Quick notes

- The answers post to the "Ask Your Blogger" post will go up once I get a few more questions. Thanks to Dove and Sam for providing some good ones thus far, but I know you guys have things you want to ask. Don't be shy, you can ask just about anything eW related. Like about my answers to the big-ass survey.

- Here's something I'd like some feedback on. How many of you out there would be interested in doing a monthly Power Poll for TEAM? It's basically like the AP college football/basketball poll, only in the interest of time and because of the numbers involved, it'll be a top ten rather than a top 25. If that's something you're interested in, lemme know.

- Remember this? Yep, it's a post on how much I thought death angles in eW were such a bad idea. Well, in a case of real life ripping off fantasy, Vince McMahon thought it'd be a swell idea to fake his own death for an angle. Brilliant, and the worst case scenario, a wrestler or former wrestler actually dying during this asinine angle, happened. Sensational Sherri passed today at the age of 49. Guess whose death got top billing on WWE.com? Yep, Vince's "passing." Ludicrous. Just goes to show that bad ideas in eW also are bad ideas in the real thing. There's no question in my mind that even the most mediocre of minds in the eW realm could book circles around the WWE at this point. That's not a good thing, since this stagnance is a huge reason why eW is perceived to be dying itself.

- Just one more quick note on the survey... I agree with more than a few of the people who answered. I really think that for as cool a move as it is and with as much a wow factor as it has, the C-4 (Burchill's version, not K-Wolf's) is totally underused in eW. You'd think that people would have latched onto this move since I've seen a total markage for flippy moves like the Destroyer and the base move off this variant, the Rock Bottom. Oh well, maybe it's a good thing it's not being overdone, because then I'd end up throwing something at the monitor every time I saw fifty characters with it in their arsenal ;)

Confessions of an E-Fed Conservative

The words "conservative" and "liberal" are tossed around in politics like softballs in a beer league game, even if the terms don't match the person they're describing. For example, many Republicans nowadays are called conservative, yet they spend taxpayer money like their names were Franklin Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Re... err, wait a second :). It's not to say that the GOP isn't a conservative party. They lean right on many issues, but it just goes to show that there aren't many people out there who are 100% right or 100% left on anything anymore.

The same goes for eW, at least in most cases. The right and the left are clearly demarcated around the communities, mainly in terms of writing style and wrestling topicality in shows. Some communities, like FW, are homes to staunch conservatives on the surface, while the PTC crowd leans more to the left, at least that's what it seems. There are opposite elements in each camp. You wouldn't know it on FW because discussion for the most part has gone the way of characters like Stone Cold Rocky Helmsley, but if you pay attention to some writers there like Steve, Jamar Short, Lindz, Pete Russo and even Katz sometimes who write stuff that is panned by and large by the "old guard." This isn't to say that they're eW "hippies," and they rarely ever write things that don't have a damn thing to do with their character as wrestlers, but it's still something different. At PTC, the debates rage all the time, with the right mostly being manned by Ben (Caldera), Dean and, surprise-surprise, myself.

Yes, I tend to think of myself as an e-fed conservative. You might not know it from posts like this where I advocate blasphemous things like off-camera, topically non-wrestling related RPs and writings, but I guess just like most in the political arena, I'm not wholly on one side ot the coin. The reason why I say I'm conservative is that I don't go for the supernatural in the ring, and I tend to be against the supernatural characters out of the ring (even though I will never, ever try to keep a supernatural character from being able to do his thing). I like for everything in the ring and on camera to be realistic. I hate when people come up with contrived finishers, and I hate it when people use stuff like the Burning Hammer or Tiger Driver '91 in their regular movesets (remember that, Brunk?). Although I fully support all ex-PTC feds and am in PRIME, I do prefer "old-school" RP feds, and I think everything's better in script.

