dragonmid

WWE is doing some kinda weird stuff in this save but having the same 2 guys trade a belt back and forth for 2 years is a new one. The second 'Taker title win was an I quit match, too...

Abyss is the ROH World Champion since February 2006. I'm currently in November 2007. But it does seem like the ROH WC is being overshadowed by the Pure title somewhat. He also lost and regained both the NWA Cyberspace and TNA X-Divsion titles in this period. Nothing to write home about in terms of match quality. Speaking of TNA bangers, this also happened:

Now up to August 2007 in my Dragon Gate save. Throughout the month of March, Anthony W. Mori managed to avoid a potential Dream Gate challenger from Blood Generation. BG, as usual, attempted their interference and cheating in order to have one of their members earn a pin on the champion, but a very well organized Pos.HEARTS sucessfully counter-cheated the cheaters (my babyfaces are SMART, sorry not sorry) and survived the constant interference. As it turned out, it was Pos.HEARTS who managed to get a W over BG, and thus the former tag champions BxB Hulk and Prince Devitt, alongside Milano Collection A.T., made an unsucessful bid for the Triangle Gate titles. In April, though, it was Champion vs. Champion. Blood Generation started to actively hijack the shows, which left DG President Takashi Okamura with no choice but to grant Don Fujii a title match! But Okamura is no pushover either, and there was one condition: Any interference, any referee bump, any cheating at all, and not only would Fujii automatically forfeit the match - regardless of anyone being awake to ring the bell - but all of Blood Generation would get fired from DG! In the end, Mori's resilience and regal skill prevailed, and he went into King of Gate still the Dream Gate Champion. This started the downfall of Blood Generation. On the buildup, Fujii constantly talked about how he would get two belts and keep them, since he had brough people who are actually strong into the group (Mishima, Kong and Zeus are kayfabe all his idea). He said Kong and Zeus are so strong they could probably defend the Triangle Gate all by themselves, and grab the Twin Gate to boot - after this comment he corrected himself and said well, of course, except the best tag in the company already had the belts. Now obviously Kishiwada was not oblivious to the implication of those declarations... The feud that developed between Raimu Mishima and Shingo Takagi was also a point of contention in the stable. Kishiwada saw more potential on Takagi, and Fujii, while not entirely disagreeing, said that right now Mishima had proven himself more useful to the group. Kishiwada said that Mishima had changed his attitude and was important support, yes, but inside the ring he was still a little helpless by himself. Fujii pointed out this isn't supposed to matter in such an united group. During the March tour, BloodGen did get a tag win over Brave Gate Champion TOZAWA... but it was once again Shingo Takagi who did it. Mishima pointed out that him taking out KENTA from the match with "alternative" means (a chair) was what allowed Shingo to win, whereas Shingo argued that if he had a stronger partner like Zeus he probably would have gotten the W anyway. Neither man challenged TOZAWA in March. The Brave Gate champion instead found himself forced to do an open challenge, which was answered by Ring of Honor's Jay Lethal. TOZAWA won that and then went on his "stablemates" shtick by challenging the ROH guys on excursion. KATSUO pointed out that Bobby Dempsey was above the weight limit, but that wound up being a moot point as BloodGen attacked the 3 ROH boys anyway. In the same card, Raimu pulled out an upset - but not clean - victory over Shingo, who instead stated he would focus on the big prize - King of Gate. The Dempsey bros did get a title match, serving as a filler defense for Gamma & Kishiwada, during which they showed some pretty good improvement despite still not being ready to make a big impact upon going back home. In April, TOZAWA defeated Mishima to retain his Brave Gate Championship, thus pretty much confirming he'd get a yearlong reign as I'm not doing title matches during King of Gate (I might throw one or two in the finals in the future since the past two years it has been a one match card...). Both Kishiwada and Fujii felt themselves vindicated. Fujii because Mishima showed he followed the "win at all cost" spirit, and Kishiwada because in the end TOZAWA showed Mishima could not win anything by himself and had been carried by his mates, not the other way around. After the Dream/Brave Gate debacle, we entered King of Gate, where tensions came to a head as Fujii and Kishiwada were placed in Block A whereas Shingo and Mishima went together in Block B. Shingo beat Mishima in his block match, but both men didn't come anywhere near the finals, so the hatchet was buried as they recognized both still had a long way to go. In the A Block, though... ho boy. Don Fujii started the tournament very badly, so Kishiwada defeated him in a "gentleman's agreement" midway through. Kishiwada reached the last day needing only a win against Masato Yoshino to make it into the finals, and it seemed like a no-brainer that he would get it. Yoshino was 0-6 in the block, losing every single tournament match until that point. Not only that, but Kishiwada and Gamma had effectively removed Yoshino and Naruki Doi from the Twin Gate scene, and it seemed like the Speed Star would have no confidence at all to face the current tag champion. But reality is often disappointing, and as Kishiwada failed to put Yoshino away over and over, his tenacity, unmatched speed and the support of the crowd proved to be enough for him to get out of his rut and lock in the Sol Naciente for a stoppage victory, thus denying Blood Generation the chance of regaining the Dream Gate championship and also giving Speed Muscle a strong claim for a Twin Gate challenge. Susumu Yokosuka, who most people had not considered a strong candidate due to having focused on Trios action for the better part of the previous 18 months, wound up advancing into the finals instead. What transpired afterwards made it pretty clear BloodGen was not long for this world. Kishiwada angrily attacked the referee, timekeeper and announcers, demanding the match be restarted since he did not tap out. Referee Barb Sasaki defended himself saying Kishiwada had shown no reaction and that's why he called the match. BloodGen stormed the ring, but surprisingly they pulled Kishiwada and Sasaki+Yoshino+Doi apart instead of looking for a fight. With Yoshino's victory, DoiYoshi made another Twin Gate attempt at Kobe World, and this time, with zero interference whatsoever, they regained the titles. The duo will now have a longer reign. I have no idea who will take the belts from then and when that will happen yet. Meanwhile, Zeus, Fujii and Cyber Kong sucessfully retained the Triangle Gate championships