Answers to your questions!

Alrighty, you asked the questions and now I answer them. For the record, don’t stop asking them. I’ll still answer any questions in future posts, mainly because I can :p

First up, Sam asks:

Do you plan to do anything with the surveys (will they lead to further posts about them?) or are they just for everyone to read and have fun with?

I’d say that it’s a little bit from column A and a little bit from column B. I’m a huge proponent of people having fun in with things, which is why I’m constantly frustrated reading stuff by several posters at W3:16. Many of them have forgotten that eW by nature should be fun and not overly legalistic. That’s another post for another day though.

Basically, I feel like people need to be able to speak their minds and not many of us post topics that encourage that. I thought that it would be a fun way to get the public to say what they wanted to say about this hobby they’ve invested so much time into.

At the same time, I do plan on doing something with all these surveys. It’s always good to know what your reading audience thinks and what they feel is important. That way, I can write about things people want to read about, other than show reviews which ARE FORTHCOMING! (I promise!)

Next, Michael LeQuan Flash Dove asks:

My question is: why do you handle so many "wrestlers"? There are tons in that list that are AMAZING gimmicks, but do you feel that by handling a company's roster worth of talent that you can lose focus, thus diminishing the RPs, on a whole, and cause you to never reach full potential (even though I never want to RP against JA for another year...I still have nightmares about that match)?

That’s a good question, although I do feel like I reached my full potential with Maggot and probably Roderick McRatrick too. Funny that I should mention that when I was hitting my stride with Maggot, it was in a period of personal discord with A1E where I was in limbo and not really doing anything, thus being able to focus my full attention on Maggs and MBE. When I was in with Roddy, he was the only character I was handling at the time at all. Kinda proves Dove’s point, doesn’t it?

I don’t feel like I’ve ever lost focus on the hobby in total, but losing focus in each fed has been something that bugs me off and on. Thing is, when I commit to a fed or a character, I have a very hard time going back on that commitment. Even right now with my “lighter” fed schedule (ha!), I have trouble really sinking my teeth into one character. I know I need to drop, but what fed do I drop? If I leave MBE, they have no Tag Champions. If I drop NEW, then Sean loses a main eventer and a guy on whom he can rely for something entertaining. If I drop PRIME, then I bail on plans I’ve had with Fergus for the longest time. These are the kinds of questions that I have to deal with in my own mind, and it keeps me from making decisions to pull the plug.

Of course, I go through periods where I focus on one character more than any other, so that’s why Dove still has nightmares about that first round match ;)

Next up, Sam asks another question:

Question: You handled a character named Sephiroth? There better be a golden fucking reason for that :P

Of course there’s a good reason. I thought I had a novel character concept. Sephiroth wasn’t handled as the uberpowerful badass that he was in Final Fantasy VII. He was a mentally ill young man who thought he was Sephiroth and acted like a bargain basement version of the FFVII villain. Not one of my best characters, but hey, he’s part of the lore.

Shane Gerlach had two questions. The first:

What E-fedders that had to step out of the game early do you think had a chance to be true legends in the business?

There are a few that come to mind.

Mr. Hyde - He was already well on his way with his uncanny mastery of Beast and A1E World Championship reign. He first bowed out due to computer and time issues, but when he had the chance to return, he didn’t because of self-esteem problems. He never thought he was as good as he really was, which was a damn shame, because he was one of the best. If he had stuck around, he’d have been mentioned in the same breath as Spoiler, Housefly, Beast and Freakfish in the annals of A1 eW legends.

Mikey F’n W/Rat/Mikey Nunes in general - It might be a stretch to remember, but for a damn while, he was unbeatable as Rat. He had a great character going on there, and he was really making strides as Mikey after being A1E’s running joke for awhile. I guess he just lost interest after a few years in, but he’s the kind of guy that most e-fedders should try to emulate, not in RP style but more in attitude. He always had a good outlook on things, took things in stride and always tried to improve himself. I thought he could have had a World Title or two had he stuck around and made the jump to FW like most of us A1 folks have done at some point.

Snake - Seriously, one of the greatest characters ever always being derailed by real life things happening to him. His run to the A1E title is still the single most impressive short-run that I’ve ever seen. He’s still interested in the game, but he’s planning a trans-Atlantic wedding, so I doubt he’ll ever come back in the capacity that he used to hold.

Also, I know he just recently disappeared, but if Fusenshoff’s handler doesn’t come back to e-fedding, then that is the single most disappointing derailment of a young career that I will have ever seen. With him, I never thought it was a question of if he was going to win a World Championship, it was how many and across how many feds. Shame if he doesn’t come back.

His second question:

Who do you consider the measuring sticks in E-Fedding?
Let's break that one down a little bit shall we?
a. Promos
b. Segments
c. Legacy
d. Legendary status

Promos… it’s hard to say, because there are so many gifted RPers. You can’t have any discussion without mentioning Dan West, Bill Dempsey, Gregg Gethard or JAAAMMMAAARRRRR~! *shakes fist* Nicholas. Off the beaten path, Dave Brunk has always impressed with Dan Ryan and he’s almost as impressive with Jeffery Roberts. Lindsay of course as well. PTC side, most people are going to compare themselves to Ryan Murray, Jeff Ward or Andrew Delling, and I’m not going to argue with any of those choices. I’d also add Pete Speer to that list too, a name that not many people would think of because he’s been mostly in an administrative role in the last few years.

