06 is the least limited and can easily pick it up and play, I play it on my phone with a PSP emulator.
The worst part of 07 and 08 was that bullshit "wrestler has to be in contention for the title" thing when you wanted a title match, I feel like there was no rhyme or reason to it.
Also, a lot of the storylines with stipulations like American vs Foreigner didn't work with a lot of people you'd think it would, or were really specific to the point you'd never use them.
I remember you could break 08 if you did enough of those popularity boost events, to the point where your whole roster are 100 overall, so the only people who could get title shots were people who were alphabetically first.
From what I've seen with the 2K ones, the popularity levels can fluctuate wildly, I've had some of the generic jobbers go to 100 because they beat a couple of popular guys.