over Do FIXER at Kobe World. After the Twin Gate title match, the duo attacked Kishiwada and Gamma! Fujii proclaimed that Blood Generation was no more. He started a new group - Don Fujii, Zeus, Cyber Kong were now the Monte Moscolo ("Muscle Mountain", in machine-translated italian. The name is because 1. I didn't want to use a real stable name for that, even though there are many good options, 2. Fujii is a "Don", so the name has to be in spanish or italian, 3. Fujii sounds like Fuji as in mount Fuji, so mountain and 3. They are the big, powerhouses of BG, so Muscle). Well, I never said I had the best names. I just don't want to use the real stable names for the most part. I do have a very strong affinity for the stables that were around in Dragon Gate when I started watching (Jimmyz, VerserK, Tribe Vanguard, MaxiMuM) so those names and concepts might be employed down the line. Fujii, Zeus and Kong declared their allegiance, then Shingo and Mishima came out. Mishima immediately aligned with his mentor. Kishiwada expected Shingo to join him, but instead The Dragon proclaimed he would go his own way. Fujii was right about one thing - Blood Gen had gone downhill under Kishiwada's leadership and there was no future for the stable. But Shingo would also not follow Fujii, because he refused to be held back by following some "leader" who only looks out for himself. Shingo would instead forge his own group and prove that the strongest wrestler is the one that settles his business in the ring. Thus came Shingo's transition from a 'chickenshit' heel to a 'final boss, pure strenght' heel. Fujii will play the chickenshit role for a while, while Kishiwada & Gamma will move down the card. Shingo created the Seiei Senshi-Gun stable. DeepL tells me this translates to "Elite Warrior Corps". They will be built up to be our top heel stable going forward, with MM filling the role until they're well estabilished. Anyways. After Shingo's promo, MM attempted an attack on him, but were stopped by Doi and Yoshino. DoiYoshi finally got to talk to the crowd after this, cutting a generic babyface promo. Back to King of Gate, Yokosuka completed the upset by winning King of Gate outright, defeating BxB Hulk in the finals. Hulk's B Block Run was immaculate, but one thing he could not do - defeat Anthony W. Mori. It wound up being a time limit draw, with Hulk looking like he had the champion beat at one point. An impressive 6-1-0 (W-D-L) record made my bonus expenditure shoot up as wrestlers were upset at losing to him, but Hulk was inarguably the favorite to win the final, which made Yokosuka's victory even more impressive. Mochizuki and Kanda came out to say "bro what the hell, shouldn't we go for the Triangle Gate in Kobe?". Yokosuka replied they could to both since apparently this is the new trendy thing to do. Anthony W. Mori came out. He said he was somewhat disappointed his protégé had lost the final, as he had hoped for a rematch, but that should be a lesson to Hulk and he would come back to win it eventually. He said he wished Hulk and he had a title match, and that it was espcecially upsetting that he lost two matches but held onto a draw against Hulk. People say a singles match is the best sure fire way of determining the best wrestler, and a singles match for the Dream Gate determines who should carry the company into the future. Mori believes Hulk will be this man, but he has to earn it. He said that he had already let too many people down with his tournament perfomance, but vowed to beat Yokosuka at Kobe World and take on all the challengers so that one day this could come true. Anthony W. Mori did defeat the King of Gate winner to remain champion. So that's now a 1-1 record for KoG winners under my booking. But the elusive Hulk - Mori Dream Gate title match will probably not happen. I think. Maybe. Might be an option for Final Gate, but I would want Hulk to win this time and him having a Dream Gate reign is not on the plans yet... M2K obviously did not get the Triangle Gate titles at Kobe World, but will snatch them at Truth Gate the following month. Thus Don Fujii and his group go down the card a bit, and I'll use the feud with Gamma and Kishiwada to elevate Cyber Kong further (idk if Zeus will remain in the company, to be honest...). During the King of Gate Tournament, that spawned the months of May and June, Mori wound up losing his block after going 4-1-2, with losses to Ricky Marvin and Ryo Saito, plus a time limit draw against BxB Hulk. Thus the next 2 title matches are set - August, September. October will be set up with a random tag, probably, because it's 100% filler. I don't know what I'll do for November, maybe no title match again, and in December, I have a few options. The reign should be ending there, and it will be either Jushin Liger or my-new-signing-I'll-talk-about-soon if I can build him up. It seems like Liger will have scheduling conflicts regardless of wether I surpass NJPW or not due to his loyalty, so either I go on the editor to briefly remove it while he's champion - and in "kayfabe" I suppose it makes sense he would take a New Japan break for a while since he'd be a champ here, but not there - or I just bite the bullet and try to schedule the big shows around NJPW until Kobe World 2008, where Magnum TOKYO will get his redemption and start the main event raise for Shingo and YAMATO. Then again, maybe I just keep the belt on Mori until Kobe World '08 - it would be a hell of a long reign, but it's likely to be his first and last, so... I am actually amazed at myself for knowing more or less who the next 4 - 5 Dream Gate Champions will be. Liger, Hulk or New Guy - that's the only I'm not 100% sure on, then TOKYO, then Shingo, and then I want to give Masaaki Mochizuki another reign before getting the belt back on CIMA, who's our ace. I just don't know how the hell CIMA stays 3 years away from the Dream Gate scene! After that I'll see if either YAMATO or TOZAWA are ready for the big stage. TOZAWA is popular, but his actual workrate has been lacking. YAMATO has been evolving good though. So, the new signing! It was... Rey Mysterio! Yeah. His contract expired around May and by that point I had enough cash on hand to make a bid for him. I fought hard and managed to beat WWE without compromising my budget, altough Rey Rey will keep most of his merch money (not that he's making a lot of it right now though). Rey had quite low popularity in Japan at start but a few undercard tag victories during KoG and he's up quite a chunk. I am as much of a mark for Rey as I am for Liger (yes, you are noticing a trend) so having him as the first foreign Dream Gate champion would be pretty nice. So, yeah, Either BxB Hulk, Rey Mysterio or Jushin Liger will get a reign from December '07 to Kobe World at July '08, which I think is pretty big, or Mori has a massive reign from February '07 to July '08. The only thing with Rey is that I haven't had a non-Japanese Dream Gate champion yet, so