elliott

UWFi on break at work runs in to select Takeshi Ono

Uwfi keeps the Japanese promotions moving by selecting Minoru tanaka

For me it is BattlArts. I love the original run from 96-2001 and all of the comeback stuff from the late 2000s I've seen has been awesome as well. But 96-2001 BattlArts was amazing. They were a shoot style promotion but weren't a shoot style promotion. Obviously the style was a major influence on the promotion, but they'd have guys like TAKA Michinoku on the card doing springboard dropkicks or Otsuka doing a giant swing and dives out of the ring. They basically took all of the best things from wrestling in the 90s and stirred them up in a big pot. You had guys like Greg Valentine and Bob Backlund show up. Victor Krueger being a giant fish out of water. Takeshi Ono being the greatest scrawny prick ever until Murakami shows up and redefines scrawny prickishness. The FMW feud. Otsuka vs Matsunaga. I haven't even mentioned Ikeda vs Ishikawa which I'll take every time over Misawa vs Kawada. Motherfucking Carl Greco being the American Volk Han rocking a soul patch and hoop earring. Are you kdding? BattlArts. Its the best. Oh and Memphis from probably 1974 until, I dunno, Lawler left for the WWF?

They're also good because Koshinaka is an established name in 1995 while Kojima is still potential with a ton of room to grow. Good stuff!

On break at work and picking a Japanese guy so I figured I'd jump ahead which will free up the other Japanese promotions. UWFi selects Masahito Kakihara with their 15th round pick.

LA Parka to FMW is my single favorite thing ever. Just perfect beyond words.

UWFi is pleased to welcome home Yoji Anjoh.

What is the plan for wrestlers yet to debut? I'd love to add Mark Henry to this mess. Also, it is probably too late for this, but um, what about Ken Shamrock? Basically all of his big pancrase fights are known to be works. The plans for wrestlers yet to debut is a real question. The Shamrock thing is half fake and half real.

I've been debating on Finlay for several rounds honestly. I almost drafted him but Yoshiaki Fujiwara interrupted the party and headbutted his way into the promotion I never would've expected to get Finlay so late though. In reality (if I was building an actual wrestling promotion designed to make money), I wouldn't view him as a first 5 round sort of guy in 1995 but I expected him to go there because he was available to everyone, could fit in everywhere and is so beloved online. But realistically, he wasn't a major name in 1995. He was never a main eventer outside of Europe. Regal had an IWGP Title Match against Hashimoto in either 95 or 96 and Finlay was never on that level. Regal I always though had main event level potential both as a worker and with his acting/interviews/charisma but he never really got the chance for reasons. Finlay always struck me as a perfect midcard tough guy who could probably main event a Sumo Hall show or a Monday Night Raw or possibly even a Budokan Hall or B-Level PPV if you built him properly (and if you were out of other options entirely), but he's not someone who is ever going to be a Tokyo Dome or WrestleMania headliner. King of Saturday Night main event is kind of perfect for him. Or veteran tough guy high mid carder. Pure value pick this late. He'll be a great fit for my midcard. I just couldn't keep passing on him once we gained some extra foreign picks and the free agency post draft rules became a little more clear. And you can't have Regal & Finlay in the same promotion and not run Regal vs Finlay matches...but I might make you wait a while

*lights victory cigar* Quick explanation on my non-shoot style guy draft picks like Hashimoto, Dr Death, Regal & now FInlay. Basically I asked myself two questions: 1. Do they have tough guy reps? 2. Could I see them working hard hitting matches without rope running? I don't really care that Dr Death isn't a Volk Han level mat wrestler. He has the amateur credentials that the crowd knows about and believes in enough that he could believably work in my environment. Same sort of principal with Finlay. Finlay is an awesome base against smaller high flying wrestlers. But he could definitely work compelling matches not dependent on crazy rope running spots. Gary Albright was successful in the real UWFi without being a good mat worker. Same thing with Vader. Takada was shoot style's biggest star of the 90s and one of the formative matches on his rise to the top was against Bob Backlund. Finlay is also probably the last guy I'll draft that I could imagine anybody having any interest in.

UWFi would like to welcome Fit Finlay to the roster.

My next pick...I'm telling you. If i just get to make it....

Same. I really hate when we are thought of as the same or a lesser US or whatever. Here, don't care. Maybe because Canada doesn't have anything but scattered indies at the time? We really should have just said North America and Asia. WCW could take all the luchadores they want but they could only have 5 japanese guys. Same thing with me and the Russians. Volk Han was literally only going to work in Japan for a shoot style promotion or he was going to go back to Russia and train soldiers on hand to hand combat.

Uwfi selects Alexander Otsuka

I'm sort of counting on that. There's a guy I've been debating on for a few rounds now and I'm not sure if I want to pull the trigger and risk some of the Japanese guys that are still available that I need to grab. This is too much fun.

