Saturday, September 24, 2005

The hierarchy of FW.com

In e-fedding, starpower is relative. Big stars on the FW circuit may not register a blip on the radar over at PTC. A1E and MBE doesn't really mean too much to the fWo crowd. Guys at Roughkut don't know who the megastars are in the EWN circle of angle feds. This is normal. There are too many e-feds out there for there to be one, unified and recognized organization of feds.

However, within each circuit, there's a definite structure, known names and newbies, main eventers and those who are still green behind the ears. But even within the structure of a circuit, different feds may be at different levels. Main event level in one fed may not translate to anything above the midcard in another. There is a hierarchy.

On FW.com, there are six established feds that are either active or pseudoactive. (TEAM and hWo never really got off the ground.) They are CSWA, EPW, EUWC, NEW, NFW and WFW. WFW is on kind of a hiatus right now, but they'll be back. CSWA is also on hiatus... not sure if they'll be back to full strength or not, but still, as long as Chad and Steve are still interested in the hobby, they'll try to keep it alive. Certainly, they're not all on the same "star-power" level. It's almost like back in the day, when there were regions, only a little different, seeing that at least two of the feds on FW (if not three or four) could be considered "nationals" if this were translated into real life. But here it goes.

1st tier - CSWA and NFW

I don't think anyone would argue with those placements. Basically, if you make it in either one of those feds, you're in main event demand nearly anywhere on FW.com. SOmeone opens up a fed and you send the character application in, you're probably going to get pushed right from the get-go. Right now, I'd say CSWA has more tradition and prestige than NFW, but NFW is the top fed on FW.com. It's certainly the most active, plus they have a good amount of CSWA big-timers who are or were involved (Melton, Hornet, Troy Windham, Flair, Deacon) in addition to the megastars that were homegrown there or in their predecessor, the UWA (Manson, Southern, Mayfield, Miles).

2nd tier - EPW and WFW

Both feds have a sort of mix of homegrown stars and 1st tier main event stars. Names like Beast and Copycat have a sort of clout on the FW circuit because of these feds. WFW's been around longer and I surmise that up until Paul Miller's illnesses, WFW was probably ahead on the charts, but recently, even though EPW's been sluggish with getting out cards at times, that the Brunkster's promotion has pulled ahead. Still though, both are still seemingly a rung below the top two promotions.

3rd tier - NEW

This is no knock against Edmunds' promotion, because he runs a fine ship. However, if you look at the main event level guys there: The Phantom Republican, Jonathan Marx, Cameron Cruise, Jean Rabesque, Jason Payne... these are guys who are midcarders at best in the other promotions, or who are midcarders who are working their way up to the main event. That's not a bad thing. I see NEW as sort of like an ECW, or a high-level indie fed, where guys who are on the cusp go and get their main event seasoning.

4th tier - EUWC

Once again, not a knock on the fed, but in the FW world, there aren't really a whole lot of guys who'd translate over right away into a spot in the other fds. It's not a case of talent level as much as it's a case that the EUWC is really in its own world. Outside of Rocko Daymon, Damian Stone and Rob Sampson, I'm really not sure how many of their guys have been in other FW feds. They'd have the most work in getting over in other feds on FW, but once again, taht wouldn't be a knock against them as much as it would be a testament to their isolation from the other FW feds.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Due to me not taking care of my health problems and letting my health deteriate without taking proper care of it, I do believe that WFW has deteriated in our quickness of getting cards out but I believe the quality when they do come out is still as good as it ever was and as my health improves and it has improved a lot lately, we should go back to getting out cards not only quicker than NFW but with every match completely written out.

That being said, I still think we have the most talented roster on FW.com. We've had the most active RPing roster on FW.com consistantly for the last two years. We've remarkablably had many RPers from both NFW Season 1 and Empire come over to join WFW this year despite my health slowing things down. We have protected our titles more than any active league on FW including CSWA & Empire never having to strip or fill a vacated title. We have many top RPers who are exclusive to WFW like Copycat, Anarky, and Jared Wells. We are constantly working on developing news characters like Felix Red, El Arco Iris, and Steve Johnson. Plus we have many NFW East has a strong WFW influence and many guys who are there's first league is WFW....

Right now, I think we only are only behind NFW but I plan to get healthy and give Katz a run for his money once again ;->

I don't say any of this out of ego, I simply believe we have both the best RPers and the best system.

Paul Miller
Owner of WFW

Anonymous said...

I concur, Paul.

I think WFW is the premiere league right now even with the slowdown.

And Tom ... you better not let Rabesque hear you call him a mid-carder... :)

-sean
Owner of New ERA