Wah, wah, I got sand in my e-box

One of the things about retiring from active e-fedding is that I really don't have any accountability to anyone anymore, so I don't have to watch what I say... well, that's a lie. I don't want to alienate people, but really I don't have to work with them either. That's why you shouldn't unbookmark this thing. In addition to Project Discovery Channel, I'll still have some goodies up here, mainly me reminiscing, ranting, raving or doing the fantasy-fantasy booker thing. Even if RPing isn't fun anymore, talking about it sure is!

And boy, do I love talking about things. Why else would I have started this if I didn't? Sure, I had the news and show-opinion hookup, but I really started this just to ruminate on abstract concepts and trends (or as Katz once said, comparing the pros and cons of kumquats). I wanted to talk about things that I liked and things that I didn't like. Today, I'm gonna talk about something that probably pisses me off the most of anything that can piss someone off in e-wrestling - publicly carrying on about results.

I had to deal with this in a BIG way back in 2007 with the WfWA's petty bitchiness about how their guys finished in the TEAM ToC. Honestly, if you were around for that, and most of the readership here was, you knew how big a clusterfuck it was. If not, well, basically it boiled down to that entire community pretty much bitching me and my judges out because their guys didn't finish 1-2-3 in the ToC. They blasted guys like Nova, Tchu and Ravager midcarders. The only person who was gracious about the whole thing was Christian Light's handler, and that was because he placed 4th. I was accused of playing favorites, only inviting them to make "my circle" look good (which was ludicrous because at heart, my "circle" is A1E, and the final didn't even have a FW-related handler in it), demanding privately that I give "valid reasoning" for why I ranked them so low, and then arguing with it when I gave it. It was a nightmare.

It would be nice if the people "buying into their own shit" was limited to communities that didn't have prior working relationships. The more things change, the more things stay the same. Honestly, I would have expected better, especially since the miserable in this situation was from the PTC circuit, but then again, the last time there was an all-out e-fed meltdown, it happened from someone who came from the FW/A1 side of things. It goes to show that there are assholes on both sides of the coin, right?

But just in case you've been living under a rock, which I admittedly have been doing for a couple of weeks, someone else, the handler of Chris Bagwell, just went off about losing in his TEAM Invitational Tournament match. It was in response to a light-hearted blog post by Billy Ferrero. It degenerated into basically the guy named Shane (why do all the people who blow up go by that name?) and all the FW heavyweights, Russo, Brunk, even Shinder himself. I responded too. It wasn't nice, and I'm not going to be nice here.

Basically, the worst thing you can do is bitch about your match publicly. For one, you're a bad sport if you do it. Why you'd want to be immature and ruin something that's supposed to be fun by throwing insults and accusations around is beyond me. Two, you put the booker on eggshells. You make them think that they're not being fair, and then it skews the results in the future. More future results are in doubt now because the booker is possibly influenced by your bitching. Three, it causes massive public dischord and people are then repulsed. Why should someone go to a place where people aren't happy with results?

Basically, what this Bagwell guy did was damage the integrity of TEAM. Even though I've retired and handed the keys over to Shinder, it still pisses me off that someone would have the gall to submarine the integrity of a place I helped build, especially over something as trivial as a tournament match. Here's a fucking newsflash. This is a competition. People win, people lose. This isn't a circle jerk. It's also subjective. One man's offal is another man's feast. If you lose, oh well. Put your big boy or big girl pants on and deal with it.

Am I saying you should be happy with losing? No, that would be hypocritical of me. I don't like losing, and there are times when I take it pretty hard. There were several times that I looked at a match result and I thought that there was no way I should have lost. It happened most of the time when I was up against Housefly in A1E battling for the A1E Championship or against Trip X in EPW. Did I complain about those losses in public in a way that was accusatory to the people deciding the matches? No, I didn't. I vented to friends, I inhaled and exhaled. I got over it, and I realized that the A1E voters and Brunk had their reasons for their decisions. And in the end, I was cool with it, because let's face it, it's not like Housefly or Stevens are slouchy characters, nor are their handlers bozos. They're two iconic characters handled by two talented men.

Why this prick can't realize the same for his match is beyond me. Why he couldn't have just vented to his friends who would have sympathized with him, I don't know. Why he couldn't have just left it to the PMs he sent back and forth with Shinder, I have no clue. But he had to go and take his beef public. What does that accomplish? Who does he get to rally to his side? The FW people who've been there before with the WfWA fiasco? The people there who've been in internal FW OOC dramas? People who actually thought that Duke Williams beat him, Duke Williams, who is handled by Al Larcher... hardly the picture of a FW stronghold? Please.

He says he's putting TEAM on ban. Yeah, okay, that's really going to hurt the fed. Seriously, TEAM doesn't need him, and really, if he's going to react to losing that badly, he doesn't need TEAM, because his blood pressure would rise every time he lost a match in TEAM. This game needs a lot fewer self-important douchebags like him and more people like Ryan Aston. Here's another guy who was unhappy with his loss in the first round of the same tournament, but outside of an offhand reply to the blog post in question, he took it in stride. That's the sign of a guy who gets it.

In the end, this isn't serious business. It's a fucking game. If you can't have fun playing a game, then you need to get your head checked. If you can't take losing to the point where you think it's a vast right-wing conspiracy if you don't win, you should hang up the e-boots and take up needlepoint, because this isn't for you.

In closing, Katz, I don't think you ever thought kumquats could get this vitriolic, could you? ;)

Writer vs. Wrestler vs. Wrestling Writer

Before we get to today's blog posting, a couple of quick hits.

- First, A1E has posted Sudden Death. It's actually been up for the better part of a week, but it's a good read. Three title switches, a rebranding of the one belt that didn't change hands and a shocking unmask. Go to the results section and read post haste!

- Second, some shilling. As you may or may not have figured out, I've created a second blog here on Blogspot. The Wrestling Blog will feature the same insight and wit (response from the peanut gallery on that comment: "lol") that you get here, only directed towards the WWE, TNA, puroresu, lucha libre, indies, WCW and other random wrestling-related things. Please check it out and bookmark it if you're a fan of the "real" thing.

Now, onto the post. Over at PTC, another discussion was started as to whether the handlers considered themselves as writers or wrestlers. This is an argument that seems like it's been beaten to death, and I know I've written about it here a lot, but some of the attitudes in that thread bear mentioning.

One of them is that eW is so different than wrestling, and if they were more of the same and the game wasn't so writing-oriented, then e-fedding would be "99% trash talk." My obvious predilection towards defending the art of the wrestling promo RP aside, it made me wonder whether this was actually true. Having watched wrestling for nearly my entire life and having seen the evolution and the OBVIOUS differences between the WWF in 1991 and the WWE in 2009, I can say beyond any shadow of a doubt that it's not.