Segments, around our arena, it’s definitely Steve Thomas, especially for Joey Melton. No one does a segment better. All around, I like Devin Woods and Seth Silveria as well.

Legacy… well I don’t think anyone will cast a legacy greater than Chad Merritt and Steve Thomas when it comes to the CSWA. No one. They are eW in some respects, at least to me and my most familiar area. They were the forefathers of FW, and believe it or not, folks, but Chad set up the MBE boards over at 1Blob, so he’s at least indirectly responsible for the A1 community of e-fedding too. I’m sure PTC and WfWA and the angle fed world have their iconic figures, and some of those figures cast similar shadows to their core group (I know Travis Beaven is pretty much THE most influential person in the angle fed world’s history, bar none), but to me, CS is where it’s at.

Legendary status, I’m taking to mean more in the IC side of things whereas legacy means OOC, so I’m going to say Dan West, Jeff Ward, Gregg Gethard and Donzilla are the guys who are the benchmarks for legendary status.

Dan West chimes in with a deuce. First one:

What “retired” handler would you most like to see return to the game and why?

Well, I have a few, and I will name them all, but the one I want to see return most is definitely Dave, Euclid’s handler. I feel like he left the game too prematurely, while he was on top, cementing his legacy. I also feel like I need to make amends with him, because when he got into the game, we were tight, but when he left, we were distant… I feel like that’s my fault. Selfish I know, but I hate creating bad blood and not fixing it. I’ve made amends with Stanton, Jarret and everyone else who deserves making up with, and I feel like Dave and I need to make amends. I’d feel better about my eW career and karma if I did.

Other handlers I’d love to see back are as follows. Jason Martin, since he’s the all-around nice guy who makes other people around him better dispositioned. That and because Shane Southern as a heel is intriguing. Kevin G., who handled PILE in MBE, not for his demeanor (he comes off as a jerk on the boards), but for the same reason why Brock Lesnar should come back to the WWE, his run wasn’t nearly close from being over. The TorgoFace Twins, because I like the way they think about wrestling. Ryan Poole, Mikey Nunes, Stan Mikita IV, Mat Harrell and Joe Seaver, because you can never get enough old school A1E guys. And finally, Bill Dempsey, because he never should have left in the first place.

His next question was similar:

Same thing but replace "handler" with "character".

Well, obviously any character associated with the above handlers, i.e. Euclid, Chameleon, Shane Southern, Vladimir Vlachinko, PILE, RAVAGE, Torgo, Leatherface, Liquid Snake, Mikey F’n W, Rat, Xavier Storm, Cannibal, Necromancer, Metal, Druid, Freakfish, Mr. Amazing!, Slambo the Clown, El Tremendo, Atkins and Pharaoh. Now, characters from active handlers that are now retired…

I’d say tops on my list would be Victor Molotov. He placed second in two tournaments that I ran (the original UXW World Championship tourney and the first ever TEAM Invitational Tournament), and his gimmick is among Dan’s strongest (which is saying something). I thought those runs left him incomplete, and he hasn’t had a defining storyline or feud, and his angle has been left open-ended. Maybe he should have been Dan’s entry into the PTC world instead of Steve Watson, although I can totally see why he went that route anyway.

Another one would be Olvir Arsvinnar. You people all know my mancrush for the character, although I have assurances that Strawsma is bringing him back though.

Lindsay’s up next, and she asks:

What name would you give the McRatrick/Curiosity/Mittens/Lowell stable in my eW survey?

Hands Across Little Timmy’s Crotch

Easy enough ;)

Next up is James Irish, whose question resembles more of a post request:

When are you going to do that theory post on comedy in e-fedding I suggested?

It actually fell off my radar, admittedly. I’ve sort of tunneled my vision towards fed based results and broadening the spectra of people in different communities, so I kinda cooled on the theory posts for a little while. Thanks to this reminder, I’ll start working on this one this week. *Waits for Katz to groan and say SKIPP’D!*

Finally for this round of “Ask Your Blogger,” we go to West Chester for the metrosexual Ryan Murray:

If you could reinvent e-wrestling, how would you do so?

That’s a good question, and it might take me awhile to come up with a serious answer. Maybe this is fodder for a larger entry. The knee-jerk reaction may be to install a vote-based system with mandatory voting so that people HAD to read RPs. You might not get a lot of participation there though.

My one really flip idea though would be to combine online gameplay with RPing and segmenting. Basically, you’d decide results by playing against each other online on Smackdown vs. Raw or something like that. Of course, the best game to do this, you can’t play online (No Mercy, unless you can do this via the Wii), but still, it would work. You do the CAW option, make your guy up to your suiting, and face off. The catch is though, that those who RP and do segments for the shows get pushed. If you’re really good at the gameplay phase, but don’t seg or write, then you don’t get pushed at all and you end up fighting curtain jerker matches. That would get people to write, and because you decide winners and losers via video game, people are more inclined to read everything. I’ve found that segments are easier to read than RPs, and people tend to agree with me, I think.

That may sound like a horrible idea to you, but you can’t tell me that if it worked, it wouldn’t reinvent eW as we know it.