The PGHW Thread

Lo-Drew · May 23, 2015

I don't think there's ever been one posted, which is odd. if not, I figured why not? I'm curious to see how people play with this fed as it's one of my favorites to play due to all the possibilities you have. Of course, it's not the "easiest" to play but that's where the fun comes in. If any promotion in the game was "perfect" it wouldn't be much of a challenge. Pride Glory Honor Wrestling is a definitely a challenge but a rather interesting one to take one.

When you start the game, you'll see that they're not in the best spot. With a C is momentum and their super physically draining style is killing their wrestlers, the days of where PGHW was on the verge of usurping BHOTWG as the undisputed, number one promotion in Japan are long gone(especially with BHOTWG's resurgence.) Thankfully, there is talent in Pride. PRIDE Koiso, Kozue Kawashima, Eisaku Kunomasu, Shuji Inukai, Yoshimi Mushashibo(even after the knee injury), gaijin monster Raymond Diaz are your top guys but most of them are older, except Kozue who is under 30 years old . The upper midcard also has a solid group of vets(Team Toronto, whatever's left of Miwa, Bryan Holmes, Ryoma Muruyama etc). And as I mentioned earlier, they have some really promising future talents(KitoGuchi, your future boss Seiji Jimbo if you don't play as owner, Eien Miyamoto, Masaru Ugaki, Akinori Kwakami etc) that could be developed into top guys.

Now personally I don't think you need to rush your young talent to jettison the likes of Kunomasu, Mushashibo, Miwa and friends right away. Plus you have PRIDE Koiso, who's one of the best wrestlers in the entire C-Verse and a young Ace in Kozue who's just beginning his rise. Raymond Diaz is a great asset to be a stop gap if you go in the direction to create a heel gaijin unit around him(plenty of people to choose from both in PGHW and out of PGHW). You have time to gradually bring up KitoGuchi, Jimbo and your other young studs over time and eventually have one of those guys topple the gaijin menace or any of the generational stars like a Mushashibo.

Another luxury of playing PGHW is that there's an abundance of young talent unsigned. The usual suspects like Haranobu Kobayshi, Tanyu Toshusai, Lion Genji, Omezo Shiketi are worth going out to get. Most people like raiding BCG, which I recommend because they have some really awesome young talent(my does my heart adore you, Razan Okamoto!) Best part is that when you snatch them up, they become loyal to you. You also have the benefit of having a dojo that will pump out some prospects as well. On top of that, you also have a development promotion(Pro Wrestling SAISHO) where you can dump out of your young signings down to develop.

So yeah, I would love to read how people play with PGHW. How do you guys book the promotion? Do you guys use the unit heavy base most real life promotions like Dragon Gate uses? How about a junior division for PGHW? All exciting questions to ask. Now I'm not an expert on how to play PGHW or any fed in the C-Verse but there's some good links to kinda see how differently booking a puro fed in comparison to say a SWF or USPW.

Links Worth Checking Out

The Burning Hammer of the Wrestling Gods (BHOTWG) Thread by BigPapa42: Although it's a thread created as a guide for PGHW's rival BHOTWG, BigPapa42 beautifully explains the basics of booking a puro fed and some of the tips can definitely be applied to PGHW.

Link: http://www.greydogsoftware.com/forum/showthread.php?t=522916

edenborn · February 25, 2016

While waiting for TEW 16, I've started up a PGHW game. I have questions for players familiar with PGHW who, unlike me, know the ins and outs of puro.

First, here's what (I think) I'm doing right:

- I'm running smaller tour shows which feature mostly tag teams and six man matches, so I can save my big 1 vs. 1 events for my PPVs.

- I'm being careful about not putting young lions over established veterans.

- While BHOTWG and WLW are doing the masked junior thing, I'm largely staying away from hiring those types as they don't seem to be what PGHW is all about.

