Armchair Booking

What are some things you've learned from 1983 Project, e-feds and armchair booking? Some things I've learned: - WWE having to book 7 hours a week of wrestling, plus another 3 on PPV weeks is something that I think is almost impossible to do well. There's too much time to fill. I couldn't do it and I'm not sure I'd even want to try. - Not being able to cycle guys in and out makes wrestling booking 10x harder. It dooms certain people to certain spots and after a while, it makes everything just "meh". The territory system was the most perfect system wrestling could ever have. You bring guys in, milk them dry, get rid of them and bring them back years later when t…

I cant remember which podcast I heard this on but somebody said they thought the NWA should of made their pay per view debut with the Great American Bash Wargames card from July 87. I think that might of been a good idea. The Wargames match was an original and creative concept with a ton of hype. Also Crockett had just purchased the UWF so their roster was stacked. I've seen a lot of great rebooking cards on here, so my question is how would you have booked this card for a pay per view with the talent available at the time?

This is my project to reshape current NJPW in my image WHILE maintaining roughly 90% of the things people like about it. Some people are gone no matter what; some gaijin get rotated in, some freelancers have roles increased or decreased, nothing too deranged. Maybe some liberties will be taken with hirings, but... eh. Nothing unruly. IF you love current NJPW, please come in here and bitch my face off. Criticism is welcome as hell, even if I end up not listening to it. We'll be starting off, obviously, with a roster clean-up sometime later today.

After getting fired from WCW less then two weeks after he started, Jerry von Kramer was awarded a nice compensation package from Turner broadcasting, and bought the rights to the old Mid-South Wrestling name, and re-launched the promotion. He has a starting capital of $2,000,000, and must act quickly to secure TV rights, and build a roster from scratch. First things first, TV. I've managed to get Mid-South Wrestling shown in a late-night Sunday slot on Sports Channel America, which gives some coverage across the entire USA, and on Omni Television in Canada, which will also show PPV events free-to-air. In the USA, PPVs will be carried by Re…

Task - Try to rebook the first ten weeks of ECW on Sci-Fi, from the first television show through to Summerslam. Consider it an experiment to see if this would have been more palatable than what we got. And if not, then perhaps yes, it was always doomed. Parameters - For this, I’ve made a few assumptions, some of which may or may not be completely realistic, but as a backbone: *I can’t bring in anybody except those assigned to ECW in real life throughout the first 10 weeks. *Every match will be with old ECW rules – you don’t need to label anything “Extreme Rules” or limit things to one per show. Not every match needs to be a weapons-fest, but leave it open. *As …

Gauging to see if there's any interest in doing territories starting in 1980. Details can be worked out before things get officially started.

I've been tossing around ideas of booking an indy fed that's more in the territory system like what Smoky Mountain or the USWA was. I want to use more modern guys but would fit in the style of promotion. I want to use guys and gals that are good on the mic and have a variety of styles. I want to book a lot of old school gimmick matches and the like. I was thinking of using John Wayne Murdoch as a top face maybe in a Lawler type role (unless there's someone better for that role). I also wanted to have Jimmy Rave, Chris Hero, Kongo Kong, Trevor Lee, Andrew Everett to be top contenders for the title as well. I thought it would be interesting to have the tag divis…

Assuming CM Punk takes his MMA experience(s) and runs off to Japan for one last pro wrestling hurrah/NJPW dream fulfillment. Phil “CM Punk” Brooks has been trolling internet fans for weeks with subliminal tweets regarding a potential return to professional wrestling. For the past year, Brooks has been involved in the amateur MMA circuit, having lost his second fight in UFC. His record now stands at 2-4. With many taking Punk’s tweets with a grain of salt, no one quite knew what to expect when he revealed he would be making a major announcement concerning his future. Meanwhile, in Tokyo, New Japan Pro-Wrestling held a live press conference before their annua…

In a move that has shocked the wrestling world, WCW Chief Executive Jim Herd has replaced Ole Anderson with a booker who has not been active in wrestling since 1983. Jerry Von Kramer, known by many industry insiders as "the man who had Bruno pinned in his last match at MSG", last worked for Vince McMahon but left Titan in mysterious circumstances in the September of 1983. Among other things, his time with the WWF will be remembered for making Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka WWF Champion and a big star, and the long "battle of the generations" feud between Bruno Sammartino and Ted DiBiase. Von Kramer joins WCW at a difficult time. Gates are at an all-time low, and…

