Burning Hammer Of The Wrestling Gods Thread BHOTWG

[CGN91]

Dusting here again...

I'm in the mood to give Burning Hammer another try, so I think I'll post here from time to time. It will be something I never done before because I'll do a big takeover in the first few weeks and months. 

[The Blonde Bomber]

On 9/4/2022 at 1:34 PM, CGN91 said:

Dusting here again...

I'm in the mood to give Burning Hammer another try, so I think I'll post here from time to time. It will be something I never done before because I'll do a big takeover in the first few weeks and months. 

I’ve always been tempted to do one but never jumped into it. Will keep an eye on updates. Maybe they’ll get me into a save.

[TWoody24]

So I finally started a BHOTWG save and it got off to a rocky start based off a few people with pretty severe penalties because of time decline. I finally hit the ground running after the first two months. Starting in March I switched to a weekly format with a show on Tuesday and a show on Thursday. I also created a brand split for the juniors and heavyweights so they both have 4 shows a month. I'm getting up there in money and hope by the end of the first year I'll have enough money to start my own network. I'm also hoping PGHW can be bought out because it hasn't had positive money for the last few months. 

I currently just finished the Battle of the Super Juniors PPV. It's been my best PPV yet. The headline was A-Block winner Sensational Dragon vs. B-Block winner Emerald Angel for the BOTSJ Trophy. Emerald Angel won in about 30 mins and the match got a 93. The overall PPV got a 91.

I originally signed a lot of people. I sent at least 5 junior wrestlers to OLLIE and 5 heavyweights to APW for excursions. I had a bloated roster at first but slowly chipped away and got rid of a lot of aging wrestlers and wrestlers I just didn't want. I currently have 58 wrestlers on the roster. I opened up a state of the art performance center so I closed Hinote Dojo down. I did open up a development company called Hinote Pro Wrestling Dojo and have at least 15-20 wrestlers there. Some of them are from SAISHO which I bought out cause it was struggling for money, I poached the guys with good psychology stats to help the younger guys.

My main stars are probably a bit different than most but my top 5 popularity wise for Heavyweights is:

Heihachiro Sakai (currently the World Champion)

Takayuki2000

Mabuchi Furusawa

Munemitsu Senmatsu

Ieyoshi Shimakage

 

My top 5 Juniors are:

Sensational Dragon (Currently Junior Champ)

Emerald Angel

Elemental III

MYSTIC Dragon

Helikoan

 

If you want me to keep updating for big events just let me know. Hope it was a decent read. Also if anyone has any tips for me I would enjoy that.

 

 

Edited September 30, 2022 by TWoody24

[TWoody24]

4 hours ago, James The Animator said:

If you can talk Helikaon into becoming a middleweight, you should do it when you’re ready. He could be a great asset for the heavyweight main event for years to come.

Oh he's definitely on my radar for that. I am going to give him a Junior Heavyweight title run and then once that's over he's definitely in my plans for that. I also signed Tsuneyo Yanagimoto early in my save as well and I am eventually going to do the same with him.

[Wrestling Machine]

Emerald Angel, Helikaon and Yanagimoto as your next 3 junior champs? 🥰

[TWoody24]

I have completed the first year for BHOTWG. The final PPV of the year was our best PPV yet. The co-main events were Takayuki2000 vs. Heihachiro Sakai and Emerald Angel vs. Sensational Dragon. Takayuki and Emerald won their matches and became new champions. Black Magic are my tag champs and they've had the belts for most of the year. Michio is still the Openweight champ and PUNK Nasty Club are the tag champs.

We had our first graduating class for the new Hinote Dojo and 7 of the 12 students we signed and sent to Hinote Pro Wrestling. I'm happy about that because sometimes I don't get the greatest classes but 3 of them were in the mid to high 70's and a couple were low 50's. 

I'm still waiting to buy PGHW but they are holding on strong even though they are losing money every month. They haven't had a positive money amount since I believe June. CWA is also another company that I considered buying because they were almost 3 million in the hole somehow. I don't understand it but I decided to just offer them cash and hopefully they will stay strong for a while. I did buy ACPW just to help with the pop in Canada. 

I opened up the Burning Hammer Network so we should be making really good money in the coming years. I am debating on starting a Burning Hammer USA in like another year or two to mirror NJPW and NJPW Strong. I wish I had saved the picture I know someone made of a Burning Hammer USA but alas I did not lol. 

This is probably the most fun I've ever had running a company. I've also been debating on running a G-1 Tourny for all the middle-heavyweights with them getting title shots at the end of the year. Also signed Magnum Kobe so he's getting a rocket to the top of the Junior Division.

