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So, we're probably gonna be breaking up Whirlwind and Lydecker. IMO Lydecker and Lucketti should be paired as L&L. edit: The update is the very last post on the previous page.
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Sep 16, 2021 20:31
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Love the recaps, and I’m excited to see what stories you have lined up for the new year!
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Sep 16, 2021 23:10
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Episode 18: World Tour, Part 4 Unlike The US, Canada, Mexico and Canada, neither Europe nor United Kingdom have a multi decade history of pro wrestling in the CVerse. Let's start with Europe, probably the weakest and least developed area in the game. Europe had it's nameless independent organizations that lasted for a few years at a time until the Spanish Ultimate Combat Ring (UCR) was founded in 1998. UCR never quite found it's own style, drifting from hardcore to sports entertainment to serious old school rasslin' approach during it's ten year run. UCR folded in 2007 and gave birth to two stylistically very different promotions, European Wrestling All-Stars (EWA) and Ultimate European Wrestling (UEW). Two years later Victory Wrestling Association (VWA) hit the scene. The scene has been locked in a three way power struggle for the following decade, with none of the three really pulling away from the pack. While they start the game quite friendly towards each other, the companies tend to start fighting sooner rather than later.   But we won't be starting with any of those three, but with the brand new European League of Professional Fighters (ELPF). New promotions have a "random" chance of being opened every month, the chance being determined by the amount of free agents in the area and the overall state of the business. You'll see a new company pop up once every few years or so on average. Founded in August 2020, the pseudo-MMA company is yet to really make an impact in the European wrestling scene. Their quirk is to run singles matches only. Most of their roster is made up of guys who also work for one of the other three companies. But their top star is actually wholly unique in this save.  Meet the Swedish kickboxer sensation Helmar Gustavsson, a randomly generated worker in my save. While the characters that are already in the database have a short bio about their history, the random gens have a quick info dump about their wrestling school, debut, style, finishing move and one or two other tidbits. He is the biggest star of ELPF and completely home grown, fitting their style to a tee. The bad news? He is very much not good as a pro wrestler. He has no primary skills to speak of, bad selling and safety and really no psychology to speak of. Already 29 years old, he likely won't develop that much more. He's also an Agitator backstage, a negative influence and more likely to stir up drama. ALSO he has a sidegig of doing MMA fights, which sideline him at least for six months to focus on training. This lead him to vacating the secondary title of ELPF... that actually main evented each of their shows thus far over their "actual" top belt. You might be asking yourself, why is this guy the top star then? Popularity, dear goons. Helmar has 42 pop in every region of Europe thanks to his kickboxing escapades. This makes him the most popular European wrestler active in the game area (not employed by 21CW) and a somewhat valuable tool even for the performance over popularity product that ELPF has.  The other top guy not working anywhere else is Scott van den Berg, an aging punch-kick style old school goon. He is also not that good and a weird fit for ELPF. The company does have actual talent, like VWA figurehead Landon Mallory, Polish technician Pavel Vanzycha and two good tag teams in The Foreign Legion and Brecher & Grimm. Europe has the least amount of active workers at the start of the database (alongside Australia) and probably the worst pool of free agents, so ELPF have a bit of a climb ahead of them.   VWA is currently smallest of the three "big" ones in Europe but probably the most interesting of the bunch. Started by a multimillionaire, VWA has something for everyone. Charismatic crowd pleasers, wild high flyers, traditional lumbering bad guys, a yeti and the next generation of Japanese wrestling.  VWA is the other excursion destination besides TCW for PGHW's young wrestlers. Much like with APW and WLW, this is also not very good for the Japanese side. Their guys get to work maybe once a month with significantly less talented people than at home. Shinji Mihara, one of the few future hopes PGHW has, is seeing his growth stunted working in Switzerland. But VWA gets some decent low card wrestlers out of the deal!   The true stars of VWA are the Landon Mallory and Walker van Cleer, two charismatic brawlers at the peak of their careers. Both have already started to branch out of their home promotion. Mallory also works ELPF and van Cleer works EWA.  VWA is probably the most interesting promotion of the bunch, even if their tag division has probably the most generically named team in the game: two Russian lads named... The Russians.   UEW is the MAW/NYCW of Europe, without the charm. Old school wrestling with very serious wrestlers wrestling each other in very serious wrestling matches. In summary, wrestling. UEW is also home to Japanese wrestlers abroad, as they have become the excursion destination for BHOTWG and also a developmental territory. UEW undercards are filled with "stars" of tomorrow but are lacking in homegrown rookies. Most of their "originals" are nearing the end of their road. Owner Ali Bloxsome retired from in-ring action years ago, Norwegian star Stig Svensson retired in 2018, head booker and top star Joey Beauchamp is 44 years old and current world champion Kalu Owusu already 43 years old.  Thankfully UEW has the next best thing in European wrestling. Konrad Makinen is basically a Swedish Dolph Ziggler. Great at selling, flashy as hell, entertaining and a solid brawler to boot, Makinen should be set as a big name in the area for the next decade.  UEW has also put a lot of stock in younger guys like Marcello Ricci, Clubber Kohl, Gordon Leve, the tag team of Lars Brecher and Ralph Grimm and Menace. Menace is a notable character in the CVerse, being the first openly gay character in the database.  UEW is also the home for personal and a GDS forums favourite "Trademark" Thomas Morgan. He is considered to be the best wrestler that never got a major run anywhere (he is with NOTBW in the CV97 database, but that is considered somewhat non-canon). He was a rock solid technician and the third ever graduate of the prestigious House of Stone wrestling school, but time decline is finally starting to take it's hold on the 46 year old veteran. Morgan has played his part to perfection in three of my big games over the editions. In TEW 13, Morgan was the cornerstone of a startup company in the US, ending up as the first triple crown champion (triple crown = winning three of the major titles in a promotion at least once, usually world/midcard/tag title). In TEW 16, a bit older but he still had a big part to play in MAW. Then in TEW 2020, I hired him to the British CWW after he was fired from UEW. What followed was an unlikely cinderella story, where Morgan ended up at the top of that company at 50 years old, main eventing shows in front of ten thousand people. Trademark has been great for me for so many times, so it will be a sad sight to see him finally hang it up.   Sports entertainment rules the landscape in Europe as EWA has pulled ahead of UEW and VWA for the time being. Much like when I stepped in as the booker of APW, they are also really lacking in stars for a popularity over performance company.  Does the lack of stars have anything to do with owner/booker Byron, who is on his eight reign as EWA Universal champion and didn't lose a single match during 2020? Mayyyyyyybe? The years might keep adding up, but Byron still rules supreme. This latest reign is not a power play, but a somewhat reasonable move. The previous champion, Bam Bam Johansson died as champion, so it is not far fetched to go for the stable choice Byron after the tragedy... or they could have gone with his brother.  Hercules Johansson is a big boy, much like his late brother and currently the top heel in EWA. So he has won ONE MATCH in EWA during the year. Just... what?  That's the same amount of wins that undercard enhancement talent (and future main eventer) Bret Heartbreak. Heartbreak is a mirror image of his dad, just without the massive ego. If you don't think Byron is not going to push his boy to the top, you are sorely mistaken. (Real world wrestling history is filled with nepotism and CVerse happily follows the tradition).  EWA also has the only women's division in Europe and the UK, led by the talented "Black Widow" Zofia Jankovic. Despite being a walking lawsuit waiting to happen, she is the undisputed ace of the division and probably the all around best wrestler in the company. Unfortunately, the rest of the division is mostly green, except for Thee Davis, who actively wrestles on the other side of the globe with 5SSW. All three European powers have their pros and cons and should be pretty fun to play around with. Europe just suffers from a major lack of good free agents. --- Moving on to the UK. The British Isles had their first "major" company in Men of Steel Combat (MOSC). Founded in 1980, the company mostly offered grimy brawls for the drunk and blood hungry crowds. MOSC never really conquered the entire country, mostly sticking around in Northern England. Another company, Ring of Fire (ROF), popped up in 1998 with the polar opposite style. ROF was all about good clean pure wrestling and probably the closest to the old World of Sport style wrestling CVerse had to offer. The British landscape changed in 2006, when the popular British Strongman TV show host Jeff Nova bought a struggling 21st Century Wrestling (21CW), changed the company to an sports entertainment style company and used his media connections to grow the company to a national powerhouse and a cultural institution. MOSC and ROF couldn't keep and and went bankrupt in 2010. It took a few years for new companies to pop up on British soil, trying to profit off 21CW's massive success.   I've mentioned Championship Wrestling from Wigan (CWW) a few times already. They are the only brand new company in TEW 2020, being founded between editions in 2018. I had my first big save with them, lasting for five-ish in-game years, leading the company to Medium size, made Thomas Morgan a household name and was on my way to greatness until a computer crash ended those plans. They are pretty much filling the hole that ROF left behind all those years ago, with a hint of puroresu mixed in there. Most of the roster are hard-nosed technicians who are either students from the Ring of Fire dojo (which is still active, despite the company going under) or have a background in legit martial arts. They might have like two guys who know which way to hold a microphone but god drat I've grown fond of these soulless wrestling machines.  If owner Curtis Jenkins ever wants to let go of his spotlight (spoilers, he probably won't), then Lenny Mochin is the face of CWW for years to come. He's already a one time CWW Champion and has won their yearly King of the North tournament twice already.   