I might save it for a bigger moment with a longer build. Actually, Ricky Marvin (Triangle) and Prince Devitt (Twin) are the only foreign champs I've had thus far. Once Mori drops the belt, he probably will slip down the card, maybe tagging with Milano, but then Pos.HEARTS will disband (wether amiably or not I stil don't know) and Hulk will lead his own group. This new group will probably retain Prince Devitt if he's still around, but otherwise I want new members in it. I will not really make too much of an effort to keep people who aren't from the DG Dojo as the turnover will help me keep things fresh I think. TOZAWA lost the Brave Gate title at Kobe World to Genki Horiguchi. TOZAWA started King of Gate off strong, with 4 straight victories. First, he beat Chris Jericho, who as you might remember started off his DG career by beating TOZAWA the year before. Then, he and his TOZAWA-JUKU stable overcame Blood Generation as he beat Don Fujii. The followup was the biggest victory of his career as TOZAWA upset the Ace of Dragon Gate, CIMA! He went into the match against Masato Yoshino overflowing with confidence. Yoshino, on the other hand, was in complete tatters mentally. The result was the most one-sided match in the tournament - except for Fujii/Kishiwada, which was barely a match - as TOZAWA finished Yoshino off in under 5 minutes. This shot TOZAWA's confidence and cockyness through the roof, which made his stable quite aprehensive. His next oponents would be Genki Horiguchi, whom he had already beaten in a title match before, Magnitude Kishiwada, who TOZAWA said only relied on interference which TOZAWA-JUKU proved they could overcome, and finally Susumu Yokosuka, yet another failed Brave Gate challenger. TOZAWA then loudly boasted about how he would easily go 7 in 7 to win his block. And he did not. In a sort of reversal of what happened the year before, TOZAWA spetacularly imploded, losing his remaining three matches. The Horiguchi loss stung him like a bee or a Mike Tyson punch, and the Brave Gate champ had already lost his smile by the time Kobe World came around, and TOZAWA's disaster was capped off by dropping the Brave Gate title to Horiguchi in the rubber match at our biggest event of the year. Thus, TOZAWA declared TOZAWA-JUKU over. He recognized that in the end of the day he wasn't yet fit to lead people as he himself was not yet the perfect, manly, unbeatable wrestler he vowed to make all the members of the stable into. TOZAWA decided that it was time for everyone to walk alone and find their own paths. He reverted back to the Akira Tozawa name. Well, at this point I was supposed to send him on excursion for a while, but he's so popular I did not. Problem is, I don't really have an immediate plan for him. He will revert from an overconfident punk to a guy who is cocky but knows how to get serious when the situation calls for it. His team with Katsuo might get the belts at some point, but right now he'll pick up random wins to keep with high momentum until I figure out what to do with him. As for the rest of the stable... well, Fujii took Kagetora as a protégé, so he might join MM. I want KUSHIDA as a warm body on a new group as well - either with Shingo or whoever raises from the remnants of Do FIXER. And KENTA will go back to being used to guarantee good matches against the new Dojo boys to help them develop. Having him on the roster is basically a cheat code and he outshines everyone but CIMA and Anthony W. Mori right now, so... Another stable that ended at Kobe World was Do FIXER. Well, almost. It was, again, the leader himself declaring the stable to be over. Magnum TOKYO said that he himself had failed twice in Dream Gate challenges, and twice in King of Gate. He was also to blame for the multiple Triangle Gate losses as it was he who set up the teams and strategies. He said he understood exactly what Tozawa was feeling. He congratulated Horiguchi on his title win and told him to hold onto that Brave Gate until Magnum felt ready to try again. Horiguchi asked him to reconsider, stating that they could build off this victory, but Tokyo said that Horiguchi had actually shown him he was better off alone. Ryo Saito and Dragon Kid came out to thank him for the time, and it seemed like we would have two amiable splits in the same show... but then Tanizaki and YAMATO attacked! I pulled the trigger on their turn, with both agreeing that TOKYO had let them all down and now it wasn't the time to make up some excuse or pretend they were still friends. Tanizaki and YAMATO took out TOKYO, then brawled with Saito and Kid. Horiguchi and TOZAWA were kayfabe too tired to take part in the showdown. The next show, Shingo Takagi announced that Naoki Tanizaki and YAMATO would be the new members of his Seiei Senshi-Gun. Saito, Horiguchi, Kid and TOKYO will feud with them for a while, before Do FIXER get their official farewell. I think I'll run with TOKYO beating YAMATO in 2008 finals and maybe postpone the Shingo push for another while, or give him the Dream Gate without the tournament... I don't know. Also, Shingo will get at least one new member from TOZAWA-JUKU. I'm thinking KUSHIDA joins either Shingo or whichever stable Kid/Saito end up in, and KAGETORA joins Fujii. Kagetora has the protégé thing, but I'm not sure why KUSHIDA would turn heel. Well, it's not like I gave him much of a character on TOZAWA-JUKU anyways. Masato Yoshino and Naruki Doi are also currently without a stable, so I'm thinking they might join Pos.HEARTS for a while or start a group with Horiguchi, Saito and/or DKid. Yet another new group might be overkill, but I can also see Ryo Saito leading a stable by himself rather than joining Horiguchi/Kid/DoiYoshi if I decide to give him a big push at some point. Random gen Atsumori Ukiyo, excursion guy Mitch Franklin and Dojo graduate Kzy have been building up enough popularity that it might warrant them being in a stable with some actual direction as well. I picked up Shawn Michaels after all and he obviously joined ROUNDABOUT, which is kayfabe Jericho using his connections to show that they're such a strong stable that top stars from elsewhere come to join. I understand hiring Michaels and not having him be a top guy is weird as hell, but I don't care. He's still doing Puerto Rico on the side and plenty of "special appearances" in alliance loans. Might pick the Triangle Gates in an all-foreign team with Jericho and Marvin at some point. Finally, I still got plenty of people with no direction in the undercard. ROH started going hostile on people and it seems they don't like us anymore so I might drop their excursion guys, I don't know. A lot of people who had already left DG by this point irl are still here and, worse, a lot of them are over and putting on good matches, so I don't wanna do spring cleaning (or whatever season it is in Japan in August). I might disable Dojo graduations for a while and even release the random gens who don't show promise. The roster