First off, a disclaimer: what I’ll be saying in this thread is a matter of opinion, so people are welcome to disagree with it. But I hope that I’m not the only one holding this opinion, and that I’ll get some agreement too.
With that out of the way, let’s begin. When I played the Campaign of Carnage DLC back in 2012, Mr. Torgue’s antics never really clicked with me, despite me being a sucker for portrayals of gratuitous awesomeness. And recently, I realized why that was. To sum it up in an opinion that will, doubtlessly, be a point of contention… Mr. Torgue’s awesomeness actually isn’t that awesome. Sure, he delivers a lot of testosterone-fueled lines in a badass yelling voice, but those never really made me laugh out loud… and sadly, that’s about everything Mr. Torgue really does in the game. He doesn’t jump from an airplane to perform a three-point landing in the center of his arena; he doesn’t play a killer electric guitar solo on top of a flame-spewing tank as it rushes across the desert, even though such a vehicle (Badassasaurus) is in the game; he doesn’t suplex a bullymong while bathing in the radiance of a miniature nuclear explosion, even though those are in the game too. And even considering budget limitations (programming, animating, and voicing all of that wouldn’t be cheap), it still feels like a damn shame that Mr. Torgue talks the talk, but doesn’t truly walk the walk when it comes to gratuitously awesome acts.
And I also think there’s a semi-plausible literary explanation for why this is the case. It’s evident from the plot and dialogue that Mr. Torgue and his tournament are inspired primarily by professional wrestling. But I think we all know that pro-wrestling is not real, and kind of goofy to boot. What I think the writers should aim for in Borderlands 3, should Mr. Torgue return for it, are the loud theatrics of heavy metal - especially military-themed heavy metal that deals with stuff like epic battles and uses militaristic iconography. Sure, heavy metal can also be goofy as hell, but to me… it manages to pull off “silly gratuitous awesomeness” better than pro-wrestling. Perhaps it is because a heavy metal song or music video have fewer inherent limitations than a pro-wrestling match, and are thus free to depict bigger quantities of awesomeness? I don’t know. But I genuinely feel like Mr. Torgue should back up his talk of awesomeness with equally awesome acts, and change his style a little while doing so - less Randy Savage, more Joakim Broden.
TL;DR: I think Mr. Torgue should do more displays of awesomeness to back up his talk of it, and take a little more after Metalocalypse than after WWF. Feel free to agree or disagree with that idea.
