How to maintain Kayfabe?

AFW (as in the business) is successful and wealthy, but most people suggest that their characters aren't as well off as the wrestlers in WWE... So in short, probably only a small amount of the funds are going to the wrestlers. A couple of things to remember:

1. Cassandra Sellers (the owner of AFW) is a shady business woman who will most likely screw you if she gets the chance, infact gets off of owning people through money and power
2. Managers regularly take big cuts if you have one
3. AFW's roster is massive, so lots of pay cheques going out
4. Probably most important... This is a completely different world to the real one we live in, the pay cheque of wrestlers in AFW and other wrestling companies in this world can be considered to be a lot less then what people get in our world WWE
5. In this world, wrestlers are not protected as much in their contracts and a number of exploits are actually allowed to go ahead without intervention by a governing body.
6. The range in pay scales is large, allowing for members to make characters that need to take a second job (if thats what they want) or to make characters who are living the dream.

They have their main show (maybe twice a week or once a week both Friction and Tension respectively)

And then they do house shows at the Arena plus light touring. They might send a cadre of wrestlers outside of Japan as well, but nothing like a major touring promotion.

PPVs are when you get to see everything come together.

I also think that while AFW is on late at night (like 10-11, the Anime Network (the channel, not the online streaming service) is probably the equivalent to a pay channel. So, there's some deterrents, and, I imagine, that the non-live "filmed" Arena shows probably have the EXTRA racy stuff.

Though with the internet, it's not surprising there's kids who are a fan of AFW, especially considering the kawaii division existing and Japan's natural inclination towards lolicon and shoutacon and girl/boylove

Also, while top WWE guys make like, millions of dollars, this is a promotion based in Japan, and they don't do nearly as much touring and, due to the nature of their content (I like to imagine there's a free on tv show showing just non hentai wrestlers and a paid version late at night for the hentai stuff) they probably don't make all that much in ad sponsers.

I mean, could you McDonalds being like "Hey Kids! This half naked girl known for having sexy orgasms in the ring wants you to try this new Happy Meal, with special bikini wrestler toy!"

Parents would freak.


Just to use a real life wrestler experience btw, AJ Styles said he made, in the year of 2014 in New Japan, "almost as much as he made in TNA in 2013 total"

In 2013, AJ Styles made (at least according to internet reports) 350,000 for the year, and New Japan paid him slightly under that.

So using that as a reference, (since AJ was one of their top stars and won their world title twice), people in AFW probably aren't going to become millionaires overnight (except for those wrestlers that started out rich, mine included)

Plus, it depends on where you live. Apartments in the city of Tokyo are expensive as fuck yo.

Would be interesting to get more into where characters live and stay when not fighting.

Alexandra wrote:

LtLukas wrote: This makes things a little bit complicated, as AFW does not have house shows or smaller offshoots.

I (and a few others I know of) have always operated on the assumption that the AFW does do smaller house shows and light touring around Japan, as well as filming dark matches specifically for DVDs and internet exclusive things.

IM matches are house show/dark matches.

abattoir is paid entirely in lighttubes and raw beef

kerflubble wrote:
IM matches are house show/dark matches.

Not just IM matches. I've had several of my characters mention doing house/dark stuff in threads before, things that weren't RP'd.

I imagine that as large as some of our rosters are, and since we don't always have all of our characters doing things, that in their non-RP time the company is having them do dark/house/touring stuff. Matches that they're doing, but since they're not being RP'd out, they're not considered important or 'official' in terms of our character history. At least, that's how I play it with my girls.

For example, Bunny hasn't had a match in a while, but I doubt the AFW would just have her sitting on her ass at home, so in my head she's either doing house stuff or on a light tour.

Besides, unless they're actually posted on the boards, IM stuff is usually non-canon, I think. At least, all of my IM stuff is non-canon. It's a way for me to try different things with characters or pursue different angles with them that I wouldn't really want to do on the boards.

Well, as someone who has been on the local circuit for a good number of years, I can tell you that I think most of your "kayfabe" is off base.

What characters do outside of being their wrestling persona has no bearing on their in ring persona. Real world example, Tito Santana. He had a business his wife ran about 20 minutes away from me and was a gym teacher at the (then) local elementary school. Merced did not really let one "life" interfere with the other that I could ever tell. But in that day and age, "celebrities" were more accessible as well.

Chris Pallies (King Kong Bundy) was another wrestling "celebrity" I ran into quite often. Unless you knew who he was, you would never even have recognized him in the real world as a professional wrestler. He is a rather well educated man if memory serves.

"Kayfabe" is the assumption that wrestling matches are not pre-determined and that the feelings of the wrestlers are real. Of course we all know its an act. Little more than a soap opera, wrestling kayfabe almost is non-existent anymore. So in my opinion there is no need to maintain it at all since a good match as far as I am concerned sees alot of collaboration and there is no real "fan element" in this.

No Kayfabe has definitely been used in real life. I remember Kevin slivian having a feud with Chris Benoit about Cheis having an affir with his wife Nancy and to sell it, Chris and Nancy were to be seen in public together.