If you discount the time on RAW, SmackDown and ECW dedicated to recapping what happened on the other shows, movie trailers or running down the card for the next PPV, here's the breakdown of what happens on a wrestling program: wrestling matches, promos, in-ring confrontation segments and segments where people are on camera but they act as if they're not on camera. Of these, there's probably a tie in time used between the confrontation segments and matches. Next is probably wrestling promos and after that are the backstage pseudo-shoot segments. Ever since the Monday Night Wars started, matches and multi-person in-rings have had the most time spent on them. There was a time during the late 90s when the pseudo-shoot segments were dominant over promos, thanks mainly to Vince Russo's "Crash-TV" style, but it seems equilibrium has been reached in that regard.

So what does all of that mean? Well, for one, it means that the "99% trash talk" number is way out of line. If you equate the number of RPs that happen per-week for the average FWC-styled fed to hours of camera time for cutting promos, you'd end up with HOURS of footage, more than what the "real" thing dedicates to single-entity unchallenged wrestling promos. In that regard, the FW/A1E-styled promo feds are wholly unrealistic to how a real wrestling fed works.

Secondly, all those "Crash-TV" style segments that were huge in the Attitude era and still pop up now albeit in more believable fashion to me equate more to PTC-styled RPs. The PTC RP is basically a writing exposition about the life outside of the ring for the character being portrayed. These things don't often times break character/kayfabe, but they're meant to show what the character is like when he/she is not in the ring or in front of a microphone. Isn't that exactly what a PTC RP is? It doesn't break character, but it's meant to get a glimpse into what that wrestler's life is when they're not at the arena? Sure, the "real" example hardly follows the person home or follows them around during their every day travails, but it's very similar in spirit.

Thirdly... whether a wrestling promo is meant to be written or spoken, for all intents and purposes of e-wrestling, it's written down. You still have to write it in order for you to imagine it being spoken. Matches still have to be written. Segments still have to be written. This game is 100% immersed in writing, so I fail to see how someone who is involved in a fed where very high percentages of content are wrestling promos is not a writer.

The fact is, everyone in the game is a writer, and I feel like everyone in the game should at least have some vestige of being a wrestling fan, whether you are one now or you used to be one and don't like the product anymore. In this game, you have to be both a writer and a wrestler. There's no way around it, and there's no real separation between the two. If there were, well, you'd be better off either trying to write short stories or essays for publication if you have no interest in the wrestling portion, or you'd be better off playing Smackdown vs. Raw 2009 over Wi-Fi if you have no interest in the writing portion.

Just Wrestling: eW results writing coming full-circle?

I often at times wonder why people would flock to e-fighting or e-MMA feds. I honestly couldn't imagine why people would prefer one of them over e-wrestling when the set-up would be the same. You'd still have to write RPs in order to get over and judge who'd win matches.

One day though, it hit me. I thought about the reasons why people liked MMA, pit fighting or even boxing and not professional wrestling. It's all about the "real" aspect, how those sports didn't really need the outlandish storylines that wrestling seems to need, or if they had those storylines, they were organic and dealt mostly with the competition inside of their arena. So that's what I thought would be the appeal. No segmental writing, maybe a promo interview here or there for the card, but the bulk of the action was the fighting going on in the Octagon.

But then I thought of something else. MMA and fighting really doesn't lend itself to the way we write and the way we as writers envision a "good" match going in terms of length. However, our little game we play is a lot more of a "shoot" than the real thing is, at least in RP feds, in that we compete to win matches instead of angling them for the advancement of a greater storyline.

Then I thought something completely different from what that was. What if the results writing process of wrestling was combined with the competitive spirit of MMA? Well, someone already did that. Hyde created Just Wrestling. Well, it's sort of like that. The results process isn't as detailed as other feds. It's more like an EPW short-form, which I think lends itself fine to e-MMA writeups, but still, it retains the panache and the versatility you can get with a wrestling moveset.

Why has it taken so long for something like this to come out? My guess is that people thought that flowery writing, tons of angles and long matches had to be there for fed quality. My own perception is that it's especially true of the angle-fed/PTC crowd. So I was surprised that only has JW taken hold here, but is really flourishing with the name talent it has scored thus far.

It made me think about two things. The first was whether we've actually come full-circle in eW now that we're all mostly older. In the early days, at least from what I've seen in archives and what I've been told, write-ups were fairly low-key. Then again, RPing was fairly low-key as well. From my time in the very early days of A1E, even the standard wrestling-promo styled RPs weren't all that sophisticated. A lot of times, it wouldn't be all that far-fetched to see matches go 10 RPs a person. Hell, the inaugural Tag Team Championship match between Beast/Necromancer vs. Mikey/Snake went something like 80 RPs with a 1-week RP session. That's unheard of nowadays. Still, the mantra of putting out something proportionate to what is put in was as in-effect then as it is now.

With the shorter write-ups both in JW and in TEAM though, there hasn't come a shortening in effort for individual RPs for the most part. The RPs aren't getting shorter by any means, at least the ones that are winning the matches. This, to me, that at least some folks are letting down their guards on wanting the fedheads to put as much out as they put in, if only for reasons of expediency. I've always been a firm believer in putting out what you get in, but I've also always liked having punctual results. The TEAM short-forms for me were always the happy medium, and for the most part, my guys didn't mind waiting for the extra special cards.

It's surprising that those among the angle/PTC crowd are also letting their guard down, but at the same time, maybe the perspective coming from growing up and empathizing with fedheads who have to juggle cardwriting with increasing real life responsibilities. Of course, the reasonable expectation is still there for other feds who have reliable matchwriters to fall back on, but I think we can all agree that places like PRIME and A1E have different structures than JW and are billed as differently. It's also safe to assume that people still like to write matches and big, long segments (more liking the latter than the former, I'd assume).

But playing off that last sentence, the second thing I thought about when thinking about JW is how long that structure will last. While it does take an inspired soul to actually like writing matches 24/7 (like that of Chris v. 2.2398423), segment writing seems to be a passion for most RPers, especially on the PTC side of things. I wonder how many times Hyde has gotten the request for a writer to put an embellished angle segment on the show, and if he hasn't, how long it's going to take. I'd hope that people lining up to join the fed realize that their commitments should be focused on RPing for the competition, since that's the niche that JW is seemingly providing.

I'm all for great storytelling, I really am. However, I do like to see some heterogeneity [sic] from time to time. When a niche fed comes up, I want to see it succeed. I didn't have such a hard-on for NFW back in the season format because Katz paid me. It was a great concept that I loved seeing and was sad to see go. NFW is still a great fed, one of the best in eW history, but for me, it was a little sad seeing the season format go away. Thus is life though, and Katz and JN had their reasons to switch over. Even now, their format is different enough from the other feds that it's still something unique in the game.

But back to JW, I really hope that people who join see the niche that the fed fills and want to work in context of that, not just because it happens to be the "hip" fed to join nowadays. I think Hyde is onto something here, and if he keeps going, he can have JW around for a long time with a varied roster of all-stars coming in and going out without any negative effect on the fed.

And it just goes to show that the more things change in this game, the more things tend to stay the same.

The Return of the Blog: Why I gave up TEAM and where I'm going from here

Well, I said that there was always a chance that this blog could come back, and now here it is. Don't ever say I never gave you guys anything :)

So, in case you haven't noticed, I've decidedly ramped down my activity in eW over the last year. The blog was the first casuality for the simple reason that I couldn't keep my attention span at a full level with all the stuff going on around me. I started to prioritize my eW activities, and I figured that being an eW journalist was nice, but ultimately it wasn't needed.