Edited October 1, 2022 by TWoody24

[TWoody24]

I have completed the 2nd Battle of the Super Juniors. The winners of the two blocks were Sensational Dragon and Tsuneyo Yanagimoto. Tsuneyo came out victorious and his first ever BOTSJ Trophy. The Junior Heavyweight title was also on the line so he double dipped. It's also his first run with the title. The Junior Heavyweight Division is really the reason we are humming along. 

PGHW finally went bankrupt so naturally I bought them out and took mainly the top guys. They have been a good part of the company as well. Masaru Ugaki just went up against Mabuchi Furusawa at the last PPV for the vacant World Title as Takayuki2000 tore his quad which really sucks because he was on a hell of a run. 

I also created an alliance with pretty much all the Japanese companies around. The only company that hasn't joined is WLW. I've been friendly with all the companies but WLW is still hesitant to join. The alliance is called the United Promotions of Japan. It consists of BCG, EXO2000, 5SSW and my development company Hinote Pro. I made it a consortium because I wanted to make sure all the Japanese companies thrived and could afford to keep talent. I'm eventually going to open a woman's promotion at the start of 2022 so the woman's wrestlers in Japan get a few more places to work with 5SSW and my new company and WINNOW is around as well.

As I've said before this has been my favorite save I've had so far. I am planning on running a G-1 type tourny in the next month or two for the Heavyweights.

[Wrestling Machine]

@TWoody24I guess Yanagimoto is performing really good! Am I right? 

[TWoody24]

12 hours ago, Wrestling Machine said:

@TWoody24I guess Yanagimoto is performing really good! Am I right? 

He's been pretty good but Helikoan has actually out shined him and the whole rest of the roster. He's the most over in the whole company. He's at 89 pop in Japan and he recently went up in star quality to 100 so over the next year or two he's getting a run with the junior title and then I'm shooting him to the absolute moon in the heavyweight division

[CGN91]

On 9/5/2022 at 10:27 PM, The Blonde Bomber said:

I’ve always been tempted to do one but never jumped into it. Will keep an eye on updates. Maybe they’ll get me into a save.

Oops. I forgot to create the BHOTWG game lol The new posts here kindly reminded me of doing a save. Instead I played my White Canvas Grappling save even further.

[ShikariFC]

It has been interesting reading through this as im a few months into my first ever BHOTWG save (and also my first dynasty) and im still pretty new to the C-Verse, a lot of the names mentioned I released early on as i got rid of a chunk of guys over 40. Ive had to resist the temptation to sign everyone and anyone, I dont touch guys who have loyalty elsewhere (AKA that wont sign exclusive deals) Pretty Okakura quit EX2010 and hes someone ive really looked at.

[Bigpapa42]

After messing with a few different Cverse saves (mostly SWF and TCW in both default and the 2010 mod), I found Arlovski’s AI renders for the Japanese wrestling scene (male side) and added those. They look amazing. He’s using them in his BCG diary and since I have a soft spot for Black Canvas, was tempted to go with them. But Burning Hammer is equally tempting. Gone back and forth on them a bit. The smaller roster of Black Canvas has its appeals, but I love the lore and pageantry (at least in my head-lore) of Burning Hammer, plus the product and the juniors. I have a load of fun creating both new and generational super juniors. 

I’ve started saves and booked about a month with Burning Hammer 3 times now. I tend to do this – test saves to get a handle on the company, get comfortable booking the product and schedule, and to refine who I sign. Because bloating a roster is a specialty of mine. And its so tempting to do with Burning Hammer – a rebuild needed and snapping up talent (theoretically) helps weather the economic issues. And Japan has a LOT of available talent you can sign. Every puro company has a few talented or promising workers that aren’t loyal, so they can be signed away on exclusive deals. You can sign some really good loyal workers to PPA deals and play the long game of building their popularity to the point their home promotion can’t afford to keep them. There are some reasonably promising young free agents. And of course, a lot of gaijin. Even more if you ask some to make themselves available in Japan.

