Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Philadelphia: City of (E-Fed) Champions (and some NFW stuff)

Before I get to my entry, some notes on the NFW shows.

Much like he was for EPW Unleashed, Steve, handling Joey Melton, was the MVP for this West show. I think he might have clinched WOTM for Melton for July with his stuff here, even if most of his stuff for both shows was written in June :p. I also liked the Riktor/Alias match and Miles going batshit at the end of the show. Good read.

The East show... well, it was okay. The Felix Red stuff was pretty good, as it always is, and the Dan Ryan promo was money. I thought some of the stuff there was underwhelming though. For one, the Payne/Manson match... wtf was that all about? I kinda thought the commentary, with all the announcers lowbridigng Payne, was pretty crass. The match kinda put Payne back on an even footing, but I'm still left baffled as to why it would be put in at all. I don't know... I guess I'm a Payniac at heart and maybe I thought he was in on it too. Who knows. Kin Hiroshi nearly dying at the end didn't really suit me either. I'm sure Do've's got something up his sleeve to work with that. He always does, he's one of the best.

And now, to the meat, shall we?

The last time Philadelphia has seen a major World Championship in any of the team sports was in 1983, when the Sixers nearly went fo'-fo'-fo' to the NBA title. There's a growing amount of frustration surrounding that futility, so much so that the sports fans here are under a collective depression, a depression which clouds the fact that life goes on, and that we've done well in other arenas other than the Big Four. I mean, Bernard Hopkins was a boxing Champion forever. The Phantoms have hoisted two Calder Cups and even the Kixx and Wings have won their indoor soccer and lacrosse titles respectively.

Here in the e-fed community, Philly plays a huge role. Unlike our roles in other sports, we breed Champions here. Some of the best handlers call Philly home. That's nothing to sneeze at in this hobby. It's something to be proud of.

Here's a list of some of the best from the Philly area. I'm from Philly, but I'm not going to list myself, because I suck. Anyway...

Dan West - 8x MBE World Champion, 2x A1E World Champion, plus a slew of other secondary and tag titles, he's acknowledged as one of the A1 crew's best handlers, if not the best. His creativity and knack for building heat give him sterling credentials.

Jamar Nicholas - IWC and UWA World Champion, but most importantly, JAMMAAAAARRRRR~! *shakes fist* gets the moniker of greatest heel ever for his work wtih Eddie Mayfield. Seriously, JN's a master of talking trash, and there aren't very many other guys I'd pick to anchor a fed than him.

Gregg Gethard - Multiple time CSWA World/UNIFIED Champion among others... Gregg may originally be from North Jersey, but we won't hold that against him. He's been habitating these parts for a good long time now. We've adopted him as one of our own. Gregg's great at outrageous heel moments, creating shocking moments, the kinds that if it happened in a real wrestling ring, it would get him pelted with garbage. One of the best old-school minds in the game.

Jeff Kane - MCW World Champion, EPW IC and TV Champion among others... I'll cop to not always bein a huge fan of Jeff's work, but he's improved so much since I've come into contact with him. He's always willing to learn and incorporate new things into his work, and he'll become one of the elites before everything's said and done if he keeps at it.

Tom Ford - IWO and fWo World Champion... The other Philly Tom is among the elite in the angle fedding world. Don't let his 4th round selection in the most current EWN draf fool you. High Flyer is an elite character, and if folks over there didn't have fetishes for old school fWo and tA, he would have gone way sooner.

Adam Shinder - MCW World Champion among others... the only thing holding Adam back is his propensity to disapper. So far, he's done his best to stick around, putting on some good work for MCW, A1E and TEAM. When he's around, he's one of the best. There's no denying this.

See, we have the goods here in Philly in at least one area. Now, if there ever was a competitive team league for e-wrestling writers, we'd definitely have a damn good shot of taking that title home with the talent we've got here.

In fact, I think we should change our slogan.

Philadelphia: Come for the cheesesteaks, stay for the e-fedding!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I didn't know e-fedding had an Adam Shindler. My school had an Adam Shindler. He goes to Cambridge University now, and is an amazing actor. I bet he turns out more famous than your Philly Shindler!

Anonymous said...

I think Ryan "Archibald McGregor" Murray is from the area as well

Anonymous said...

WOTM? Me?

Why Tom...Tom I do declare.

Just don't listen to Lindsay make the sales pitch about my awful PRIME work ethic. :)

Anonymous said...

Jason,

I'll confess to not being caught up on the Manson/Payne feud prior to week 10.

I think you're right and wrong here. I think your skin is a little too thin if you're complaining about the comments from Hatter and Rayne. They're supposed to be written as being pro-Manson. Manson broke out of the North last year to create the East, and Katz gave him free reign this year. So if you're in the East you're in Manson's world.

From my view reading it, obviously the "i quit" was never said and it was a squash of a segment but given that there was a goat and potential milking involved, you wanted more?

You are doing very good work, but part of that means roling with the punches. I have no idea whether Mike thinks Payne is a good character or not. But the match writing to me anyway was nothing more than typical Manson shilling which you'd expect from the characters and the East. That's sort of the setup.

Should you have been given the creative freedom to add to the segment? Sure. But I'm not privy to the emails that were exchanged, but yes...if your request was made in a timely fashion "the match is finished" is a BS response. But I don't know. I know Katz would love more handlers writing segments/matches.

If you had concerns and have had them for more than one week take them up with Katz in a constructive manner. I'm sure if he aggreed something could be done.

McNichols writes 60% or more of the East cards on an given show so to ask him not to write his own character could delay the card more. I don't buy that criticism. If the handler is experienced enough both men should be put over. The question is where does the angle go from here? Does Payne get his payback?

The East is the East. I could complain about advanced booking like Silver agreeing to come in only if he was crowed champion off the bat, and having the Red title switch worked out for a while. But again not being in the league my claims that anyone coudln't get a fair shake would be laughable. How the hell do I know?

The suggestion would be to understand why there's an East conference. And if you feel as a writer you're not being able to write as much, talk to Jon.

-Stephen

Anonymous said...

Jason and I have talked. He had brought up his concerns prior to the match, after Week 9 was posted.

To say the least, most of this is my fault because I didn't allow Jason to see this before the card went up.

Unfortunately, I've been extremely busy and didn't go over everything with a fine tooth comb...so I didn't read the East show and this match until I posted the show.

That being said, I don't know if I would've pulled the match/segment because with the playoffs coming up...if someone's not going to agree with how McNichols does things, its better to know way ahead of time so I can help that handler plan a different course of action so that their fun may continue in the fed.

I've got big plans for Jason Payne myself, and Jason Swift knows that.

Steve is right - the East is the East, and to be honest...its better to let these things happen and see who doesn't want to stay there rather than censor/prevent the person who's put more work into NFW than anyone besides myself and Jamar since it began.

Its really being caught between a rock and a hard place, but I'm confident that Jason will be happy with the future of his character and that's what matters in the long run.

--should die