[Evil Vito]

Originally Posted by M-A-G The cynic in me is reading this secretly wanting an Arn/Christian match, but being sad that it's never going to happen. I'd like to imagine Christian doing an NWO-type parody, but in much better taste. Maybe make fun of Arn for being wrestling's most famous second banana. People don't really call this dude Luchasaurus, right? I can see it as a funny nickname like Booger Red or whatever the fuck, but that's about it.

Christian managing a heel stable is very much something I'm interested in getting to eventually, maybe sooner than later while I have him available. I hope EWR will take some mercy on forcing the older guys into retirement if I at least have them allocated as managers, but I somewhat doubt it. Pretty sure for retirement purposes the game views wrestlers and managers as one in the same, the only question is will the old guys retire or remain available as non-wrestlers.

Luchasaurus is a big dude that wears a dinosaur-inspired mask. As a face it totally works, he had a team with Jungle Boy for years as Jurassic Express. As a heel I'm kinda shocked they didn't try to give him a "real" name. I mean Jungle Boy is still face but he turned Jungle Boy into his nickname, now making Jack Perry his proper ring name. Surely good 'ol Luchasaurus could've gone the same route.

See, "Hangman" is a great name. There's a lot to work with there. On the other side of this, I have to say it's hard to take something called The Dark Order seriously when it's got guys named "Stu Grayson" and "John Silver". I immediately think of the fucking restaurant when I hear that name...which is mysteriously still in business somehow.

Can't remember if I described The Dark Order during my last AEW game but their origins in AEW were Evil Uno and Stu Grayson (the former Player Uno/Player Dos, Super Smash Brothers tag team on the indies) effectively trying to start an evil cult, claiming to be working for an exalted leader. They recruited Reynolds and Silver who were at the time working with AEW as a non-contracted enhancement jobber team and they recruited a few guys from the Nightmare Factory training camp as well. At the peak of their heel run they were all referred to by number, not by name...as you do in cults.

Anyway, Brodie Lee (Luke Harper in WWE) joined AEW and was revealed as the ultimate mastermind/The Exalted One. Though it was never said out loud, kayfabe-wise it was a pretty brilliant piece of casting because Brodie was a member of Bray Wyatt's cult for years in WWE and now here he is branching out and starting his own.

Sadly, Brodie tragically died of a lung illness in December 2020 at which point the Dark Order organically turned into sympathetic faces, going from an evil cult to goofball faces and reverting to their normal ring names. They befriended Hangman who I had join the group in my last EWR game but in real life AEW he never joined but still hung around them as friends for the last two and a half years.

They've been more or less treading water for a while and I feel like Hangman rejoining the Elite might be the last chance the Dark Order have to maybe go back to their original purpose.

So are large stables a major staple in AEW? I guess that's one way to handle a large roster, but it's the Vince Russo problem where he sticks everyone on TV when not everyone deserves to be on TV. Who was tuning in to see Viscera and Mideon every week?

I would say stables in AEW are inspired by NJPW pretty heavily. In New Japan, nearly everyone is in a stable, specifically one of 5 main groups. Not necessarily the case in AEW as the stables are smaller but most people on the roster at least have someone they're friends with.

If this is his role now, I suppose it works but much like what happened with Jericho in the WWE, it starts to not mean anything when you want to put over every Tom, Dick, and Harry, especially if they don't have any real upside. Fucking Fandango and JTG can claim to have beaten Jericho and look where that got them. Actually I don't know because I haven't kept tabs on that shit.

Jarrett's picked up some wins in AEW, even was the number one contender for the International Title and Tag Titles at points. So I think it's one of those deals where you do treat him as something of a legend and let him build up before he does the right thing and loses to the bigger name they're trying to ultimately get over. His International Title match with Cassidy in particular was outstandingly fun IMO.

Alas, EWR is a bit of a different animal because I know there's a time clock here where these old guys are gonna retire soon. So rather than spend time giving them wins I kinda need to job them out while the getting's good, and the game doesn't know the wiser.

In general you can't really book like the real AEW in this game. Real life AEW doesn't have the same level of outside interference, but in-game it's the easiest way to build feuds.

Is this how he comes across in real life? People aren't really paying money to see this guy, right? Why would I want to care about someone who doesn't care himself? I can understand indifference when it's a confidence thing where you just believe you're superior. I don't know what this is. The angle should be that Minoru whips his ass so hard that he beats the indifference out of him.

