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edit: note to self, don't edit your updates in the reply window in case of random enter pushes.
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Feb 16, 2022 18:04
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At least you got a fresh new page for it now.
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Feb 16, 2022 18:10
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This is something I have learned from my own LPs (drat, I need to "play" and update). Also, it's trivially easy to accidentally close the window and lose everything, so I am very paranoid about CTRL-A -> CTRL-X -> CTRL-V every few seconds. I have to cut/re-paste instead of just copy because I need to be sure I have it.
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Feb 16, 2022 19:12
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After a false start, hey an update! Episode 28: RAW Strikes Back   As mentioned last time, CWA is the next company facing imminent demise. The game agrees and generates a story to officially announce their countdown towards demise. Unlike FCW, the Canadian juggernaut has some assets that the big companies would love to get. The almost eight million dollar price tag will probably scare away most buyers. The roster is immensely talented, they just have very little popularity south of the border. When CWA dies, ACPW will probably try to grab some of the cheaper dudes (and hopefully not bankrupt themselves in the process). CWA's response to their death by self-inflicted financial wounds is... to cut one of their managers and no one else. Simple, but not quite that effective.  FCW will officially die next month. A fitting image found from the GDS forums probably reveals the reason why:  ...  More and more of the roster start asking for raises. Barney Mason, Tyrant, Donovan Boon and Vortex are the next guys to start earning just a few dollars more.  We do bring in Kerry Wayne with quite a sizable deal. For comparison, Louie Scorpio makes a bit under 1000 dollars per appearance, but this is the prize I have to pay. It's a one year deal and has agreed to Pass the Torch, theoretically making him more willing to agree to lose to less popular wrestlers. Theoretically. His RAW deal expires after our first show of the month, so he won't quite make his debut there.  YEPW starting roster shapes up to be an interesting one. Most of our young midcarders get hired, which is good for them and me. YEPW is also based in New South Wales, so their pop gains will be in the same area we run our shows in. Every extra show worked nets our guys more experience, which is good for their continued development. Let's do a quick overview of their roster. From APW: Chuck Everlasting, Dee Lucketti, Dexter Mattell, Dizzy G, D-Pod, Jesse Tasman, Kasey Kneuve, Kazuhisa Hosotani, Lothar Prellinger, Nighthawk, SubUrban Legend, Surfer Dude Lucas, Vortex & White Wasp The core of the roster is made up of our solid young core. Chuck and Kasey are paired together as a team and will continue to gain tag experience working with YEPW, but neither the Dudes nor SHADOW LEGENDS get paired up. Weirdly Hosotani gets hired but not his slightly better tag partner Kuroki. Lucketti, Dizzy and Wasp fit YEPW's style as high flyers and I'm real happy seeing all three get more opportunities.  From RAW: CJ Romeo, George Ozley, Marcus Kerr, Matt Stoppard, Tye the Innovator, YEPW’s biggest stars are naturally the RAW guys working under PPA deals. Romeo, Ozley and Innovator are all part of the disbanded LiberTeen boy band stable from RAW. Tye is the best of the three, but not spectacular. Neither are Kerr and Stoppard, 3AM Boys, fairly unremarkable high flying tag team that stand out with their punk style looks. The five bring the popularity to the table and hopefully getting to work actual matches instead of whatever they do at RAW will help them along.  From DIW: Creeper, Red Masteroff, Writhe Creeper and Writhe are a young tag team known as Forever Evil. They are decently promising brawlers and might one day inherit the spot that Apocalypse and Samoan Demolition have as the best heel team in the continent. Masteroff is a bit like our Leon Nameth. A brawler in the early stages of his career, but already showing a bit of promise.  From ZEN: Bruce Strange, Killer B You might recognize Killer B from his one APW appearance early on. YEPW also does the smart thing and reunites B with Legend as Knight’s Temple. Strange has a great “ghost hunter” gimmick in ZEN, but I don’t believe he gets to do wacky character stuff in YEPW.  Free agents: Banky Bremner, Blackwell Bush, Dean Jarrett, Ernest Lopez, Frankie Libertine, Izzy Decartes, Lance Maddigan, Lucas Pobb, Moonchild, Sexxxy SJB, Tony Collins, XS The rest of the roster is plucked from the unemployment line. Libertine joins his LiberTeen brethren and completes the quartet. A lot of these guys have done pre-show work for us, but fit a lot better with the work rate style of YEPW. Bush is a top start waiting to happen as one of the better technicians in Australia. Jarrett, Lopez and Collins are all newgens, so their ceilings are a mystery.  Maurice Jackson is one of the faces of Australian wrestling, so it’s cool to see him do some good.  But enough of that, we have a show to get to. Pre-show meddling once again proves effective, as Kasey and Rusty Mills become quite good pals.  Rumble in the Concrete Jungle looks something like this. Pinn and his Enterprises open the show and gloat that one of their members is going to win the show ending Rumble match. Pinn also states that Mason better get good insurance if he plans on participating. Opening match sees the familiar duo of Gerard and Devine take on Team Forbes. Nameth’s interference tips the scales as Tyrant defeats Devine. Next Level get the stick next and insult the great sport of surfing. The Dudes are not cool with this slander, bro, and we get some swift fisticuffs. Naoji Azumi gets another win by defeating Lorenzo Oliverio as he builds himself up for the final six months of his run. Six man tag has the underdog team of Flash, Possum and Wasp successfully defeat Whirlwind, but the focus is on Flash challenging Devil throughout the match. Positive Energy come out for a chat, but get attacked by Goliath Global. SubUrban Legend, being a nice fellow, hits the ring and clears out the big guys. Macquarie finally gets his monster and beats him in a last man standing contest. D-Pod gets some solo promo time, ranting about how he really should be the face of every poster, t-shirt and DVD that APW produces. Semi-main sees Scorpio and Mills clash in tag action. Lucas recoups his close loss from last month by pinning Blithe. Main event is an all out brawl with most of the top guys colliding. Mason, unsurprisingly, comes out on top and looks ready to challenge Scorpio soon enough.  Another really good show! The 57 is tied for our second best show to date (Early Christmas Bash 2020 and Championship Carnival 2021 hold the same honor). - I was pretty sure that the main event was going to get overshadowed by the preceding tag match, but I can’t leave the marquee match of the event out of the last spot! Warmonger and Donovan Boon really held that main event together. - Lucas continues to impress and both Mills and Scorpio were on point. Blithe is not where I’d want him to be, but his overness growth is hampered by a bad gimmick and being pretty much the designated loss post of Pinn Enterprises. But hey, his great chemistry with Scorpio does come in handy! - The opening angle is the best we’ve done. With Kerry Wayne coming in and paired up with the right guys, we might be hitting the 70s with our angles. - Macquarie and Maniac do well enough together. I’ve been heating up Macquarie a bit for a short run against Devil soon. I’m not really booking Monster to the best of his abilities, but he’s still a work in progress.  It’s him, it’s him, it’s DDP. Our other road agent and the former tag partner of my UC, Debonair David Peterson gets the pen at YEPW. It’s cool to see that The Masters are really in charge of the next generation of Australian wrestling.   Our monthly “meanwhile in America” watch continues with some SWF title changes. Their big monster heel Scythe (not to be confused with the award winning board game of the same name) becomes the world champion as Rogue drops the belt before heading off to USPW. The tag titles move on to Wild Riders, Joey Morgan (pictured), former TCW World champion now slowing down in the midcard and… sigh, Dominic “Midnight Prowler “DeSousa. Back in TEW 13 I ran a Lite Road to Glory save (start with 0 pop, 0 overness, 0 momentum and 0 money and use a rookie UC) and the then Prowler was one of the most annoying pieces of business I’ve ever had to book. Complaining about everything, not that special in the ring and causing backstage incidents more often that anybody else. And just when I had had enough, the guy had the GALL to start dating one of my top women! So I couldn’t fire him or I would risk pissing off my other star. Eventually I just did it, but the scars remained. Ever since I’ve harbored deep resentment to this piece of numbers and every bit of success he’s ever gotten. Ran about fictional video game character over, let’s move on.   SWF also hire One Man Army, cause you know, nostalgia. TCW makes another expected hire and brings in the accomplished west coast flyer Masked Cougar to fill a hole in the midcard.   Things also happen outside of America. BHOTWG makes another great hire for their booming junior division, as EX2010 standout Orange Tsuchie takes up on their offer. A few days later they let go one of those great junior workers. Hiraki will land on his feet, as I’m sure both EX2010 and WLW would love to add him to their rosters.  21CW has one of their own legend’s run end. Jonathan Faust, one of the more iconic characters of the 21CW roster sees time and knee problems hamper his abilities to the point of him being released. SNP will surely offer the former 21CW World champion one last run up north. All these big names leaving and getting hired all around the world, I wonder when something big happens he- *knock knock* Who’s there? "Revolution" Revolution who? "Revolution Australian Wrestling going on a hiring spree, baby!"  …I do appreciate the effort, Virgil is a good referee and all, but that’s role that can be easily filled. It’s cool that you can offer him like 6000 dollars a month, I’m not going to fight that.  oh OHHHHHHH.  I guess it was just a matter of time. I got to “enjoy” from Scorpio’s services for around a year, but if someone is popular, it’s a given that RAW will come calling sooner or later. I’m not going to throw a counter offer (I don’t think a small company can even offer a written deal), but I’m not too upset. Scorpio has been good, even great at times, but he’s not irreplaceable. Boon, Hamstead, Warmonger and Devil can all be slotted as our top heel. I have Mattell, D-Pod and Tate cooking up in the midcard. I can flip Gerard or Mason if I need to (I might do that anyway). Scorpio leaving does screw up my plans a bit, as I have to do the title change to Mills a few shows earlier than I expected. Also, we need to save the funds when they come for EVERYONE at once. I can handle a guy or two losing every now and then, but if I lose my entire upper card at once… that’s a problem.  Remember when I said that a well run YEPW can beat APW and DIW. THIS is the kind of bullshit I was talking about. A 60+ show right out of the gate! Naturally a lot of our guys are heavily featured as every title match has an APW participant. The Triple Crown (name originating from the real life AJPW Triple Crown championship and/or the Triple Crown accomplishment of winning the three “major” titles in a company) is actually the top belt of the company but for some reason the secondary title actually main events. As far as I can tell, this does happen quite often with companies that open in the middle of a save (for example, ELPF has done this multiple times).  Positive Energy actually become double champions by becoming the inaugural tag champions! What’s even better, by doing so they defeat the RAW team. AI just doesn’t play by the same rules. What’s even better than a pair of belts is seeing how our boys perform. Lucas, Mattell and Vortex are the three best performers in the show, with Nighthawk, Ozley and Bush following behind them.  Wrestling industry is once again buzzing about Tasman after the show. Hey, did anyone see that all the three other guys in the match outshone him? Anyone?  Scorpio officially signs the deal a few days after. The reason I didn’t immediately go into panic mode was quite simple: I still have thirty days to use him, so two shows. As RAW doesn’t run their shows the same day as us, we’re fine. A few editions ago, getting your worker signed by a bigger company immediately screwed you over, as you had only seven days to use him. This usually meant moving your next show forward just so you could get something out of the guy you were losing.  The following day we get to our next show. Simonson once again gives tips about microphone work, possibly even telling him which way to hold the bloody thing.  The card for Super Saturday ends up like this. We open with D-Pod going back to the Dude well one more time, but this time he is stopped by the arriving Kerry Wayne! An impromptu trios match immediately follows, where the new arrival naturally gets the win. Devine seeks redemption against Nameth after his interference last time but gets shockingly upset by Nameth’s new signature move. Black Flash gets a title shot but falls just short as Devil continues his impressive reign with the Australian Championship. Fox & Possum finally clash with The Apocalypse in a tag match, but it once again descends into chaos and a double DQ. The fighting doesn’t stop as Warmonger rips the Fox mask to pieces and the man beneath is forced to cover his face. Positive Energy defend their titles against the Goliath goons as Chuck manages to once again play the giant killer, felling Massacre. Tyrant has a quick and shouty rant about how he will make Gerard perish in the wasteland, or something. Pinn Enterprises take another loss, this time Legend getting the pin over Blithe. Scorpio defends his title against the Rumble winner Mason and once again escapes with the title, as all of the Enterprises interfere to stop the rampaging Mason. Scorpio ends the show showing off his brand new RAW contract and threatens to walk out with the belt. Mills shows up to end the show and make one final challenge. Next show: Mills vs Scorpio. Should I have changed the title here and made Scorpio lose another match in his last match? Probably. I had booked the Mason Rumble win before RAW threw out the offer so I wanted to get story towards the title finished according to the original plan. I’ve been doing some major asskissing to Scorpio in my post-show speeches, so he is currently “happy” entering his last show. Hopefully he’ll throw a less of a fit there and not leave us permanently insulted that I made him lose ONE singles match. How dare I.  Oh yeah, the results! Another 57 so the groove is real baby. Or just the WrestleWorld deal is doing wonders, who knows. - Mason/Scorpio is not the match it could be. They both have the performances I expected from them, but something just doesn’t click between them. It’s a good main event, but a bit overshadowed by the great Nighthawk and Lucas defenses from the previous months. The post-match angle kicks absolute rear end though. Mills against Scorpio is a hot match, now it’s up to them to deliver in the ring. - Don’t be fooled by the “merely” good ratings that the Wayne related segments had. The segments had Jesse and Next Level dragging them down a bit. His match performance was around 10 points better than our main event guys. Popularity matters a lot. - Reggie Tate arrives to his tag title match with a fire lit under his buttocks. His best performance to date comes out of nowhere. I’m really glad he’s starting to see some progress, as Massacre is starting to really slow down.  So naturally Tate tries to start pulling some strings in the back to get himself more of a push. Mate, you are seriously making me doubt what I’m planning to do with the tag titles…  Meanwhile the other guy has suddenly started performing, Vortex, once again starts ranting about how he should be the main event. Buddy, you’ll find yourself in the main event soon enough… looking at the lights.  Gerard buries poor Dee Lucketti for absolutely no reason. I also have no idea what he’s talking about. Lucketti is decently safe, has good basics and is one of our MOST ATHLETIC GUYS so I can’t really see the reason why you would call him “clumsy.”  Since we are losing one of our two referees, we need another guy to share the workload. Glen Lee has the stache to mezmerize an audience, so he gets hired. Oh, he’s also pretty good at the whole refereeing thing.  SubUrban finds new friends online as he and the face-painted Nightmare Stalker share stories about their ZEN days.  One last update from abroad. Cheetah Boy’s horrible MAW Championship reign finally ends at the hands of Bradley Blaze. Curtis Jenkins merely laughs as his own reign continues on. Next time: Scorpio’s last match! How much will he complain that he has to lose his last match with us?
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Feb 17, 2022 14:13
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That update title scared me, thought we were gonna lose a lot more than Scorpio and a ref. Is there real danger in YEPW doing that well? Like them getting popular enough that they can start signing exclusive deals with your guys?
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Feb 17, 2022 16:23
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Eh, Tate can get some extra time in the spot light once we wrap up the Scorpio thing.
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Feb 17, 2022 16:32
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Insertnamehere31 posted:Is there real danger in YEPW doing that well? Like them getting popular enough that they can start signing exclusive deals with your guys? That is a long ways away. They naturally start with less popularity than us and with our WrestleWorld deal we'll grow quicker than them for years to come. RAW is the one company I'll have to worry about when it comes to exclusive deals... until DIW hits Medium and tries to throw actual money around (written deals are always more appealing than PPA deals. Even if my guys currently throw all the DIW offers straight to the bin, if they ever start giving out written deals, that's when we have to sit to the negotiation table.). What is more worrying is the possibility of Regional Battles. If three or more companies share the same are and are roughly the same size (in the APW/DIW/YEPW situation, everyone would be Tiny/Small) the battle triggers at the end of every month. The company that held the best show "wins" and gets a 5 % attendance boost for the next month. Whoever finishes LAST has their attendance lowered by 10 %. Second place stays neutral, any other places get the minus 5 %. So they CAN start hurting me a bit financially especially if/when they keep getting better and bigger. For the time being, everything is fine. YEPW is nice to have around as I'll take every bit of development that my young guys can get.
