The Buscher

Dammit. I really wanted the WWE-edited Nexus theme and tron. Guess my Nexus CAWs will need to be content with loudass custom themes.

Turns out my game had turned R-Truth heel and I didn't even realize it. Watching him enter to What's Up to nothing but angry boos is hilarious.

Since I was bored I wrote up the results of the "3-Hour Raw" 2011 WWE Draft. Didn't feel like doing a stupid Supplemental Draft which labels most of those guys as jobbers, so I ran with the storyline that each match was for a whopping 2 picks and the annual interpromotional battle royal was for 4 picks. AKA this was an excuse to ensure that each show gets 10 picks. Match 1: RAW - WWE Champion Justin Gabriel def. SD - Rey Mysterio via 450 Splash -Raw drafts Chris Masters and JTG Wade Barrett returns and leads the rest of Nexus in assaulting Raw’s two newest additions on the stage. Barrett puts over the Nexus and says that even on his sabbatical they are the strongest force in wrestling. He also took credit for Gabriel’s post-match assault on Daniel Bryan the previous night. Barrett volunteers the Nexus for the big interpromotional battle royal later on. Match 2: Tag Teams Picks Only: SD - The New Dudebusters (Trent Barreta and Curt Hawkins) def. RAW Unified Tag Team Champions David Otunga and Darren Young via cheap tactics and a pin on Young -SmackDown drafts The Assassins (Michael Tarver and Skip Sheffield) The New Dudebusters look really disappointed in having brought in two monsters like Sheffield and Tarver onto the SmackDown roster. Match 3: SD – Kaval def. RAW - The Miz via Warrior’s Way -SmackDown drafts David Hart Smith and Randy Orton The crowd goes wild as we’ve got our first main bombshell pick of the draft. Orton is back on his original show and Kaval looks intrigued by the new competition he just brought to the blue brand. Match 4: RAW – Triple H def. SD – World Heavyweight Champion Alberto Del Rio via no contest -Raw drafts Dolph Ziggler and The Undertaker Del Rio applied an armbar on Triple H before the bell and refused to relinquish the hold. The match was thrown out with two picks being awarded to Raw. Del Rio then laughed his way to the bank as he had a man just coming off a 9-month IC Title reign and the legendary Undertaker whom Del Rio had cheaply defended his title against the night before were suddenly off his show. Match 5: RAW - United States Champion Evan Bourne def. SD – Kofi Kingston via Air Bourne -Raw drafts Luke Gallows and Drew McIntyre After a very exciting and competitive match, the newly crowned US champion managed to pull out the victory over his fellow high-flyer. Gallows has been on a roll as of late and McIntyre takes his quest to be the “Chosen One” to Raw. Match 6: Divas Picks Only: RAW – Divas Champion Melina vs. SD – Beth Phoenix via double count out -Raw drafts Michelle McCool and Tiffany -SmackDown drafts Gail Kim and Melina After a quality women’s bout between two fan favorites, Melina dove to the outside and knocked out both competitors. As a result, four divas swapped brands including the champion herself. Although she can appear on both shows due to being the Unified champion, her contract now belongs to SmackDown. Match 7: Tag Team Picks Only: RAW – Truth & Wisdom (R-Truth and John Morrison) def. SD – The Assassins (Michael Tarver and Skip Sheffield) via Starship Pain on Tarver -Raw drafts The New Dudebusters (Trent Barreta and Curt Hawkins) Despite being overpowered, Truth & Wisdom utilized their speed to grab the win against the newly drafted Assassins. As luck would have it, the New Dudebusters (who stole a win to get the Assassins drafted) saw themselves switch shows too. Match 8: Battle Royal With 4 Picks on the Line: SD – Big Show, Christian, Edge, Jack Swagger, and Intercontinental champion Kane def. RAW – Heath Slater, Husky Harris, John Cena, Michael McGillicutty, and Wade Barrett -SmackDown drafts John Morrison, Zack Ryder, Vladimir Kozlov, and Wade Barrett The Nexus was ruthless in quickly taking out SmackDown’s big guys, but in the end Edge & Christian brought back their old team chemistry and managed to dump Barrett & Cena to end it. Plenty of talent headed in SmackDown’s way, but the shocker was the final pick of the evening as Nexus leader and former WWE champion Wade Barrett now has a new home. One night into his return and now he will be forced to fight his own battles on SmackDown. BAH GAWD what does this mean for the Nexus? So following the draft, my rosters are now as follows: Raw Faces 1. Brie Bella 2. Chris Masters 3. Daniel Bryan 4. Darren Young (Unified Tag Team champion) 5. David Otunga (Unified Tag Team champion) 6. Evan Bourne (United States champion) 7. Eve 8. Ezekiel Jackson 9. Goldust 10. The Great Khali 11. JTG 12. Luke Gallows 13. Mark Henry 14. Natalya 15. Nikki Bella 16. R-Truth 17. Santino Marella 18. Tiffany 19. Triple H 20. Tyson Kidd 21. The Undertaker 22. Yoshi Tatsu Raw Heels 1. Alex Riley 2. Alicia Fox 3. Chris Jericho 4. CM Punk 5. Curt Hawkins 6. Dolph Ziggler 7. Drew McIntyre 8. Heath Slater 9. Husky Harris 10. Jey Uso 11. Jillian Hall 12. Jimmy Uso 13. John Cena 14. Justin Gabriel (WWE champion) 15. Maryse 16. Michael McGillicutty 17. Michelle McCool 18. The Miz 19. Primo 20. Sheamus 21. Ted DiBiase 22. Trent Barreta 23. William Regal SmackDown Faces 1. AJ 2. Beth Phoenix 3. Big Show 4. Caylen Croft 5. Christian 6. Edge 7. Finlay 8. Gail Kim (to turn heel upon SmackDown debut) 9. Joey Mercury 10. John Morrison 11. Kelly Kelly 12. Kofi Kingston 13. Melina (Unified Divas champion) 14. MVP 15. Randy Orton 16. Rey Mysterio 17. Vladimir Kozlov SmackDown Heels 1. Alberto Del Rio (World Heavyweight champion) 2. Chavo Guerrero 3. Cody Rhodes 4. David Hart Smith 5. Jack Swagger 6. Kane (Intercontinental champion) 7. Layla 8. Michael Tarver 9. Rosa Mendes 10. Shad Gaspard 11. Skip Sheffield 12. Tyler Reks 13. Vance Archer 14. Wade Barrett 15. Zack Ryder