Years ago now, I wrote up a lot of Demolition matches. I did this with Victor (Victator). I more or less stand by that project. It was a good experiment and helped change how I look at wrestling. Victor's written a pulpy pro wrestling novella/pastiche e-book set in the late 90s with lots of analogues. I do think some of the people who hang out in this specific armchair booking forum and that have time to read all of the fantasy promotion stuff might get a kick out of it. It scratches some of the same itches, especially for people who like the written dramatization of the matches and what not. He's asked me to post the link here as the e-book is free for the next day or tw…

I don't think this has been done but I want to battle the top two promotions in the world. Who will make this card, and what would be the results? Here's what I came up with: 1) Opening 10 man tag Big Daddy Yum Yum, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima, Captain New Japan, Yuji Nagata vs Titus O'Niell, Darren Young, Goldust, Curtis Axel, Damien Sandow Team NJPW over in 8:15 2) Watanabe, Yohei Komatsu, Show Tanaka vs Blake and Murphy and Jack Swagger Team WWE over in 9:26 3) Minoru Suzuki vs Cesaro Cesaro over in 11:24 4) Usos vs Young Bucks vs Time Splitters vs Lucha Dragons Bucks over in 15:32 5) Hiroki Goto, Togi Makabe and Tomiaki Honma vs Dolph Ziggler, Barrett…

Results from July-mid November can be found here: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/31398-southwest-championship-wrestling-results/ Champions: Southwest Heavyweight Champion: Tully Blanchard Southwest Tag Team Champions: The Fabulous Ones (Stan Lane & Steve Keirn) Southwest Television Champion: Mike Masters Taped at The Junction in San Antonio, TX on 11/21 Southwest Championship Wrestling airing on Saturday 11/26 in local markets -Show intro- Steve Stack: Welcome to another edition of Southwest Championship Wrestling, the most exciting hour in all of professional wrestling! We've got another action packed in store for you t…

I was getting the itch to bust out Total Extreme Wrestling 2013 again, and I thought it might be interesting to document my progress on it. In this first post I'll just be setting the scene and laying out some initial plans. Here's the scenario ... So what has old Vince Sr. left us? Faces: Heels: Non-wrestlers: Current Champs: Using a combination of top research, guesswork and pure fantasy based on what was already in there, I've also drafted a schedule for the year: Policy on Storylines There will be no more than 4 storylines in place at any given time. Typically there will be: o…

Not a full-on invasion or anything mind you, but just a standalone joint show between the two. Say Vince and Dixie got bored or saw that it was in their best interest to have a one time joint show. What would be the storyline going in and what matches would there be. All I know is that I'd love to see CM Punk/Samoa Joe revisit their ROH rivalry

I've been watching NWA World Championship Wrestling shows on the Network and enjoy the team of Manny Fernandez & Rick Rude as NWA Tag Team Champions with Paul Jones, so I decided to come up with a little booking if Fernandez decided to join his Awesome Twosome partner. Fernandez last appearance in the NWA was September 27, 1987. Fernandez gets the call from Rude, and he wants him to come. Jones says in the NWA. Fernandez debuts at a house show on October 2, 1987 distracting Outback Jack in a match against Rick Rude. That brings us to his first TV taping. WWF @ Milwaukee, WI - Mecca - October 6, 1987 WWF Superstars taping: Prime Time Wrestling - 10/22/87: Manny Fe…

Hey everybody, I've been on an AWA kick recently and thought I would try and rebook Wrestlerock 86. The first thing I would do is try and get this card on close circuit so it would be available to a national audience. A lot of talent was available for this show so I'm going to reshuffle some things and hopefully come up with a stacked card. Wrestlerock 86 Stan Hansen © vs Sgt. Slaughter - World Title Steel Cage Match Road Warriors vs Bruiser Brody/John Nord…

Excerpts from the Pro Wrestling Observer by David Keller from March 24, 2001 Today it was made official that Fusient Media Ventures has purchased World Championship Wrestling (WCW) from Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS Inc.) a division of AOL Time Warner. Fusient CEO Brian Bedol and his business partner, Steve Greenberg, have named Eric Bischoff as the new WCW President. Fusient has secured the WCW brand, tape library, and other intellectual property rights. As of press time there is no word on what talent contracts Fusient will be taking on. The final performance of WCW Monday Nitro will be live on Turner Network Television (TNT) on Monday, March 26, 200…