is getting a little too big. If I were to trim the fat I'd say Atsushi Kotoge and Daisuke Sasaki also get the cut, and maybe the the Florida Brothers (except Takayuki Yagi who I can use as a ref). Oh, yeah. I have Hayato Fujita, Kazuchika Okada and random gen Matsu Mitsuya on ROH doing an excursion too. Other noteworthy things in the game world: - Ric Flair, Terry Funk and Atsushi Onita all retired. Ehhhh; - Randy Orton was poached by TNA; - Chris Benoit was let go by WWE. He then joined Harley Race's WLW, only to quit shortly after. Currently unemployed. - WWE dropped John Cena as their figurehead even though he gets them their best ratings. I'm not sure this is a case of needing to rework his stats since it took over a year, might be that they accidentally overshadowed him with someone else? - AJPW also dropped Keiji Mutoh. You know, the guy who owns and books the company; - AJPW hired Bob Sapp. Not sure this has anything to do with Mutoh getting dropped as figurehead; - WWE improved their ratings a bit. 4 out of the first 6 ppvs of the year cracked the 80 rating mark, with a couple RAWs and SDs as well. John Cena vs. William Regal at Backlash 2007 (95) is their top match so far. Samoa Joe's push continues as he headlined The Great American Bash, unsucessfully challenging The Undertaker to a World Heavyweight Championship match which got an 89 rating, WWE's 10th best match since game start. He's also pulled off great ratings against RVD (87, 85), Daniel Bryan (86), Shelton Benjamin (85), Bobby Lashley (86) and Mark Henry (85). I'm very excited to see if he gets a belt by year's end! The crazy stuff is: Vince McMahon won the Cruiserweight Championship, beating Shane (c), Roddy Piper and Funaki at Wrestlemania. I will edit their roster for my next save, whenever that starts. Bob Orton Jr. (who's set to retire) and Shawn Daivari won the WWE Tag titles off of RVD & Rey Mysterio. William Regal beat Hulk Hogan for the WWE title. John Cena won MITB twice in a row; - TNA is booking AJ styles slightly better, but that's more on ROH getting a TV show and pushing him hard which gave him more popularity than anything. He won Survival of the Fittest 2006, was TNA tag champ with Gangrel for a while and held the WWN World Title. Oh, yes, I created alliance titles because I love them, but they're not really part of my storylines since I have little control over them. Jericho beat Styles for this belt in Puerto Rico, the Women's title has stayed in Joshi companies since its inception and the Tag belts I actually gave to Doi and Yoshino in a random tour show, but the AI will 100% give them back to some randos at some point. I had kept Styles loyal to TNA to even the playing field a bit but with them signing Orton and Jericho, Michaels and Benoit all being avaliable, I might remove it... - 14 Year old Britani Knight won ROH's newly created Women's title; - Kensuke Sasaki is still the undisputed king of Japan, holding the Triple Crown since July 2006 and the GHC Heavyweight Title since April 2006. In NJPW, many massive reigns: Shinsuke Nakamura won the IWGP HC after Fujinami's retirement in July 2006 and is still champion, Shiro Koshinaka and Togi Makabe held the Jr. Tag titles from February 2006 to June 2007, Gedo & Jado are IWGP HC Tag champions since April 2006; - Shawn Michaels is the IWA Puerto Rico Hardcore champion;

Y'know, I went to check on his ratings after you mentioned it and... Doesn't seem like he took time off for TV or anything so... yeah. He shows up a fair bit doing promos or what have you though.

We are now in March 2007, and of course many things have happened since August. Don Fujii took Daniel Mishima as a protégé, so I decided to turn him heel and have him ditch the comedy gimmick in order to join Blood Generation. Now working under his real name (Raimu), Mishima, Fujii and Shingo Takagi had a very brief squirmish with his former Florida Friends, but quickly moved on. Masato Yoshino and Naruki Doi left Blood Generation. The two of them kept pestering Prince Devitt & BxB Hulk until they finally got a Twin Gate title match. 2 on 2, no BS. As expected, their superior experience and chemistry gave them a huge advantage. But Devitt & Hulk have will, and they did not give up quite easily. However, just as the champions started to gain momentum, Mishima interfered on DoiYoshi's behalf. The challengers were not thrilled, but rather furious. In the end, Mishima's interference wound up taking their focus, and a distracted Yoshino fell victim to Devitt's Bloody Sunday. DoiYoshi immediately demanded that Mishima get kicked out of BG. They said that an elite tag such as them would never lose 2 on 2 to two guys who only just started working together a few months earlier, and that Mishima had cost BG the match. Magnitude Kishiwada had agreed, but Fujii asked Doi and Yoshi to prove themselves by beating Mishima first. Yoshino defeted Mishima in a singles match and the following month Doi followed suit. However, they were shocked as Kishiwada, Fujii and Takagi attacked them instead. Kishiwada said that they were too weak and were just making excuses for their losses. Doi and Yoshino were not too bothered by getting kicked off. They said that Kishiwada himself had lost the biggest prize ever at Kobe World, and BG was nowhere near regaining the Dream Gate due to his poor leadership. They said that without the "dead weight" they would pick up the Twin Gate titles and never lose them again, meanwhile BG had no good tags that could beat them. Enter Gamma! Gamma, Kishiwada's old friend, joined BG and the team was immediately reformed. They feuded with DoiYoshi briefly. In November, they fought in a number one contender's match, won by Gamma and Kishiwada, who then added insult to injury by picking up the Twin Gate titles themselves, clean as a whistle, at Final Gate in December (Fujii stopped Mishima from interfering this time, and the champion's momentum was stalled by Gamma and Kishiwada's tag chemistry). Blood Generation's dominance continued with the additions of Dojo Graduate Cyber Kong and the surprising addition of the giant (for DG standards) Zeus (the Japanese Zeus, not former WCW Zeus). Zeus, Kong and Fujii picked up the Triangle Gate titles in February, and it doesn't seem like anyone can stop the two newly added monsters. But what about Shingo Takagi and Raimu Mishima? Well, Mishima has constantly "helped" BG turn the tide of matches as he accompanies his bethren to the ring, and on tag matches he has proven to be quite crafty as well, using the rules in his favor to stall the matches with rope breaks, bothering the referee whenever his opponent breathes so someone else can strike, etc. Meanwhile Shingo vowed to prove himself by winning a belt, but wound up losing to TOZAWA in a Brave Gate challenge. Now Mishima is fancying himself for a shot, but Shingo pointed out that he always ends up getting the wins whenever they tag. Fujii interfered and said that they should meet in a