My game continues to allow me to book the Nexus brilliantly. Since I assigned Barrett the WWE Title, when he lost it his ranking dropped all the way down to the 30's, where he was before I gave him the belt. He never got booked so I kinda ran with it as Barrett taking a sabbatical and letting the rest of Nexus do his bidding (Cena, Gabriel, Slater, Harris, McGillicutty). Made sure Bryan retained the belt at EC. I simmed MITB and fortunately Gabriel won. So after Bryan defeated RR winner Heath Slater (ugh) to retain the title, here comes Gabriel with a 450 Splash to bring the belt back to the Nexus. Gonna bring Barrett back now and likely kick Gabriel out ala HHH kicking Orton out of Evolution. Then I have to make some draft decisions. Raw's roster is way larger than SD's in terms of male superstars, but that's mainly just because of the Nexus.

Despite having a death grip on the IC Title, Dolph Ziggler never wants to stay solo. He's constantly forming teams, usually with the top contender to his belt strangely. Think after WM I'm gonna "retire" the Unified Tag belts and bring back the WWE and World tag belts, I'll also go back to treating the two divas belts as separate instead of having to manually give the champ both belts as they pull double duty on Raw and SD. I wanna re-enforce the roster split so doing that will cut down on interpromotional matches.

lol god dammit. Heath Slater won the Rumble (I simply watched the match). He entered at #16 or so and he somehow won the thing. Makes for an even better story though. Barrett loses the belt and now another Nexus member is taking a run at it. Would have rather have it be Gabriel or Cena though. Even cooler was the fact that Orton/Jericho and Sheamus/HHH entered close to one another. Made the "surprise" returns even better.

Fuck yes. Daniel Bryan beats Wade Barrett to win the WWE Title at the Royal Rumble, and then CM PUNK comes out and stares him down. What makes it even more amazing is that I actually had Punk on WCW to simulate his injury. I add him to Raw and he vaults right to the top of the contenders list. I also brought back Jericho and Triple H to be "mystery" entrants in the Rumble and they immediately vaulted to 4th and 5th in the WWE Title rankings, respectively.

Amazing. The main event of TLC wound up being Wade Barrett defending the WWE Title against John Cena and US Champion Daniel Bryan in, well, a TLC match. Cena had been liberated from the Nexus at Survivor Series...so I controlled him and concentrated all my offense on Bryan, beating on him outside the ring as I let Wade climb to the top to retain the belt. That effectively made Cena a heel and now voluntary member of the Nexus. So I made Barrett Cena's top ally. Then there was a #1 contender's match between Cena (now with black and yellow gear) and Bryan on the next night's Raw. I used Bryan. Kicked Cena's head in...Barrett runs out. Even though he distracted the ref for a full 2 minutes or so, Cena was still out cold the whole time as Bryan won.

Nice. A random Caylen Croft/Curt Hawkins match gets interesting as Trent Barreta runs out and promptly turns on Croft.

