Thursday, April 02, 2009

TEAM Invitational Tournament Thoughts and Preview

Before we get to the meat of the post, some news. EPW is looking for tag teams. You know how highly I've spoken of the fed in the past, and you know how high esteem I hold Brunk as a fedhead, so you don't need to question the quality of the fed. Also, EPW has always had a strong tag division, even if there have been a dearth of teams, because Brunk is dedicated to having it and putting effort into getting it over. And if you join now, there's a good chance you'll get a Tag Title program sooner rather than later.

Alright, now that that's out of the way, TEAM's fourth annual Inviational Tournament has kicked off. The brackets were announced last night, and play-in matches start today.

I have to say, it's so weird being on this side of things for the first time. I've always been the one organizing, shilling, writing, judging and basically doing everything but RPing. Of course, I helped Shinder shill for it, because even though I'm not the head anymore, I still want people to participate like it's the hottest thing on the block. This will be a good new experience for me though. I can't wait to dig in, especially since comitting to the FFA~! match in the first event he booked and flaming out there.

Onto the field itself, I'm not surprised at the 1 seeds at all. Ryan, Rayne, Nova and Ravager all have impeccable TEAM credentials. I'm surprised that Brunk entered Dan Ryan into this tournament though. I thought that Ryan was all but finished, and that Brunk would try to get Jeffrey Roberts over a little bit more. Roberts has been flourishing in A1E, capturing the Cyber Championship at Sudden Death.

I'm also extremely pleased with my seed. With everyone in the tournament, I think The Phantom Republican at a 3 is about right. I will say though that Doc Silver and Shawn Hart were probably more deserving to get a 2 than Cameron Cruise, although Cruise's success in A1E and EPW recently do give him some cache over the other two, who have more historical successes than recent ones.

Speaking of Hart, I'm very interested to see how his first round match with Horace Tully is going to turn out. Tully is handled by the same guy who does Violence Jack (forget the handler's name), and while he's acclaimed as a writer, I'm not sure how well he'll adapt to the FW style. Still, that's a great match on paper. Same could be said for Impulse against DC Stark. Obi is another narrative-RP mainstay, but I have seen some of his promo-RPs and he's damn good. I think if anyone can give RK a run for his money in this match, it's the Stark-man.

Despite the smaller turnout, I think this year's tournament will be a great success [/Borat voice]. The first tourney only had 32, and I thought that went extremely well. As for who's going to win? Well, I'd be remiss if I didn't think I had more than a decent shot of winning, but being objective, I think this could be Ravager's year to break through and win a tourney. You can never count out Dan Ryan, and it's not like Ryan's been inactive either (I believe he's still competing in NAPW). Nova may be the victim of ring rust here, actually. Jared Wells will also be a big contender if you're looking outside the 1 seeds.

However, I just have a gut feeling. Ravager will claim the first TEAM tournament mantle since D! came out of nowhere and took the first ToC. Of course, given my track record with predictions, I would like to apologize to Allan in advance for jinxing him.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

No Dakota mention?

Your (lack of) words wound me.

(That was most certainly sarcasm.)

Cassidy McKenzie said...

Nice read. I've always liked your stuff Holzerman. I'm looking forward to the tournament, and so far I do like my chances against Bean from NAPW.

I am very much looking forward to facing Ravager, if I make it through the play-ins. And it would be a great match!

Anonymous said...

"Jared Wells will also be a big contender if you're looking outside the 1 seeds"



-I appreciate it dude. Thumbs up to your blog like always. I think its time to update The Jared Wells blog soon.

-Daddy Clark!