OLLIE: Learn To Lucha

[Sons of Kohral]

Introduction

 

There's something magical about Mexican wrestling... OK, before you start yelling out "Wow... gaaaaay..." let me explain. I don't know whether it's the high flying moves, the awesome masks or the colorful personalities, but there is definitely something attractive about lucha libre that's different from anything else. It's also why I'm kind of sad that I never gave the Mexican C-Verse a chance.

 

This diary is going to be completely different from anything else I've done before. It's going to be 100% non-kayfabe. In other words, the narrative voice is going to be myself, not a character in game. Think of this as a tour through Mexico (more specifically OLLIE). I hope you enjoy the ride and I really hope that this may inspire you to try out a promotion in Mexico.

 

Next: My first days

[Sons of Kohral]

Chapter 1 - The First Days

 

Part 1 - Looking At The Promotion

 

I've chosen OLLIE for two reasons:

• I like the traditional aspect of the product
  
• They have a great roster of young workers

 

SOTBPW is more like the Mexican equivalent of SWF. Very Mainstream with all the glitz and glam you'd expect from your standard entertainment promotion. MPWF is like the Mexican version of USPW, a lot of older wrestlers mixed with some new blood and a very light product. OLLIE is more traditional lucha libre. Great workers, strong characters (not just gimmicky guys) and a higher intensity product.

 

Although we can see from the product analysis that matches are still rated on popularity more than performance, notice that if you decrease the mainstream from ""medium" to "low", it goes to a 50-50 rating between the two. I'm not going to mess with the product at all, but this shows me that performance skills are still relatively important, so I'm not going to hire a hoss monster heel and push him to be my World Champion.

 

With regard to the Championships, there's a difference between this promotion and most others around the world. Obviously, OLLIE has a floating 3 man title, but I think it's more interesting that OLLIE's secondary singles title isn't for midcarders, it's for lower level workers. This tells me that teams and alliances are going to be generally the way to book up and comers, since there is no real midcard singles belt.

 

Title reigns average about this:

• Campeon de Universal: 4-8 months
  
• Campeon de Parejas (Tag Team): 4-6 months
  
• Campeon de Trios: Either relatively short 4-6 months or relatively long 8-9 months
  
• Campeon de Mexico: Same as above Either 2-4 months or 7-9 months

 

I'm going to try and emulate these title lengths while playing the game to stay true to OLLIE.

 

Part 2 - The Roster

 

The most striking thing about OLLIE is that you have two natural stables. The Swarm and Tres Phoenix. Both stable's momentum start at a respectable C+ and Phoenix II & III have a tag chemistry of A*. Here's the problem though. The Swarm is relatively young (late 20s) but all the Phoenix's are pushing 40. Since the "Phoenix" character is synonmous with OLLIE, we should be on the lookout for a youngster with high performance skills to put under the mask as Phoenix IV very soon.

 

The Main Event is very evenly split and quite frankly, pretty awesome. None of them are over 34 and they all have great performance skills. We have Nicholas Lopez as the rudo champion and that's going to be great for some classic "babyface chasing the heel" storylines. He's a 7 time world champ (3x SOTBPW, 4x OLLIE) and looking at his skills you can see why. Then you have Marcos Flores (our number 1 tecnico) who is also great and El Leon and El Critico whose bios state are natural rivals, so they'll have a long running feud for most of the year.

 

Our upper midcarders are very solid performance-wise with the likes of "Pit Bull" Rafael Ruiz (who'll be great for training up young guys) and Campeon Jr. (who while he probably wont touch the Word Title ever again, is a very solid guy to have)

 

The midcard is made up of the rest of Phoenix and Swarm II's & III's, Gino Montero (who wont get a solid push anytime soon), Laberinto Jr (who is a completely solid worker) and Extraordinario Jr. (who's charisma, flying skills and atheleticsm makes him worth keeping around even if his psych is D+).

 

The rest of the undercard is made up of young workers who will probably just be laying down for my higher guys, but they all seem like solid prospects.