Padraig O'Hearne and Martin Heath are the guys next in line after Mochin and probably have the tools to surpass him. All in all, CWW was a really fun company to play with. They are the smallest company at the start of the database, so they can only grow. They have a solid core, some solid prospects and a decent free agent pool to pull from, especially when 21CW let's go of some of their rookies who fit better with CWW or our next company.   Scottish National Promotions (SNP) is a massive grift. They can lose money for five years straight and still be on the black thanks to their massive five million dollar grant. SNP is kind of like the real life Scottish wrestling promotion Insane Championship Wrestling, both providing a hardcore flavoured product geared to their local fanbase. The two promotions have one massive difference and that is the owner.  Fittingly named Mark Carnie is the biggest piece of poo poo in the CVerse and that is a lot considering such legendary asshats as Big Smack Scott or Peter Valentine. Carnie is the reason why SNP exists and also the reason they will never hold on to talent for that long. I mean, what is the drawback of having the worst person in the world as your boss?  oh  Oh no. I can only imagine the carnage if a player chooses to be the booker and leaves Carnie as the owner. Something I really don't want to try.   While CWW fills the legacy of ROF, SNP is the "modern" version of MOSC. This means they have a lot of more or less talented brawlers filling up the card. The most high profile duo being The Ivanoffs, biggest hirings SNP have made during their short existence. Ivanoffs make the SNP tag team scene quite exciting, filled with good teams like Maximum Damage, The Bridges of London (who also work with CWW) and probably the top two guys who could become stars outside of Scotland.   The Northern Lights of Alton Vicious and Riddick Jordan, two ROF dojo guys have great upside. In the aforementioned CWW save they became fine members of the Wigan promotion as well and with a bit of polish could be the next big 21CW tag team.  SNP is a perfect place for guys like Meathead McAullie, who probably have no upside elsewhere but can be stars in their own little corner of the world. If the shadow of a huge Carnie wasn't hanging heavy above the promotion, SNP would probably be a fun promotion to play around with.   And then there is the big one. The best promotion in the world in 2020. 21st Century Wrestling is the big success story of British wrestling, a true rags to riches story. Sure, it's has nothing to do with "traditional" British wrestling, opting to go for the sports entertainment style to wow the masses, but you can't argue their success. In the end they have made the scene healthier. Their National School of Wrestling training school has supplied the company and the scene at large with a crop of new, young talent that might have never come up without them.    Even without Tommy Cornell, the 21CW main event scene can match the main eventers of other Big companies around the globe. The wrestler of the year Adam Matravers, Edward Cornell and Leigh Burton are top ten wrestlers in the entire world. And that's not all. Stars of the previous decade like Jonathan Faust, JB Cash, Buff Martinez and Philip Cooper are still good and are already making room for the stars of tomorrow, like National School graduate Wade Orson, former VWA star Sebastian Koller and menacing War Machine.  In this save, 21CW have strapped the rocket to Apollo Prince. Young, charismatic and a good brawler, Prince has all the tools to be the next big thing (after Leigh Burton, of course) in British wrestling.  The tag division is still great, even without The Ivanoffs. CROUCHING STORM, HIDDEN SIFU is the highlight both in talent and in name, but the division has a boatload of talent. Absolutely Flawless is a rock solid veteran twin brother duo, The Red Devils fill the "evil Russian" quota that every wrestling company just has to have, Hot Stuff has charismatic top stars Cash and Martinez, The Men of Steel of Mark Adonis and Mass Hulk are two pieces of BEEF with high hopes for the future and two future main eventers Orson and Koller have been paired up as a killer tag team Kiss This in this save. 21CW is probably the "easiest" and most approachable of the big promotions of the world. They have no local competition, money in the bank, great roster, surefire school providing good talent for years to come... They will be hurt from time to time, when big companies from across the pond come calling for the big name talent but maybe someday 21CW can become the behemoth that does the same to the US juggernauts. And that's it! World tour, in the books. Next time, back to the trenches of Australia. Speaking of... Goon Poll~ New year, new stories so a fitting time for feedback. 1) Christopher Gerard and Pinn Enterprises. Gerard is putting the basically year long feud with Goliath Global to rest and moving on to the big bad of 2021, Dumfrey Pinn. I've yet to test out Pinn in the ring, so I'm not yet sure how he compares to the rest of our current top guys, but his big upside is as a wrestler-manager. DIW got years of stories out of the Pinn led stable Pinn Enterprises. And as they, imitation is the highest form of flattery. (Also, I'm a fan of wrestling stables popping up in multiple promotions). Pinn will be getting his group of own guys to throw against Gerard to get the title (and the big money) to himself. So, what parts do we use to build this group. a) Build the stable from within. The Boon/Mattell/Blithe trio could use a surefire mic worker (would also tie in Mills as a frequent Gerard partner for the duration of the angle), The Apocalypse have been established as guns for hire during the D-Pod/Mason feud and Samoan Demolition could give the group instant credibility as dominant champions. Each combination would offer a fresh slew of title matches with Gerard (Boon/Mattell/War/Devil and Pinn). I mean, it's b) One-off mercenaries from the outside. The Aussie free agent pool has a few former RAW/DIW guys who are more than ready to step in for a paycheck or two. Pinn brings in a big bad for a month or two, Gerard beats them and they move on. Rinse, repeat, keep the stable in flux. This is the point to bring in Louie Scorpio, arrogant former APW midcarder who made it "big" in RAW as the second in command. c) Mix of the two. Few guys from the current APW roster as the core, with the flow of free agents in and out for a month or two. d) "Hey, I had something else in mind!" Feel free to give your ideas! 2) Future of the tag team division. Samoan Demolition have been great, but I feel like its time to move on. At this point I have three (and a half) face tag teams that could somewhat reasonably be the next champions. Each of them would be a downgrade (Apocalypse is the only team that can hold a candle to the Samoans currently) but I feel that Devil in particular has grown past this status. a) Positive Energy. With Apocalypse promising to put Chuck and Kasey over, I'm suddenly a lot more into this duo. Building the pair as giant killers, going over the Samoans and Apocalypse in quick succession, would probably make them both. b) SHADOW LEGENDS. Nighthawk is the best of the six guys I'm suggesting to take out the Samoans and has the best mic worker of the bunch in Legend. Can easily be built as a double title feud, with Samoans gunning for the Australian title with LEGENDS going for the team gold, possibly ending up swapping the two. c) Surfer Dudes with Attitudes. Lucas is a star in the making and a big title win would probably shoot him up the promotion pretty quickly. Jesse is the weak link here, but could hopefully grow to the role, that's the reason he's with Lucas in the first place. d) "Hey, I had something else in mind!" Feel free to give your ideas! 3) Who do you want to get the spotlight next? Is there some talent that you want to see in more? Do you want to come up with a new gimmick for someone and see how that pans out? Feel free to shout out ideas for anyone! Triple A's idea for L&L was so blatantly obvious (and fun!) I'm a bit ashamed I didn't come up with it by myself.
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Sep 27, 2021 08:49
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They should expand Europe to some extent. France, Italy and Germany are big enough countries to be their own markets while there also are areas that would be notable markets on their own like the Low Countries, Balkans and Baltics. Turkey also should be a potential market place for any European promotion thanks to a large amount of Turkish expats and there being a good history of "Turkish" wrestlers showing up in various promotions across the world. A on the question of Pinn Enterprises. He can just come in, take one look at these guys and go "You're my men now, mates". Our roster is big enough for it. A on the Tag Team question. It would work naturally and set them up for success.
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Sep 27, 2021 13:48
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Yeah I'm also gonna vote for A and A
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Sep 27, 2021 14:17
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1) I think you should go with B then A. Have pinn come in, bring in outside mercenaries for a show or two to establish his character as a big money man trying to prove that APW is just powerless against the bigger money players- basically an analogy for RAW’s bottomless pockets. Gerard can make it an “us vs them” angle with him protecting APW’s good name against an outside invasion. Then right after the second or third merc is beaten in a close match, have pinn reveal that the homemade heel trio and/or apocalypse is in his pocket too. Would work better if Pinn was coming from RAW rather than DIW, but I think it can still work. 2) I think B is the best option for short term storylines, but I’m also fine with A. B would let you strap the singles rocket to Devil while giving Nighthawk a cushion for losing the mid card title. With A I’m just worried that Positive Energy just won’t get enough juice from beating only two teams to thrive as legit tag champs. Insertnamehere31 fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Sep 27, 2021 |
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Sep 27, 2021 15:58
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If we still have Next Level around, we could give them a feud with the SHADOW LEGENDS now that their English is somewhat acceptable.
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Sep 27, 2021 16:25
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D and A I feel Pinn should bring in outside forces, and by outside I mean from beyond Australia, get some rough wrestlers from the USA and Europe Pinn GLOBAL enterprises. I don't think we can actually swing it financially but that is what I would do given the chance and unlimited fakebux.
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Sep 27, 2021 17:46
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C/D: Bring in a free agent as Pinn's heavy and have him flash money at APW talent to join them. Do a bit of will they/won't they and/or just rip off Harley Race putting out a bounty on Ric Flair wholesale. A: You got absolutely the right idea there.
