GameStop has a new CEO. Michael Mauler, who has been with the video game and technology retailer for 16 years, is stepping into the role of chief executive, effective immediately, GameStop announced in a press release. Mauler, who is 56, also joins GameStop’s Board of Directors as part of this appointment.
Previously, Mauler was GameStop’s executive vice president and the president of GameStop’s international business. Before that, he worked as GameStop’s senior vice president for Supply Chain and International Support. Going further back in time, Mauler was the vice president for logistics at EB before it merged with GameStop.
Jay Lethal has had an impressive run in professional wrestling over the past 15 years. He’s taken on legends like Ric Flair and worked with AJ Styles and Xavier Woods in TNA, and he’s currently in his second run at Ring of Honor, which he was the RoH World Champion for over a year in 2015 and 2016. Currently, Lethal is trying to reclaim the title, but he has to get through RoH’s current champ, Dalton Castle.
When not in the ring, Lethal finds himself playing quite a lot of video games with other wrestlers in RoH or accidentally finding out he does dynamite impressions of Ric Flair and “Macho Man” Randy Savage. Lethal spoke to GameSpot about this, as well as his recent segment with RoH Champion Dalton Castle, which you can watch on the Fite app.
GameSpot: You are wrestling on the road quite a bit during the year. Are you by any chance playing Switch right now?
Jay Lethal: I tried to think of a smart ass answer. I’m sorry. But yes, I am. And I feel bad for those who have yet to been able to get their hands on one. It’s amazing.
What are you playing the most?
It saves my life. Right now, I’m playing Mario Odyssey, although I’m only on Lake Kingdom, which is still relatively early in the game. Me and my buddy Sonjay are addicted to just going around and getting the Moons, so I really don’t even want to go on to the next stage. What else? When we’re at shows, a couple guys [play]–me, Chris Sabin, and a few others. I know Flip Gordon, we play Mario Kart, and Chris Sabin is amazing at it.
Photo Credit: Ring of Honor/Devin Chen
You’re in for kind of a rude awakening when you beat Odyssey because there are even more Moons.
Oh really?
It feels like a never ending cycle.
See, that’s gonna work for me because sometimes when I get on an airplane–and I’ve been doing this for 16 years now–it’s a great companion for me–this Switch. What else am I playing? I downloaded Rocket League, although I enjoyed for the PlayStation. Especially since it was a free download. On the Switch, you had to pay for it, but yeah it’s okay on the Switch. Another thing, you know what’s funky to me about the Switch?
No.
None of my other friends have this issue; I don’t want to dock it, even when I’m home. Even when I’m home, I wanna play it in just handheld mode, but Sonjay tells me that Mario Odyssey is better when you take the Joy-Cons off. I just want to keep it all connected. I like my portable system. I don’t want to dock it and be part of the TV. And if I take the Joy-Cons off then I might as well dock it, otherwise I’m playing on such a small screen because now I gotta sit it down, and it’s not in my hand up close. What about you? Do you dock yours at all?
I bought it day one, and I’ve had it docked three times, and that was just to see how pretty Zelda looked. And I refuse to dock it now. I love just sitting on the coach; my wife can watch something that she likes to watch, and I’ll just play video games.
See I’ve docked it twice, and both times it would have been because my girlfriend wanted to play Snipperclips with me. So, that was okay but I just don’t… I never dock this thing. And I never really want to. I never feel the need to.
Are you playing anything on PlayStation right now that really you’re into?
Not really. To be honest, I only got the PS… I’m an Xbox guy. I only have the PS4 because my older brother and my younger brother, they’re both PlayStation guys at heart. They don’t own an Xbox, so I only got it for them. My brother and I play Diablo. We’re looking for another game similar to that right now. My oldest brother, he’s a big sports guy. So, Madden. Every Madden, of course that’s what we play, but he’s way more into sports than I am, so he destroys me. Although every time the new Madden comes out, I tell him I’m gonna practice, and you’re not gonna be able to beat me, but he always, always does. But it’s because he understands sports more than I do. I’m not that big into sports. When we come up to the line, he knows how to read the play, he knows… I don’t know any of that. I don’t know what I’m doing.
Photo Credit: Ring of Honor/Oli Sandler
So, you’re not into any sports games? Not even UFC, which seems to have a cross over with wrestling.
See, I like the first UFC, the way the transitions happen; you roll the stick in certain directions, but then they changed that up and then it became to hard for me to play.
I can’t even do submissions with the new system.
Yeah, you see? I used to be great at it. They changed it up a little and man I’m no good, although some of the guys on our roster they actually love that game.
I think the most important question is, have you sent Dalton Castle a friend request on Facebook yet?
Believe it or not, I don’t have a Facebook, so it’s impossible to do, unless I were to create one. I’m more of a Instagram and Twitter person. The Facebook has never been… I’ve never been a big Facebook guy.
So, Dalton Castle is apparently looking at a fake Jay Lethal Facebook page.