My standard approach has been to open a child company (White Canvas Grappling) and stock it with some talent. I mostly avoid signing the loyal talent now. I don’t load up on too many gaijin. Its tempting to open a performance center but something that can wait. Same with opening a broadcaster to grow abroad. I’ve whittled down the list of who I tend to hire for the main roster to workers that feel either “must sign” or very useful. Takano, Miyamoto, and Kobayashi from PGHW. SUKI, Toshusai, and Furusawa from BCG. Yanagimoto (becomes Optimus II or Dark Optimus) and Orange Tsuchie from EX2010. Jayson van Pelt comes in as Black Cobra II. Last test save, I ended up signing 14 to the main roster. The problem is that outside of the 3 from PGHW, everyone has only regional popularity. Its not too hard to build them up a bit… but it gets hard to do that many all at once. Feels messy and unfocused. Also realizing that only PGHW has the ability to lock up a worker to an exclusive iron-clad deal in Japan, so I can add some of these more gradually. So I'm back to planning and trying to decide who to add now and who to wait on. 

Also rethinking the child company. Its obviously useful to develop workers and most of the contacts for the developmental talent aren’t that expensive… but it’s a hefty investment.

So… thought I would ask what others do? What’s your approach in a new save with Burning Hammer? Do you invest in a child company? Broadcaster? Performance Center? Drain the bank and do them all? What talent additions do you go after first? Who is your “must sign” talent? Even curious on what new units you create.

[a0161613]

It's definitely ripe to go in a few different directions.

 

Personally, my most recent save saw me keep things very much in-house. Minimal hirings, pretty much all rookies, a massive push for Senmatsu, a stable for Nakasawa (a mistake as I lumbered him with rookies). I also brought a trios title and the inaugural champs were The Golden Army. No time decline for any of those guys and Taka 2000 got the World Title too. I showed tremendous restraint in not pushing Keith and Toshitala this time around, though I couldn't resist hiring Greg Gauge.

 

I always destroy Slaughterhouse but this time Masuno got chemistry with one of the unaffiliated guys so I got rid of The Killing Floor as their tag team. I usually do a G1 style event that culminates at Fire Dream but I didnt do that either. The BOSJ event is still the same but I actually expanded it to allow for 2 x 10 man groups.

 

A huge rejig of the schedule is essential. Taking the lead from the Thunderverse, I made a few Lesser events, took out a few tour shows, gave a few more themes. This helps with money too.

 

Doing that makes a broadcaster more feasible plus a dev company, which is essential I find as it is easy to stockpile talent in Japan. PPA contracts and natural departures from other companies make organic hiring quite easy to manage.

 

Case in point - Fuyuko Higa left 5SSW and I hired her. She became my Black Cobra II and got chemistry with Sensational Dragon's protege, the otherwise unremarkable Chomei Sugiyama.

[Bigpapa42]

Exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for, so thank you. Couple of questions... How quick did you open a developmental company? Same for the broadcaster - how quick, how big, type etc? 

Funny you mention the Japan schedules in the Tverse... With Mammoth posting up event pictures for all TV promotions, I spent time on the weekend downloading and adding them. Led to me toying with a UPJ save. which might happen down the road but really want to get at least a bit into a Burning Hammer save. But having a few Lesser shows makes a ton of sense. I've already added some additional tour shows for BOSJ and for a HW G1-esque tournament. 

And I think I'm just stuck between the "preferred option" of doing a "add nothing" save where I run the default roster for at least awhile, one where I add a few workers but keep the numbers minimal, or doing that but also opening the developmental. I realize none are wrong and any should be fun. Its something I almost always struggle with deciding regardless of company. 

[a0161613]

22 hours ago, Bigpapa42 said:

Exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for, so thank you. Couple of questions... How quick did you open a developmental company? Same for the broadcaster - how quick, how big, type etc? 

Funny you mention the Japan schedules in the Tverse... With Mammoth posting up event pictures for all TV promotions, I spent time on the weekend downloading and adding them. Led to me toying with a UPJ save. which might happen down the road but really want to get at least a bit into a Burning Hammer save. But having a few Lesser shows makes a ton of sense. I've already added some additional tour shows for BOSJ and for a HW G1-esque tournament. 

And I think I'm just stuck between the "preferred option" of doing a "add nothing" save where I run the default roster for at least awhile, one where I add a few workers but keep the numbers minimal, or doing that but also opening the developmental. I realize none are wrong and any should be fun. Its something I almost always struggle with deciding regardless of company. 

My feedback felt a little bit fuzzy on re-reading so I got curious and looked up this most recent save.

 

Network was opened halfway through Feb '20, with minimum coverage in the main North American regions. Dev company opened in January at the smallest size. That's a lot earlier than I recall. I probably upgraded production values too.

 

One thing i didnt mention is that I changed the product to East Meets West.

[ShikariFC]

Into 2021 on my save and I've picked up Mainstream Hernandez after SWF let his deal run down