jokerdesilva

This is using the Effganic Plus mod. I just let it auto-advance until 1985 to give it a thriving "world state" and dove in. I also dumped in some original company names for flavor and a larger picture pack, borrowing the Thunderverse images, just for a bit of diversity. ***** October 2nd, 1985 The Milford Ice Palace, Connecticut, crowd of 885 "Alexander, you got a minute?" I didn't, not really. It was time to run my first ever show and I was trying to make sure that everyone got their appropriate assignments. Then again, it was week one, and Jerome Buck had technically laid out all the shows already for the transition period, so it wasn't as bad as it might normally be. And, of course, Mr. Dishman was the boss. Of course I had time for him. I didn't have much of a choice, did I? "Of course, sir," I said, settling back in my chair. He loomed over, cigar in hand as normal. The man had to be charcoal on the inside. "Good, good. Listen, I've been thinking and I'm putting a lot of faith in your hands, so I just want to lay out a couple important ground rules." Inside, I groaned, not knowing how strict this was going to be, but I didn't let it show on my face. Again, he was the boss. I had to play nice. "See, it seems to me I'm not setting you up to be a very effective cook if I don't let you handle the groceries," he said, tipping some ash into the ashtray on my desk. I didn't smoke, but I expected frequent visits from Dean, from Joel, Izaiah, and anyone else who was interested, so it paid to be prepared. "Meaning, if you want to have some say in talent, that's fine with me. You're the booker, and you need boys who are going to be able to play to your script, and if you don't have use for someone, well, we can certainly discuss letting them go." That was, frankly, a lot more generous than I had been expecting, but I just nodded passively, like it made all the sense in the world. My mind was already ticking over, trying to decide what gaps to fill. "But I have some expectations, and three big rules for you in the next year or two, alright? Number one: don't put my company into debt. I don't expect that to happen, but if I see red on the ledger, you're out the door. Got it?" "I wouldn't dream of it, sir," I said. And I couldn't. GCW was worth something in the millions. How could I possibly burn through that in a matter of three years? I wasn't that bad a booker, was I? "Good," he said, satisfied. "The other two are just talent limits. See, I'm not blind. I know that GCW has a lot of gray in its beard across the board, and we can't be turning this into an old folks' home just because they have name value. So no one north of, oh, let's say 38, shall we?" Which, again, suited me just fine. I wanted a youth movement for GCW. Robinson, Kramer, Grey, Kandori, they were going to get slowly phased out if I could pull it off, with new talent to move up in their place. "And while I love me a good punch in the mouth from time to time, it's getting a little heavy on the hamhocks around here. No more big brawlers. I want to see a bit more... " He twirled his hands around as he searched for the word, the tip of his cigar painting an orange circle. "Style. Flash. Pizzazz. We're not gonna be WWB, but a little more flying and little more technique wouldn't go awry. Something for everyone, right?" "Variety is the spice of life," I said, figuring he'd appreciate the culinary metaphor. He snapped his fingers. "Spice of life. Yes. That. And I want this place hot enough to burn the tongue. Dump some tabasco on there, alright?" He looked around at the milling wrestlers getting ready for the show and stepped in, clapping me on the back. "Alright, well, I'll leave you to it. You have enough on your plate already. Do me proud, Alex!" "I'll do everything I can, sir," I said, turning back to the booking sheet. Not that I was doing much tonight, not yet. This was Buck's show, really, and I was still getting my feet under me and seeing what the roster could do. I'd paid attention to GCW in passing, previously, but to be honest I'd been more busy running PCCW and trying to keep a company together, so I wasn't as educated as I might of liked. These first two weeks were a trial run, and I could go from there. vs vs vs In the Pre-Show, Reijiro Kandori beat Jacoby Disney in 6:07 with a leglock (41) for a decent little match. Both men were on the wrong side of 40, Reijiro after all nearly 50, but he put on a good showing and why he was still on the upper end of the card. Jack Raiden beat Tommy Carleton in 13:09 (39), and the two showed some great