Title shot justification

[James Casey]

So, something that I've always wondered if whether it's possible to come up with a logical justification for who gets what title shots in a wrestling company.

 

In spite of the reasonable assumption that everyone backstage is going to want shots at any title going, there does seem to be a tendency for title shots to be handed out in a few ways that always resolve themselves onscreen - IE: Tournament/Beat the clock winner, Champion('s friend/family) beatdown, Hot streak...

 

This is more aimed at coming up with a list of rules I can use for future diaries, but I thought it could be a fun thing for people to chip in on.

 

How do you earn a title shot? Who determines if you deserve a shot, and at which title?

 

Kayfabe or political arguments are fine by me

[Wrestling Century]

Simple. You have to be a worker who the fans respond to greatly and you have to be able to go and work a decent match every night, with really good matches on PPVs or on TV Specials.

[Self]

Take a look at what ROH are doing with the "Pick 6". I haven't been paying attention too closely, but it looks like an interesting, sport-sy way of handling the belt.

 

In my diary, you get a title shot due to accomplishments. By winning a big semi-main on a PPV, you become the logical choice for the shot at the next one. In FCK, Christian Faith beat Raul Hughes at the 'FCK Awards Show', and therefore he became the logical choice to challenge for the belt at the Supreme ClusterFCK... of course, in the end he just goaded the Champion into accepting the fight, and the win over Raul wasn't overtly mentioned.

 

I've always been intrigued by the idea of league structures and other rigid forms of deciding title contenders. Never quite made the effort to craft one, but "at the end of every month, whoever has the most points" could work.

[TheOmniWarrior]

you impress the GM enough to make him think you deserve one. You become friends with Triple H

 

Edit:

Heres one that ive been halfway thinking about using.

 

Champion selects a possible challenger right after PPV. If challenger is undefeated till PPV he gets title shot. If he is defeated then the person who beats him gets a title shot.

[Bigpapa42]

I really think it depends on the promotion and product.

 

In a Sports Entertainment promotion, I think justification is easier to come up with. In my Gen-S diary, first with Jack Bruce as SWF World Heavyweight Champion then Christian Faith as the SWF Surpeme champion, I just threw challengers at them week after week. It was easy to justify in storyline terms, as both faced heel authority figures who wanted the belt off of them. So there was a constant stream of challengers who were in no way deserving of title shots, but the GMs (Eisen and Tyler respectively) wanted to wear down the champions. It probably would have made more sense to pick and choose which of those matches were title and which were non-title, but it was easier just to make them mostly title shots.

 

Now, something that is not SE is a bit different. I think you need something proven to earn it. Whether that means winning a big match to establish contendership, scoring big tag wins, whatever. If you are just trying to find a way to keep track and determine for youself, some basic points system might work.

[Nedew]

A league table, better yet, a league season would be a brilliant approach. I've actually got a Premier League style diary (complete with teams, transfer windows, managers, the lot.) in a very tentative planning stage. But i'd love to see it done for real/by someone else

[ShadowedFlames]

A league table, better yet, a league season would be a brilliant approach. I've actually got a Premier League style diary (complete with teams, transfer windows, managers, the lot.) in a very tentative planning stage. But i'd love to see it done for real/by someone else

 

I had debated doing this on my own time with WreSpi2, and even including a sort of "build-your-wrestler-from-scratch" thing to go with it. Since I'm not really a (not American) football fan, I am afraid that your Premier League reference has gone over my head. I did have a sort of "Major" and "minor" league, eight people switch leagues each "season," etc.

 

I just have yet to find the time to finish the database additions as creating movesets for 52 new workers is a bit long....

[Nevermore]

Interesting question.

 

I'm trying to build up the "legit" side of ECW in my diary and so I'm throwing around a few ideas related to this question. I have a couple of game months to work with, though, since the next contender has been decided already and the one after goes through after my annual tournament.

 

Anyway...

 

I've got two main ideas cooking. Firstly, awarding shots to those wrestlers with the best win % for the month and, secondly, to re-introduce weight classes.

 

I'm hoping to make contract signings and boxing-style weigh-ins a regular feature 'cos I think a lot of the "title fight fever" has been lost in modern wrestling.

 

Obviously, it's gonna stay a (hardcore) wrestling promotion but I'm gonna start handling some of my main angles as though they were legit boxing hype/news.

