Championship Luster (and some pimpage)

Before we get to the meat of this post, first a few things.

First, congratulations to The Renegade Rich Rollins for winning GTT5. 128 guys, and Rollins pulled this one off. Big ups, and Rollins has pretty much planted himself as the new legend on the PTC Circuit, as he's also their current Global Champion.

Secondly, Russ is doing an interesting thing regarding fantasy booking of... our fantasy wrestling world ;). The VS. Tournament is in nomination phase right now, and basically, the rules are you can nominate up to three guys in each bracket. There are three brackets right now:

FW Bracket
EWN Bracket
PTC Bracket

Nominate in all three if you're familiar with each of the three circuits. OR just nominate in the circuits you're familiar with. I'm going to stress for our FW guys to get their votes out, because so far, we're pretty far behind the other two brackets. Let's go! Let's get that lead out!

Finally, to the meat of the post.

Among the smart fans of real-life professional wrestling, there is much ado about the prestige and worth of Championship belts. A lot of it nowadays centers on how worthless WWE titles seem to be as they get either thrown around like hot potatoes or they're placed on guys like Shelton Benjamin and forgotten for months on end.

I'd bet that most of this talk is justified, seeing that the main focus of any wrestling promotion should be to draw money. Even lower tiered titles can be used as draws if booked correctly, and even if they aren't the draws themselves, they can be used to make wrestlers into draws themselves. Even if the titles aren't the draws they were back in the day, they can surely be helped to make folks who don't have unreal charisma to help draw money.

Some people try to transplant that argument of the worth of titles from WWE-Land to the world of e-feds, claiming that hotshotting titles will cause the same drain of prestige from those belts. Hell, I was guilty of this in the past in my criticism of the A1E Title controversy in the summer of 2004, when Euclid no-showed and Torment won the title.

Looking back, I was off-base, and anyone who tries to make any argument that e-fed titles can lose luster is for the most part off-base, at least when it comes to any of the feds that I follow here on this blog.

You see, the main focus of this hobby is not to draw money. If that were the case, I'd be rich, Chad Merritt would be Vince McMahon, and all the FW feds wouldn't have problems with lag. We do this to have fun, and we do it at our own pace. If that pace is A1E's two-week cycle, so be it. If it's the breakneck, one-show-a-week rate AWC runs at, so be it. If it's more along the lines of a show a month like the pace EPW has settled at, so be it.

So because we do this for fun and as a way to blow off steam, titles really don't have the impact they would in the money-making environment. I mean, it would be nice if all our title lineages were intact and were full of guys who'd hold titles for good long times to make them valuable, but hey, there's not much you can do to control how titles are changed unless you're in an angle fed (which are really the facsimiles of real life feds in that their results are worked).

RP feds are more shoot than the real thing, and because of that, titles can change hands at every show and they'd still be every bit as valuable than if they changed hands once a year. In a way, the spirit of competition protects championship belts. Because we don't know the results of the matches before they're booked, the RP periods are really competitions, and every time a title changes hands, the person who won it has earned it. Even one week reigns are impressive seeing that they aren't just handed out to people like they would be in the WWE.

Plus, titles are a way of honoring people in the hobby who do a good job, and since it's a hobby and not a business, we're more liberal in the way we honor people for ding a good job.

So really, any argument about titles losing their luster because of being hot-potatoed or changing hands due to a loss of smile... it's all bunk. RP e-fed titles will always be protected as long as the spirit of competition lives.

A smattering of stuff

- Boda from PRIME has recently been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and is undergoing treatments for it. Please keep him in your thoughts and/or prayers (if you're religious), because cancer's no joke.

- Speaking of cancer being no joke, the stupid douches from Steelramp who post on EWN, posted this attention whoring post. A slap in the face to anyone who has suffered from cancer or who has had a love one suffer or die from it. Dave_W should be banned. So should anyone associated with that stupid Steelramp bullshit. It's that simple.

- Over at ENN, there was some rumbling about the results of the awards from Edmunds. The exact quote was, "I think the results are pretty indicative of who voted, not of who deserved to win..." I actually think the quote is correct in a way, that the results are indicative of who voted, but I disagree where he says the winners weren't deserving. I mean, any vote is indicative of who votes. I'm sure that when Russ finally posts his Mark Awards, Lindsay Troy being unmasked as Dis won't win his Moment of the Year, even though I think it was the best thing to happen in any fed all year. That doesn't mean his awards are bogus, it just means most of the voters probably don't follow EPW. Honestly, I don't think we should begrudge folks for not following every fed. Not everyone is a fedwhore like I am, and not everyone has a shitload of freetime like I have now (although starting my new, fulltime job next week might cut down on that...). So they'll vote for what they know. And if they only know A1E, EPW and UCW, then they shouldn't be ripped when they don't vote NFW or CSWA stuff over the stuff they know.

- The forums over at PTC got a new addition. Promotional forums! I think this is an awesome idea. There are so many possibilities for fed-advertising, trash talk and other stuff, both in character and out. Although I do have a bone to pick with them banning Joe Schmidt over in-character stuff. Seriously, if you open up trash talk, you have to let more leeway than in regular posts. Seriously, Joe got a raw deal. FREE THE FACE EATER! FREE THE FACE EATER!

- Speaking of PTC, congratulations to Rich Rollins and Shanty Jones for their GTT5 semifinal wins. Big ups to Andy Hewitt, Shanty's handler, for making the GTT final table two years in a row with two different characters. Should be a barnburner of a final matchup. Also, apologies to Seymour Almasy/Sean WIlliams, whom I'm sure I jinxed by giving him Wrestler of the Month.

- If you're looking for an amusing read, check out this ACW RP which really isn't an RP, but is a faux-IM conversation. If you've ever had someone random bug you over IM to join their fed, you'll laugh your ass off at this.