Everyone knows why the discontinuation of the title was stupid and short-sighted. No need to explain that. But it obviously could have been saved-- the top rope ban was going to be gone soon and Watts had brought in an absurd collection of super-heavies to dominate the heavyweight title. Theoretically, that SHOULD make the LHW title the second most important in the promotion, and the other singles divisions had a good number of heavy workers to sustain the US/TV titles. So let's go from the first bump in the road-- the title reign of Scotty Flamingo. All dates listed are air dates. 1992 SATURDAY NIGHT (7/4): Brian Pillman defeats Scotty Flamingo in a 2/3 falls…

After GWE ends I will want to go back to fantasy booking. What should I do? Answer the poll and comment below,

I was really enjoying booking the WWE at the start of the year, but I hated how shitty the WWE was doing! I got so annoyed at their booking of the Rumble, that I quit. It was fun though, so I wanted a new project. I really enjoyed lots of parts of WCW from the beginning of Nitro till it's closing date. However there was a LOT of issues. What I am going to do here is do my spin of WCW. A lot of the main stuff will stay in place with maybe a slight twist. There will be some major changes though, as I see fit. However nWo, Sting-Hogan at Starrcade will remain in tact. I'm not changing everything, just having some fun in a realistic manner.

NEW YORK, New York, March 23, 2001 - Fusient Media Ventures today announced its purchase of the World Championship Wrestling (WCW) brand from Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS Inc.) a division of AOL Time Warner. Fusient CEO Brian Bedol, and his business partner, Steve Greenberg, brought former WCW creative director Eric Bischoff back on board as WCW prisdent. "We're going to reestablish the WCW as the champion of professional wrestling entertainment." said Bedol. "There is huge untapped potential for the franchise and with Eric Bischoff on board we will crank everything up to make the WCW franchise even bigger, better, stronger and more entertaining than anythi…

So, for this week's podcast we're going to look at the WWE in 2006 and attempt to rebook the year with what they had, and would like to hear what you would have changed if you had control. Would you have brought back DX? Would you have brought back ECW? How far do you go with Edge? How do you deal with the John Cena crowd issue in its infancy? What do you do with the World Title in Batista's absence? Who do you push and who don't you push? What angles would you have done? It's in your hands. As always the best contributions/suggestions will be read on the show and you'll be credited accordingly, so in what was a very unique year for WWE, what would you have done differe…

I have been working on a project back around Survivor Series in which I re-booked every Survivor Series. I did not use one original match from any of the cards. Every show is strictly Survivor Series Elimination matches. Each day or so I will introduce a new year. Show the matches, give my thoughts behind why I chose those teams. I thought it would be a fun little project and now I will post my booking to the thread and look forward to any feedback that might come along with it. Thanks for reading. Team Captain, Brutus Beefcake, Jaquaes Rougeau, Raymond Rougeau, Jim Powers & Paul Roma vs Team Captain, Ron Bass, Ax, Smash, Greg Valentine & Dino Bravo S…

I've been trying to figure out what to do for fantasy booking. I've been mulling over a bunch of ideas from seeing what would happen if WCW or ECW didn't close to re-doing the brand split. What I have settled upon is taking the TNA concept and going with it. TNA was really a great idea. Start a new national promotion to fill the gap of the dead WCW and ECW. The weekly ppvs was not a horrible idea. Memphis ran weekly shows at the Mid-South Coliseum and did well for decades. However, TNA started with a horrible name, lingerie battle royals and hardcore dwarf matches. It's easy to see why it barley survived. What I am going to do is start TNA over with a new name, bu…

Hey everybody, I feel like doing some rebooking so I'm going to rebook Starrcade 87. I think this was a critical time for the NWA. They were going more national, had purchased the UWF and were now venturing into pay per view. Taking all of that into consideration I want to go all out for this pay per view. I book the show in New Orleans at the Superdome. Going into the event my booking is a little different as I have Ron Garvin going in as TV champ. I also started blending in the UWF talent with the NWA talent right away in order to build up feuds. So here we go, Starrcade 87 Unification World Title Bout Ric Flair (NWA World Champ) w/JJ Dillion vs Dr. Deat…