Oh lord, I could probably write a book about Orange Cassidy because I'd say the single-most discussed wrestler in any discourse/argument about AEW.

So for starters, his gimmick can probably best be described as a wrestler who doesn't want to be a wrestler. A slacker. He's incredibly good at his job and he knows it, but that doesn't mean he wants to work. Which is why he's aloof in his promos and mannerisms. Any opponent to him is just "sure, whatever" another day at the office. During his International Title run he defends the belt almost weekly and as the months have gone on he's gotten more banged up, wearing tape around his ribs etc and despite clearly being hurt he still just plays it all off, knowing he'll keep suffering as long as he's got that title and it's just part of the job.

But this also plays into the psychology of his matches because he'll sometimes just fuck around at the beginning and lull the opponent into a false sense of security. Or the opponent will start beating his ass at the beginning and forcing Orange to tap into his more serious side ("whipping the indifference out of him"), as you say. Invariably in every match he ends up working his ass off, even though his character would suggest that's the complete opposite of what he actually wants to do. He had a multi-match feud with PAC last year that got so personal that Orange said in a promo "next week, I'm going to try" and the crowd collectively went OHHHH SHIT, because Orange actually wanting to try was unheard of.

As for if people pay to see him...the short answer is yes. Not only does he consistently get one of the loudest reactions on Dynamite every week, he's their top merch mover, is consistently one of their highest minute-for-minute ratings draws, there's countless anecdotes of lapsed and/or first-time viewers who immediately found him to be their favorite (I can personally attest to at least 3 people that watched AEW for the first time on my recommendation, all of them love Orange). Tons of pictures of kids dressing up like him on Halloween etc.

But he also has probably the most vocal detractors out there because he's about as polar opposite from "old school wrassling" as you can get. Jim Cornette practically issues death threats on the guy on his podcast every week. I got told last week in the AEW thread by the always pompous Mr. Nerfect that you can't POSSIBLY like Orange Cassidy and then claim to actually be a wrestling fan, etc. The people who don't like him view him as being the #1 guy who is "killing the business" and will prevent it from ever going beyond a niche audience.

Anyway, I can totally understand why people wouldn't like OC, but the discussion around him gets pretty toxic when people who take their wrasslin' so seriously act like he's worse than Hitler.

Nothing wrong with a squash match here and there. Although it sucks that the game treats every match essentially the same and thus you end up with star ratings like this. If you could set matches to "Squash" or "Competitive" or what not, it'd go a long way.

Alas, this is one thing the newer TEW games have that I wish were in the simplistic EWR world. There's even a nice middle ground between a squash and competitive, where it doesn't HAVE to be a full squash but the guy getting the shine can control like 85% of it.

Is Punk/MJF the direction they're going in real life? I'm sure it's in your books because that's some easy stars right there.

So MJF returned from a hiatus in AEW at All Out last year, right after Punk won the AEW Title in Chicago. Signs were clear that they were headed to Punk vs. MJF Part 3 (they had feuded earlier in the year). But less than an hour after winning the title, Punk did a press conference where he went went into a complete out-of-character rant, shitting on company EVPs (Omega and The Bucks), Hangman Page, his personal heat with Colt Cabana and a bunch of other guys. Basically sounding like a crusty old veteran (he was meant to be the conquering babyface btw). All while Tony Khan sat next to him and squirmed. This led to Punk and The Elite having a legit backstage fight leading to them all getting suspended.

Oh I should also point out that he injured himself in the process, having to vacate the title for the 2nd time in a year. And shortly before his return he's also shit-talked Jon Moxley, Chris Jericho, and others. There's a legit argument to make that he's too much of a cancer to be worth it. But the network wanted him back and would even give him pretty much his own show in Collision.

They might eventually get back to Punk vs. MJF, but politically it's probably tough to put him into a title program immediately, if at all. He's pissed off half the locker room. Thankfully, in EWR land it's easier to pull off.

I think the way it works is that all the participants in the match have to have really good stats, more or less on even ground in terms of overness, with the Superstar Look stat sometimes being a factor. Also if one guy is just way much higher in overness than the other, they'll actually lose morale for working with them.

Never really considered Superstar Look playing into it. I just figured that was more to do with Gimmicks, certain gimmicks will just fail if someone doesn't have the Superstar Look. Or if you give a Superstar Look guy a silly gimmick, it might fail.

I remember a WWE game a decade or more ago I got two nobodys into the mid-80s in overness just because their stats matched up so perfectly that they always put on a near 5-star match. Good times.