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Feb 17, 2022 16:51
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Good on Scythe. In my TEW 2016 game, he broke his neck super early in his career and had to retire from the ring, but moved on to become one of the top color commentators in the world, somehow. Anyone in either CWA or FCW that you can try to convince to move to Australia? If there's anyone useful collecting dust in FCW in particular, (Such as Rob Reynolds, who is solid across the board and has a chill attitude) they're probably going to be incredibly cheap to employ---it's just that convincing them to agree to work in Australia (and pay their own travel expenses until they give up and decide to move) that's the iffy part. But you have 5/10 silver tongue. May as well roll the dice on anyone that looks promising.
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Feb 17, 2022 17:35
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Veryslightlymad posted:Anyone in either CWA or FCW that you can try to convince to move to Australia? If there's anyone useful collecting dust in FCW in particular, (Such as Rob Reynolds, who is solid across the board and has a chill attitude) they're probably going to be incredibly cheap to employ---it's just that convincing them to agree to work in Australia (and pay their own travel expenses until they give up and decide to move) that's the iffy part. But you have 5/10 silver tongue. May as well roll the dice on anyone that looks promising. I can try with a lure some guys over. FCW has a lot of entertaining brawlers that would feel right home at APW. CWA has some insanely talented people, but I really doubt that their top guys would be willing to work here for peanuts. Their problem, naturally, is having next to no popularity in Australia, but that would be fixed in time. I'll try to talk with some of the workers during the next update and see if anyone would be willing to take the trip. Hopefully someone agrees... and just doesn't immediately choose RAW instead.
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Feb 17, 2022 19:32
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BTF posted:I can try with a lure some guys over. FCW has a lot of entertaining brawlers that would feel right home at APW. CWA has some insanely talented people, but I really doubt that their top guys would be willing to work here for peanuts. Their problem, naturally, is having next to no popularity in Australia, but that would be fixed in time. Are Joffy Laine or Kip Keenan still there? They're basically THE guys that you'd want to pick up in that they're very good brawlers with star quality out the arse; Young & Wasted could be an okay lower midcard tag act, Mutant would also be worthwhile since he's got great entertainment stats.
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Feb 18, 2022 01:02
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Testekill posted:Are Joffy Laine or Kip Keenan still there? They're basically THE guys that you'd want to pick up in that they're very good brawlers with star quality out the arse; Young & Wasted could be an okay lower midcard tag act, Mutant would also be worthwhile since he's got great entertainment stats. Laine, Keenan and Mutant are the trio I'm eyeing the most. Bradford Peverell is a bit on the odl side but still looks really good, Puerto Rican Boys would be a decent tag team addition and Rob Reynolds would be a really solid in-ring hand, even if he has middling entertainment stats. I'd love to bring in Davis Wayne Newton too. I'm really trying to resist the urge to do a massive FCW invasion, if any of the guys are even willing to work here...
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Feb 18, 2022 10:40
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Maybe I've missed budget stuff, but is there any danger that everybody is asking for pretty hefty raises?
Canopus250 fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Feb 18, 2022 |
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Feb 18, 2022 21:34
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Canopus250 posted:Maybe I've missed budget stuff, but is there any danger that everybody is asking for pretty hefty raises? Not yet. Everyone's starting contracts were really cheap and going from paying 30 to paying around 100 per show is not a big deal at this point. We've nearly doubled our attendance per show with the WrestleWorld deal only speeding up the process. We're now making around 40 000 dollars per month and we'll be clearing the critical owner goal of making 250 000 dollars in two years quite handily. But remember, if RAW starts throwing around more of those 15 000 per month deals in the future, I can maybe match... three without killing my financial growth (if I even can offer written deals). The more we grow and the more our wrestlers grow in popularity, the more raises they'll start asking. Nothing we can't handle at this point.
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Feb 18, 2022 21:56
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On that note, I noticed your merchandising has hit level 5, too. That means you should start seeing which wrestlers get more sales to give you a better idea of who to push. Or at least, which of your "stars" and "major stars" on level 5. Do your lesser workers ever get merchandise with higher levels? If so, that's also a thing to consider. I think Adam puts far, far too much emphasis on face vs heel for several systems in his game, but particularly merchandising. The penalties for heel merchandise seem to be about the same, even if the face/heel divide is set to "loosely enforced" or even "not enforced". I'm not convinced there should be a face/heel divide on merchandise at all. If anything, it should be tied to gimmick strength. You know, branding.
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Feb 19, 2022 01:02
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Veryslightlymad posted:On that note, I noticed your merchandising has hit level 5, too. That means you should start seeing which wrestlers get more sales to give you a better idea of who to push. Or at least, which of your "stars" and "major stars" on level 5. Do your lesser workers ever get merchandise with higher levels? If so, that's also a thing to consider. Yeah, I was planning on doing a small look at our merch sales in the next update. The game says that at our current level 5, we should be making wrestler specific merch for our major stars and stars. That is a lie/bug/feature, as only our two major stars (out of three) are selling any merch. Or maybe our stars are just too unpopular to sell anything, who knows. And yes, the heel penalty is very much real, as Scorpio was selling nothing during his last month with us, despite being considerably more popular than one of our other major stars. At level 6, you start making merchandise for your "well known" wrestlers too. I've always played with small companies, but I'd assume the level after that your lower card gets some t-shirts to sell as well.
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Feb 19, 2022 07:45
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Episode 29: Miracles in the Midcard The Alex Arturro Experience returns from his brief acting gig. Unfortunately it doesn’t result in any popularity boosts for him. Must have been a reaaaaaaaally small part.  CWA aren’t getting any time to get out of their funk. December will probably be the end of them, starting a really weird era in Canadian wrestling.  uhhhh no that’s the exact opposite what you should be doing? Despite the company going the way of the dodo soon enough, they actually manage to grow to Big. A brief hiring spree follows where they deepen their women’s division. They actually manage to make a small profit at the end of the month! Too little, too late.   SWF tag team stalwart Monty Trescarde tears his quad at the end of October and SWF gladly helps him get surgery… only to not renew his contract three weeks later? Thanks for the surgery?    The Titanic USPW grab another SWF wrestler, this time the 21st iteration of Masked Patriot, and at the same time go for a small product change. It’s a very minor change, but their new product is actually the exact same APW is running with. drat copycats! Masked Patriot’s departure also means he has to drop his SWF North American championship… to Big Smack Scott. Scott, legendary backstage poison for over two decades, has the knack for falling upwards to a title reign after title reign.  TCW quietly hires another independent standout, this time the PSW star Nelson Callum. Callum is a good main eventer for a small company, he can talk, wrestle and brawl really well. In TCW, he should be a really solid addition to the midcard, once he gains enough popularity.  “So, let’s continue our lessons with… Democritus.” “Dude, what.”  Save the drinks for AFTER THE SHOW LADS, after the show! Jeez.  Boogie Night looks like this. D-Pod opens up the show with ranting about Kerry Wayne’s sudden arrival and proceeds to be on the losing side against Wayne and Jesse. Nameth once again gets one over Devine in a tag match thanks to his new spinning tombstone. El Hijo del Fox Mask cuts a passionate promo about how his mask not only carries the legacy of the Fox Mask, but is also a part of his identity. If Warmonger wants his mask gone, he has to beat EHDFM for it. Warmonger follows that by defeating his tag partner Possum in an fast and furious contest. Gerard takes out Prellinger as he continues to prepare for Tyrant. Prellinger takes pleasure in working Gerard’s knee for the whole match. Goliath once again makes a contract offer to Legend, telling him that going Global means getting some gold. Legend says he’ll think about it. Massive ten man tag follows as Goliath Global and Samoan Demolition team up to face Legend, Positive Energy, Macquarie and Flash. A simple looking error from Legend costs the babyface team the win. Mason, Nighthawk and Vortex go to war against Pinn Enterprises, which ends up in a massive no contest brawl. And the main event is the big one. Scorpio walks to his final match in APW as champion. Mills is APW’s final hope. The battle is furious as both men need the win. The Pinn interference that has protected Scorpio so many times is thwarted this time. Mason blocks Mattell, Nighthawk soars from the sky to make sure that Blithe is out of the question, Gerard batters Pinn with a steel chair and even Enterprises manager Ceri Dordevich is taken care of by Mills’ ex-wife Stephanie Drucker! Scorpio’s short reign and APW return ends with Mills hitting the Northern Light Bomb for the decisive three count. Mills celebrates his first Commonwealth title win with the other babyfaces as Donovan Boon looks on from the entrance ramp (a’la Bret/Owen at the end of WrestleMania X).  If you guessed that Scorpio would be furious, you would be right! I didn’t expect anything less.  Despite that, the main event and thus the show as a whole ends up as a home run! It’s our first show over 60 and thus our best event thus far. - Scorpio leaves us with our best match yet. And this is with Mills having a bit of an off-day! And thanks to some asskissing and a post-show hug, Scorpio leaves us merely annoyed. - Warmonger decides to show off in his midcard match. Not slowed down by any tag shenanigans, he delivers another 60 rated match. Possum isn’t bad, but make no mistake about it, War is a man on a mission. The preceding angle with him and Fox is also straight fire. Who needs Scorpio when I have The Apocalypse? - Wayne and D-Pod have a great segment and the match delivers as well… but I want MORE from my two best mic workers. I’ll have to remember to let them loose without a script. - When everything hits, it just hits. When I can do a show where a single (non-preshow) segment doesn’t fall under 50, I feel pretty drat good.  I am well aware, Peterson. While Lucas and Chuck have gotten plenty of love this year, Legend has really improved as well. He has a bright future, make no mistake about it.  Not everything is all sunshine and rainbows as we are hit with our first truly major injury. After bringing everyone a drink, Dizzy G hits the ring for his pre-show match and ends up with a broken neck. It’s pretty much a freak accident and not really anyone’s fault. He’s out for over a year and it’s possible that he won’t return to the ring. There’s no surgery option to speed up the recovery or lessen the long term damage.  Despite being mostly booked like dogshit for their entire existance, ELPF manages to grow from insignificant to small. They bolster their roster from mainstays from other companies, like Konrad “Swedish Dolph Ziggler” Mäkinen and Marcello “the one charismatic guy in UEW” Ricci. Can’t wait to see them lose to Scott van den Berg and Helmar Gustavsson.  Freedom is dead. FCW is officially declared bankrupt as no other company is willing to buy them out of their funk. Their last ever event has a little over 600 people watching all the champions retain their titles. Their twenty something wrestlers are suddenly without a job…  And a lot of them are willing to work on the other side of the world. We’ll be getting some international flavor starting next month.  I can only imagine that FIST is an acronym for Friends In Similar Tights.  Ricky DeColt, the youngest of the four brothers becomes possibly the last ever CWA champion. Ricky was always the least accomplished of the quartet, as this is “only” his third World level title. Each of his brothers (Steve, Alex, and Jack) held that honor at least six times each. Still, truly a legendary family.  21CW is quick to notice that there might be a slight shift in power in Canada at the end of the year and secures a broadcast deal for their events there.   Both members of The Knight’s Temple are really making friends online. These two must be two of the friendliest in the scene, making friends almost every other month.  Longest Night is here as we close in on the end of the year. Pinn, Mattell and Blithe open the show by facing off against our new Commonwealth champion. Pinn is not exactly subtle with his threats, but Mills is not showing fear against the potentially internationally connected legitimate businessman. Australian title match opens as Devil continues his hot streak defeating Lone Shark in a long and hard fight. Tate joins up with Next Level to take out Azumi and The Dudes in six man action. Kerry Wayne gives an interview to the returning Alex Arturro, telling the crowd that he wants to face the best and prove that he very much still belongs to the wrestling Elite of the continent. His first singles match is against the very much expendable Wilkes, but D-Pod’s attack ends the match in a DQ win for Wayne. Animal Kingdom and Team Forbes face off in trios action as well, and this time Devine gets some modicum of revenge by getting the win. Instrumental in the win is Gerard’s interference against Tyrant and the two brawl through the capacity crowd after the match, flinging beer and sodas all over the place. Positive Energy once again manage to beat Massacre in a tag title match, even if Scottie Hamstead is pretty drat close to winning multiple times. Nighthawk finally notices that his friend is really not in the best place with the constant Goliath manipulation and tries to cheer him up. Mason offers him a small flex show, which might drive the crowd crazy, but doesn’t really help Legend. Mills teams up with Vortex and Flash, now known as Anti-Polar Vortex (thanks to AtomikKrab) and defeats Pinn Enterprises yet again. The Pinn group has spiraled into a bit of a losing streak here and SOMETHING needs to be done. Main event is shockingly not a title match as Warmonger looks to take El Hijo’s mask. Fortunately he fails, as our masked hero manages to hold on just enough to get a three count over the monster of a man.  A bad choice of a main event nets as a 56 which is still very good! - Retroactively speaking, I made a bad call in the main event. I SHOULD have just put War over and moved on from the masked Fox gimmick… but I wanted a big babyface win for Fox. Thus, I had to keep War strong, which in turn dropped the match rating a few pegs. Fox is better than his tag partner, so it really should have been another 60ish graded match without the note. Also, War really oughta be built up as a Mills challenger, so I might just have to do another big gimmick match between these two. - So Wayne just pulled off the second best match of the year… with no build against a cold as ice undercard guy with no real direction. Popularity matters. This is the Grace/DIW effect upped to the next level. The angle is decent, but The Experience just really drags down all of his segments. I might just have to nix his interviewer role and plug him in as a manager. - Boosted up by his title win, Mills was magical in his own match, nearly outperforming Wayne. Even if APW is a pop over performance product, Mills is proving that actual TALENT does matter. - Brisbane Devil and Scottie Hamstead continue to be really good and are very much responsible for the other two great matches on the card. - Devine’s two losses against Nameth have currently hurt him more than they have helped Nameth. Nameth has gotten a noticeable boost in his performances but Devine has suffered a lot more as his popularity has cratered a lot. He can still go, so I need to rebuild him a bit.  Who on earth has pissed in your corn flakes, Christopher? He’s been a real moaner the last few months. White Wasp isn’t a “real tough guy” but that really isn’t an issue of any kind. Toughness is a stat that has very little to do with performances, so take it easy, champ.  The smaller Canadian company, ACPW, also notices that there might just be an opening for another wrestling show on Canadian television and starts up their weekly TV show. Let’s hope that this won’t bankrupt them!  ACPW isn’t the only one that handles broadcasting deals this month. The last day of the month sees SWF, TCW, EILL, BCG and the soon to be dead CWA all either get new broadcasting deals or extend the ones that they already have. These things usually don’t come up in bunches, so it was wild to see. (In editions past, all TV negotiations had to be done in few select months during the spring and autumn to concur with TV seasons.)   YEPW has another great show, but the notable things (in addition to another Lucas match of the night and Positive Energy retaining against 3AM Boys again) are the formations of two new teams! These will keep gathering experience as long as they team together in YEPW and I have the possibility to use these teams as well. The Lucketti/Hosotani combo will be shortlived, but the Mattell/Vortex team might be worth keeping a mental note on.  As our merchandise leveled up, we now have access to all new data, that being merch sale by worker. Currently only our Major Stars (and supposedly Stars) get tracked here. As you can see, Wayne is bringing in the money. Scorpio was also popular but managed to sell absolutely nothing during the two months that we’ve been able to track merch sales per worker. Mills pales in comparison to Wayne, but every penny is the start of two pennies, right? When we hit the next merch level sometime in 2022, this will probably look a bit more interesting as I have a lot of guys that have the Easily Marketable attribute (currently Wayne, Mason, SHADOW LEGENDS, The Dudes and undercard guys Robinson and Greer).  TCW end the month by bringing their own MOTYC to the table. Andrews against Hawkins is a main event anywhere in the world… so naturally it’s a first round match in their one night King of Kings tournament. Neither even ends up winning as the final has big and menacing Titan defeat the recently arrived Andre Jones. Making new, 35 year old stars, I guess? Next time: Final two shows of the year, a look at the year end awards and a roster review
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Feb 21, 2022 13:16
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Jesus. Wayne easily pays for level 5 (and would pay for level 6) Merchandising by himself. This is before non-individual merchandising profits, which should be much higher. What a gold mine.
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Feb 21, 2022 14:51
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Veryslightlymad posted:Jesus. Wayne easily pays for level 5 (and would pay for level 6) Merchandising by himself. This is before non-individual merchandising profits, which should be much higher. What a gold mine. How much is he being paid a month again?
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Feb 21, 2022 19:20
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AtomikKrab posted:How much is he being paid a month again? 2600 per appearance.
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Feb 21, 2022 20:29
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Ok, that's.... Less inspiring. But nonetheless. Level 6 is, I believe, 2,500 a month. Do I have that right?
