The "Booking Committee" Thread, 2020 Edition

[Jaysin]

3 hours ago, Chris said:

For some reason I didnt think Aguilera was around until a little later haha, thank you

I had to check to see if he was available myself. It's crazy how early some of these guys started working before getting noticed.

[TheWorldIsOurs13]

Ok I have a dilemma. The main event I wanted to do for Supreme Challenge was Remo vs. Rocky Golden. But I just signed Tommy Cornell to a big money contract.

I also am booking a Supreme Chamber match that Remo is also in. 
 

I don’t want to do a triple threat match.

it’s either Golden vs. Cornell or Golden vs. Remo

But I don’t know how to make Remo lose in the Chamber Match without making him lose to Golden before I book them one on one. 
 

Also Golden is in early time decline. I’m lost

 

[Devilb0y]

3 hours ago, TheWorldIsOurs13 said:

Ok I have a dilemma. The main event I wanted to do for Supreme Challenge was Remo vs. Rocky Golden. But I just signed Tommy Cornell to a big money contract.

I also am booking a Supreme Chamber match that Remo is also in. 
 

I don’t want to do a triple threat match.

it’s either Golden vs. Cornell or Golden vs. Remo

But I don’t know how to make Remo lose in the Chamber Match without making him lose to Golden before I book them one on one. 
 

Also Golden is in early time decline. I’m lost

 

Remo vs Golden is a bit of a trap match. It seems obvious on paper - and it'll probably still get a good rating (maybe 80ish) - but neither can sell particularly well and the match rating will suffer for it. If I ever want to run that match - especially at Supreme Challenge - I add a Bret Starr, ZWB, Randy Unleashed, Joey Morgan or - conveniently - Tommy Cornell (!) to fix that flaw.

Personally I would run the triple threat, but if you're having to pick one then Cornell will probably get you a better rating (so long as his time decline isn't too bad). And he's better in angles too.

Edited April 23 by Devilb0y

[ArcheoOutOfNowhere]

Hey guys, I could need some help for a few questions, before I start my NWA Los Angeles 92 save. Basically, to give you some lore, I'll play with the (fictional) grandson of one of the original members of the California Combine, and the one who's most often forgotten from what I've seen. Due to his newfound wealth, he'll bring back wrestling to the family by recreating the company that made his grandfather famous-ish, and join the NWA (until a turning point where I'll want to destroy them from the inside). He'll also have good relationships with other members of that group, allowing me to use the following rules: 1) Everyone who held one of the original company titles and/or had a match there while still available in the data must be signed and used for any role they can fill, 2) Everyone who had a match in Hollywood Wrestling, or was the student/a family member of one of the original NWA:LA roster is put on a shortlist and takes precedence over people not on it 3) Every title of the original company listed by cagematch must be used, although I can change their rules/the people they'd be awarded to (in other words, a title for main eventers can become a midcard title, etc).

Now that you have the lore, here are the questions:

- what would be good ways to crown new champions ? Apart from one of the two tag titles, where Los Brazos (Brazo de Oro and Brazo de Plata) can simply get their titles back as they were the last champions (the belt having been used in another company), every other "reigning" champion is either dead or retired. In other words, I'll have to crown a new Main Event champ, a new Midcard champ,  new tag champs, a new women champion, and a new "Beat the Champ" champion (although for this one, I already have the solution of either a battle royale, or two randomly drawn workers since that's the rule for challengers anyway). I love the idea of having round-robin tournaments, but that would make 4 tournaments, either simultaneously or back-to-back, and I fear it's a bit too many. Ladder matches weren't really a big thing in 1992, and just picking the best two workers for each title doesn't really fit with the product I want.

- speaking of round-robin tournaments, how many is too many, and how often is too often ? I'd like to have at least one men and one women tournament annually, but how many workers should be in it maximum before it becomes way too long, bloated and uninteresting ?

- the "NWA Beat the Champ" title originally (as far as I know) was in kayfabe about money: the champ would win a certain amount of money for the original win, a bit more for the 4 wins after against randomly drawn opponents (in kayfabe, again), then the title went vacant. I'd rather have the champ winning all 5 matches gain a title shot, but what would be the best choice: the winner picks the stipulation of his choice ? The title turns into a "cash-in" opportunity at any moment, although the champion would still need to defend it until he decides to cash-in ? Something else ?

