CZCW: Making An Impact

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Important Notes: I gave the promotion an even million dollars to start off. What I want to do will take a lot of money. My character in the game is named Will Storm, a sort of "one man show", a respected announcer and color man with a firm grasp of Psychology as well. Basically, he can do everything but wrestle. I altered the product of CZCW slightly: Traditional Key Mainstream Very Low Comedy Low Modern Key Realism Medium Hardcore Very Low Lucha Medium Daredevil Low I also changed women's wrestling from none to integrated an upped the match intensity and danger to 80%.

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[B]January 2007[/B] As I took over CZCW, I knew immediately what I wanted and, more importantly, what I didn't want. I knew that it would be a rough transition but the end result would be worth it. Naturally I set our distribution to Internet. This was to be a key aspect of our expansion strategy. I sent out overtures of peace to several organizations and soon had a working agreement with TCW, NOTBPW, WLW, PGHW, OLLIE, MPWF and a non-aggression pact with SWF. With these agreements in place, my roster was (mostly) safe from poaching and I could utilize trades to bring in exclusively Japanese and Mexican talent. Then came the time that the locker room dreaded, the roster cuts. Jeremiah Moose was a rookie jobber, James Prudence was not nearly talented enough to justify his place in the main event, Flying Jimmy Foxx was another flash in the pan cruiserweight who was pulling Snap Dragon down, and Farrah Hesketh was only getting in the way in the announcing booth. I let Donnie J stay long enough to lose the Coastal Zone Championship and job to my stars before letting him go. Citizen X was also let go after failing to produce to a satisfactory level. With the fat cut, it was time to bring in some new blood. I had a good idea of who I wanted, but I had to be extremely careful not to go overboard lest I be stuck with a bloated roster. Hell Monkey initially spurned my offers but finally relented and signed on. Angel De Mexico was signed to give Ultimate Phoenix another luchadore to play with. Fumihiro Ota was hired to lend the main event some credibility and I also hired the Natural, rechristening him Damian Carville. And then I hired the man who would go on to become the crown jewel of my promotion: Jack Marlowe. The Wild Man and global sensation would be the one I would build my promotion around; the man who would lead us to the Regional level. With the roster cuts and additions made, it was time to focus on the booking strategy...

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I knew right away that I wanted a strong champion, with a nice, long title run. The question was: to whom did I trust the fate of CZCW, and no doubt my booking career as well? Ultimate Phoenix was out. Although he was very talented, he was too free-spirited and flaky to trust with the company's top honor. His Mexican commitments also ruled him out. Fumihiro Ota was also ruled out. While talented and relatively over, he just didn't have the stamina to go at a main event level night after night after night. Sadly I had to pass on Hell Monkey. The man could carry my promotion single-handedly, but his number one priority would always be Japan. Besides, he was a major injury just waiting to happen with his hectic schedule. I would come to have issues with Damian Carville. I wanted to utilize his considerable talents, and was even ready to have him be CZCW's figurehead. But like Hell Monkey and Ultimate Phoenix, his priority lay in another country's wrestling scene and try though I might, I couldn't find a night to have a show that didn't conflict with either CGC, NOTBPW, or half of my roster's schedule. In the end, he wasn't worth it and I let him go. I'm told he was rather bitter about that. Such is life. There was only one man capable of leading us into the future: Jack Marlowe. Putting my faith in him, I had him take the belt off of Donnie J in his debut match and knew right away I'd made the right decision. Elsewhere, I had the team of Masked Cougar (renamed Cougar Mask) and Fox Mask win the newly vacant tag team titles. Henceforth, they would wrestle as the team Wild Kingdom. I was disappointed that they didn't work well as a team though. What was to be a decent title reign was scrapped, and I had them drop the belts to the team of newly-acquired Jacob Jett and Mainstream Hernandez at the very first hurdle. Jett and Hernandez were a much better team and I dubbed them Jett Stream. As for Insane Machine, I intended to give him a respectable title run. My plan was for him to have at least 12 defenses before dropping the belt. As for Jack Marlowe, nothing less than 30 defenses would do before I'd even consider taking the belt off of him. CZCW needed a fighting champion. With that in mind, it was time to go on the road. My strategy was 3-fold: establish a solid base in our home of the Southwest; expand into Northern Mexico; expand into Kanto, Japan. Our product was a hybrid of hard-hitting puro, high-flying lucha, and fast-paced American modern wrestling. It stood to reason that with that product, we could become an international sensation if we marketed right. We went on the road with weekly house shows, every other week going abroad to Mexico or Japan to build our foreign base. Going into this, I knew it would be hard to put on good shows without having some stars. It became time for me to utilize the Talent Trade feature...

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The good thing about having Ultimate Phoenix and Jack Marlowe on your roster, is that they allow you to trade for big talent in Mexico and Japan, respectively. I used Phoenix to trade for Marco Flores and then later on El Leon. Jack Marlowe was traded for first Awesome Thunder and then Emerald Angel. With relatively big names like those, it wasn't hard to build a respectable following abroad. Meanwhile, our stateside shows will packed with exciting match-ups week after week. Jack Marlowe and Insane Machine fought off all comers week after week, and the matches between Jack Marlowe and Ultimate Phoenix always brought the house down. As I said earlier, Jett Stream took the belts off of Wild Kingdom at the first hurdle. While their run would be far from impressive, they managed to at least finish up January as tag team champs. February would see us grow even bigger, and we would make a couple of major acquisitions.

