Sunday, June 18, 2006

The next TEAM event... [ie, I need help!]

Now that the Tournament of Champions is complete, it's time to move on and get the next TEAM event going. Basically, I want to hold an event before I get on with the FLAGSHIP TEAM event, the TEAM Invitational Tournament (which I really want to push this year). I want something different from the TEAM Invite and ToC formats if possible, but if not, any event would be good.

I've been brainstorming a few ideas with the e-fed world, but they all seem equally enticing for me. Here they are:

The TEAM Summer Pick-Up League

Remember back when you were a kid, and you played pick-up basketball, wiffle ball, football, spring/freedom/manhunt or whatever sports you played as a youngster? This "league" (I use that term loosely) would be somethign like that. Basically, it's four "weeks" long. Each week, 8 guys sign up and then they pick sides. Then, you get three matches out of it, two singles and one tag. The winners from each week (four in all) would be invited to the final week where they'd battle it out for the league title.

Pros
- It would keep the TEAM concept alive, even if only for five/six "weeks."
- Pick-up games are fun. Seriously, that's when sports were fun, when you just chose up sides and go out and play. Here, you do the same thing, choose up sides, set up ground rules and play ball.
- No long-term committments.

Cons
- Yran's already doing Sunshine Wrestling, which is different enough from this concept for both to run, but similar enough that both would probably suffer.
- Might be a hassle to get everyone together for picking sides.

Wrestling World Cup

Cashing in on the World Cup CRAZE and the not-as-huge buzz around the World Baseball Classic, maybe it's time for nationalistic pride to swell in the world of grappling! Teams representing different countries would compete for the prize of global bragging rights. Ideally two groups of 4 teams with sudden death rounds featuring the top two in each group.

Pros
- Everyone loves a good World Cup.
- Once again, the TEAM concept would be somewhat applicable here.

Cons
- Most people handle American or Canadian characters (very much morseo American). It'll be harder to gather characters from other countries, especially enough five to seven foreign teams.

Rookie Rumble

A battle royale featuring all first-time characters. Any character that hasn't been used in a fed regularly can enter. It'll be in battle royale, every wrestler for him/herself, no RP limit goodness.

Pros
- It's not a tournament in writeup or RP format, so it's inherently different than both other tourneys run to date.
- No limits, so it frees people up to do what they want with their characters.
- Everyone in the rumble is on the same foot as you. No advantages in character, it's all up to your pure RPing ability.
- It's a single event, so it's less likely to drag on.

Cons
- Most people have trouble figuring out new characters, so there might not be interest for this.
- RPing could start slow since there's no history among the characters.
- Judging could be very unwieldly

Hardcore Gauntlet

Basically, you get X-amount of wrestlers together and run them through a gauntlet of each other. Say you have six guys. Wrestler 1 faces wrestler 2. WHoever wins that match faces 3, then 4, then 5, then 6, then the 1 again. Basically, you're in the gauntlet until you've lost three times. The winner is the last person standing after everyone else has been eliminated. Oh, and it would be hardcore rules, so anything's legal.

Pros
- Again, it's a different idea that could be a lot of fun if the execution is correct.
- No-holds barred RPing could lead to some interesting exchanges.

Cons
- The execution could easily be messed up and could cause confusion.
- The time intervals for each individual RP period would have to be just right, not too short to preclude people from RPing, and not too long to have people lose interest.
- Could be too close to PTC's Infinite Gauntlet in concept to run without seeming cheap.

Tag Team Tournament/Lethal Lottery

We've had two singles tournaments so far... why not have a tag team? Tag team wrestling seems to be a lost art, and it needs a good swift kick in the ass. This is just the thing to kick it. Either a regular tag team tournament or a Lethal Lottery would be in order. For those who don't know, a Lethal Lottery takes a bunch pf people and randomly puts them together in teams.

Pros
- Tag team wrestling is fun in RP, and it might bring people out.
- Chad Merritt has told me he might throw in a prize for the winner of either tournament if it's held ;)

Cons
- Tag team matches are a bitch to write.
- People usually like to stick to themselves. Handlers sometimes are selfish in nature.

E-fed Juniors Tournament

A regular tournament, only for handlers who've been in the game for three years or less.

Pros
- It could help make a star out of a relatively unknown or underrated handler.

Cons
- How many folks are there around these parts who are actually new/newish to the game?

So there are the ideas. Of course, I'm welcome to more, and to some feedback/encouragement/discouragement/SOMETHING on this. THis is market research. Which one of these events would YOU be most likely to compete in?

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like the idea of the tag tournament. Tag team wrestling in the efeds is a little slow right now, but starting to pick up, so a tournament like this might help provide that final spark to help tag teams to return to prominence in our hobby. Also, with a tag team, your involvement is split between two people, so you're not as committed as you might be for a battle royal or gauntlet kind of match - might be easier for more people to participate.

- Jarret

Anonymous said...

I kind of like the World Cup. What if, though, instead of countries, the wrestlers were grouped to represent their federations? There could be a team for Free Agents, too.

Anonymous said...