Yet, I think people who choose to develop their character off-camera in situations where they may not be even thinking about the arena is not only okay, but it should be encouraged for those who want to do it like that. Of course, I believe everything at the end of the day should tie into that person's character as a wrestler, whether you're explicitly mentioning matches, the fed, angles and such or not in the RP. Why even be in something called e-wrestling if you're going to ignore the wrestling part? I do feel like people should have as much creative freedom as they need to express themselves. Besides, why should they care what Randomposter X or William Morgan think about their RP if they're just looking at one RP in one shot out of context of everything that person is doing in their fed? It should matter to the fedhead, the admins, the people in that fed who've been following that arc and that angle, and who know the history behind that RP and where that person may be going with it.

Does this make me any less of a purist? Honestly, I don't think it does, seeing that the goal of the hobby is to create memorable moments with our characters, be they in the ring, on the stick or any which way else. Those who say it's not realistic... well, you may be right, but having a 24 hour promo channel isn't realistic too, and many of us still RP like there is. That's because we in this hobby have several degrees of freedom more than what the folks in the real world have. Our message boards and promo boards act as if we do have all-access to every wrestler out there. If we have that freedom, why should we have to limit ourselves? Why can't Katz and Steve collaborate on an RP or a segment that features Mike Randalls and Joey Melton hunting sand pirates while Scott Riktor dresses up in a bear suit? Okay, maybe that might not have been the best example of something realistic, and yes, I did have to strain to suspend my disbelief at that whole series, but it was entertaining to read, and a lot of times, that's a perfect remedy to the whole non-topical subject.

Ah, I'm rambling again... my point is, no one is completely on one side of the spectrum. I mean, if I had to portray myself with a counterpart, I'd probably be Rudy Giuliani. He's a Republican, and he's no doubt a Republican on several issues, but he leans very much to the right on a few others, like abortion. He's a pro-choice Republican. That may seem like an oxymoron to you, but to others, well, it just means he's a human being. Same with Log-Cabin Republicans or Hawkish Democrats like Joe Lieberman. Or storyline-RP loving eW righties like myself ;)

Besides, I can think of only a few people whom I think could fit the mold of a total extremist on each side. I know Shane Gerlach HATES anything narrative, and feels like if anything has to be told, it should be told in the ring, on the stick, at the arena, or if it has to be out of the arena, that your character acts as if he was on camera the whole time. I also know that Joe Schmidt and Ryan Murray both believe that you don't even have to write about wrestling to get along in this hobby, and that most people are better off staying away from the in-ring aspect. Even in those cases, they aren't completely set in their ways. I know that Shane can pull a storyline RP out of his ass because he did so for the ToC last year (another subliminal plug! ;p), and both Ryan and Joe at least keep their characters somewhat grounded when they write in-card. You're never going to find someone that goes all the way to one side.

And that's how things ought to be. People shouldn't fall in with an ideology. They should stick to their ideals and be themselves, believe what they truly believe is right, what they believe is entertaining, what they believe is enriching.

One more thing before I go... the post from W3:16 that I linked to was in response to the aforementioned Morgan, who said that he had me on ignore and then goes on to say that I'm on there because I "bash" him for no good reason. Well, I can't believe I'm giving him the time of day on here, but I don't bash anyone for no good reason. If I called him out, it was because he was making stupid, ignorant posts like the ones he was making in that thread. I call 'em like I see 'em. I don't pick on people just because I don't like them. I pick on them because they continue to say stupid things, trump them up like they're gospel and then shirk away from any stimulating mental debate that challenges their short-sighted world view because their wittle feewings were hurt that I "bashed" them. Fuck that. If you can't take having your views challenged, and if you can't stand up and defend them without calling your opposition stupid or cowering away from them, then you have no place being on a message board interacting with other people. I have no patience for intolerance and I have no patience for ignorance, and I will say something if I see either one. You all know this to be true.

Ignorance

Y'know, I know that not everyone has the time to check out all the stuff I check out. I know people don't have the sort of obsession with this hobby that I do. That's fine. If you follow your one singular fed, be it PRIME or some community-independant start-up, that's fine. I don't expect everyone to be as big a nerd as I do. And if you chance across a Head to Head matchup on a site where you've got Angelo Deville vs. Dan Ryan, it's fine if you vote for Deville if you haven't even heard of Dan Ryan. Honestly, if you don't have the time to read Dan Ryan, then I won't begrudge you that.