Now though, things have slowed down, I figure I can bring the blog back, although with the caveat that it won't be as journalistically themed as it was before. I mean, that doesn't mean I won't spotlight different feds at different times, but I wouldn't expect full card reviews like I was doing.

*booing and hissing from Katz*

Now that that's out of the way, the meat of the post. Part of my eW ramp-down included me giving up the reins of TEAM. TEAM and this blog have almost been synonymous with each other, mainly because I drafted the original idea for it here and used this blog as a pimping tool for it. It was a happy marriage, and it worked out well for me. That's why it was so hard for me to give the pseudo-i-fed up. Still though, as I said on the boards, it was a combination of life and the cardwriting becoming much like a chore for me that I had to give it up.

But the question then becomes why I gave it up instead of closing it down. It can be told sort of anecdotally at first. I probably told this story before on here, but I'll tell it again. Back when I first got to FW, Andrew Medina had a fed open which for the life of me, I can't remember the name. Well, for whatever reason, he closed it down when life got to be too much for him or whatever reason. The problem was that the fed still had a lot of handlers who were willing to keep it going, guys who plans and wanted to RP in it.

That situation made me realize that feds didn't really belong to the fedhead, no matter what some people might think. Sure, some are more inexorably linked to fedheads than others. NFW is one such fed, probably the closest example I can think of to a fed being equal to the guy running it. But in reality, even in those feds, the fed belongs to the handlers.

Think about it. You can theoretically run a fed without a fedhead, or at least one singular fedhead. E-fed communism is possible in theory. Whether it works in practice is another thing, but that's not a conversation for this entry. However, if you don't have handlers, your fed is either a concept or it's just masturbation. Besides, who wants to do all the work by him/herself? Not me, says I.

So that's why I put TEAM up. I know that there are people out there that still want to participate in these events and that still want to defend their titles. Even though I set the entire infrastructure up, it's really nothing unique. Tournaments and one-off shows... nothing too revolutionary there.

Thankfully, Adam Shinder, a guy whom I think is a terriffic handler and an untapped resource as a fed-staffer, took the ball and will run with it. Hopefully he can do as good a job or better than I did with it.

So yeah, that's where things stand right now. Here's a toast to being back on the blog, and hopefully, I'll update this frequently enough for you guys to enjoy it.

Building the Fed: The basis

I know I've been Guy Incognito, or worse, Chad Merritt, Jr. :p, in terms of eW lately, but I'm not dead and I'm not disinterested. Anyway, a post over at PTC inspired this first post in an occasional series about building a good fed. The post in question, Global's fedhead basically vented about why his fed isn't well-respected around PTC. This post and series isn't going to be a direct response to that, but I figured, why not postulate on what I think is the best way to go in building a great fed.

So how does one go about building the ideal fed? People have ideas for feds all the time. Don't believe me? Just check the advertisement forums at any major eW hub. Usually, those adverts really aren't that effective, or I should say it seems they aren't that effective. No one I know bites on them unless it's a poster that is part of the community. For all I know, they could get bites from lurkers looking for a fed, but judging by how many times the same poster comes back with several adverts for new feds over periods of months, not a whole lot of these advertisements seem successful. It's reasonable to see why though. These guys are going out and stabbing in the dark, looking for guys to stock the fed that they may not have had contact with before.

Really, the best way to start a fed is networking, not shot-in-the-dark advertisement. I mean, when you just post on forums, you're reaching out to people for the most part that you don't know. The people whom you want to populate your fed probably won't read that post. You're basing the beginning of your fed on people that you may not be able to trust, and that's a risky proposition. That's not to say this method of advertisement shouldn't be used. If you know me, you know I post about TEAM events everywhere to get some more guys involved. However, I always have a core group of guys that I go to get involved before I post a single advertisement.

This is what anyone should do before he even puts the call out for roster members. You need to go out and privately contact those whom you want involved in your operation. You need to get handlers you can trust both to promote a healthy backstage environment and to produce quality writing to build your first couple of shows. Which handlers should you target though? Should you go for names? Should you go for friends?

Well, the kinds of handlers you go for depend on what your vision for the fed is going forward. If you're going into things blind, just starting a fed for the sake of starting a fed, your first shows are going to be lackluster. You need to have some kind of ground floor to build upon. Does this mean having an overarching fed-wide angle to start things off? Not necessarily. Your direction can be just an idea for the fed, or a philosophy. So then, once you have that vision in place, you go after guys that fit that vision. If your vision is to create the perfect competitive environment, you go for guys who go all-in when RPing. If you're doing an angle fed, you're going to look for outstanding segment writers. If you want to create a post-apocalyptic world where monkeys, llamas and pelicans are fighting in a turf-war involving the production of crystal meth, then contact Jon Katz for advice.

After you have that foundation in place, then you post the advertisement threads, and if you get a response, that's gravy. Still, when you get that response, you have to be ready to be a little selective, but that's fodder for another entry at another time...

The Hall of Fame Question, Part 2

I know I've come out hard against Halls of Fame in the past, and for good reason. Feds that don't really have a sense of longevity should tread lightly on how they're going to throw around an honor that should be reserved for the best of the best. I've somewhat mellowed on the issue over the years. Really, if you're going to institute a Hall for your fed, you'd better be damn sure that your fed's been around and active for at least five years and that you don't get into the habit of enshrining active characters or characters who come in, win every title and then quit the fed a week later because they have nothing left to prove.

As an aside, quitting because you have nothing left to prove is the biggest cop out. You always have something left to prove if you're truly great in this hobby. You're not just satisfied with winning the World Title, you want to defend it. You don't want to be great for a month, you want to be great for years. To me, a Hall of Fame worthy character is a character that proves time and time again why they're among the best in the hobby. The best recent example of a guy who should be a first ballot should his fed open a Hall is Big Dog. He went on a tear early on in his career, and then after he had his run with the title, he "settled into the back," focusing mainly on angles and stories. Then, he comes back and takes the World Championship again and on top of that, ventures into the interfed arena and places respectably there as well. That's greatness. It's not a one, two, or even six month run. It's sustained greatness, and it's even more magnified in this hobby, where characters can flame out in a matter of months.

Be that as it may, I'd still be hesitant to fully support any kind of character-based Hall of Fame. I mentioned it briefly in this thread at PTC, and yes Jay, your thread is the inspiration for this blog entry ;). I figured I'd explain it more here. It's not really all because of the temporal nature of characters either. Each character mentioned in that thread that I'm familiar with fits the mold of a true Hall of Fame character. They have longevity (Hell, Melton, along with Hornet and Mark Windham, is the most long-lived character in eW history, still going strong after two decades), they have their peaks and they have entrenched themselves in the history of their respective feds. Still though, it might come off as a slight to the handler behind the character, or in some cases, to the guys feeding ideas to the handler behind the character just to enshrine the person "on stage." Even though real wrestling Halls honor the character, usually, those characters are inextricably linked to the person playing it. Many of us have handled way more than one character, and a good amount of us have handled more than one character very successfully. On top of that, Joey Melton doesn't/didn't write matches. Steve Thomas does/did, and my criticisms about him handling the EPW crew notwithstanding, Steve Thomas has done an excellent job writing matches, ideating angles, giving personality to various NPCs, elevating other handlers by association and steering directions of entire feds. Just to honor what Joey Melton has done in character is a tip of the iceberg of what Steve has done both in and out of character over the years. In the grand scheme of things, which is more important?

