TLLK

This might be the T-Verse/UPJ/EVR love in me talking, but let’s say Matthew Keith has become a version of Kenny Omega and is the leader of a red-hot gaijin stable that has BHOTWG seriously going after international expansion.

Dang, you’re making me want to go back to my UPJ save. I might still give DRAGON a whirl, but I absolutely love the Japanese scene in the T-Verse.

Parallels with an unlicensed (but legal) Windows 10 download is the way to go. It’s seamless.

Should clarify: Buying out The Club for its popularity and having TV deals in the US helped me out a good bit, and I only ran a show a week for four weeks. I should really call it a mini-tour, because it came between the usual spring and summer ones for me. I saved a lot of the PWI guys I used for the supercard show at the end of the month. It wasn’t financially a good move at all, but I had a ton in the bank and wanted to test out what would happen if I ran shows overseas.

Yeah, I got halfway through my third year in UPJ and had Fergus turn on Juro and Deguchi-gun to join RENEGADES. At some point, I knew in my head we were gonna have a EVR-Fergus civil war. I got through a month-long American tour using my partnership with PWI (Morton vs. Kinjo was pure money) and decided I just wanted to try a US save with a more normal schedule before 2020 comes out. DRAGON just might be the move. Know people have done it, but there’s room for an AEW type promotion in this universe, since PWI is more like ROH that got too big for its own good. Maybe I can strike that perf > pop with good characters and gimmicks and stories with DRAGON.

Ooh. I haven’t even considered DRAGON yet. I’ll check them out.

Well done. It felt like EVR was standing tall like Omega at the end of that 2-of-3 falls match against Okada at Dominion. If you kept that going, I feel like a Fergus Storm or Seven Brandt turn on EVR and a RENEGADES Civil War would be a fun story idea. I'm currently scrolling through options for a U.S. promotion save before 2020 comes out. (I really hope the Japanese scene in the C-Verse can hook me like UPJ did here, since it doesn't look like we're going to get a true T-Verse in 2020.) HCG feels like a fun pick, I had the idea of Jerry King burying the hatchet with Casey Skym and trying to take down AWF over time. I would love the concept of PWI, but I find their roster and events names so... dull. My other idea was to put CWT in the AWC and set them up as the new lynchpin promotion, with HCG no longer in the picture. Even though they're small TV deals, CWT could become a version of Jim Crockett Promotions for the AWC thanks to their higher media exposure and old-school feel.

my absolute king

I love this dynasty. Cueto shows up, and then Best Friends win titles on the next show? I want this to be real.

please tell me there will be a LLLLLLLLLLLLLADDER MAAAAAAAAAAAAAATCH soon now with Dario in the fold

In my UPJ save, I’ve booked FEARLESS to be a hybrid between CHAOS and LIJ. It started with Ignite Zero joining forces with Oda Yamawaki to take down RENEGADES after they captured every title in the company. Goto has been the top junior, while Kato has been an excellent heavyweight main eventer who isn’t quite world title material but is a fixture in the IC and openweight divisions. Nakada + Yamada are an excellent junior tag team. And after I brought in Kahoku Meka for a couple of years to reestablish Tokyo Underground with Toki Ink, I plugged James Gilmour in Meka’s place after he left the company. I’ve enjoyed bringing new blood into RENEGADES and created Deguchi-gun and Christian Prophet’s Brotherhood... but the balance and storytelling has been best for me with FEARLESS. In the tag team ranks, my favorite duo has been the RENEGADES junior tag team of Aydan Farrell and Tiger Singh — known as ROYALTY.

Has anyone figured out how they’ll be able to play the ThunderVerse in 2020? I’m not sure how converting mods works for this one, but I seem to recall being able to export a save file and turning that into a database? That, with some tweaks, could be fun. I’m still interested in seeing what the CVerse looks like in 2020, but man, I love the TVerse so much.