chemistry with each other, but there was a lack of psychology and it dragged in the middle, so those two would definitely need different opponents or help if I was going to set them up again any time soon. Finally, the Black Hat Rodeo of Dwayne Olivares and Jase Marshall beat Kurt Grey and Ryan Osburn (38). This was one of the few I actually stepped in an put my name on: I made it clear that the Black Hat Rodeo were to go over, since they were a couple young guys in their 20s on the rise, and while Grey and Osburn were much more well known, Osburn was the younger at 37. I was glad I did, because Grey and Osburn had zero tag team chemistry, and with Kury Grey working hurt – he had a strained shoulder – the match wasn’t as good as I might have hoped. vs In the main show, we opened with a bout between Poseidon, the King of the Seas, and Richard Auston, who up until this point had been little more than a job guy in GCW. Poseidon beat him in 7:45 and they put on a good showing (45), but it was all Poseidon’s doing. He looked like a star, even though Auston didn’t seem to know how to work well with him. After that, Poseidon stood over Richard Auston’s beaten body, grabbed a microphone, and cut a quick promo on Wolf Koziol, promising to show him just what drowning felt like when he put him in the Sleeper hold. (54) We went to Wolf backstage, where he responded to Poseidon, making it clear that he wasn’t intimidated in the slightest and was looking forward to meeting Poseidon in the ring, but he was interrupted by Billy Ray Bragg. He told Wolf that before he went anywhere, he needed to worry about one of the roughest, toughest men in GCW, because they had a match coming up first. Wolf looked a whole lot better than Bragg, to be honest, but it was a good segment all the same. (61) Their match was similarly pretty good. Oh yes, Billy Ray Bragg is definitely a guy I could see myself building up if he could keep putting on matches like that, because despite being a lot lower on the totem pole than Wolf, he hung in there and looked almost as good. He still lost, of course, to a big lariat in 10:47. (53) Adonis Lash and Marcus Kramer came out next for an interview. They ranted about going up against Dustin Robinson and Carver Wells, stating that while the two men might be champions at the moment, they were going to find out who the real powers were in GCW here shortly – and that they were coming for some belts. Robinson and Wells came out to meet them, the Heavyweight and North American champions, and vowed to show why they were, in fact, the top dogs around here. A sold showing from some of my top guys. (55) vs The four had a tag match to close the show, which Dustin Robinson won by pinning Marcus Kramer in 12:18. It felt like a slightly odd decision to have the babyfaces go over clean when the idea was to build to a title match between the two, but the crowd certainly loved their heroes so I couldn’t complain too much, especially when Kramer and Lash weren’t remotely long-term top candidates, seeing as both are in their late 40s. Then again, so is Robinson. Yuck. At least Wells is 30 and seems to have some upside. Regardless of their ages, all four looked really good, so I can hopefully rely on some safe main events while I build the undercard. (52) At least, that was how I felt until the match was over and Marcus Kramer came back from the ring seething. He thought that Wells had nearly hurt him with a botched move, and frankly, there had been a suplex spot where Wells hadn’t quite muscled up the big guy clean enough, and it looked like Kramer could have gone right down on his head. I told him that I’d speak to the kid and make sure he knew to tighten up in there, and hopefully that would soothe him. All in all, though, not a bad show for my first one in charge – even if I hadn’t really done anything yet. (54) The next morning, we got the first numbers. GCW Combat Television got a .37 rating, with 279k viewers. Not too bad, though pretty consistent with what they’ve been doing. Hopefully I could start making that tic up sooner than later. Especially since the numbers came in for ASW – Watch This Space and WWB Turbo in the early week. ASW got .59 and just shy of 450k, and WWB got a 1.84 with 1.38 million viewers. We definitely had some room to make up. Hopefully, Week 2 would show some growth. We were back at the Milford Ice Palace for another night, October 9th, in front of a crowd of 864, a slight downturn and still far from a 1000 seat sellout. Not the best. vs vs The preshow saw Reijiro Kandori submit Layton White (43), and