 

Quote The Raven

Nevermore

[Self]

For the most part, just keep things simple. If you create enough strong potential challengers with "could he beat the champ?" potential, it doesn't matter who deserves it most, and you can just pick any of them whenever you feel like and the audience will accept it.

 

- Jack Bruce hasn't been pinned in 6 months. Could he beat the Champion?

- The Machines have been tag team champions for a year. Solo, could one of them beat the Champ?

- Raul Hughes can kno-LEFT HOOK! Everyone is out cold! Can he beat the Champ?

 

If a challenger has been booked strong enough, you don't need to explain why he gets the title shot. It simply makes sense that he gets one. If you have 4-5 folks booked strong, you have at least 6 months worth of PPV Main Events in the bag.

 

I'm recently of the opinion that Authority Figure roles are a blight upon wrestling. It's overdone and I'm sick of them. In real life. In diaries. If I ever do another diary after FCK comes to its natural end, I'm going to try my darndest to make it work with an Authority Figure.

[Marcel Fromage]

For both my 2007 ROF diary and my current XWA one (both of which are performance based promotions), I've worked on a rankings system approach. It's pretty simple but it has worked. I never fluff it - so if I want someone to be receiving a title shot on a particular major show, I have to make sure they have earned it by beating the people above them in the rankings. It also gives reasons for wrestlers to fight when I'm not running angles and storylines. If the wrestler ranked 5th wants to take on the wrestler ranked 6th, he can. If he wins, he overtakes him. If he loses, he gets knocked down to 7th.

 

I have the times in the year when there's a quick way to jump the rankings or get a title shot - the King of the Ring 15-man elimination match, the Trailblazer tournament and the Devil's Dance 6-man survival tag are ways to jump the rankings and the midcard title holder always gets a title shot at the big one the same event each year too.

 

I tend to like structure in pretty much anything I do and, running a performance based promotion, this kind of system works well enough for me.

[Vladamire Dracos]

One of the promotions in NorCal used to use a ranking system where victories were worth a certain amount of points depending on the rank of the defeated wrestler in comparison to the victor and how they were defeated (pinfall/submission was worth more points than a countout or disqualification, for example, beating someone much higher up the ranking was worth more points than someone who was just above who was worth more than someone below). Losing a title challenge cost a certain amount of points, IIRC. Can't recall much of the specifics too much though. I can remember that the rules complimented certain "old school" conceits in wrestling (like not letting the heel just take the countout loss, he's worth more in the ring! or a low level "jobber" accepting an open challenge because a victory would shoot him up the ranks).

[Jaded]

In a sportz entertainment fed, I completely agree with Self - any justification will do.

 

In a 'legit' fed, I like the idea of leagues and stuff. In my current diary (shameless cheap plug!), I've got 8 stables of 4 wrestlers each. Each stable will take on each of the other 7 twice over the next 8 shows, in singles, tag and 6-man tag matches. They score 2 points for a win or 1 for a draw. Since there's no World champ as it's a new fed, the 8 wrestlers from the 2 stables with the most points will face off in a tourney for the championship at my first PPV. I'm not planning on running it past that PPV, because TEW 2010 will be out by that point, but if I WAS, I'd be then looking at the winning stable getting a shot at the World title, the 2nd place getting to choose between the Tag or Cruiserweight shots, and the 3rd place getting the other shot.

[Waghlon]

A league table, better yet, a league season would be a brilliant approach. I've actually got a Premier League style diary (complete with teams, transfer windows, managers, the lot.) in a very tentative planning stage. But i'd love to see it done for real/by someone else

 

I almost did that once. Even had teams sorted out and a league system that went from five groups of 4 teams each to 2 groups of 5 each to a playoffs. Run in a touring schedule company over a period of five months.

 

 

As for the actual question at hand, i just treat any title as "Come on and challenge me, anyone's welcome". It works well when you got a very over worker and the rest is a tad lower and a weekly TV show.

[dvdWarrior]

I for one miss the good old days, when WCW had the often-mentioned, but never seen booking committee that handled such things, and the WWF had President Jack Tunney to decide such matters. Seemed so much more authentic and genuine to me. Personally, I like to take an old-school approach to such things - push a guy till the fans are clamoring for a title match, and then make the biggest deal out of it I can.