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Feb 21, 2022 21:00
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BTF posted:2600 per appearance. So he's running a profit on merch alone, with what he's adding to the shows he is still a money maker.
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Feb 21, 2022 22:08
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Oh small request, who has improved the most since signing for you?
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Feb 22, 2022 00:28
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Testekill posted:Oh small request, who has improved the most since signing for you? Judging by performances, it's the guys who have actually gotten something resembling a push and screen time, so both of The Dudes, Vortex (massive jump in just the few last months) and Maniac Monster. Christian Blithe and D-Pod would be the next in line. Judging by pure stat gains (comparing the original data to their current stats using the editor) our most developed hire has been Surfer Dude Jesse, followed closely by Maniac Monster and Dee Lucketti. Granted, most of their big gains have been in areas like Basics, Consistency and Safety which pretty much rise quickly until they hit their skill caps. Also, skills that are really low tend to grow a lot. For example, most wrestlers have one or two primary stats they excel in (for a lot of our guys that would be Brawling/Psychology). The rest tend to start really low and and develop fast but never hitting the levels of acceptable or anywhere close to their "main" stats. I'm excluding the Japanese workers here, because there's no way to track their growth in-game from the time before they signed with me to their development working here. Both Samurai Boy and Yozo Ishigami have gotten frankly insane stat gains (young, lots of low stats, working a lot of matches) that has happened mostly at WLW. (You can track stat growth from any worker's own screen, but only a year back at any given time. So when I do my roster review in the next update, I can look at their current stats and their month to month growth all the way back until January 2021).
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Feb 23, 2022 11:52
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Back to back updates coming up, couldn't fit the roster review under the character limit. Episode 30: Greetings from Puerto Rico   Oh baby, more big time RAW departures. Wayne is a guy that is integrally tied to RAW history. Gilbert is the guy that was supposed to be their future. His bio does not lie, he might just be the best in-ring guy in the area. Plus he has really good entertainment stats, a good backstage guy and popular as hell (74 across everywhere but Tasmania). As a departure gift he has the RAW match of the year against Swoop (rated a whopping 94). Make no mistake about it, Nicky Gilbert is the real deal. He is expensive, he will refuse to lose and he will be rehired in 9 months… but god drat he is good. I’ll leave it up to the thread to decide, so look out for a poll at the end of the update.    Gilbert isn’t the only guy to leave his promotion this month. Sionis, Collins and Feather aren’t really guys I’m interested in. Feather is probably the closest of the three to get a call from me, but I just had a huge influx of new talent so that has to wait for another day. Speaking of… The day before Holiday Hijinks we confirm that we have managed to sign four former FCW wrestlers. I could have hired more, but I’m still keeping an eye on the CWA situation. I really wanted to hire Mutant, but we have a new Owner Goal that doesn’t allow me to hire Powerhouse style workers. A shame, as he really was the FCW MVP for their last few years.  “The Hands of Stone” Bradford Peverell isn’t related to the Stone family, but has a killer knockout artist gimmick. One of the true FCW legends, a real good brawler, talker and isn’t even in time decline yet. Peverell will be coming in as a heel and strengthens Pinn Enterprises after the departure of Scorpio.  “The Snake Man” Cobra also joins Pinn Enterprises. He’s probably the weakest of the quartet but the gimmick is cool and I have a soft spot for him having used him in TEW 2016. He is also an entertaining brawler, as are all four of the new hires. Most of the now disbanded FCW represented that archetype, but I also want them to pass along their skills to my young brawlers by working with them.  Kip Keenan (no relation to the real world former ice hockey coach Mike Keenan) is not quite the world beater that many of his young, blonde and talented brethren raised in the US scene are, but he’s still pretty drat good. The choice was between him and a long time favourite Davis Wayne Newton, but Keenan got the call thanks to his superior entertainment skills.  Joffy Laine (no relation to the real world ice hockey player Patrik Laine) is the true gem of the bunch. His frankly insane entertainment stats make him worth hiring almost by themselves, but he is also a good brawler and has good psychology to boot. He’s also the youngest at exactly 30 years old and a potential main event act in the future. Both him and Keenan will be naturally faces and will probably find an ally in the APW crew real soon…  Felix Harding is the guy we sent to the airport to pick up the guys and somehow manages to be an hour late. Pinn lays down the law to the sleazeball in question.  I plan to make sure that the guys stay happy and positive meddling between Fox and Peverell has an immediate effect. Friendship!  Holiday Hijinks ends up something like this. I tend to book a lot of tag matches but this time it’s the entire card, whoops. Wayne and D-Pod get to open up the show with Wayne wondering what exactly D-Pod’s beef with him is. The two agree on another tag match later in the show. Makeshift duo of Macquarie and Shark manage to overcome the Samoans. The following eight man tag continues the tensions between Next Level and The Dudes, but the real decider is sneaky Dingo Devine who gets some payback by distracting Nameth during the closing moments. Mills tries to do a promo, but is interrupted by Pinn who has some bad news. Debuting Enterprises members Peverell and Cobra assault the champ with Peverell leaving him laying with a heavy left hand. Pinn, Peverell and Cobra also grab a win in the following tag match cementing the arrivals as dangerous people. Goliath Global get a strong win over Animal Kingdom as Warmonger is not done with El Hijo even after his defeat. Fox gets thrown through a row of chairs as Tate defeats Possum. Boon finally starts cracking the Vortex code as he and Blithe manage to defeat Anti-Polar Vortex with slight cheating. Afterwards Boon tells Vortex that he’s had enough of the shenanigans, he’s no longer fooled and next time he gets a decisive win. Vortex laughs hysterically and disappears in a cloud of smoke. Wayne gets Mason to join him against Pod and Wilkes and naturally the popular beef boys win. Main event has two big feuds mingle as Mills has recovered just enough to join Gerard against Tyrant and Mattell. The match ends in chaos as the Gerard/Tyrant brawl totally gets out of control and the ref ends up throwing the match out as a no contest.  I’d call this a successful show! Solidly our second best show yet, just a smidge behind last month’s Boogie Night. - Look at that opening angle! Its GREEN. Letting Wayne and D-Pod go without a script proved to be a good call. Here’s looking forward to more of this good stuff next year! - All four of the new arrivals look decent in their appearances. I know all of them are talented, it’s just all about getting them popular. All of them are over 30 so I can’t really marinade them in the pre-show loop for years. Peverell especially needs to be used right here and now. (Don’t be fooled by the great introductory angle. Peverell and Cobra weren’t rated on anything so they had very little to do with the rating. As their popularity climbs, they will be more involved in those as well.) - Macquarie and Shark end up having very little chemistry as partners but the opener still ends up real good thanks to the Samoans having 100 tag experience. - Wilkes has absolutely lucked his way into two 60+ matches. He’s not going to waltz into big stories in 2022 (he has no charisma to carry himself), but as an undercard heel he is very capable in the ring.  Fox either doesn’t watch the shows or just otherwise thinks I’m a bit dim. Lucas has gotten and will get promo time, don’t you worry. He just wants to do it without a script every time, which a lot of other guys can’t handle.  EILL manage to get themselves another TV deal, this time for their events. Despite losing a lot of important wrestlers during the year, EILL have really had a sneaky good year. More on this later.   Some juicy backstage drama from SWF. Eric Eisen is the son of the now former owner Richard Eisen. He is basically Shane McMahon, if he was a bit more talented in the ring and way more overpushed as a result. When Richard was caught in the tax scandal, Eric got the book and his brother got the ownership. Now he breaks his engagement with the best color commentator/manager in the world and she MYSTERIOUSLY doesn’t get renewed a week later. Thankfully we don’t have to deal wi-  Game. GAME. Please. Don’t do this to me. I don’t want to run the “I broke up your marriage” angle. Stop giving me ammunition. But I kinda do want to do that… (I legitimately busted out laughing when I got hit with the email. OF COURSE this happens. Out of all the guys, it just had to be Boon. His Horndog attribute must have been a contributing factor.)  RAW continues to pass their top belt around former APW guys. Nathan McKenzie gets the nod again, exactly one year after his first reign with the same belt began.  The American Cobras run with the COTT tag team titles is a short one as they drop the belts after only one defense to The Wild Cats. It’s a second reign for them as well. Hopefully the belt won’t end up locked in Mexico. Mr Lucha III still reigns as the COTT Heavyweight champion, having racked up impressive 24 defenses during his year plus reign.  How dare they?   Last show of the year, Early Christmas Bash, ends up looking like this. The opener wasn’t supposed to be the opener, whoops, but it’ll work. Mason and LEGENDS get the win over Oliverio as Goliath Global offer the win to Legend on a silver platter with Hamstead and Tate distracting Monster. Next, Warmonger yells at Fox very loudly. He wants a rematch, basically. Eight-man tag ends in a win for the bad guys as Tate nets himself another tag title shot by pinning Kasey. Macquarie and The Dudes grab a win over Devil and Next Level and Macquarie states his intentions of becoming the Australian champion in a post-match promo. Devine continues to target Nameth as he spends the entire match making sure that Nameth can’t hit the spinning tombstone, leading to Kingdom pinning poor Wilkes. Wayne gets attacked by D-Pod and help for hire on his way to the to the ring, but his American cousins Joffy and Kip make the save and get the win in a following impromptu trios match. Boon finally cracks the code and manages to read Vortex’s weird ring style, grabbing the win for himself, motioning for a title belt afterwards. Gerard and Tyrant finally go one on one in a Hardcore match, beating lumps out of each other. Gerard overcomes and cuts a promo on Pinn, reminding the audience that Pinn still has his judgment coming. Main event is a rematch from earlier in the year, this time for a title. Mattell is a fine first challenger, but despite strong opposition Mills manages to get the win, ending the year in a positive note.  Final show of the year is in the books and it’s another success, being just a smidge below our previous show (both got a 60, but Hijinks is above Bash in the Top 100 listing). For the first time ever over 10 000 people watched the show on WrestleWorld and got to see the banger main event between Mills and Mattell. - After being worried about the lack of 60 rated matches for the first half of the year, APW pretty much speedran it’s way to ten such matches by the end of the year, no small thanks to both Scorpio and Wayne. The last of the bunch is an excellent main event between Mills and Mattell. Mattell hasn’t really grabbed headlines this year, but is still an extremely solid part of my roster. - Gerard had a very rare off night, leading to Tyrant actually outperforming him in their match. As a result, the match isn’t what it could be, but still a good one. - Boon and Vortex go for the Storytelling approach and don’t steal the show as a result. Letting them go all out would have probably been an even better match. (Reminder that a 57 would have been a top ten match for us in 2020. Boon/Vortex lands on spot #18) - Beating Warmonger has given Fox a real boost. He’s solidly the third best guy in the big eight man tag behind Hamstead and Warmonger. - Really solid segment with Macquarie and Devil! Macquarie isn’t the flashiest guy in the roster, but he can definitely go on a midcard level.  21CW go for a shock title change to end the year. Edward Cornell doesn’t drop his belt Burton, Prince or even Orson, three of their better all-around young main eventers, but the simply menacing big boy brawler WAR MACHINE.  D-Pod is also making friends on the twitter machine. The Void is a weird facepainted deathmatch guy, so our guys definitely like all the face-painted weirdos of the scene.  Hooray! We clear our major owner goal by quite a margin. I worried a lot about this at the start of the save, but our finances really took an upturn at the start of 2021, allowing me to make bigger hires in the form of Scorpio and Wayne during the year. WrestleWorld brings more people to the stands, so we are currently financially really well off. Can’t wait what kind of arbitrary critical goal I get for the next two years!  Death, taxes, the yo-yo goes down. SWF drop back to Medium size. Wake me up when something interesting happens.  It’s award season time! 2021 gets wrapped up in a nice bow. Let’s take a look, shall we? Aaron Andrews grabs the honors of Wrestler of the Year for the first time in his career, raising his stock from the fifth place finish last year. It’s a well deserved award for the TCW superstar. While he didn’t hold any titles during the year, his three championship matches against Sammy Bach and Joshua Taylor main evented three big PPV events. HIs run is really impressive considering he spent a lot of time fighting undercard guys, like PGHW visitors, the crippling husks of Troy Tornado and Danny Fonzarelli or project guys like T-Bone Bright and Alex Rodman. The highlight of the year was the 100 rated match against his eternal rival Wolf Hawkins. Let’s go over the rest of the top ten.  #2: El Heroe Mexicano (EILL, up from #8) While EILL kept losing talent, they still had a hero to lean on. Heroe was the best in-ring wrestler in the world in 2021, racking up an insane 93 match rating average in 57 matches. He also had a 100 rated match in his resume, against Xtinction. Two short reigns with the trios title were the only gold that Heroe got, but he had three unsuccesful challenges for the big one as well. He was the core piece in keeping EILL strong for the duration of the year, main eventing a lot of shows in trios matches. If only he had been given the ball to run with the world title, he would have probably grabbed the wrestler of the year honors like his mentor Champagne Lover before him.  #3: Wolf Hawkins (TCW, down from #2) If Andrews is in, so is Hawkins. While the TCW stars around them leave and grow older, the two generational rivals still hold up excellence in the ring. It’s baffling that Hawkins was kept out of the title picture for the entire year. His year mirrors Andrews’ in every other way. Working undercard guys and getting the maximum out of them in true TV classics. His 100 rated classic against Andrews is the thing that solidifies his place in the top three.  #4: Xtinction (EILL, up from #63) The surprise addition to the top ten is El Heroe’s frequent dance partner from the latter half of the year. With the major EILL departures freeing up space at the top of the card, the 39 year old masked man leaped at the opportunity. He is tied for the worst match average (84) and has the second worst win/loss record (29 to 21) in the top ten. That 100 rated classic against Heroe did it’s job though. If not for that, he surely wouldn’t have risen this far up as there are a lot of EILL guys stalking his spot just outside the top ten.  #5 Edward Cornell (21CW, down from #3) The first guy in the top ten who actually held the world title this year. He once again had a stunning series of matches against Adam Matravers that the British crowds loved (five of his nine defenses were against his rival). His fourth run with the 21CW World title came to a sudden end at the hands of War Machine in the final PPV of the year. Cornell wrestled the least out of the top ten, only stepping to the ring 33 times.   #6: Pharaoh King (EILL, up from #14) & #7: Multimillinario (EILL, up from #15) I’m pairing the next two guys together for a simple reason. Pharaoh King and Multimillinario team together as The Golden Kings and didn’t wrestle a single match separate from each other. Kings were the frequent trios partners for Heroe (being his partners for the two mentioned title reigns) and thus a major part of EILL main events for the entire year. Average rating of 91 for the both of them is only behind Heroe himself. A surefire tag team of the year, right?  #8: Scythe (SWF, up from #12) The reigning SWF champion rises to the top ten. The monster was booked strong the entire year and managed to grab the SWF World title in October. Otherwise, not much to say about the big man. Only two singles losses, the rest of the six losses coming from multiman matches. Scythe is weakest in-ring guy out of the group, but has the popularity to draw a crowd in to watch his brawl heavy matches.  #9: Tommy Cornell (SWF, down from #4) Kings never die. Despite my doubts, the man of the CVerse manages to hold tightly to a spot in the top ten. His in-ring skills are starting to erode, but his SWF run has been great thus far. He has wisely been kept out of the title race (for the most part, still had two world title matches in the summer) and brings his best in tag team matches. The living legend has the worst match average with Xtinction. Cornell was the hardest working man in the top ten, despite being the oldest, having whopping 96 matches during the year, almost three times as many as his cousin. His last year in the top ten, surely this time?  #10: Dutch Wilkes (EILL, up from #17) The true dark horse in the top ten. EILL was so good, that even a midcard job guy can get a spot in the top ten! His record is 11 wins and whopping 47 losses! A lot of the year was spent as the personal punching bag of the Heroe/Pharaoh/Multimillinario trio alongside his frequent tag partner Dr. Rudo. Short run with the EILL midcard title and ending the win in a tag team title win with Rudo make his year seem prettier than it actually was. He did main event LuchaMania against Gino Montero in the second best match of EILL’s year. (Montero’s top ten case is torpedoed by his move to SWF. If he had stayed, he’d surely be here.) Once again, USPW gets completely snuffed. Despite once again grabbing a lot of SWF guys, the imaginary writers at TEW.com are not impressed. Mighty Mo lands at #22, Rogue at #30 and the best guy who only wrestled for USPW, Nicky Champion, is at #37.  After reading the Power 500, it’s no surprise that EILL are the Company of the Year. Despite losing a lot of main event talent in the past two years (Rock God Alvarez, El Leon, Gino Montero, Velocidad and El Mitico Jr), the Mexican juggernaut showed their depth. El Heroe Mexicano took a commanding lead in the company and allowed tired nostalgia act El Demonio to hold the Campeonato del Mundo for six months without tanking the company.  Team of the Year award gets frankly robbed from The Golden Kings. The Bumfhole Brothers reunited to start the year and had 18 very good matches… ranking at #64 and #65 on the Power 500. They weren’t even tag team champions!  Match of the Year was a two match race, but the thrilling tournament match between the two TCW aces took the honors this year.  You’d imagine that either TCW or EILL would swoop up the Event of the Year as well, but no. BHOTWG have an all-timer show in their annual Best of the Super Juniors. The show was headlined by Emerald Angel winning the tournament for the first time.   EILL get to celebrate once more as Hurakan repeats his Young Wrestler of the Year award. He had another tag title reign and a real strong last half of the year. He ranks #25 on the Power 500 and the top ten might be a real possibility next year. Tommy Cornell gets his first Veteran Wrestler of the Year award, possibly not his last.   Alicia Strong also repeats her Female Wrestler of the Year award from last year, this time ranking #56 in the Power 500. Masao Tsubouchi takes home the Independent Wrestler award. He won the EXODUS2010 Grand Prix and the World Junior Heavyweight championship at the end of the year. He also split his time working with WLW, resulting in ungodly 140 matches during the calendar year.  NYCW is the most improved company this year. They jumped to Small, got a deal to show their events on WrestleWorld and started a TV show as well in August.    Announcer, Color Commentator and Referee awards all go to the same addresses as last time. Hey US companies, one of these is a free agent, just letting you know! Gray will be too once CWA goes down in a blaze of glory!  And in a true shocker, APW’s own Ceri Dordevich somehow wins the manager of the year award! I have no clue how this one happened. The AI tends to have a bad habit of separating managers from their clients so maybe there were no other managers working? She was good, mostly offering backup help to all of the Enterprises guys. Her work goes mostly unmentioned, but it’s great to see her acknowledged by the game, even if it comes quite out of nowhere. Poll time~ So, Nicky Gilbert. Pros: one of the best wrestlers in the continent, popular as hell, surefire main event draw Cons: won’t do the job without major morale hit, inability to lock him in a written deal so I have ~9 months to use him before RAW gets him back A) Bring him in. B) Don’t bring him in. If your choice is A, then he comes in as a C) Face. D) Heel. Coming up in just a minute: Roster review 2021!
