Wrestling: Being The Booker

[MrHashasheen]

This is going to be a little project of mine on the Spam forum for the foreseeable future. To make it short, I have a tendency to read a lot of wrestling fantasy booking rather than watch the dozen hours or so of modern wrestling that's available on television and online each week. It's more enjoyable, less frustrating and usually it involved a little bit of nostalgia being rewarded. So every few days, I'm going to link one dynasty here in this thread, give a small summary/review for anyone reading and looking to find something to entertain themselves.

Below is the format example:

Link - Obvious
Title - Obvious
Author - The writer's online username
Universe - Many of the stories I'll be putting up use a wrestling simulation game or the purposes of grading matches and producing coherent storylines, usually from a series known as Total Extreme Wrestling. Very fun game, but it uses it's own database and universe as well as being used by several fan databases, some of which are rather well done and enjoyable.
Era - Broken up into Golden Age (1985 - 1991), New Generation (1991 - 1997), Attitude (1998 - 2001), Ruthless Aggression (2002 - 2007), PG (2008 - ???) for Real World, with fictional databases receiving only the year date.
Summary - Obvious
Personal Opinion - Obvious
Rating - F- to A*

Now for the first mention ... WWF: The Golden Age!

 

[MrHashasheen]

Link - http://www.greydogsoftware.com/forum/showthread.php?t=523965

Title - WWF, The Golden Age … And Beyond?

Author - The Final Countdown

Universe – Real Life (Using Golden Age Mod on Total Extreme Wrestling 2013)

Era – Golden Age (Starting 1987)

Summary – An avatar of the author takes over booking of the WWF starting in a month away from Wrestlemania III, and begins shaping the WWF to his own vision…

Personal Opinion – An excellent (ongoing!) work by TFC (whose got a decent ROH story I’ll have to put up sooner or later) that really captures the voices of a lot of the performers of that era. Currently after Wrestlemania IV, the story/game veers away from realism in several cases due to AI & game restrictions/coding (notably the creation of a developmental territory, a monthly PPV schedule, and a reduced television schedule with no ability to do multiple tapings), but keeps quite strongly to the feel of the shows in real life as well as in terms of style. So… more likely to see the Heenan Family than you are a mini-Attitude era. Probably the best of the Hulkamania stories you could find online.

Rating – A Solid B+.

 

[MrHashasheen]

Link - http://www.greydogsoftware.com/forum/showthread.php?t=354443

Title - WWE Bizzaro

Author - Rhudipoo

Universe – Real Life (Using Golden Age Mod on Total Extreme Wrestling 2013)

Era – PG Era (2009)

Summary – Vince McMahon goes insane in 2009, and everyone else joins in the insanity.

Personal Opinion – This.... this is is weird. Vince Russo couldn't top this shit. It's cringeworthy, crass, definitely not NSFW, with a lot of fucked up things happening in the story. Strangely, also a lot of British celebrity & television show mentions and cameos throughout the dynasty, so any Brits should have quite a laugh seeing them pop up I guess. Excellent writing style though, and always worth more than a few laughs.

Rating – A Strong B.

 

[MrHashasheen]

Link - http://www.greydogsoftware.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39102

Title - Ring of Honor: We Don't Imitate.... We Innovate

Author - The Final Countdown

Universe – Real Life (Using a modification of Genadi's 2002 mod with TEW 2010)

Era – Ruthless Aggression (running from 2002 - 2005 in-game)

Summary – A different look at the early years of Ring of Honor.

Personal Opinion – I don't really care about Ring of Honor. They had and have some guys I've liked, but the company itself has never really interested me for any long period of time. Call it the wrestling style, call it the atmosphere, call it whatever you want. Never been that interested. But the only reason I ever knew anything about the company to be interested in it is because of this dynasty, and the great writing that TFC brings to each of his dynasties. If you're a ROH fan who enjoyed their early years and enjoy some of the current stars, consider this a nice treat for yourself.

Rating – A Steady C+, but opinions may vary.