The Lucha Cousins

And here's how we ended 2017 in UPJ... September: Wrestling Ryogoku - Pain and Torture made another world tag title defense, this time against impressive newcomers YasuHara - Waotaka Eda won the COBRA Openweight title from Kato, who had been a target of RENEGADES throughout the tour —*notably, an attack from TEMPEST Masato made Kato less than 100 percent for this matchup - Kintaro Kinjo retains the World Heavyweight title against Christian Prophet, who had beaten him in the Ozeki Summit to set up this main event - Elsewhere on the card: Juro Deguchi and Fergus Storm knocked off Oda Yamawaki and Goto, Erik van Rijn led a RENEGADES team to a win over some United Throne members, recent signings The Disciples (of Pain) teamed with Jung DRAGON to get a six-man tag for The Brotherhood and James Gilmour did the same for a FEARLESS crew against Deguchi-gun. October: Golden Age at the Saitama Super Arena - HashiWara defend the junior tag titles against The Fallen (Derek Grace and Cameron Cody) - Jung DRAGON and The Disciples upset Junichi Matsuo and REVILED for the COBRA Openweight Six-Man tag titles, with Des Miller taking the pin - D'Anton Joubert beats Goto, who also had been a target of RENEGADES during the tour like his partner Kato, for the junior heavyweight title - Elsewhere on the card: EVR leads another RENEGADES team to victory, then attacks Yamawaki after FEARLESS' win over The Brotherhood — prompting a chaotic brawl that had been building for months. Deguchi teams with Pain & Torture to beat Kinjo, Eikichi Minamoto and Ryotaro Naruto to throw more on their Hall of Immortals fire. November: Hall of Immortals in Tokyo Dome - Jung DRAGON and The Disciples defend their COBRA six-man titles against Kozue and YasuHara - Flight Club snag the junior tag titles from longtime champs HashiWara in an electric four-way dance (an A* match!) that included Nakada & Yamada and ROYALTY - After months of disrespecting The Supreme Warrior in promos, Junichi Matsuo beats Ryotaro Naruto in a heated grudge match... afterwards, a tearful Naruto announces he is leaving UPJ because he feels he can't put together the performances his fans deserve anymore - Pain & Torture defend their world tag titles against World Tag Grand Prix champions Sean Girven and Alejandro Iglesias (who has unmasked and joined Deguchi-gun with his buddies after Crimson Matsuka is released) - Christian Prophet beats Eikichi Minamoto in a rambunctious falls count anywhere match - Oda Yamawaki/Goto/Kato/James Gilmour/Toki Ink beat Erik van Rijn/TEMPEST Masato/Furosoto/Des Miller/Bruiser Cassidy in a 10-man elimination showdown... after the match, Miller and Cassidy, who were the first two eliminations, are turned on by EVR/TEMPEST/Furosoto and kicked out of RENEGADES (Miller and Cassidy were on their way out to HONOUR, where they will get main event status and I will get to freshen up the stable some) - Waotaka Eda defends his COBRA Openweight title against his former FlatLine partner, Eli Morton, who I picked up on a quick loan from PWI just for fun - Fergus Storm gets a junior heavyweight title match against D'Anton Joubert, who he beat for the Junior Mountain Cup in the summer... and pulls off a surprise victory — there will most likely be an unorthodox-by-UPJ-standards triple threat match between Storm/Joubert/Goto for the belt in 2018, since they are all 1-1 against each other in title matches now - Kintaro Kinjo goes wire-to-wire in 2017 with the World Heavyweight championship by outlasting