Booking the Shooting Star/All Action division

[Sigilistic]

So in my SWF game I've been running into trouble with my Shooting Stars division. Basically, the ratings that they've been producing have been sub-par, E's and D's mostly, and none of the workers in said division seem to be getting any momentum or overness. I'm thinking the problem is that there just isn't enough momentum or overness in the Shooting Star division to begin with, so it doesn't matter who beats whom.

 

So my question is: what to do? Should I disband the Shooting Stars and just incorporate them into the main roster? Bring in some over workers and have them work the division despite the title being beneath them? Upgrade the title to a midcard belt?

 

How do you book the Shooting Stars division?

 

If it matters, here's who I currently consider to be in the Shooting Stars division: (ranked in order of overness)

 

Angel Devine (Darryl Devine)

James Hernandez (Mainstream Hernandez)

Akima Brave

Bart Biggz

American Elemental

Paul Huntingdon

Jacob Jett

John Greed

[alden]

I have built four good stars with the shooting star title. Champagne lover got super over holding the title. The same for mard dubois and davis wayne newton. Champagne lover got to main event level within four month holding the belt.

[Sigilistic]

I have built four good stars with the shooting star title. Champagne lover got super over holding the title. The same for mard dubois and davis wayne newton. Champagne lover got to main event level within four month holding the belt.

 

What's your secret? How'd you book them? Did you keep the belt at low level or up it to midcard?

[Sigilistic]

I've been re-tooling things a bit, and here's what I think I'm going to have for my Shooting Stars division.

 

Faces

American Elemental, E Overness, E+ Momentum

Angel Devine, D- Overness, F+ Momentum

Bart Biggz, D Overness, E Momentum

Ben Cruise (Brendan Idol), E- Overness, E+ Momentum

Kid Toma, D- Overness, E+ Momentum

 

Heels

Akima Brave © D+ Overness, D Momentum

Antonio Maxi Marquez (theoretically, my offer is still pending)

James Hernandez, D Overness, E- Momentum

John Greed, F+ Overness, E Momentum

Paul Huntingdon, D- Overness, F Momentum

 

I'm currently in June of 2008, at the beginning of the build to the Supreme Challenge. Kid Toma just returned from a stint in development, so I'm hoping he'll be a fresh face and a suitable SC opponent for his cousin Akima Brave. Any other ideas for helping these guys generate overness and momentum?

[Hyde Hill]

Seems your biggest problem is the momentum. Have them debut against a big star in a losing effort or an Angle with big stars before moving them into the division that will help lots. Seeing as that is too late for the current ones have them in stables/ storylines/ change gimmick/ Turn Heel or Face to increase. Plus of course as the SWF with overness being key move some guys in and out with overness and give a rub (not by losing per se).

[Bigpapa42]

Trying to do a stand-alone, segregated division is going to be a very slow gradual process. To the point where I would recommend against trying to do it on an A show if that is your intent.

 

Looking at the list of workers you have there, I don't think one of those workers starts with over C+ overness. And most well below that. Given that the SWF is based mostly on popularity, which they don't have, and isn't really suited (product-wise) to high-flying, its going to be a long, slow build. Yes, workers with good Star Quality like Mainstream Hernandez are eventually going to get over just by being on TV... but its going to take awhile when they put on D matches all the time. And I'm guessing don't grade very well in angles.

 

There are two suggestions I would have, and both involve having workers outside of the division. Which isn't to say you do away with the division. Simply that the workers are involved outside of it.

 

One is to have the workers losing to more over guys up the card. Yeah, it kinda sucks to have the flippity floppity guys getting squashed by the heavyweights, and it kind of devalues to those workers in the fans eyes, but it works in game terms. In my SWF game, having American Elemental get squashed in 6 minutes by Rocky Golden (A* overness) in a B match does more for him than 3-4 wins over opener-level guys in a series of D- matches.

 

The second is to have a couple of the workers involved with workers above them. There are a copule of ways to do this - one would be to have the Shooting Star worker involved in a storyline with a higher-level worker. Even if they lose the feud, its still going to help. Let's say a lower midcard Darryl Devine gets targeted by an upper midcard Squeeky McClean, who doesn't think these flippity floppity little guys belong (I know devine is MW). Even if Devine loses the fued, so long as he doesn't get utterly squashed it would raise his profile in the fans eyes and likely elevate him in the game.