[Bigpapa42]

A league table, better yet, a league season would be a brilliant approach. I've actually got a Premier League style diary (complete with teams, transfer windows, managers, the lot.) in a very tentative planning stage. But i'd love to see it done for real/by someone else

 

I've read the league structure suggestion before (maybe on here???) and its always sounded intriguing. Never seen it played out though. Could be tough to find a way to intregrate everything.

 

I was messing around with the idea of a points system at one point (think this was well before the SWF diary). Started out as wanting to do a long-term tag league and I kept of expanded it from there. I was just giong to do a won-loss thing, or maybe a 3 points for a win approach, but I realized wins are not always equal. I never got things running with it, but I was going to go with points assigned based on the level of the opponents. So a win over a main eventer would be worth 5 points, over an upper midcarder would be worth 4, etc. For a loss, a loss to a main eventer is -1, upper midcard -2, etc. An unsuccessful title shot costs -20. I never got the point of figuring out tags.

But that way, someone who gets a series of wins over jobbers doesn't end up looking like gold based on the system.

 

I'm recently of the opinion that Authority Figure roles are a blight upon wrestling. It's overdone and I'm sick of them. In real life. In diaries. If I ever do another diary after FCK comes to its natural end, I'm going to try my darndest to make it work with an Authority Figure.

 

I agree. Sorta. I do definitely agree that the basic authority figure approach is tired. But at the same time, I think its moreso just the lack of creativity in how they are used. Sure, a phantom "competition committee" approach could work, but so could having a non-partisan enforcer GM who doesn't take sides, has no intentional direct involvement in storylines, and who's sole role is to keep order. Or an MMA-style "match-maker".

[lazorbeak]

I like the idea of an old school sort of rankings board similar to what you'd see in boxing based on record, strength of victories, etc. So if the #1 contender lost, he might still be #1 contender if the #2 contender also lost, or if he put on a very strong showing against the champ while the #2 contender beat up Mikey Whipreck for 15 minutes. You could also have tournaments, battle royales, or any other kind of similar match to sort of re-shuffle the deck if you're tired of the same three guys being the top contenders.

 

Also one of my favorite kind of title defenses for "TV" type defenses is just having one champ vs. another. I'm a sucker for "champion vs. champion," even if there's no storyline and only the major title is on the line. To me, you don't really need a storyline to say your US champion is good enough for a match against your world champ: the fact that they are at the top of their respective divisions is enough.

[Derek B]

In my big GCG game, I had a ladder system in play which itself had a few groups in it. It started with groups of 10 (later expanding to 12) and I kept a note of their last 5 wins or losses. A win against anyone in your group would move you up 1 place, a loss would move you down one place. Losing to someone in a lower group would move you down too, winning against someone higher would move you up. Losing to someone in a higher group or beating someone in a lower group meant no change.

 

The top group was the only people who could outright challenge the GCG champ, but only if they had at least 3 wins in a row. The openweight champ could be challenged by anyone who had 3 wins in a row. The tag champs could also be challenged by anyone with 3 wins in a row.

 

You could only move between groups if you were in the top 2 of a group with at least 3 wins and challenged someone in the bottom 2 of the next group who had at least 3 losses, and won. At which point the folks would switch groups. Big events could relax these rules, with promotions/relegations being encouraged more on these events.

 

I handled debuts by having people challenger whoever they wanted to. If they won, they joined the group of the person they beat. Any groups with too many people would relegate people down by tie-breaker style matches featuring the bottom people. You lose your debut, you have to work your way up the rankings from the bottom. Fun times.

 

I had a lot of fun running that game, and though the system sounds complicated it really wasn't complicated at all once things got moving. Big events often saw a LOT of movement as I broke out the big singles matches for them... and the tag teams got a lot of love. Despite having bad chemistry, Shooter Sean Deeley and Merle O'Curle (originally paired as Pistol Pete's students from PDW) were amazing as a team. Don't know how, they just never had a bad match.

 

Oh... and I had a World Cup Of Wrestling. It basically ran for 2 nights and was a 16 man tournament with people from all over the world. I even brought Yoshifusa Maeda out of retirement to wrestle in both shows I ran for this, I HAD to! The winner got a title shot at the year end PPV, with both Hiroyasu Gakusha and Toshiharu Hyobanshi winning the GCG belt on those shows.

 

Oh... and Hell Monkey represented Hell in the tournament.