- Amongst the people I'll be forced to hire are workers like Little Tokyo, Lord Littlebrook, Cowboy Lang (all three being midget wrestlers), and Mae Young. I'm not going to create a midget division just for Cowboy Lang, and unlike Claude Giroux (who's a decent manager and that I also have to hire), none of the other three have the skills needed to be good managers, authority figures or road agents. Any ideas on what I could do with them ? Lang could probably pair in a jobber tag team, but the other three I'm entirely clueless on possible uses.

Thanks, and sorry for the long message !

[CQI13]

On 5/1/2024 at 7:30 AM, ArcheoOutOfNowhere said:

Hey guys, I could need some help for a few questions, before I start my NWA Los Angeles 92 save. Basically, to give you some lore, I'll play with the (fictional) grandson of one of the original members of the California Combine, and the one who's most often forgotten from what I've seen. Due to his newfound wealth, he'll bring back wrestling to the family by recreating the company that made his grandfather famous-ish, and join the NWA (until a turning point where I'll want to destroy them from the inside). He'll also have good relationships with other members of that group, allowing me to use the following rules: 1) Everyone who held one of the original company titles and/or had a match there while still available in the data must be signed and used for any role they can fill, 2) Everyone who had a match in Hollywood Wrestling, or was the student/a family member of one of the original NWA:LA roster is put on a shortlist and takes precedence over people not on it 3) Every title of the original company listed by cagematch must be used, although I can change their rules/the people they'd be awarded to (in other words, a title for main eventers can become a midcard title, etc).

Now that you have the lore, here are the questions:

- what would be good ways to crown new champions ? Apart from one of the two tag titles, where Los Brazos (Brazo de Oro and Brazo de Plata) can simply get their titles back as they were the last champions (the belt having been used in another company), every other "reigning" champion is either dead or retired. In other words, I'll have to crown a new Main Event champ, a new Midcard champ,  new tag champs, a new women champion, and a new "Beat the Champ" champion (although for this one, I already have the solution of either a battle royale, or two randomly drawn workers since that's the rule for challengers anyway). I love the idea of having round-robin tournaments, but that would make 4 tournaments, either simultaneously or back-to-back, and I fear it's a bit too many. Ladder matches weren't really a big thing in 1992, and just picking the best two workers for each title doesn't really fit with the product I want.

- speaking of round-robin tournaments, how many is too many, and how often is too often ? I'd like to have at least one men and one women tournament annually, but how many workers should be in it maximum before it becomes way too long, bloated and uninteresting ?

- the "NWA Beat the Champ" title originally (as far as I know) was in kayfabe about money: the champ would win a certain amount of money for the original win, a bit more for the 4 wins after against randomly drawn opponents (in kayfabe, again), then the title went vacant. I'd rather have the champ winning all 5 matches gain a title shot, but what would be the best choice: the winner picks the stipulation of his choice ? The title turns into a "cash-in" opportunity at any moment, although the champion would still need to defend it until he decides to cash-in ? Something else ?

- Amongst the people I'll be forced to hire are workers like Little Tokyo, Lord Littlebrook, Cowboy Lang (all three being midget wrestlers), and Mae Young. I'm not going to create a midget division just for Cowboy Lang, and unlike Claude Giroux (who's a decent manager and that I also have to hire), none of the other three have the skills needed to be good managers, authority figures or road agents. Any ideas on what I could do with them ? Lang could probably pair in a jobber tag team, but the other three I'm entirely clueless on possible uses.

Thanks, and sorry for the long message !

You could do them quarterly (though not necessarily in months 3, 6, 9, and 12 - just 3 months apart. Men, women, tag, and a wildcard (FAs looking for a contract? Cruiserweights? Hardcore/deathmatch?). Depending on your set up, 16 people should be fine. You can even do a 2 day event where the losers of some matches go 3 v 3 against another team of workers who lost in Rd 1. Look at how PWG and early ROH did their tournaments. I will try to come up with some event names for logos as well.

[ArcheoOutOfNowhere]

I'm probably not doing a tournament for tag teams (or at least, not a round robin one, but they might get a single elimination one), but I've thought about doing the other three ! I was thinking having one that would have a similar importance (for my company) as the G1 Climax, an equivalent for women, and either an "Invitational" to honor one of our former deceased champions, that would be for rookies/free agents, or one where I'd invite workers from the other NWA companies to fight with my own guys to get a shot at the NWA World Title. Maybe even alternate what the third one would be themed on: cruserweight, midcarders, free agents, etc.