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Sep 27, 2021 21:20
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AtomikKrab posted:D You can actually ask anyone in the world if they'll be willing to work in a new region, and they have a chance of saying yes, but then you gotta figure out how to actually get them over, which is another matter entirely. If they're heels, you could have the two Japanese Excursion workers join his faction as his lower level henchmen, though.
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Sep 27, 2021 22:20
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frankenfreak posted:C/D: Bring in a free agent as Pinn's heavy and have him flash money at APW talent to join them. Do a bit of will they/won't they and/or just rip off Harley Race putting out a bounty on Ric Flair wholesale. Playing TEW is all about riffing on real life wrestling stories so I'm more than happy to AtomikKrab posted:I feel Pinn should bring in outside forces, and by outside I mean from beyond Australia, get some rough wrestlers from the USA and Europe Veryslightlymad posted:You can actually ask anyone in the world if they'll be willing to work in a new region, and they have a chance of saying yes, but then you gotta figure out how to actually get them over, which is another matter entirely. What veryslightlymad said. The "Talk to Worker" function can be used to any wrestler in the world. And I do love the idea of bringing in "hitmen" from all around the globe, but since we are a pop over performance company (sigh) I can't just throw a worker with zero pop to a main event angle. And since I don't have unlimited fakebux (even deeper sigh) the travel costs would hit me big, even if foreign guys would be willing to work cheap-ish. (I could just use the editor to give myself 999 million dollars, but I TRY to keep this somewhat non-cheaty save for LP purposes). Although this makes me longingly look at all the free agents active in other game areas (how in the hell are quality guys like Petey Barnes, El Hijo del Zonk and SUKI still without a job?).
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Sep 29, 2021 16:37
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Episode 19: New year, same problems We open the year with two returning faces. Louie Scorpio gets signed to a six month deal with a hefty price tag. Almost 1000 dollars per appearance is A LOT and that's after haggling down from his original demand of 1100 per show. The "cheap" way to save on contracts for low level companies is the option to only use the worker on A level TV shows and Events. And since we only have events, we really don't need Scorpio for anything else. Pinn and Scorpio start as the core of Pinn Enterprises. Once we start adding members, the group will get a strength rating. Scorpio isn't the only APW alumni making his comeback. Richie Fox is ready to come back after doing nothing for six months. But I've had my creative juices flowing recently, so I create a new alter ego for him.  Meet EL HIJO DEL FOX MASK! Richie might have gotten powerbombed out of the company last year, but a mysterious yet strangely similar masked man comes in to fill his place. The original Fox Mask is a now retired CZCW legend who surely won't mind that a company other side of the world respects/desecrates his legacy like this. We create a company specific mask for him as well. (Workers like White Wasp have a mask as a default that gathers prestige as the years go by. The higher the prestige, the bigger the boost when it's put on the line in a apuestas match (a match two or more wrestlers bet their masks/hair/careers on the line). A company specific mask doesn't travel with the worker to other companies, so Richie will only use it in APW.)  We get right to the Road to Ozfest and here's the card. The show opens with Pinn delivering his first promo, announcing that Pinn Enterprises LTD has relocated and are here for one reason only: money. And what's the best way to make money? Take the Commonwealth title. Gerard is ready to fight already but Pinn has other plans. You have to spend money to earn money and a roll of bills exchange owners as Warmonger steps up to face the champ in our main event. The opening match sees the newly formed trio of Boon, Mattell and Blithe take the victory as Next Level attack the SHADOW LEGENDS, leaving Simonson to the wolves. Afterwards Next Level mock the LEGENDS for a while. A somewhat random six man tag follows, where Hatemonger beats Chuck, setting up the seed for the next tag title program. Tyrant rehabs his losses against Nighthawk by getting a big win over Pookie Possum, with a healthy amount of interference from rest of Team Forbes. A post match attack by the dastardly heels is prevented by the shocking arrival of El Hijo Del Fox Mask. The night is pretty negative for Positive Energy as Kasey falls in a singles match against the power of the King. Devine and Shark continue their scuffle against Goliath Global, this time with Barney Mason, ending in a clusterfuck draw, with major focus on the battle between Mason and Hamstead. The main event is back and forth with Gerard in major trouble, but manages to squeeze out the win. Things immediately go from bad to worse as Louie Scorpio makes his debut by beating down the worn down champion as Pinn chomps his cigar on the background.    Notes about the show: - Dumfrey Pinn... oh boy. I had him in a match in the pre-show and he was... average. His in-ring performance is on the level with a guy like Macquarie. I'm hoping it will climb up, as he will be getting a lot of wins under his belt in the near future. In better news, both his segments on the main card did really well. - Fox and Scorpio got good gimmick ratings, with the lovely perk of losing less popularity when they lose. That's very much good news. - While Gerard and Warmonger both had really good performances in the main event, the match still underperformed. It's because I once again had to keep War strong to keep him happy. Maybe I can run this match in the future again with better results. - The opener SHOULD NOT have been that bad. I can't even blame the wrestlers, but (once again) myself. It got dinged for not having a storyline attached (despite starting the Level/LEGENDS) feud) but I think having the match focus as Storytelling hurt the most. Reminder to myself, never open the show with a Storytelling match aim.  Tyrant suffered a broken nose in his match against Possum but won't miss any shows while he heals.  Hamstead's faith has clearly wavered on my ability to push SubUrban Legend and reminds me that he has potential to be something in APW. I know, Scotty. You surely won't mind if I put him over you?  Oh you don't? ...Okay.  Our undercard gets a new team in the aftermath of the last show. I tried Lucketti and Lydecker together and while they don't get any chemistry notes together, I'm willing to put them in a team. Thanks to Triple A for the idea.  Time to go through some various news stories from around the world. The ELPF Top Contender title, left vacant by Helmar Gustavsson, is won by Pavel Vanzycha. Probably the smartest thing they could have done, since Vanzycha is the best fit to their product and their best in-ring guy alongside Mallory. The big title win doesn't even main event, that honor goes to the main event of Joey Beauchamp and Rashid Laval... the worst match on the entire main card. Their main champion Van Den Berg? Not booked, brother. I'm sure this comapny gives a lot of grey hairs to their small fanbase over there.  A frequent news story is a negative backstage influence going to the media and hyping themselves up to a ridiculous decree. Tetsunori Yasuda here might have the legacy of the Golden Generation behind him (being the protege of PGHW legend Eisaku Hoshino) but while a credible wrestler he is not quite on the level of guys like Kawashima, Ukagi, Jimbo and the rest of the upper tier guys of PGHW. Also, Yasuda is currently in the midst of a year long reign with the PGHW International title, having racked up whopping 18 defenses... which is THE LONGEST AND THE SECOND MOST SUCCESSFUL REIGN IN THE ENTIRE WORLD! (The APW alumni team Diamond Dogs have held the SAISHO tag titles for a year, with 20 defenses). Yasuda, mate, you have very little to complain about.   Two cornerstones of their respective companies don't have their contracts renewed. Eddie Peak was one of the DAVE stars that arrived to TCW after the fall of the company and made the most of his run there. While he never had a run with the World title (a shame with his talents, but there was always a Cornell/Hawkins/Andrews/Golden/Ricky Dale Johnson level talent ahead of him) he was a big part of TCW for the past decade. Peak leaves TCW a physical mess, his years with the hardcore DAVE and his physical in-ring style leaving him a wreck. USPW might grab him for one last run despite his declining physical abilities. Yasuhiko Taira is a big burly brawler. much like Peak. Unlike Eddie, he actually reached the mountain top of BHOTWG. Despite this, he was never quite the Kikkawa-level megastar he was projected to be. The leader of NEO-X stable is being let go and will either retire or go for a short run in one of the smaller companies (Taira in PGHW would be... interesting). This is very much unlike the real world Japanese companies. In real world, the loyalty goes both ways: unless the wrestler fucks up royally or decides to leave the company by their own decision, they wrestle in the undercard until it's time to call it quits. Like, NJPW would probably never kick out Hiroyoshi Tenzan until the man is willing to retire. In CVerse, loyalty is a one way street, where the AI is more than ready to kick the aging legends of the past to the curb.  The game is quite clearly loving with me, as weeks after hyping up Apollo Prince in the World Tour update, they take the 21CW United Kingdom title off him. Luke Cool, reliable midcard act, starts his fourth reign with the belt.  TCW continues plugging the holes in it's roster by signing independent standout Hugh de Aske. "The Dread Pirate" is a jack of all trades and should fill a similar role than Frankie Perez in the TCW crew.  Legend's return run in ZEN ends in defeat to Kargg the Conquerer. His ten match run ended up with four wins and six losses. His run was a complete success to ZEN, getting to reunite The Knight's Temple team for the year and getting a real solid player in the midcard.  Ceri Dordevich returns to the fold after her pregnancy. She'll be plugged into the thick of things soon enough.  