Jack Raiden once again beat Tommy Carleton in another match that saw a lack of flow but slightly better psychology, (40). It was nice to see one of my closely watched talents get a win, even on the preshow, but I don’t know why I let this same match go two weeks in a row. That wouldn’t happen when I was actually putting the booking sheets together. vs As the televised show began, the masked Mean Machine – in another one of my first fingerprints I’d decided to rename him from “Violet Rooster,” which really made no sense for his look – came out to show off some of his new attitude. Fired up and surly, he demanded attention from anyone in the back who wanted to see what a mean streak he had, which brought out Ryan Osburn to accept the challenge. (43). They actually put on a decent match together, with Mean Machine visibly improving at his new surly jerk gimmick, but Osburn tapped him out with a spinning toe hold in 9:31 (48) leading to a little tantrum after the match. vs After that, Adonis Lash similarly cut an interview to state his excitement to wrestle Carver Wells for the North American championship at the next big event. He wanted a tune-up match, which brought out Antone Benner. I’d told him to start acting a little more heely, since it seemed to fit his look and style better than his current face position, but even if he was veering towards vicious, he still accepted the challenge in somewhat noble fashion. (54) They followed up with a nice little match that showed off Lash’s skills well, and he won with a Boston Crab in 9:47 (49). Wolf Koziol was next on interviews, giving a general challenge to Poseidon and that he wasn’t afraid of the King of the Seas. His whole rebellious bad boy demeanor is working nicely, and that was good, since at 36 he was one of our youngest borderline main eventers, so I could probably run with that hot streak soon. (57) Carver Wells, meanwhile, answered Adonis Lash’s challenge in his own interview and simply stated that he was going to be the best North American champion that he could be, and would accept all comers. He still feels a little bland in my books, and while he’s talented, and only 30, I’d need to figure out a good angle for him if he was going to stay champion for long. (48) vs In a tag team match, Poseidon and Sal Nations, a 23-year old former Tag Team champion with seemingly a lot of upside, took on Wells and Kurt Grey. Adonis Lash did a little interfering on Wells’s part, and Poseidon got the pin off a Face Crusher on Grey in 6:14. Nations still looked a little green but he’s blossoming, and Poseidon was of course the star of the match, with Wells hanging in there nicely. (53) After the match, Poseidon once again promised to help Wolf know just what drowning felt like, the slow oppressive weight of his Sleeper hold putting him deep, deep under the water until all there was left was darkness. (58) Honestly, not our best show. (54) The fact that Dustin Robinson, our world champion, and neither of his potential challengers in Marcus Kramer or Dale Whitlock showed up was questionable. I get not wanting to overexpose them but if we had a big arena show coming up, it only made sense to have them on the go-home, right? Commentary had put them over a little, but jeez. And the next morning, the ratings came in – 0.35, 263k. The wrong direction. All told, there was definite room for improvement, and now Jerome’s shows were off the books, and I’d have free range. Sink or swim. Here’s hoping Poseidon wouldn’t see any more drowning. Next Time: GCW New Dawn 10/13/1985, Joseph J. Morrone Stadium: Scorpio Nations vs Ryan Osburn Black Hat Rodeo (Olivares and Marshall) vs The Hillbillies - GCW Tag Team Championship Reijiro Kandori vs Jack Raiden Black Hat Rodeo (Whitlock and Bragg) vs Kurt Grey and Antone Benner Adonis Lash vs Carver Wells - GCW North American Championship Poseidon vs Wolf Koziol Marcus Kramer vs Dustin Robinson - GCW Heavyweight Championship

Thank you kindly! I happen to think they're super cool just because of the incredible variety and total "ground up" nature, so I'm glad I'm not alone. I'll do my best to live up to your expectations! I'd be more than happy to! Anything specific you were interested in hearing about, just so I know where to begin? Also the next in-Diary post will probably go up tomorrow afternoon, I've just been setting up a backlog of three months or so written out so I have a decent buffer. The first one will be a shorter parsing through of the first two weeks, with more detailed show recaps to follow, but I'm open to suggestions on the formatting.