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Feb 26, 2022 16:01
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Episode 31: Roster review 2021 It’s once again time to look over our roster as we reach the end of the year. Same deal as last time, start from the major stars and go down from there. I’ll also do a quick look at R & R and Scorpio despite them not working here anymore. Notable stat gains are once again highest primary skills, psych and entertainment skills. Also listed are ages and best matches. Major stars:  Kerry Wayne, 37 Best match: 62 (vs Whirlwind Lee Wilkes) Notable stat changes: Brawling -4, Stamina -8 Our short list of major stars looks a lot different than it was at the end of 2020. Wayne entered the company as our most popular wrestler and will stay that way for the time being (unless Gilbert comes in). The deep decline doesn’t look good, but you can’t really argue with his success. The man is fire on the stick and still dynamite in the ring (thanks to his high popularity). Much like Scorpio, he is very unlikely to do jobs without complaining loudly. I want to build my stars from within and not rely on RAW stars blessing me with their presence (until I can lock them down for written deals) so he’s not getting a title any time soon. He’s a surefire draw, merch selling machine and segment ratings booster. Wayne is getting paired with (cousins) Laine and Keenan for 2022, hoping to boost the two American exports up the card swiftly.  Rusty Mills, 33 Current Commonwealth champion Best match: 63 (vs Louie Scorpio) Notable stat changes: Brawling +1, Psychology +3, Charisma +1, Microphone +1, Acting +3 Mills has leapfrogged over Gerard and is now solidly our top face. Beating Scorpio in November really boosted him up to the next level. He’s at the prime of his career and still developing nicely. I’m very happy that Mills has taken a step to be a true star with us. Most of the other babyfaces I’ve been building up have their weaknesses (Mason is all look, Chuck has ways to go in-ring as do both SHADOW LEGENDS), Mills is solid all-around. Coming up in 2022 is the third match with Boon, return to Warmonger and possible high profile feud with Gerard. Mills is the top babyface until Lucas rises up to the occasion and/or The Duo reunites, possibly on the heel side. Stars:  Barney Mason, 31 Best match: 61 (w/ Wayne vs D-Pod & Wilkes) Notable stat changes: Brawling +1, Psychology +2, Charisma +1, Microphone +1, Acting +1 Mr Beef is still a star. Major wins over Hamstead and Pinn have kept Mason solidly nailed in the upper card. He played a major part in the APW heroes vs Pinn Enterprises during the latter half of the year. He’s not an in-ring marvel and he’ll never be. He’s not a master in the mic and probably never will be. But he does have the BEEF. A possible heel run is on the cards, but I don’t want to turn both him and Gerard at the same time.  Christopher Gerard, 30 Best match: 60 (w/ Mills vs Scorpio & Boon) Notable stat changes: Brawling +1, Technical +1, Psychology +2, Charisma +1, Microphone +2, Acting +2 Gerard had another strong year and is very much still a main event level guy. Mills might have breezed past him, but if he had been the one to beat Scorpio the situation might be different. His whole year was spent fighting Pinn Enterprises and Team Forbes. The big Pinn blowoff is still to come but what comes after for the face of the franchise. His stalled popularity growth has me a bit worried: despite being booked strong throughout the year, his popularity showed really no signs of upward momentum. Gerard hitting his popularity cap already is not ideal, but not catastrophic. I’m leaning on flipping Gerard to the heel side with him showing a new edge hunting down Tyrant and Pinn. I feel that a Mills vs Gerard program is money.  Chuck, 27 Current APW and YEPW Tag Team Champion Best match: 58 (w/ Fox & Possum vs The Apocalypse, Tate & Hamstead) Notable stat changes: Brawling +1, Technical +1, Psychology +3, Charisma +1, Microphone +1, Acting +2 Chuck is still very much the man of Positive Energy. Their tag title run has been great as they’ve played giant killers against Samoan Demolition, The Apocalypse and now against Goliath Global. He has shown flashes of brilliance but he is very much lacking in the in-ring department. I’m really hoping that working with YEPW will help him out there. Excellent entertainment skills and seemingly really impressive psychology could still take him far. A dark horse to be a true future main eventer. I’ll be moving the tag titles to Goliath Global really soon, so Chuck and Kasey won’t exactly have the same kind of spotlight in 2022.  Donovan Boon, 34 Best match: 60 (w/ Scorpio vs Mills & Gerard) Notable stat changes: Technical +2, Psychology +3, Charisma +2, Microphone +2, Acting +2 Boon is still really good in his role. Scorpio/Pinn kind of stole his thunder in the upper card. A year back he was slated to lead his own trio with Mattell and Blithe, but them joining up with Pinn was probably the best for all of them. None of the three are dynamos in the mic, even if Boon had some really impressive segments without extra Pinn help later in the year. Next year will see him go back to the Mills feud for one last time. After that, I have to keep the two apart for a bit longer before the inevitable reunion. Enterprises as a whole have occupied the top half of the card for most of the year, so the refreshed stable will be downcycled a bit, much like Goliath Global last year. Stable wars against Animal Kingdom might be on the horizon.  Dumfrey Pinn, 44 Best match: 57 (w/ Mattell & Blithe vs SHADOW LEGENDS & Mills) Notable stat changes: Hardcore -2 The oldest man this high up the card is worth his weight in gold. He is not in decline quite yet, but that dip in Hardcore tells me that the cliff of time is coming sooner rather than later. He’s not a top heel in the ring, but his talking skills will keep him relevant even when he retires from in-ring action. Even if Scorpio and Boon kept up the in-ring excellence in Enterprises, Pinn is the cog that keeps the machine running. Now he has the same task as Wayne, get our recent American arrivals over and fast. His big match with Gerard will probably be his last singles main event level match.  El Hijo Del Fox Mask (aka Richie Fox), 32 Best match: 58 (w/ Positive Energy vs The Apocalypse, Tate & Hamstead) Notable stat changes: Brawling +2, Psychology +2, Charisma +1, Microphone +1, Acting +2 Back with a vengeance. Fox’s sudden departure in 2020 shifted some plans around. Him coming back with the mask didn’t exactly set the world on fire. That was until his feud with The Apocalypse truly started heating up. His last few months were really good, highlighted by the killer segment between him and Warmonger. The match was not what I had hoped, but performance saw a major uptick after his win. Fox & Possum are a solid team, one of the frontrunners for a future tag title reign, but Fox might have a future as a singles star.  Nighthawk, 30 Best match: 67 (w/ CJ Romeo vs Lucas & Prellinger) @YEPW Notable stat changes: Brawling +2, Aerial +1, Psychology +2, Charisma +1, Microphone +1, Acting +1 The best matches involving our guys actually happened in YEPW, what do you know. Nighthawk had a solid year, highlighted by his great title match with Scorpio. His Australian title reign ended strong in his match against Brisbane Devil. After that he mostly played second fiddle in the APW heros vs Pinn Enterprises story. Nighthawk is surprisingly popular, despite not grabbing that many key victories. His future is in the tag ranks, unless he develops extremely well. He is very much like Mason, needing a really competent dance partner to cover for his weaknesses.  Scottie Hamstead, 35 Best match: 58 (w/Tate & The Apocalypse vs Positive Energy, Fox & Possum) Notable stat changes: Brawling +1, Hardcore +1, Psychology +1, Charisma +1, Microphone +1, Acting +1 Goliath Global took a backseat from the main event angles, but that didn’t really slow down Hamstead. He’s still one of my top tier heels in the ring and the pairing with Viktor Goliath is still money. He helped elevate Mason at the beginning of the year and the small feud with Positive Energy has also been solid. He’ll soon win the tag team titles with Tate so he will once again be a core part of the show. He wasn’t involved in any of our top ten matches of the year, but maybe 2022 will see him get back there.  Tyrant, 32 Best match: 60 (w/ Mattell vs Mills & Gerard) Notable stat changes: Brawling +2, Hardcore +1, Psychology +2, Charisma +2, Microphone +2, Acting +2 Tyrant is the breakout guy from Team Forbes by quite a margin. While Prellinger has the unfortunate role of playing the fall post and Nameth is still being built up for the future, Tyrant has taken the starring role. APW is all about menacing brawlers opposing the big heroes and Tyrant fits that role to a tee. His feud against Gerard has been good and that big tag match to end the year proves he can even be slotted in the main event for a moment.  Warmonger, 38 Best match: 60 (vs Possum) Notable stat changes: - Warmonger is doing god’s work as a true starmaker. He has pretty much pulled up Mason, Chuck and Fox up a significant notch from solid midcarders to budding main event stars. His own time at the top of the card is limited, as I’m constantly dreading his slip into time decline. He was the best performer on the heel side multiple times, outclassing the much more popular Scorpio on many occasions. Mills/Warmonger is a feud on planning on doing some point in 2022. Pinky promise this time? Well known:  Alyx MacQuarie, 35 Best match: 54 (w/ Shark vs Samoan Demolition) Notable stat changes: Technical +1, Aerial +1, Psychology +1, Charisma +1, Microphone +1, Acting +1 Still solid, still quite unremarkable. Macquarie fills the “bland, but respected” veteran quota that Simonson leaves behind. He’s had his small stories, pulling up Maniac Monster, tagging along with Dizzy G and now in a bigger spotlight with Devil. A utility piece in the midcard, ready to be slotted anywhere. Would probably benefit from a heel turn at some point and getting a tag partner from there. I do have a lot of heel factions, just not a lot of dedicated teams.  Brisbane Devil, 33 Current APW Australian champion Best match: 57 (vs Shark) Notable stat changes: Psychology +2, Acting +1 Devil is, surprisingly, this low in the pecking order. He won most of his matches and is having a really good reign with the Australian title. One of my more reliable in-ring guys, notably pulling a great match out of Samurai Boy a few months back. And yet, his popularity growth has also stalled this year. His title run still has a lot left in the tank and a main event run is still in the plans.  Dexter Mattell, 29 Best match: 66 (/w Vortex vs Lucas & Wasp) @YEPW Notable stat changes: Technical +1, Psychology +2, Charisma +2, Microphone +2, Acting +2 Mattell’s best work might have been in YEPW, but he really was solid in APW as well. Technically he had a bigger part to play than in 2020 being a part of Pinn Enterprises, but that doesn’t always come across in my writings. If he keeps developing, he might have a Devine-esque run with the Commonwealth title at some point. Did really well every time I trusted him in a main event slot, so that is a promising sign.  D-Pod, 29 Best match: 61 (w/ Wilkes vs Wayne & Mason) Notable stat changes: Aerial +1, Flashiness +1, Psychology +2, Acting +1 The man can talk, that is for sure. D-Pod doesn’t shine in the ring, but can almost be expected to carry a program by himself at this point. He won’t be beating Wayne, but hopefully the association will raise him up along the way.  Hatemonger, 39 Best match: 58 (w/ War, Tate & Hamstead vs Positive Energy, Fox & Possum) Notable stat changes: Brawling +1, Hardcore +1, Psychology +3, Microphone +2, The lesser of The Apocalypse. While War is dead set to be a main event star, Hate is just doing solid work when he’s asked to. He still develops unlike his tag partner, so that’s nice. Will be the trusty Sancho Panza for War for the foreseeable future.  Kasey, 25 Current APW and YEPW Tag Team Champion Best match: 58 (w/ Fox & Possum vs The Apocalypse, Tate & Hamstead) Notable stat changes: Brawling +2, Flashiness +2, Psychology +2, Charisma +2, Microphone +2, Acting +2 Chuck takes the headlines, but Kasey is still developing nicely behind his tag partner. Still has ways to go as a worker. Is worth keeping an eye on even if Chuck is looking like the can’t miss prospect of the two. He does have great fundamentals that will keep him as a midcard mainstay if nothing else.  King Malietoa, 35 Best match: 56 (w/ Devil & The Apocalypse vs Animal Kingdom) Notable stat changes: Brawling +1, Hardcore +1, Psychology +1, Charisma +1, Microphone +1, Acting +1 Malietoa is pretty much in the same role as Hatemonger. While developing more than his partner, he is still the weaker link of the two and used as a supporting player. Still menacing as hell and a really good tag team worker.  Leon Nameth, 23 Best match: 52 (w/ Tyrant vs Devine & Shark) Notable stat changes: Brawling +2, Flashiness +1, Psychology +2, Microphone +2, Acting +1 Nameth has a future with us. Time will tell what that future looks like. Pinn and Devine certainly seem to think Nameth has what it takes. And to be fair, he has shown growth during the year. Worryingly has stalled in some useful fundamentals, but with the fog of war I can't exactly tell how he’s looking in those. The Devine feud will be wrapping up shortly and we’ll see what Nameth does next. Wait for the next veteran to fall in love with him?  Lone Shark, 36 Best match: 58 (w/ Wasp vs The Apocalypse) Notable stat changes: Aerial +1, Acting +2 Shark is still solid as hell and undoubtedly one of my better in-ring guys. He is just lacking that something special to make it work at the top of the card. Veteran team with Devine just works really well for him. Can still be elevated if the need rises. Enterprises vs Kingdom feud would probably give him a spot to show his prowess.  Massacre, 38 Best match: 57 (w/ Hamstead vs Positive Energy) Notable stat changes: Hardcore -3, Stamina -5 Massacre has the misfortune of being the second guy to start his time decline in the APW roster. In 2020 he was still a quite major player as the second in command in Goliath Global and an Australian champion. Now he has quite clearly slipped into the third wheel while Reggie Tate has risen past him. I wanted to bring Mutant in to join the group so I could phase out Massacre, but that’s off the cards for now. Still useful to keep around for very high menace and decent psychology.  Pookie Possum, 32 Best match: 60 (vs Warmonger) Notable stat changes: Aerial +1, Flashiness +1, Psychology +2, Charisma +1, Microphone +1, Acting +1 Back to playing support for Fox but at least that beats jobbing in the pre-show? Not counting the surprisingly awesome Warmonger match, Possum was just solid in his midcard role after he got a lot of rehabbing wins. He’s the least interesting guy in Animal Kingdom, but he fits the group well. Fox might even drag him to a tag title reign!  Reggie Tate, 29 Best match: 58 (w/ Hamstead, The Apocalypse vs Positive Energy, Fox & Possum) Notable stat changes: Brawling +1, Psychology +2, Charisma +1, Microphone +1, Acting +1 Started the year quietly and almost unnoticeably creeped past Massacre in the Goliath Global pecking order. Is about to get his first title reign in the company. Hopefully he doesn’t torpedo it with his backstage antics. Still has room to grow in all key areas.  SubUrban Legend, 29 Best match: 67 (w/ Lucas vs Tasman & Vortex) @YEPW Notable stat changes: Brawling +1, Technical +1, Flashiness +1, Psychology +3, Charisma +1, Microphone +1, Acting +1 Legend keeps on growing and that’s good. One of our best mic workers is coming along in the ring as well. Was really good when he got to face The Samoans in singles matches. Is better than Chuck and Mason in the ring, saw his performances get an uptick in the latter half of the year and is a clear champion for the future.  