Thoughts on Super Saiyan Blue Evolution (Vegeta's new transformation)

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Thoughts on Super Saiyan Blue Evolution (Vegeta's new transformation)

Post by PFM18 » Wed Mar 28, 2018 2:36 pm

Super Saiyan Blue Evolution or Royal Blue or "Sparkly Blue" or whatever people want to call it is what I want to discuss. I do like the term "Evolution" being used to describe it and I think they did a good job naming it in that way.

But in general what do you guys think of the form? Personally I love it. Although it may be seen as "another reskin" so was the original Super Saiyan form right? Just changing the user's hair from black to gold. I love the darker blue color it looks amazing on him with his armor and the most distinct difference to me is the fact that HE FINALLY HAS PUPILS. He has the dark blue outer eye with the black pupils which is very rare in Dragon Ball. As far as I can tell Goku and Vegeta have only now gotten pupils with their respective new forms with the original Super Saiyan having a green eye with no pupil and the normal base having black eyes no pupils. Not to mention the fact that the color is literally a "Royal Blue" which I don't know if they did that on purpose or not but to me it is a nice touch.

But enough with the visuals of the form. I wish that they would have had Vegeta get the new form against Toppo instead of getting it in against Jiren just to fight and lose to Jiren. I think it would have been way more epic if he achieved it against Toppo and defeating him upon reaching the new form instead of arbitrarily gaining a new boost further than getting the new form against Toppo. But as far as how he achieves the form I love it. It is a huge difference from the original super saiyan being achieved when he was fed up from being behind Goku and wanted to surpass him and realize his "birthright" of being a super saiyan. This time, instead of selfishly wanting to gain power equal to his rival, he gains the first power by the anger invoked by not being able to keep his promise to Cabba his student and fellow Saiyan. The second power-up in the form came from the thoughts of his family and wanting to protect them from erasure and not "casting what he believes in aside" Like Toppo had done previously. It shows a huge character growth in a character arc that had supposedly already finished. It showed his transition from wanting to gain power in order to surpass Goku to wanting to gain power in order to protect his family and revive the U6 Saiyan race along with the student of his.

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Re: what do people think of SSBE

Post by ToshioWrites » Wed Mar 28, 2018 2:47 pm

I looks better without the aura and I don't mind the form. The whole "theme" of this tournament was breaking your limits and Vegeta did that

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Re: what do people think of SSBE

Post by sintzu » Wed Mar 28, 2018 3:17 pm

They should've just called it SsjBlue2 as that's what an evolution implies. Apart from that I think it's a great form and hope we see it again.
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Re: what do people think of SSBE

Post by PerhapsTheOtherOne » Wed Mar 28, 2018 3:36 pm

What I like about the form is that it's something Vegeta can call his own, a path that's different from Kakarot's.

He no longer needs nor wants the Ultra Instinct, he can work on surpassing his eternal rival in his own way.

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Re: what do people think of SSBE

Post by Marlowe89 » Wed Mar 28, 2018 3:44 pm

I'm very mixed on it myself. I love the idea of Vegeta choosing his own path to power instead of just mirroring Goku's methods, and giving him an exclusive Super Saiyan form was a nice way of showcasing that. It also allows him to potentially rival Beerus and the other Gods of Destruction, which kind of answers some of the foreshadowing from earlier in the anime and manga alike.

On the other hand, it reeks of being a Toei-only creation (I could be wrong here, mind you) and its aesthetic leaves a lot to be desired. "It's Super Saiyan Blue, but sparklier!" just doesn't appeal to me personally, and the explanation of "He, um, broke through his shell I guess" was exactly the sort of predictable lack-of-creativity I was hoping Super would attempt to get away from.

I'll take the good with the bad, but the manner in which it was introduced makes me wonder whether it's another throwaway transformation or if we'll actually see it again in the upcoming movie.

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Re: what do people think of SSBE

Post by mute_proxy » Wed Mar 28, 2018 3:49 pm

I don't like it. It's a thing, but it doesn't feel like it has a reason to be a thing, just like SSRage, it happens and that's it.