 

Part 3 - Schedule

 

Lucha Libre is extremely favorable towards sponsorship, so that's really nice. Problem is, I expect to run a lot of 3 vs. 3 and 2 vs. 2 matches so I might start dipping into profits I would normally get in say, an American company. Because of this, I'm going to run 2 shows a month.

 

OLLIE has 4 events set up and I'm going to treat those as our "Big Shows". OLLIE is said to be the "people's promotion" so I'm going to use my creative power and say that those shows are like day long events, kind of like festivals, where there's food, drinking, games, the kids can meet the wrestlers and then topped off with the actual show later on in the night. Because of this, I want to set up my big title changes for those shows, so I'll have to cleverly plan ahead. For example: Nicholas Lopez (my world champ) has been champion for 7 months already. The first "Big Show" of the year is in March. Do I want him to hit 10 months with the belt? In Lopez's case, it's OK, because he's a 4x champ and with his skill set he deserves to tie Marcos Flores' record of a 10 month reign. If you're trying to play realistic though, it's something you need to keep in mind.

 

Next: Planning

[Sons of Kohral]

Part 4 - New Hirings

 

I never like huge roster turnovers when I take over a company, instead I try to use the workers they have (I mean, they were all signed for a reason), but for OLLIE, there are 3 guys from the indys I'm going to immediately sign up.

 

1. Leon Joven - He's not great by any stretch of the imagination, and he's 25, which means I want to see vast improvements in 3 years, but he's Leon Joven! Young Lion! And we have El Leon! THE Lion! This is a ready made alliance right here and in a traditional promotion, I'd have to be crazy to pass it up.

 

2. Sunburst - 19 years old, good athleticism and decent charisma, this guy is one for the future.

 

3. La Estrella - "The Star", this guy has a great character already. He's young and has great skills at his age. He's probably the lucha equivalent of Steven Parker when he was 20.

 

I'm also using Charles Avatar and throwing him under a mask as "El Cometa" (The Comet). The reason I'm using him is because he's not as jacked as Jack Avatar, I want to see if he'll change styles to Luchador, and quite frankly, I feel like it. Honestly though, he wont be getting any kind of push.

 

Part 5 - Planning The Next Few Months

 

OK, so here are my plans for January-March:

 

1. El Leon vs. El Critico - This is a guaranteed money feud. And hopefully, both men will grow in popularity from this.

 

2. World Title: Nicholas Lopez vs. Marcos Flores - In a company like OLLIE, I don't want a rudo to have the record for most title reigns. These two will feud and I'm going to have Lopez drop the belt to Flores in March.

 

3. The Swarm vs. Tres Phoenix - Obviously. However, I'm also going to make it where Tres Phoenix is looking for a Phoenix IV.

 

4. The Tag and Trios Titles - The Monteros hold the tag titles as well as the trios titles with Tricolor Jr. They're going to defend throughout January and February form different contenders, but then lose the trios belt to the Swarm in our Bi Monthly show in March and then lose the tag titles to Dos Phoenix in a 2 vs. 2 vs. 2 match at our Big Show in March.

 

5. Rafael Ruiz - I'm going to have him cut through our undercard (also to help train them) in order to make him a threat for the World title. He'll feud with Marcos Flores the next cycle.

 

6. The Mexican Championship - Mr. Lucha III is a star in the making, so he'll retain it this cycle. He just won it in December and I'm going to give him a nice long reign.

 

Next - The First Few Shows

[Marcel Fromage]

I like this idea - many people would see Mexico as their area of least expertise and having a 'how you'd book it' diary is a good way to get into it. Plus, it's a bit different to the other diaries around at present. I'll be reading.

[Hyde Hill]

Dammit I had a lucha diary in the pipes with OLLIE and hoped to be the only one. A well, good luck. And mine will be storyline so that is a difference. La Estrella is a nice pick up the other two meh.

[Purple Cowboy]

I'll be reading. Despite my always wanting to play a long-term game there, I've probably neglected Mexico most of all in all of my TEW playing over the years so this will be right up my alley.