I like the ideas for the rookie/new character and tag-team tournaments best. I can't think of many handlers who are three years or less off the top of my head (me, Amy [Foxx], Josh, maybe one or two others are all I've met), so unless you could guarantee at least eight people for that one, it's not too hot an idea.

One suggestion I will make is not to set specifics for each round like you did the ToC - if anything, just say "Write something" and see what you get - maybe one of the reasons the ToC turnout was lower than hoped was because of the fact people had to write dependant on what was specified - I know for me, I couldn't've done the third round because it went against character. So, just leaving it open for people to write should be fine - just make sure you have a wide variety of judges involved.

-Karl

Josh Ray said...

Barring deployment, I would be all over the tag team tournament (would work Sarge and Drunken Tiger into a strange forced alliance) and the rookie and juniors ideas.

I also think a good idea would be to take each fed head, talk to them, and have them choose a four or five man team to compete in some sort of survivor series or team event would be great. They all would have to agree about their finalized teams, and it could only be somebody currently competing for their roster.

What do you think?

Anonymous said...

I'd like to see teams from all the feds compete. Like you mentioned in the summer league. Teams of four (and some feds may have 2 or 3 or 4) two singles and a tag team. Prime, EPW, UCW, LVW, A1E, MBE, etc.

I think this would be a true blast.

Shane

Anonymous said...

I like the federation (rather then nationally) based World Cup idea. It keeps the original team concept attached with building up on the whole broadbased inter-federational hub thing that you've got going coming out of the ToC.

That is by far my favorite choice. But if it somehow is logistically to difficult to pull of, I think both the Tag Tournament and Rookie Battle Royal could both be interesting as well (although no promo limit can make things unweildy quickly and severly limit involvement of thos that have less free time)

Jeffrey Paternostro said...

What that Dan West guy said.

Russel Harder said...

I would love the idea of a Wrestling World Cup, and I'd actually love to cross-promote it with TEAM, through the Mark...

Funny that this came up, because I have a basic outline for a world cup, right now. That builds off both individual and team set-ups and has the Cup concept work within a wrestling world.

Let me know if you're interested and we could start working on an out-line? As everyone has been saying, atleast for the first go around, it'd better to go by fed as opposed to going by country, as you'd have masses of people Canada/USA/Japan and then little from anywhere else.

Anonymous said...

Really Tommy couldn't you do it like a Davis Cup Tennis event?

Teams of four. For instance say that I put together a team from A1E of Myself, James Irish, Freakshow and Cross and we were fighting a team from EPW of Lindsay, Adam Benjamin, Karl Brown and Frankie Scott.

Singles-1 point
Singles-1-point
Tag-2 points
In case of a tie after the first three matches there would be a captains match. RPing for all three first round matches could go on at the same time easily. Put a 10 day limit on the RP period.

First singles match is picked by one Teams captain.
(For Instance in match one I pick Cross. Lindz would have to pick someone to face him.)

Second singles is picked by the others Team Captain.
(Lindz picks Benjamin I pick James Irish)

This would leave the Tag Match as Brown/Scott vs Show and Irishred. Then if there was a tie it would be Red vs Lindz.

I think this idea could work very well.

Shane

Anonymous said...

Really Tommy couldn't you do it like a Davis Cup Tennis event?

Teams of four. For instance say that I put together a team from A1E of Myself, James Irish, Freakshow and Cross and we were fighting a team from EPW of Lindsay, Adam Benjamin, Karl Brown and Frankie Scott.

Singles-1 point
Singles-1-point
Tag-2 points
In case of a tie after the first three matches there would be a captains match. RPing for all three first round matches could go on at the same time easily. Put a 10 day limit on the RP period.

First singles match is picked by one Teams captain.
(For Instance in match one I pick Cross. Lindz would have to pick someone to face him.)

Second singles is picked by the others Team Captain.
(Lindz picks Benjamin I pick James Irish)

This would leave the Tag Match as Brown/Scott vs Show and Irishred. Then if there was a tie it would be Red vs Lindz.

I think this idea could work very well.

Shane

Anonymous said...

I like the four player - two singles and one tag team - format, although I am not at all sure why you would make a tag victory worth two points as that would just seem a recipe for creating draws instead of clear winners.

IMO - the only time you should need a tie breaker match would be if one of the earlier matches resulted in a draw.

Anonymous said...

I like the idea of a 2 point tag team just so there could be a Captains match. I just like having that scenario set up. I think it would add some thinking on the part of the captains on who they use and hold back.

Man I would really love to see this happen.

I can think of so many cool teams that could happen.

Shane

Russel Harder said...

Aye, the idea I've got is a Davis/Super X Cup mixture...

I'll e-mail it your way, Tom.

Later days.

Anonymous said...

I like the idea of a tag team tournament, but you should do something that forces it to be for tag team consisting of two handlers per team, so that it encourages participation and interaction between the handlers ... especially if it's Lethal Lottery, and if you make sure the teams are drawn from different feds ... i.e. a team consisting of one EUWC wrestler and one EPW wrestler ...