That's why if I'd ever really get behind a Hall of Fame project, it'd have to be an across the board Handler Hall of Fame. That would pretty much solve a lot of problems. For one, it'd give people who were very good with several characters but never really had a defining character a place to be honored. It'd take into account things like fedheading, matchwriting, angle planning and the like. It'd also be a place for people who may not have had a great impact in a fed or via handling, but busted their asses to provide forums, host interfed events or mediate crises, forum guys who've had great impacts on the hobby but really don't have a character or fed attached to them.

Even though many of our best characters have a lot of us in them, when the character is honored, a lot of times, it feels like the person behind it isn't being honored as much. In the end, everyone just wants to feel pride, and I say there's more pride when someone is honored for the work they did, not just as the piece of work that they roleplayed as.

Two years of kumquats, making people look like Hitler and just being Blogotron

Hard to believe, but the Blog is two years old today. I never thought I'd take it this far or that it'd become this big, but hey, stranger things have happened. I mean since I've started this thing, angle fedding has become an endangered species, PTC has ceased operations as a full-time interfed and yes, NFW has finished its second season four years ahead of schedule.

Not to sound pompous or self-centered, but I feel like this blog has become bigger than I am. It has become this place where people come to find out about places they're not fully familiar with, a place for people to get news or opinions, and occasionaly for them to bitch at me when I say something they don't agree with :p Regardless, over these two years, with all the characters I've handled, the most important one has become the character of the Blogger, which isn't a character at all. I'm somewhat of a journalist, and really, the only one that eW has right now.

I'd like to let you in on a little secret; I never meant it to be this way. I really don't want to be your only source of eW news because, quite frankly, I don't have the time to be your only source of eW news. I always thought that I'd be the first in a wave of several eW bloggers, a veritable e-fed blogosphere. For awhile there, I thought that was going to be the case. You see the sidebar to the right of where this is. It's full of links to other blogs. The only problem is, some of those links are dead, and others haven't been updated for months, and if they have, it's been sporadic at best. That's a damn shame.

I'm not saying that people need to step up and be exactly what this blog is. I try to take a more worldly approach, a broad scope. If there were two or three more bloggers like me, that'd be fine, but everyone who aspires doesn't need to focus on anything more than a fed or two that they're familiar with. We need a more parochial approach to blogging, people who comment on just some of the old PTC feds, or a guy who covers NAPW and REBEL and so on and so forth.

People complain that the hobby is dying. I still see a ton of handlers lurking around the big sites, and that tells me that there's at least a passing interest. If the hobby is dying, it's only because people don't care anymore. If you start caring, you do things like handle in feds and promote them. Blogging is one of those ways to promote.

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 ;)

What You Want (And an explanation of why I haven't been giving it to you lately)

Well, I'd like to say first and foremost thank you to everyone who's filled out the feedback survey so far. If you haven't, please do. I hope there are more readers out there who have opinions, mainly on the state of the blog. I do take suggestions to heart, and while I still do like to write about the state of the hobby and writing theories, I understand that some people *cough*Katz*cough* don't like to read that. I'm not going to stop writing about that completely, but coming from the comments I've seen so far in the feedback, many people would rather see the fed reviews and happenings reported.

Truthfully, I like to write about the happenings and show feedback myself. If I didn't, I don't think that Colossus, Coast to Coast or Golden Dreams would have gotten the attention that they did. I just really haven't had a lot of time to sit down and really dissect a wrestling write-up, even for feds that I'm in. I skim results, look for the finishes and major angles, and then it's onto the next order of business, usually RPing or organizing something for TEAM.

Yes, TEAM. Katz said that TEAM has killed this blog, and whether it's because I stopped writing about things he likes to see or my frequency has dropped down to historically slow levels (even then, compared to the rest of you blog-slackers, I'm freaking Mike Stanton, circa 2002), he could be right. Really, I've spent a lot of time making sure that my tournaments are running smoothly and that my trains are running on time. Not an unfair thing to ask of a fedhead really, but I do realize I've probably spread myself so thin across the eW spectrum that I can only really devote myself to one thing fully at a time. Then work comes along and I get tossed onto a hectic schedule where I'm commuiting 90 minutes to Freehold, NJ, and a lot of my free time gets sapped.

To say that I don't have the time though... maybe that's a misnomer. I allocate my time very poorly when it comes to eW. A lot of times, I get sucked into those theoretical debates with the mental midgets over at W3:16. I know I shouldn't, because they're not worth my time, but I can't stand to see people pontificate about things and not be pontificated back at. It's a guilty pleasure of mine. I spend a lot of time at other message boards too... time spent looking at forums that don't update very frequently. I could be looking at shows, but my mind gets so fried from work and from other things that I really don't have the energy to concentrate through an entire show nowadays. Is that my fault? Yeah, it is, but it's something that I will work on to bring you a better product.

So, in closing:

TEAM + RPing + Work + Dicking around the Internet = No fed reviews.

I can't help the first three. My duties lie to the people who RP for me, the people I RP for and of course, my real life obligations (which do far outweigh the other two). But the last one is something I need to stop anyway. Seriously, there are only so many times I can call someone out on their ignorant, misguided views on how FW feds are all "'I better than u,' 'no, EYE better than u'" and boring headlocks all the time.

So... there's a pledge from me. More constructive content, more fed reviews. But if something theoretical comes up and I feel like I want to discuss it, well Katz, you're probably just going to have to skip it :p

2007 Predictions and Advice!

Here comes the second half of the YEAR-END EXTRAVAGANZA~! Of course, it comes about a week into the new year, but hey, who's counting? >=) Yep, it's predictions and advice, although the way I've been with predictions, you might not want to read too much into these :p

Anyway, before we get into the new year spirit, another blog gave out some year-end awards. The Beasties! are A1E-centric awards, so if you follow the fed, or if you'd like to follow the fed in 2007 and want to know the best of what happened last year, check 'em out.

And now...

A1E

Predictions

- An old face will win the Best of A1E Tournament, and like Spoiler last year, he won't choose the A1E World Championship shot.
- A newer face will end the year as A1E Champion.
- There will be a surge in Tag Team Division activity.

Best Bet to Win the A1E World Championship - Dan Ryan (two years in a row... hopefully I'll be right this year!)
Best Darkhorse to Win the A1E World Championship - Rocko Daymon

Advice

There's a trend in A1E when it comes to building title programs. Outside of the World Championship, the formula is that the week after a PPV, you have a contenders match for Title X, and then the winner gets some combo of non-title match/random match against another title contender/tag match against opponent. It doesn't seem like much thought is put into the titles other than who deserves to be in the contender's match. I like that only because it puts something merit based into the title consideration, and I'm always a huge fan of the titles going on someone who deserves it through their work RPing or doing angles and segments on the show.

