Brush with Greatness

Nog? Nog lost to a fat and out of shape Rico. I agree about Crocop not being tested but at the same time you could say that he hasn't given anyone that opportunity. Being a K-1 fighter, his sprawl comes into question. But if he knocks you out before you get him down so be it. And on the same token, what had Fedor done before being given the title shot at Nog? I say Nog v. Ricco rematch, let's try Crocop v. Dan Henderson and just to give Fedor a match throw Coleman his way in a non title match. Winners of Nog v. Ricco and Crocop v. Henderson face off and the winner of that fight gets Fedor. This way, Nog can truly establish that he can beat Ricco, Crocop may actually get tested with a wrestler, and you have a good drawing match in Fedor/Coleman (another old guard guy in a similar vane to Big Daddy that Fedor can go over to establish his new dominance. Speaking of Dan Henderson is he injured or what? I would have really liked to see him in the Grand Prix as a MW.

I thought they fought an alternate grand prix match in this situation (dark match). I thought it was Ryan Gracie v. someone. That was the rumour but I'm not sure if it actually happened.

After re-reading my post just a bit of clarification. Looking at strictly the card and nothing surrounding it, I thought it was very entertaining. No blow away matches but some excellent KO's. Basically, I'll sum it up this way. During the actual card, I was very entertained and marked out numerous times. Post card, looking back at all the questions surrounding the card, a little dissapointed. Looking back a few months or years from now, this will rank up there with the best Pride shows.

Exactly right Angle-plex. I thought the same thing. If you can justify giving Nog the win because he made more attempts then you could easily give Busta the win because he actually had some opportunities to finish the fight. Ricco got screwed. That was worse than Holyfield-Lewis. As for the rest of the card: Fedor Emelianenko d. Gary Goodridge TKO (Strikes) 1:09 1 Goodridge is done. This match didn't show us anymore about Fedor either. That's too bad. Would have been nice to see him react to a few blows from Big Daddy. Chuck Liddell d. Alistair Overeem KO (Strikes) 3:09 1 Liddell looked in trouble there before throwing that haymaker. Announcers were right though. Overeem looked gassed after those first few moments. Didn't actually show us what Liddell really has coming back from the Couture fight. Quinton Jackson d. Murilo Bustamante Decision (Split) 5:00 3 Rampage's shorts coming down saved his ass. He was in plenty of trouble in the first round and seemed very tired after being in that guillotine for awhile. He was lucky he got that breather there. And how fucking long does it take to tie a pair of shorts up anyways? Busta's long lay off definetly was a factor as he seemed to be blown up later on. I would really like to see a rematch between these two with each guy getting proper training time. If anything, this fight showed that Jackson isn't the machine he is sometimes perceived to be. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira d. Ricco Rodriguez Decision (Unanimous) 5:00 3 cough*bullshit*cough Whether it was wanting to build Nog up for a rematch with Fedor or not wanting to lose the rubber match in the "UFC Feud", one thing is for certain and that is that Ricco got screwed over here. You could justifiably use the announcer's argument that Nog tried for more finishes, however, you would then have to apply that same argument to the Rampage v. Busta match and give Busta the unanimous decision. The only thing this does is take away credibility from the organization. Or maybe they just figured there was a UFC fighter so they would give him UFC quality levels of judging. Mirko Filipovic d. Igor Vovchanchyn KO (Head Kick) 1:29 1 I fear Crocop. His feet are lethal weapons. He is the world's most dangerous man. Hidehiko Yoshida d. Kiyoshi Tamura Submission (Ezekiel Choke) 5:06 1 What a pleasant surprise this turned out to be. Going in, with the rumours of Tamura not throwing any head shots, etc, I was expecting a very grounded fighter. However, we got the warrior spirit with two guys desperately not wanting to lose for different reasons slugging it out before Judo master used that questionable gi to get the victory. Wanderlei Silva d. Kazushi Sakuraba KO (Punch) 5:01 1 Much like Big Daddy, and possibly Ice Cold, its time for Saku to hang 'em up. Silva looked good in his return (although he was never really tested) and Silva's quick hands make me long for a Belfort v. Silva rematch (assuming the Belfort we saw at UFC 43 is back to stay). Overall thoughts: With the great card on paper and all the hype, in the end I was a little dissapointed. Not that the matches weren't good. I think every match was entertaining in one way or another, although nothing blew me away. What dissapointed me the most was that of the many questions people wanted to know few were answered. We never got to see how Fedor would respond to being punched hard by someone like Goodridge. How would Liddell truly respond to his loss to Couture (face it, he was losing the fight and land one good, be it extremely well timed, blow)? How would Silva bounce back from the knee injuries? Is Crocop a one dimensional fighter and how is his sprawl (although I don't think we ever expected to learn this against Igor)? What did we learn? Well, we saw that Quentin Jackson isn't unbeatable by any means. And we also saw that, in my opinion, Yoshida isn't for real. Tamura is by no means a world class striker (in fact, of ten victories, only one was by KO and that was over Nobuhiko Takada). Yoshida took a few shots. And yes he with stood them. But if that had been Silva, Rampage or Liddell delivering those blows, Yoshida would have been done like dinner. Did he realize this and fake the knee injury to bow out of the semifinals and maintain his reputation? That is yet to be seen. But, in my opinion, whoever draws Yoshida in the semi's, draws a ticket to the finals. In conclusion, if you had never seen, or seen very little Pride in your life, and knew nothing about this card, I would say it would be very entertaining. However, with everything surrounding this card I was a bit dissapointed. 7/10