Wrestle Peace Festival, one of the two charity/memorial events in the database also happens. The once a year show is not limited by contracts and a somewhat random group of wrestlers around the globe get the starring roles. This year's event is mostly filled with American independent workers, but has the SWF tag champions Twin Billing (Spencer Spade and Mainstream Hernandez) and CWA superstar Aaron Knight in the undercard, while the main event sees the weird dream match between all time great USPW team Natural Storm and the BHOTWG stand out junior tag team PUNK Nasty Club.  Gregory Grace continues his great performances with DIW. I might have to start considering poaching him, this isn't really a good look for me if DIW keeps kicking my rear end thanks to ONE GUY.  Fox celebrates his return by sharing his stories from the road to the locker room. Most of the guys have probably heard these stories before, but hey, he's a good storyteller.  OzFest is here and the card goes little something like this. We open with Rusty Mills' return to action, defeating Christian Blithe. Now Mills is pissed and is not just content on having a match with his traitorous ex-partner, he wants to really kick his rear end. The Mason/Hamstead angle continues with a tag match, but Tate gets the win over Azumi. A segment follows, where Pinn approaches APW legend Simonson and offers him a deal. Simonson isn't getting any younger, but wouldn't it be great to end his career on top? Simonson is doubtful, but Pinn has already arranged a main event tag team match for him. Son of Fox Mask and Possum team up "for the first time" and wow the announcers with their instant chemistry, managing to defeat Team Forbes. This time Forbes has brought his calculator and knows he has the numbers, but White Wasp evens the odds, forcing the heels to retreat. Tag team division showcase ends up with Apocalypse winning and cutting a promo afterwards, threatening to come for the tag title once again. The tag title match follows and the Samoans are finally dethroned in a feel good moment. Lone Shark fights Massacre in a spiritual ZEN offer match and wins with a DQ after Goliath Global interferes. The main event ends up with Scorpio getting the win with underhanded means, unbeknownst to Simonson.  Show notes: - Scorpio is immediately among the top five performers in the show... but not the best. I was kind of hoping his performances were something along the lines of 60ish, but you can't get everything you want. He has the popularity to hang around the top of the card... for now. - A really solid card as a whole, probably among the best overall. Four matches scoring 50 or more with nothing really that bad (except the Pinn/Simonson promo which is totally on Simonson) in the card. It was just missing the main event performing just a bit better, but that's what I get for giving Simonson his last run on the top. - Make no mistake about it, that Positive Energy/Samoans rating is all thanks to Devil. Chuck has his best performance to date, so I'm hoping he can continue on that path once Energy moves past the two best teams in the company. Samoans also had no problems losing, so that's a plus. Team players, the two of them.  I make sure to give the Devil his dues in my post-show speeches. He's real happy that I keep praising his performances. A happy wrestler always performs better than an angry one.  An excellent observation Mason. While Lydecker doesn't have the muscles that you do, he actually knows the difference between a headlock and a hammerlock. I really don't know why you would poo poo on an undercard wrestler that is just, you know, doing his job.  Legend's partner in ZEN, Killer B bonds with former ZEN guy Kal Wayne (a.k.a Mirror Universe John Gordon) on social media. This naturally leads to Killer forming a friendship with... RAW giant Skyscraper? What? Game, please stop making yourself look bad.  Oh hi Mark.  TCW's television show gets moved to Late Nights, the network not being happy by the shows TCW has been doing. When making a TV deal, the company has certain expectations for certain time slots. It seems TCW's solid (high 70s/low 80s) ratings have not been good enough. This will probably lead to smaller viewership.  Over in MAW, the year starts off with the traditional Rip Chord Invitational, the yearly tournament named after the founder of the company and CVerse legend Rip Chord. Bradley Blaze wins the tourney for the second time in his career, beating last year's winner Miller Fjorde in the final. These two, along with THE ARCHITECT, are probably the next crop of MAW guys making a career for themselves outside of the Mid Atlantic stomping grounds. Next time: Will Simonson go to the dark side? Can Positive Energy keep the ball rolling? Will I forget all my ideas between updates?
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Oct 6, 2021 11:23
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What’s the plan for Ol Dumphrey himself while his lackeys soften up Gerard in the main event for a few months? Singles squashes against midcarders? Just promos and no matches before the big money match?
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Oct 7, 2021 01:07
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I don't know how fast guys build up rust, but I would think you'd have to give him matches here or there to make sure he's still fit for the fight.
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Oct 7, 2021 01:39
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Insertnamehere31 posted:What’s the plan for Ol Dumphrey himself while his lackeys soften up Gerard in the main event for a few months? Singles squashes against midcarders? Just promos and no matches before the big money match? Veryslightlymad posted:I don't know how fast guys build up rust, but I would think you'd have to give him matches here or there to make sure he's still fit for the fight. Pinn will soon be moving on to multiman matches on the main card with his Enterprises stablemates to build them up. I also have to see him in a 10+ minute singles match, to see if his stamina is enough for a main event lenght singles match. (APW matches are, thankfully, pretty short. APW audience don't care for matches going over the 15 minute mark. Pinn has no problem going six minutes with jobbers, but let's see if he can do double of that.)
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Oct 7, 2021 06:20
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Potential line for either Tyrant or his boss "You broke my nose, I will break your body in return!"
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Oct 8, 2021 16:10
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Episode 20: Dangerous Pre-Shows World keeps going round and round. Melody, still waiting for her baby, returns to Twitter once again and gets slammed down by Gorgon yet again. You could make a feud out of this!  Up north CWA puts their Television title on former problem child Marc DuBois. Once upon a time, DuBois was a wunderkid, debuting with SWF in late 2005 as a 18 year old. "The Can't Miss Prospect" was supposed to be a megastar until, well, he missed. Attitude problems backstage, nightclub brawl and three drug suspensions ended his SWF career in 2014. Five years later he re-emerged in CWA, ready to turn his career around. He never became the megastar he was hyped up to be, but his "second coming" is great to see.  Over in Mexico CILL, the smallest of the four promotions there, grows in size. They immediately bolster their ranks, hiring a bunch of OLLIE stars, like Electric Dreamer and Mystery Pink. The women will continue to work for both promotions, which will surely do wonders for their development.  Die Another Day arrives and Brian Rampage makes sure everyone is having a jolly good time. Maybe he will have a career as a comic artist somewhere down the road. Anyways, the card!  We open a show with a Simonson and Gerard face-off. Simonson realizes that Pinn isn't exactly a stand-out guy, but he NEEDS one last shot at the top. Gerard might not like it, but the championship match is set for next show. The opening match sees fresh champs (feat. Azumi) against L & L & Wilkes in a high speed contest, with the champs naturally winning. It is followed by a high profile tag team encounter with Fox & Possum against Mattell & Blithe. The animal themed guys win, but with a DQ after Team Forbes (represented by Nameth and Prellinger) attack them. Afterwards Tyrant and Forbes are shown backstage mocking the faces while Tyrant batters poor White Wasp all over the walls. Next Level get a high profile spot on the card and come up victorious beating the makeshift duo of Macquarie and Dizzy. Post-match Legend drops a sick diss track on the Japanese exports and pops the crowd with sick beats. Boon is kept busy by defeating the other half of the Dudes, Goliath Global regain some momentum beating the babyface brigade, although Mattell & Blithe make sure to lure Mills out of the equation. Main event ends with Simonson getting the victory once again, this time over Lone Shark, once again oblivious to the cheating ways of Scorpio and Pinn.  Things... don't go that well. It's our worst show since the hastily thrown together Canberra Special last August. We don't gain popularity with a show like this, which is not optimal. - It's apparent that we missed a top tier match this time. The blame lies on the main event and once again I'm a bit puzzled. Sure, Pinn and Simonson lacked behind the other four but those four performances should have been enough to give the segment rating a bit more of a boost. - Chuck has gotten a notable boost on his performance and he was the guy carrying things in that opener. Kasey... not that much. Azumi is someone I'd like to perform better as he is once again off his game. - The Fox & Possum tag match is also bit of a disappointment. That match has TALENT (and some popularity as well) so "just" a 40 is not what I want out of these four. - Thankfully Hamstead can be trusted for good matches... even if him, Massacre and Mason had a bit of an off night. - There is good news as well. Macquarie and Dizzy have great chemistry teaming together. Hopefully Dizzy can learn a thing or two from the veteran as the two might start getting some reps together in pre-shows.  An injury bug has apparently hit the APW locker room as Nighthawk breaks his ribs in his pre-show match. The injury will take a few weeks to heal, but he would be able to wrestle in the next show. I decide to sit him out, no reason to risk any further injury.  