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Re: what do people think of SSBE

Post by Asura » Wed Mar 28, 2018 4:00 pm

It's dumb, and very obviously just feels like an anime-only thing to try and catch Vegeta up to Goku. It's gone right after the tournament too. No reason of course, it's just gone.
Terribly done, terribly explained, it's just barely better than SS Rage since at least it invokes a reaction from other people and it makes more sense than Trunks getting god ki somehow randomly.
I blame it for the mostly mediocre/shitty string of episodes leading up to the finale, with its constant focus on Vegeta that feels completely undeserved.

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Re: what do people think of SSBE

Post by Zephyr » Wed Mar 28, 2018 4:33 pm

Not a big fan of it. It had no narrative buildup, and served no narrative purpose. It didn't elucidate anything new or interesting about Vegeta that wasn't already well known to the viewers by this point (he cares about people, which makes him stronger; welcome to 2013). I really like the idea of Vegeta trying to evolve in a way distinct from Goku. However, the Cell arc, and the manga's Black arc, showcase this a lot better, I think.

In the Cell arc, all four of the Saiyan characters take their own distinct stab at evolving the Super Saiyan state, and it largely illustrates a contrast in how they approach training in general. Vegeta was satisfied with the first inkling of progress. Trunks took things too far, not thinking of the consequences, because he's still a novice at the end of the day. Goku went for a more well rounded approach, and managed to tame the basic state. Gohan's form doesn't illustrate his approach to training, but it further emphasizes how right Goku's approach was, while simultaneously acting as the payoff for his frequently teased potential.

In the manga's Black arc, Goku and Vegeta take different paths in order to circumvent Super Saiyan Blue's massive power drain. Vegeta juggles it with Super Saiyan God in order to minimize the amount of time that is spent in the form, while Goku opts to find a way to completely contain the power, so he can stay in the form for longer.

And though I like the idea of Vegeta forging his own path, I don't think that Ultra Instinct is the kind of thing that should only be Goku's. Vegeta has been training with the same master to learn that very same technique.

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Re: what do people think of SSBE

Post by ulisa » Wed Mar 28, 2018 4:45 pm

I don’t mind the “idea” of it in that I am actually a big fan of each Saiyan developing their own forms instead of each getting the same one—Gohan kind of mentions this in that he’ll be finding his own way to power instead of using his father’s way. I think that could be an interesting idea to have the Saiyans have equal or nearly equal strength without being the same.

Having said that though, I’m not too fond of this form in that it would have been fun to give it a more unique look. As is, much like I’m not super fond of SSB, it’s a bit boring.
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Re: what do people think of SSBE

Post by PFM18 » Wed Mar 28, 2018 4:57 pm

Yeah as far as the transformation being "just because" I have to completely disagree. The transformation represents his transition from wanting power in order to surpass Goku to now wanting to gain power in order to protect his family, and people like Cabba who he made a promise to. It was kind of alluded to in the Black arc when he got the huge pwoer boost when he was training to fight Goku Black and Black acknowledges how he got the power saying something along the lines of saying that he got the power through anger of the fact that Black had hurt his son(albeit his son from the future.) and now he gains this power initially when he wants to protect his promise to Cabba and the entire Saiyan race in Universe 6 and then to protect his family during the second power-up. It is a stark contrast from when he achieved the original Super Saiyan transformation because of will to want to surpass Goku. He achieved this power through absolutely no motivation of surpassing Goku and that is what the transformation is about. He went from "I want to surpass Kakarot" to "I want to have the strength to protect my family and the Saiyan race" and when he truly made that transisiton is when this form came about. Of course ultimately they were both rage fueled transformations but for different reasons. this difference in motivations for his transformation shows his development as a character and allowed him to attain a new level of power and for that I love the transformation. It is "going down a different path than Goku" only because, for once, his power boost HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GOKU. Again, this is foreshadowed when Vegeta says he and Goku are "reaching their limits" after training for 3 years in the RoSAT and only attaining a slight power boost and then gaining a huge power boost in only 6 months in the RoSAT. But why? Because of the anger that he held towards Black hurting his son and his wife in the future, as Black stated when he realized it. (and then he said "I shall be the most powerful for I hold the most anger towards mortals" which was awesome but I digress) That was for once not trying to surpass Goku or beat an enemy for the sake of defeating the enemy. he FINALLY had different motivations and then now this transition in motivations culiminates in a new transformation and I love it.