singles match, and the winner would be named the challenger to TOZAWA representing BG. TOZAWA is busy with other challengers atm, but Kobe World is still a couple months away, so there is time for some BG member to get a pin over him and earn another shot - if they can overcome yet another infighting which Mishima is at the center of, that is... I won't get rid of Blood Gen right now but their downfall will begin this year for sure. Meanwhile, the Dream Gate Championship. CIMA proved to be a fighting champion. After winning the belt at Kobe World in July, he defended it in August, September, October, November, December and January before finally losing to Anthony W. Mori in February. Ryo Saito was the first challenger, citing his previous King of Gate win for which Kishiwada never gave him a shot. Masaaki Mochizuki was next in line, since he had pinned CIMA twice earlier in the year. Magnum TOKYO unsucessfully challenged next, after going on a win streak between August and October, including one pin over the champion, and finally Don Fujii reignited CIMA's feud with Blood Generation by attacking him after the TOKYO defense, before losing the title match (he would end up picking the Triangle Gate in February). As the old year ended and the new year began, CIMA faced his toughest challengers yet: Jushin Thunder Liger and KENTA. KENTA had spent the past few months with TOZAWA-JUKU, but like he said he wasn't really "a member" of the stable, and for as much respect as he had for TOZAWA, he came to Dragon Gate to represent NOAH, not to do random tags and be TOZAWA's second. TOZAWA agreed that KENTA should challenge for the belt, but if he won TOZAWA was to be the first challenger (despite still holding the Brave Gate title). Two people had something to say about this, however: Anthony W. Mori and Liger. Liger had started working with DG right after Kobe World. At first I used him to develop the lower carders, but eventually he agreed to put over CIMA so I decided to have him on the Dream Gate track. Liger started cutting promos about how he didn't come to DG just to be a background character, but that he was representing New Japan Pro Wrestling. W. Mori pointed out how both he and KENTA spoke in similar terms, but despite being very important at their home companies both had not truly proven themselves in Dragon Gate, so why should they be Dream Gate challengers? In the end, it was CIMA's call, though. CIMA pointed out Mori had lost to Kishiwada earlier in the year, and that despite the BG shenanigans in that match it was him who should prove himself - after all, CIMA overcame the same adversity to win the belt. CIMA decided that Liger and KENTA would face eachother in a singles match, and the winner would challenge. However, the match ended... in a time limit draw! CIMA bravely declared that both men would challenge for the belt, and thus the stage was set for a 3-Way match at Final Gate, which the champion won by pinning Liger. Both challengers weren't entirely satisfied with the result, though. CIMA agreed that a singles match was the only sure fire way of determining the best wrestler, but if they couldn't come to an agreement about who should challenge then there was nothing he could do. The problem solved itself when Mori challenged Jushin Liger to a singles match, where the winner would challenge for the Dream Gate title. Mori, CIMA, KENTA and Liger agreed on the following terms: KENTA, who unlike Liger had a tag victory over CIMA, would challenge for the title at New Year's Gate. Meanwhile, Mori and Liger, both who had gone to "the back of the line", would fight eachother for another chance. At New Year's Gate, CIMA retained the title over KENTA in our best match so far, meanwhile Mori upset Jushin Liger to earn his shot, one year to the date where he had lost the title match against Kishiwada, leading Liger to go on a "am I too old for these new Juniors?" type of crisis (spoilers: I want him to get the strap eventually since it happened irl and I'm a huge mark for Liger, but right now there's too many scheduling conflicts to make this worthwile. This story here was changed a bit because of that, actually) In February at Glorious Gate, Mori fullfiled his Dream by defeating CIMA for the belt, and now his Pos.HEARTS stable will regroup to fend off the threat of Blood Generation and try to win more titles in the process. The Triangle Gate titles are an entirely different story. CIMA did end up making his own group, called ROUNDABOUT, with Ken'ichiro Arai, K-ness, Chris Jericho and Ricky Marvin. The name came because the idea is that this is the top group in DG, and no matter how much things change, it all comes back to them and they are always the "main characters". In kayfabe Jericho came up with the name and the reason. WWE hired 200 people but haven't come for him yet, so he might get a bigger push soon. Arai and K-ness immediately started gunning for the Triangle Gate titles. It was decided that Ricky Marvin would be their partner, and at Dangerous Gate in October the Trio finally ended the reign of M2K, putting an end to the M2K - AraK-ness feud for now. They defended the titles against combinations of TOZAWA-JUKU, DO FIXER and even Jackson & Johnson Florida + Michael Iwasa, before the aforementioned Zeus-Kong-Fujii combination won the belts in February. I don't know where the stable will go from here, to be honest. The plan for the Triangle Gates is for M2K to win them back at Kobe World, with their experience overcoming the size and underhanded tactics of their opponents, and this should be a huge reign as I eventually disband M2K for good. The Brave Gate title is still firmily in TOZAWA's grasp. He has recently started a gimmick where he takes on multiple members of the same stable. After beating Dragon Kid at Kobe World, he defended against Genki Horiguchi and Naoki Tanizaki of Do FIXER, before also taking on Milano Collection A.T., Super Shisa and King Shisa of Pos.HEARTS. He also took on Susumu Yokosuka, but the other M2K members declined on a challenge. These wins and M2K's attitude led to TOZAWA getting cocky, something which KENTA is trying to warn him against. Can he survive the onslaught of Blood Generation with that much overconfidence? Speaking of Do FIXER - They added YAMATO from the Dojo, but the successive unsucessful title challenges and the group's inability to stay at the top of the cards has caused quite some internal drama. I don't want to turn any of them heels, but Dragon Kid and Ryo Saito specifically have started to talk about potentially getting a change in scenery. The storyline is currently TOKYO trying to prove himself a worthy leader to his stablemates, which will culminate at King of Gate. I plan on having him lose the KoG finals, which leads to the stable getting disbanded. YAMATO will probably turn heel at that point and feud with him, accusing TOKYO of derailing his career with his poor leadership. The long-term plan is that TOKYO loses