No Signal in the Halls event on August 11 in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Lio Rush has been added to GCW’s My Name is GCW event on August 4 in Detroit.
The Baltimore Sun has an article on Gloria Barattini, who started as an opera singer before turning to professional wrestling from 1950 to 1962.
The roster for the upcoming AEW: Fight Forever video game has been revealed.
With the game set to be released on June 29, the AEW Games Twitter account posted a video on Friday with 52 wrestlers who will be available on launch day.
AEW: Fight Forever release day roster:
Abadon
Adam Cole
Adam Page
Andrade El Idolo
Anna Jay
Aubrey Edwards
Brian Cage
Britt Baker
Mr. Brodie Lee
Bryan Danielson
Chris Jericho
Christian Cage
Chuck Taylor
CM Punk
Cody Rhodes
Darby Allin
Dustin Rhodes
Eddie Kingston
Hikaru Shida
Jade Cargill
Jeff Hardy
John Silver
Jon Moxley
Jungle Boy
Kenny Omega
Kris Statlander
Lance Archer
Luchasaurus
Malakai Black
Matt Jackson
Miro
MJF
Nick Jackson
Nyla Rose
Orange Cassidy
Owen Hart
Pac
Paul Wight
Penta El Zero M
Powerhouse Hobbs
Rey Fenix
Ricky Starks
Riho
Ruby Soho
Sammy Guevara
Scorpio Sky
Sting
Tay Melo
Thunder Rosa
Trent Beretta
Wardlow
Yuka Sakazaki
In addition to the names mentioned above, several wrestlers will be available as downloadable content. Those who pre-order the game will also receive playable Matt Hardy and Broken Matt Hardy characters. Those who purchase the Elite edition of the game will receive Cash Wheeler, Dax Harwood, Keith Lee, The Bunny, HOOK, and Danhausen as downloadable content at a later date.
The game will be available for video game consoles and PCs.
Introducing the main game roster of AEW: Fight Forever!#AEWFightForever launches June 29th on PC and consoles!
The first footage of Owen Hart in AEW’s upcoming video game has been released.
DenkOps on YouTube shared the first footage of Owen Hart in AEW Fight Forever, which you can see below. The footage shows Hart taking part in Fight Forever’s Road to Elite mode, the career mode for the game which releases on June 29.
Back in 2021, AEW announced that they had come into partnership with the Owen Hart Foundation. In the press release, it was mentioned that Hart would be part of the upcoming video game.
Since the announcement of their partnership, AEW and the Owen Hart Foundation have established the Owen Hart Cup, which started last year with Adam Cole and Britt Baker winning the men’s and women’s tournaments respectively. This year’s tournament is scheduled to take place in Canada, with the finals taking place at the Saddledome in Calgary, Alberta, Canada on July 15.
Fight Forever will be released on PlayStation 4 & 5, Xbox One & Series X, PC, and Nintendo Switch.
AEW has announced bonus content for its upcoming Fight Forever video game.
AEW: Fight Forever Elite Edition will be available for consoles and PC. Those who purchase this version will receive early access to the game beginning on June 28, four additional mini-games, as well as Cash Wheeler, Dax Harwood, Keith Lee, The Bunny, HOOK, and Danhausen as playable characters.
Additionally, Matt Hardy and “Broken” Matt Hardy are available for those who pre-order the game.
Digital preorders for AEW: Fight Forever Elite Edition are available now.
AEW: Fight Forever Elite Edition is available for both console & PC! It includes:
✅ Early Access on June 28
❤️🩹 Matt Hardy + Broken Matt Hardy attire
🎟️ Season 1 Pass which includes: Dax Harwood, Cash Wheeler, The Bunny, Keith Lee, HOOK & Danhausen, PLUS 4 mini-games pic.twitter.com/f0DdLpwk1v
Bonus content will be split into three bundles. The FTR bundle contains Harwood, Wheeler, and the minigames JoinUs and Deth Race-X. The Limitless Bunny bundle features Keith Lee, The Bunny, and the MJF Car Thrash and Sloth Sling minigames. The Hookhausen Very Handsome, Very Evil Pack will feature HOOK and Danhausen. Release dates for the bundles are not currently available.
The standard version of the game carries a price tag of $60 USD while the special edition is $72 USD.
Wrestling Observer Live with Bryan Alvarez and Mike Sempervive is back with tons to talk about including all of the injuries around the world of wrestling, AEW’s new video game about to debut, two days to find out what’s going on with CM Punk, a look at all the weekends news and shows and more. A fun show as always so check it out~!