But to read something like this...

"It's amazing how badly of a beating Ryan will be getting in this match due to the hefty opposition in votes... but then again, the guy has the same last name as a dumbass on the forum's first name... and that brings him down even further.

Would have better gone with Hitler as a last name...at least you could have an asshole gimmick and get away with it or something.

Anyway, this isn't about names and gimmicks. This is about written talent, and character fidelity. And even in those categories, Angelo Deville has the upper hand. Sorry, Mr. Boring Name (which, incidentally, my nick name is more exciting than) but you're getting yet another vote against you."

...makes me so annoyed. Jason Kain, a poster over at the new and improved EWN (and that's not sarcasm... I really like what Jeremy aka Korupt has done with the place and I think there will be a very positive turnaround in the future for it), was the offending commentator. Let's break this down.

"...but then again, the guy has the same last name as a dumbass on the forum's first name... and that brings him down even further."

Okay, so this dumbass shows his ignorance right off the bat, thinking that Ryan's name was only derived from someone on EWN. I'm not even sure that Brunk has ever been to EWN. If he has, then it's only in passing.

"Would have better gone with Hitler as a last name...at least you could have an asshole gimmick and get away with it or something."

Alright, now if he had read Dan Ryan, he'd have known that Ryan plays the asshole gimmick and plays it well. Excuse him for not having an outrageously pretentious name that has plentiful Xs or Qs in it. In case you haven't noticed, there have been some pretty plain sounding names that have gotten over huge in wrestling. Christopher Daniels, Kurt Angle, Bret Hart... you know it's not the name that gets you over, it's what the person with the name does to get over. Of course, if this dingus had actually read some Dan Ryan, he might be impressed with some of the stuff he's done over the years.

"Anyway, this isn't about names and gimmicks. This is about written talent, and character fidelity. And even in those categories, Angelo Deville has the upper hand. Sorry, Mr. Boring Name (which, incidentally, my nick name is more exciting than) but you're getting yet another vote against you."

Yeah, it is about written talent and character fidelity. It's fine if you think Deville is better in those two categories, but it's clear that Kain hasn't read a damn thing about Dan Ryan, illustrated by the "Mr. Boring Name" comment being the crux of his argument against The Ego Buster. Quite ironic that he'd use the writing arugment when his basis for debasing the Ryan character is just his name.

There's a saying. It's better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you're an idiot than open it and remove all doubt. Kain has opened his mouth... well in this case, his e-mouth and removed all doubt to anyone that he's a flaming retard of the first degree. If you haven't read Dan Ryan, that's fine. Just cast your vote for Deville and be done with it. No one is going to fault you for it.

However, to try and commit character assassination like that on an e-wrestler that you have never even read (and at this point, I'm willing to bet if he even says he did read the character that it's a lie to save face), why even do that? To impress people that you may never even see face to face? That's just lame.

Point is, if you're going to slam a character because you don't like it, then that's understandable. But if you've never read the character, then keep your God-damned mouth shut. No one likes an ignorant fuck.

Even if it's just a faceless one on the Internet.

And just as a postscript, this isn't a slam on anyone who voted for Deville on that survey or to Jeff Ward. You know I <3 Deville. This is just a slam on a functional retard whom I'm surprised can even work a keyboard.

Cheap heat from the cheap seats

Yesterday, when I postulated about death and e-fedding, I mentioned that using deaths and mourning as a plot to advance angles is pretty low and classless. Cheap heat at its worst.

But I hope that people don't misunderstand me. I love most forms of cheap heat, especially in e-fedding, when cheap heat can actually be refreshing.