Surfer Dude Lucas, 28 Best match: 67 (w/ Legend vs Tasman & Vortex) @YEPW Notable stat changes: Brawling +1, Technical +1, Psychology +2, Charisma +1, Microphone +1, Acting +1 Lucas is just drat good. I’ve known that from the start, but it’s still really great to see him truly prosper. Jesse is the anchor keeping him tethered to the midcard for the time being. Lucas can be pushed towards the main event on very short notice. Barring a big injury, the next time we’ll be doing a roster recap Lucas very well might be on the Star level.  Vortex, 28 Best match: 67 (w/ Tasman vs Legend & Lucas) @YEPW Notable stat changes: Technical +2, Aerial +1, Flashiness +1, Psychology +2, Charisma +1, Microphone +1, Acting +1 When Vortex finally got the ball, he ran with it. The moment he finally got something resembling a push, he grabbed into it with two hands. Now solidly locked in as a man to trust. His more eccentric character makes him fun to use as well. Likely won’t be tasting any title glory in the coming year, but should be featured a lot. Recognizable:  Black Flash, 31 Best match: 59 (w/ Mills & Vortex vs Pinn Enterprises) Notable stat changes: Psychology +1, Charisma +1 Flash is a bit of a problem child. The team with Vortex is both a blessing and a curse. They have good chemistry together, so it makes them a natural pair. Unfortunately Vortex is the more interesting and better one, but Flash is the one that doesn’t want to take any pinfalls. His ego makes him tricky to book at times. A good hand in the ring, he likely won’t rise much higher in the card, but it’s interesting to see if the team with Vortex can carry him farther than expected.  Christian Blithe, 27 Best match: 60 (w/ Scorpio vs Mills & Lucas) Notable stat changes: Brawling +2, Technical +1, Psychology +2, Charisma +1, Microphone +1, Acting +2 Blithe keeps coming along. I perhaps unfairly compare him to Lucas, but I truly believe that Blithe has the tools to be a main event player. Despite the growth, his psychology is still a worrying factor. Is also the designated pin eater in Pinn Enterprises to protect the more important members of the group, so his popularity growth hasn’t exactly been rapid.  Dingo Devine, 41 Best match: 57 (w/ Fox & Possum vs Goliath Global) Notable stat changes: Technical +1, Psychology +1, Devine has definitely had the biggest fall from grace during my booking period. Starting 2020 he is in a feud with the world champion. Ending 2021 he’s elevating Leon Nameth in the midcard. The two losses against Nameth really dropped him down considerably. He’s still really good and still getting small gains! At 41 he’s not a big part of the future, but an extremely valuable piece. And when/if the big RAW raid comes, I know a guy I can trust to hold the fort… but not the microphone.  Harry Simonson, 43 Best match: 53 (w/ Scorpio vs Gerard & Devine) Notable stat changes: Technical -2, Stamina -7 His one last run in the main event angle was what it was and now good old Harry is riding down the card. Spent much of the latter half of the year in pre-shows, hopefully helping to polish some of the younger members of the roster. I do love Simonson with all my heart, but he likely won’t be doing that much in 2022.  Kazuhisa Hosotani, 22 Best match: 56 (w/ Pod & Koroki vs Wayne & The Dudes) Notable stat changes: Aerial +1, Flashiness +1, Psychology +3, Charisma +2, Microphone +2, Acting +1 Hosotani’s YEPW appearances distance him from his tag partner in popularity but not in talent. The duo were very much carried by their entertainment skills and I very much enjoyed booking them as lower card comedy heels. They’ll be flying home in three months, so it’s up to them if they can rise up in WLW.  Lorenzo Oliverio, 29 Best match: 52 (w/ Monster & Massacre vs Mason & SHADOW LEGENDS) Notable stat changes: Brawling +1, Psychology +1 ,Charisma +1, Microphone +1, Acting +1 Oliverio’s greatest talent is his mouth, so it’s a real disservice to him that he doesn’t get to do it that much. His role as the “handler” of Maniac Monster is decent, but won’t really raise his stock. Not much of an in-ring guy at the end of the day.  Lothar Prellinger, 28 Best match: 66 (w/ Lucas vs Romeo & Nighthawk) @YEPW Notable stat changes: Technical +2, Psychology +2, Charisma +1, Microphone +1, Acting +1 Prellinger can wrestle, that much he has proved in YEPW, but in APW he needs a bit more than that. Every stable needs a third wheel and Prellinger is very much that in Team Forbes. Has his shockingly high menace to fall back on, so is decently simple to heat him back up if the need ever rises.  Maniac Monster, 22 Best match: 52 (w/ Oliverio & Massacre vs Mason & SHADOW LEGENDS) Notable stat changes: Brawling +1, Hardcore +1, Psychology +1, Microphone +1, Acting +1 Still learning. The young Monster is booked as a hot head, whose own rookie mistakes get in the way of his god given natural strength. Has developed well in the pre-shows and has seen his performances improve. Still needs more experience before he can be reliably put in a bigger slot. Would be a natural fit in Goliath Global at some point in time.  Surfer Dude Jesse, 25 Best match: 67 (w/ Vortex vs Lucas & Legend) @YEPW Notable stat changes: Brawling +2, Psychology +5, Charisma +1, Microphone +3, Acting +2 Finding his place under the tutelage of Simonson has really helped Jesse to develop. That growth in psychology is really great to see. He is still pretty raw in most areas so once Lucas shoots up the card, Jesse will be left behind to grow in a smaller role. He has the time.  Warren Lydecker, 35 Best match: 51 (w/ Lucketti vs Mills & Vortex) Notable stat changes: Brawling +2, Technical +2, Psychology +2, Charisma +1, Microphone +1, Acting +1 Lydecker spent his year mentoring his young tag partner Lucketti, but surprisingly he is the one that has gotten more relevant stat gains. He’s a midcard workhorse as he doesn’t have the charisma to be anything else. When/if Lucketti develops, he might have a tag challenge or even a run in a distant future. And as his former tag partner proves, just be plucked into a big spot and be expected to handle things professionally.  Whirlwind Lee Wilkes, 37 Best match: 62 (vs Wayne) Notable stat changes: Technical +1, Psychology +2, Charisma +1, Microphone +1, Acting +1 If not for his sudden top ten level matches opposite of Wayne, Wilkes’ year would have been really uneventful. A go to guy when I need a reliable third guy in a trio and the one usually taking the falls. Wilkes is a nice little wrestler. If he and Lydecker didn’t have literally zero chemistry, the two would have probably been a much more integral part of the midcard. Maybe he can rebuild his momentum in 2022?  White Wasp, 26 Best match: 66 (w/ Lucas vs Vortex & Mattell) @YEPW Notable stat changes: Aerial +2, Flashiness +1, Psychology +2, Charisma +2, Microphone +2, Acting +2 Still here! Wasp is the bottom guy in the Animal Kingdom, usually the guy getting battered by the big and bad heels. His “herbal methods” haven’t influenced his work that much yet. He’s unlikely to ever grow to be anything big with us, but he gets to learn alongside four absolute pros every month. Unimportant:  Dark Wing, 26 Best match: 62 (w/ Snow Storm & Shinya Abiko vs Morimasa Kato & Amazing Wrestlers) @WLW Notable stat changes: Aerial +2, Flashiness +2, Psychology +3, Charisma +1, Acting +1 Dark Wing is still the most “ready” of the three more recent Japanese arrivals. He’s a solid high flyer who would probably excel more if he got hired by YEPW during the next year. Might get a slightly bigger role next year, but really suffers that four guys just came in and leapfrogged him in the pecking order.  Dee Lucketti, 20 Best match: 51 (w/ Lydecker vs Mills & Vortex) Notable stat changes: Aerial +1, Flashiness +1, Psychology +2, Charisma +2, Microphone +1, Acting +1 Lucketti keeps chugging along. L & L hasn’t exactly lit the world on fire and neither has Lucketti. He still took important leaps in his fundamentals. Might have the charisma to be something, but I need to give him actual mic time to see how he handles things.  Dizzy G, 24 (injured) Best match: 56 (w/ Masteroff vs Bush & Bremner) @YEPW Notable stat changes: Aerial +1, Psychology +2, Microphone +1, Acting +5 Poor, poor Dizzy. After not developing AT ALL in 2020 he got a semi-regular spot as Macquarie’s tag partner and started showing some slight signs of improvement. He got hired to YEPW and got to a decent start there. Then he broke his neck. It’s uncertain if he will step to the ring again.  Elvis Robinson, 21 Best match: 46 (w/ Wasp & Greer vs Harding & Apocalypse) Notable stat changes: Brawling +1, Flashiness +1, Psychology +4, Charisma +1, Microphone +1, Acting +4 Elvis is a long term project so don’t expect to see him on the main shows too often. He’s still very green and thus here to lose. Once he rounds up his skills, he might be something one day.  Felix Harding, 32 Best match: 51 (w/ Wilkes & Lydecker vs Animal Kingdom) Notable stat changes: Technical +1, Psychology +1, Charisma +1, Microphone +1, Acting +1 Oh, Felix. It is what it is. Harding is a reliable job guy but I can’t really see him doing anything else. He can lose really well and that’s what makes him good enough to keep around.  Hack Greer, 21 Best match: 46 (w/ Wasp & Robinson vs Harding & Apocalypse) Notable stat changes: Brawling +1, Psychology +1, Microphone +1, Acting +1, Stamina -5 Greer is in the same role as Robinson. He loses and keeps developing. The BAD part is his heavy smoking. His stamina is collapsing at 21 YEARS OLD. I already tried to talk him out of it, but to no result. He might be his own worst enemy if this goes on. He is otherwise very promising.  Keisuke Koroki, 22 Best match: 56 (w/ Pod & Hosotani vs Wayne & The Dudes) Notable stat changes: Brawling/Puroresu/Technical/Aerial/Flashiness +1, Psychology +2, Charisma +1, Microphone +2, Acting +2 Koroki is a rare guy that basically all of his primary skills are on the same level. Too bad that level is “still pretty bad.” But hey, he is pretty drat entertaining. Next Level worked as an undercard act, hope that they can find some success back home.  Naoji Azumi, 24 Best match: 50 (w/ Mason vs Tate & Hamstead) Notable stat changes: Brawling +1, Psychology +2, Microphone +1 Azumi got some chances to shine, but he was constantly struggling with consistency. Almost every time he got on to the main show, whoops he’s off his game. Like Next Level, he has around three months left before he goes back to WLW. If he ever washes out, I’ll be happy to have him back. If he ever gets over his consistency issues, he would be a real solid midcarder for us.  Samurai Boy, 21 Best match: 61 (w/ SPEED D & Tsubouchi vs Wing & Pure Hatred) @WLW Notable stat changes: Aerial +2, Flashiness +2, Psychology +3, Microphone +2, Acting +2 The Boy is raw, but WLW might have something with him one day. He’s not exactly lighting the world on fire, but he’s not offensively bad either. Got carried by Devil to a really good match, but it’s unlikely that he will shoot up the card. He’s picked up the language, so he might get some promo time here and there during the next year.  Yozo Ishigami, 22 Best match: 61 (w/ Doan & Wing vs Boy, SPEED D & Tsubouchi) @WLW Notable stat changes: Aerial +2, Flashiness +1, Psychology +3, Charisma +2, Microphone +8, Acting +8 Look at those +8 gains. It’s all about him going from dreadful to awful simply by existing next to people who know how to work the microphone. Ishigami is in the same boat as Boy. Solid enough to lose, not entertaining enough to rise up the card during his second year in the company. Other:     Bradford Peverell, Cobra, Joffy Laine and Kip Keenan I’m grouping up the recent arrivals here as I have nothing to add to their intro blurbs from the previous update. All four have the talent to go far with us and one of my mission statements in 2022 is to get these guys over.   R & R - Brian Rampage (22) & Paul Reinhold (23) (currently on excursion at WLW) Best match: 51 (vs SUKI & Kaoru Shibasawa @WLW) Notable stat changes: Rampage: Brawling +1, Psychology +3, Charisma +1, Microphone +1, Acting +1 Reinhold: Technical +2, Psychology +2, Charisma +3, Microphone +4, Acting +3 Rampage and Reinhold are projects but it’s nice to see that they are still developing at a decent pace. Reinhold has responded to WLW marginally better, but I’m not seeing huge gains just yet. It doesn’t help that WLW is more than happy to leave them out of the shows. Five matches in September, three in October, two in November and one in December is not the kind of development I want to see. Don’t get too giddy about Reinhold’s entertainment gains, he is merely going from awful to little less awful.  Louie Scorpio, 32 (signed with RAW) Best match: 76 (vs Rick Stanz @RAW) Notable stat changes: Technical +2, Psychology +2, Charisma +2, Microphone +3, Acting +3 I gave a lot of poo poo to Scorpio about his unwillingness to lose, but in the end he was really good in his role. I do enjoy building guys from the ground up to main event level guys, but having a guy like Scorpio around still made things easier. He’s not going to do anything worthwhile in RAW (already having lost two out of his three matches back there), so it’s not like he raised his stock working with us. If he can find a tag partner, I can see him finding success in tag ranks. I’m willing to have him back, but when that comes relevant in three years, he might not have the impact he had with us now. The APW Top Ten Matches of the Year 2021 DVD & Blu-Ray (dirt cheap, only 24,99 Australian dollars!) 1. Louie Scorpio(c) vs Rusty Mills - APW Commonwealth Championship (Boogie Night, November 2021) - 63 It’s now or never! Mills is the last man who can stop Scorpio from stealing the Commonwealth championship! 2. Rusty Mills(c) vs Dexter Mattell - APW Commonwealth Championship (Early Christmas Bash, December 2021) - 62 Mills continues his battle against Pinn Enterprises! Mattell looks to end the championship dream right after the start! 3. Kerry Wayne vs Whirlwind Lee Wilkes (Longest Night, November 2021) - 62 Kerry Wayne has his first singles match in APW! Can Wilkes shock the system? 4. D-Pod & Whirlwind Lee Wilkes vs Kerry Wayne & Barney Mason (Holiday Hijinks, December 2021) - 61 Dynamite tag team action! Wayne gets the beef and D-Pod gets the speed! 5. Rusty Mills & Surfer Dude Lucas vs Pinn Enterprises (Louie Scorpio & Christian Blithe) (Rumble in the Concrete Jungle, October 2021) - 60 Lucas got robbed so now it’s time for payback! Can Scorpio evade two hungry opponents at once? 6. Pookie Possum vs Warmonger (Boogie Night, November 2021) - 60 Warmonger on a warpath! Possum fights against the massive menace with all he’s got! 7. Christopher Gerard & Rusty Mills vs Pinn Enterprises (Louie Scorpio & Donovan Boon) (You Only Live Twice, March 2021) - 60 Gerard and Mills join forces to take on a new threat! Pinn starts business in style! 8. Louie Scorpio(c) vs Nighthawk - APW Commonwealth Championship (Championship Carnival, August 2021) - 60 Can Nighthawk rise from Australian champion to Commonwealth champion? 9. Christopher Gerard & Rusty Mills vs Tyrant & Dexter Mattell (Holiday Hijinks, December 2021) - 60 A chaotic tag team contest to kickstart the holidays! Can Gerard and Mills defeat the combined force of madness and technical mastery? 10. Louie Scorpio(c) vs Surfer Dude Lucas - APW Commonwealth Championship (Coming Home, September 2021) - 60 Once in a lifetime opportunity! Lucas has a chance to shock the world and dethrone the champion! Next time: Hotly awaited tour around the world. How is the wrestling world looking entering 2022? But first:
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Feb 26, 2022 16:01
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How did the WLW crew fare in the top 500? Also, A and C for the same reasons Veryslightlymad says in his post. Armitage fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Feb 26, 2022 |
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Feb 26, 2022 18:02
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B. If we don't absolutely max him out during the time we have on him, he is not worth the money. Our stable is great and ready for more.
