Friday, September 22, 2006

Segments vs. RPs

Reader Anonymous A. McAnonymousington from Parts Unknown asks "Compare the importance to roleplaying to being involved in angles and card events as a whole, and say, with support, what is ultimately most significant to the e-wrestler." Well, here you go.

The knee-jerk reaction to this is that it's a wash. Internally, RPing is the most important thing because if you don't have people putting up RPs, then you don't have a fed (unless you're running an angle fed... but let's not go there). Externally, segments are the most important thing because it's what the readership sees and it's what everything in and out of character hinges on. If you don't have segments or angles, then you just have matches, and that's boring, unless you're a match-reading afficianado.

But that's only a knee-jerk.

To be perfectly honest... I think segments and angles are more significant to an e-wrestler. In my experience, people tend not to remember what RPs went into preparing a card but rather the segments that happened in the card. RPs usually are remembered through the RPer, at least on the FW side, where you have shorter and admittedly less memorable promos. Hell, of all the promos I've cut over the last six years, only a few stick out in my mind: Dudleyville, Michael Cole trying to steal JA's Lucky Charms, Corey the Intern getting doused with tomato sauce... that's about it. I don't remember specifics for anyone, and I think most people operate on that principle. You remember the character, not all the specific works.

However, great segments, angles, finishes, swerves... that kind of stuff lives on forever. Not many people are probably going to be able to pick out a Lindsay Troy promo out of her vast body of work (not a slight), but the Dis angle, Troy Windham's forced marriage, her feud with Cross in A1E, Rabesquedor the Borinator... all those things get burned into your mind.

Another issue is the fact that fedheads often don't post feedback threads for promos except internally. When you go to an advert board, it's the shows that are the subject of feedback threads.

Mainly, RPs are significant internally inasmuch as you need to do them to keep the fed going and to keep your prestige up. Most people don't see what's going on internally unless they're in the fed, and there are a lot of people, more than probably let on, who read shows of feds they're not in.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Personally, when I read a card I pay attention to the angles and skim through most of the matches. There are only so many times you can read about back suplexes before it starts to get dull, y'know?

Matches are nice, but the angles get a guy over.

TH said...

But it wasn't about matches vs. angles, Bolich :p ;)

Anonymous said...

Bleh, it was, peripherally. :P