This is starting to become an issue for me honestly so I'm thinking more and more about it. Who the hell is going to lose matches? Part of the reason I protected Takayama is that he's big and young and can lose but maintain with a semblance of credibility. There are certain things that happened in real life that I'm going to use in my favor. Vader was out after January for about 3 months and I have no problem loaning him out since he was a WCW Full Timer when he had his deal with UWFi. Maeda only worked 4 times in 1996 and he was past his prime. I'm going to get every drop out of him that I can, while I can. Fujiwara is awesome and a legend and his name means more in the UWFi I'm building than it would anywhere else. But he's not someone I need to consistently carry main events for me. What to do with Tamura has become interesting in this UWFi world of stars. Depending on how long this goes, I eventually want him to be the top star. In real life I would argue that he's already in the conversation for the best wrestler in the world and he can work with anyone. Ideally he'd go on a long winning streak but that's going to need to be pushed back. He's not ready to beat Volk Han in late 95, let alone Takada/Maeda/Vader. I have a long term plan for Hashimoto that will make him easy to book. Since I can only carry 5 foreign talents at once, I'm hoping I can bring someone in for a run if I've loaned out Vader. There's one foreign guy I really wanted to carry full time that I just can't because my plan is to leave that last foreign spot open and cycle in guys like Greg Valentine, Bob Backlund, Norman Smiley, Glacier, etc for one show appearances to put over regular native talent. I'm also going to tier my roster. I'm not going to have a Michael Jordan Ace that destroys everyone that goes up against him. It'll be more similar to New Japan. Plus I have the added advantage of knockouts and surprise finishes. I see no reason an upset can't occur in shoot style after a random kick to the head or surprise out of nowhere submission. I'll utilize that for big moments. But generally my higher ranked guys will beat my lower ranked guys. The great thing about shoot style and really Japanese wrestling is that how you fight in a loss matters almost as much is "did you win?" If you get dominated for 10 minutes and lose, then you aren't shit. But if you fight for you fucking life, even if its for 10 minutes, that loss isn't going to matter nearly as much and people the fans/media will talk about your guts and fighting spirit and all that shit. But generally speaking.... Takada, Maeda, Vader, Hashimoto, Volk Han, Doc Death are all capable of beating one another on any given night. They will usually beat the guys in the tiers below them. Fujiwara, Tamura, Yamazaki, Regal can all take it too one another and on the right night could push the top guys to the absolute limit. Sano, Takayama, Sakuraba, Ishikawa at this point don't really stand a chance against the top tier, but, Regal and Ishikawa could craft a fucking hell of a match in late 95. There aren't any main eventers left for me to draft. I'm probably going to have too many guys I want to push/protect at the end and will have to make sacrifices when it comes to booking. But that's a problem I'm ok with having. Realistically looking at the guys I have drafted the ones who will work literally every show from 1995-1996 are: Hashimoto, Fujiwara, Tamura, Yamazaki, Regal, Sano, Takayama, Sakuraba, Ishikawa. Takada, Volk Han, Dr Death, and Vader will probably work at least 2/3rds of the first year of shows. Maeda could work as few as 4 shows in 1996 like he did i real life but I might cheat and bump that up to 6. I'm not sure. We're not there yet. My big stadium shows are going to have everyone and I'll probably do one every 4 months or so. Again, we're not there yet. I need the full roster but I have long term stories I want to tell with everyone I've drafted so far. Given that I've got all of these guys under one roof, I'm basically operating under the assumption of Bill Gates bought UWFi for some reason and these guys are more willing to play ball and put each other over because I'm paying them so much money but the fans know the history of literally all of these guys so well that something as small as "tempers flare" or wrestler X is jealous because of the attention wrestler Y is getting or simple press conference shit talking will carry so much weight. So my shoot style promotion will have worked shoot angles. Maeda will talk about what a bitch Takada is and how much he hates him, but Maeda will in the end playball. But I am absolutely going to lean heavily on the personal dislike those two guys had especially. Quick side tangent, I think my favorite thing in the history of the WON is the 1996 G1 Climax review/history of Inoki/New Japan. If you haven't read it, stop everything. In that piece Dave talks about how Inoki's penchant for wrestling karate fighters in the 70s and eventually Ali came from a desire to book "Matches that were so big fans believed they had to be real because one guy wouldn't agree to lose to the other guy." That's basically my top tier. Every combination of matches is massive. But don't expect Takada, Hashimoto, Vader, Maeda, Volk Han & Doc on literally every single card. UWFi would run 6 and 7 match shows because as gordi alluded to, guys would get injured in some way, would be training etc. Shoot style's whole premise is to be as realistic as possible and it simply isn't realistic for these guys to have 20 "Fights" a year. This is all why I'm going to beat up on FMW.

