Wrestling Revolution: The story of a male wrestler trapped inside a woman’s body: PROLOGUE

WHILE I had the Wrestling Revolution game app on my iPhone for close to 12 months, I didn’t really start playing the career mode till late 2013. I’m normally crap at computer games, but this quickly became as addictive to me as Carmageddon on my iPhone had become a year earlier.
I found myself playing the British-created game whenever I was on the dunny, spare moments during my daily commute to work and so on.
The idea of WR is to build a wrestler (creating a persona, costume, move set, etc), then guide him (or her) through their career. You join feds (angling for good contracts – money up front, guaranteed money, health insurance and, most importantly, creative control). Every week you either have a match or train to improve your levels in a variety of departments (strength, toughness, skill, agility, etc). You can jump federations, form tag teams, go for titles...all while being thrown little curveballs by the app. Your opponents are loosely based on real wrestlers, so it’s fun to face the game's equivalents to Daniel Bryan, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, the Road Warriors and more.

Also, after every match, a screen pops up featuring headlines torn from Power Slam (the British wrestling mag), bringing the latest news and goss from WR feds around the globe.
But there are pitfalls.
Being offered a social beer after a match may lead to you being hung-over for your next bout and easy pickings for your opponent. Win too many matches as champion and the app will deliberately throw you into an eight-man bout where you don’t even have to be pinned to lose the title. Or you will be hauled before management and told that your strength levels aren’t high enough and you need to improve them by a certain date, or they’ll sack you.
If you don’t have creative control (or management strips creative control from you), then you feel like a low-level "superstar" at the mercy of Vince McMahon. They’ll change your moves, your costume, even your name.
The first time I played WR, I lasted four years (actually, about a month in real time), making numerous mistakes, losing far too many matches and somehow winding up in debt. Eventually, I failed to boost one of my categories while in “Wrestling School” (basically the indie scene and the lowest rung on the game’s ladder). I was sacked and the game ended without warning. WTF?
Bereft, I deleted the stupid app and swore I’d never be distracted by it again (like I had been by previous time-wasters such as Carmageddon on the iPhone and Plants vs Zombies on my PC at home).
Of course, I soon missed WR terribly – frankly, I got bored having nothing to do when sitting in the shithouse.
I weakened in February, reloaded the app and was ready to go once more. This time, I wouldn’t make the same mistakes I’d made in my first run. This time, I would be a success.
Dann the Mann was ready to rumble. Or so I thought.        
TO BE CONTINUED

* For more info about Wrestling Revolution, either buy it from the iTunes store (it’s cheap!) or head to http://www.mdickie.com/mobile.htm.