So before I post this afternoon I'm going to add some disclaimers and say this pre-emptively about Forbidden Door...this is probably the closest I will get to having an "M-A-G" level show. I have a great base roster but most shows won't be
this good because they aren't interpromotional spectaculars.
1. The NJPW guys I booked for this are largely their top guys. First off they are very talented. Very high brawl numbers generally (Japanese Strong Style), and some solid technical skills for many of them. But also pretty reasonably over even compared to my midcarders (most of the guys booked are around low 80s overness, except Okada who is legit main event 90+ overness level)
2. The overness ratings being that high is up for debate, casual WWE fans won't know these guys. BUT, I'd argue, in today's wrestling landscape the vast majority of people who attend shows are smarks but that's doubly so for AEW, the indies, etc. Basically if you booked a major NJPW name on any random show and promoted it accordingly, chances are a lot of people there would pop and know these guys.
3. As a result of the above, this show rules tons of ass and even though this card would bang in real life I'm not sure it'd get
this many snowflakes in a row.
4. Technically I could "cheat" in this game by using these talented and over NJPW guys all over my programming year-round. Since the only times they are unavailable to me is when NJPW's touring commitments are happening. But that's not reflective of the real-life working relationship between the companies. NJPW guys make sporadic appearances outside of Forbidden Door season, and even then, the very top level guys don't usually come over. Most of them live in Japan and the real-life NJPW schedule is far longer than it is in EWR.
5. Even if I did "cheat" by booking them most of the year, I'd be in financial ruin. Case in point, there are 9 NJPW talents wrestling on this show, plus Jeff Cobb on Collision. According to my finance page, my workers costs so far this month is $406,000. Well, that only accounts for Open contract guys used so far, so that's those 10 guys. The money I brought in for PPV revenue? $405,000. So basically the guys paid for themselves for this show, but if I booked them constantly I'd go broke, especially with Okada charging like $85k per appearance.
6. As a Global promotion I can't even sign anyone with Japanese commitments to contracts, even on Open deals. The NJPW roster was on the AEW roster on open deals in my game save. There's a chance when the month ends, everyone from NJPW will make a mass exodus. Not sure if that happens. They might also quit working for me if I don't book them since they aren't earning money. If this happens I might just Arsenic them onto my roster for next Forbidden Door season but it otherwise changes nothing about my day-to-day booking of the promotion.
TLDR; a 20-year old game unsurprisingly does not really lend itself to the modern workings of a wrestling promotion