as far as aesthetics goes it being "just sparkly blue" I believe is also mislead. The transformation has easily more visual differences over the previous transformation than SSJ2. He gains darker blue hair,the white streaks in his hair glowing, the darker aura, the larger particles in the aura(AKA sparkly) and most importantly HE FINALLY HAS PUPILS FOR ONCE. now he has the dark blue outer eye and the black pupils rather than every other time he doesn't have pupils like in base he just has a black eye and then in SSJ he has as green eye with no pupils. To me it is beautiful.
Asura wrote:It's dumb, and very obviously just feels like an anime-only thing to try and catch Vegeta up to Goku. It's gone right after the tournament too. No reason of course, it's just gone.
Terribly done, terribly explained, it's just barely better than SS Rage since at least it invokes a reaction from other people and it makes more sense than Trunks getting god ki somehow randomly.
I blame it for the mostly mediocre/shitty string of episodes leading up to the finale, with its constant focus on Vegeta that feels completely undeserved.
Uhh dude you can't say it is "gone" after the tournament after seeing just a 30 second scene at the end of the series in which he doesn't use it. By that logic Goku can no longer use Kaioken. For all you know it will play a prominent role in the movie. and I say "for all you know" because you know absolutely nothing about whether or not the form is "gone"
Last edited by PFM18 on Wed Mar 28, 2018 5:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: what do people think of SSBE

Post by Cetra » Wed Mar 28, 2018 5:02 pm

Not more of a problem for me than the Super Saiyajin 2 Blue that they gave Goku after powering up with an electric aura and which definitely was not a mistake because it appeared in more than one shot.

The point of those things is to show more flashy scenes, be cooler and reach higher states. And Evolution does the same thing.
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Re: what do people think of SSBE

Post by PFM18 » Wed Mar 28, 2018 5:05 pm

Cetra wrote:Not more of a problem for me than the Super Saiyajin 2 Blue that they gave Goku after powering up with an electric aura and which definitely was not a mistake because it appeared in more than one shot.

The point of those things is to show more flashy scenes, be cooler and reach higher states. And Evolution does the same thing.
I have no idea what you are talking about with Goku's SSB2. You mean those brief scenes when he has the different hair?

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Re: what do people think of SSBE

Post by Asura » Wed Mar 28, 2018 6:08 pm

PFM18 wrote:Yeah as far as the transformation being "just because" I have to completely disagree. The transformation represents his transition from wanting power in order to surpass Goku to now wanting to gain power in order to protect his family, and people like Cabba who he made a promise to. It was kind of alluded to in the Black arc when he got the huge pwoer boost when he was training to fight Goku Black and Black acknowledges how he got the power saying something along the lines of saying that he got the power through anger of the fact that Black had hurt his son(albeit his son from the future.) and now he gains this power initially when he wants to protect his promise to Cabba and the entire Saiyan race in Universe 6 and then to protect his family during the second power-up. It is a stark contrast from when he achieved the original Super Saiyan transformation because of will to want to surpass Goku. He achieved this power through absolutely no motivation of surpassing Goku and that is what the transformation is about. He went from "I want to surpass Kakarot" to "I want to have the strength to protect my family and the Saiyan race" and when he truly made that transisiton is when this form came about. Of course ultimately they were both rage fueled transformations but for different reasons. this difference in motivations for his transformation shows his development as a character and allowed him to attain a new level of power and for that I love the transformation. It is "going down a different path than Goku" only because, for once, his power boost HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GOKU. Again, this is foreshadowed when Vegeta says he and Goku are "reaching their limits" after training for 3 years in the RoSAT and only attaining a slight power boost and then gaining a huge power boost in only 6 months in the RoSAT. But why? Because of the anger that he held towards Black hurting his son and his wife in the future, as Black stated when he realized it. (and then he said "I shall be the most powerful for I hold the most anger towards mortals" which was awesome but I digress) That was for once not trying to surpass Goku or beat an enemy for the sake of defeating the enemy. he FINALLY had different motivations and then now this transition in motivations culiminates in a new transformation and I love it.