Juro Deguchi in a main event that nearly goes for an entire hour... after the match, Kinjo sticks his hand out to Deguchi —*after a long pause, the old friends who had been locked into a back-and-forth feud of almost two whole years share an embrace as the confetti falls in the Tokyo Dome (Kinjo maintains his spot as the undisputed ace, while Deguchi gets to be more of a face again with his popular "army" behind him) ------------ Once again, UPJ wins Company of the Year, Match of the Year (Kinjo > EVR all the way back at Procession of Champions in March) and Show of the Year (Hall of Immortals). Ignite Zero is the Tag Team of the Year again thanks to all of their stable warfare excellence. In the Power 500, Kinjo is No. 2 behind Hiroto Nori (again). EVR is 7, Deguchi is 8, Kato is 9, Prophet is 11, Goto is 14, Minamoto is 16, Joubert is 18, Yamawaki is 19, Eda is 22 and Storm is 28. Several more UPJers are in the top 50. ------------ So at one point in this save, I tried to bring in Seven Brandt and Super TIGER for touring deals. Both of them were snatched by The Club, which signed them to written contracts. (They also did that to Richie Santana Jr., who I had on my shortlist.) In late December, I noticed that The Club were bleeding money. I decided to take them over for their cult pop in America and just those three specific workers. (Pettiness rules.) I also took The Club's Championship and rebranded it as the UPJ Intercontinental title to set the tone for our 2018 goal of worldwide expansion. I let my two TV show contracts run out because a) I didn't really need the extra money and b) I wanted to be more flexible with my schedules in 2018 and truer to the NJPW-ish format. I upgraded my production to get deals with Star PPV in Japan (which is Huge in size) and The Entertainment Network in North America (Big in America, medium in Canada and Mexico). Star has us on in evenings, while I figured that an On Demand slot would make the most sense for UPJ overseas. ------------ Heading into 2018, here's what the roster looks like... The United Throne Leader: Kintaro Kinjo © (World Heavyweight) Top Junior: Kozue Heavyweights: Eikichi Minamoto, YasuHara (Nobuhisa Yasutake and Ukon Kajahara) Juniors: HashiWara (Jin Fujiwara and Shingo Hashi), Evan Kuja (teams with Kozue in K-Splosion), Thunder Iesada FEARLESS Leader: Oda Yamawaki Top Junior: Goto Heavyweights: Kato (teams with Goto in Ignite Zero), Tokyo Underground (Toki Ink and James Gilmour) Juniors: Akito Nakada & Haruko Yamada, Tokyo 2K (Nakano Yuki and Ryuko Mishamoto) Manager: Yuko Enoki RENEGADES Leader: Erik van Rijn Top Junior: Junichi Matsuo Heavyweights: RECKLESS (TEMPEST Masato and Koji Yamada), REVOLUTION (Seven Brandt and Richie Santana Jr.) Juniors: Furosoto (teams with Matsuo in REBELLION), ROYALTY (Aydan Farrell and Tiger Singh) Manager: Sakura Enoki Deguchi-gun Leader: Juro Deguchi Top Junior: Fergus Storm © (Junior Heavyweight) Heavyweights: Pain & Torture, Alejandro Iglesias & Sean Girven Juniors: Flight Club (Ebi Kadivar and Nathan Jordan) © (Junior Tag) and Graham Mackenzie The Brotherhood Leader: Christian Prophet Top Junior: Jung Dragon © (COBRA Six-Man Openweight with The Disciples) Heavyweights: Waotaka Eda © (COBRA Openweight) & Ram Diablo, The Disciples (Butcher Hachirobei and Yura Malakayan) © Juniors: Blood Tiger, Kris Phoenix and The Fallen (Derek Grace and Cameron Cody) Unattached The European Connection (D'Anton Joubert and Arttu Jensen) Taka Yamashita Yusuke Amura Ichibei Sen Masuda