Hey, there are plenty of those out there I realize. He probably sent some requests to the wrong Facebook account because I don’t have one.
It’s some 12-year-old kid from Madagascar.
Right.
You had a really great segment with him after he won the title. How do you prepare yourself to do a segment with someone with such a bizarre personality, and you have to play the I’d say the straight man?
Ah man, I’m welcoming this one. When I first broke onto the scene, it was another in-ring segment with him and I where we first learned about the Boys and he made them… They laid down and created some kind of table for him to lay on outta their bodies. It was weird but cool at the same time, and I’m extremely interested in making more moments like that.
Ring of Honor Episode 329
The look on your face during that segment were you sat down on one of the Boys… So good.
Thank you. Growing up, I loved moments just like that on TV when I was watching wrestling. And wrestling is something different to everybody. Everybody takes it differently, they like certain things, they hate certain things. But luckily, I’ve been able to live my dream in this wrestling world, getting to create moments that I as a fan would have loved.
I’ve always considered you very, very strong on the mic, very strong within segments and promos. Where did you develop your skills on the mic?
Hm. See, I never had a class or much practice, or someone pull me aside and say, this is how it’s done. It was pretty much trial by fire, is what they called it. The very first time that I ever really had to cut promo in front of a live crowd with a live microphone, live TV, was against Ric Flair. So, I really was set up to either excel or fail miserably. Luckily, I was able to excel, and I really think that program that I had with Ric Flair, all the interviews in the ring, all the backstage segments, and all the matches that I had with him–is most people only think I had one, but I actually had a few matches with him. I really think that, that’s where I broke out of my shell and learned the ins and outs of wrestling promos and such like that.
Also, growing up, I was a huge of his, so I memorized all of his stuff. Memorizing Ric Flair promos doesn’t make you great at promos though, so it took a lot of practice. But yeah, I would say that program I had with him is what really helped with my character’s development and in-ring promos.
What would be, looking at your long career, what would be your favorite moment? Not necessarily match but your favorite moment within your career?
Oh, I’ve got two of those. One was stepping into the ring with my idol, Ric Flair, wrestling him live on pay per view. And the other would be, me becoming the Ring of Honor World Champion, becoming the face of a company. It’s like that promotion at every job that you hope for. It was amazing.
Your impressions of Ric Flair and Macho Man are wonderful. Just so good. The Ric Flair impression is… Your facial expressions and the way you put beats within your wording is so perfect. Do you just sit and practice his voice all day?
Well, believe it or not, the Ric Flair impression, I had never even known that I could do. All my life it was me imitating Savage, I’ve always been able to do the Randy Savage voice. So, that one I had down pat, so when that became my story, that was easy for me. I just do what I did all my life. But I hadn’t even realized that because I had watched so much Ric Flair, I had naturally without ever even realizing had this awesome Ric Flair impression and that I had never even attempted or tried until one day we had an off day in the UK. I was with TNA, and we were doing a tour of the UK. I had an off day, and everyone was at the bar [and] had a couple drinks. Everyone’s laughing and joking. And I just bust out this Ric Flair. I don’t know I just thought I would try one. And it was amazing. And I haven’t been able to stop since. The impression that is, not being at the bar.
So, how did the famous/infamous 2006 TNA Ric Flair segment come to be? How did you guys kind of decide the back and forth between you two?
That was all on the fly and nothing was written down, which made it the scariest moment of my life, but when I was doing that Ric Flair impression at that UK tour that we were having, Ric Flair was not at the company yet. He wasn’t with the company. So, I actually did this Ric Flair impression a few times after that once we got home. Everyone on the UK trip told everyone who wasn’t on it, “Hey, Jay has this awesome Ric Flair impression. You gotta have him do it,” so that became the thing of the locker room, hearing me do this impression. And then it seemed like two, three months later as luck would have it just I don’t even know how but I gotta a message from Earl Hebner saying, you’ll never believe who’s coming here. And I was like oh my goodness, this is gonna be so embarrassing, I thought because I knew exactly what would happen.
When he came, people made me do the impression for him, and he’d either love it or he’d hate it but either way I’d be a little embarrassed ’cause their gonna force me to do it, which is exactly what happened. Except he loved it, so I think he loved it so much that he went to the office and said, “Hey I wanna work with this guy.” Because, I mean, at that point in time, Ric Flair does what Ric Flair wants to do.
So, I’m sure it was him going to the office and saying, hey let me work with this guy and they let Ric Flair do what he did. Also, the funny part about it is–the funny and scary–like I said up until then I had never been given a live microphone in front of live crowd, on live TV until that very moment, so that was the scariest moment of my life. I’m maybe giving too much away here, but I don’t think it’s any secret. Most of the time when a wrestler is in the ring with a microphone, they have some bullet points or they pretty much know what they’re going to be talking about unless you were in the ring with Ric Flair. Nothing was written, there were no bullet points. You go out there, I had the old school way I guess, you go out there and you do the thing on the microphone and that to me was terrifying because this was my first time every doing this, I had no practice. The company had never given me this opportunity before but luckily I did good.