Macquarie and DIW talent Fuyuhiko "Shogo" Wakabayashi strike a conversation on social media, which does not result in an actual friendship status between the two. Wakabayashi is one of the few great workers DIW, probably their in-ring ace with a dire lack of charisma. But hey, friendship over war lines, you love to see it.  Tetsunori Yasuda might regret his words as PGHW immediately makes him drop his International title at Night of DESTINY. New champ BISON Yano, former tag team champion, should be a solid replacement.  Tyrant gets a big head over some mildly positive words on these updates and a surprisingly solid segment on the last show. His boasting is fittingly met with amusement.  SWF tag team specialist Zimmy Bumfhole grabs himself a small role in a C level disaster movie. Popular and entertaining wrestlers have a chance of getting small movie gigs, even if they do not have the attribute for it. The filming will put Bumfhole's wrestling career on hold for a few months.  West Coast gets its headlines in a negative sort of way. GSW midcard act Omar gets caught in possession of soft drugs. He hasn't been penalized by GSW or the government... yet. (There is a rare possibility of a worker going to prison for a crime. I think I've seen it happen maybe once or twice ever.)  No, WLW STILL isn't sacrificing puppies to the devil. BHOTWG, it's really sad that you resort to punching someone so much below you.  "Miss Perfection" Fuyuko Higa is still unemployed after leaving 5SSW and is spending her time destroying trolls on the internet. You are one of the best wrestlers in the world so please... find a place to work.  Funny enough, Shogo immediately wins the DIW midcard title for the third time after he gets highlighted in this LP. Gregory Grace once again singlehandedly drags the show to a 57 rating. drat him and his high popularity!  Big Night Out is here once again and so is Wrestler's Court. Mucciolo is once again stuffed in the nearest trash can and Dumfrey Pinn assumes the judge duties. Hatemonger has no problems with the sentence. So, onto the card!  We open with the extremely hot angle of Mason and Hamstead... staring at each other. Goliath backs up his guy and talks trash while the two muscleheads stay silent, flex their guns and keep eye contact. The following match ends with Shark and Mason getting the win, but the conflict between Mason and Hamstead staying unresolved. Energy beats L & L in the following tag match but get challenged by the Apocalypse moments later. With Nighthawk out, Hosotani and Legend have a singles match where Legend grabs the win. Undeterred, Next Level performs their own rap, which leaves the crowd and Legend unimpressed. A massive ten man tag team follows and Team Fox (El Hijo, Possum, Wasp and the Dudes) defeat Team Forbes (three Forbes clients, D-Pod and Wilkes). Gerard and Simonson have their title match, Simonson puts up a fight but Gerard is younger and stronger. Afterwards Pinn and Scorpio sarcastically help Simonson up, before dropping both him and Gerard. Mills and Devine rush in for an "impromptu" main event. The heels are victorious as Boon's crew, with returning Ceri Dordevich, attack Mills leaving Devine to the wolves. The show ends with Pinn Enterprises on top and on full strength for now.  This show goes notably better, with the 53 rating being our best in 2021. - The Mason/Hamstead might be a feud about two slabs of beef staring each other, grunting, flexing and punching but it works! The angles are good and that opener was nearly the best match of the night. - The show ending angle is a bit of a letdown, being the worst angle of the night. This is mostly due to Dordevich and Blithe having low popularity. Oh well, the show had other killer angles so I don't mind. It was still good, but had the potential to be just a bit better. - Simonson does his best, but the good title match is all about Gerard. Simonson still has his part to play in the Pinn angle, but this will be his last "main event" level singles match.  We compliment Gerard after the show and our top star is pleased that we remember to give him a pat on the back every once in a while.  It's not all good news, as Felix Harding cracks his tail bone working in the pre-show against a local worker. He could work for the duration of the injury (around a month) but I think he'll be sitting out the next few shows. What is with these pre-shows and these injuries? (This is the first time the injury has been caused by a botch, a move that went wrong. When someone gets injured by a botch, it has a chance of creating a negative relationship between the two parties.)  Top Japanese free agent SUKI finally gets hired as EX2010 realizes a talent of his caliber is available. An excellent all-arounder should fit well in EXODUS, unless he slips into time decline really fast.  Rich Money wins the USPW world title for the fourth time. Why on earth would USPW put their world title on the declining Money, just eight months after his previous year-long mammoth reign ended? If you guessed popularity, you would be partially correct. He is also the head booker of the company, so it is just a tad bit self preferential treatment.  Another new company pops up, this time in Japan. Warrior Queen 2020 is a women's deathmatch company and actually not part of the vanilla CVerse database. I'm using a handful of mods, notably CVerse Women's Revolution. It adds a bunch of women's workers around the globe and a few women's companies set as yet to open to the database. It's a place for Higa to work... is she agrees to work in a company with a deathmatch product. WQ2020 won't be challenging 5SSW for the joshi throne anytime soon, but hopefully they will do well. Next time: Pinn Enterprises versus APW heroes heats up! Will Mason and Hamstead continue their staring contest? Will Gragory Grace keep kicking my rear end?
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Oct 14, 2021 10:42
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i still don't really have much to say but i really enjoy these updates + this lp 
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Oct 14, 2021 15:05
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Doesn't the game also automatically create new companies whole-cloth, like, invent a name for one and give it a completely random product?
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Oct 14, 2021 15:27
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So are we gonna go with Pinn ending up at the top or just failing to make it there?
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Oct 14, 2021 16:13
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Pinn should get the Pin, once Gerard is beaten down enough, then some young hero can take down the mafiso overlord.
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Oct 14, 2021 17:20
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AtomikKrab posted:Pinn should get the Pin, once Gerard is beaten down enough, then some young hero can take down the mafiso overlord. Perhaps, but we should give a few shows of time for that to build up. Perhaps we could use Goliath as a bit of a third wheel in all this?
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Oct 14, 2021 17:27
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boo-osterous posted:i still don't really have much to say but i really enjoy these updates + this lp Thanks for following along! I'm glad that my incoherent ramblings and less than stellar grammar still have people reading. Veryslightlymad posted:Doesn't the game also automatically create new companies whole-cloth, like, invent a name for one and give it a completely random product? Yes, I believe when/if the premade companies that are set as "yet to debut" run out, that's when the game starts creating new companies out of thin air. That is pretty unlikely to happen, unless your save goes on for a reaaaaaaaaaaaaally long time. Triple A posted:So are we gonna go with Pinn ending up at the top or just failing to make it there? I'm... not sure yet. After two months his performances aren't really what I want out of a Gerard/Hamstead level top guy, but on the other hand it is the logical story beat in this storyline. So either a) Pinn wins the belt during the summer, drops to another babyface later, b) wins ands drops it quickly back to Gerard or c) fails to win the title, but is the mastermind behind the title change in some way. But that's in the future and I'll have to remember to drop a Goon Poll when I'm closer to that point. AtomikKrab posted:Pinn should get the Pin, once Gerard is beaten down enough, then some young hero can take down the mafioso overlord. Krab is on the same wavelength with option A and is probably the option I'm personally leaning towards... at this point in time.
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Oct 14, 2021 17:30
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BTF posted:Yes, I believe when/if the premade companies that are set as "yet to debut" run out, that's when the game starts creating new companies out of thin air. That is pretty unlikely to happen, unless your save goes on for a reaaaaaaaaaaaaally long time. Really? Dang. I know in TEW2016 they would generate at any given time. I was actually surprised the first time a database one popped up. I've never seen either kind open up in my own 2020 file since I'm playing so rarely.
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Oct 14, 2021 17:43
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BTF posted:I'm... not sure yet. After two months his performances aren't really what I want out of a Gerard/Hamstead level top guy, but on the other hand it is the logical story beat in this storyline. So either a) Pinn wins the belt during the summer, drops to another babyface later, b) wins ands drops it quickly back to Gerard or c) fails to win the title, but is the mastermind behind the title change in some way. But that's in the future and I'll have to remember to drop a Goon Poll when I'm closer to that point. Him being a mastermind should be a thing in all three of these plots. Use famous examples of real world sports cheating as inspiration. He's the guy who would spike your protein shake, 'roid up his men, play the song you hate the most, offer the ref his finest watch just to make him look away and burn down your most precious thing in his chase for glory and gold.