From Paradise City Showdown, July 2004 The only other match was an opening Jody Fleisch v. Psychosis match. The reason I only had 6 matches was because during July I had 12 wrestlers touring Japan. I actually only had 9 touring all month and three just at the end of the month. I knew that the nine would be gone all month so I didn't plan any feuds with them but I didn't notice that the other three would be missing it when I scheduled the PPV. Sucks too, because the Backseat Boyz and Jung Dragons are in the middle of the feud and the match would have hit ****1/2 at least. Anyways, here's who was missing and their overness Amazing Red (AJ) 80+ Kaz Hayashi (AJ) 80+ Jimmy Yang (AJ) 80+ Bryan Danielson (NJ) 80+ Chris Candido (NJ) 60+ Chris Daniels (NJ) 90+ Joel Maximo (NJ) 70+ Jose Maximo (NJ) 80+ Juvi Guerrera (NJ) 80+ Michael Shane (NJ) 70+ Super Crazy (NJ) 80+ Taiyo Kea (NJ) 90+ And that leads to my biggest problem right now. I'm at about 75 % National. But I have 12 guys at 90+ overness and another 20 at 80+ overness, with most being the high 80's. All of these guys are main event or upper midcard and I can't justifiably drop them down to midcard because I'm just a National promotion. I'm just not sure what to do with all of this talent.

There's not much fuckin point to hiding the spoilers if everyone is going to discuss them openly afterwards. Come on guys. Start a new thread for this. BTW, is the pregame on at 8e / 7c. And then the show starts at 9e/8c?

Loved the first half of the movie. Second half turned into your tired and cliched action movie and was also very predictable. Similar to The Recruit in that vain. On a side note, I saw the preview for the Rock's movie with Stifler and Christopher Walken. Rundown or some generic name like that. However, the movie looked good in a campy kind of way. I think the Rock and Stifler will probably play well off of each other. Oh yeah, and Rosario Dawson is in it, so that alone is reason enough to see it. And on an even better side note... I saw the preview for Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Needless to say, I will be there the opening day. So, if OUATIM kicks all kinds of ass (like I assume it will), where will the El Mariachi trilogy rank in regards to all time greatest trilogies?

