[Evil Vito]

Originally Posted by M-A-G Aww, yeah, tournaments! You're going to need some neat looking brackets so that I can keep track of things. This is a solid opener. Actually more than solid if it reached 4 stars.

I've set both tournaments up to be reasonably quick sprints. The next Dynamite and next two Collisions will have the first round matches and then it's right onto the semi's and we're then set for the finals on the "PPV".

I don't know if you've ever sent me a picture of it, but is the FTW Title belt still the same from ECW back in the day or did someone decide to give it an "update"?

As best I can tell it's the original ECW belt. Taz reintroduced it in 2020, awarding it to his client Brian Cage. Over time the Team Taz stable got built. By summer of 2021 they were having some in-fighting between Brian Cage and Ricky Starks and Taz was like "I'm sick of this shit, you guys fight it out for the FTW title". Taz proceeded to screw Cage out of the match, booting him from the stable.

Starks mostly just carried the belt for a year, only sporadically defending it, until Taz's son Hook won the belt last summer and he's held it ever since. It's not a sanctioned title so it really is just a prop. But I like the idea of the belt falling out of the realm of Taz's family.

This reminds me of when Lex Luger got jumped by "Sting" and the NWO and everyone wasn't sure about Sting's loyalties and for whatever reason Sting waited like 6 fucking days to even try to talk with Lex and the Horseman. Like, you all don't have phones? Wrestling asks us to accept this really weird world where people need an audience present to talk to one another. AND WE GO ALONG WITH IT!!! I'm guessing this is leading to Page doing some kind of turn.

It really is kinda daft, isn't it? I feel like with wrestling I do have to suspend my disbelief for things like this. Also when a miscommunication happens and apparently nobody bothers to sit down and watch a replay until the next week. Also people bouncing off the ropes in general. Man this sport is so dumb, I love it.

Oh, man, Jake Roberts vs. Arn Anderson? Did that ever happen? The promos alone would've been amazing. Shame you have Mark Henry, I assume, as a mere member of the staff, because he'd make a great payoff to this thing you've got Wardlow doing, going through hosses and all.

I have no knowledge of that match actually happening but if I have legends available as managers, dammit I'm gonna use 'em.

As for Henry, he's said in interviews he'd be open to a proper retirement match but since he's not worked a match since 2018, whoever made this data set up up as a staff member only. Whereas I have some other staff members that ARE available to be booked because they at least sporadically wrestle.

I've got some fun ideas for Wardlow that are in the realm of "probably wouldn't be a good match, wouldn't want to see it in real life, but it would still kinda pop me because of how surreal it is"

This is exactly the kind of thing Christian would say about someone like Cassidy. I'm trying to imagine what the actual roars would sound like. Like, is he actually trying to do dinosaur roars or is it just a normal yell? Why does this promotion bring up so many questions?

I've never once heard Luchasaurus roar it's not the first time ChatGPT has made him roar in a generated promo either. It must read his name and decide, DAMMIT, SOMEONE WHO LOOKS LIKE THAT MUST ROAR! I read that in Vince's voice.

I'm surprised that I haven't asked this question yet, but does AEW acknowledge the marriage between Renee and Moxley? They acknowledge so many other relationships from what you've told me, so I don't see why they wouldn't go for it here with these two. How soon do you think you'd be able to do Danielson/Okada again if you were so inclined?

Yeah, real-world relationships are definitely canon in AEW. Although I don't believe Renee ever actually interviews Mox, maybe for conflict of interest reasons + him being a heel and all of that. It's been acknowledged in passing that they're together but since it's not a part of the story it kinda is glossed over.

In game, NJPW are touring for all of July-much of August. There's a brief window in late August where I could hypothetically book them for the All In Wembley show to fit the "supershow" theme.

Dunno if I'd do Okada/Danielson again in-game though - I had him hint it in his promo but with this being a working relationship with NJPW, my headcanon is that he might go over and work the match during the January 4th Tokyo Dome show.

I don't think I ever knew Harwood and Wheeler before I stopped following. I know a couple of guys on your roster just by name, like Omega, and a few that I knew in previous incarnations like Hager, but FTR are a complete unknown, I think. Everyone seems to praise them so I'll accept that such an outcome as this is absolutely possible.

This timeline checks out since you stopped watching around WM32. I believe 2016 was the year The Revival (as they were known in NXT then) exploded and went on a run of tag team greatness. They ended up being called up to the main roster a year later.

Though they did hold main roster gold, they were always gonna be kinda fucked there. The Revival's best work came from really long-form matches packed with psychology. Main roster WWE at the time was just quick 5 minute TV matches, which was the opposite of their strength.

I would've thought you'd save an encounter like this up for another show, possibly a PPV, but how can you argue with a rating like that? The next step I assume you're going to make is building towards Ospreay/Takeshita vs. the, uh, Golden Lovers?

I probably should've saved Ibushi/Takeshita for a bigger show, but the conundrum I have is that my next "PPV" in July I've softly targeted as being the big blowoff to the Elite/BCC angle that, in real life, has been going on since late March. Not sure I want to stretch it all the way to late August at this point. In game it would be great, in reality it's time to wrap the feud up.

As for the Golden Lovers...if you ever care to read a very long/geeky blog post, this is a very in-depth glimpse onto the origins of their story. TLDR it's like a 15+ year gay story arc and they've done such a brilliant job of blending the angle with kayfabe that nobody even total knows the extent to their personal relationship outside of the ring.

Just kinda love the idea that angles like this can slowly go from being hush-hush/being played for laughs in the early to mid 2000s to being something you can actually bring over to mainstream.

https://medium.com/we-need-to-talk-a...d-e9fc604e3a7f