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[B]February 2007[/B] February was a relatively quiet month of hardcore, weekly touring with two exceptions: the acquisition of Cherry Bomb and Wanda Fish. Wanting to capitalize off of their fame in AAA, I brought them into CZCW and started them off with individual winning streaks. However, my true plans with them were to team them up as the Hell's Angels and to have them take the belts off of Jett Stream, neither of whom were quite up to the level needed to be tag team champion. Things got more interesting in March. [B]March 2007[/B] So March comes around, I open up my email inbox, and what do I read? Cherry Bomb retiring. ****. After I stopped swearing, I went to work plotting out the new course of the tag belts, which seemed cursed to be transitional titles. I had brought in Bulldozer Brandon Smith and teamed him up with Frankie Perez as Team STRONG, a team which capitalized on both members puro arsenal. Then a light bulb went off. Since CZCW was to be a blend of Japanese, Mexican, and American style, why not have a team representing each of those styles? Ultimate Phoenix and Angel De Mexico became Team LUCHA for obvious reasons. Snap Dragon and Insane Machine became Team Xtreme, designed to capitalize on their previous Xtreme title runs. The Hell's Angels succeeded in taking the belts off of Jett Stream in their first match teaming together. If Cherry Bomb was going to retire, then I was going to send the old girl out right. As if to slap me in the face, Fish and Bomb had great chemistry teaming together. Sigh... Over the next few weeks, the Hell's Angels plowed their way through first Team Xtreme in Mexico and then Team Lucha in the US. No WAY I was jobbing Phoenix and Angel out in their home turf. Then it came time to face Team STRONG in Kanto. This was to be the last match of Cherry Bomb's career, and she was going out with a bang. The storyline went that the Hell's Angels were so supremely confidant that they even allowed Team STRONG to name the stipulations of their title match. Perez and Bulldozer chose a Japanese Barbwire Match. It was ugly. The match got a D rating, but it achieved the necessary goal. Cherry Bomb received a kayfabe career ending injury and was retired, and Team STRONG walked out of Gunma Hall as the new tag team champions. Elsewhere, Jack Marlowe and Insane Machine were kicking ass and taking names, as were Hell Monkey, Ultimate Phoenix, and to a lesser extent Plague and Fumihiro Ota. Speaking of Ota, I brought in Kazuma Narato to team up with him once more as Super Ninjas. They were a moderately effective tag team, though they never won any titles.

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[B]April 2007[/B] Two words sum up April for CZCW. Alicia Freaking Strong. After Wanda Fish carried us to Regional level with a fantastic B rated main event match with Plague, I was big enough for Ms Strong to consider our offer of employment. I wonder what her daddy would say... Anyway, Strong debuted teaming with Wanda Fish, and what do you know, they had excellent chemistry team together. Thus was born the team of Blonde Ambition. They ate the other tag teams for lunch, and it wasn't long before they were wearing gold around their wastes. With Fish teamed up with Strong, I switched Cherry Bomb from managing Fish to working with me in the announcing booth. She makes a decent color woman. [B]May 2007[/B] May saw a HUGE change for CZCW. We were able to ink a TV deal with Los Deporte Hoy, no doubt due to our considerable touring of both the Southwest and Northern Mexico. Sadly, the network refused to give us more than an hour, so our business model would need to change. I gave the guys the entire month of May off. We had a major TV show deal coming up and I didn't want any surprise injuries leading into it. [B]June 2007[/B] We started with a huge bang. Hell Monkey won the Xtreme title off of Insane Machine, ending his 6 month long title reign. Monkey was going to be another strong champ, and I planned on him at least equalling Machine's reign, if not surpassing it in length and number of defenses. The second big news item was our acquisition of American Elemental. TCW's fall to Cult status saw them let him go and us snatch him up just as quickly. With Angel de Mexico languishing in the lower midcards, I renamed him Mexican Elemental and team him with Am El as the Elemental Alliance. The final big news item of June was the turning of Frankie Perez and Mainstream Hernandez on their teammates and their formation of another new tag team. Frankie Perez and Jamie "Don't Call Me Mainstream" Hernandez became Latino Heat, a hard-hitting, high-flying latino tag team obviously inspired by teams such as Los Guerreros and LAX. With only 1 hour of television time a week, it was clear that a roster of my size would not receive the exposure it needed. Thus was born the Impact Tour. Every Sunday, my top talent would tear it up on TV for an hour, while every Monday would see us putting on a 2 hour show in one of 3 key areas of expansion: the Northwest, Northern Mexico, and Kanto. The latter two were just extensions of previous policy, but the Northwest was added as a deliberate effort to push ourselves to Cult level. The first 3 shows of any month would be put on in Mexico, and the final Impact Tour show of the month would be put on in either Japan or Mexico, to keep our momentum there from falling. [B]July 2007[/B] The only thing worth noting in July was the acquisition of Freddie Datsun and Kid Toma, the latter following SWF's inevitable fall to Cult. Elsewhere, Marlowe, Hell Monkey, and Blonde Ambition were invincible, defending their titles often against a host of challengers.

[Sigilistic]

If this seems dry, I apologize. I wanted to do a full recap up to where I am in the game as of now, and I've finally done so. The write-ups should be a bit more thorough starting now, since I'll ideally be recording all of this stuff while it's fresh on my mind. As always, I hope you enjoy. More to come later.