Fire Promoter Tips from a Management of Rings vet

[Hawk]

You start at the bottom of the wrestling world no matter how you set up the game starting with six wrestlers. Over time, you need to unlock gym upgrades to house more wrestlers. First upgrade is 30,000, second is 80,000. There are additional upgrades that increase your wrestlers stats.

If you make a custom game with your own edit's you can tailor make your starting roster. The game by default will give you six no matter what and you want to make sure you DO have six at game start if you go tinkering.

Every month you can meet with one wrestler for a permanent spot on the roster. They'll require an upfront payment to meet and then a signing bonus. Depending on the star power they can ask significant sums of money. Additionally there's a good chance that if your promotion style doesn't fit the wrestler's style they won't sign with you. If you fail the offer then that's it, you can't offer another that month. You need to be careful of who you try to sign and what you offer.

You need atleast ten wrestlers on a show to not face any penalties. You do this by going into Event and then selecting Invite. This is the Free Agent mode. Here you can sign a wrestler for a one show contract. Depending on the level of star they could charge you very little or a lot for the booking fee. You can offer an unlimited amount of Invites unlike contract offers. A Free Agent is not a locked in booking and they can (and will) no show your events. I advise save scumming before shows if a no show can ruin your show particularly at the beginning.

When booking your show, on the upper right you get an estimate of how the show will do as you book your matches. The goal is to max out the attendance through picking the right arena and the right ticket price. The starpower (shown in letter grades on the wrestler screen) of the card and the promotion determines your drawing power for a given show. IF YOU DON'T HAVE TEN WORKERS YOU WILL FACE MASSIVE PENALTIES. That includes any no-shows.

You gain popularity by both having great shows quality wise AND by selling out your venues. It's a terrible look for the company if you only do a half house and it will destroy you financially. You absolutely must be careful of how you book your shows and how you arrange your venues and ticket prices.

Additionally if you go into the management section you can find merchandise. This won't be a huge money maker but it can help. An upfront cost will pay back over time.

There's scouting which in the original Management of Rings on GBA was a method of unlocking characters. Currently I don't know what purpose it serves unless the game chooses wrestlers at game start to hide in scouting. So far I haven't found anyone.

You can work with other promotions through inviting/borrowing their talent and loaning them yours. Eventually you can get the relationship up to a point where they'll be willing to do joint shows or form an alliance. I haven't gotten far enough to see how that works but in the original MoR it was a very powerful tool. When you do work with other promotions you want to see it as a shoot. Get your guys over at the expense of their guys by any means possible. If you gotta shoot on someone you gotta do it.

You're gonna lose money at first no matter what. You have to manage the money in order break even or slightly ahead. You can give yourself a huge nest egg at the start if you want to explore I believe. The game defaults you at 150,000 and that will evaporate quick if you're not smart about how you use it.

Eventually Sponsorships and TV deals will come. I haven't gotten there yet. IF it's like the original Management of Rings (notice I'm doing a lot of assumptions?) then eventually you'll get contracts and individual wrestlers will get promotional offers which will boost their popularity.

Ideally you want to find a character or two with high overness in your home region (say A or S, B will do if you gotta) that you can afford and build the promotion around them while the rest of the card is made up with lower quality starpower wrestlers. Some will build up over time, some never will. In my current game I managed to sign Keiichiro Asakawa the default data's Tanahashi for a 30,000 signing bonus, and something like 6,000 per month. Because Asakawa has an S in Japan he's earning his keep by giving me someone to anchor around and boosting my shows. But if you do that for too many people that 150,000 won't last long.

Wrestlers have loyalty and you want to keep an eye on that. If loyalty dips too low that wrestler may abandon you completely or be snatched by a rival promotion. IF it's like MoR you raise it by booking them and if they come to you with any requests fulfilling them. Firing a worker will lower the loyalty of the *entire roster*. Don't do it unless you absolutely have to.

This isn't a Sim. It's kind of a tycoon management game. You only do one show a month and you're limited in what you can or can't do. You gotta work within the limitations of the game mode (perhaps in time they'll open it up more). But the core gameplay loop is still there from Management of Rings.

That's about all I can think of at the moment.

[MonkeyDoes]

Thanks a lot!

When you select the style of your promotions, most of them are clear to me, but what "King's Road" are exactly?

[Magnum Dong]

Originally posted by MaulDComix:

Thanks a lot!