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Oct 14, 2021 17:45
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Episode 21: That doesn't work for me, brother Our owner reminds us that he does indeed exist and slaps us with a new goal. Our previous goal of not hiring any Technician Flyers has expired (hell yeah) and replaced with a more manageable goal of not hiring any Psychopaths. Not problem, chief, wasn't planning to! (Psychopath isn't a personality trait, but a ring style. Oceania has four wrestlers fitting the bill, three of them are awful and the fourth is just average.)    WQ2020 gets a TV deal right off the bat. Their roster is immediately bolstered by the top free agents in the region (Higa, Lady Lotus and Yu Hashimoto, all former 5SSW wrestlers that left the company in this save), a lot of people from 5SSW for pay-per-appearance deals and a crop of unemployed people. The booker position goes to WLW legend and hall of famer The Great Hisato. WQ2020 becomes an outlier in the Japanese scene, not being a touring company but sticking to monthly events... for now.   Completely predictable things happen in the US. USPW poaches the reigning SWF World Champion Brett Starr, pretty much paying him over double what he was making in SWF. Starr fulfills his remaining dates and drops the belt to aging main event star Rogue, one of the greatest British wrestlers in CVerse history. SWF proceeds to overreact and also makes budding superstars Spencer Spade and Mainstream Hernandez drop the tag titles to eternal midcard players Robbie Retro and Brett "brother of Bart" Biggins.  We continue skirting copyright laws with You Only Live Twice and get TWO backstage interactions. Massacre moans about not being the judge anymore, so Pinn orders him to cheer up and empty his bank account for the boys. This, unsurprisingly, is considered a positive morale boost for Massacre.  The other incident is much more interesting, as Harry Simonson takes Jesse under his wing as a protege! This gives the two a positive backstage relationship but also something a bit more interesting. From now on, before every show there is a chance that Simonson pulls Jesse to the side for a bit of a chat and teaches him about the craft of professional wrestling. This increases the speed of Jesse's growth in that particular skill. I hope to see this a LOT in the future, as Jesse could use every bit of skill increase he can get. Wrestlers can have multiple proteges, so I'm also hoping that Simonson will start assembling a crop of young guys to mentor.  I also meddle with Fox and Dordevich, which results in a friendship! Cool!  On to the card. We open with the mother of all arm wrestling matches, that would surely put the pros to shame. After five minutes of grunting and sweating, Mason finally slams down Hamstead's meaty arm. Lovely stuff all around. The tag title feud gets heated up, when both Energy and Apocalypse win their respective matches. The feud between Devine/Shark and the Goliath goons is still simmering, as evidenced by a random backstage attack by Massacre and Tate. The El Hijo led animal themed trio makes the save. Next Level get their tag match against SHADOW LEGENDS and despite the urge to once again job out Legend for the title challengers, I instead give LEGENDS the win. Pinn Enterprises, represented by Pinn, Mattell and Blithe, showcase their new team work capabilities against lower card faces. Surprisingly D-Pod re-emerges to smack Lucas with a chair to give the (unneeded) edge to Pinn's boys. EHDFM beats Tyrant, Mason defeats Massacre and the main event ends in a classic no contest when the ref loses control of the situation. Post match Gerard rallies the troops and manages to NOT get his behind beaten at the end of the show.  The show ends up being a massive success, ending up as our second best show to date with a 55 rating. - Our fans just love inconclusive endings. The main event ends up being our best match of the year and only the third to break the "magical" barrier of 60. I was worried a bit about the card, since only the main really had the potential to be great. Thankfully, even with no other match breaking 50, the main event carries us to great show. - The two singles matches below that, while not awesome, both performed beyond my expectations. Mason, I guy who I could barely stand before starting the save, has morphed into one of my most reliable acts. I've kept him pretty strong, so I don't know how a big singles loss might affect him. In the other match, Tyrant actually outdoes Fox. I shouldn't be that surprised, since Tyrant is the better worker of the two, but I had kind of lived under the pretense that Fox still had the popularity edge over him. - Pinn Enterprises trios ends up being the letdown of the night. Lucas had an off night, Storytelling match aim means that the guys aren't working that hard and no on-going storyline (despite, once again, kicking off a story with D-Pod/Dudes) - Both members of LEGENDS manage to be off their game. Just grand.  Hamstead continues to perform really well, even if his match contributions are on the pre-show. He is once again pretty pleased at the compliments.  Congrats Melody, now can you please stop shitposting on Twitter?  With Melody busy, professional troll La Estrella starts stirring poo poo up. He does this in EVERY save, usually multiple times.  Nathan McKenzie's reign with the RAW Television title doesn't last that long as previous champion Luke Steele regains the belt. There are multiple better options for RAW than the comparatively weak Steele at the top of their card... but who am I to argue against success?   Over in Canada, a living legend's (possibly) final world title reign comes to an end. Sean McFly drops the belt back to Christian Price after a letdown of a reign. Also on the same show, the best women's worker on the planet also regains her title. I had completely missed that a midcard prospect Sandra Shine even had a sizable reign with the CWA Women's title.  DIW releases a video where a person wearing a Gregory Grace paper mask makes jokes about APW, makes vulgar gestures and dunks on our PG image. It goes over like a lead balloon. DIW, please stop taunting us, book your main champion for the first time this year and also fire Grace while you're at it.  Fight Night starts with Dordevich ribbing (pranking) the whole locker room. Thankfully it didn't involve drugging her co-workers, defecating in someone's bag or breaking someone's jaw with a roll of quarters, so everyone has a grand old laugh! So, I guess it's time to book that Gerard vs Scorpio title match. Gerard is naturally going over so-  ... THIS is why I don't like hiring wrestlers from bigger companies. Scorpio is not a fan of eating a pinfall, despite: A) being undefeated in APW thus far B) this being his first Commonwealth title match ever C) not being better than Gerard in any way, shape or even form. ...just because he is (significantly) more popular all around Australia. He is furious even if I stick a Keep Strong note on him, so I abandon the plan... for now. (I could do it, but I risk a few things. Firstly, he might mail in his performance against Gerard due to him being furious. He will ALSO stay angry which will impact his following performances. He MIGHT become so angry that he will walk out before his contract ends. He MIGHT be so angry that he will not agree to negotiate a new contract. He might stay angry FOR LITERAL YEARS.) ...Sometimes, the game goes wayyyyyy overboard with how wrestlers protect their self-worth.  After some change of plans, the card looks like this. Fox & Possum open the show with a high-speed confrontation with L & L, but get jumped by Team Forbes resulting in a DQ win. This time it's time for Devine & Shark to return the favor and help the animal themed compatriots. White Wasp tags along for the following match, but gets isolated and pinned when Goliath Global once again attack Devine & Shark. Nighthawk successfully defends his title in a three-way, putting that little feud to rest (and kicking Next Level back to pre-show duty). D-Pod gets the mic and has a quick rant about The Dudes. Much like Mason before, he only sees two meatheads who are only here to rob him off his paychecks. Speaking of Mason, he dismantles Tate en route to the soon approaching match against Hamstead. Simonson returns to action against Pinn Enterprises, but gets pinned after the damned numbers game from the Enterprises members stalking outside the ring. Afterwards the pissed off Mills calls out Boon on his hypocrisy. Boon wanted a singles career, yet he tags along in a group, unwilling to do the work? Positive Energy face a massive task in their first defense, but Kasey manages to squeak out the win with a pinning combination out of somewhere! With Scorpio unwilling to do the job, Mattell gets the call to show his worth in the main event. He loses, but winning clearly isn't the only thing in his mind as he surgically targets the knee of Gerard.  And the results... balls. With a underperforming main event, the show only gets a 51. - The main event didn't even suffer from bad chemistry. Gerard just had a massive off night, with his performance around ten points lower than usual. And while a 51 is still good, it would have been a whole lot better with a standard Gerard showing. And since the main event makes up most of the show total rating... sigh. - The main bums me out because the rest of the marquee matches deliver! Positive Energy have the match of their careers. Sure, it's Warmonger doing most of the heavy lifting, but still! The rematch might be just an inch better! Barney Mason gets a lot out of Reggie Tate! This is a result I didn't see happening just one short year ago. - Nighthawk's title defense is the worst match of the night. Including the pre-show. Granted, it was probably the best pre-show APW has had up to this point, but the point still stands. - Shunted to pre-show duty, Scorpio and Blithe find great tag team chemistry together. If Scorpio ends up sticking around after his six months are up, that might be the ticket for both of the guys.  USPW continues to do what they do best: throw money at everything that breathes. Jefferson "totally not Johnny Mundo/Impact/Hennigan/Nitro/Ultra/Morrison" Stardust spins the wheel and takes the deal. Stardust is one half of the fittingly named team The Awesomeness (with Huey Cannonball), a top tier unit in the SWF tag division. That's history for now.   Despite the influx of new and bigger stars, USPW shuffles around their midcard belts to their "own" guys, as second generation wrestler Casey Valentine and now seven time USPW tag champs Natural Storm (DC Rayne & Eddie Howard) regain gold.  Final news piece of the update, one of the old geezers of the Oceania scene hangs his boots up. Much like Thomas Morgan, seeing his face again reminds me of saves past. Trehawke has never been anything special in "modern" CVerse. But once upon a time, in the CV97 database, Philips was quite the promising youngster. In TEW16, I had a long-running Aussie save with Trehawke as one of my original roster members. And from day one until the day the save died along with my computer crash, he was at the top of my Top Prospects list. He was given every opportunity to shine: a team with my #1 babyface (with great chemistry!), numerous matches against top level competition, a big turn against said partner, a heel run with the midcard title... yet he never panned out the way I had hoped. Other rookies (like dashing Harry Simonson, young hobo Boo Smithson or the visiting future superstar Tom "Angry" Gilmore) leaped past him. A disappointment in the grand scheme of things and every time I opened that Top Prospects list... his smile taunted me. Enjoy retirement... you pile of numbers and a paragraph of bio text. Next time: Will Scorpio agree to take a loss? I bloody doubt it!
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Oct 22, 2021 08:12
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Maybe it's colored by me booking Yu Hashimoto as a chaos elemental in my 5SSW, but with her brawling style and charisma she could be the face of WQ2020. Higa is an odd fit, but she's good enough to make it work and it beats having her spend her best years unemployed. I should probably look into the Women's Revolution mod one of these days just to see if it makes women's wrestling in Europe more viable.
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Oct 22, 2021 09:35
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frankenfreak posted:Maybe it's colored by me booking Yu Hashimoto as a chaos elemental in my 5SSW, but with her brawling style and charisma she could be the face of WQ2020. Higa is an odd fit, but she's good enough to make it work and it beats having her spend her best years unemployed. Hashimoto is really great (brought her over in another Oceania save, has been wonderful all around) and really has all the tools to be the face of WQ2020. (Despite their 5SSW past, both Higa and Hashimoto start at Unimportant in the Tohoku based company, so it will be a while before they get the push.) The Women's Revolution mod (along with the other "expansion" mods) is a fun addition to the CVerse database. It doesn't completely fix the nearly non-playable state for all women's companies in UK/Europe/Oceania, but it helps a bit.
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Oct 22, 2021 10:33
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This is a really great LP so far - I don’t have much to add but I’m reading every update as it comes out for news about my new favorite promotion full of hideously deformed Poser people.
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Nov 1, 2021 14:37
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Prop Wash posted:This is a really great LP so far - I don’t have much to add but I’m reading every update as it comes out for news about my new favorite promotion full of hideously deformed Poser people. Thanks! It's been a bit of a break between updates (again) but I'll try to get an update out this week.