The problem with round robin tournaments being obviously that they can take a long time (hence why I am unsure how many to book: 7 matches + the finals are two months if I only have a weekly show, and I don't want the whole schedule to be tournaments after tournaments), and when the division is rather poor in talent and/or popularity (as will probably be the case of my women division), I'll need to have other huge matches to compensate the rather poor ratings.

Any logos would still be welcome though ! One can never have too many logos, just in case 😛

(As for other readers, still interested in answers for the other questions !)

 

[PaperMachete]

Don't really know if this goes in here or in the rules for your game, but I'm trying in here... I'm still setting up my upcoming WWE game (when Questlove releases his June mod), and I want to have plans for some of the guys I rarely use in my saves. So, any and all ideas for any of the following is gladly accepted:

• Otis, Tozawa and Maxxine post-Gable heel turn (I want to keep them faces as Gable gets the Creed Brothers instead)
• Dijak
• The Final Testament (I'm having trouble with them considering none of them can cut a promo in-game)
• Apollo Crews
• Cedric Alexander
• Baron Corbin
• Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows (I'm thinking of turning Finn face and feud with Damien as the Judgment Day implode, maybe they could be the backup)

It can be anything, high to low, just as long as they have something to do.

[CQI13]

On 5/4/2024 at 8:33 AM, ArcheoOutOfNowhere said:

I'm probably not doing a tournament for tag teams (or at least, not a round robin one, but they might get a single elimination one), but I've thought about doing the other three ! I was thinking having one that would have a similar importance (for my company) as the G1 Climax, an equivalent for women, and either an "Invitational" to honor one of our former deceased champions, that would be for rookies/free agents, or one where I'd invite workers from the other NWA companies to fight with my own guys to get a shot at the NWA World Title. Maybe even alternate what the third one would be themed on: cruserweight, midcarders, free agents, etc.

The problem with round robin tournaments being obviously that they can take a long time (hence why I am unsure how many to book: 7 matches + the finals are two months if I only have a weekly show, and I don't want the whole schedule to be tournaments after tournaments), and when the division is rather poor in talent and/or popularity (as will probably be the case of my women division), I'll need to have other huge matches to compensate the rather poor ratings.

Any logos would still be welcome though ! One can never have too many logos, just in case 😛

(As for other readers, still interested in answers for the other questions !)

 

Yeah, I was thinking more of single elimination tournaments. Round Robins are tough - though depending on your workers you can do a quick 3 man round robin, and book it in a way where it ends up in a 3 way match like ROH did in one of their early shows. If you are sticking with Round Robins you can do two pools of 5, alternating shows. You should have enough match slots open each show to have non tournament matches there. If it's a big tournament (that takes 2 months as you described) maybe you do only 2 a year, 6 months apart (March and September? February and August?)

[ArcheoOutOfNowhere]

Depending on how many of the workers on my shortlist agree to sign, I think I could easily have 16 men in the round robin, because in the end, even if I was to put a 90 min ironmatch between the two worst workers I could find, I'd still gain popularity. The biggest problem would be to have matches other than those in the round robin, unless I use the good ol' kayfabe rule of "just because you never saw it doesn't mean it didn't happen". However, yes, the women one would be rough, if only because most of them have very little popularity and it'll take time to grow them into stars.

I like single elimination tournaments too, but I've found that round robin help a lot with my creative juices: I get to organically test multiple chemistries, don't have to figure out the face/heel balance for people qualifying, and it makes the winner look strong but not unbeatable. And of course, sometimes it's just that it gives great matches for a while without me having to pick storylines with workers I don't know enough of to give a direction, or help me test if someone is still able to go or should be relocated to the role of "veteran tag partner".

