So, What really IS "Family Friendly"?

[Eisen-verse]

Sorry if it seems like I post a lot of stuff up here... but... Even as a long time TEW/EWR player, I still have a lot of questions that I need to find the answers to... And what better way to find those answers than talking with others on these boards. That's why we're here. hah. Anyways... I was thinking about USPW and their product and was starting to think... What really IS "Family Friendly" wrestling? I'm guessing it's something more like wrestling was back in the 80's... Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant... Stuff like that. Am I right? So, you wouldn't see really any "major violence" (aka throwing someone off of a ramp way), risque personas, or shocking moments. Correct?

[FINisher]

Mm.. Yes. As it says on the USPW bio, "Since its formation in 2001, United States Pro Wrestling has been one of America's fastest rising promotions, offering its fans a family-friendly product that is heavily based in 1980s wrestling nostalgia and unabashed patriotism." So yes. No risky angles, matches, gimmicks.. Wrestling from kids eyes.

[LFC_chris]

My interpretation is that it's a throw back to the olden days, with over the top characters, slow-paced matches (I wouldn't imagine you'd get many high flyers or hardcore wrestlers). Basically the type of wrestling that'd appeal to the whole family - good guys vs. bad guys, probably a fair amount of comedy involved (with the gimmicks and the like).

[praguepride]

And also, a HEAVY limit on risque. No T&A, no blood, no swearing...

[cappyboy]

[QUOTE=LFC_chris;444554]My interpretation is that it's a throw back to the olden days, with over the top characters, slow-paced matches (I wouldn't imagine you'd get many high flyers or hardcore wrestlers). [/QUOTE] Man, I just love ::rolling eyes:: this canard about the 80's. Every time it comes up it makes me wonder if the people putting it out think 80's wrestling happened at the carnival. Okay, so you didn't have much of the lucha influence here in the states during the 80's. But someone go tell Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell they were misnamed as The High Flyers. Go tell the Rock and Roll Express they were slow. Tell Shawn Michaels he wasn't a speedball as a rookie or sober up MArty Jannetty and tell him his feet were always made of cement. As for hardcore, go get a Ouija board and tell Bruiser Brody he wasn't hardcore. Peddle that to Abdullah the Butcher when his fork is looking you square in the eyes. Tell it to the Fantastics and Sheepherders that their barbed wire series wasn't all that. Heck, feed both lines to The Fantastics and prepare for the mocking you get. You want to talk about this slow pace stuff with the 50's and 60's? Okay. We can have that conversation. But people really need to quit underestimating the 80's for the range of styles that got put on display then.

[That 1 Dude]

Marty Jannetty.... your feet are made of cement.... sorry. Family Friendly can me any style of wrestler but think more colorful gimmicks. Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warriors, Hillbilly Jim, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, The Rockers, The Bushwackers, more over the top then realstic. Don't think Triple H, Stone Cold, and Cryme Tyme.

[Gigas]

WWE Superstars at 10:00 am.

[Wildcat]

I think too many people confuse 80's wrestling with classic wrestling of the 60's. In the 60's the powerbomb, ddt and even the top turnbuckle were illegal, in the 80's you had fliers, you had powerbombs, DDT's and yes even weapons depending on the state/county. When I see family friendly and 80's wrestling together I think of the rock and wrestling style of promotion. - NOT THE CARTOON :) The Clearly defined faces and heels, where the heels ALWAYS cheat and the faces never waiver, where the gimmicks are massively over the top and always colorful. Sometimes realistic, mostly not and never subtle in the least. Where you saw a bunch of decent undercards and always got one big match a night featuring a title fight or a grudge match of some sort but rarely saw more than straight singles or tags unless it was a big card where you may get a battle royal or a six man tag match at the top and the cage was king (you'd get one maybe twice a year in a good promotion).

[Karl_Kitsch]

Hardcore in the 80's? Don't forget the Raging Bull! Manny Fernandez was so hardcore he had 'MF' on the back of his tights. I guess if you, like me, grew up on GCW and WCCW and the NWA, the vision of 80's wrestling as nothing but Rock n Wrestling is kinda strange. That being said, I imagine that USPW is supposed to be like the WWF house show I went to in 1990. 1. Instantly recognizable characters. When someone walks out, you should know who he is instantly. Who keep it uncomplicated. 2. Simple stories. The simple characters should lead to simple plots. Russian guy and USA guy. Over sexed perv and weirdo with face paint. It should write itself. Push all of this post Heyman and Russo garbage out of your head. 3. Low impact. Matches are slow, but well executed. Keep It Simple, Silly.

[foolinc]

The best comparision is early 90s WWF.