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Nov 9, 2021 17:19
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Apologies in advance, I've been spending my TEW time with other saves these past few weeks, so my booking might come across as a bit more harebrained than usual. Episode 22: Oh man   Advancing forward a few days I immediately start suffering from dreadful flashbacks from my other saves. Thunder & Lightning are a premiere tag team in CWA and rightfully win the titles at a CWA TV taping, even if Lightning part of the team gets a bit roughed up. In a long term Oceania save (five years and counting) I've seen this EXACT news item one too many times. In that alternate reality T & L ended up swapping the belts with Dynamite Express (another great team, MAW alumni) time and time and time again, with both teams racking up around ten reigns. The AI is good... but prone to some absolutely baffling booking patterns on the long term. (Speaking of tag team champions, in THIS save The APW alumni Diamond Dogs are still reigning SAISHO tag team champions, hitting 26 defenses and 422 days by the end of April).  Future 21CW superstar Apollo Prince suffers a setback as he suffers a separated shoulder early in the month. It's not the worst injury 21CW crew suffers this month.  APW's Beachfront Breakdown quickly arrives and the card ends up looking like this. El Hijo, Possum, Wasp, Shark and Devine officially join forces as The Animal Kingdom stable, much to the chagrin of Max Forbes, clearly annoyed that babyfaces are finally outnumbering his own crew. A big ten man tag opens the night with the newly formed babyface unit grabbing the big win. The Apocalypse take out their frustrations on the hopeless R & R duo and following that Positive Energy side takes the win in a trios match. War and Hate are not done with their mongering and challenge the champs to a steel cage match to settle the score after the "lucky win" last month. D-Pod has once again gathered up some money and has gotten Hamstead on his side for the show. Hamstead is too big of an obstacle for the Dudes at this point, allowing D-Pod to grab a win. Rusty Mills continues his fight against his former team mate in the semi-main, but doesn't get his revenge when Samoan Demolition attack his partners for the night. Post-match Demolition continue the beatdown, announcing their intentions to get the Australian championship. Main event once again ends in a complete pandemonium with Enterprises, Simonson, Mills and even Hamstead running in for a big brawl.  The show ends up going pretty well, scoring a 53. - D-Pod & Hamstead end up having great chemistry teaming up. It's always great to see good chemistry notes. Goliath Global could use another promo guy... - Everything else... ends up going the way I pretty much expected going in. Main event is strong enough (even with Pinn lacking behind), semi-main is good, even with Blithe and Legend and the opener is an all around success. - Reggie Tate was playing "protected minutes" by being in a multi-man tag match, but he had his best performance to date. That's good for him and for me. I do need some of my undercard heels to start stepping up so I'm not as reliant on Hamstead and Boon in the future.   EMLL and CWW go through some very minor revamps in their products. EMLL prepares for a possible future TV show by shifting their product a bit and CWW... I could have sworn they already had the Respectful Wrestling product. (They start with Wrestling as a Sport, which is almost the same).  With the next set of graduates debuting in May, WLW deems it high time to do some spring cleaning in their undercard. By which I mean we get a new crop of rookies on excursion! Welcome to sunny Australia, where the weather is fine, beer is cheap and your win record non-existent! Let's take a look at the trio real quick.  Yozo Ishigami is a high flyer with two years of experience under his belt. He has quite poor charisma, almost no star quality, middling selling and doesn't stand out with his primary skills. But he is flashy! His fundamentals are also pretty good, but Ishigami isn't really a future superstar in progress like Azumi. I wish WLW would have also sent me Ishigami's tag partner Kaito Doan, their rookie supernova, but maybe next year. Ishigami will be playing a face.  Samurai Boy is also coming in as a face. The technician flyer has only wrestled for a year at this point but is already showing some promise to be a key asset for WLW in the future. Boy is pretty similar to Ishigami except a bit better in everything except consistency. Also, he actually might have the charisma of a top guy. His mask is also a homage/rip-off of the real world mask of Octagon (the wrestler, not the MMA structure). He might be nothing but a bit player for his years with us, but I'm interested to see how his career pans out in Japan.  Dark Wing is the only heel of trio and also the most experienced. The luchador is four years down in the business and the only one of three officially out of the "young lion" phase of their careers. So when he returns to Japan, he should be ready to go with a real push. He is the most polished of the three, being a pretty solid high flyer with some charisma to boot. He ALSO is lacking in selling, a disturbing similarity between all three. (Coincidence or Adam Ryland's scathing commentary on the lack of that particular ability in junior heavyweight style, who knows?) They will be sticking with pre-show duty for the time being, until they learn the language or show signs of actually being able to hang. I doubt it, since Azumi (the clear standout of these rookies) hasn't really hit his stride.  Speaking of WLW, their own dirty trick on BHOTWG ends up backfiring. Really, sign wars? In 2021? Shouldn't you be using crowd signs to, I don't know, fight about JRPGs?  More flashbacks from the mentioned other save, as BHOTWG releases a solid junior tag team worker Kazunori Yamura, one half of PUNK Nasty Club, fresh off main eventing Wrestle Peace Festival. On that other save, PUNK Nasty Club ended up with around ten tag title runs as well. Yamura should be an extremely solid pickup for WLW and/or EX2010.  King of New York is a yearly ten man battle royal match, this time won by Brutus Milano. It's actually more prestigious than their main championship belt. For Milano this is his second time winning the honors, being the inaugural winner in 2018. What makes this notable has very little to do with Milano, but once again the game's AI doing dumb stuff when the player is (hopefully) not looking. Milano did win a ten man battle royal for the King of New York... in the middle of the card... and ANOTHER ten man battle royal main evented the show?! Why? What?  The double battle royal paradox pushes NYCW to modernize their product a bit. I'd imagine this is them trying to progress from 1972 to... 1979.    I swear that the AI is actually decent, but stuff like... THREE pregnancy announcements on the SAME day make me slightly reconsider my stance. Sugiyama is solid member of the 5SSW roster, Hollywood is the manager of American Cobras (and actually dating one half of the team, Storm Spillane) and then there is the aussie Vicki Company. Company was a RAW original and a key manager for many years, until departing the country with her husband Mark Misery and joining 21CW. Yes, Misery does love Company.  Speaking of love, our tag champion Kasey finds himself a girl outside the wrestling business. Wrestlers can naturally start relationships between themselves, but there is also a chance of this happening. This doesn't create a new character in the database, it just gives Kasey the relationship status. Good for the kid.  Apollo Prince missing a few weeks isn't a disaster for 21CW. Losing the wrestler of the year and your reigning world champion Adam Matravers for a few months stings a lot.  EILL would be delighted if they only lost Axxis Jr. for a few measly months. Spinal injury might spell an end of an career for one of the remaining top stars of EILL. They have really been battered with bad news in this save. This won't kill them, they have a sizable lead in the war for Mexico, but losing three of your biggest names in the span of one year is not fun for any booker, real or armchair.  Another "flavor" story also sees a Mexican wrestler get hurt, financially that is. Poor Anarchist, shouldn't have bought into those darn pyramid schemes.  Good news for the "thriving" women's wrestling scene, as QAW grows to Small size. This should mean that more women's wrestlers get work there. They also go through an extremely marginal shift in their product.  We get to ANZAC Day Special and to another wrestler's court. Kasey cannot get his eyes of his text message exchanges with his new girl, drawing the ire of the locker room. A crate of beer is a small prize to pay for love.  The card! It's a big one! Mason and Hamstead open another show with their macho showoff, but this time Mason actually takes the initiative and challenges Hamstead. Forbes/Animals feud ends in a elimination tag team match, where El Hijo ends up the last man standing, eliminating Tyrant last. Surfer Dude Jesse (was SUPPOSED to be Lucas, but I misclicked) wonders what's, like, the deal with D-Pod, dude. Vortex and LEGENDS get a win with the skin of their teeth over the monstrous trio, pissing the Samoans off even more. Devine and Shark finally put the hostilities with Goliath Global to bed with a win in a hardcore match (fun fact: APW fans can handle hardcore matches but not table matches.) Mills takes on Mattell, where the focus is in Mills' clearly more aggressive approach. Mills wins, brutally stretching Mattell's limbs. The cage rematch ends in a more definite win for Energy, as Chuck pins Warmonger after a hard fought battle. Main event sees Gerard defend against Boon in another hard fought match. Pinn's big strategy is starting to be more clear by the minute, as Boone also targets Gerard's knee for the whole match. Mills thwarts Pinn's interference, and Gerard just and just manages to grab the victory. ...I just realized I booked all babyfaces to win. Huh.     ANZAC nets us a 56 rating, our second best to date! I did load the show with some marquee matches, so it's good to see results like these. - Gerard/Boone is only a minor letdown, as I was hoping for a 60, but 58 is still the best singles match of the year. Both men have almost equal performances, which tells me that Boone has been pushed well to a main eventer status. - The big cage rematch between Positive Energy and The Apocalypse ends up being one point weaker than the first encounter, despite better performances from Chuck and Kasey. Maybe the fans just don't particularly enjoy the cage stipulation... one month before the event called Caged Showdown. Whoops! (I would have wanted to do the match there, but Apocalypse's promise to put Energy over expired at the end of April, so I had to do it early.) - Mills and Mattell would have probably been better if I had let them go all out, but I intentionally put the Storytelling match aim on them, to not hurt the two marquee matches. - Jesse/D-Pod angle ends up being... good! D-Pod is really good on the mic and Jesse wasn't bad himself. - The new arrivals start pretty poorly (Wing was the best of them), but all of their gimmicks end up working pretty well.  