to YAMATO and goes on a complete downward spiral, before coming back around and winning KoG in 2008, perhaps denying YAMATO his breakout moment in some poetic justice in the process. I'm not sure where the rest of the stable with fit in. Horiguchi and DKid are prime Brave Gate material, and Horiguchi also has a good tag with Ryo Saito. When the Shingo push finally bears fruit then and only then I maybe think of turning them heels, since I don't want the same people who are in Blood Generation to be big players in the next big heel stable. Naoki Tanizaki has great tag chemistry with YAMATO, so he might also turn his back on TOKYO eventually. Undercards! I imported free pictures from the Real World Chronicles mod, so we got a couple more Dojo Graduates than irl. YAMATO, Kzy and Cyber Kong were the real life graduates, joined in by Matsu Mitsuya and Atsumori Ukiyo who are random gens. Mitsuya was sent on excursion to ROH alongsite Hayato Fujita and Kazuchika Okada (yeah I wound up picking them up), but the three haven't been doing much over there. ROH is currently at medium with a TV deal so I might just kayfabe the whole thing in two year's time. Ukiyo though has some great SQ and Charisma, plus some pretty decent aerial and technical, and the best part of it is he's got great tag chemistry with Mitch Franklin, and the two have become pretty solid hands to throw in opening matches. The Dempsey bros from ROH are... well, they are bad, but Bobby has been improving at a slightly better pace than his bro. The Dempseys, Ukiyo & Franklin, Shachihoko Machine, Atsushi Kotoge, Daisuke Sasaki, Kzy, Stalker Ichikawa, Jackson Florida, Johnson Florida and Michael Iwasa are my current "undercard", meawhile Cyber Kong, YAMATO, Zeus, KAGETORA and KUSHIDA are the "unimportant" wrestlers in stables who I'm trying to build up (KATSUO has finally moved up to recognisable!) In other news: - WWE let Shawn Michaels go back in March 2006. I only realized this when I caught him working Puerto Rico in November, and have been debating picking him up ever since, because as unrealistic as it would be it is freaking Shawn Michaels. Ric Flair was also cut but he's also 502 years old at this point, so... - Actually, WWE has been doing terrible, struggling to crack the 80 rating in shows which has seen them dropped from several TV slots, altough they're still number one. Hulk Hogan is the WWE champion. Shane McMahon is the Cruiserweight Champion. The other champions are quite unremarkable, except maybe for Edge & Kurt Angle as tag champions despite the fact they re-hired Christian Cage. On the plus side they've been giving a huge push to Samoa Joe. He's Well Known with high 60's popularity all over the US, having surged starting from mid-2006. Man might be a true main eventer by year's end at this rate. - CMLL released Mistico. Yes, Mistico of all people. This one almost made me ditch the save to go re-edit his stats and popularity before starting over. Their war with AAA rages on with seemingly 300 news about dirty tricks every week. Seriously, they're trying hard to screw over one another. AAA did not pick up Místico so I just might, who knows. - Another thing I will probably look at are the weight limits for Japan. Gedo & Jado are the IWGP Tag champions, whereas Togi Makabe is Jr. Tag champion with Shiro Koshinaka. Tatsumi Fujinami won BOSJ in 2006 (I hadn't seen that before, but he apparently won the tournament while IWGP Heavyweight Champion), and Tiger Mask IV won the G1 Climax. I'm too lazy to make a mod from scratch myself so this isn't a complaint, but I'll have to go fix this at some point since it's a bit immersion breaking (but very funny) - Kensuke Sasaki is simultaneously the Triple Crown champion and the GHC Heavyweight Champion, but sadly hates NJPW booker Riki Choshu so he probably won't get the elusive Trifecta. - TNA and ROH are hostile to basically everyone in the US now. TNA actually left the NWA and created their own world title. The lineage: Jeff Jarett, Kevin Nash, Sting, Kevin Nash. They're also booking AJ Styles like crap. Very realistic.

You know what? I like this.

I started a Dragon Gate 2006 save. This is my "let's have fun" save, so I kinda said "screw it" to the real world and made a lot of big changes right off the bat. We are in August, just after Kobe World Festival. First - Yasushi Kanda was brought back as an active wrestler right off the bat (he came back in july irl) and M2K reformed with their classic line-up. Kenichiro Arai wound up being kicked out (and so was K-ness, altough he was injured so he never showed up to actually get the boot) M2K set their sights on the Open the Triangle Gate Championships, held by (now fully heel) Blood Generation, and Arai decided to do everything to stop them. He brough in some "guests" on every show to tag with him - notably Super Delfin, Atsushi Onita, Gran Hamada, Jinsei Shinzaki and KENTA, who rather than a one-off became a full-time member of the roster (more on him later). Arai did not stop M2K from winning the titles but he did beat both Kanda and Susumu Yokosuka in singles matches, after which he declared he was better off as a singles anyway and that he would let M2K be and go after the Dream Gate title. He unsucessfully challenged Magnitude Kishiwada, but did have a fairly good showing at King of Gate, including a victory over Masaaki Mochizuki, the one M2K member he hadn't gotten revenge on yet. However, since Arai was unable to get out of his block he started to rethink the whole lone wolf thing, and as K-Ness came back from injury, they decided to tag together, and now are scouting for a third member to go after the Triangle Gate. Meanwhile, CIMA was kicked out of Blood Generation, with Dream Gate Champion Magnitude Kishiwada becoming the leader. Kishiwada said that you can't really go far in wrestling if you're not willing to do everything it takes to win, and the tension came to a head when CIMA hesitated on using a chair on Yasushi Kanda (irl he had retired due to a neck injury) during a tag match, which cost BG the match and earned M2K a title shot. During the title match proper, Masaaki Mochizuki did not show the same restraint, hitting CIMA with a chair to win the Triangle Gate titles. This angered the other members of Blood Generation, and Kishiwada staged a coup to take CIMA out. CIMA then tagged with Arai for a few months before winning King of Gate and taking the belt off Kishiwada. CIMA did not join a new stable, but had basically every babyface on the roster (plus M2K) as occasional allies since everyone hates BloodGen. He will get a new group eventually though. BloodGen will be my top heel stable for a while, doing the classic strength in numbers strategy. In typical DG fashion they are pretty much in a constant feud with the entire roster, but I plan on using them to build up Shingo Takagi, and then Takagi will lead the next big heel group. Gamma is yet to join the company, and I'm thinking about adding