major props to Cutler for going nearly 12 minutes with the Demon

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="dalton0911" data-cite="dalton0911" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="41411" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>This is one of the best interpretations I've seen so far, and is most definitely the closest parallel to what would happen in "real-life." By that I mean the small tours such as LuchaMania and The Clove that probably result in your match ratings taking a hit due to most of the new dudes aren't over in Japan. And having title feuds involving less over talent like Yamashita.<p> </p><p> Keep it up and let us know what happens next!</p></div></blockquote><p> Yeah, no kidding. I’m impressed at the detail of this save. Once I roll over to 2018, I’m probably gonna start looking at doing some of that cross-promotional stuff. </p><p> </p><p> Also like how you’re using different guys. I can fall into a trap of just cycling through the same main event scene for feuds because I know how to roll off A and even some A* shows in my sleep now. Gotta try to avoid getting in a lull.</p><p> </p><p> I’ve mapped out what all is gonna go down at Hall of the Immortals in my save, including a different kind of big match that I’m interested in pulling off.</p>

Summer 2017 is in the books... Junior Mountain Cup BLOCK A Fergus Storm: 13 Goto: 12 Kozue: 8 Furosoto: 8 Ebi Kadivar: 6 Tiger Singh: 4 Jin Fujiwara: 3 Haruko Yamada: 2 BLOCK B D'Anton Joubert: 14 Junichi Matsuo: 12 Ryotaro Naruto: 8 Shingo Hashi: 6 Aydan Farrell: 6 Hidestugu Genji: 4 Nathan Jordan: 4 Akito Nakada: 2 In Block A, Fergus Storm upsets Goto and draws with Kozue. In Block B, the debuting D'Anton Joubert sweeps the board with his technical masterclass style —*while Junichi Matsuo beats everybody but Joubert for a strong showing in the Mountain. But Storm knocks off Joubert in the final, setting up a showdown with Goto for the title at Ascension... Ascension 6.14 in Osaka-jo Hall - Pain & Torture become eight-time World Tag Team champions by knocking off Waotaka Eda & Ram Diablo - Goto retains the Junior Heavyweight title over Fergus Storm - Kintaro Kinjo retains the World Heavyweight title over Oda Yamawaki - After the match, a hooded figure yet again storms the ring to interrupt Kinjo's celebration... but it's revealed to be Eikichi Minamoto, playing a joke on one of his old buddies. Minamoto congratulates Kinjo on his current run and says he's back in UPJ — now that the idiot Matsumoto brothers are no longer in charge — to help the old guard in The United Throne. (This gives The United Throne another big name, since Kinjo was kinda isolated in the heavyweight main event scene.) Ozeki Summit 28 BLOCK A Erik van Rijn: 16 Kintaro Kinjo: 15 Kato: 15 Christian Prophet: 12 Sean Girven: 8 James Gilmour: 6 Pain: 6 Bruiser Cassidy: 4 Kahoku Meka: 4 Ram Diablo: 4 BLOCK B Juro Deguchi: 18 Oda Yamawaki: 16 Eikichi Minamoto: 14 TEMPEST Masato: 10 Waotaka Eda: 8 TOKI INK: 8 Graham Mackenzie: 4 Koji Yamada: 4 Torture: 4 Des Miller: 2 In Block A, Christian Prophet upsets Kintaro Kinjo on Night 1, and Kato takes him to a time limit draw a couple of weeks later. Erik van Rijn runs the table until the final night, where he loses to Kinjo after already clinching the block. Prophet earns a title match against Kinjo prior to Hall of Immortals. In Block B, Juro Deguchi and Oda Yamawaki sweep their entire block until the final night — when Deguchi knocks off Yamawaki in a winner-take-all main event. Elsewhere, Minamoto shines in his return to UPJ and TEMPEST Masato positions himself to challenge for major hardware in the future. Ozeki Summit 28 Final in Kawasaki Stadium - HashiWara retain junior tag titles against Flight Club - Junichi Matsuo and REVILED retain NEVER Openweight Six-Man titles over Tokyo Underground and James Gilmour - Pain & Torture retain world tag titles in a rematch against Eda & Diablo - Christian Prophet and the debuting JUNG Dragon defeat TEMPEST Masato and Furosoto in a strong cross-divisional tag match - Oda Yamawaki and Ignite Zero defeat Kintaro Kinjo, Eikichi Minamoto and Kozue in a thrilling co-main event - Juro Deguchi beats Erik van Rijn in a marathon match to win the Ozeki Summit for the third time in his illustrious career, tying only Sonoda for most all-time. I let a few older folks go for various reasons and am starting to replenish my undercard and young lions with new talent. Pretty pleased that two of them have been taken as proteges by main eventers — Yusuke Amura by Kintaro Kinjo and ICHIBEI by Kato.

