Talk show thoughts

[cappyboy]

Hey guys, could use a little help from those who play entertainment type promotions. Despite having matured as a wrestling fan in the age of classic talk show segments like The Barber Shop and The Brother Love Show, I've never really done well with utilizing talk show segments consistently in my game booking. I tend to be old school in the extreme when scheduling mic time and not wanting anybody to talk all that long. So aside from the obvious of loosening up my talk rules in general, any advice for integrating talk show segments into my booking style? I already know about that issue and have been trying to work on it. I think that's part of the reason the actual booking stage ended up feeling like a slog in 07. My reticence to let folks loose on the mic caused me to have to spend more time booking more segments per show. How do you guys use talk shows in your booking and how could see them meshing with an old-school sort like myself? Would making all my feud related interviews happen on talk segments be a move I should look into? Or would making them a status symbol for feuders be overkill as I'd run the risk running them several times a show that way? Despite the fact I've never used them well in my games, I do like them conceptually. Can y'all help me find a way to shoehorn them into my TEW style?

[Eisen-verse]

Before TEW '08 I never seemed to really stick with most "Talk Show" segments as they would always get lost in the fray. However, with this game, I've found myself using a talk show with Joe Sexy on at least one of my three shows every week. Talk shows do a lot of great things for your storylines & for the specific worker who is known to hold the talk show. (That is if you have a product that allows entertainment based things to happen and the crowd won't boo you out of the building). In my game, Joe Sexy runs a talk show which has gone on for the last 6 months. In that time frame he has pretty much loss somewhere around 20 matches while only winning around 12. Despite that his popularity level still resides at around a B/B-. Mostly because once a week he is featured as a talk show host who gets air time & time to develop his character. The benefit for storylines is that it allows you to have a new way to push the feud farther along week to week. Let's say (for my sake with the SWF) I have Christian Faith feuding with Jack Bruce. They get into an arguement the first week, square off in the second week in which Faith cheats to win, and then the third week you see Faith go onto Joe Sexy's talk show to talk about what had happened. Not only are you giving Sexy a rub for being in a segment that does well (grade wise) but you also give another way to promote the storyline. That way it breaks from the normal routine of booking them back and forth. In my case, Most of Joe Sexy's storylines have come from that very talk show... Insulting a guest or creating drama, then the guest turns around and challenges them to a match. All in all, It works amazing with most SE feds and really gives you another option in moving a feud along. I honestly think it would still work with most classic forms of wrestling (as long as you can do entertainment based things in that classic form), however, it just may be more of a throwback version. Like you said... Look at the Barber Shop for example. It was more "over the top" and more of a character-based production. At the time the WWE used that as a way to push along feuds and talk about events. So, as long as you are sticking to what you would expect to see/hear in this era of wrestling... Talk shows should still be a great tool for you.

[cappyboy]

Is the Joe Sexy talk show the only one you run? Or do you have others? And when do you run them if you do? I'm guessing you run Sexy's show just once per show to avoid over-saturation.

[Eisen-verse]

[QUOTE]Is the Joe Sexy talk show the only one you run? Or do you have others? And when do you run them if you do? I'm guessing you run Sexy's show just once per show to avoid over-saturation.[/QUOTE] Joe Sexy's talk show is the only one I run right this second but I thought about doing a gimmicky taped one with Lobster Warrior. Just to give him something to do and seem relevant. As for how many times I run it... Normally only once a week (between my three shows... so one show). For me, If I did it twice in one week then there would have to be a pretty strong feud that Joe Sexy would be involved in.