My questions:

- Workers like PRIDE Koiso and Yoshimi Mushashibo are charismatic enough to gain overness from domination wins. Can I feed them jobbers? Or are one-sided matches unrealistic in a highly competitive puro environment?

- Though I'm not using any angles in my tour shows, I'd like to have a few at my PPV events. I imagine interviews are appropriate but what else can I do without crossing into sports entertainment? Confrontations? Brawls?

- As I've got singles wrestlers regularly competing in tag matches on tour, I'm wondering if realism demands that they tag with the same partner for a long period of time or can I rotate tag partners regularly to test for chemistry?

- I brought the Cali Dragons in as a jobber tag team who might become more competitive with the rest of the roster over time. Smaller than most of my roster but they're not out of place in PGHW, are they? What about colorful masked fliers like Silver Shark or Masked Cougar? Can I bring them in as jobbers or does that violate the spirit of the company?

Teh_Showtime · February 25, 2016

In Puro aside from monsters (Raymond Diaz in PGHW, Bad Luck Fale or Vader in real life) I wouldn't use domination wins as the culture is different. A top guy is expected to clean a young lion within 5 minutes tops, domination would imply something even more dominant than that and Goldberg style wins are extremely rare, but those two can pull it off if you wanted to book them that way.

You can use angles (remember the 10% leeway) things like in ring faceoffs are common and as NJPW has trended more towards sports entertainment recently they use brawls frequently and decent length in ring promos (after matches). They key here is that only top guys get these angles which keeps the ratio in tact, as well as making the angle grades strong.

You can swap tag partners seemingly at will but the one thing about puro I've always liked is the prevalence of stables. You can use large (5+ men) stables to give you options when it comes to tag matches as well as defined incentive to protect big matches such as Okada and Nakamura being stablemates, therefore only having 3 matches due to tournaments forcing it.

My stables are typically one of the company "Aces", their regular partner who should be very high on the card, and various midcarders with different roles. Young stars, fall guys, experience to teach the junior members, etc

I'll use NJPW again because I feel like CHAOS did it correctly around 2013-4

Shinsuke Nakamura (ace)

Tomohiro Ishii (Nakamura's partner used to take the falls, turned uppercard fixture due to his constantly losing granting him underdog status)

Kazuchika Okada (Young member, though rocket strapped to him and ace in the making, frequently teams with both of the above in main events)

Gedo (Okada's fall boy/manager/works with him and passes off his experience)

Yoshi-Hashi (Okada's primary fall boy and junior of the stable, slot him in to lose anywhere)

Jado (Gedo's partner but they rarely do straight 2/2 tags, used to take falls)

Toru Yano (primary tag team of the group)

Takashi Iizuka (Primary team of the group)

Rocky Romero (Junior heavyweight tag team)

Alex Kozlov (junior heavyweight tag team)

Yano/Iizuka were primarily midcarders and just around the tag scene so they teamed with lesser members but generally had their own things going on (which at one point was an endless Yano feud with Minoru Suzuki). Kozlov/Romero were Jr heavyweights so aside from multi man house show matches rarely mixed with the others

dubb93 · February 26, 2016

I'm playing a 1997 and I used a tour to introduce Juniors. I actually thought it would be cool to jump the trend and try to integrate them into the regular PGHW division. I went with PGHW would never have a juniors division, but if the guys could compete...hey why not. Obviously the top guys like Miwa, Tatsuko, Kitoaji, and Ichihara thought that the super juniors would fail miserably.

The main reason I wanted to do this was that BHOTWG decided not to renew Elemenatal's contract so I signed him up for a tour. I booked him in three matches, Elemental and Yosuke Narita (the guy I REALLY wanted to get over) vs. Mito Miwa and Nobuatsu Tatsuka scored a 99. Then I had Elemental win a #1 contenders match on a tour show over there guys Midcard guys. It really wasn't that great, honestly as it scored a 83. The final match of the tour was set as Koryusai Kitoaji vs. Elemental for the PGHW Glory Crown. Kitoaji took it in a 93 rated bout.

