Aidan Clayman: Booker?

[xAEDISx]

I had a really cool diary idea a few months ago but I lost the data and haven't been able to reconstruct it as well as it was before so I'm trying something new.

 

December 1997

 

Last weekend I was out hanging out with my friend Anthony when we ran into an old friend from high school, Matt. Matt and I weren't particularly close though I had been in the same grade as his brother. However, I knew who he was and he knew who I was, though I guess he knew me more than I thought. I was surprised when he started talking to me about my business degree (I'd just received my associates in Business Management weeks before) and he started asking me all kinds of questions about running a small business. When finally I got a little annoyed and asked him about all these questions he told me he was running a small company, a wrestling promotion and was having some trouble with it as while he had a mind for The Business, he didn't have a mind for business. Whatever that meant. He asked me if I wanted to get together sometime and talk business and I told him I really didn't know anything about the intricacies of the wrestling industry. I mean, sure, I got Hulkamania and I guess some Bret guy just got 'screwed' but I didn't know anything about how the company worked but he told me he could explain that and I could explain my end to him. I agreed that yeah, sometime we could get together and talk about it but he was insistent and we decided that I would come out to his company's show, Christmas Chaos, the next weekend and then we could talk about business after.

 

I wasn't exactly thrilled about spending a weekend night in a high school gym watching some dudes roll around with each other but I figured a connection is a connection, even if it's an odd one. Like I said, I really don't know much about professional wrestling so my expectations weren't that high when I arrived to the company's show and Matt met me at the door letting me in. I asked him if there was anything I needed to know and he told me there wasn't, just asking that I enjoy the show. About a half hour later the show started and I was surprised the first two faces were faces I recognized. The first was Matt's brother Jeff, who I said I graduated high school with, albeit his face was covered in blue and white face paint. The next guy I didn't know personally but I had seen him on television the year before talking about the dangers of professional wrestling. His name then was Marty something but tonight, he was Cham-Pain.

 

I was impressed by the athleticism and I could tell why so many people were drawn to this spectacle. The stuff they were doing wasn't as phony as I remembered as a kid. As the matches continued I was surprised to see a lot of these guys where guys I knew, or at least knew of, just from being local. Kid Dynamo was a younger kid I'd seen around Jeff named Shannon and another guy Gregory Helms was calling himself Kid Vicious. I figured these two would be a tag team since they were both Kid something or another but they weren't. Both of these Kids ended up winning titles later in this show with Shannon winning the 'Light Heavyweight' Championship and Gregory winning the 'Tag Team' Championship with a partner I'd never met. I'd later find out the Kids and the Hardys were the core of this group while the other guys were just traveling workers who would be on these shows. I guess that explained why all of the companies four titles were on those four.

 

I walked away from the show thoroughly surprised by how much I enjoyed myself and was actually eager to meet with Matt about what he could do for his business but was disappointed after the show when he told me he just got a call from Jim Ross from the WWF saying he and his brother had to be Rhode Island the next day and they'd be gone for almost a week. Unfortunately, he told me, our meeting would have to wait until after that point. I asked him if meant the WWF like I assumed he did, unaware they were working for the company synonymous with professional wrestling and he said indeed, he did mean that same one. He told me he and Jeff had been working shows for the WWF for a few years and that was half the reason he was having trouble running OMEGA. He was stretching himself too thin across working for the WWF and trying to single handedly run his own company.

When Matt returned a few days later, we met up at a local diner one night in Southern Pines and he started the conversation unexpectedly. He told me the way he'd ended our conversation last weekend was the first time he'd realized exactly how true his statement had been. He wasn't just having trouble running his company, he was unable to do it. He'd been thinking about it and he an offer he wanted to make me. He asked me if I'd use my business savvy to run OMEGA so he could focus on his WWF career which he said he felt was months away from taking off. I immediately protesting, saying I knew nothing about running a wrestling company but he told me 'the guys' would help out with that. He said I knew how to run a business and right now, that's what he needed help with. I was hesitant but he told me he'd pay me and I decided I can never turn down a job offer. So now, I guess I'm working in professional wrestling.

 

 

 

I decided to start a game with the smallest American company in the mod I'm playing and either build that company up, or ride it down. If it crashes and burns, I can just apply for a head booker with another company. So the game can't end. Dumb? Maybe. Fun? Yes.

[Timber]

Solid start. I do like playing the smaller promotions in the game. I see to get more out of them if i'm the one helping them get to the top. I find that booking promotions like SWF or TCW tend to be too much for me but doing MAW or AAA hits my sweet spot. I've even taken ACPW for a spin a time or two.

 

Good luck with it.