September 28th, 1985 I arrived at my office, also known as the $6 motel room I had on the outskirts of Kennewick, and let my bag drop on the ground without a care. There was nothing to do but sit on the bed, shake an unfiltered cigarette out of the package, and just stare at the ugly painting hanging on the opposite wall. It was a deer standing in a glade, and it looked like it had been painted by a twelve year old with a head injury. The cigarette spun between my fingers. After five years of hard work, Pacific Coast Championship Wrestling had gone out of business. To be blunt, my boss had been an idiot, a money mark who just hired any big name who drifted into town, plying them with booze and pills and call girls until they rumbled out for the next payday in the next show. He spent $300 a week to get us on TV, just to get crowds of 50 people in to the arena shows to collect $50 in tickets and maybe another $20 in concessions if we were lucky. I did my best to book the shows, not to mention play manager to whatever shaved bear with name value he wanted to play the part of “monster of the week,” and I’d been hit with five beer bottles, two batteries, and a condom filled with urine, so I seemed to be doing my job pretty well, all things considered. But it wasn’t enough. Our money mark’s funds had run dry, or at least dry enough that he couldn’t justify keeping the doors open, and PCCW was dead. The legacy of Alexander Allred had seemingly died along with it. The wrestling business wasn’t exactly booming in the Pacific Northwest, and it was the only trade I knew, ever since joining a ring crew and taking photos at 15. Where else was I going to go? Picking apples in an orchard in Walla Walla? The cigarette spun. The ugly deer stared back, lifeless and flat. It just made a man wonder if there was any fairness in the world. And then the phone rang. I stared at it for a moment. Was it my ex-boss, putting together one more desperate plan to save the day? One of the boys wanting to take his skimped paycheck out of my hide, since I was the one always tasked with handing out the paydays? A debt collector? Motel management calling to tell me to quiet down the self-pity, because I was keeping the rest of the guests up? Hell with it. I picked up the receiver. “Hello?” “Is this Alexander Allred?” the voice on the other end asked. I didn’t recognize it, and I didn’t know if that was good or not. “This is he.” “Good, I’m glad Louis steered me the right way.” Louis, as in my previous employer Louis? Who had he given my number to? But that question was answered before I could voice it. “My name is Dean Dishman.” And that name was actually familiar. Dean Dishman was the owner and operator of Global Championship Wrestling, the third-biggest promotion in the US and a roaring upstart. Dean Dishman was one of the wealthiest men in wrestling, with a company valued somewhere north of $20 million. Dean Dishman was a man I had never once expected in my life to speak to. I was struck dumb. A decade in the business, maybe, but I’d never once entered the same circle as a man like this. “How can I help you, Mr. Dishman?” “I take you know who I am, Alex?” “That’s right, sir.” “Good, that’ll make things faster,” he said, with a dragging warmth in his heavy Boston accent. “See, I seen some of you work, got some tapes of those PCCW shows. Louis told me you were the one running them behind the scenes, handling the book, that so?” My mouth felt paper dry and the world was spinning under my feet, and I hadn’t even had a drink in 72 hours. “That’s right, sir.” “Well, you see, my understanding is that you are in need of work,” he said, rightly. “And that is convenient, on account of me being in need of a booker.” ‘Bookah,’ he said, and I had to swallow a hysterical giggle. I couldn’t risk offending the man who seemed to not only be offering me a life-line, but the job of my dreams. “See, my very good friend, you might know him as Jerome Buck?” Jerome Buck, yes, a man who had won Heavyweight titles in two dozen territories and drawn some of the biggest houses all across the Eastern Seaboard. I was quite familiar. Especially because, most importantly, he was a four-time GCW Heavyweight Champion and had been the face of the company for most of their existence. “He just retired, can’t stay on the road no more. He’s got three kids and a bad back, now, time for him to hang up the boots, see? And he was handling my book. I knew I needed someone fresh, anyway, we been working together for twenty years, now. I need someone to give me a fresh perspective. And I seen your tapes. You got a good mind for the business, your company just didn’t have no talent, and no leadership. I can offer you talent. And I will give you leadership. I just need you to make my show the best.” His voice hardened there. “I’m tired of being low on the totem pole. I want you to understand, Alex, you take this job, I’ve got high hopes and high aspirations, and I expect you to keep to them. I’ve been living in two long shadows for quite some time, and I am tired of it.” Oh yes, two very long shadows indeed. ASW and WWB, the kings of wrestling in the North and South. Up in New York, we had American Style Wrestling, a $100 million juggernaut that showed off what they called ‘the best of all-American wrestling.’ Big men, bright colors, loud voices, and they were selling out places like Madison Square Garden, so who was I to argue? And in the southern end of the country, we had Wrestling Without Borders. An unexpected titan in the industry, but they had taken a blend of American wrestling and luchador pageantry and made a Tex-Mex blend that ran all across the south of the United States. They dominated everywhere from California to Florida and into Mexico, and they had taken turns controlling the industry with ASW, back and forth, both of them always standing right above Global’s head. “So if you take this job, I have an ask of you,” he said, and I could all but imagine this big burly Boston tough, with his square jaw and five o’clock stubble, jabbing a thick finger at me with a cigar burning. “I’ll give you three years. Three years to take the fight to ASW and WWB. Three years to make this company the hottest thing. I want to know that you can take me to the next level. I will give you the money, the talent, everything you could need. But you will make us the company in this great goddamn country of America. Does that sound amenable to you, my boy?” And how could it not? It was a big goal, a big dream, but what young man didn’t get into wrestling without big dreams? And I hadn’t seen the big 3-0 yet. I was still a young man, still brash and bold and perhaps stupid enough to believe that I could be a world beater. “Mr. Dishman, I do believe you have yourself a deal.” “Good. I knew I would,” he said. “Get to SEA-TAC tomorrow by 8am, tell the concierge you’re here to pick up a ticket for Alexander Allred, and we will sign the paperwork by lunch time.” He let out a sharp chuckle. “You ever had Maine lobster, boy?” ***** September 30th, 1985 Call me a hometown boy, but Maine lobster wasn’t quite as nice as Dungeness crab, but it still made a perfectly fine meal to celebrate a new job. The celebrating was over, though, and it was time to get to work. Jerome Buck had left us two more shows for the GCW Combat Television that they had showing in a handful of public access networks. That made my job just a little bit easier. I had to get caught up on the storylines and the players, and decide where I wanted to go from here. I couldn’t just upset the applecart completely, of course, but Mr. Dishman had left me with the expectation to change things, to bring a new energy. ASW, after all, was the old guard, the classic ideal of wrestling, brash and simple. Part of what made WWB what it was today, something that could challenge ASW, was that they had blended lucha into American wrestling and made something new, different, and dynamic. It was an opinion that Mr. Dishman and I shared. The problem was, though, we couldn’t just copy what they’d done – that would just make us look even more second-rate, not to mention alienate our existing audience. They liked the hard hitting, raw and real wrestling style, not too violent or dramatic, but they wanted in-ring storytellers and icons. We just needed to find what was going to work best, what angle to steer into, and how to get the people energized. Which meant I had to find our stars. The biggest problem, admittedly, was that our roster was, well. Old. Jerome Buck had been the star for decades, and most of the top acts left were guys that had worked with him and against him. Because that was the problem with being the number three company, wasn’t it? WWB and ASW tended to poach anyone who looked promising, such as recent Heavyweight champion Hector Bliss, a former college football standout who GCW had built into a major name in programs against and alongside Buck at only 33 – before ASW came calling and snapped him up. Everyone left was either old enough not to be worth it, too loyal to Buck and GCW to leave, or too anonymous to be on anyone’s radar. For the long-term health of the company, I needed to find the young guys in our undercard worth building up, and that was going to take some time to scout out properly. But, I supposed, the first place to start was with our current