 

The other option along those lines is involving one or two of those guys in alliances. Whether formal stables or loose alliances. Acid benefitted a ton from being a Watchman in my SWF game - to the point I had him at A overness for a bit. It allowed him to put on high quality matches, both against non-division and division opponents. Plus it gave Bart Biggz a boost when he finally beat him. Someone like Devine, Jett, or Hernandez could fit nicely into a babyface stable with some guys like the BUmfholes, or heels with DuBois. If they are aligned with upper-level talent in that way, its only going to help.

[Sigilistic]

Good suggestions. Yeah, it's been slow but fortunately my Shooting Stars tend to work only on my B show and dark matches, or at most the opener of the PPV.

 

I really like the suggestion of having them work with outsiders. Here's what I'm thinking for a storyline leading to a Supreme Challenge payoff:

 

Richard Eisen approaches the Shooting Stars (in this case, Ben Cruise, Bart Biggz, Angel Devine, and American Elemental) and tells them they aren't profitable anymore, and their extreme style is an embarrassment to SWF. (He'll be switching over to a censor gimmick) So Eisen decides to sic his leg breakers (Shady K, Enforcer Roberts, and Gabriel Vercetti AKA American Buffalo) on them. To Eisen's surprise, he discovers that it's the size of the fight in the dog that counts when the Shooting Stars band together against their heavyweight threat.

 

Eisen has an A overness, so I'm thinking that sticking him in angles with the Shooting Stars should do wonders for the little guys, and a program with the more over/better momentum heavyweights should boost up their profile a bit.

 

I'll probably also start having the Shooting Stars do the "flippity flop" job to some of the stars of the company. Hopefully this will be the ticket to putting the division on the map.

 

Do you think it's worthwhile to raise the level of the Shooting Star title to midcard?

[randomfreeze]

In my opinion if you think of the Shooting Star title as a lower leveled title, that's what it's going to be. BigPapa's method of squashing them works well. From my own mistakes I found just sticking to rookie lightweights in the division was a problem. Moving Enforcer Roberts there with him doing a my style is better than your style schtick, or Frederique Antonio Garcia saying you need to be stylish out of the ring instead of inside of it, or Engyma as a bitter veteran proving he's still just as good as the young guys...whatever. Look at some Middleweights with experience because Shooting Star isn't just a Crusierweight Title for people with D- overness.

[Bigpapa42]

Overness is a resource, and in the SWF its the most valuable one. Its a theoretically limitless resource, but it is difficult to generate out of nothing. Even when you have decent starting tools (solid workers with good SQ). Keeping the workers isolated in their own division is making the road very difficult. It will happen, but it will be ever so slow.

 

By putting the guys form that division in with other workers, you giving them more opporunity to build overness. If you think about it realistic terms, if you have some unknown guys and all they ever do is face other unknown guys, its going to take a long while for the fans to start to give a damn. Maybe in ROH, where skill and workrate get the fans attention, but not in the E. One of the most effective ways to make something seem important is to act as if its important, whether its a worker, belt, whatever. It won't always work, but its certainly helps.

[foolinc]

The quickest way to improve a division is to give it to a person who is "better" than the title. In this case a guy in the C to C+ range who is athletic would make a perfect choice. Have your Marc DuBois, Joey Minnesota, Sammy Bach, etc hold the title for a while. The undercard is going to improve because of it as will the title itself. And the better the title is, the bigger the bonus you will get from having a title match.

 

The only "problem" that this strategy has is trying not to hurt the current champ when it's time to drop the belt. And that's almost alway some what of a problem with all title changes.

[BHK1978]

Now I know a lot of people on the board will disagree with me on this one, but I usually just retire the titles as I see no point to them. My problem is that the wrestlers that hold the title gets to over and then when I have him lose the title he ends up having to lose to someone who is not as over as he is. Thus hurting his overness, so that is my solution just get rid of the titles.

