Stiva

Showed this game to my buddy at work (from UK, has been here since '99 and his wife won't let him buy the "Soccer TV Package" or whatever it is, and he really misses his EPL). He bought the game a week later and IMMEDIATELY took 3 weeks of vacation in order to play it. A year later, he's still totally hooked. I realised the other day that I've been playing CM/FM now for well over a decade and that's crazy. I've assembled some great teams though... And, JVK, I believe the DOTT type mods originate at Extreme Warfare Battleground as that's the place I've seen most mods put together. As you say though, a lot of the real world mods require some tweaking before you begin but I guess everyone has their biases. I always have to boost Big Show's stats a bit.

HCTP also had the great CAW wrestler mode which came right at the time I was finding sites like CAW.ws so I could max out my memory card with different versions of Sting.

Plus, it was always easy to just sign Danielson and AJ Styles, make them work each other on every show for 2 months and have their overness jump to 100 when the matches were awesome in game. I may buy TEW 13 when it's on sale but TEW 05 has some bizarre 90s design choices when it comes to its interface that it makes it a time consuming ordeal to book shows, especially if you play as WWE. I always loved Smackdown 2 for the ridiculous story mode and the fact I must have been crazy to sit through the 15 minutes needed to sim through each show. I have the backstage skits committed to memory. "I was told I would have a match tonight. Well...I am here, who is my opponent?"

EDIT: double post

As soon as they realised Cena/Bryan was a hot program, I was waiting for HHH to latch on to it. I hope they manage to keep any silliness with the finish confined on Sunday as they're teasing a big clusterfuck of an ending.

In the article above, it mentions that ITV Studios produces content for other channels so it wouldn't surprise me to see this turn up on BT Sport in some form.

The only thing stopping me from getting too excited about this is that it's ITV so, wrestling aside, it'll almost certainly be a terrible production, probably presented by Davina McCall.

Regal avatar strikes again! TNA is so goddamn awesome at constantly surpassing your own low expectations.

The Pepper stuff is really shitty but god bless Snow and Bossman for that angle in the hotel room. Snow takes a bump right on his head for no reason whatsoever and Bossman is trying so hard to be the biggest dick in the universe. "He's at the groomers, he's going to look great for you?" "The groomers? He doesn't have any hair"

I think Del Rio is awesome but was disappointed by his match with Sheamus exactly because he didn't really lay the kicks in like he did with Ziggler. I'd like to see an ADR run through the Autumn months where he's KOing guys with kicks but he's inconsistent with it ATM

I can't stand the original DX stuff. I was watching one of the Legends of Wrestling shows when they played the footage of them coming out as the Nation of Domination when HHH was The Rock. I was forced to fast-forward it. My skin was crawling, so so cringeworthy. Someone so unfunny trying to be funny. David Brent in The Office levels of cringe. It always makes me laugh when Waltman mentions in his shoots that they were the coolest guys on TV at the time. The 90s, man, hell of a decade.

In 2009, he had that awful feud with Legacy where they contrived new ways for him to win 3 on 1 handicap matches every week after Orton was really hot after punting Vince. Though, the IED angle didn't help matters with that thing. Speaking for me personally, I dislike HHH because he wants to work these long epic matches that he has no idea how to work and from the look of things, wants to be the one calling them. Putting this on top of the fact he has no idea how to make himself look vulnerable to be an effective face, really sucks at being a heel outside of hitting people with sledgehammers and grunting a lot and is basically kryptonite for any sort of enjoyable program, it's easy to see why Austin wouldn't be victim to these things. Austin as GM definitely suggests he might have went down that path but you'd like to think that Sheamus/Austin at Mania sees Sheamus win, albeit with Austin looking strong. I think Austin inserted into the Summer of Punk angle would at least see more entertaining promos and less clusterfuck angles with Kevin Nash. I think Orton punting Austin in the head would have resulted in better television. I think Austin/Taker at Mania would be better than HHH/Taker and wouldn't have meant Shawn Michaels masquerading as a shitty referee. At this point, we're getting into fantasy booking but I think Austin in all those programs would have been much more productive and helped those guys along more than HHH. Plus, some more general points; the guy has to be the smartest guy in the room in every goddamn segment, his DX reunion stuff is PUTRID, his Raw run from 2002-5 was awful despite a few bright spots (Batista build, that period in 2004 when some new guys came over for fun tags each week). I think it's really a culmination of the last decade of pretty shitty stuff compounded with some frustration that he's presented (by himself or otherwise) as a legend beyond peer. At least with Austin, you have this body of work from when he was on top; Austin/Bret, Austin/Vince segments, Austin/Rock, Austin/Benoit and then the Hollywood Blondes stuff on top of that. Even if Austin did turn into a HHH-type politicking guy, I think a lot of people would go "ah but, he's got this, this and this" to defend it.

Someone better have a camera ready!

So, how do they fit Big Show into all of this? EDIT: OK, so they don't. Bryan/Kane next week should result in some goofy Wyatt tomfoolery.

Totally. So many awesome spots; Cesaro going crazy with the uppercuts especially.

Cesaro is looking like a total star here. I wish so badly that he wasn't lumbered with Swagger

Cena/Morrison from the show following the Benoit tribute is an excellent match too from a period where Cena was red hot.

Fuck, if this is an elaborate plan to eradicate the "WHAT?" chants, I'm totally on board with it.

There's a match w/ Finlay from ECW in 08 that I remember being good but I believe they ran that match a few times. The one I'm thinking of is a Number One Contender match. I remember ECW having a lot of tags and 6 mans involving guys like Henry, Morrison, Hardy, Miz and Bourne around this time that he was a part of and IIRC correctly, they were always entertaining. I, like you, have no idea how he was on Raw in his team with MVP since I turned off that during the guest host stuff but try and find Henry's debut where he turns face because he's absolutely awesome in that.

The squash on ECW with Big Daddy V beating 3 guys is absolutely great.

Bryan/Cena at Summerslam. There's no way that can be bad, right?

Punk/Brock/Heyman segment was super great. The brawl was really good, lots of good little touches like Punk going to use the mic as a weapon and Brock's knees looking real painful and Heyman being a slimy jilted lover is perfect. Got high hopes for these two at Summerslam (if the one on one goes ahead).

Absolutely, the guy is a lunatic. I'm really excited to see how Mark Henry vs. The Shield plays out.

As a quick aside, and sorry if it's been mentioned before, but what other sets are planned for the 80s? Lucha, Portland, Euro and revisiting WWF?

Not according to HistoryofWWE but there's plenty of Hart Foundation vs. Rockers match from 89/90 floating around YT and Dailymotion that are fun.