main eventers. Our current number one act and Heavyweight Champion was Dustin Robinson. At 44 years old, he was getting pretty creaky, but he was an all-American type that stood for patriotism and apple pie and all that good stuff. He’d always been a guy near the top of the roster, he just hadn’t been able to crack the top of the top because, well, Mr. Dishman had had Jerome Buck, and you didn’t need a top babyface other than him, did you? Heck, even when they did, they had Joel Koster, until his career-ending knee injury that had seen him turn into a reliable road agent and member of my creative team. Now they were both gone, and Dustin Robinson was the man at the top of the mountain. A seasoned veteran, well-known to the fans, totally reliable, and yet somewhat unremarkable. He had the belt, but I couldn’t imagine it would be for terribly long. Sitting right near the top of the depth chart for heels was Poseidon. He was absolutely one of the biggest names that ASW had, not to mention one of our best talkers, and a dramatic character besides thanks to his face paint and visible scars. The problem, though, was that even though he wasn’t too terribly old at 39, his body was already on a steep decline, thanks in large part to his early career as a crab fisherman beating him to bits. He’d been world champion before and might be again yet, and if nothing else he seemed like he’d be a great manager once he decided to hang up his boots, as our menacing “King of the Seas”. Even older at 47, we had Marcus Kramer, who was holding up incredibly well for a heavyweight powerhouse at 47. He’d been a constantly reliable presence, a territory monster who could go toe-to-toe with any babyface you wanted, and wasn’t going to complain about doing the job at the end of it all. He was still a menacing, powerful figure, so even though he probably didn’t have a ton of time left on him, I was sure we could get a few more programs out of him to get some faces over. Similarly, there was Cowboy Dale Whitlock. A hard-nosed bruiser from Texas, he was one of our younger top acts at 40, and well-respected by the audience. Even better, he had established a nice little stable of similar roughnecks around him known as the Black Hat Rodeo. It wasn’t Whitlock himself I was necessarily interested in, it was his underlings. “Sidewinder” Billy Ray Bragg, at 27, was a midcard stalwart that had more name value than a lot of our younger wrestlers, and could battle with the best of them. He hadn’t gotten pushed into the spotlight yet, but it wouldn’t be long, I was sure, before he took over Whitlock’s place. Rounding out the group, we had the current GCW Tag Team Champions, Dwayne Olivares and Jase Marshall. They were both big, tough bruisers, still young and on the come-up, at 26 and 24, and though they hadn’t established themselves too much just yet, they were rising and a decent anchor for what I quickly realized was a pretty dire tag team division. Back on the babyface side, we had Wolf Koziol, 36, a loud-mouthed bruiser with a “rebel without a cause” biker style that seemed to appeal to a lot of the young men in the crowd. Coming out to the ring in a leather jacket and letting out a wolf howl always seemed to get him good reactions, but he had largely up to this point been a lot of sizzle with limited steak. I was hoping I could bring the best out of him, but if nothing else, using him to get over guys like Poseidon and Billy Ray Bragg wouldn’t be the worst thing long term. One of my favorite prospects was “Kodiak” Jack Raiden. At still only 31, he was one of our younger big names on the roster, especially in world title contention, and at 6’4” and 235, he was a big beast of a man that had earned his nickname by rolling over people like a grizzly bear might. He had a natural charm that people were drawn to, and an intensity, and I’d worked with him one or two times in PCCW, not much or a surprise since he came down from Vancouver, BC, to wrestle more often than not. He didn’t especially seem to remember me, but I didn’t take it personally. He’d run through a lot of territories, and had done a cup of coffee at best for us, but now with the financial backing of a real company, we could actually afford him – and, I hoped, build around him. Rounding out our main event scene, such as it was, we had Reijiro Kandori. Fighting out of Japan, the 48 year old was as veteran as they came and I had to imagine I’d only have another year or two left of him full time before he hung up his boots, but the man could still perform. He’d established himself as a star in promotions like UPJ, Pro Wrestling OMEGA, and Hyperion across the Pacific, and he’d established himself