 

However, you probably should not listen to me as I suck at the game. Pretty much whatever Bigpapa says you should do. He knows the SWF inside out and he can get an A* out of a Land Mass vs Giant Redwood if he wanted to.

[Bigpapa42]

The quickest way to improve a division is to give it to a person who is "better" than the title. In this case a guy in the C to C+ range who is athletic would make a perfect choice. Have your Marc DuBois, Joey Minnesota, Sammy Bach, etc hold the title for a while. The undercard is going to improve because of it as will the title itself. And the better the title is, the bigger the bonus you will get from having a title match.

 

The only "problem" that this strategy has is trying not to hurt the current champ when it's time to drop the belt. And that's almost alway some what of a problem with all title changes.

 

This is pretty much what I did with Acid and the Sky Club Division in my diary game. He came in as the most popular member of the division, as well as one of the most talented. So he carried the division for a time.

 

And yes, getting the belt off that talent becomes a problem. You can always do it in a multi-man match where the champion doesn't get pinned, so they don't take as much of a hit. That doesn't help the new champion quite as much, however.

 

Now I know a lot of people on the board will disagree with me on this one, but I usually just retire the titles as I see no point to them. My problem is that the wrestlers that hold the title gets to over and then when I have him lose the title he ends up having to lose to someone who is not as over as he is. Thus hurting his overness, so that is my solution just get rid of the titles.

 

However, you probably should not listen to me as I suck at the game. Pretty much whatever Bigpapa says you should do. He knows the SWF inside out and he can get an A* out of a Land Mass vs Giant Redwood if he wanted to.

 

Thanks, but I cannot claim to be an expert. I know certain ways that can work, but that's not to say my approaches are the "right" ones or the only ones.

 

Those low-level belts can serve a purpose. Much like FI pointed out, putting them on a mid-level guy can elevate the whole division. Moreso, they give a purpose to those low-level guys beyond simply jobbing to the upper level ones.

 

As for having the champion drop the belt eventually, its not such a big deal with some careful planning. Let's say you keep the belt on Marc DuBois - chances are, he's going to get over almost without you trying. So when it comes time to have him drop the belt and its going to hurt his popularity, will it really harm him in the long run? Let's say he's B+ and he drops it to a C+ over opponent. He probably ends up at B, maybe B-. If DuBois gains overness quite easy (has for me in several games), he's going to gain that back in relatively short order. Now if DuBois was dropping the belt so he could move into a feud for a major belt, that might be a problem. Otherwise, its a short-term setback.

 

Acid was about a B- overness when he got the Shooting Star belt in my game. Between facing some big name opponents and being part of the Watchmen, he was a solid A by early December. I wanted him to drop the belt at Christmas Clash, but started to reconsider. Biggz was only a C+ / B- at that point. Thought about making it a three way and not having Acid get pinned, but that also reduces the positive impact for Biggz. What made the decision easy was considering what had more value to me - Acid at A and Biggz at C+ / B- or Acid at B+ and Biggz at B (which is what they ended up at after the match). Instead of one clear cornerstone to the division and one solid support, I have two solid cornerstones. Those are the kind of things you want to look at.

[Hyde Hill]

Apart from the multi man solution (which is also a nice way to up grades) another one I do is use that belt as a sort of Money in the Bank title only difference being you have announce one show beforehand you are cashing in. This vacates the belt for someone else and automatically moves the previous holder into a feud for a higher belt or into that higher "division" Also gives some extra status to a low belt and reasons why someone higher up sometimes would want to win it.

[liontamer]

It's probably more difficult with SWF because of the overall size/popularity you are at, but I intiailly had the same division with my custom promotion's X-division title. At first I had a bunch of unknowns - good wrestlers just not popular. I'm currently regional with an E+ - soon to be D- prestige, and through careful selection of title defences, title holders and feuds I've gotten the x-division title more over than any of my other. It is A* an just putting it on the line seems to boost match ratings and get the holder more over and more momentum.

 

Perhaps you could make the division it's own brand with a focus more on talent than entertainment and load it with talented workers you'll build up over time. Just make sure the title is on whoever can carry it best at that moment and then occasionally pass it to an up-and-comer who is getting a nice push to build up to main eventer.