When you select the style of your promotions, most of them are clear to me, but what "King's Road" are exactly?

AJPW Style of the 90s. Think slow builds, hard hitting stiff strikes, dangerous moves with people getting dropped on their heads a lot, and lariats everywhere. Misawa, Kobashi, Kawada and Taue are the big guys to look for the style.

Also the single greatest period of wrestling ever.

[Lashley93]

Thanks for this, what do the styles mean?

[MonkeyDoes]

Originally posted by Val Kilmer:

Originally posted by MaulDComix:

Thanks a lot!

When you select the style of your promotions, most of them are clear to me, but what "King's Road" are exactly?

AJPW Style of the 90s. Think slow builds, hard hitting stiff strikes, dangerous moves with people getting dropped on their heads a lot, and lariats everywhere. Misawa, Kobashi, Kawada and Taue are the big guys to look for the style.

Also the single greatest period of wrestling ever.

Got it, I thought that was the "Strong", I'm thinking on doing a company with a style similar to NJPW right now, but "King's Road" is my second option then.

[TowerDefender]

This sounds excellent! Thanks.

Questions though: Does wrestler popularity change? What makes it go up? What makes it go down?

[Lashley93]

Originally posted by MaulDComix:

Originally posted by Val Kilmer:

AJPW Style of the 90s. Think slow builds, hard hitting stiff strikes, dangerous moves with people getting dropped on their heads a lot, and lariats everywhere. Misawa, Kobashi, Kawada and Taue are the big guys to look for the style.

Also the single greatest period of wrestling ever.

Got it, I thought that was the "Strong", I'm thinking on doing a company with a style similar to NJPW right now, but "King's Road" is my second option then.

strong style should be similar to njpw

[Lashley93]

scouting seems useless, i never find anyone

[sofia ciel]

According to a guide for one of the GBA games:
Strong - New Japan/Zero-ONE. A style that takes an even balance between striking, throws, and submission techniques.
King's Road - All Japan/NOAH. A style that focuses on bringing out the upper limits of both your own strength and your opponent's, with a match that ends after that opponent brings you to the brink (i.e. with dueling 2.9 counts on pinfalls).
Showman - American pro wrestling. Essentially a style with show elements included. A heavy emphasis on the use of signature and finishing techniques combined with appeals to the crowd.
Stoic - UWF style and MMA. The exact opposite of showman. A martial-arts style oriented around a vicious and uncompromising match pace that emphasizes the seriousness of the fight over all else.
Lucha - A style oriented around displays of fancy aerial techniques and advanced technical moves such as complicated roll-ups.
Hardcore - ...hardcore. An extreme form of fighting that allows for the use of illegal weapons, and encourages wrestlers to bleed and brawl outside the ring.
Free - Essentially a wrestler that can work any style equally well.

[Chainsaw Charlie]

I dont understand the game telling me i have a joint show scheduled for the month and then that same promotion denying me a cross-promotional show. Can anyone explain to me how that is supposed to work? I'm still in year 1

[ItsMeStevieC]

Originally posted by Bobby Trill:

I dont understand the game telling me i have a joint show scheduled for the month and then that same promotion denying me a cross-promotional show. Can anyone explain to me how that is supposed to work? I'm still in year 1

I think Carlzilla touched on this in another thread, but it's a translation error. When it's telling you "You have X event scheduled with Y promotion" it's actually just saying the promotion is holding a tournament.

[Lashley93]

Any tips for promotions? They turn everything down haha, even me loaning them my guys

[ItsMeStevieC]

If it's anything like MOR, you're best off sending guys to smaller promotions who fit your style. The better relationship you foster with the promotions, the more likely they are to sign a full working relationship with you. Likewise, if you're trying to send wrestlers to bigger promotions, and they don't even fit their style, there's likely no chance they'll take them.

[Hawk]

Originally posted by TowerDefender:

This sounds excellent! Thanks.

Questions though: Does wrestler popularity change? What makes it go up? What makes it go down?

Wrestler pop does change. It depends on them winning matches and having good matches. If someone's stinking up your promotion and losing all the time they won't go anywhere pop wise.

[TowerDefender]

Thanks. That’s what I was hoping to hear.

[TowerDefender]

Also:

What are Attack and Defense ratings for? I thought the wrestlers all already had their own attributes.

Are they just a summary of already-existing ratings or are they new ratings that impact an outcome?

If they do impact the outcome, how?