<p>First tour of 2017 is done, and while not much changed in January and February in terms of hires or title matches — ROYALTY repeated as Junior Tag Grand Prix winners but were unable to beat HashiWara for the titles at Ignition in January — March had a lot of action.</p><p> </p><p> In the UPJ Invitational, EVR knocks off Juro Deguchi in the semifinal, while Oda Yamawaki defeats Kintaro Kinjo. EVR wins the final, earning a title shot at Procession of Champions.</p><p> </p><p> Takehide Harada's contract was coming to a close, and I decided to let run it out instead of re-signing him because his best days were behind him. The week before Procession of Champions, I had a Hall of Fame show for him, where he won a six-man tag match with Kintaro Kinjo and Ryotaro Naruto over the FEARLESS team of Oda Yamawaki, Goto and Kato. You're probably supposed to go out on your back... but, since Harada's three-decade career was defined by never winning the big one, I decided to let him go out on top.</p><p> </p><p> Procession of Champions was in front of 45,000 at Jingu Stadium, and it did not disappoint with several A matches on the card.</p><p> </p><p> - HashiWara retain the Junior Tag titles in a phenomenal opener against Nakada & Yamada.</p><p> - Junichi Matsuo and REVILED snatch the COBRA Openweight titles from the Deguchi-gun team of Fergus Storm, Graham Mackenzie and Sean Girven. RENEGADES get their hands on some belts again. Matsuo and Cassidy have been putting out some incredible performances recently.</p><p> - Waotaka Eda & Ram Diablo retain the World Tag titles against Tokyo Underground.</p><p> - A larger Deguchi-gun team, led by Juro, beats Christian Prophet + The Fallen + The Forgotten in a special showcase match to break up the card some.</p><p> - Kato retains the COBRA Openweight title in a rematch against TEMPEST Masato.</p><p> - Goto retains the Junior Heavyweight title against Thunder Iesada after Goto challenged him during Rebellion... he felt that no junior title reign would be truly complete without facing the legend himself.</p><p> - Kintaro Kinjo gets pushed to the absolute limit by EVR but retains the World Heavyweight title. After the match, Oda Yamawaki stops Kinjo in the middle of his speech to the crowd and reminds him that a) he pinned him in the UPJ Invitational and b) he hadn't gotten his shot at a rematch from Hall of Immortals.</p><p> </p><p> So now we're gearing up for the Junior Mountain and Ozeki Summit summer tour. D'Anton Joubert's contract with HONOUR is ending, so I'm going to try to snag him to get one more heavy hitter in the junior division to go alongside Furosoto, Goto and Naruto (who has lost a step but can still hang with the juniors). The Mountain should be big for both Storm and Matsuo, as both have star potential in the division. Kris Phoenix is still out for a while with injury.</p><p> </p><p> ---</p><p> </p><p> Question... so Ikina continues to be a pain backstage, and his stagnant B- rating in announcing has a tendency to drag matches down. Oimikado seems to be stuck on B- as well, while Ki (my user character) is now up to A on color. LETHAL's announcer is the only one I can get who is rated higher, but he's just a B and loyal to them, so no written deal. What should I do?</p>

<p>Is the title of this a Vince Staples reference?</p><p> </p><p> If so, I’m so in. (If not, I’m still in.)</p>

Love the Ito-gun idea, also like how you brought the COBRA over, too — it just fits perfectly. Now that I’ve hit national, I’ve considered establishing relationships like NJPW has with ROH and CMLL and hitting the West Coast for some shows.

Awesome show, loved some of the bolder decisions you made in it. Most importantly, glad to see Darby holding some championship gold.

