Control21

Some fights in PRIDE were worked like Takada's later matches with Otsuka and Coleman, but the majority were real. How many fights were "fixed" by dirty money is another question and one we might never know the answer to, but I'd say most of it was clean.

It would have been interesting if someone tried that in the late 80s as MMA hadn't taken off in the US yet, so I wonder if it could have reshaped the perception of wrestling with US fans like shoot-style did with Japanese fans until PRIDE sucked all the oxygen out of the room.

My next two picks will be Yoshihiro Takayama and Frank Shamrock.

I believe I have the next pick, so with that, RINGS' first pick of the 1996 draft will be.....Kazushi Sakuraba. @LowBlowPodcast Is back on the board with the 15th pick

Just a friendly note, but you have me drafting the bear when that was W*ING. Also, you had me skipping a round. By my count, my draft should start after round 13.

Commentary Team - Kenichi Takayagi, Sadaharu Tanikawa, Hideyuki Kumakubo Ring Announcer - Nobuyuki Furuta Backstage Interviewer: N/A Managers: N/A

Can't wait to get started!

Fun night with lots of solid matches. I doubt that's the last Kokina and Singh see of the Ultimate Warrior. Lanny Poffo vs Nikita Koloff promises to be a solid main event for the next show while the Guerreros vs Synergy might deliver a show stealer.

Alright, I'll keep it as it is.

RINGS' exemption list: Kiyoshi Tamura Yoshihisa Yamamoto Tsuyoshi Kohsaka Mitsuya Nagai Masayuki Naruse Wataru Sakata Volk Han Andrei Kopylov Nikolai Zouev Mikhail Ilyukhin Grom Zaza Maurice Smith Valentijn Overeem

Great show. Both of those matches sounded excellent. I really like IPW's identity so far. It feels very low-key yet there is a clear idea in terms of the type of wrestlers and matches involved. Keep up the good work!

With the second pick....I will take Fighting Network RINGS to the shock and awe of many.

Sounds good to me

As for the 4th point, shoot guys should be fine for shoot-style promotions as long as you can reference when/where they were active in a certain year. If anyone else wants to draft those types of people, that's fine too I suppose. I don't think we need to add them to the free agent pool (I can create a list if you need it), but if someone drafts them or adds them during free agency, they can reference their activity in 1996.

Yes, I did plan on making use of some Shooto and Pancrase guys...

That'd be awesome to have another active shoot-style promotion. Even it means I might have more competition for certain talent than I expected!

Card Announcement: UWF Newborn – “Fighting Network Sapporo” August 8th, 1988 Nakajima Sports Center Sapporo, Japan Masakatsu Funaki vs Yoji Anjo Minoru Suzuki vs Shigeo Miyato Tatsuo Nakano vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara Akira Maeda vs Ryuma Go Nobuhiko Takada vs Kazuo Yamazaki

I'm in

This is fine with me. RINGS was a bit different from the other promotions people will probably select, so it might be best that I set my own roster while allowing others to benefit from the draft.

Just a friendly note, Gary Albright is on the free agent list but is with PCW now. Norman Smiley is also on the free agent list but is with UWF. Those are the two names that I am aware of but there might be others. Just wanted to be sure there wouldn't be any confusion.

I'm fine with any of those options.

I'm fine with that. Do we plan on starting with set historical rosters or is there going to be a draft? How will rookies be handled? Will there be a draft for that like in Dawn of War? I know in DoW the consensus is that only North American promotions participate in rookie drafts, which is fine. Although if more than one Japanese promotion is in the game at the start (controlled by a user), we may have to figure out how exactly that will work for this game.

1996 would be perfect! I can jump right into RINGS when it is starting to reach its peak years with Kohsaka, Tamura, Volk Han, and Yamamoto. As for the rules, the initial ideas sound good. I may have my own ideas if I think of any, but I don't have anything to add at this point.

Good stuff! Good to see the Von Erichs get some shine. Tito Santana vs Greg Valentine is a great way to close the show. Can't wait to see what's next.