A1E is also known for strong angles and feuds too though. I mean, they took home Feud of the Year for IrishRed/Mr. Amazing! and they had two very strong Angle of the Year candidates (Anti-Cross and "Slambo"). This isn't just a recent trend either. A1E's had some of the best wrestling stories around since its inception. At times, these great feuds and angles center around the secondary titles. Even as recently as the aforementioned Beast/Cross actions. It's not like they forget about the secondary titles all the time.

However, this uninspired pattern of how title shots are doled out is still prevalent enough that when I notice it, I sigh to myself. It smacks of randomness, and too much random in your long or even short-term plans for your fed can spell trouble. Like I said, I love merit-based title shots. I don't want to see them get rid of that aspect of handing out title shots. However, I'd like the booking committee to step up and show some testicular fortitude. I want them, right after a PPV, to get together, confer and peg two guys they feel have been kicking ass in the fed enough to get a strong program for the Cyber or Triple Star Championship. Then, I want to see them work with that contender and get a base angle in place for them to head after the title. It doesn't have to be Anti-Cross levels of sophistication. Simple works. Even if it's just something as simple as a run-in or a backstage attack, run with it.

And while it might seem that A1E is loaded with people who are former World Champions or who should be on World Title level, it also has a strong history of former World Champs coming down and holding the Cyber Title after their World Title reign. Beast, Housefly and Cross are prime examples of this.

And as for the question of tag team bookings, right now, I know there's a dearth of tag teams. There really has been, outside of one spike in early 2006, one for the last two years, which explains why Torment and Haven and then Dog and Ryan got to have their mammoth title reigns with little to no competition. No offense to either team here; seeing that the former was my Tag Team of the Year for 2005 and the latter notched 4th place this year, I hold both in high regard. However, there were at times little to no competition for them. I don't think that's much of a debatable point here.

I think in this case, A1E has to institute a Lethal Lottery once a year. If you're going to slap a random team together, at least do it in the case where everyone at least seems gung-ho about it. Tag team wrestling may seem blah to some people, but once you say the words "Lethal Lottery," those same people seem to go agog. I don't know why, but they do.

A1E's secondary title situation is easy to fix. I just hope they take steps to fix it, because it would help them so much more.

CSWA

Predictions

- Troy Windham will win Gold Rush
- Over/Under on Gold Rush posting date/time - 11:59:59 PM, February 28th
- Over/Under on post Gold Rush shows - 2.5

Best Bet to Win the CSWA UNIFIED Championship - Mark Windham
Best Darkhorse to Win the CSWA UNIFIED Champioinship - Steve Radder

Advice

I won't say anything about the late cards, because I wouldn't be adding anything new. Everything that's been said about the lateness has been said and let's keep it at that.

What I will talk about is the influx of PTC-styled RPers coming into the Granddaddy. I think it's good that Chad and Steve are taking chances on these guys and bringing a new style of writing into the FW community. However, I think they need to be more careful in who they bring over.

FW has always been a wrestling-oriented community with a concentration in writing wrestling promo styled RPs. Two feds have reached out to other communities who've developed different styles different than what we have; NFW and CSWA. Katz initially hand-selected his roster, although he brought more people in through open apps. Still, he's had success in PTC-styled RPers adapting to the promo (like Nova), or narrative writers writing non-traditional RPs about their wrestlers in a wrestling light.

The CSWA has taken more of a sweeping, open-application approach. This isn't to say they weren't selective; there were some rejected apps, so it's not like Chad let in anyone with a pulse. However, in the Gold Rush, it seemed there were more than a few run-of-the-mill narrative guys in there. I could totally be off here due to misinterpretation of how the RPs went, but there were a lot of banal, non-wrestling related stories going on. I know this goes on a lot in PTC, but that's okay because it's their style over there, or at least it's the defined mediocrity in their style. Not everyone's going to be the best at what they do.

But we already have our own mediocre folks in our style over here. We have the folks who post the utterly uninspired "i r better than u" promos here, the kind that the snobbery of the narrative writing world try to frame all "trash-talk" RPs as. They're our mediocrity, and they wouldn't be accepted abroad. That's perfectly okay. Only what's considered really good should be able to fly anywhere. But why is it that non-wrestling banality is accepted in the wrestling fan-intensive side of this eW spectrum that's known to my blogging audience?

I think that if/when the CSWA gets back on track, they need to make it clear that regardless of what style you write in, it has to be about the wrestling product, about what's going on the company. No masturbatory character development that has nothing to do with them as wrestlers or the storylines contained within the company that affect them as wrestling characters.

EPW

Predictions

- A darkhorse will win King of the Cage
- By the end of the year, both former EPW Champions will have made a return
- Richard Farnswirth will establish himself in EPW in 2007 much like he did in A1E in 2005-06

Best Bet to Win the EPW World Championship - Karl Brown
Best Darkhorse to Win the EPW World Championship - Kazuo Shizaki

Advice

What do you say to the fed that really has everything? I know, I know, we're still coming off the heels of a few pretty laggy cards, and it remains to be seen whether a) shortforming is the answer and b) whether PPVs will have the same lag problems. At least shortforming has worked for Aggression so far.

Still though, EPW has an enviable mix of handlers and characters (the recent addition of Sky/Silvio Fiore only enhances that diversity), perhaps the best angle mind in all of eW today and a gifted set of writing hands that put some of the best segments and matches up in the extended eW world. Really, the only thing EPW has to worry about is complacency (and of course, the whole matchwriting lag thing for PPVs, but that's already been beaten to death ever since the fed opened). It might be a cop-out, but I really can't think of a single, novel thing to harp on about EPW.

I hope that's taken as a complement.

FUSE

Predictions

- Dean will end up handling actively before the end of the year (whether he sticks or not is a different story! :p)
- Dan West will become as known in PTC as he is in FW/A1 land through his work in FUSE
- GTT7's Champion will come from FUSE

Best Bet to Win the FUSE Universal Championship - Clinton Sage
Best Darkhorse to Win the FUSE Universal - Steve Watson - CPA

Advice

I've said before that I was concerned with KillZone's wrestling topicality. This was only after reading one show, and I was impressed with other shows of theirs that I read, so I won't harp on that. I will give this advice.

I would be very wary about volunteering to take on PTC matches for the time being. I don't suggest dropping out of the interfed, because enough feds have dropped/will be dropping within the future, and FUSE is definitely one of the top feds there. However, I feel that one-third of the admins at PTC (hint, there are only three) has a giant conflict of interest when it comes to handling of FUSE and its dealings. It's well-known the disdain that admin shows for FUSE's fedhead Max in public forums and in the way he handled the last time FUSE took on a PTC match (a match that his home fed was supposed to take on in the first place). It wouldn't be fair to the other two admins, for whom I have all the respect in the world for, for FUSE to drop completely or totally become totally sheltered member of the interfed (much like the WWA is right now), but I wouldn't feel right doing favors for people who treated me and my fed like shit. I wouldn't want the aggravation that comes when every move that is made gets microanalyzed for fault, even if it's by one person, however petty and small he is.