[cappyboy]

[QUOTE=Karl_Kitsch;444808]Hardcore in the 80's? Don't forget the Raging Bull! Manny Fernandez was so hardcore he had 'MF' on the back of his tights. I guess if you, like me, grew up on GCW and WCCW and the NWA, the vision of 80's wrestling as nothing but Rock n Wrestling is kinda strange. That being said, I imagine that USPW is supposed to be like the WWF house show I went to in 1990. 1. Instantly recognizable characters. When someone walks out, you should know who he is instantly. Who keep it uncomplicated. 2. Simple stories. The simple characters should lead to simple plots. Russian guy and USA guy. Over sexed perv and weirdo with face paint. It should write itself. Push all of this post Heyman and Russo garbage out of your head. 3. Low impact. Matches are slow, but well executed. Keep It Simple, Silly.[/QUOTE] Oh definitely. I didn't get those specific promotions you mention until late in my high school days. But there was always some indy on. Be it Angelo Savoldi's ICW, the AWA, the UWF (both Bill Watts and Herb Abrams versions) or promotions that were just totally random selections for New England like South Atlantic Pro. I kinda pity folks who have this narrow, cookie cutter view of 80's wrestling. The 80's were when I had the greatest depth of wrestling product available to me I ever have in my lifetime. And you are so right about Manny Fernandez. The dude was just a beast. And how lucky was he that MF were his initials? Had that not been the case, who knows if he could even have gotten those tights past Standards & Practices 80's sensibilities being what they were? If I were asked to make a list of guys I wish I could have seen more of, Manny Fernandez would be pretty high on it. That Raging Bull nickname fit him to a tee.

[djthefunkchris]

And to be fair, there was quite a bit more "Action" back in the 80's as compared to modern TNA/WWE ish type's... at least "Ring Action". Glad I'm not the only one that found something weird about this 80's=slow thing going on. There is a difference between High Flyer's, and Gymnastic shows. Today's carnival act doesn't count as decent High Flying (to me).

[LFC_chris]

[QUOTE=cappyboy;444637]Man, I just love ::rolling eyes:: this canard about the 80's. Every time it comes up it makes me wonder if the people putting it out think 80's wrestling happened at the carnival. Okay, so you didn't have much of the lucha influence here in the states during the 80's. But someone go tell Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell they were misnamed as The High Flyers. Go tell the Rock and Roll Express they were slow. Tell Shawn Michaels he wasn't a speedball as a rookie or sober up MArty Jannetty and tell him his feet were always made of cement. As for hardcore, go get a Ouija board and tell Bruiser Brody he wasn't hardcore. Peddle that to Abdullah the Butcher when his fork is looking you square in the eyes. Tell it to the Fantastics and Sheepherders that their barbed wire series wasn't all that. Heck, feed both lines to The Fantastics and prepare for the mocking you get. You want to talk about this slow pace stuff with the 50's and 60's? Okay. We can have that conversation. But people really need to quit underestimating the 80's for the range of styles that got put on display then.[/QUOTE] I never mentioned any time scale in my post - I simply referred to the 'olden days' and gave my interpretation of what I thought 'family friendly' meant in the context of the game. And if family friendly would involve Abdullah The Butcher matches and barbed wire series then those families probably shouldn't be bringing up young children. So either you've quoted the wrong post or you're being a ****. I'd suggest the latter.

[cappyboy]

[QUOTE=LFC_chris;445332]I never mentioned any time scale in my post - I simply referred to the 'olden days' and gave my interpretation of what I thought 'family friendly' meant in the context of the game. And if family friendly would involve Abdullah The Butcher matches and barbed wire series then those families probably shouldn't be bringing up young children. So either you've quoted the wrong post or you're being a ****. I'd suggest the latter.[/QUOTE] Actually neither. You're a Rookie here according to your board rating stamp so it's quite possible you wouldn't realize this. But the way you mixed your elements in answering the question has often been used here to bag on the 80's as a decade. If you had mentioned time frames, like tying over the top gimmicks to the 80's and and the slowness to "the black and white era" or whatever, you wouldn't be feeling that last sentence right now. I wasn't having a go at you specifically. I was having a go with an all too common misguided attitude on this board about a time period that admittedly I'm very protective of to start with. If that makes me anything that requires censoring, then yes I am very much a **** and proud of it. Otherwise, I am sorry you got the wrong impression and hope we can communicate better in the future.