Alright, let's put a bow on 2016 with UPJ. September: Wrestling Ryogoku - REVILED defend the world tag belts against The Hunters. Koji Yamada turns on Avalanche Miyagi and joins RENEGADES. - Kozue & Genji challenge ROYALTY for the junior tag belts and win them. - TEMPEST successfully defends the COBRA Openweight title against Kahoku Meka. - Furosoto successfully defends the junior heavyweight title against Shingo Hashi. - Kinjo teams up with Naruto and Iesada to beat Deguchi, Pain and Torture in an electric co-main event, putting more fuel for their showdown in October. - Yamawaki successfully defends the heavyweight title against EVR. October: Golden Age - Most of the undercard for this show was the first night of the World Tag Grand Prix. - Kato challenges TEMPEST for the COBRA Openweight title and wins it. After the match, a celebrating Kato is attacked by the debuting... Christian Prophet. - Kinjo successfully defends his main event contract for Hall of Immortals against Deguchi. November: Hall of Immortals - UPJ introduces the COBRA Openweight Six-Man title, which is won in a 3 v 3 v 3 match by the trio of Sean Girven, Fergus Storm and Graham Mackenzie. - HashiWara springs a surprise upset over stable mates Kozue & Genji for the junior tag belts. - Eda & Diablo, thanks to their excellent chemistry, run the table in the World Tag Grand Prix and then win the world tag belts against REVILED. - Deguchi avenges his loss to EVR from 2015's Hall of Immortals main event with a non-title win. - Kato successfully defends the COBRA Openweight title against Christian Prophet. - Goto finally gets his hands on Furosoto and wins the junior heavyweight championship in a no-DQ title match. - Kinjo and Yamawaki pull another A* rated classic, with Kinjo winning the world heavyweight title. ---------------- Here's the stable lineup right now... RENEGADES: Erik Van Rijn, Furosoto, Bruiser Cassidy, Des Miller, TEMPEST Masato, Koji Yamada, Aydan Farrell, Tiger Singh, Junichi Matsuo Sakura Enoki, girlfriend of Matsuo, manages the stable FEARLESS: Oda Yamawaki, Kato, Goto, Kahoku Meka, TOKI INK, Akito Nakada, Haruko Yamada Yuko Enoki, girlfriend of Goto, manages the stable Deguchi-gun: Juro Deguchi, Pain, Torture, Fergus Storm, Sean Girven, Graham Mackenzie, Captain Scotland, Ebi Kadivar, Nathan Jordan Kadivar and Jordan are in a tag team called Flight Club after Paul Crowley bounced to DIASPORA... but Jordan tore an abdominal muscle and will miss Junior Grand Prix The Brotherhood: Christian Prophet, Waotaka Eda, Ram Diablo, Kris Phoenix, Alejandro Iglesias, Crimson Matsuka, Derek Grace, Cameron Cody Iglesias + Matsuka = The Forgotten Grace + Cody = The Fallen Phoenix is also out for an extended time with a knee injury The United Throne: Basically everyone else, with Kintaro Kinjo as the ace and Kozue as the top junior ---------------- Rose to national early in the final tour of the year, and I turned my Monday tour show into a televised one. Going to try to get the Wednesday one televised as well, and I'll move to three shows a week in 2017. That setup would leave Friday shows non-televised, giving me weekend flexibility for the PPVs at the end of the month. UPJ was named company of the year and most improved company of the year, with the summit final between Yamawaki and Kinjo taking match of the year. Hall of Immortals (which went an astonishing A-A-A-A* in terms of the last four matches) wins show of the year. Nine of the top 25 workers in the Power 500 are with UPJ, including four of the top 10 —*Yamawaki, Kinjo, Goto and Kato. Prophet, Furosoto, EVR, Deguchi and TEMPEST are the others.

