How do you train your wrestlers?

[UEWpro]

If you are a small company that doesn't have a developmental territory and can't afford a dojo, is there a way to train your wrestlers so they can get better?

[Dalnath]

Simply have them wrestle matches. Obviously, the more talented their opponents are, the faster they will learn. This makes workers who are on time decline but still have decent in ring and performance skills valuable to smaller promotions as you can use them to help train younger workers.

[jgriff3029]

Have them wrestle workers with higher skill or have them be tag team partners with better workers and they will learn.

[consortium11]

<p>As others have said... by getting them to do things with people better than them.</p><p> </p><p>

Perhaps the easiest are the entertainment stats. Put a worker in an angle with someone who has better stats and rate the better worker on entertainment (it doesn't matter what the other worker is rated on or if they're rated at all... although I suspect it <em>might</em> help if they're also rated on entertainment) and their entertainment stats should start to rise (along with their performance stats).</p><p> </p><p>

In-ring skills are a slower and more complicated process but follow roughly the same structure; if you want to improve a workers brawling put them in with a better brawler, improve their selling put them in with a better seller etc. Some of this simply comes naturally as you book a worker but there are a couple of strategies you can use.</p><p> </p><p>

"Jobbing up the card" (having your unpopular workers lose to popular workers) may no longer be a way to quickly get someone over but it does work for increasing their stats. In general the workers at the top of the card will be among your better in-ring talents (although not always, especially in a popularity over performance fed). If every show the worker you want to improve has a short match against your better workers he'll popularity won't go up (due to recent fortunes) but his skills will. The downside here is that if the young worker has a win-loss record of 1-49 it will take a <strong>long</strong> time for his recent fortunes to wear off when you do want him to become popular.</p><p> </p><p>

For that reason I prefer to use the tag ranks to improve workers. Workers improve whether facing or teaming with better workers. As such I'll generally team the young worker who I want to improve with a veteran worker. Even as time decline kicks in and a veteran's top row skills decline (brawling, aerial etc) most of their performance stats hold up (basics, psychology etc, although consistency has a tendency to nose dive) so performance skills can almost always be improved this way; and if a veteran starts with high enough top row skills they can continue to be at a pretty high level for a long time. The advantage of having a tag team is that you can give the team wins (to avoid recent fortunes kicking in negatively) without either having to job an established worker to the young talent or sacrificing the chance to improve (as the younger worker will still improve from his partner, even if they're facing workers who don't have better stats).</p><p> </p><p>

So my tag team division is normally populated by a number of these "development" style teams, along with a couple of more established ones who provide continuity (and can in turn help train younger workers). Once I'm happy with the younger workers skills (or he can't learn anything more) the team will break up and I'll move the pair on (with the younger worker normally having a singles run and the older worker into another tag team).</p><p> </p><p>

Multi-man matches... especially battle royals... also seem to be very a good way to develop skills. If one was really trying to "game" the system, having a battle royal each show is probably the easiest way to go.</p><p> </p><p>

Don't expect anything to be too quick however. While entertainment stats can go up pretty rapidly and noticeably in-ring skills take a lot longer to develop and it can often seem hit and miss about whether they're improving at all. You're not going to turn a 20 year old worker into the world's best wrestler in a year (or two... or even three) even with weekly shows all about improving his skills. Accept that it's a slow process and run with that.</p><p> </p><p>

It's also worth noting that younger workers improve naturally outside of anything you do up to a certain age (which is generally random and outside your control).</p>

[OctoberRaven]

Post-show battle royales is a good way to boost in-ring skills as an indy promotion IMO.

[fullMETAL]

If you pair a young up-and-comer with more than one star vet in a tag match (like a 5-on-5 or something), do their stats increase more, or the same amount? if the second, is it possible to pair more than one up-and-comer with 1 star vet to all receive the stat bonus in the tag match?