Wait for a shakeup, get some assurances from the other two, do something before you offer your neck out to be guillotine fodder again. FUSE administratively runs too tight a ship for it to be knocked off course by a blustery wind.

MBE

Predictions

- Spoiler and Freakfish will have one last battle in an MBE ring before one (or both) of the characters is retired
- Whatever secondary title that is introduced, I see CFC being the first holder of it
- There will be a sex-toy themed PPV

Best Bet to Win the MBE World Championship - Andy Gilkison
Best Darkhorse to Win the MBE World Championship - Jeffery Roberts

Advice

Growing pains suck and recruitment is a pain in the ass. MBE has felt both of these truisms hard since reopening in August 2006. The once-proud landmark fed of the A1 world probably was never used to this, even in the beginning. I wasn't around for it, but the spontaneity [sic?] with which it began indicates to me that they had a healthy amount of handlers to begin with or they didn't have a lot, but they weren't keeping count.

If the latter was the case... then hey, why not take that route again? Sure, this restart might not be as spontaneous as the fed's original beginning, but it's got a great, great core of handlers that you can build around. If it takes a year to take off, and if you have to retread matches twice or thrice, so be it. You can build a nice history and some nice feuds that way. You can definitely build some original stars as well.

MBE may have suffered from the fact that the characters at times could seem larger than the fed. Often times, we associate Freakfish, Hida Yakamo, Maggot, PILE and of course, the Spoiler, as being MBE rather than being a part of it. Well, none of the above are involved in a super-active role, and Hida and FF are only there as support characters right now. If there was any time to establish your CFCs and your Ace Masons as the new breed of MBE homegrowns and your Andy Gilkisons and Justin Evitables as the next class of MBE legends, it's now. Having a smaller fed can be conducive to both of those, especially since you don't have as many needy mouths to feed. You can get a better sense of cohesion. And best of all, shows can be shorter and you can snag the attention deficit crowd with your writing so that when you do establish the fed, people can join and fill out the roster in time.

NAPW

Predictions

- New and Improved D-X will gain accolades as seperate single entities
- D! will be back by August
- At least one NAPW superstar will make a TEAM event final

Best Bet to Win the NAPW World Championship - Ravager
Best Darkhorse to Win the NAPW World Championship - Bruce Richards

Advice

Exposure can do a lot of great things for a fed. It gains it new fans, more respect from peers and increased interest in joining. In the last year, NAPW, through their strong interfed showings in both TEAM and MCW events, got a lot of exposure in the FW world. More people in our community know who NAPW is now than before.

The "e-fed indie" also doesn't seem to have much of a problem recruiting. However, I don't think that has anything to do with their exposure in the FW world. In fact, the only guy from our sphere who has ventured over to NAPW was Promo, and that was for a short stint. All in all though, I think that's a good thing. NAPW has its own flavor, its own handler identity, its own corner. To me, the reason why I always look forward to NAPWites participating in TEAM matches is that they're truly fresh matches, matches that are totally in the spirit of the interfed, matches you haven't seen before.

Now, with all that being said, I don't know if it's NAPW's intention to try and actively recruit more from the FW side, but I'd just like to say that would be a bad idea. Before anyone says anything about it, that's not a commentary on the bank of handlers/characters that we have over at FW. I think the extended FW/A1 community has the best set of handlers on the net in terms of ability and atmosphere. I just think that if there was a full-scale FW character invasion into NAPW, it would make that fed just another FW fed. While Brunk, Shane, Edmunds and Katz have done great jobs maintaining separate identities, but the feds still share more than a few characters amongst each other.

NAPW though? Their roster is almost wholly unique. I would hate to see them have the same sort of homogeneity issues that FW has. If an FW guy comes over there on his own will, then by all means, he should be accepted. I don't think any fed should adopt exclusionary tactics. However... I wouldn't go recruiting FW guys, unless they're doing all new characters. Then that's okay :)

NEW

Predictions

- Team Baked will be the first NEW Tag Champions
- Larry Tact will end up sending VP Juliet Marceau to the nuthouse
- HAL wins BattleBRAWL III

Best Bet to Win the NEW World Championship - Larry Tact
Best Darkhorse to Win the NEW World Championship - Chaos
Best Bet to Win the VENUS World Championship - Foxx

Advice

Much ado has been made of the new offshoot of NEW, the VENUS Wrestling Alliance. While I've long not been a fan of NEW's women's division (because I feel eW should be totally gender integrated), I feel this new fed could be something different for the community. Just for the fact that it's all women makes some of the dynamics different. Despite my feelings on segregated characters, I think this could be a good idea.

However, the second it starts to detract from NEW, it has to go. NEW has gone from a niche fed for mid-carders in FW to being one of the elite starmakers in all of eW. Edmunds has done a fantastic job building it up despite the periods of lag that befell it last year. Despite the fact that Edmunds, as well as Shane C. and Brunk, are on the shortforming bandwagon, his law degree takes precedence and another lag is possible. As it stands right now, he's got three shows on his plate to worry about getting out; Raucous, Rapture and now, Bitchin'. If the last one holds up the former two, you're going to have a lot of people unhappy in the main fed about the new niche fed in FW holding up their progress.

Like I said earlier, I really hope VENUS makes it, and I really hope Sean can juggle both of them at the same time. But he needs to be careful in his juggling and there's no denying that NEW has to be his first priority.

NFW

Predictions

- Yes, we will see WrestleBowl before 1/1/08
- Somehow, Kooter will end up ending Felix's ULTRATITLE dreams
- We haven't seen the last of Mike Randalls

Best Bet to Win the NFW World Championship - Kin Hiroshi
Best Darkhorse to Win the NFW World Championship - Beau Michaels-Cruise
Best Bet to Win UWA World Championship - Eli Flair
ULTRATITLE Final Prediction - Nova over Doc Silver

Advice

If everything goes to plan this year, we'll see a period of coronation, split and transition in NFW. The coronation is quite simple; someone is going to become the second holder of the NFW ULTRATITLE (or if you weeell, the CSWA ULTRATITLE as presented by NFW :p). As for the split and transition? For the latter, it's been well-documented that after these playoffs are over, NFW is going back to the traditional fed format. No more seasons, no more standings, no more ULTRATITLE. The split comes when JAAAMARRRR~! *shakes fist* opens the UWA as its own fed separate of NFW.

Going from one fed with an innovative format to two traditional feds seems like it's a disappointment in terms of style and a doubling in workload with a split in the staff (from my understanding, Katz isn't involved in UWA proceedings... it's all JN baby). Neither of those things sounds better than what NFW has now on paper, but I still think it can work. Katz will have help in McNichols on the staff. It's the UWA I'm more worried about seeing that Jamar has had trouble getting matches in on time before, and if he's the sole fedhead... well he's going to need to step up, or find a reliable matchwriting monkey :p.