Are there any other impressions of other wrestlers that you have not brought out yet?
See, I think only when I have a megaphone I think I can do a pretty good Jimmy Hart, he’s got a high pitched [voice]. He always calls me “darlin” whenever I see him. “Hey Jimmy,” “Oh, hey ‘darlin. How’s it ‘goin baby?” So, I think I got an okay Jimmy Hart but other than that… And I make this joke, until Ring of Honor does an overseas tour, and we have an off day and everybody goes out to the bar, then I won’t find out what my next impression will be until then.
Amidst all of 2017’s monumental, landmark video game releases, I’ll always remember it as the year I fell head over heels for the Yakuza series. In spite of all the new releases that pushed this console generation’s hardware to its limits, when it came down to picking my personal Game of the Year, I was torn between two PlayStation 3 games that got current-gen releases: Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami. Both are incredible games in their own right, but as remastered last-gen ports of a series that’s never quite blown up in the West, a lot of people slept on them.
This year, we’re getting Yakuza 6: Song of Life. It’s the first proper Yakuza game of this console generation, built from the ground up on a brand-new engine. After some hands-on time, I couldn’t be more excited. If you’re a fan of Yakuza already, you’re probably rolling your eyes going, “Well, duh,” but if you’re casually interested, read on, and allow me to explain why this is a game that should be on your radar.
Coming to PC, PS4, and Switch this week, Aegis Defenders is a unique blend of platforming and tower defense that developer GUTS, and its influences will sound even more disparate.
Speaking to IGN as part of a larger look at the indie game scene on the Nintendo Switch, Game Director Bryan Kho teased Aegis Defender’s influences. And they are as disparate as Persona, Pikmin, and Overcooked, the latter of which played into GUTS desire to have players swap between playable characters more frequently.
“…We had an issue where some players wouldn’t want to switch between characters during combat and would have a harder time as a result,” Kho said. “ One way we addressed that issue was with our Fusion System, where characters need to combine items from other characters to create better ones and therefore need to switch. That system was actually inspired by the game Overcooked, where players work together on making food, because we were also trying to think of ways to promote more collaboration between players during cooperative play.”
The Pokemon Adventures manga series is getting an art book to celebrate its 20th anniversary.
According to The Pokemon Company, Pokemon Adventures 20th Anniversary Illustration Book: The Art of Pokemon Adventures from VIZ is available now, and features 168 pages of art from series illustrator Satoshi Yamamoto.
The book comes with four pull-out posters and a new manga side story. The book features art showcasing Trainers and Pokemon who have appeared in the manga, including character portraits, group shots, and action scenes, as well as storyboards and black-and-white sketches.
A striking IMAX poster for Black Panther has been released.
Chadwick Boseman, who plays T’Challa/Black Panther in the upcoming MCU film, shared the poster on Twitter earlier today. It offers a more artistic view of the movie’s main characters, including Boseman as Black Panther, Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia, and Letitia Wright as Shuri. A rising sun is also depicted passing over Wakanda.
Check out the poster in the gallery below, which is followed by a collection of all of Black Panther’s other posters.
Variety reports the long-running ABC show won’t return for an eighth season, with the network deciding to pull the plug on the series. Once Upon a Time lost most of its core cast after Season 6, with Season 7 acting as a creative reboot. However, after shifting to a Friday time slot, the show has suffered a ratings decline.
ABC entertainment president Channing Dungey said in a statement provided to Variety:
Quentin Tarantino has responded to Uma Thurman’s recent Kill Bill crash allegations.
Tarantino sat down with Deadline to discuss his part in Thurman’s recently detailed allegations. In a New York Times piece, Thurman discussed a crash during the filming of Kill Bill which left her neck and knees permanently injured. She also discussed how footage of the event was kept from her, and how she alleges the incident was covered up by Harvey Weinstein and other film executives. Thurman originally objected to doing the stunt, because she was led to believe the vehicle might be unsafe.
Sony’s Dragon Tattoo sequel The Girl in the Spider’s Web has reportedly cast Logan star Stephen Merchant.
Variety reports Merchant, who played the mutant Caliban in Logan, has joined the sequel in a mystery role. Norwegian actress Synnøve Macody Lund has also been cast, with details about role being kept under wraps as well.
The Girl in the Spider’s Web is set to open in theaters on November 9. The sequel is being directed by Fede Alvarez (Don’t Breathe), from a script Alvarez co-wrote with Steven Knight and Jay Basu, based on David Lagercrantz’s book of the same name. It’s the fourth novel in the Dragon Tattoo series. Amy Pascal, Elizabeth Cantillon, Scott Rudin, and Yellow Bird are producing.
SpaceX held its first Falcon Heavy test flight today, and it was a great success.
After a successful liftoff from the pad, Falcon Heavy had successful booster separation as it climbed into space. The boosters experienced a successful landing, resulting in an outstanding test flight for SpaceX. You can watch footage of the launch right here.