At least in my experience, most of us e-fedders are or at least were at one time complete wrestling nerds. We mark for the Benoits and Guerreros and jeer for the Hogans and Cenas. We want our wrestling superstars to have in-ring talent, much like Bret Hart, Steve Austin and in his later years, The Rock had. And we all think we can do a much, much better job at writing the wrestling shows than the current band of idiots who are turning Raw and Smackdown into their own personal playpen.

I'm not trying to debate that point. As of right now, I'd say every single e-fed I follow can book circles around the WWE.

The point I'm trying to make is that sometimes, we get so wrapped up in the angles we want to run that we try to make them so grandiose, so intelligent that they border on pretentious and really don't have the impact we want them to have. Cheap heat is almost frowned upon.

That's why it's so refreshing to read a character like Troy Windham most of the time. The things he does are so simple, but they are also so effective at pushing the fact that he's someone you should boo lustily at. And I see a lot of guys make a push back to simpler ways to get over on people. Take for example in A1E, after Pier Six, you had Beast smashing JA in the face with the title belt. This is a spot we've seen so many times, and it's so simple, but it works. The same with Beast taking Farnswirth's money and throwing it into the crowd, or whenever someone does the Foley Cheap Pop and mentions the hometown, or if someone plays a character who's obviously based off some kind of foreign menace.

Of course, you can go wrong by trying a cheaper road to get heat. For example, the post I did yesterday.

So what kinds cheap heat acceptable? Actually, I think the easier question to answer is, what kinds of cheap heat are unacceptable? For one, I'd stay away from anything involving playing up the passing of a wrestler in context of an angle, especially if you're doing it for heel heat.

Playing up genocide is probably not a good idea either. So if you play a racist or anti-Semitic character (characters I would approve of, actually... note that Johnny Morgan was one of my FAVORITE characters in UXW and a character I fought very hard to justify having my roster), playing an angle where you play heavily into the Holocaust or the tribal genocide in Zaire/Congo in the mid-90s would be a good way to get on my (and anyone else's with half a brain cell) shitlist.

I think the same goes with terrorism too. I mean, coming from someone who handles Captain Suleimon, it might sound hypocritical, but you can play those characters without resorting to them doing terrorist things or using terrorism, things like 9/11 or Daniel Pearl in their angles. I mean, I'd be all for doing a Muhammad Hassan-esque character, but if you try to repeat the angle they tried to run with him and Undertaker (the one that got Mark Copani fired), then it would be tasteless.

So that's my take on that. Cheap heat good most of the time. Unless it's dealing with death or terrorism. Then it no good. I talk like Quina from Final Fantasy IX.

Before I sign off, I'd like to welcome two new additions to the e-fed blogosphere, both of them taking advantages of the blogging resources at Jenkins' ENN site.

The first one is the Asian Blogder, Jeff Paternostro's (Hida and Yori Yakamo) journal of e-fed doings. The second is Daddy of All Blogs, which is done by Phil Banet (Big Dog, Richard Farnswirth). They both have must-read entries right now, and I don't see that trend ceasing in the near future unless they update at a Brunkian rate. :p

Death becomes him

Since today was a snow day, I had a lot of extra time to do e-fed related stuff, so that's why we're getting treated to two blog entries.

And today's non-favorite characters post concerns death in e-fedding. Not death of handlers, but the death of characters. More of a theory post, although this is somewhat of a reaction to things that have happened in a few feds lately.

Death is a very touchy subject, and most of the time, it's not handled very well in wrestling altogether. In real life, we see the WWE tastelessly exploiting the death of Eddy Guerrero, especially lately with Randy Orton toting around this "Eddy in Hell" angle in his feud with Rey Mysterio. There was also an angle where Triple H alleged necrophilia against Kane (although the real travesty in that angle was Trips not only had this shit on Kane for the necro, he also won in the feud, almost demolishing Kane's heat in the process... but that's a different commentary altogether). And then you had WCW still trying to further an angle between Larry Zbyszko and Louie Spicolli after Spicolli had died with Zbyzsko talking trash on Spicolli after his death (and if that wasn't a work, then WCW was doubly shamed by letting such a piece of shit like Larry Z have a mic in a spot where he'd talk about someone he didn't like).