Just wrapped up my summer tour with UPJ, and I absolutely love this save. Here's what happened. Junior Mountain 2016 BLOCK A Kozue: 14 Furosoto ©: 12 Aydan Farrell: 8 Kris Phoenix: 6 Paul Crowley: 5 Nathan Jordan: 5 Jin Fujiwara: 4 Akito Nakada: 2 BLOCK B Shingo Hashi: 14 Goto: 12 Hidestugu Genji: 6 Thunder Iesada: 6 Junchi Matsuo: 6 Tiger Singh: 6 Haruko Yamada: 4 Ebi Kadivar: 2 In Block A, Kozue catches fire and runs the table after opening Junior Mountain with a huge win over the champion Furosoto. Kris Phoenix debuts and puts on stellar match after stellar match, snatching three wins in the process. Nathan Jordan also makes a great first impression, while Aydan Farrell continues the good work of tag champs ROYALTY. In Block B, Shingo Hashi and Goto both win each of their first six matches, setting up a winner-take-all showdown on the last night before the final. Furosoto, still trying to avoid Goto after the draw and intentional DQ, distracts Goto enough for Hashi to pull off the upset and punch his ticket to the final. In an all-United Throne final that was also a showdown between two of the best fliers on the planet, Kozue beats Hashi and earns a shot at the Junior Heavyweight title. Ascension 6.13 in Osaka-jo Hall (I like playing with real venues.) Kozue's quest to become only the third man to ever be a three-time UPJ Junior Heavyweight champion comes to a bitter end, though, when Furosoto grabs the win. His stable mates, REVILED and ROYALTY, also defend their tag titles. TEMPEST Masato, who I'm personally loving to book now that he's no longer trying to fight everybody backstage, gets under the skin of Oda Yamawaki enough during the Junior Mountain portion of the tour to set up a heavyweight title shot. Yamawaki retains in the champion vs. champion showdown. Ahead of Ascension, Kintaro Kinjo challenges Ignite Zero to a special tag match for the main event, but he wouldn't reveal his partner until right beforehand. He reveals none other than Ryotaro Naruto, who makes his return to UPJ for the first time in nearly five years. (DRAGON had recently negotiated a new contract that was a regular PPA instead of an exclusive one, which meant I could snag him on a PPA of my own.) After pinning Goto to win the match, Naruto gets a microphone and says that he was only going to return to Japan for a special reason... and while he's won everything the junior division has to offer and even challenged for the heavyweight title, he had never competed in the Ozeki Summit. So the Supreme Warrior is back in UPJ for his greatest test yet — competing in the world's most prestigious and physically demanding heavyweight tournament. Ozeki Summit 27 BLOCK A Oda Yamawaki ©: 16 Ryotaro Naruto: 15 Waotaka Eda: 15 Erik van Rijn: 14 Pain: 8 Sean Girven: 6 Bruiser Cassidy: 4 Takanori Sakurai: 4 Graham Mackenzie: 4 Kahoku Meka: 4 Yamawaki and Naruto open the first night of the Summit by tearing the house down with an incredible main event that Yamawaki wins. Later, Eda knocks off EVR, but EVR snags a win over Yamawaki in the penultimate night of Block A action. (Naruto and Eda drew earlier.) On the final night, Yamawaki beats Girven — another impressive debutant —*but all EVR needs is a win over Naruto to book his ticket to the final. Naruto pulls off a gutsy win, sending Yamawaki to the final. BLOCK B Kintaro Kinjo: 16 Kato: 16 Juro Deguchi: 14 TEMPEST Masato: 10 Torture: 10 Takahide Harada: 8 Ram Diablo: 6 TOKI INK: 4 Koma Kobiashi: 4 Des Miller: 2 Not to be outdone by Block A, Kinjo and Kato put together a fantastic main event in their first night, which Kinjo wins. Deguchi gets revenge for the UPJ Cup semifinal loss by beating Kinjo midway through the tournament. Takahide Harada takes a while to get going, but the legendary veteran pulls off surprising upsets of both Deguchi and Masato. He can't get one over Kinjo, though, who wins Block B. (In a lesser story, Des Miller gets smacked around for eight straight losses but beats Ram Diablo at the end.) Then, in front of more than 30,000 fans at the Saitama Super Arena, Kinjo beats Yamawaki in my first A* match to become only the eighth man to win multiple Ozeki Summit tournaments. So, we'll head into our final September-October-November tour with several things in place. First, EVR will get his title rematch against Yamawaki in the big show in September, since he won their Block A showdown. Second, Kinjo will defend his Hall of Immortals main event contract against Deguchi in the big show in October. There will also be a World Tag Grand Prix in November, with the winner getting a title shot at Hall of Immortals. Meanwhile, TEMPEST will have to defend his COBRA Openweight title against Harada and Kato, thanks to their wins over him in the Summit. I did a pretty good job of loading up the junior tag division for the Grand Prix in January, and I'll have to snag some more talent to do the same for the heavyweight tag division. Outside of Pain/Torture, REVILED and the resurrected Tokyo Underground team, there's not a lot of juice there. I randomly found that Eda and Diablo had great chemistry tagging together, so that'll be a non-stable affiliated team.