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Feb 26, 2022 18:15
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A, on the condition that you can get him for about what we’re paying Wayne. He’d partially pay for himself through merchandising. I don’t know how tough it would be to get them to agree to it, but a Gilbert vs Wayne feud would be big money, even without the title involved. Or you could have them form a super team. I’ll leave it up to you on whether to make him a heel or face, whatever works best with your plans.
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Feb 26, 2022 19:14
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A, C Bring him in as a face. My suggestion is to stable him with Kip Keenan and Joffey Laine as a Trios act. He'll be able to rapidly pull the two of them up with their skill. Put them into a long program with Team Forbes. Then, though it's a bit unorthodox, have Team Forbes win, and have either Tyrant or Nameth pin Gilbert. With Prellinger in the match, he'll take his lumps. A program like this should superheat both of the other faces as well as whichever of the two heels you want to get the pin on Gilbert. EDIT I guess you intend to pair Kerry Wayne with those two instead. Which, I mean, the same concept applies, just to a lesser degree. Veryslightlymad fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Feb 26, 2022 |
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Feb 26, 2022 19:54
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A I think he will bring the merch momey while we have him. D Make him a Heel, he's mad as hell about being let go from APW and is out to hurt anyone in his way
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Feb 26, 2022 21:01
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Armitage posted:How did the WLW crew fare in the top 500? None of the WLW guys working with us made the Power 500. Eleven guys working with WLW ended up in the Power 500, Independent Wrestler of the Year Masao Tsubouchi leading the pack at #168. Eight of those, Tsubouchi included, also work for EX2010 and Bunrakuken Torii splits his time with his home promotion BCG. So most of the WLW guys featured made their cases working elsewhere. Of the WLW exclusive guys company ace Masa Kurata lands at #416 and one of their better up and coming talents Tiger Prince is just in at #486. Neither had any major accomplishments in 2021. #168: Tsubouchi #229: Nichiren Amakawa (WLW main eventer and pretty much the number two to Kurata, also works with EX2010) #365: Kaoru Shibasawa (EX2010 guy, reliable midcarder whose best work is with his home company, worked for WLW from March onwards) #378: Bunrakuken Torii (one of the BCG headliners, won the BCG Sole Survivor tournament) #396: Tanyu Toshusai (BCG original, left home company early 2020 and later landed in EX2010 and WLW) #409: Spider Yakuta (independent worker hired to EX2010 and WLW in late 2020, veteran guy getting a lease of life after almost 15 without a steady gig) #416: Kurata #432; SUKI (left BCG right at the start of 2020, landed on his feet in EX2010 and WLW) #444: Commander Kawagishi (EX2010 tag team legend) #471: Danjuro Kikuchi (freelance technician joined EX2010 and WLW mid 2021, current EXODUS All-Asia Jr. Heavyweight champion) #486: Tiger Prince
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Feb 28, 2022 12:11
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Not bad. I don't play C-Verse nearly as much as real world mods, but I do have a soft spot for WLW. How about APW?
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Feb 28, 2022 16:33
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Armitage posted:Not bad. I don't play C-Verse nearly as much as real world mods, but I do have a soft spot for WLW. How about APW? Kerry Wayne is the only one (at #244), but his case is mostly with RAW. I'll make sure to mention any and all APW that make list next year... if they make it.
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Feb 28, 2022 20:10
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Episode 32: State of the wrestling world 2022 APW had a good year as a whole, but what have the other 36 still standing companies doing at the start of 2022? I’ll be going over the companies one area at a time, going from smallest to biggest. Oceania: YEPW  The latest company to open their doors and a one I’ve covered a lot in the past updates. Booked by my road agent and starring a lot of APW guys, YEPW is worth keeping an eye on. Already putting on better shows than APW or DIW, only their fairly small budget can really hamper them (and/or RAW snapping their guys on exclusive deals). ZEN  ZEN probably still offers the “best” in-ring wrestling in Oceania. They had the best non-RAW matches (75) and shows (71) in the area. They also have a broadcast deal with WrestleWorld, spreading the word of wacky lucha fun outside of their home base in New Zealand. They are financially stable, although worryingly they had some major money losing months in the latter half of 2021.  ZEN’s big acquisition in 2021 was bringing in a former RAW guy Monday Next. Next is quite like Scorpio/Wayne for us, being more popular than anyone else in the ZEN roster. The company quickly elevated Next as their ZEN Master champion in July, ending Pumpkin Jack’s reign at the exact one year mark. He enters 2022 still champion, with no clear challenger emerging (so watch him drop the title in ZEN’s first show this year).   The other major story has been the reunion of The Sky Kings, Vertigo and (Super) ZERO. The latter originally turned on his partner back in 2018 to ascend the card to top star status. He apparently turned back face in late 2020, reformed the team and spent almost the entire calendar year as tag (or in ZEN’s case, Harmony) champions. They finally dropped the belts to the Alien Armada pairing of Man o’War and Kargg The Conqueror in November, but the story between the teams might continue into 2022. Other than that, ZEN tried to build their next generation, as Buckminster Snark got this first taste of main eventing (but losing 90% of his matches) and Kalliope Woodchuck started her third reign as Conceptual champion. DIW  My dear rivals had a pretty great year, mostly on the back of their own former RAW guy Gragory Grace. Financially their jump to WrestleWorld hasn’t been a successful one. Increased spending in production values have quickly put them around 10 000 in debt. I think I’m finally starting to pull ahead in our little feud. DIW hasn’t been able to elevate their acts nowhere near the level of their Big Star.  I’ve already gone over the big mishandling of their best home-grown guy Mace Mueller in a previous update, but I really need to mention it again. Their top champion wasn’t booked for five months and when he came back he immediately dropped the title. Now he has their secondary belt and scored a win over Grace, so mayyyyyybe they are realizing that this is their guy. On the other hand, he wasn’t booked on the final show of the year so maybe he has another six months off. I’m debating if I just want to poach him (APW and DIW are still technically at war, so if he agrees to a deal with me, he would leave DIW).  DIW would be very different without Gregory Grace. He starred in ten of their best matches and surprisingly didn’t win any titles. All of his losses came in title matches, so I can’t say DIW didn’t try to leverage his popularity to help their other relevant acts. RAW  The juggernaut of Australian wrestling kept the ship steady in 2021. They are only a few popularity points away from rising to Big, but funnily enough they only gained one popularity point across the country during the entire year. The level of their shows should have granted them greater growth, so I’m assuming their current (and just extended) TV deal might be limiting them a bit. Despite their stalling growth, their head start is still very much enough to keep every smaller company behind them for years to come.   Curiously they really kept the titles out of the hands of their biggest stars. Neither Swoop McCarthy nor Maurice Jackson got a taste of gold during 2021 as the Television title circulated mostly among other former APW guys. Swoop and Jackson were RAW’s go-to guys when it comes to highly rated matches, both being all over their top ten matches of the year. Jackson had a great, but extremely one sided feud against Spiffy Stan Standish, another APW alumni, which lasted pretty much through the entire year.   The tag title scene was quite repetitive for most of the year, as Heath & Murdock and The RAW Giants swapped the belts around for most of the year. Things finally changed in December when Destruction (major stars and former Television champions Rahmel Goode and Luke Steele) won the belts. Goode and Steele haven’t been tagging that much in this save, so it’s interesting to see if they’ll defend the belts against other main eventers or just punch down on the midcard for the foreseeable future. Japan: WQ2020  The newest Japanese promotion hasn’t exactly wowed the wrestling audience. A women’s deathmatch company was never going to get that much attention, but despite their talented roster the shows just don’t work the way they should. The reason is quite simple, they have talented wrestlers but not that many talented brawlers/deathmatch wrestlers. They are still very much financially stable and have a small TV deal to help them along.  They also have possibly the worst booked titles anywhere and that’s saying something. First tag team champs won the belts in March and lost them in July… in their first defense to New Wave Outlaws (5SSW top star Megumi Nakajima and “Cosplay Queen” Hiroko Iha) who have gone on to defend their titles… exactly zero times. Their singles titles haven’t been booked much better. Queens Heart was first won by Mizucore, who then tore her rotator cuff two months later and is out for a year. The belt was vacant for three months until it was won by Mio Takasu. Queen of the Deathmatch  has also seen two champions inside a year. I tend to prefer longer title reigns, especially when trying to build up a new title so every title being a hot potato hurts a bit inside.  “Miss Perfection” Fuyuko Higa is their best wrestler, even in a deathmatch environment, and naturally shunted down in the midcard. The other top performers are mostly 5SSW women like Nakajima, Otsune Tsujimura and Toku Kijimuta. Second generation stars Fujiko Mushashibo and Mirai “Kitsune Danger” Kajahira are the two future hopes that are the rare stylistic fits in the promotion. SAISHO  SAISHO might be small, but they are doing a good job with the tools that they have. Their 2021 was a year of steady growth both in popularity and in finances. Some of their better shows even rivaled some of their larger rivals.   A lot of the weight has been carried by the dual aces of the company: Black Iron Corps. Azumamaro Kita and Fujio Narahashi are the top guys in the company and deliver the goods whether teaming up or facing off against each other. Kita is on his fourth reign with the Destiny championship, holding the title for over a year at this point. Narahashi had his year-long reign with the secondary Ride the Tiger championship that ended in May 2021.  Their youth movement isn’t doing as well as I’d hoped. Most of their young core has walked out so the remaining young guns have a lot riding on them. Gidayu “Lariat” Gatou holds the tag belts with international star Jayson Van Pelt and Isoruko Arakaki reigns as Ride the Tiger champion. The departures of young talents and some other key names (Night Terrors and Nigel Svensson) has seen a lot of outside talent come in. Orange Tsuchie from EX2010 had a run before quickly moving on to BHOTWG, and reliable Tobei Sugimura is moving to the same direction. So SAISHO has gone for a small-scale BCG “invasion” to bolster their cards. SAISHO is moving forwards slowly but surely, but will face problems in the future if they can’t attract young talents to their roster. EX2010  EX2010 had a great year and if things keep going the way they do, the company will be jumping to Medium during 2022. This will spell Trouble for WLW if they start locking up talent to exclusive deals… unless WLW can do the jump first.  Masao Tsubouchi is naturally The Guy in EX2010 coming into 2022. Independent Wrestler of the Year, winner of the Junior Heavyweight Grand Prix and current World Junior Heavyweight champion looks to cement his position as one of the absolute best wrestlers in the world. His only match against Orange Tsuchie was an absolute barnburner, Independent Match of the Year with a 95(!) rating (95 is genuinely insane for a Small promotion). Much like WQ2020, the tag title scene has been a mess. Kimimaya & Kogo held the titles for a year, but only defended the belts TWICE. They dropped the titles to X-Calibre and Hyotaru… in a match where Hyotaru injured his back, so the titles were immediately vacated. After four months, SAISHO star Kita was tasked to carry the division back to some kind of relevancy with barely out of young lion status barely prospect Kyozo Isogai by his side. The core is still here (except Tsuchie) and with the added SUKI, EX2010 might start making some serious noise. 5SSW  5SSW is in the same situation as EX2010, on the doorstep of growing to Medium. Their growth might gently caress over WQ2020 a bit, but it’s looking like 5SSW is approaching another boom period. Their shows are frequently outdoing everyone but BHOTWG. Area battles will probably hit them hard (the same goes for EX2010 and WLW), with BHOWTG massive head start in production values will penalize their smaller “competitors” a lot.  5SSW hasn’t really had any larger narratives yet. They have a plethora of main event level talent, so reigning World champion Megumi Nakajima, Triangle champion Gemmei Oonishi, Shiori Jippensha, HEART Saito and Yuma Maruya hold up the expected level of excellence. Younger powerhouses Unstoppable Kai and Monster Ishimura are also getting their pushes. While 5SSW didn’t peak as high as EX2010, they were definitely the most consistent Small company in Japan. BCG  Despite all their talent and rise to Medium, BCG is getting hammered in the big picture. They are getting major penalties due to their low production values, resulting in their shows being rated lower than they really should be. Even then, both 5SSW and EX2010 had better years looking purely at the matches.  Despite their steadily increasing popularity, I can’t really call Blast Ikoma’s over a year long World title reign that successful. Bad chemistry against Funakoshi hasn’t stopped BCG from continually booking the two against each other. And while matches against rest of the top stars have been good, none of them have been ground-breaking. Ikoma is also heavily reliant on his opponent, as lesser matches against Big Bruiser Findlay and Rokuemon Matsushita have been abject failures as main events. Nagging shoulder issues aren’t exactly helping him.   While SAISHO has a small BCG invasion, BCG in turn has a small PGHW invasion. The team of Avalancho Takano and Hirotsugu Satou has held the tag titles hostage for over a year and their year-long feud against Miura & Yoshizawa has been a constant source of solid matches. Takano has especially looked excellent. WLW  WLW is technically smaller than BCG, but is more popular pretty much all around the country and just a fingertip away from jumping back to Medium themselves. Unfortunately for WLW, they are still very far away from their glory days.  Despite having some genuinely great talent in their primes (mostly thanks to EX2010 guys working there), their World title has revolved around Mokuami Maita and Kazuma Narato, both past their prime veterans. The same goes for the tag titles, which are currently held by gaijins Americana and The Tic.  WLW looks really barren if EX2010 and BCG start signing their own guys on exclusive deals, which would mean that the WLW midcard would get absolutely smashed. Masa Kurata and Nichiren Amakawa, their loyal top stars, have a lot of work to do if they want to see WLW prosper. PGHW  PGHW is holding steady with the strength of their top talent, but are still far away from returning to their glory days. PGHW let a lot of their core midcarders jump to BHOWTG in early 2020, which has kept their wage budget in check. PGHW are financially well, but don’t have the manpower to do major popularity jumps nor the financial power to poach BHOTWG guys.  Kozue Kawashima has been everything for PGHW. His 465 day title reign with the Glory Crown has been a critical and commercial success. His feud with Magnum Kobe is starting to see diminishing results, but he still has a lot of challengers waiting in the wings…  Like criminally underused KitoGuchi or probably the actually best wrestler in the company Masaru Ugaki as none of the three have challenged for the top prize once. KitoGuchi had (stop me if you’ve heard this before) a year long reign with the tag belts with TWO defenses. Remaining top star Seiji Jimbo has just focused on hunting trophies, winning Elite Series in 2021 and the Elite Tag Team Series in both 2020 (with walking corpse Mamoru Nagahama) and 2021 (with somehow still wasted Eien Miyamoto). The company is creatively inept and wasting some of their best talent’s prime years, but as long as Kawashima has something left in the tank there’s nothing to worry about! BHOTWG  The emperors are still as untouchable as ever.  Much like PGHW, their heavyweight championship is in the hands of one of their elder statesmen Hiroaki Nakasawa who has been reigning supreme for 486 days. Unlike Kawashima, he is already in time decline.  The stellar junior heavyweight division is really keeping BHOTWG in the minds of the wrestling public. Seven of their ten best matches are junior matches. Helikaon, Elemental III and Emerald Angel have especially been on absolute fire. Angel is practically the biggest star the company has at this point and is responsible for the best BHOTWG of the last year. It should only be a matter of time before the Best of the Super Juniors tournament winner captures junior gold around his waist. BHOTWG seems to be one of the more stable promotions when it comes to booking their championships. Both sets of tag belts have changed hands three times in the two years the save has been running, but each belt has had long reigns with a lot of defenses. None of their many, many hires from PGHW or WLW have done anything of note. A masterclass of wasting talented wrestlers in pre-shows. Europe: ELPF  ELPF sucks. Let’s move on.  Okay, let’s go into a bit more detail. ELPF has spent most of its existence pushing two guys. Helmar Gustavsson and Scott van den Berg. Unfortunately for them, they both suck and constantly tank their shows with simply awful main events. Gustavsson is really popular, but the kickboxer/MMA fighter really sucks in the whole wrestling part of pro wrestling. van den Berg on the other hand is an aging brawler that doesn’t really fit the company at all, yet gets main events more often than not. For SOME reason their third most important guy is Joey Beauchamp, once one of the best in the continent, now a crumbling mess in the ring. Rashid Lawal, another broken old man, is also getting a somewhat significant midcard push.  It’s not all bad. KRUGE THE EXECUTIONER isn’t the first guy I’d think of when building a MMA style wrestling promotion, but the masked man has done well for himself as the reigning Global champion. Talented DuPont brothers have also found their place and are one of the bright spots in any given show. Pavel Vanzycha also fits in like a glove and steals the show whenever he is not burdened with the task of carrying old men. Landon Mallory has also assumed duties as the best wrestler in yet another company. ELPF has also run on a loss for their entire existence. They don’t lose much every month and they still have money in the bank, so it’s not like they are close to keeling over… yet. UEW  UEW, the “original” boring wrestling company for boring people in Europe had a pretty good year. The undercards are generally quite bad, but the top matches tend to deliver. The promotion is already getting overrun by rookies from BHOTWG on their excursion. First three or four matches every night are filled with Japanese kids facing off against each other or the tired veterans of UEW.  UEW is also getting the award for least amount of effort put into main events this past year. They ran two matches for the duration of the year, Kalu Owusu defending his World title against Marcello Ricci (who won the title on the last show of the year) or Thor “won three matches all year” The Mighty. Can’t wait to see this same thing continue next year!  Unsurprisingly Konrad Mäkinen was the UEW MVP by quite a margin and was awarded with a midcard title run at the end of the year. He truly IS Dolph Ziggler circa 2011-2014. VWA   VWA has lost their mind and have given their top belt to Night Spyder, one of the two Finnish wrestlers in the starting database. He is, how should I put this, a completely unremarkable high flyer with known drug issues. It might be just a quick transitional reign, since he just won the belt in December, but your roster might have problems if Spyder is the guy you are going to elevate.  