I'd like to say that e-fedders leave the subject of death alone, but those among us don't at times, and for the most part, it's cringeworthy. Several notable examples:

-Robert Lamb (author of the nWo B-Team stories, Excitable Boy on A1W) ran a character in A1E called Vreck Stone who was among one of my favorite characters at the time and of all-time. However, it was his expressed purpose that he'd bring the character in just to have him die in his hotel room of drugs. And he actually did kill him off, although it was a few years after he had left A1E. Honestly, Lamb has always had a taste for the morbid and occult, and wrestlers dying is a natural part of the business.

But part of the fantasy of fantasy wrestling is that we escape the drug problems and the steroid scandals and the premature death that real wrestling has. Our wrestlers don't have drug problems, and even if they do (like Randalls and Youngblood), they rarely ever adversely affect them in the ring. Our character's demons are parts of storylines that we derive enjoyment from, not that we feel pain from.

-The British Bomber in AWC faked his death in a feud with Red Rock as a way to get over on him. They had a memorial for him and everything, but Bomber came back and "shocked the world" by still being alive. Red Rock went on to win the blowoff match though.

I can honestly say that that was a very crass angle to run. Faking death is not a trivial matter, and it really should make you a pariah wherever you are. Death is too emotional a subject, and to fake it is in bad taste, be it in a message board stunt or in a wrestling angle. If that's the only way you can get heel heat, then you should just hang up the keyboard and not e-fed anymore.

-NFW West, Donaven Winters' handler decided he was going to kill his character off and just retire from e-fedding, at least with that character. Which is well and good until Troy Windham, a character I usually mark for, interrupted the memorial. Once again, this is in the same vein as Orton's "Eddy in Hell" stuff (although this came before Eddy even died, so you could say the WWE ripped off NFW?). Once again, crass stuff, and this heat is too cheap.

-PRIME did an angle where their owner was murdered as part of a wrestling storyline. Now, this falls into the whole "telling a story vs. telling a wrestling related story" that I see some PTC feds struggle with from time to time. I don't even think the WWE would to go so far as to run an angle where someone gets murdered. Two, this angle in PRIME is passed off as a real life thing, that Hin See is dead and there's nothing to bring him back. This is unrealistic. You wouldn't figure that out through a wrestling angle. You'd figure it out in a police investigation and in things that shouldn't be shown on a TV show as being part of the show. I'm sorry. If the WWE tried to do that, RAW would be taken off the air and a federal investigation would be started.

So on the whole, I don't think death and e-fedding particularly mix. Of course, when the unthinkable happens and we lose a handler like Chad Dupree, the only thing to do is to honor his/her memory as best we can.

But when it comes to just killing characters off... that's better off left undone.

Stupid RP fed tricks

First, a note about A1E. There has been a veritable firestorm surrounding the vote system and with the results of some matches. Usually, blogs are there to put their fingers on the pulse of problems like that. The problem was, however, that I was at the center of a lot of those problems. So for me to comment on them publically would have hurt my cause and it probably would have been a giant conflict of interest. But anyway, the vote system did get changed back to something more resembling the old style. I guess I can deal with that.

Anyhoo, onto this week's subject.

RP feds are often times more of a shoot than the actual "real" wrestling they try ti imitate. It's much more of a competition, so in a way, "fantasy" wrestling in this sense is a lot different from the in-ring product of say, TNA or the WWE.

So inherent with RP feds (at least the ones on A1 and FWC) is a sort of tendency to work against your fellow fedmates rather than work with them. You can say that you're there to build angles and tell a story as much as you want (and genuinely, some people are in these feds to do just that), but at the end of the day, all some folks really care about is if they got the W or not. It's an understandable attitude to have, but it's an attitude that over the years I have grown to dislike even more and more (especially when I feel it welling up inside of me... it makes e-fedding a lot less enjoyable when I'm worried about wins and losses).