It was pretty fitting as Elemental had announced his retirement shortly before that match. It ended up being his last match. Afterwords he cut a promo saying that he came to PGHW to prove that Super Juniors are capable of competing at the highest level here, but what he found was that Yosuke Narita was already here and he was already proving it. After that he put Narita over as a future champion and then that the tour was a wrap. Was pretty fun to book.

I don't have that many Super Juniors on my roster. Narita is really the only ace super junior and I have Edo Pheonix and The Awesome Kitaru competing in his stable further down the card.

edenborn · February 28, 2016

That's useful, thanks.<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Teh_Showtime" data-cite="Teh_Showtime" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="39694" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>You can use large (5+ men) stables to give you options when it comes to tag matches as well as defined incentive to protect big matches such as Okada and Nakamura being stablemates, therefore only having 3 matches due to tournaments forcing it.</div></blockquote>So stablemates typically only face each other at tournaments? Do those tournament matches tend to lead to someone leaving the stable afterwards or is there simply a handshake (or the equivalent) and the stable remains intact?

Teh_Showtime · February 28, 2016

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="edenborn" data-cite="edenborn" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="39694" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>That's useful, thanks.So stablemates typically only face each other at tournaments? Do those tournament matches tend to lead to someone leaving the stable afterwards or is there simply a handshake (or the equivalent) and the stable remains intact?</div></blockquote> You can do a lot with stables as far as tourney matches go because the bulk of the development for your year will happen in tournament matches, since it's the only time where big matches happen consistently. In most cases the senior member will be expected to be the lower members, though you could use an upset between stablemates to spark a full blown feud, or just as creative posturing to get the right results you want (as they are generally round robin tournaments) One example was NOAH recently where Shelton Benjamin drew with leader Minoru Suzuki and it resulted in Suzuki missing the tourney finals, despite being champ at the time (which naturally means he wins a lot of matches). This allowed Naomichi Marufuji to win the tournament final without beating Suzuki, and they had a title match shortly after where he beat Suzuki for the title.

Sons of Kohral · February 28, 2016

How many stables and how many members in each would you guys usually have for a promotion like PGHW?

lr10540 · February 29, 2016

How many stables and how many members in each would you guys usually have for a promotion like PGHW?

Not PGHW, but in my short BHOTWG save I had 3 stables. Each stable had a top guy, a secondary main eventer/upper mid, a heavyweight tag team, a junior, a junior tag team and a prospect. Considering PGHW is similar in size, it should be good.

One of the things I disliked about running a Japanese promotion was that I felt tied down to the stables which made booking pretty repetitive for me. Maybe I'm just not creative outside of sports entertainment lol.

dubb93 · February 29, 2016

I don't watch much Japanese wrestling IRL so I may not be the best person to answer the stable question...but in my 1997 save that is now in 1998 I am currently running 7 stables. There are likely to be a few more soon as well. I don't like having multiple main eventers per stable so my stable of young future aces with Mito Miwa/Nobuatsu Tatsuko/Yoshimi Mushashibo/Shuji Inukai has turned from a stable of young guys looking to turn the company on its head to a stable consisting of 4 Main Event ready talent.

I'm planning on having some internal strife lead to Inukai and Mushashibo splitting from the group and forming a new stable.

My other stables are Hito Ichihara's Iron Guard. It is a five man stable with the tag champs, one guy in the Historical Japan division, and an upper mid guy. I have Kitoaji's Dojo which has my champion Koryusai Kitoaji and a slew of young lions. I have Akihiro Ishikawa's Rapid Fury which has Ishikawa's occasional tag team partner and full time Historical Japan division competitor Shotaro Ikina and a full time tag team that are perennial top contenders.

A little further down the card I have The Alliance which is basically a bunch of non-native Japanese wrestlers that have banded together under that umbrella. It is a fairly large stable by my standards featuring eight guys and does not have a traditional leader per say. The face of the stable is likely Jack Marlowe since he is the Historical Japan champion and auto pushes as a Main Eventer.