Alex Arturro Experience has been impressing in his few APW appearances (not really) which nets him a cameo role in... Barons? Sure, thanks Wikipedia. Experience has the attribute of TV actor, meaning he will get roles like these from time to time. I will lose him from the active roster for the duration of filming, but he might gain some popularity by doing that! So, a win for me if he manages to gain some pop.  SWF, have you ever heard about elevators? They go up and down. I mention this for no reason at all.   We finally see two major bidding wars start with USPW star Steve Frehley and SWF rising star Mikey Lau. Bidding wars stories come up whenever two or more companies offer deals for people with expiring contracts. Frehley gets offers from BHOTWG, EILL, SWF and TCW in addition to USPW before finally accepting a deal to stay with USPW. Frehley is a big name, being a former SWF champion and now the second biggest star in USPW. Lau doesn't gather the same amount of interest, with BHOTWG not being interested, but the four way bidding is still going on at the end of the month. Goon Poll~ We have a few storylines reaching their ends and others hitting turning points, so it's time to once again ask your opinions on few things. 1) Tag division in shambles Positive Energy have gone over both of our top heel teams in a short time span. Chuck has really prospered and Kasey, well, is not bad. However, I've done some questionable booking calls in the past few shows. Namely, all of the logical heel challengers have been eating losses. So I have three not so good options for our next tag title story. None of these will reach the heights of the Samoan/Apocalypse matches, but that has been quite apparent for a while. A) Next Level (Kasuhisa Hosotani & Keisuke Kuroki). The weakest of the three options here. They have the entertainment stats to be a fun side story while a build up the next "real" challengers for a few shows. B) Team Forbes. Max Forbes is starting to grow frustrated by the lack of success from his goons and starts demanding results and fast. The lads go for the quick results and try to take on the "underdog" champions. C) Goliath Global. Pinn Enterprises have stolen the Goliath thunder a bit, but the group is still dangerous. What better way to send a message than to once again capture gold, especially if Hamstead is in the team... 2) Big Meaty Men Slapping Meat. Yes, Barney Mason and Scottie Hamstead are finally heading towards their big singles match. But what is going to happen in that match? This has been a bit of a placeholder story for both, as the main event angles are focused on other people. Whoever wins doesn't really have a immediate place in the championship picture. So who goes over? (Bonus question: one and done or multiple singles matches between the two?) A) Barney Mason. Captain Caveman is no doubt on the roll of his career. Win here would propel him to a top tier angle, opposite the Pinn Enterprises forces. He is not a good wrestler, but the crowd sure seems to love him and/or his muscles. B) Scottie Hamstead. Hamster is still a top 3 wrestler for me and should be presented as such. He should stay out of the title picture for a while after dominating through 2020, but his time on the top will come again. After winning here, he would probably be shuffled to tag team ranks and/or stable wars. 3) Pinn or not to Pinn, that is the question. Gerard has now gotten through three of the five Pinn Enterprises members and is limping toward the next challenge. As discussed previously, Gerard and Pinn is the big time angle here. But do we actually strap up Pinn? I am not totally confident on his in-ring abilities. We have a few options. A) Pinn wins and drops to Mills/Mason later. After the murderer's row of challengers have softened up Gerard, Pinn swoops in and takes the title. His reign won't go that long and the belt will move on to the other top babyface, being Rusty Mills or Barney Mason. B) Pinn wins and drops back to Gerard later. Same as above, but Gerard gets his revenge and regains the title from the waste management emperor. C) Pinn makes sure that Gerard loses the belt, but doesn't win it himself. Pinn makes sure that Gerard loses the belt (to Scorpio?) and is the mastermind behind the new champion. D) Other? Do you think that our rotund mafioso should rule APW for all eternity? Once again, feel free to throw ideas around.
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Nov 10, 2021 15:15
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1. C. Next Level is far too raw and they'll be leaving 'straya eventually. Goliath is reliable and we could always keep them around as the most corporate of all the teams. Forbes could be built up in the future as the crafty bunch who skirt the rules and Pinn is of course, the dirtiest bastards of the whole industry who care for no rules. 2. A. If they like that slab of beef, they shall get their slab of beef medium rare. You can tie it so that Goliath makes the offer after this loss and uses it as a future angle in case we give him the top title. 3. B. Pinn's worked very well for us so let's give him one good title defense for it as well before the rematch. Flip a coin between Mason and Mills on the challenger to lose.
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Nov 10, 2021 16:03
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C A A Lets put Meat Man Mason over the top.
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Nov 10, 2021 17:00
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1)A then C Have next level keep Positive Energy busy for a little bit while you wrap up the mason feud, then have hampstead and some other global guy come in and crunch them. 2)A You gotta give the people what they want, and they want Mason. Hampstead will be fine since he’ll be a title holder shortly after this. 3)C (or B) Pinn’s performances have not been up to snuff. Scorpio’s clearly the superior talent. If you put the belt on him you can have a longer dominant heel champ run without risking your match quality. If you put Pinn over the next logical challenger would be Mason and that match would stink to high heaven. If you’re willing to roll the dice on that program being the filler before Gerard wins it back then I’m good with B too. Insertnamehere31 fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Nov 10, 2021 |
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Nov 10, 2021 22:46
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BAC.
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Nov 10, 2021 23:19
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C) Hamstead is still one of your best guys, you should still keep him prominent. A) Barney Mason is one of your potential big stars so might as well get behind him. either C or B) Pinn is clearly cooked but he still has some value, if you want to use him as a transitional champ to get the title on your future stars then go for it.
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Nov 11, 2021 02:07
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Don't be afraid to push the Japanese excursion workers a little sometimes, (if they manage to earn it) since, while it's probable that they'll go back to their home company, it's not a sure thing, and they're now open to working in Australia, so if you get a decent relationship with one, ain't nothing stopping you from eventually hiring them. And if you keep the other company happy, they might be open to talent exchanges from time to time, to give you some extra challengers as breathing room. I see no downside to developing their guys. So. That said. 1)A 2)A 3)A or C I agree with the logic that says Pinn is probably too cooked to really go himself, but he's been great on the angle side of things. So using him to transition to either a big heel or another big face, depending on what you feel is best, really works. EDIT I'm really only familiar with New Japan in the real world, but going by their junior heavyweight fighters, then yeah, most of them can't sell for poo poo. El Desperado will. Taguchi will. Everyone else doesn't want to stop pretending to be superman for twelve and a half seconds. EDIT 2 Eagles will sometimes over-sell which isn't necessarily a bad thing, since he currently wrestles face. Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Nov 11, 2021 |
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Nov 11, 2021 03:33
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Wow, that's a lot of love for BEEF. Mason will be beating Hamstead real soonish then (I don't expect a huge swing coming in this particular poll, but you never know!) Tag title feud is looking like it's going to be Goliath/Energy, but I really like the idea of doing a quick stopgap feud with Next Level before that. That allows the Goliath boys to pick up some steam (especially with Hamstead losing to Mason). Veryslightlymad posted:Don't be afraid to push the Japanese excursion workers a little sometimes, (if they manage to earn it) since, while it's probable that they'll go back to their home company, it's not a sure thing, and they're now open to working in Australia, so if you get a decent relationship with one, ain't nothing stopping you from eventually hiring them. And if you keep the other company happy, they might be open to talent exchanges from time to time, to give you some extra challengers as breathing room. I see no downside to developing their guys. Yeah, that's the thing I forgot to mention about excursions (I think). When a wrestler goes on excursion, they will stay active in that game area even after their excursion is over. As Veryslightlymad said, if these WLW rookies don't pan out in their home promotion (which feels... somewhat unlikely, I've seen five out of the six carve out a nice career for themselves) I can always bring them back. Next Level and Azumi are guys that I want to give a more or a role to, it's just that they are... not ready. And that's understandable, they are rookies. Azumi might have a few promising matches in the pre-show and once I put him back on the main card, he tends to have an off night. Next Level are still not very good, but their brief feud with SHADOW LEGENDS did improve their performances somewhat. So maybe to key to get more out of Azumi is to give him a bit of a minifeud on the main card. Veryslightlymad posted:
 (yes, it's not New Japan, but this Edwards/Richards gif is just too appropriate to share. I' wish I still had the gif from Dragon Gate, where Ricochet straight up no sells an exploder suplex from the top rope.) Veryslightlymad posted:EDIT 2 I haven't seen much of Eagles' NJPW stuff (waning interest and horrible tendency to miss most of BOSJ), but at last he's not as bad as junior Billiam "I have a mouth, thus I must scream" Ospreay.
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Nov 11, 2021 11:46
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BTF posted:Billiam "I have a mouth, thus I must scream" Ospreay. Billy Brexit, one of the dumbest men in the industry.
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Nov 11, 2021 12:54
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| # ? Jun 1, 2024 11:08 |
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What's crazy is selling makes you look tougher because you win despite getting your rear end kicked. If you never sell, it looks like the first big move you take puts you away. So... Learn to sell, you dummies.
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Nov 11, 2021 15:13
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