as far as aesthetics goes it being "just sparkly blue" I believe is also mislead. The transformation has easily more visual differences over the previous transformation than SSJ2. He gains darker blue hair,the white streaks in his hair glowing, the darker aura, the larger particles in the aura(AKA sparkly) and most importantly HE FINALLY HAS PUPILS FOR ONCE. now he has the dark blue outer eye and the black pupils rather than every other time he doesn't have pupils like in base he just has a black eye and then in SSJ he has as green eye with no pupils. To me it is beautiful.
Asura wrote:It's dumb, and very obviously just feels like an anime-only thing to try and catch Vegeta up to Goku. It's gone right after the tournament too. No reason of course, it's just gone.
Terribly done, terribly explained, it's just barely better than SS Rage since at least it invokes a reaction from other people and it makes more sense than Trunks getting god ki somehow randomly.
I blame it for the mostly mediocre/shitty string of episodes leading up to the finale, with its constant focus on Vegeta that feels completely undeserved.
Uhh dude you can't say it is "gone" after the tournament after seeing just a 30 second scene at the end of the series in which he doesn't use it. By that logic Goku can no longer use Kaioken. For all you know it will play a prominent role in the movie. and I say "for all you know" because you know absolutely nothing about whether or not the form is "gone"
Kaioken is a technique, not a transformation, the comparison doesn't work. For all you know it won't play a prominent role in the movie, and I say "for all you know" because you know absolutely nothing about whether or not the form is "gone" the same as I do.

That's just the beauty of TOEI's writing staff, you can't confirm nor deny anything because so many decisions are done from a "does this look cool?" perspective instead of a "does this make sense?" perspective. SSBE was introduced in Super the same way it disappeared from Super. Confusing and muddled with next to no explanation, just like Rage.

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Re: what do people think of SSBE

Post by PFM18 » Wed Mar 28, 2018 6:12 pm

Asura wrote:
PFM18 wrote:Yeah as far as the transformation being "just because" I have to completely disagree. The transformation represents his transition from wanting power in order to surpass Goku to now wanting to gain power in order to protect his family, and people like Cabba who he made a promise to. It was kind of alluded to in the Black arc when he got the huge pwoer boost when he was training to fight Goku Black and Black acknowledges how he got the power saying something along the lines of saying that he got the power through anger of the fact that Black had hurt his son(albeit his son from the future.) and now he gains this power initially when he wants to protect his promise to Cabba and the entire Saiyan race in Universe 6 and then to protect his family during the second power-up. It is a stark contrast from when he achieved the original Super Saiyan transformation because of will to want to surpass Goku. He achieved this power through absolutely no motivation of surpassing Goku and that is what the transformation is about. He went from "I want to surpass Kakarot" to "I want to have the strength to protect my family and the Saiyan race" and when he truly made that transisiton is when this form came about. Of course ultimately they were both rage fueled transformations but for different reasons. this difference in motivations for his transformation shows his development as a character and allowed him to attain a new level of power and for that I love the transformation. It is "going down a different path than Goku" only because, for once, his power boost HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GOKU. Again, this is foreshadowed when Vegeta says he and Goku are "reaching their limits" after training for 3 years in the RoSAT and only attaining a slight power boost and then gaining a huge power boost in only 6 months in the RoSAT. But why? Because of the anger that he held towards Black hurting his son and his wife in the future, as Black stated when he realized it. (and then he said "I shall be the most powerful for I hold the most anger towards mortals" which was awesome but I digress) That was for once not trying to surpass Goku or beat an enemy for the sake of defeating the enemy. he FINALLY had different motivations and then now this transition in motivations culiminates in a new transformation and I love it.