Love the Mochizuki pick. He's another guy I had my eye on just in case. Awesome young worker considering he's a perfect fit for M-Pro and I could have used him in UWFi. Damn that M-Pro roster is looking real nice.

I plan on running UWFi the way they ran the company from 92-94. Around 12 shows a year. Sometimes more. Sometimes less. Anywhere from 2-6 weeks between shows. I will have tag team matches and will actually set up UWFi tag team champions. I'll continue the "Junior League" Tournament they ran in 92/93 that wasn't for Juniors but for Younger Guys. Maybe the winner will get a title shot too. I'm debating whether or not to run any G1/Champsions Carnival style tournaments with all of my big names. I mean it would be awesome and all, but I won't really need to considering I'm running such few shows and I already will have a world title. I suspect there will be at least one title tournament due to the title needing to be vacated from injury or something. I will have angles kind of but it will mostly manifest itself in the form of shit talking through the media and pushing/shoving before/after matches etc. Vader isn't going to hit Akira Maeda with a chair. Shoot style doesn't work that way. Shoot style is in an interesting place. The founding fathers of shoot style all splintered and formed their own promotion. Now they're back under one roof. There's bitterness and stylistic differences. Maeda is pissed a Fake Pro Wrestler like Shinya Hashimoto is working in the same promotion as him. He strives for realness and thinks Takada is allowing UWFi to become watered down with these guys like Hashimoto and Doc Death and Regal being fake pro wrestlers. Fujiwara is trying to prove he can still hang with his pupils. There's tension all around. Etc etc etc. If i had to describe my general plans thus far in very few words it would be something like: 4 Horsemen of UWFi. Invasion. Hatred. There will be blood. Takada becomes Surfer Sting. Tamura becomes Crow Sting.

I'm sorry for hijacking this for a grammatical question, but can I just confirm that you're using bi-weekly to mean once every two weeks? To others, is bi-weekly the word you would use? Curious Australians thank you in advance. It can literally mean both, but since he used it in reference to "Friday shows" we can assume that he means once every two weeks I would probably say "one show on friday night every other week" because I am not efficient with my words

Barbarian too great picks!

UWFi selects Yuki Ishikawa

Meng/Haku was a darkhorse UWFI pick. Dang.

I held off on drafting Volk Han because I knew nobody else would want him and I could land some heavy hitters early. In a world where we are trying to stay as true as possible to 1995 this might be my biggest steal in a draft where I've made like 5 steals. In addition to already being arguably the best shoot style worker ever, Volk was the #2 draw in a promotion that had averaged 7,241 in attendance (without TV but with extremely jacked up ticket prices compared to every other promotion in the world) up to this point in 1995. And even with his credentials, Volk is at best the 5th biggest draw on my roster in 1995 depending on your thoughts about Dr Death. And that's before you start to think about Han with fresh main event level match-ups against Takada, Hashimoto, Vader, Dr Death, and soon to be Tamura. Fujiwara isn't really a draw in 1995 but I have major plans for him (as you could tell based on his introduction) and Fujiwara vs Volk Han is a dream match of sorts that can headline a smaller building (if I ever actually decide to run one) and would be a really strong mid card match on a major show of something like: Takada vs Maeda Vader vs Hash Tamura vs Doc Death Fujiwara vs Volk Han I mean, that's a 50,000 person attendance level card in 1995 if I've ever seen it and I'm not sure any of those are the "biggest drawing matches" any of those guys would have. Edit But, this leaves me with only one more "Born outside of Japan" slot. I think I used them well. Han was always coming to me. I never in a million years expected Vader to fall like he did so when I had the chance there I needed to jump on it. Regal is someone I had targeted before we started because I think he'd be awesome working in UWFi and we'd get cool matches like Regal vs Vader and Doc. Doc is a weird one because he is a big star and great worker at this point, but had never worked the style. He's someone I wasn't exactly focused on selecting and debated against it, but it really felt like a value pick. There are a finite number of guys who could reasonably fit into UWFi. Doc is one of the few gaijin available who wouldn't just be able to work the style needed to be in UWFi, but he would make an impact at the box office. But I'll be faced with some tough decisions. There is a trio of awesome Russians who could only work for me, a obvious pick who isn't any sort of name but is a great worker and is a personal favorite. There's also a pair of Fear inducing Faces who, while not having worked UWFi before, have the sort of tough guys reps that would allow either one fit nicely into the world I'm creating and would lead to a bunch of matchups that would delight me to no end.

For UWFi's pick, Yoshiaki Fujiwara walks out to the podium. Apparently Takada is still shaken up and possibly concussed from Fujiwara's surprise headbutt. Fujiwara starts with a smile. "Unfortunately My Young Boy Takada needs to take a break. So on behalf of UWFi, we are pleased to draft Volk Han."