But as for NFW itself, their atmosphere might be enough to continue their differentiation from the other FW feds, but I think there's one thing that they should do to keep themselves somewhat unique. I think they should keep the ULTRATITLE and a bastardized form of the standings. Katz will probably shirk reading that sentence, but I think I need to be heard out here.

I don't mind the season format being scrapped, but I also think that they should keep the idea of standings and tabulated win/loss records. Keep a running record of the standings and at the end of the year PPV event, in say, December or even January, take the top 8 wrestlers in terms of their winning percentage (provided they've had a minimum amount of matches in that year) and have them duke it out in a one night ULTRATITLE tournament. It would be a good way to keep the "sports league" spirit of NFW alive without taking away from the traditional fed side of things. In this set-up, the NFW World Champion would still be held above everyone else, but the ULTRATITLE winner would still have substantial honor upon them.

PRIME

Predictions

- One of the AWC Orphans will win Dual Halo
- Facey will definitely end up making the eW community go "Wha?" at least twice
- Jewel in the Crown 2007 winner... Pierce Lavelle

Best Bet to Win the PRIME Universal Championship - Sonny Silver
Best Darkhorse to Win the PRIME Universal Championship - Lindsay Troy

Advice

The story in PRIME since AWC closed is the size that the roster has ballooned to. They took in many of the AWC orphans (myself being one of them) in addition to some of the other new guys who've come in since (Bastille, Asa Fountain). This size roster may not be unprecedented; it's my understanding that PCW before them had close to 60, and even right now, the reopening Legacy of Champions has a giant roster. The difference between LoC and PRIME though is that the Legacy has two different "brands" so to speak; Classic (which I assume is where the Legacy Championship is) and Underground.

PRIME doesn't have a brand split, and in my not so humble opinion, it should NEVER have a brand split. Despite the roster size being as large as it is, I feel that they should stay the course and go on with one unified brand, for a few reasons.

One, brand splits are overdone. You have or have had them in LoC, AWC and even NFW to a degree (although the "conference" monikers are so much cooler). PRIME is supposedly the leader amongst all PTC (and it could be argued all of eW) feds, so why should they have to follow what other feds have done in the past?

Two, there's no telling how long the roster will be at this size. People drop all the time for whatever reason. Whether it's real life, burnout, quitting or being fired for being annoying or disruptive, it happens. There's no guarantee that the roster will be this size in March let alone December. If you go with a brand split, then when those who will drop do drop, instead of taking it in stride, you have to go into hardcore recruiting mode to fill those spots. It's not fun.

Thirdly, there's already one fedwide angle going on (FUCK YOU!). No need to disrupt that with another one.

So what should PRIME do? I think they should ride this out for a few months with one show. If the roster size stays massive after Culture Shock, then add a secondary show without disrupting the weekly pace of ReV. I also think that it would be more than wise to reinstate and push the tag team division. There's no better way to utilize more wrestlers with fewer segments than with a healthy tag team division. Of course, the hardest part here would be to change reinforced images in people's heads that being in a tag team doesn't equal personal glory and they only want personal glory. Still though, I think it can work. PRIME has a lot of people on the roster with collaborative spirits (Joe Schmidt, Joe Steppel, Lindz, Seth and Ferg just to name a few). I really do think a tag division can work now, and if it does work, it'll help out the roster size question immensely.

UCW

Predictions

- Team MCW will pull out some new reinforcements in their battle with UCW
- Commissioner Cloverleaf will drop the title and return full-time in the ring
- There will be enough characters in UCW by the fall for a tag division

Best Bet to Win the UCW World Championship - Big Gay Bruce
Best Darkhorse to Win the UCW World Championship - Dakota Smith

Advice

Right now, it seems UCW is dominated by authority figure angles. Be it the several segments a show featuring Commissioner Ken Cloverleaf or the Team MCW happenings with Jalen Latham as the mouthpiece, it seems to be overkill to me. Even IrishRed's current run is happening due to him being pissed at management for misusing him. Authority figure angles are good when they're done sparingly, no matter how well-done they are.

Right now, UCW has a good enough roster that it can carry several feuds without management interference. The addition of Beast recently only reinforces the locker room. Authority figure angles often rely on guys who aren't competing in the ring getting heat, and you really need all your heat spread around amongst the characters that are active. To suck heat from a strong roster such as this is counterproductive in my opinion.

I feel the best way to do this is to somehow convince Scifo to handle Cloverleaf full-time and install a faceless, behind the scenes sort of commissioner. Use the Jack Tunney mold. He comes out to make announcements, and that's about it. Don't make him out to screw anyone or meddle. I think that would help things out that much more.

Guest Bloggings! Snow on New Blood

Our next guest bloggings comes from David Snow (I don't know his real last name :p), who handles Jason Snow. He writes on a subject that's near and dear to my heart, and I have to say, it's a must-read.

---

Now and Then
by David "Snow," Special Guest to RRoaEL

Upon returning to e-wrestling after a three year hiatus, I was staggered to see the differences in the game. First of all, it seems that angle feds turned out to be just a fad after all, and the RP fed once again reigns supreme. Second, people are much more mature, but I suppose that comes along with the fact that it’s mostly the same people, only now we’re all way too old for this game. Third, the game itself has lost a lot of steam.

Around the time I left in 2003, eW was electric. Forums were buzzing with activity, and there were chats going around the clock. No matter what time of day you were able to stop in, there was always something going on to get your eW fix.

It’s not like that now.

The forums are, for the most part, looked at, but not used. The chats are reserved for rare occasions.

Originally, I just thought the game had changed; that people just weren’t as into as I remembered. But when I got into the community, I saw that wasn’t the case either. You only need GTT6 for proof of that. Even during the most active time that I was involved in eW, I’ve never seen anything generate buzz like GTT6.

I’ve talked to many people about the state of eW today as compared to the time I left, and nearly all of them said the same thing - eW will rebound when the wrestling industry rebounds. I agreed. It sounds logical, right? More wrestling fans mean more people will trickle in to eW, populating our game with new blood. The over all numbers are down, but I think everyone will agree, the bulk of the difference is in how many “new” guys are around. In 2002/2003, there were a lot of guys who’d been involved in the game for less than four months - less than two months, even. Since my comeback, I don’t think I’ve talked to one.

But that’ll change when wrestling gets popular again, right?

Well...

Rating for WWE RAW (September 30, 2002): 3.6
Rating for WWE RAW (October 7, 2002): 3.8
Rating for WWE RAW (October 14, 2002): 3.8

Rating for WWE RAW (September 29, 2003): 3.4
Rating for WWE RAW (October 6, 2003): 3.4
Rating for WWE RAW (October 13, 2003): 3.6

Rating for WWE RAW (September 25, 2006): 3.7
Rating for WWE RAW (October 2, 2006): 3.4
Rating for WWE RAW (October 9, 2006): 3.8

Lets face it. The golden age of wrestling was over a full year, or perhaps two, before the golden age of eW began.