One of the things I really like about UPJ (and Japanese wrestling in general) is that I can create in-ring stories and strong characters without sticking strictly to the face/heel dynamic. Deguchi can turn on Kinjo without being a good “heel” and just an iconic veteran who feels like he’s been passed over too many times in the current landscape. And I’ve already eyed Phoenix and MacKenzie — the latter really looks like a ZSJ type. I’m really too much of a NJPW mark not to try to do a bunch of parallels, even further than what the TVerse already sets up.

So I just finished my first tour of UPJ using the tips in this thread, and I’m having a blast. Long post incoming. I made January my Junior Tag Grand Prix, with the winners not only taking home the trophies but the reactivated Junior Tag titles. On the first show, I had Ignite Zero main event with a title defense over Kinjo and Deguchi. Then I had EVR and Furosoto attack Ignite Zero afterwards. That set up a main event at my end of the month show, which I called Ignition 1.26, where Ignite Zero would face EVR/Furosoto. With the junior tag titles now back and Goto/Kato at different weights, I decided that in the story, Ignite Zero would vacate their titles for a shot at EVR and Furosoto’s belts. They win at Ignition, obviously, creating title shots in February. Meanwhile, I put Tiger Singh in RENEGADES and establish a tag team with Aydan Farrell called ROYALTY. They have great chemistry and go on to win the Grand Prix... after helping their own cause on the final night with some interference in another match. In February, the heavyweight tag division beats up on each other during the tour while Ignite Zero gets ready for their matches by joining up with FEARLESS on some nights and The United Throne (I took out The Hall) in some stable warfare with RENEGADES. I also buy the COBRA Openweight title to establish that as a NEVER-type “division.” Over two nights of Rebellion — in Kyoto and Kobe, respectively — Cassidy and Miller (now rebranded as REVILED — sticking with the all caps R theme) win the vacant tag titles, TEMPEST wins the COBRA, ROYALTY defend, Furosoto retains with a time limit draw and EVR retains. Every member of RENEGADES has a belt, making it a clean sweep of the company. They all pose with their gold at the end of Rebellion. In March, since I’ve been running two shows a week, I slide the Summit back to the summer — gonna do a back-to-back with Junior Mountain and Summit on the next tour — and run a 32-man single elimination UPJ Cup, with the winner getting a title shot at the rescheduled Procession of Champions. At this point, Yamawaki is nuclear in terms of overness, and I book him to win it all. He beats Kato in the semis and shakes hands afterwards, officially inviting Ignite Zero to join FEARLESS and take down RENEGADES. (In my head, he’s cutting promos where he vows that FEARLESS will take all their titles by the end of the year, and that he’ll start to kill the snake by going after the head first in EVR.) Deguchi goes through a murderers row in the first three rounds, only to get knocked out by a cruising Kinjo in the semis. After the match, Kinjo shakes Deguchi’s hand and gets hit with a low blow. Sick of being overshadowed, Deguchi stomps out Kinjo, which affects him in the loss to Yamawaki in the final days later. (Also, Ichiro Mishima announces his retirement — I’m playing as Shosuke Ki — and I have a Hall of Fame induction show before Procession.) Deguchi forms Deguchi-gun, recruiting Pain and Torture as elite-level backup because everyone is after him for turning on the Heir to the Throne himself. The new trio beats Kinjo + Harada + Eda at Procession. Everyone in RENEGADES retains — Furosoto gets himself DQed to prevent losing the belt to Goto in a rematch — *except* for EVR, who loses to Yamawaki in an instant classic, A-rated finale to close the tour. (He then pulls an A* celebration angle afterwards.) I had no clue the narrative was in place for UPJ to surge with the emperor’s visit to the Summit — guess he technically did it at Procession now — so now the company is soaring even higher with Yamawaki as new champ and Kinjo getting the massive bump from meeting with the emperor. Beginner’s luck. So now we’re cooling off before the summer, where I’m stepping up to three shows a week to fit a 16-man Junior Mountain and a full 20-man Summit. The Summit is gonna be a ton of fun to set up with the new Deguchi-Kinjo rivalry, EVR having to repeat to get a shot back at his title and Yamawaki competing with a giant target on his back. Have to bolster the roster some, especially the juniors, but I’m enjoying scouting the other companies for people I can pick up since it’s been years since I’ve played this mod or even TEW.