[LFC_chris]

[QUOTE=cappyboy;445469]Actually neither. You're a Rookie here according to your board rating stamp so it's quite possible you wouldn't realize this. But the way you mixed your elements in answering the question has often been used here to bag on the 80's as a decade. If you had mentioned time frames, like tying over the top gimmicks to the 80's and and the slowness to "the black and white era" or whatever, you wouldn't be feeling that last sentence right now. I wasn't having a go at you specifically. I was having a go with an all too common misguided attitude on this board about a time period that admittedly I'm very protective of to start with. If that makes me anything that requires censoring, then yes I am very much a **** and proud of it. Otherwise, I am sorry you got the wrong impression and hope we can communicate better in the future.[/QUOTE] First of all I'm not sure how relevent my post count is. My main problem was the patronising nature of your original post, and it also having nothing to do with the answer I gave to the topic starter - I was referring to what I thought a family friendly product would be whilst you go off on an tangent getting over-protective over 80's wrestling. Anyway, no harm done. It appears we've just got our wires crossed. It was early in the morning when I replied to your original post so I may have been a little moody.

[rufas2000]

I don't think "Family Friendly" describes the 80s as a wrestling decade very well but it does describe the WWF product mid 80s to very early 90s product quite nicely. I understand why people would associate WWF wrestling with eighties wrestling as a whole as they were the dominant product. The NWA competed but they tried to split the difference between a better in ring product and emulating the WWF's entertainment based style. The parts of the NWA product that emulated the WWF furthered the stereotype. The WWF had some great workers (but they were usually somewhat nerfed into a more entertainment based style), a few "high flyers" (for that time period in America, Japan had just about all the truly innovative "state of the art" high flyers) and absolutely no hardcore workers by design (Duggan and The Sheepherders were signed and de-hardcored immediately). I was a big fan of the WWF during that time but was frustrated at the lack of good in ring work and the dominance of slow, plodding musclebound brawlers. I became a fan a few years before and through Championshp Wrestling from Florida understood was good ring work was. Even in 1982 the difference between the WWF and CWF was glaring.

[cappyboy]

[QUOTE=rufas2000;445512]I don't think "Family Friendly" describes the 80s as a wrestling decade very well but it does describe the WWF product mid 80s to very early 90s product quite nicely. I understand why people would associate WWF wrestling with eighties wrestling as a whole as they were the dominant product. The NWA competed but they tried to split the difference between a better in ring product and emulating the WWF's entertainment based style. The parts of the NWA product that emulated the WWF furthered the stereotype. The WWF had some great workers (but they were usually somewhat nerfed into a more entertainment based style), a few "high flyers" (for that time period in America, Japan had just about all the truly innovative "state of the art" high flyers) and absolutely no hardcore workers by design (Duggan and The Sheepherders were signed and de-hardcored immediately). I was a big fan of the WWF during that time but was frustrated at the lack of good in ring work and the dominance of slow, plodding musclebound brawlers. I became a fan a few years before and through Championshp Wrestling from Florida understood was good ring work was. Even in 1982 the difference between the WWF and CWF was glaring.[/QUOTE] Well said, man. In fact, much better said than the post that got me crossways with our new LFC brother. Where I was rather protective and defensive (as I tend to be of 80's culture in general) you present calm and reason. Anyway for Family Friendly product purposes, I'd say you ideally want a mix of your stereotypical plodding power guys and mat generals with guys who can chain wrestle quickly and mix in moves off the ropes. More daredevil flying moves like swantons and lucha topes might not fit as much. But part of the reason I felt the need to defend speed guys like Shawn Michaels and Ricky Morton is because they were often targeted to appeal to the kids because of their speed. So don't neglect your speedballs using a Family Friendly product. And of course you have the previously mentioned off-the-wall gimmicks.

[rufas2000]

Thanks for the response & kind words. There is nothing that prevents a "family friendly" fed (and/or a fed like 80s WWF) from using speedballs and its a good idea as you said as they appeal to the kiddies. I think the WWF didn't use them too much (The Rockers and The Blue Blazer being the main ones and even Blazer wasn't a regular during that time) because Vince didn't have much faith in the smaller guys selling tickets and because he didn't want to have a couple of guys that were heads and tails above the others in athleticism. I mean The Warlord is nothing special as an in ring worker (I'm being kind) but imagine if he followed AJ Styles or to use an example from back then Great Muta or Jushin Liger. Not that the WWF never used guys like that but most of them didn't seem to stick around long. I read somewhere that Randy Savage was told to turn down his style because he made the rest of the roster look bad. I'm not sure where and I'm not sure its true but if you compare Savage in his first WWF matches with Savage later he clearly toned down his high flying style. Of course the hardcore guys were nerfed because hacksaws and barbed wire have no place in family friendly entertainment. I do remember watching a Hogan match from 84 (first year of "Hulkamania") with David Schultz that was fairly hardcore. No blood but foreign objects, out of the ring brawling and Hogan choking Schultz with his towel. Not to mention that with the WWF's seven day a week schedule back then if today's X division guys did what they do now at every house show there probably wouldn't be any X Division guys (at least the high flyers) within a month.

