Wow, this game is fn unruly! Only managed to play 6 matches - and lost every one of them lol. That was on the default difficulty, setting it down to 2 I was able to remain competitive. Seriously had more fun playing this than WWE 13.
Is there an instruction manual, FAQ, control listing out there anywhere?
Game FAQs usually had some pretty good stuff. Fireproclub may have guides as well. You need to learn the basic timing on a low difficulty level to where you can win any grapple.
To get out of a submission hold cross and rock the d-pad. Pins just hold it i think. You can also purposely kick out late or let your opponent kick out to build excitement.
Move power goes like square, cross, circle and if the opponent is too healthy harder moves will get reversed. Opening wrestler edit and looking at a full move list should give you lots of knowledge too. While your own edits have some more freedom in where moves go the defaults have some conventions about which button slots do things like kick a guy who is down or go for a pin.