- Finally, here's to hoping there are no more server mishaps for ENN. It's a truly prromising site, and it houses perhaps one of the most promising feds out there in UCW. Jenkins, Scifo and Shane Carnes don't deserve to have these problems plauge them in their respective growths.

February's Wrestler of the Month

It's the last day of February, and with no other shows outstanding, I think it's safe to announce this month's Wrestler of the Month. So without further adieu, here he is.

Seymour Almasy

He almost won last month with his ACW Title win over Khristain Keller and Max Danger, but this month, his resume is a little more impressive across all feds. In addition to his stellar showing in NFW (55 points), he defended the ACW World Championship both against Machiavelli St. Romani and against 5 other blood and goldthirsty wrestlers in the Survival of the Fittest match at ACW Honor and Glory. And on top of that, he's in the GTT5 Final Four. Quite the month for the Final Fantasy.

Honorable Mentions:
Andy Sharp (ACW)
Doc Silver (NFW)
Jack Murphy (AWC)
Olvir Arsvinnar (LVW)

Wrestlers of the Month for 2006:
January: Adam Dick (AWC)
February: Seymour Almasy (ACW, NFW, PTC events)

Well, it was fun while it lasted

So I jobbed in the first round of the GTT5. I guess it shouldn't surprised me seeing that my RP was really different from eveyrone else's, but I wasn't trying to conform to a style in order to win. I was kinda hoping that maybe I'd turn a few heads with how different the RP was, but hey, it's a learning experience, I guess.

One thing that I kinda thought was dumb though, from the critique of my RP...

"It seems a bit odd that you'd get in so early with something short and with not a lot of oomph, in a one shot round."

It lacked oomph? Of all the criticisms that you could come up with, it had no oomph?

I thought oomph was personified by short bursts of power. If anything, my RP had oomph, but it didn't have the "substance" they were looking for.

I don't know. I'm not going to go in and tell them how to judge their own tournament. But I'd like for them to at least the the verbiage right.

ANyway, just for reference, I'll link my RP to the one I lost to. I don't expect anyone from my readership on the FW side to think that I should have lost the match, but like I said before, it's a different world over there. A very different world.

Maggot's RP
Virgil Ambrosi's RP

E-Fed Links of the Week: The Best of the Hype

E-fed links returns, this time a multiple links edition highlighting the best of the hypes (in this blogger's opinion) from GTT5's Pre-First Round Hypefest.

The Legend of Pete doesn't seem to want to win this shindig

Shanty Jones' reort card

The career that got away

Rich Rollins likes fiber

Bong hits!

A little pretentious, but it's still Olsig-licious

The Seymour Almasy dartboard

Hey, stop whackin' it in my shed

25 Reasons why Ryan Murray is teh sux0r

Titties!

Bitch, I'll kill you!

Brandon Youngblood = TO?

I walk the line

Token CAW-KEH CRAIG link

Losing to a retard

Biggest cock ever!

Titties get PWNED!

Golden Turnbuckle Tournament

So I've entered in PTC's most prestigious tournament, the Golden Turnbuckle Tournament, as Maggot. My first round draw is a guy named Virgil Ambrosi. I have no clue who he is, and I probably won't know until I get to see his personal profile.

Still though, I'm psyched. It's a new challenge for me. I might as well preview it,although it won't be very thorough. I'm only really familiar with about nine names in this thing altogether, but here we go.

Xin Xin Xiong - I don't know much about him other than he had some run-ins with Lindsay in fWo. Not a very good reputation from what I gather, but we'll wait to see what happens with him in the tournament.

Seymour Almasy - A very creative writer from my limited exposure to him in NFW. I thought his match against Lindsay Troy in the interconference week could have had some more meat to it, but I liked the one RP he put up. Apparently, his handler is crazy into e-fedding like I am; he handles in like five feds. Now that's dedication ;)

Hoyt Williams - Know of him through Jeff (Angelo Deville's handler) and his fanboyism of him. Seems to have a sterling reputation in PRIME and PTC, so I wouldn't be surprised to see him take the whole thing.

Logan Caine - Know of him through my dealings with him in the TEAM Invitational Tournament. He has potential, I think, and I thought that his match with WildStar could have benefitted from each of them putting up more than one promoo and getting into a groove. Not sure about his competition, but I'll be looking in to check up on him.

John "The Prophet" Adams - Know of him through the TEAM tourney, but he no-showed his first match. Very disappointing on that front. I'll also be interested to check him out, because I'd like to know what I was missing when he didn't show for my tourney.

Angelo Deville - One of the best e-fed characters I've ever encountered, and this is only through limited exposure. Seriously, his NFW West stuff for three weeks was must-read before he had to duck out. Hopefully though, the Maggot/Deville match taht was supposed to happen week 4 on the NFW slate will happen in round three of the GTT.

Uber Judge - Only know of him because he's handled by the same guy who does Rook Black. I'm wondering if he's half as strange as Rook is.

Craig Miles - w00t! Finally, a name I'm very familiar with. One of the best characters I've encountered, but Katz will even tell you that his heart for RPing isn't what it used to be. I thought he showed great fire in the MBE Cup tournament, and I kinda wish he would have put up something more in the third round against Fly, but he's still a force to be reckoned with.

Brandon Youngblood - I'm familiar with the name and the handler, but I can't say I've read a whole lot of RP by this character. I've heard great things about him, but I've also heard he's gotten into trouble politically. So he seems like he could go all the way or job in the first round.

I know it's not much of a preview, but hey, when I get more familiar with this circuit, I'll be able to put up some more in-depth analysis. Maybe I'll have a GTT6 Preview Extravaganza?