[Eisen-verse]

So... How does anyone really play as USPW? I would really love a Sports Entertainment company a little smaller than TCW and SWF so I could actually grow some talent versus playing as established superstars... So I looked at USPW cause I know that they are a popularity based company, however, with it being family friendly... How does anyone really get into playing as them? Doesn't it feel like you're putting together boring wrestling for kids? hah. No excessive brawls, no "chip on their shoulder", no aggressive in-ring/out-of ring approaches, and just a bunch of.... "Geee Willikers kids... Isn't it great to watch a big guy like Bruce the Giant?! Remember to drink your milk and get good grades in school and maybe you'll be him someday... blah blah blah". hah. As I'm sure someone will say... Start your own company... which... is always an option but I like to play within the Cornellverse data as much as I can and adding something always seems like I'm cheating the game. i don't know.

[Oregano Jensen]

Well, if we're talking smaller companies, CGC is smaller -- a little smaller. Of course, they're not THAT far removed from USPW; they've got a very straightforward, up-and-down style which mostly involves the battle between the DeColt family and a pretty consistent roster of villains. Or at least that's how they're written as a default. You could take them in another direction. (Look at J Silver's [URL="http://67.19.230.90/~arles/forum/showthread.php?t=21524"]USPW dynasty[/URL] -- which is great, but it starts out being a broad parody of '80s WWF-style wrestling and then transforms into something entirely different...) I mean, I guess what you don't have in the US (and Canadian) Cornellverse is a smaller "Attitude Era"-style promotion. Most of the other promotions are distinctly low on risque content and the more graphic sorts of violence -- with the exception of PSW, which is a full-on hardcore promotion. You do have a few other options, though. One thing you could do is edit the database to release RIPW from its developmental status. I'm not sure if that violates your feelings about "cheating". (If it kind of does, maybe consider taking some of their money away? No way does a promotion that size have half a million dollars unless someone is bankrolling them.) Alternately, 21CW in England is an option, though of course you're drawing on the talent pool of England and competing against English promotions there, and this may not be what you want. (EWA in Europe, even more so.)

[d_w_w]

[QUOTE=Eisen-verse;446767]So... How does anyone really play as USPW? I would really love a Sports Entertainment company a little smaller than TCW and SWF so I could actually grow some talent versus playing as established superstars... So I looked at USPW cause I know that they are a popularity based company, however, with it being family friendly... How does anyone really get into playing as them? Doesn't it feel like you're putting together boring wrestling for kids? hah. No excessive brawls, no "chip on their shoulder", no aggressive in-ring/out-of ring approaches, and just a bunch of.... "Geee Willikers kids... Isn't it great to watch a big guy like Bruce the Giant?! Remember to drink your milk and get good grades in school and maybe you'll be him someday... blah blah blah". hah. As I'm sure someone will say... Start your own company... which... is always an option but I like to play within the Cornellverse data as much as I can and adding something always seems like I'm cheating the game. i don't know.[/QUOTE] I play the USPW as a small SE promotion. I try to maintain the family friendly aspect by not using highly risky angles or matches. No bra & panties matches, no drenching humiliation angles.... definitely no barbwire death matches. In terms of storylines, a lot is still open. There is, of course, this lingering shadow of censorship floating around the U.S. now that wants to claim that all video games/movies/television is not child friendly. But in reality, most families seem pretty flexible with what they allow their children to consume. And that, to me, is the definition of family friendly. So, if you put together a storyline and think that a very typical family would be okay with their 10-12 year old watching it, then it's probably fine IMO. And really, I generally have no problem bringing in younger more athletic talent. As long as they have decent basics, they can mesh with your older guys over time. And, honestly, the fast-paced acrobatic style that many of them bring would be highly entertaining to children and thus, would be family friendly. So yeah - go ahead with them, just be sensible about the angles and storylines.

[Karl_Kitsch]

I would say that Family Friendly means that it follows the G.I. Joe principles: 1. Instantly identifiable characters. Take a look at Shipwreck. In one glance you know who he is. That is what a Family Friendly character should be, easy to figure out. 2. Heel/Face Division. Heels are sneaky cowards who are proactive, faces are honorable and reactive. 3. The violence has little repercussion. Just like the way COBRA troops always parachuted out of exploding planes, there should be no long term negative effect from violence. No blood, no injury angles. Just a thought I had on the toilet.