as far as aesthetics goes it being "just sparkly blue" I believe is also mislead. The transformation has easily more visual differences over the previous transformation than SSJ2. He gains darker blue hair,the white streaks in his hair glowing, the darker aura, the larger particles in the aura(AKA sparkly) and most importantly HE FINALLY HAS PUPILS FOR ONCE. now he has the dark blue outer eye and the black pupils rather than every other time he doesn't have pupils like in base he just has a black eye and then in SSJ he has as green eye with no pupils. To me it is beautiful.
Asura wrote:It's dumb, and very obviously just feels like an anime-only thing to try and catch Vegeta up to Goku. It's gone right after the tournament too. No reason of course, it's just gone.
Terribly done, terribly explained, it's just barely better than SS Rage since at least it invokes a reaction from other people and it makes more sense than Trunks getting god ki somehow randomly.
I blame it for the mostly mediocre/shitty string of episodes leading up to the finale, with its constant focus on Vegeta that feels completely undeserved.
Uhh dude you can't say it is "gone" after the tournament after seeing just a 30 second scene at the end of the series in which he doesn't use it. By that logic Goku can no longer use Kaioken. For all you know it will play a prominent role in the movie. and I say "for all you know" because you know absolutely nothing about whether or not the form is "gone"
Kaioken is a technique, not a transformation, the comparison doesn't work. For all you know it won't play a prominent role in the movie, and I say "for all you know" because you know absolutely nothing about whether or not the form is "gone" the same as I do.

That's just the beauty of TOEI's writing staff, you can't confirm nor deny anything because so many decisions are done from a "does this look cool?" perspective instead of a "does this make sense?" perspective. SSBE was introduced in Super the same way it disappeared from Super. Confusing and muddled with next to no explanation, just like Rage.
the fact that Kaioken is a technique is irrelevant because it is still a boost in power that Goku uses. I am aware that I don't know if it will appear or not in the future but I didn't claim to like you did when you said it was "gone"

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Re: what do people think of SSBE

Post by Helios518 » Wed Mar 28, 2018 7:28 pm

It's one of my favorite looking forms, but it debuted it little too late to have any real impact.
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Re: what do people think of SSBE

Post by Kataphrut » Wed Mar 28, 2018 8:12 pm

The time in which it was around (episodes 123-127) was the lowest point of the Tournament of Power arc. That's not a coincidence. It's an awful transformation, it looks ugly, and it had no reason to exist given how unimportant Vegeta ended up being in the grand scheme of things. It's everything wrong with Trunks' Rage powerup turned up to 11.

I like the idea of characters branching out and getting their own unique transformations; Goku getting the ultimate "martial arts" powerup in Ultra Instinct while Vegeta gets the highest evolution of the "Saiyan" powerup is fitting. But this was such a clunky way to do it. People complained about characters like 17 or Gohan or Caulifla getting "asspull" powerups out of nowhere, but Vegeta got this transformation just because he wanted it really badly. It led to dragging out his screentime in the tournament, which in turn led to the last battle dragging out as a whole and souring people on the arc.

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Re: what do people think of SSBE

Post by Logania » Wed Mar 28, 2018 8:15 pm

Really the form is drab for me because it's on Vegeta, whose transformation for every form doesn't change him almost at all, having pupils and a tiny shade of blue ain't enough for me to care. Maybe it would change or evolve with a different design for Goku.
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Re: what do people think of SSBE

Post by PFM18 » Wed Mar 28, 2018 9:17 pm

Kataphrut wrote:The time in which it was around (episodes 123-127) was the lowest point of the Tournament of Power arc. That's not a coincidence. It's an awful transformation, it looks ugly, and it had no reason to exist given how unimportant Vegeta ended up being in the grand scheme of things. It's everything wrong with Trunks' Rage powerup turned up to 11.