well. That kind of name brand was worth something, and I definitely wanted to make sure I could take advantage. Maybe Whitlock wasn’t the only one who needed a stable around him. I’d have to talk to Mr. Dishman about that. From there, we had our midcard, such as it was. There was a pretty solid drop-off from our main event to the rest. As far as name value, we had Adonis Lash, a seasoned vet at 42 who promoted himself as a dashing lothario type and a charismatic heel, and he wasn’t bad at it at all. Our current North American champion was Carver Wells, a good prospect at only 30 years old, who stood out due to his smaller size and technical savvy in the ring, and had so far been positioned as a solid white-meat babyface with a loose alliance with Dustin Robinson. Kurt Grey was a 46 year old with name value but slowly failing physical skills, and was definitely close to the end of his rope, so hopefully I could make something of him before then, but he had power and explosiveness so far. Ryan Osburn, at 37, was on the younger end of the name value wrestlers, and a solid technician besides. He wasn't going to blow anyone away on the microphone, but he was a good mechanic all the same, and sometimes that was all you needed. Antone Benner was a recent North American champion and fairly young, with charisma and a decent look, but his garish black and white face paint and wild black hair didn’t quite seem to suit a babyface persona, so that might be changing up soon one way or another. Rounding out our name value and recent champions was Sal Nations, a 23-year old with a bright future who had been Tag Team champion recently – until WWB had poached his partner, Rick Crowell, and forced a sudden title change. Beyond that, the rest of our card was largely anonymous and that was worrying indeed. Still, my creative team – Jerome Buck, Joel Koster, and Izaiah McKee, all former champions who had hung up their boots – had picked out a couple no names that had a bright future. Top of the list was Sebastien Durant, a 21-year old from Haiti who was almost a total unknown this far north, but had made his way up the easter seaboard with nothing but a dream and a pair of wrestling boots, and he seemed to have a lot of upside. Next was Aaron Redcloud, a 25-year-old kid out of Nebraska with a natural charm and good looking besides, who I could probably push as a solid babyface to get young women in the door. Always helped to have at least one, right? Grady Holston was very different than the other two – a big, burly giant at 6’7” and 384 lbs, he didn’t have much of a name yet but he got attention, and since Buck had paired him up with another near-giant in Garry Beltran, they seemed like the future of my tag division, if I could get them clicking nicely. Similarly, there was Gabe Pilcher, a 26-year old with a naturally sleazy charisma who had teamed up with another dirtbag character named Alonzo O’Toole. Buck had told me they had excellent charisma as partners, so I had no reason not to keep them together, and see if we could develop Pilcher in the doing. And that was it. My roster. Some diamonds in the rough, some seasoned veterans, and maybe one star so far that I could actually anchor around. It wasn’t much, all things considered, after ASW and WWB had done a decent job attempting to pillage the roster when they could, but it would have to be enough. I just had to hope I could bet on the right horses and put them in position to succeed, and that those veterans up at the top would make them look good in the doing. After all, a program like Robinson vs Kramer couldn’t stay at the top for long when both men looked ready to pack it in any year now, and yet that was what Buck had left me to wrap up. Well. That was alright. It was the job. And it meant I had a nicely blank canvas to work with. Time to see how good a painter I could really be. It was only the weight of an entire company and career on my shoulders, right? ***** Alright, and with that said, hello to you, GDS faithful. The name's Joker, and I'm here to hopefully get my first Dynasty started. I realize that I'm putting myself in a bit of a bind going with an Effganic, but frankly, there have been so many fantastic Cornellverse diaries I've read recently that inspired me to do this, that I'm not sure I could dive in without retreading on superior ground. So. Effganic, my favorite mod just because it's such a sometimes unnecessary challenge. I'm hoping that with decent writing chops I can build some compelling characters out of the raw clay that's been delivered in my lap. Anyway, I look forward to hearing any feedback you might have, and I'll bring in the first shows here shortly!