him still. The big problem is that there aren't many popular, fully avaliable guys (I hate booking around schedules) to join them. I was thinking about picking up some former Aagan Issou guys to re-join and ride with them, but I also just might have the yet-unnamed CIMA-led stable finish them off as is and Takagi then creates a new group entirely. I also considered having Doi and Yoshino leave them and run a Gamma/Kishiwada heel tag instead but held off on that for now. I'm thinking that CIMA might join AraKen and K-ness on a new group, but he won't be their "third man" against M2K. I am torn on having him do a long, year+ reign or having two 6 - 8 month reigns with a transitional reign in between. I really like Anthony W. Mori and he never won the big one in real life so I'm thinking maybe CIMA drops the belt to him and wins it back later. CIMA vs. Shingo is the big match I'm building towards, but I'm not sure Shingo will be ready even in 1 year's time. Right now CIMA faces the challenge of Ryo Saito. Saito won King of Gate in December 2005, but in my version of history he never got his title shot due to the BG Civil War and the change in schedule. Masaaki Mochizuki also has a claim for a future challenge as he did pin CIMA the last time they faced off. The CIMA stable will probably be him, Arai, K-ness, Ricky Marvin (he quit NOAH so I brought him in), and I'm thinking of getting Okada from Toryumon Mexico (they declared war for some reason?). Again, the lack of good free agents (and the small-ish roster DG has in this mod) has me scratching my head a bit. Speaking of which, I moved King of Gate from december to may-june. Newcomer Chris Jericho made an immediate impact as he won the A block and lost to B block winner CIMA in the finals. Then he left for band touring so I'm not sure what to do with him now. The other highlight of the tournament was Akira Tozawa, who came reeeeally close to winning his block. Tozawa, now named TOZAWA, created his own stable, Tozawa-Juku. In my version it's basically a gang of angry young people. Tozawa himself is kinda crazy, kinda comedic on angles, but a machine in-ring that will tear you apart if you're not careful. The Metabolic Brothers were already on the database as a tag so I kept them together without the shitty irl gimmick (Katsuo kinda has a bodybuilder thing going on which is played for laughs). KAGETORA and KUSHIDA soon joined, and Katsuo decided to stylize his name in all caps so he wouldn't feel left out. TOZAWA then set his sights on KENTA. KENTA is stylized in all caps and starts with a K, so it's only natural that he join Tozawa's group. But KENTA said that he wasn't some rebel without cause Yoshinari Ogawa wannabe, he was the GHC Jr. champion and the future of NOAH, so why would he join a bunch of losers. Also TOZAWA should change his name to KOZAWA since everyone else has a K. TOZAWA was angry at the snub, but lost to KENTA in a singles match. However, he did earn KENTA's respect with an incredible 5-2 perfomance in the King of Gate tournament. KENTA decided that he would align himself with Tozawa's group and help them whip the others into shape, altought don't expect him to do run ins or stuff like that. TOZAWA then beat Dragon Kid for the Brave Gate at Kobe World. The story of TOZAWA at Kingo of Gate was that he lost his first match to Jericho, who had just arrived in the company, so at first people underestimated him - after all, here you have a DG Dojo Trueborn talking a bunch of trash only to lose to a guy who never worked DG before. But then he upset Don Fujii and Milano Collection A.T. back to back. Then pople stopped underestimating him, but he did not stop winning, adding Ricky Marvin, Genki Horiguchi and Masato Yoshino to the list of victims until Susumu Yokosuka finally put an end to his streak and his hopes of getting to the finals. It's just a shame that the crowd was so pissed off at a young lion getting such a big push (as if real life Darg doesn't do that all the time... but I digress) KENTA will be used to elevate everyone on the stable until NOAH decides to give him an Exclusive Written contract. I also created the Twin Gate Championships way before the irl version. After a mini tournament in April, Masato Yoshino and Naruki Doi became the first champions, but they shockingly lost the belts at Kobe World in july without a single defense (no title matches in may and june due to KoG). BxB Hulk and Prince Devitt of pos.HEARTS managed to snatch the title in a Four Way tag match. Doi & Yoshino will keep chasing the titles using the "but we were never pinned argument" and the "fine, I'll interfere on you 24/7 strategy", but I'm also thinking about turning them face for a bit. Only problem like I said is who replaces them in Blood Generation and who they join (maybe CIMA's group?). Speaking of which, pos.HEARTS are finally starting to find their footing after a rough start to the year. Anthony W. Mori unsucessfully challenged for the Dream Gate, and then the stable was kinda doing a bunch of nothing until Milano showed up to light a fire under them. They added Fergal Devitt to the stable, then Mori christened him as "Prince", because "Fergal" is diffiicult to say in Japanese and because of his Royal theme, altought Mori is the only member of the stable with the royalty gimmick. Super Shisa and King Shisa are the other members. They will challenge for the Twin Gates in "friendly competition". Hulk will turn heel eventually. I might send him on excursion to ROH. ROH and us have a mutual excursion agreement. They sent the dempsey brothers and Mitch Franklin. I have no ida who any of those people are, but they've been eating pins in the undercards. YAMATO made his debut recently too. The rest of my "undercard guys not in stables or storylines" is Jackson Florida, Johnson Florida, Daniel Mishima, Michael Iwasa, Atsushi Kotoge, Daisuke Sasaki, Stalker Ichikawa and Shachihoko Boy. I thought about getting Billy Ken Kid, Asian Cougar, Yoshitsune, Hi69 and Hayato Fujita too, but first i gotta elevate some of the "unknowns" I already have (Kagetora, Kushida, King Shisa, Super Shisa, Naoki Tanizaki). I think YAMATO will join Do FIXER as I've been kinda doing nothing with them but irl YAMATO is one of my faves so I'll find something for him to do and that should give the stable some direction. Dragon Kid was the brave gate champ but he's not in line for either a rematch or a Dream Gate challenge for now. Like I said, Ryo Saito is next. Naoki Tanizaki is basically only taking Ls. Genki Horiguchi will go for the Brave Gate eventually. I might have them go on the Triangle Gate scene. Magnum TOKYO is pretty much filler title defense material at this point. In other news, NJPW had 52 year old Tatsumi Fujinami beat Brock Lesnar for the IWGP HC and he retired as champion a few weeks later. I wish I could book comedy this good.

Now that's what I call shocking. What's next, Misawa saying that Marufuji kid might have some potential?