So, you like workrate? This is my Guilty as Charged PPV from June 2004. I'm still at 48% National. P.S. The opening segment was a Host segment with Heyman interviewing my world champ Steve Corino. It's funny, my world title is less respected than either my tag or my television. Both tag and TV are at 88, world is at 86. Corino's workrate is too poor. He needs to drop the belt and become a manager. Anyways, on with the rest of the show. Fucking Kid Kash and Psicosis dragging my show down. Would have been 7 ****+ matches. It upsets me because these two have gone to **** for me before.

I would say, especially with WWE, that 75 ratings aren't going to cut it (depending on what level of course). There was a time in 3.0, with Stampede in the NWA scenario, that I would consider 85 one of my more lackluster shows. Even in my current game with ECW at 25% National, I consider a 75 a bad show and always gun for minimum of 80. One key is, that if you are trying to develop low card guys, you also need to include a few great segments on the show to balance it out.

Try turning him. Or a new gimmick.

I think the greatest part about this card is that every fight has a distinct favourite, but not in one fight, in my opinion, can you totally discount the underdog.

Part of my Hardcore Heaven 2004 card: This match was the blowoff to the end of a long feud. A few months back, Joel Maximo admitted to a drug problem. I checked him into rehab in the middle of the feud, but kept building the feud slowly. Joel made his return shortly before this match. His punishment for a drug problem? Having to take the sick bump in this match. I ended up losing Joel for 6 months because of this. Hopefully the drug addiction wasn't pain killers. Oh well, I'll turn Jose face and team him up with Amazing Red. And when Joel comes back in 6 months I'll turn Jose back. This was their first match in this feud Lowki is feuding with Taka and this was just to build up that feud This was a weird one. Frank Shamrock retired Roddy Piper and has not been feuding with anyone since. The Second City Saints have not been feuding with anyone since a solid feud with Stryker/Collyer. Kenny is the only one in the match feuding with anyone and that is Tito Ortiz and I wanted to extend that feud. So what I did was throw this match out there as the main event, originally announced for the tag titles. However, the SCS lost the titles the night before on Danger Zone to the SAT in a three way with the Briscoes also fighting. So this was basically a ****3/4 throwaway Main Event. Other notes: Amazing Red v. Taka and Stryker/Collyer v. Excellence Inc. both drew ***3/4 stars. Damn, this close to 6 **** matches on pretty much a transition card. Next show should have the blowoffs to Stryker/Collyer v. Excellence Inc., Ortiz v. Ken Shamrock, Taka v. Lowki, Spanky v. Juvi, Corino v. Taiyo Kea (currently injured and back next month) and possibly one or two more. I had to run this show in the middle of April as opposed to the end because half my roster takes off to Japan for the end of April. I should have lots of time to build these next few feuds because I probably won't hold it until the end of May. Something else funny: Bryan Danielson told me him and Super Crazy would work well together. So having an empty feud slot, I booked a feud between the two. The next day, Danielson went out with a knee injury for 16 months. Probably got injured on a house show with Super Crazy. You two work good together my ass.

Does anyone know how much the number of wrestlers slow the game down? In my current fed, I cut back down to about 800 workers (a tedious task) and about 12 feds. I've heard that the number of feds is the only real factor. The reason I'm asking is that I'm tempted to get the Ravex update, I just don't like how it runs slow. However, pretty much the only reason I want the update if for guys like Bob Sapp, Kazuyuki Fujita, Don Frye, Josh Barnett and any other MMA guys that are in the pics but not in the game. Also if guys like Vanderlei and Anderson Silva, Quentin Jackson, Nogueria, etc were added. And some Puro guys that actually have wrestled in the States like Jushin Lyger, Great Muta, etc. Don't really care about Kawada, Misawa, etc. Can anyone give me an idea of the likes of these guys that have been added.

Has it been confirmed 100% that they are fighting the standard 10 and two 5's? I would think so, but I'm not sure. I'm justing hoping they don't do something stupid like 3 five minute rounds.