That attitude leads to certain unsavory traits that are seen all across RP feds in this circle. Stuff like deadline sniping, extreme sandbagging and basing promos on who your opponent has lost to and nothing more... it's shitty practice in my opinion.

Doing entire promos belittling your opponent because he lost to so-and-so are the worst really. How uncreative can you be that you only base what your match strategy is from results that really you had no control over? The best e-fedders create their own heat, and that means taking something out of thin air and just running with it. And if you're going to use stuff that's happened on other cards as your basis, why not take long-running angles and help build into what your opponent is trying to do? It'll give you a lot more material to work with, and things won't get as chippy.

The point is, in any wrestling match, someone has to win and someone has to lose. To use previous losses against a character in deciding who wins and loses the next match is not only unfair, but counterproductive in having a fun OOC atmosphere. BEcause if that's the basis for choosing, you get a vicious cycle for some guys. They can't break into the win column because they're already predestined to lose because of prior losses. And that hole just keeps getting bigger for them.

Granted, in most feds, this isn't a problem because the head booker or the guys who decide the outcomes are sane, logical people for the most part. However, when you get into A1E, where EVERYONE decides who wins and loses, you might not get that fairness. Let's face it. Not everyone is a responsible voter. People will skim matches and some of them will be dumb/lazy enough to go for the "hey, he lost to a scrub! I'm voting against him!" approach.

Deadline snipers are bad, especially when they wait to post their first promo just before the deadline. This problem is easily rectified though. Katz instituted a rule in NFW that you can reply to any promo posted within an hour of the deadline until 12 hours after the deadline has passed. Brilliant. It negates the deadline snipers and their attempts to get the last word in at the expense of someone who might not be around at Friday night at midnight or on a Wednesday at midnight or whenever the deadline is.

Still though, not every fed will institute this measure. And people will still sandbag and sandbag and take advantage of the good nature of some folks who either don't believe in stacking, aren't that good at posting double-up promos or who just don't have time to sit down and think of a good promo without having a reply to their previous promo to work with. It's just lazy and devious shit. It should be outlawed.

But I guess you can't change lazy e-fedders. It's just a shame that they keep getting rewarded for their fed-dividing promo tactics.

Over the Top

In honor of Sylvester Stallone making another Rocky movie, I have titled this entry after another of his movies.

Well not intentionally... :p

Anyway, I had a conversation last night about how "over-the-top" characters usually fare well in e-feds and how that's really the way to go if you want to succeed and entertain in e-fedding, pointing to the successes of characters such as August de la Rossi, The Phantom Republican, Roderick McRatrick, PowerMaster, etc.

The question that arises out of that assertion though is are they inherently better characters than "real" characters like Dan Ryan or Lindsay Troy?

Don't be so sure to answer either way, really.

My knee jerk reaction to the question is that yes, over the top caricatures are a far better for the most part. They're usually more eye-grabbing, interesting and in tune with how wrestling characters are in real life (or at least how they've been through the Attitude era). It's wrestling roleplaying at its purest.

However, with every August, there are probably two or three Shakzpears, ie, overly gimmick characters who bomb, and they usually bomb spectacularly. You'd think it's better to put in a "real" character, someone who's an extension of you in a way and work, really work your way into the featured midcard at least.

But in the same vein, for every Dan Ryan, there are also probably two or three Jared Justices who bomb. It's hard to be interesting if you're saying the same things everyone else is. And really, if you're going to say something the way everyone else is, then you're better off gimmicking the hell out of it. Leave the "real" characters to people who can really cut promos.

Which I guess means that I stick by my knee-jerk reaction and say that I find caricatures more entertaining (although not necessarily better at times). I also might add that they're a lot easier to do and a lot easier to have elevated if you've got at least a modicum of talent behind it.

But I guess a lot of e-fed characters now are either hybrids of over-the-top guys adn real characters, or they were over the tops who evolved into a more real character, so it's not like there's a whole lot of either pure one left.