I have a Super Junior stable which officially has five members...but only have 3 of them currently on the roster. They are led by Yosuke Narita which is the only Super Junior that has been able to shed the stigma of that designation in PGHW. His stable-mates are The Amazing Kiyaru and Koki Ishibashi whom form a fairly unsuccessful tag team. They are joined by Golden Fox and Edo Phoenix II. The latter two are on a coming and going schedule since they are freelancers and I can't get them sign on for more than one tour at a time and then they won't sign again for 6 months. Golden Fox has been fairly successful in the company and when he returns will likely auto push as an Upper Mid guy. He had a 96 rated match with Koryusai Kitoaji filling in for the injured Yosuke Narita on the last tour.

At the bottom of the stable heap is the newcomer stable called the Stone Family Dungeon. They consist of leader Dan Stone Jr., and the brand new tag team Duane Stone and Raymond Diaz. This stable just recently debuted and has not made a name for themselves yet.

Bigpapa42 · February 29, 2016

My C-verse puro experience is mostly Burning Hammer. Never really ran with PGHW, but I would probably roll with it relatively similarly. The dynamic I love about stables is that it creates a multitude of story options, without actually resorting to using Storylines. In BH, most of my roster is going to be involved in a stable.

Without a super junior division, the PGHW roster is smaller. That makes a difference, but you can still use the approach.

The biggest upsides to stables, as others have mentioned, is that it gives reason/value to random multi-man matches that often fill a touring show. Its a way to drag out a feud much much longer than what we would be used to in more typical American style booking. And it creates future storylines with the dynamics that exist within a given stable.

Don't get locked into the idea that stables have to be uniform. They don't have to all have some similarities that connects them. They don't have to have to similar structure - main event leader, upper card #2, young lion, veteran enforcer, etc. They can be informal. A unit can be a casual alliance between two tag teams, which team up sometimes in 8 man tag matches. It can be rivals who respect each other enough to work together when it benefits them both. It can be a group of loyalists, who have all never worked for any other company and who will defend the company to the death. Or maybe a group of outsiders. A group of gaijin.

Mixing up the makeup of the stables helps keep things from just being three or four or five identical stables with no variance.

In terms of storytelling, stables/units/armies/guns allow layers upon layers, and they allow for long-term approaches to storytelling. Let's say you have a stable with an established main event star and a protégé (whether in-game or not). The protégé is slowly built up through this alliance. Will they eventually challenge their mentor? Will it be a big moment of betrayal or respectful? Will they leave the stable, and maybe form their own, or will they kick the former mentor out?

As for use of angles, there are a few options. Use of Face Off No Contact makes sense - in Japan, a simple face-to-face confrontation after a match can be a big thing. The use of MMA-like post-match interviews isn't something I see in puro, but would be fitting. And so are post-event press conferences, which can't be emulated in the game but seem to be used quite commonly in puroresu.

thecoolestjedi12 · March 1, 2016

I usually equate PHGW to AJPW in real life, SO I book it how Baba booked AJPW, 4 top native japanese talents, 2 face, 2 heel, and a few non japanese wrestlers bere and ther. For the most part, I do decisive finiahes in big matches, draws, and multi man tag matches. The thing with KIngs road boooking in Tew is that you build 4 really over guys and they pull grades for you, and if you are not careful they could get injured. Plus building 4 over guys takes time, so I would go with signing up young, japanese and non japanese talent and looking at who are your 4 pillars now and your 4 pillars in the future.

edenborn · March 1, 2016

This is definitely helpful, everyone, thank you.

Just a few followup questions:

- When members of two stables meet in a match, does the rest of the stable typically come out to ringside? Should I have one stable member managing another and/or use distraction and interference road agent notes?

- How can I best simulate a rule-breaking stable with a product where fans want clean finishes? Should I occasionally give the rule breakers a tainted finish even if it tanks the match rating?