In preparation for this article, I decided to look around at other feds. I found one of those Top-100 sites and starting going through. I was very surprised. When you look through the “geocities” and “angelfire” feds, almost nothing has changed. These feds seem as active as ever, if not, I daresay moreso. I know what you’re thinking: “I saw one of those Top-100 feds sites too, and a lot of the feds had long-since died.” All I can say is you might be looking at 2002/2003 through rose-colored glasses, because that’s what those things always looked like. Small feds rarely made it to their six month anniversary. The point is, people are still creating the feds.

I found out recently that my first ever fed has come back from the grave - not only has it come back, but it’s now bursting with activity. It has a roster of over thirty members, and that’s a conservative estimate. They’re all very active. And yes, the fed still uses real pictures and several of it’s RP’s happen in a ring.

Looking through these feds, I came to two conclusions. You can think they’re wrong if you like, but I believe that these are cold truths that we should accept.

Conclusion #1

The decline of e-fedding is an illusion.

Conclusion #2

We have hi-jacked the hobby.

Who are we?

We are the writers.

I am, perhaps, more guilty of this than any of you. I don’t watch wrestling; I haven’t watched wrestling since roughly 2002. I don’t know who the WWE champion is, and in casual conversation, I still refer to it as the “WWF.” I don’t know who the faces and heels are. If I’m flipping through the channels and I happen to see an old face from my childhood, I’ll stop to watch. Other than that, the most it will get is a quick pause, and then I’m onto the next channel.

I’m not alone. In fact, I don’t even think I’m in the minority. That’s not to say I don’t like wrestling. I think that each of us involved in the game has, at some point or another, been captivated with the sport. It is, after all, the closest thing there is to a soap opera made for males. But to say I’m a fan? No... I’m like the guy who’s favorite baseball player has long since retired. He likes the sport - you might even say he has a love for it - but it is very hard to call him a fan.

But eW isn’t about wrestling anymore - lets face it. It’s about intriguing stories that may or may not be loosely based on wrestling. The characters in eW are not really characters at all, save for a few. Ask around.

“What’s your character?”

“Oh, I handle John Smith in GWF (Generic Wrestling Federation).”

“Oh yeah, what’s his gimmick?”

“He’s a guy that was born into a terrible family where his father abused his mother. Now he’s in the middle of a plot to blow up his city because an evil congressman is trying to divert attention away from his unnatural lust for young boys.”

You know who has the best “gimmick” in that? The congressman with the unnatural lust for young boys. What we call gimmicks today aren’t really gimmicks - they’re circumstances that surround the main character. A gimmick is who the character is, not what’s going on in his life.

Again, I’m probably more guilty of this than the rest of you. That’s because I’m in the game for the writing, and often times, the most interesting characters are pretty ordinary ones that get caught up in an unordinary situation. Why? Because we’re writers, and those are the kinds of characters that people can relate to.

And damn it, have we ever gotten good.

There are a handful of people involved in PTC right now that have the talent to write a novel. They might even have the talent to write professionally. And just behind them, there are several more e-fedders who are developing at a pace that will have them in that group shortly. There are guys that I would wager large amounts of money that, given enough free time, could make it as authors. And without e-fedding, they’d probably have remained above average.

But where does this leave the average wrestling fan?

They come to PTC, looking for a good wrestling game to get involved in. They see the posers, read the news columns, check out some rankings... they’re excited. They want to get involved. But then they come to the RP section, and they find that it’s not a wrestling game at all. It’s a writing game that simply uses wrestling as its platform. They’re not interested in a writing game.

And you know what’s funny? I’ll bet many of you would have been in the same boat when you got into the game. 99% of us got into it for wrestling - I know I did. Many of us were decent writers to begin with, so as the game evolved, we didn’t have much trouble adjusting. Many of us weren’t great writers, but through practice, became good writers. Many of us were terrible writers, but because of sheer competitiveness, or perhaps simply to continue having fun in the game, we got better. Maybe it was even an accident.

I’m not being critical - I want that to be known. I’m just pointing out that this really isn’t a wrestling game anymore, and that’s probably the biggest reason for the decline.

And when I say “we’ve hijacked the hobby,” I really only mean we’ve hi-jacked the major leagues of the hobby. Because it seems that in the feds that we used to call “indy” feds, where it’s still all about the wrestling, things about the same as they always were.

It’s not about making changes, it’s about accepting the way things are. We’ll probably never get back to the heights of the “Ron days,” simply because the game has changed now. Being a wrestling fan isn’t enough to thrive in PTC now. You have to have the unique combination of being a wrestling fan/like wrestling, and being a fairly talented writer or better. That combination is a lot harder to find, and thus, new blood continues come in at a trickle.

The Diversification of EPW

Once upon a time, Empire Pro Wrestling was accused of being A1E South. Nevermind the fact that many of its early characters included Suicide, Jonathan Marx, Troy Douglas, Adam Benjamin, Karl Brown, Rob Sampson and Christian Sands, ie, guys who had little to nothing to do with anything remotely resembling A1E. The fed had Beast as its Champion. Lindsay Troy, Cross (two people who made their starts and names in FW feds, not in A1E as is commonly misunderstood) and JA came in were very successful right off the bat. Then, after that, guys like IrishRed, The HPSC and James Irish came over.

Yet, something's been happening along the way. More and more people from different corners of the e-fed world have been coming into EPW. From EUWC land, you have Classy Mike C and Sanket Desai. Stanton ran Armando Montezuma and now is going to try his hand at Bloodhunt. Guys like Ben Biron, Ken Peters, The Sergeant and Mike Evers have come from virtually unknown parts of the e-fed world. And of course, EPW has recently scored one of the most talented writers from LoC, Ninja K.

Yes, EPW has "diversified" the roster. Although looking back at it, they've always been diversified. The only reason that it seemed like A1E was "taking over" EPW was because EPW was the only place where A1E guys could have a chance and it was the only place they felt comfortable taking a chance. Was this because of some clandestine relationship between A1E's "shadow government" and Brunk? No. It's because of goodwill, trusting in people and not relying on secondhand information to make judgements about people.

None of this would have happened if Brunk listened to the FW folks who were disenchanted by their stays in A1E and didn't join.

None of this would have happened if Jarret just brushed Brunk off like he was one of those FW "malcontents."

None of this would have happened if Brunk held prejudice against those who weren't FW homegrowns.

And do you know why people who made their time in A1E did well? Not because Brunk had some secret hard-on for them or for the A1E name. Remember Brunk quit A1E because he was disenchanted with certain things in the fed.

Peeps like Jarret, Lindz and Xandor did well and are doing well in EPW because they have the talent to get over and carry their spots. If that weren't the case, do you think the FW mainstays who kept aboard would have stayed? I mean, I can tell you from working with the guy that Jarret is one of the most gifted e-wrestlers I've ever had the pleasure of meeting, and his work, be it with Beast, Gladiator or even Big Wreck, is top notch for the most part.

Still, the unwarranted label has worked well in EPW's favor despite the apparent negative connotation. It's made Brunk work harder to get a more diverse roster in place. Now, EPW's gone from having a great roster into having an almost dream roster.

All that just because a few people happened to think that EPW was becoming a little too much like A1E. Funny how an apparent negative can turn into a huge, definite positive, eh?