Made it into October '92 with AJPW. Would have done it sooner if college and work weren't two b.... you know. Anyways. I decided to do drug testing once which - I mean, sure, people gotta be healthy, but it did screw up most of my plans as both Mitsuharu Misawa and Terry Gordy went into rehab. We had a tournament for the vacant World Tag Titles which was won by Kenta Kobashi and Tsuyoshi Kikuchi. Yes, Kikuchi is a World Tag champion in 1992. Don't give me weird looks, the AI had Jushin Liger win the goddamn G1. (they also didn't run BOSJ for whatever reason, might need add a "new player" to see what's up) Also yes, it is unrealistically that people would be sent into rehab in 1992 but I don't care. At least this gives me something to think rather than spamming the same people in every main event (which to be fair was pretty much what real All Japan did anyways). I think I'll have the Fantastics drop the All Asia tags to Furnas & Krofatt at the Anniversary Show then win RWTL before getting the World belts. Stan Hansen wound up beating Misawa for the Champion Carnival - which in hindsight was a fantastic decision - and will get the Triple Crown from Jumbo at the Anniversary Show in late October. Misawa went undefeated in his block (which pissed off Jumbo) and I had to spend like $500k or something to keep Hansen happy since he went 5-2, losing to Taue and Kobashi and beating everyone else in the block. I didn't have 16 great heavyweight workers so people like Naoki Sano, Tiger Mask and Dean Malenko filled in some spots. Williams and Gordy wound up in the same block which was kind of a brain fart but it at least estabilishes they can fight eachother without reservations in storyline I guess. I ain't gonna split them up but once Williams picks up the Triple Crown - should happen at some point down the line - I get one big defence. Gordy gained loyalty to me over being sent by rehab which was one of the few times I got such a positive reaction out of this. Misawa was just happy - I think he already had a protege relationship or whatever with Baba in the database. Also, I did some good poaching. Picked up John Tenta from WWF to have a BIG dude filling up the undercard since Abdullah the Butcher retired (so did Rusher Kimura and Motoshi Okuma, btw. I guess Haruka Eigen, Isamu Teranishi and Mighty Inoue are next. Not like I use them anyway, it's just that I want to roleplay the whole loyalty to old farts thing). I also picked up Roddy Piper (who's a freelancer) but he showed up drunk and, y'know, it's cruel but i'm not paying rehab for a dude in a 3 month contract so I fired his ass. He hasn't found work since which is probably due to wanting 3 month contracts. Who knows, I might give it another shot down the line. Finally, I managed to pick up Ric Flair and Road Warriors from WWF. "Oh but this is so unrealistic" yeah but it's fun so I don't care. Warriors will fill in a spot in the World Tag League. Flair, idk. He'll probably get popped for drugs or steroids or drinking or pills or all of the above next time I decide to shake up the roster with a test so I'll just use him for my own amusement with dream matches in the big cards. Finnancially, we are fine. Our top carders putting on 90+ rated matches even in random tour shows in high school gyms plus the fact I got our tour highlights in free-to-air NHK have seen us quickly get enough popularity to sell 50, 70k+ tickets for the "big cards" which always save my ass since the tour system is still very much unprofitable. I also got a big boost in the CC because I set all the block shows to be normal events. Same will go for the Tag League. However, industry and economy are both falling and I don't know for how long this will be true. I bought out ASW, PNW and VDB. ASW was pillaged so I could use their popularity to get on British TV. PNW is being used as a dev territory. I picked up some people who turned out to be stars in real life so I can decide wether I use them down the line or not (plus some young japanese guys since NJPW went scorched earth on the indy scene). VDB was bought just because I wanted the oldest company to keep kicking. I cheated a bit and gave them enough popularlity so that they stopp bleeding (my) money but otherwise don't interfere much. PNW still loses money but not as much. I put their show on syndication which I guess helped a bit with selling dem tickets. AJPW's tour highlights were also on syndication for a while, then I picked up a commercial TV with bigger coverage in US. Also, I did get a talent trading agreeement with WCW but I'm still behind them in "worker's priority" and they won't loan the Steiners for more than 6 dates at a time so idk what I'll do with this relationship. Finally, SWS lost all their money via a narrative. At first I thought "man, it sucks seeing companies die via narrative - the whole point of playing this is rewriting history!" but then they spread fake news about me so I decided they must die like our lord database maker intended. They aren't dead yet though. I wanted Tenryu but I'm not sure I can get him to stop hating Giant Baba without cheating. Also, I got some e-mails saying Yuji Yasuraoka has potential, is improving etc so I guess it was a good hire even if accidental. Then again, some 7 freaking people have told me Giant Kimala is getting better in the ring and I just don't see it.

uhhhh

This is certainly a match eh. ...okay then. Guess their heavyweight division doesn't have much depth at the moment.

They'll really call anyone a "future star" in 1992 huh His AI booking is a bit crap. He had ONE match in all of January (retained the TV title over Junkyard Dog), ONE match in all of february (lost the TV title to Junkyard Dog). Then after this they kiiiiiinda got their act together and he's regularly tagging with his Dangerous Alliance buddies. Let's see where he goes.

Hulk Hogan is 100% going to refuse to put the Others over, so I guess this means Westeros is safe for now. Also SWS declared war on me (AJPW) so I bid for their whole roster and forced them to pay like 25k - 50k/month for people like Hisakatsu Oya, The Takano Brothers, Koji Kitao and 150 year old Great Kabuki (he's been old since 1920 tbf). Yuji Yasuraoka wound up joining me so I hope he turns out good. And I actually want Kodo Fuyuki on the roster so there's that. We're running the New Year Giant Series, which I scheduled to go from January to March with 3 non-tour shows scattered so I won't go broke. Then there will be the Grand Champion Carnival. I'm not sure if I put Hansen over Misawa or if I strap the rocket on him yet. Once Misawa wins I want the other pillars of Heaven to follow suit, so maybe I give the trophy to the big 3 gaijin (Hansen, Williams, Gordy) first. After this we'll pretty much be business as usual until the Anniversary show (which I made the season finale since we had none) where Tsuruta will finally drop the Triple Crown to whoever wins the CC. Then the Tag League which I'm inclined to give to the Fantastics (or maybe a final Funks hurrah though the ratings will suck) since the only over tags we have are the Tsuruta+Pillars combinations, Hansen/Ace and Gordy/Williams. I might cozy up to WCW to pick up the Steiners for this too, but I'll think I'd have to cheat a bit to get them to work for me instead of them on clashing dates. Oh, well.