Nope, you can't alter the MITB participants unfortunately. That's the only real down note to me since the game always picks the most random people to be in it.

So the Wade/Bryan match was actually a 15 minute Iron Man Match. Jimmy Uso ran out halfway through, hit both men with Samoan Spikes, and left. I feel like that should make me want to use Exhibition for my sim fed...but it's so ridiculous that I can't help but see what comes of it.

I pretty much "re-booted" my Universe game by simming several months ahead and beginning anew in December. I wasn't planning on using Universe for my sim fed, but dammit it's too addicting to not at least try. Moved everybody back to the shows they're on now. Also made a few things happen as though they were to happen in the next few weeks in real life. Gave Barrett the WWE Title and Natalya both women's belts (if she has to defend the belts twice on PPV I'll just switch one of the matches to reflect some random feud that had cropped up since). I broke up the Hart Dynasty with Smith going heel. Since my tag division is badly lacking, I booted Otunga out of Nexus since there are only 5 slots anyway and I turned him face, teaming him with fellow disgruntled former Nexus member Darren Young. Assumed AJ would win NXT, so I added her to the SmackDown roster which suddenly had a loaded divas division as Beth Phoenix and Tiffany have also returned. Down the line I may take the "NXT Season 4: Second Chance" idea and d/l a few random WWE guys to go along with Shelton and Knox and run my own NXT on the side. Should be fun. The first card the game generated was main evented by new WWE champion Wade Barrett against US champion Daniel Bryan.

I had drafted Sheamus to SmackDown and was rather disappointed that every single week the game had him fighting Edge in the main event, including number one contender's matches every month. I had drafted Undertaker to Raw and it seemed like Swagger, Kane, Mysterio, and World Heavyweight champion Big Show weren't considered to be on the same level as Sheamus and Edge.

Was it the way the fans wanted it? How about the way they needed it?

So I got both of the main Universe-related CAW achievements in one WrestleMania. My 88 OVR CAW won the Rumble (I actually SIMMED the Rumble, my guy had only been in the company for a couple months and yet he still won) so I got the achievement for winning the World Heavyweight Title when I beat Edge at Mania. The MITB also had 2 CAWs in it (Khali and Joey Mercury) so I tried to win it as Khali and actually did it, knocking off that achievement. More disturbingly...Taker had gone from 18-0 to 20-0 in one night in my first WM (he defended his title AND had another match right after and won both). Same deal this year except he lost the WWE Title to John Cena to fall to 20-1, and then lost to ALEX RILEY of all people to go 20-2.

If you have a Yamaha keyboard, just randomly mash on keys for about 10 seconds, record it to Audacity and then loop it so it stretches to five minuites. Or, just use Kevin Nash's TNA theme, which was made in the exact same fashion. Haha, wound up just giving them Shad's theme. It's generic enough.

Shame that online Rumble still has unusable lag. I expected it would happen but it's still annoying.

For some reason you can't name your CAW "Uso" and put it online. So all of their CAWs are "U s o" - you can edit it on your own. Just downloaded them and Alex Riley, completing the male roster. Now to download all of the divas that didn't make it and I'll be ready to start my sim fed, likely using exhibition since Universe does a bit too many sneak attacks for my liking. Love having just about everybody's theme in the game (except for the Usos and Tiffany, forgot their themes which shows just about how much I care about either of them).

Finally filled out the entire Nexus, including the injured ones who may or may not be still part of the group on paper (Sheffield and Tarver) Of course, it looked weird to see them all coming out with totally different Nexus shirts and armbands. So I had to go into nerd mode and change all of that using the same Nexus paint tool logo

Color me unimpressed with the ending to the Vs. Taker RTWM. Guess I just thought it would be more epic.

Best moment I've had in a SmackDown game: Me vs. HBK I hit him in the head with a chair. He kips-up. I immediately hit him again for the 3.

So last night I began punching in the names of any WWE guys NOT in the game on community creations, and downloading the good ones I found. Amazed how many really good ones are up already. Thus far I've downloaded Daniel Bryan, Alberto Del Rio, Curt Hawkins, and Heath Slater (who promptly became a punching bag to test out Bryan)

So online Rumble definitely has potential. That being said, I have yet to play one in which I don't encounter a dickhead using a 100 OVR rated CAW who somehow manages to win the button-mashing mini-games in 3 seconds.

Think I'm just gonna use my Fan Axxess and be content never finishing Christian's RTWM. MITB matches are an absolute chore.

So thus far I've unlocked Kozlov, Finlay, Gail, and Ryder all by doing random singles matches on Raw, SD, and Superstars. Anyone know how to unlock all of the other current wrestlers? I'd guess they are unlocked in a similar way but I haven't had the option pop up in awhile.