You have Walker van Cleer and Landon Mallory, USE THEM. (VWA does use them… one of the two tends to main event most shows despite not being champions.) VWA (just like Europe in general) has been really uneventful and not even the broadcast deal with WrestleWorld hasn’t really made them break any records. Once UEW and VWA rise to Small, things will probably look a bit livelier. (Europe still has the worst free agent pool, so things won’t get too interesting.) EWA  EWA might be run by an egomaniac, but at least they are the only European based company making money every month. VWA and UEW have only been making small gains in popularity so EWA still holds the power in mainland Europe.  Byron might have racked up his ninth Universal title reign in 2021, but the true stars of the promotion are top babyfaces Paolo Gandalfini and Walker van Cleer. Hercules Johansson is no longer their top heel, since Byron turned himself heel. Johansson is still bizarrely popular, despite once again jobbing through most of the year. KRUGE THE REVENGER has suffered pretty much the same fate.  The women’s division has been mostly a trash-fire ever since Zofia Jankovic walked out during the summer. They also lost their other competent veteran Thea Davis around the same time. Now filled with young, green and very unpolished talent, the division is very much the worst part of any EWA. There is some hope, thankfully. Brand new hire Etelka The Hun, a Hungarian deathmatch worker has arrived in style and seems like the best hope to reinvigorate the division. UK: CWW  CWW are operating on a shoestring budget, but still have shown marginal growth. Their show grades are along our grades, which is really good for a Tiny company.  Curtis Jenkins merely laughs at every other long title reign in the world. The owner of the company has simply gone on a megalomaniacal run with the CWW championship extending to 647 days and counting. He has not lost ONCE in the past two years. His reign has also been extremely repetitive, mostly bashing the same group of guys (JK Lee, Lenny Mochin (left the company) and Jonni Leyland (got the secondary belt to get out of this)). New hires have had their shots at felling the king, but to no avail. If Jenkins wants to be the lord of his own land, so be it. The tag champions Leighton Buzzard and Grant Taypen are also on quite a run, with their reign just hitting the one year mark. Now if only they could have defended against more than the same two teams for the duration of that reign. Just looking at the uncreative booking, I am tempted to start a new CWW save… dammit game. SNP  Mark Carnie has done his thing eighteen times in the span of two years, so the roster is looking somewhat different compared to the start of the save. Despite Carnie’s ways, SNP hasn’t lost any of their big players. They are losing 10 000 dollars a month yet still have over five million in the bank. They have the worst shows in the UK, usually saved by a great main event involving The Ivanoff Brothers or Nate Manchester, all former 21CW guys.   The tag scene in general is one of the few bright spots in the company with The Ivanoffs, The Funke Bunch, Maximum Damage and The Northern Lights swapping the titles around for the past two years. 21CW:  The best promotion in the world in 2020 was still pretty drat great in 2021. 21CW had 22 events rated 85 or better, which was the third most in the world (for comparison, TCW had 26, USPW had 16, BHOTWG had 13, SWF had 12 and CWA had 10.)  The main event scene was once again in the safe hands of Edward Cornell and Adam Matravers, as their feud was once again straight fire at the top of the card. The Cornell/Matravers World title lineage was finally broken by War Machine at the end of the year after five years of reigns divied up by the three men.  War Machine got the big win, but the bigger story is that 21CW has successfully elevated both Leigh Burton and Apollo Prince to Major Star status. What’s even better, the two seem to have great chemistry together in the ring, guaranteeing the British giants another top level matchup to spam utilize after Matravers and Cornell age out. 21CW have the UK locked up, their next step is to grow in Europe and stateside. They have only lost Tommy Cornell thus far, so it’s interesting to see when/if the American companies start poaching talent from them or the other way around… Mexico: CILL:  CILL are slowly gaining popularity, mostly thanks to hiring a bunch of talented OLLIE wrestlers to buff up their main event scene. Wrestlers like Silver Tiger, Extraordinario Jr and Electric Dreamer really bring new excitement to CMLL shows, even if it has meant that budding main eventers Aztec Prinze and Monkey Man have dropped down the card as a result.  One man from the original roster still stands tall. Amazing Fire Fly has flown the CILL banner proudly with his year plus World title reign. Masked marvel steals the show almost every time he steps in the ring. EMLL  Meanwhile at EMLL…  Hysteria holds all three Rings of Power! Can anyone stop the man spreading mass hysteria all over the LuchaVerse? Can Captain Lucha stop the devilish terror? If not him, who?  Living lucha legend Luis Montero Jr has captured the EMLL Campeonato del Mundo title from the grasp of the evildoers of the Dark Dimension! But now he has to fight against literal demons, beasts and the greatest enemy of all, father time, to hold on to the last great piece of gold not in the hands of the forces of evil! Boriken Love Machine Jr wants everyone to love him and uses the Campeonato de Mexico to bend the people to his will! La Estrella is being hunted down by Samael The Accuser! Dolphin Master wants to find his friend Ecco! This and more… only in EMLL! OLLIE  OLLIE sits solidly at Medium and they have started making some serious money in the past few months. The company has also grown at a pretty solid rate thanks to their weekly TV show and some solid PPV events to boot.  Hiring a bunch of reliable veterans like El Hijo del Relampago, Hysteria, Pirata Malvado and CHESS MANIAC surely helped, but Mr Lucha III is the man of the company. The reigning COTT World champion might have traveled the world, but was always with OLLIE when needed. He was responsible for most of the best matches of the year, supported by the young fireplug Extraordinario Jr. He has also been the trios champion for 562 days and has defended that belt once. If OLLIE can hold onto their newfound momentum, they will stay alive and prosper. If EILL hits their main event scene hard, they are once again in trouble EILL  Best promotion in the world was pretty much undeniable. El Heroe Mexicano and The Golden Kings were a main event act in every arena in Mexico and made sure the company could recover from losing so many talented wrestlers in the span of two years. The trio made sure that EILL had 43(out of 60!) shows rated 85 or better, almost twenty more than their closest competitors in TCW and 21CW.  Despite their losses, the roster is still stacked. El Heroe was the key piece but that main event scene would have survived even without him. Mikey Lau has landed really well in Mexico and is their number two star behind Heroe. Hijo del Aguila Americana rose to the top rudo status that was expected of him. Ultra Spark Jr prospered even without his tag partner. And the list goes on. It’s scary that a lot of EILL key wrestlers are still in their early 30s, guaranteeing the company good times for the foreseeable future. They just have to hold on to those key pieces. Canada: ACPW  The smaller Canadian company has been solid as ever. Solid growth thanks to WrestleWorld deal and a new TV deal should see them rise to Medium during 2022. Their financials aren’t looking that great, so hopefully going too fast won’t kill them in the near future…  Their singles titles have been booked pretty well, with decent sized reigns with top talent. Mario da Silva, Mimic and Ant-Man have carried the main events with three solid reigns with the Junior Heavyweight belt. The home-grown core is solid as hell, with only two departures (Hugh de Aske to TCW, Simony Sentinel to CWA) hurting them a bit.  A lot of their young projects are still very much developing, but ACPW have super rookies Americana Jr and Lucy Stone-McFly hiding in the midcard. Once the two start getting pushed and gain a bit more experience, the company has two aces to carry them for the next decade. CWA  The clock is still ticking for the mitokondrio of Canadian Wrestling. Despite making a small profit at the end of the year, growing in size, extending their TV deal and going on a small hiring spree, CWA still has a mountain of debt to climb. FCW went out of business in two months after their financial warning. CWA is a bigger company, so they might have a bit more time… but January might still be the end for them.  “The Last of the DeColts” Ricky DeColt holds the World championship in the dying days. Most of his year before his title reign was spent on the lower card, mostly working with “Hillbilly Heartthrob” Solomon Gold. He is dwarfed by other main event acts like Christian Price, Shooter Sean Deeley and Aaron Knight.  The real shining gem in the CWA twilight has been their women’s division. Brooke Tyler, Amber Allen and Lauren Easter have been excellent and have been responsible for some of the best in-ring action Canada had to offer in 2021. The roster is as great as it has ever been, the shows are great, the booking is solid… so it’s a shame that CWA’s inability to make a profit will kill over three decades of Canadian wrestling tradition. USA: RIPW  The next generation of Supreme Superstars are slowly being cooked in Rhode Island. With the previous “generation” of developmental guys having been all called up, it’s the time for the next generation to show what they are made of.  Warwick Good and Samson Sharpe have risen up to lead the current pack. Neither are nowhere near a finished product but their feud was pretty much the best stuff RIPW could muster in 2021. RIPW in general was one of the weakest companies overall during the entire year. IPW  War… war never changes, not on the west coast at least. IPW are financially stable and have grown decently. IPW have used their COTT connections to their advantage. Mr Lucha’s COTT World title defenses have been the better IPW matches throughout the year. CZCW standout Frankie-Boy Fernandes has really hit his stride working with IPW on the side. Even Carlos Barrera, an unremarkable tag worker from CZCW, managed to grab IPW match of the year honors with Fernandes.  Aldous Blackfriar is still the IPW guy to watch. His second reign with the IPW championship just started, but he is still the man of this company, even with big name visitors hogging the spotlight. Now the company just has to resist the urge to put the title on 46 year old Charlie Thatcher, who is fresh off being released from USPW. GSW  War… wait, I just used this line. A single popularity point in their home area separates GSW from their “corporate” challengers. GSW has gotten a slight edge over IPW but just slight. They stole some good workers from IPW and only lost a few rookies to them in return. GSW might be notably behind on money, but is winning in every other aspect.  The tactics used are very similar. Both use CZCW workers to their advantage. Storm Spillane, one half of the American Cobras, stopped working BCG and OLLIE, choosing to focus on his home CZCW and from June 2021 forwards to GSW. He then had seven of their ten best matches. Fro Sure, as expected, was the other ace of the company, somehow not yet poached by TCW. GSW and IPW are also very similar in the way they book their midcard and tag titles, with both companies opting to go for a lot of short reigns divided up to a lot of different people. MAW  MAW has survived the shocking death of their owner Sam Keith and is trucking along. Miller Fjorde, THE ARCHITECT and Bradley Blaze are still the guys the company is built around. Surprisingly Sione Tokoeka is the one guy from the midcard taking leaps toward the main event, probably thanks to a decent run with the COTT tag team titles.  Not even an awful Cheetah Boy title reign tanked them. I’d agree that using a veteran champion in a company filled with young and developing wrestlers is a good idea. MAW just had the most bland option available to fill that role. Cheetah Boy might have the famous fundamentals, but is seriously lacking in every other area, has a really bad gimmick (you might want to rebrand from being called a “boy” when you are almost 40) and has no charisma to speak of. So NATURALLY he had an eighteen month title reign. The crop of TCW rookies developing at the Boot Camp haven’t really lit the world on fire. Sandman Winks, Jaylon Martins and THE HISTORIAN are really the only three who have at least done something, all three still years away from being anything useful to MAW or TCW. NYCW  The most improved company in the world had their surge in popularity, jumping to Small and making a bunch of interesting hires. A small scale PSW invasion in the form of Ash Campbell, Ernest Youngman, Sayeed Ali and Austin Smooth has really helped the company elevate their shows to a whole different level. With Youngman or Campbell in the main event, the company is guaranteed a notably better (at least +10 in the rating) main event.  The man defending the company against the evil hardcore invaders? The formerly evil Elvis, now back to being the good Elvis. Tennessee William has held the Empire championship for over the year and kept Ali and Campbell at bay. Youngman vs William is seemingly a big match cooking up for 2022… Brooklyn’s Finest, Freedom Eagle and Hawkeye Calhoun have held the tag belts for over a year at this point. It’s mostly due to the lack of challengers as they have defended the belts against only two different teams. I’d love it if TEW's AI booking was better. QAW  I have once again very little to say about QAW. They won’t be hitting Medium any time soon, but have been churning out solid shows through the year. If CWA goes down, QAW would probably be very happy to scout a lot of talent from there, if they somehow don’t end up in USPW.  With Foxxy LaRue out with a shattered elbow, the task of grabbing the reins fell to Danielle Sweetheart. She won the Queen of the Ring tournament and later started her fourth reign as the QAW World champion. She, along with Pinky Perez, has also been responsible for a lot of the best stuff QAW had to offer this year. Alina America also deserves credit for a great World title reign spanning most of the year.  Their best newcomers come from the outside. Former basketball player Tameka Sky has landed in her new profession well enough and has already been plugged to main events. Super rookie Ashley Keith (niece of Sam, cousin of Matthew and Greg) has also been quickly elevated to main event picture. Future looks steady for QAW as CWA is about to exit the market and USPW has spent most of their attention raiding SWF. PSW  This is another company that really should have been considered for most improved. PSW look to be hitting Medium sometime next year, which might spell trouble for NYCW. Financially they are raking in record profits. If they would funnel some of that cash into improving their production values, their shows would probably benefit as well.  Ernest Youngman has been on fire in both NYCW and PSW, churning out barnburners on a nightly basis. With Nelson Callum now gone, Logan Wolfsbaine and Ash Campbell provide backup against… Kurt Laramee and Dusty Ducont? Geez. In one of my saves PSW turned into a retirement home for past their prime midcarders from the big leagues, and this is indeed a worrying sign of that happening again. The tag titles have ping ponged between Rich and Famous and Samoan Destruction Inc since pretty much 2017. Random pairings of Campbell and Buck Winchester and Xavi Ferrara and Cerberus seem to buck the trend for a moment. PSW face the same reality as NYCW do. If Youngman goes, there will be a collapse. How bad, that remains to be seen. CZCW  CZCW has stayed the course. Still the biggest of the small ones, the west coast group has had the strongest overall shows below the big three.  The company is forced to move on from the stars of days past with Masked Cougar and Frankie Perez finally leaving. Now the baton has been passed to Frankie-Boy Fernandes who has risen to the occasion. The company is really top heavy. Fernandez is a level above everyone else, but gets support from The Wild Cats, The American Cobras and American Flash. Despite his skills, Fernandes is not the champion, He had a long reign with the secondary Extreme title, but the biggest gold on the coast eludes him. Lucha legend Pablo Rodriguez had a stranglehold on the belt for six underwhelming months and now the honor belongs to known backstage problem child, technical veteran Al Coleman. Coleman has been an improvement… when he doesn’t have to face the previous champion which is a lot of times.  Despite being the first intergender company in America, the ladies have yet to break through to the upper echelons of the card. The company hasn’t made any big hires so the weight has fallen to the homegrown talent. Kira Lee has fared the best, but is very much stuck in the midcard. Maybe when CZCW rises to Medium, they will bolster the women’s side of the roster as well. TCW  TCW was probably the closest candidate to challenge EILL for the Company of the Year, but unlike their Mexican powerhouse TCW is lacking in necessary depth. Aaron Andrews and Wolf Hawkins hold spots #1 and #3 respectively in the Power 500 and it shows. When TCW main evented with either guy, it was a success. When they didn’t, things didn’t go as well.  Joshua Taylor hasn’t been a bad World champion, but the veteran doesn’t exactly sparkle compared to his younger compatriots. He has gotten a lot out of Titan in their three match series, but hopefully he’ll get some fresh challengers in 2022. I don’t know, maybe Greg Gauge, who has been mysteriously buried in the tag division losing most of his matches for the past few years. It just is more important to push The Elite (Nate Johnson, 45 and Eddie Chandler, 46), Harry Allen (44) or Dazzling Dave Diamond (43). And I thought SWF was living off nostalgia! TCW rises and falls with their two top stars. If both Hawkins and Andrews get poached, they are done. SWF  Constant up-down motion, but SWF is somehow still in second place in the three-way war for wrestling supremacy.  Despite losing a lot of their starting main event level talent to USPW, the response has mostly been to hire nostalgia acts to bolster the roster. Thankfully SWF has also tried elevating some younger talent to bigger positions. Both Bumfholes, Huey Cannonball, Ranger and Marshall Dillon have found themselves as Major Stars for the company alongside the more established names. The company can’t ride guys like Brandon James, Angry Gilmore or even Tommy Cornell forever. A lot of the midcard is still really old, especially with stars of the past like Enygma, Eddie Peak, Guide and Big Smack Scott taking space. Spencer Spade is the guy being wasted as a loser to the stars. Push the guy, for god’s sake!  Scythe is the next big monster in the company and has performed accordingly. He might be a one note brawler, but hot drat is he over and churning out some results thanks to that. His spot on the top ten of Power 500 was more than justified. SWF also has two booming latino stars probably for the first time in their history. Gino Montero and Velocidad are superstars waiting to happen once their popularity and language skills pick up. They are currently languishing at the bottom of the card, probably popping more than just a few veins of long time fans, when seen losing to Big Smack Scott on pre-shows. USPW  USPW have actually lost around one point of popularity across the USA. Not that it matters much at Titanic, where there’s nowhere to go but down. How come USPW hasn’t been winning the promotion of the year award if they are loaded with talent? Well…  USPW has the biggest stars in the world. Unfortunately they are old. Nicky Champion, Remo, Valiant, Rich Money and reigning World champion Steve Frehley are all in various degrees of time decline. Only two of their Major Stars don’t feel the dreaded time decline in their backs, Joss Thompson (40) and Alicia Strong (35). You might be wondering what has USPW doing with all of those other stars they’ve poached from their rivals. Well, mostly nothing.  “Possibly the best wrestler in the world” Jay Chord is barely featured tagging with Hollywood Bret Starr. Cameron Vessey, a megastar in waiting back in CWA has been reduced to a bit player wrestling almost exclusively in the B-show. Former world champions Sammy Bach, Sean McFly and Rogue have mostly been chilling in the midcard and declining hard. The title scene is mostly the same old. Natural Storm title run number eight, James Justice as National champion at age 51, Women’s title bouncing around everyone not named Strong for a while… Sure, USPW still had loads of great shows and matches, but the signs of decline might be already showing. USPW merely has to not gently caress up to keep gaining ground on it’s rivals. Next time: Back to business. And there's still time to vote on the Gilbert question.