I like the idea of characters branching out and getting their own unique transformations; Goku getting the ultimate "martial arts" powerup in Ultra Instinct while Vegeta gets the highest evolution of the "Saiyan" powerup is fitting. But this was such a clunky way to do it. People complained about characters like 17 or Gohan or Caulifla getting "asspull" powerups out of nowhere, but Vegeta got this transformation just because he wanted it really badly. It led to dragging out his screentime in the tournament, which in turn led to the last battle dragging out as a whole and souring people on the arc.
I think I disagree with everything you just said. I have np idea how you come to any of these conclusions. How wad 123-127 a "low point" and how could you possibly figure that Vegeta was unimportant?? Or that this was an asspull?

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Re: what do people think of SSBE

Post by Koitsukai » Wed Mar 28, 2018 9:42 pm

I like it, and agree that it would've been better if it happened while fighting Toppo. Too bad it had just that one episode because before and after was used as a keychain by Jiren.

I guess it's the mastered ssBlue that appears in the manga, it makes sense because it actually is BLUE, not that LeoDicaprio at a paradise beach kinda Blue.

Majin Blue it could be another name for it, if he ever turns evil again

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Re: what do people think of SSBE

Post by Kataphrut » Wed Mar 28, 2018 9:54 pm

PFM18 wrote:
Kataphrut wrote:The time in which it was around (episodes 123-127) was the lowest point of the Tournament of Power arc. That's not a coincidence. It's an awful transformation, it looks ugly, and it had no reason to exist given how unimportant Vegeta ended up being in the grand scheme of things. It's everything wrong with Trunks' Rage powerup turned up to 11.

I like the idea of characters branching out and getting their own unique transformations; Goku getting the ultimate "martial arts" powerup in Ultra Instinct while Vegeta gets the highest evolution of the "Saiyan" powerup is fitting. But this was such a clunky way to do it. People complained about characters like 17 or Gohan or Caulifla getting "asspull" powerups out of nowhere, but Vegeta got this transformation just because he wanted it really badly. It led to dragging out his screentime in the tournament, which in turn led to the last battle dragging out as a whole and souring people on the arc.
I think I disagree with everything you just said. I have np idea how you come to any of these conclusions. How wad 123-127 a "low point" and how could you possibly figure that Vegeta was unimportant?? Or that this was an asspull?
Here's the thing. Vegeta's big contribution during that portion of the story was beating Toppo. An admittedly big contribution, but it didn't warrant a new form. The "Battle of Ideals" they tried to build the fight around was shallow because they didn't develop either of them beforehand. Even when they fought earlier on, it was just a sideshow for the Goku/Caulifla/Kale fight and didn't amount to anything more than a meta joke about the two second-strongest guys fighting. So suddenly we're expected to care about this big "important" showdown.

Transformations should feel meaningful, either as a turning point in a fight or as the culmination of a character arc. SSBE for Vegeta was neither because he had no arc during the Tournament of Power, and the form was created to fight Jiren but it made no difference in that battle.

If SSBE had debuted during Vegeta's fight with Toppo, it could have meant something. But that would require both him and Toppo to have had their ideals developed, and they didn't. Vegeta went from desperately wanting to surpass Goku by obtaining UI to suddenly being content not having it during the fight with Jiren because "that's not who I am". And because he wasn't meant to be important in the Jiren fight, they had to introduce all these concepts about Toppo giving up who he was, just so all Vegeta's talk about pride and "muh family/Cabba" could seem to matter.

Basically, it all comes down to them feeling like they need to do something with Vegeta every arc because of his popularity at the expense of good storytelling. Ultimately Goku, Freeza and 17 had the most important roles to play, while Gohan had an actual character arc. Vegeta didn't have anything we hadn't seen before, but he still had to have "his moment". So we got an underdeveloped rivalry, an unexplained transformation and a terrible last quarter of the arc, that coincidentally only got better again once he was out of the ring.

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