[Mammoth]

2 hours ago, PaperMachete said:

• Otis, Tozawa and Maxxine post-Gable heel turn (I want to keep them faces as Gable gets the Creed Brothers instead)
• Dijak
• The Final Testament (I'm having trouble with them considering none of them can cut a promo in-game)
• Apollo Crews
• Cedric Alexander
• Baron Corbin
• Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows (I'm thinking of turning Finn face and feud with Damien as the Judgment Day implode, maybe they could be the backup)

• Short term, it only makes sense for them to feud with Gable and The Creed Brothers. Have Sami Zayn adopt them as he "knows what it's like to be used and abused" in reference to his time in The Bloodline just whilst he finishes his feud with Gable, as I could see them having some quality six-man tag team matches. Separating them soon afterwards would be my next port of call.
• Big meaty man should be slapping other big meaty men. I'd feud him with Bronson Reed and if you haven't got anything planned for Braun Strowman or Bron Breakker, I may even include them. It would produce quality matches and if you give Breakker the big blow-off win, you could find yourself with a new star on the main roster.
• I haven't played a RWC in far too long, but Karrion Kross nor Paul Ellering can cut a promo? That surprises me. Regardless, if you're breaking up The Judgement Day, I'd have them fill that mantle. It would obviously be a long term project because their momentum should be zero but you should be able to make The Authors of Pain a credible threat in the tag team ranks and have Kross have some entertaining feuds in the upper midcard given time.
• I'd consider reimagining The Hurt Business with Apollo Crews and Cedric Alexander as I'm going to guess that M.V.P still isn't doing much by the next update. I wouldn't bring Omos in though and instead, I'd probably consider having Carmelo Hayes in the Bobby Lashley role. Doing this also has that ready made feud between The Hurt Business 2.0, and Lashley and The Street Profits.
• If you don't like the idea of The Hurt Business 2.0, I'd consider using Baron Corbin as Carmelo Hayes' muscle. If you do however, the only real option for him at the moment (without doing some reconfiguring) would be to do something with A-Town Down Under as those three guys have the same kind of energy and it would make sense for them to hire some form of muscle now they're the ones in the firing line as tag team champions.
• Your plan for Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows sounds great as long as Priest hasn't already left The Judgement Day by the next update. 😆

[Shooltra]

15 hours ago, PaperMachete said:

Don't really know if this goes in here or in the rules for your game, but I'm trying in here... I'm still setting up my upcoming WWE game (when Questlove releases his June mod), and I want to have plans for some of the guys I rarely use in my saves. So, any and all ideas for any of the following is gladly accepted:

• Otis, Tozawa and Maxxine post-Gable heel turn (I want to keep them faces as Gable gets the Creed Brothers instead)
• Dijak
• The Final Testament (I'm having trouble with them considering none of them can cut a promo in-game)
• Apollo Crews
• Cedric Alexander
• Baron Corbin
• Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows (I'm thinking of turning Finn face and feud with Damien as the Judgment Day implode, maybe they could be the backup)

It can be anything, high to low, just as long as they have something to do.

Otis can go solo with a supporting crew that he tries to help but is clumsy. A plan could be an eventual clash with Gable. Either Otis vs Gable or adding a misfit to Otis' group and make it a 3 vs 3 that would have both aspects of Angle if you want to bring him. The Ruthless athletes vs the adorables goofballs. 

Dijak: I kinda see his gimmick in a similar way than Sting. A vigilante in the style of Punisher who goes after the bad guys. For me, a plan could be to build him as a midcard attraction who can get the most out of a wrestler both as a character and wrestler due to how stiff and over-the-top he can be. 

The Final Testament: Assuming you want to keep them the same so no mic piece added, I would focus on having scripted vignettes. What I would do is try to make them like Bray. A heel who can fill in when a top face has nothing to do. As for directions, if there needs to be changed. Could go supernatural and have Kross be a Devilish figure who wants to shape the WWE to go in a certain way.

Apollo Crews: He has the size and the skills so the plan could be to give him a resurgence like Sheamus had and to have him go in brutal matches against a Main-Eventer that settles him as a guy to rely on. 

Cedric Alexander: With the new tag team title, a plan could be to use him in a team. You could use Ashante but since they haven't been established, you could swap Ashante for someone else. I think pairing him with a powerhouse who can talk but can't go would make for an interesting team. 

Baron Corbin: Since he turned face in NXT, giving him a face run feels logical to me, especially since he was one of those forever heels. It may be terrible like Miz in 2013 but that's something I feel gotta be done. Maybe have him as a veteran who wants to help the younger generation not be as dumb as he was while still retaining an edge. 

Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows: To give an alternative, I would put them with Nakamura. Nakamura has been used as this gatekeeper but not too effective. If needs to be, this back-up could be what gives Nakamura more credibility and wins. 

 

 

 

 

[PaperMachete]

Thanks for the great ideas! 🥰