- I take it not everyone will be in a stable? Approximately how much of the roster should be unaffiliated?

- Even though there's no face/heel divide, I'm building a few stables based on whether those wrestlers would excel as a face or heel. So I've got a traditional/loyalist stable of faces, and a more rule-breaking, revolutionary stable of heels, and then I've got a stable composed entirely of gaijin. Are gaijin typically heels in puro? Would it make sense for all my gaijin workers to be heels in the same stable, or would it be more realistic to have a few be unaffiliated, trying to make a name for themselves as faces, perhaps teaming up with the more traditionalist Japanese faces?

thecoolestjedi12 · March 1, 2016

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="edenborn" data-cite="edenborn" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="39694" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>This is definitely helpful, everyone, thank you. Just a few followup questions: - When members of two stables meet in a match, does the rest of the stable typically come out to ringside? Should I have one stable member managing another and/or use distraction and interference road agent notes? - How can I best simulate a rule-breaking stable with a product where fans want clean finishes? Should I occasionally give the rule breakers a tainted finish even if it tanks the match rating? - I take it not everyone will be in a stable? Approximately how much of the roster should be unaffiliated? - Even though there's no face/heel divide, I'm building a few stables based on whether those wrestlers would excel as a face or heel. So I've got a traditional/loyalist stable of faces, and a more rule-breaking, revolutionary stable of heels, and then I've got a stable composed entirely of gaijin. Are gaijin typically heels in puro? Would it make sense for all my gaijin workers to be heels in the same stable, or would it be more realistic to have a few be unaffiliated, trying to make a name for themselves as faces, perhaps teaming up with the more traditionalist Japanese faces?</div></blockquote> Usually non japanese wrestlers are seen as heels especially when going up against a japanese fan favorite, but they can also be babyfaces, usually non japanese show up in stables or team with japanese workers, your choice really. Kepp some guys in stables like top guys, but leave some young lions on their own or some teams on their own, not everyone should be in a stable, a few main eventers, midcarders,etc can strike out on their own. I would say try to stsy away form tainted finishes, maybe use 1 or 2 angles where the stable beats down the babyface or a match where they dominate a friend of a babyface, interference can work to, use tainted finishes sparingly in Japan, I learned that the hard way. Usually stables come out to support each other, so go for the manager thing or intefernece thing or do multi man tag matches.

thecoolestjedi12 · March 1, 2016

Also, slow burning storylines in Japan tend to have a big payoff, my main one in PHGw is Mito Miwa vs. Kozue and the whole point is Kozue showing he can lead PHGW into the new era, then I have Pride leading a group of old guys with 2 young lions to make PHGW great again and the Young Kozue shocks Japan by turning his back on the warriros path and bringing in Gaijin to destroy PHGW heros and rule atop

bookerman · March 2, 2016

This is one of my bibles for any sort of Japan booking from the 90's

<a href="http://www.quebrada.net/columns/old/quebrada37carnybooking.html" rel="external nofollow">http://www.quebrada.net/columns/old/quebrada37carnybooking.html</a>

The tournament format and especially the end part with plans for each wrestler are great. Not saying it's perfect, but it gives a good sense of how booking at that time worked.

Imagine winning the top title as climbing Mt. Everest. You don't start off climbing Everest when you start. You have to climb smaller mountains to work your way up to being able to climb Everest. Winning small feuds. Winning tag titles. Winning tournaments. Beating those above you in the pecking order. So on and so on. As an aside, this is one of the areas where WWE went wrong with Reigns.

If each wrestler is a mountain themselves, then a growing wrestler may lose to an established veteran in 10 minutes the first time out. Next time it might take 15-20 minutes and the underdog youngster might come close to winning. 3rd fight might be a draw. Youngster might get a pin over the vet in a tag match leading to a 4th singles clash that the youngster manages to pull out. Keep in mind that this wouldn't be WWE style booking where these matches would take place over the course of a month. There could be months or even years between singles matches.

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