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Mar 8, 2022 20:41
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Do you have whatever feature that generates new companies (as opposed to opening ones in the database set to open later) turned on?
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Mar 8, 2022 22:06
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Veryslightlymad posted:Do you have whatever feature that generates new companies (as opposed to opening ones in the database set to open later) turned on? Looking at the settings, I don't have that feature turned on. And I can't for the life of me remember if enabling it prevents the pre-set companies from opening.
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Mar 9, 2022 11:06
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BTF posted:He has also been the trios champion for 562 days and has defended that belt once.
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Mar 11, 2022 12:48
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more days, or more defenses? because lmao if it's the latter my lucha knowledge is sadly limited
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Mar 11, 2022 14:46
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biosterous posted:more days, or more defenses? because lmao if it's the latter Titles in Lucha Libre aren't very important in the big scheme of things.
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Mar 12, 2022 05:17
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Episode 33: Back for more Our arbitrary critical owner goal for the next two years is to stay at #29 or above at the company rankings. A ranking score is calculated by multiplying the popularity of a company in each game area by that region’s potential fan base. Each region has a different potential fan base, in the case of New South Wales it’s 80%. As long as we manage to grow steadily, we should be fine… should be. Of the companies below us (ZEN, DIW, YEPW in Oceania, ELPF, VWA, UEW in Europe, SNP and CWW in UK) we have better and/or equal rated shows compared to everyone but ZEN. The danger comes from the growth of VWA and UEW, since Europe has one more region than Australia, thus potentially granting them a better score due to having popularity in more areas than us. And yes, it would be absolutely stupid to get fired over failing this owner goal. “I’m sorry Lanny, TEW.com rates APW as only the #30 best company in the world. I’ll have to let you go.” “...Boss, we’re making more money than ever, breaking attendance records and more importantly, putting DIW six feet under.” “Get out of my office.”  Marriages and relationships aren’t the only things that can be broken. Friendships can end just as well, although they seem to be a bit more rare. Valiant and Rogue, partners/enemies in the ring for the past fifteen years, see their real life friendship grow cold. Was it the first year spent apart working in different promotions followed by a reunion at USPW, who knows.   Human Arsenal, one half of the all timer tag team The Machines, announces his retirement and is immediately pissed that no one wants to hire him long term. His tag partner, Brent Hill has already retired, so he won’t even get that one last nostalgia match. He’ll probably become a fine road agent after he retires.  And yes, we hire Nicky Gilbert. The price is steep (the original asking price was closer to 4000 per appearance) and I have to cover his travel, but it’s manageable. I could have gotten him for less, if I had agreed to give him Wage Matching or Hiring Veto, which I wasn’t willing to do. I am fairly certain RAW will be getting him back sooner rather than later, so let’s enjoy him as long as we can.  Time to hit the Road to OzFest. Hamstead arrives with some 60 pizzas, making everyone really happy and making the poor soul who has to clean up probably pretty angry.  Kasey makes another one of his frequent visits to the Wrestler’s Court, this time due to his inability to pick up his share of the bar tab. He’ll pay, dearly.  The first show of the year ends up looking something like this. Wayne Family (Wayne himself, Keenan and Laine) open the show with a hot trios match against three very much expendable heels. D-Pod follows by telling them that he doesn’t really care for family values and wants Wayne and the whole gang outta here. Macquarie joins The Dudes in another trios match, but Devil and Next Level get the better of them this time. Bradford Peverell cuts a promo about his deadly right hook, promising to deliver a knockout blow to Mills soon enough. SubUrban Legend faces Massacre and gets the win surprisingly easy, as if Massacre was throwing the match on purpose. Animal Kingdom and Team Forbes meet in trios action, where Devine uses Nameth’s new spinning tombstone himself to pin Prellinger. Afterwards Tyrant is mad as hell and Naoji Azumi is the guy to stand up against the guy. Tyrant merely scoffs at the small Japanese lad. Positive Energy defend against the last possible Goliath combination and finally fall, but not without controversy. Legend’s interference goes awry and tips the scale to the bad guys. Main event is an all star affair with three big feuds combining in, what else, a trios match. It’s another APW special, a no contest draw but the big news comes afterwards as Nicky Gilbert debuts and cleans house.  Make it three in a row! Another 60 rated show thanks to an awesome main event. - Pinn is the only weak link in that main event there, everyone else does really well. You’ve heard it before, Mills and Warmonger are the two best performers in that match. The Gilbert angle is also really drat good, probably elevating the show just that bit more. - Positive Energy’s reign ends in the best match of the reign. Despite his backstage antics, Tate has earned a title. Hamstead will be doing a lot of heavy lifting, but hopefully Tate will be getting a boost as well. Now we have a really solid crop of challengers for their reign, with The Dudes, SHADOW LEGENDS, Animal Kingdom and Anti-Polar Vortex all being reasonable picks to eventually dethrone the duo. - The Peverell angle ends up being really good despite his low popularity! Sure, Pinn and Mills were both involved, but results are still results! - Legend vs Massacre is notable as I ran this match back in 2020, scoring a 44. Massacre has deteriorated, Legend has improved and both have improved in popularity so it’s nice to see them do this much better the second time around.   Lads… I KNOW. It’s a long build, we’ll get Legend in a prominent main event position some day!   CZCW is the first company to hit Medium in 2022. They don’t make any new hires immediately, but they do cut their developmental ties to EILL a few weeks later… which I had completely forgotten they even had one such deal. EILL really loves to make developmental deals but never sends any workers there.     Another round of expected and/or bizarre hires from North America. USPW hires the reigning TCW World champion, making this the third or fourth time in this save they hire a reigning world champion from TCW or SWF. One half of the team of the year also heads that way. EILL hires CMLL/OLLIE top star Extraordinario Jr, which might be quite bad for the smaller Mexican companies. Not to be outdone, TCW hires… “The Big Problem” Peter Novak, a 43 year old big beefy American playing a russian bad guy very much past whatever prime he ever had. Well, thankfully there’s none of that here in sunny little Ocea-  oh poo poo  So, RAW has thrown in an offer for SubUrban Legend. Legend was always a guy that would fit into the RAW wheelhouse really well, having great entertainment stats even for a bigger company. The offer came really soon, as I thought RAW would start picking off my more experienced and more popular guys first and- what’s that? wait, I can offer written deals despite being small? … SINCE WHEN (me, despite being “good” at this game and playing for way too many hours, completely forgot that the ability to offer written deals was no longer tied to the size of the company from this edition onwards. In previous editions workers would outright refuse to take written deals in a Small company. Also, Small AI controlled companies never give out written deals.) SO, I decide to fight for Legend. You want to bury one of my shining future stars in a never-ending pre-show loop? You’ll have to pay more than that! I have the money… for now. If I can’t keep him, at least I’ll drag his price tag up a bit.  My counter offer is quite simple. I offer more money and a longer deal, three years compared to RAW’s two.  Legend is a very happy man, as this deal would net him only a few tenners less than Gilbert would get from his two monthly appearances.  A day later RAW ups the money offered. Almost 8 000 a month, 10% bonus per event (it’s a trap, RAW doesn't have events, only TV shows) and a pretty decent signing bonus. I up my offer to 7 000 per month and keep the three years. Legend once again confirms that he would take this deal. After a few days, RAW throws down their final offer, only raising the salary and signing bonus by a little bit. Legend doesn’t bite. RAW has the financial muscle to throw ridiculous amounts of money, but they choose not to.  Few days later, we have signed our first wrestler to a written deal. Legend instantly becomes our top earner. So, why did I decide to fight for Legend? He’s currently not our best guy, but he very much has the potential to be that. His entertainment skills are only second to Wayne and Gilbert. He is also easily marketable, meaning that once he starts getting merch he should be a great merch mover as well. I know I can’t keep everyone, so at this point I have to choose my battles carefully and Legend, to me, was very much worth fighting for.   WQ2020 continue their frankly bizarre tag title booking. Three tag title matches, three title changes as the original champions regain the titles. Ms. Tai gets so hyped up about this that she leaves 5SSW a few days later. Might not be the best career move, that.   Our partners also hit Medium, jumping the hurdle before EX2010 can do the same. They don’t go too wild, only picking up freshly out of BHOTWG Reijiro Hiraki and EX2010 reliable midcard act Kokei Shoda. They’ll be getting Azumi and Next Level back soon enough to bolster their midcard a bit.  Lucas Pobb gets a win over the owner of YEPW in a pre-show match and immediately declares himself the true MVP. Even if Legend is not there (him signing an exclusive deal with me also means that he’s out of YEPW), there’s a LOT of guys in that roster better than you.   DIW finally does the very much expected as Grace becomes the Australian champion. The tag titles also change hands in the same show as recent hires Switchblade and D.O.A, collectively known as Crime Wave, win the titles for the first time in their careers.  Is the rib “I almost went to RAW?” If so, hilarious, my dude.  The Experience entertains the locker room with a mix of stories from his ZEN days and his various acting and stand up gigs. I should really find something to do for him.  OzFest is the place to blow off a lot of stories at once and the show looks like this. Gilbert arrives in style and cuts a quick promo about how he’s the future of Australian wrestling and the next megastar on the level of Bruce the Giant. The man has a way of endearing himself to an audience despite some clear cockiness. Pinn interrupts the fine speech and warns Gilbert to not mess with Enterprises any further, even sending Blithe in to face off against the newcomer. Opening match is a four way match for the Australian Championship as Devil is once again victorious. Positive Energy confront Legend after he basically cost them the tag titles last show. Legend is sorry, but the former champs aren’t buying what he’s selling. Nighthawk tags along in a trios match, but the good guys are once again defeated by Goliath Global. Azumi and Simonson face off against Team Forbes but the might of Tyrant is too much for Simonson to overcome. Gilbert has his first match, a surprisingly close encounter with Blithe but naturally wins in the end. Wayne Family win another trios match as I continue to establish Keenan and Laine. D-Pod cuts another promo, introducing L & L as his new “business partners.” Lucketti is too focused on grabbing selfies and Lydecker looks too bland to really concern the Wayne Family quite yet. The Dudes and Next Level finally have just a normal tag match as The Dudes get the win over the soon departing duo. Devine and Nameth have their rematch and the veteran gets his win back, building the perfect counterplan to Nameth’s new tool. El Hijo Del Fox Mask answers to Warmonger's continued aggression by challenging him to a rematch, and if he wins War has to leave the company! Mills takes on Peverell, manages to avoid the dreaded knockout blow and successfully retains his title. Pinn and Gerard finally settle their differences in a COAL MINER’S GLOVE match (an old gimmick match still included in the default match types, basically a loaded glove hangs in one corner of the ring and can be used as a weapon). Gerard finally ends his own torment by destroying Pinn and celebrating furiously.  RAW should tremble in their boots, as I hit 61 for the show! (They shouldn’t, RAW’s show grades float around mid-70s/low 80s) - Look at that Gilbert match! 68 so our best yet! I feel like I’m cheating! Blithe even gains popularity with this particular loss! And another 71 rated angle to open the show! Getting Wayne and Gilbert have definitely given me two tools to cheese my way to higher ratings… now if only they would lose without complaining too much… - The last two matches are both pretty darn good, considering that Peverell is still very much not over and Pinn is very much not that good in the ring anymore. Pinn will be downcycled to a more supporting role in his stable in the coming months and years while Peverell hopefully has a lot of good years ahead of him. - The angle with Positive Energy and SHADOW LEGENDS is also really good. Legend is naturally one of our better mic workers, but Chuck probably also contributed. The rating is especially good as Kasey notably underperformed, despite not being asked to do anything notable. - The L & L angle suffers from Lucketti, Lydecker, Keenan and Laine having really low popularity so not even Wayne and D-Pod can elevate the angle that much higher. But hey, it’s a work in progress. - The Global tag is sneakily the second best match on the card, thanks to a monster performance by Hamstead. The big man is still very much on fire.  ZEN hire back Toady, one of their trusted tag workers. I had completely forgotten that he was even let go. Not that it matters much, he is very much unremarkable and not APW material. And I have to cut the update short a few days from a full month. RAW isn’t done yet.  Richie Fox gets a contract offer from RAW, that is initially bigger than the first Legend offer. Understandable, as Fox is more popular than Legend. And this time, it's a three year deal off the bat. Fox has taken leaps towards a bigger position thanks to his feud against the Apocalypse and is a pretty integral part of Animal Kingdom (being the only guy who is really good at entertainment) not to mention a great backstage presence. But how much can I spend on him, since I’m pretty sure this won’t be the last RAW offer coming our way… So, Poll Time. Do we fight for Richie Fox? A) Yes. Fox is a good brawler, popular and entertaining, really everything APW wants from it’s wrestlers. He is 32 years old, so while he won’t be taking any huge leaps in his skills, he is good enough to be a main event/upper midcard level guy at our current size. B) No. Let the man go… again. War needs no one man. I can’t keep everyone, so maybe it is just better to save the money for some other guys who are more important to the present (Mills) and future (Lucas).
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Mar 14, 2022 10:12
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