This is it

With a heavy heart but a clear mind, I am announcing my retirement from active competition in the game of e-wrestling/e-fedding/fantasy wrestling.

I'm sorry to all the heads of feds that I'm in now for quitting now, but writing has become more of a chore than a release. I also have not been consistently writing RPs that I've been completely happy with for a long time now. It's too much of a struggle for me to continue creatively, and even moreso a chore for me to read through a card. The latter is unfair to everyone else in the fed whom I am up against and to those who've written those matches and segments.

I do leave with a lot of good memories and a lot of lessons that have and will continue to help me in life. I've also met a lot of good friends through this game that I am grateful for having come into my life. I would like to say that I'm not shutting myself off from any of the eW hubs, FW or PTC, that I go to, so I'll still be around. I've always found it asinine that people who leave the game also leave the community. We're all friends for the most part and we all like each other (or at least tolerate each other).

But I would be remiss if I didn't thank the many people with whom I've been involved in the almost decade I've been playing this game.

Thank you to:

- Roger Albrecht, Jarret Aubry,(A1E) Dan West, Bob Rodriguez and Bill Dempsey (MBE), who welcomed me into their respective feds as a super-green rookie and tolerated my bitchiness in my early days

- The guy who handled the Canadian Hitman (don't remember his name) for actually recruiting me into A1E and getting me started

- Ryan Poole (Liquid Snake), who was my first real friend and e-fed confidant

- Dave Brunk for taking a chance on the JA character and letting me find my spark again in EPW

- Chad Merritt for allowing me his site to work creatively with TEAM

- For everyone who ever participated in a UXW or TEAM card, especially Brian Jenkins, the first and only UXW Champion, and Adam Shinder, who took the reins of TEAM from me when I couldn't handle it anymore

- And finally, to all the people I've faced, befriended or even disagreed with over the years, especially Jon Katz, Phil Banet, Lindz, Pierre Hyde, Fergus Looney, Sean Edmunds, Mikey Nunes, Nicholas Kamuda, Chris Davis, Diego Ibarra, Kevin Healey and Ross Fynmore. If I didn't mention you by name, please don't feel slighted. It's probably on account of my bad memory :p

However, despite retiring from active handling, the blog will not be going anywhere. While I won't be doing the regular news/show reviews etc., I am going to make an attempt to continue Project Discovery Channel and keep the interviews alive. However, it'll only be handler interviews. I feel like I'm not well-equipped to do anything in-character anymore.

So, there it is. Of course, as with real wrestling, e-wrestling retirements are never really all that permanent. Will I ever be back? Maybe, maybe not. However, for now, it's goodbye and thank you. My life would never have been the same without this game and all the wonderful people in it.

Chris Benoit

It comes with great sorrow that I say Chris Benoit passed away today at the age of forty. The even greater blow is that his wife and son also passed. This is a great loss, not only for us as wrestling fans, but as e-fedders as well.

Our community will always be divided on certain wrestlers. Guys like Triple H, Hulk Hogan, Chris Jericho, the Undertaker and The Rock always evoke spirited debates among those of us who partake in this game. However, there is one man who seemed to be universally revered among everyone, the workrate freaks and the sports entertainment fans alike, one man who everyone in this hobby has stolen a move from at some point in our careers, one man about whom I have never heard a cross word. That man died today.

Everyone had their link to Chris Benoit, whether it be just as a fan of his matches or someone who took that fandom and fashioned a character in homage to him. Of course, Benoitholic Anonymous was never meant to be a carbon copy of the Crippler, but he touched me so much that I named a character after him. I only name members of the Famous Fighting Anonymouses after guys I really have a fandom for. Chris Jericho, Yokozuna, Kurt Angle, Chavo Guerrero... and Chris Benoit. Those were the five Anonymous brothers.

Let us, as a community united, raise a glass and toast the only man that could do no wrong in our eyes, the single greatest influence from the real thing on the eW community, Chris Benoit.

RIP Crippler.

ADDENDUM (6/26, 10:45 AM)

In light of recent developments, ie, the police investigation into this case as an apparent murder-suicide, there is definitely a pall cast over Benoit's life and legacy. If he is indeed proven to have murdered his son and wife before taking his own life, then I, and probably everyone else, will end up remembering Benoit in a different way. Great wrestler, troubled human being, murderer (for whatever reason, be it in cold blood or whether his mind was addled by drugs and a hard work schedule). Although his end should not wholly taint the breadth of his life (unless it is found that he did abuse his wife and son throughout life or something of equitable heinosity), we all cannot look at him with the rose colored eyes we had fifteen hours ago. It is with a bittersweet outlook we must remember Benoit now.

OverKill!

Damn, I'm a dynamo today with the show reviews :)

PRIME presents OverKill!

Much like WrestleBowl, OverKill had a nice end swerve, with FUCK YOU! turning on Nova. It was implied that they were wailing on Nova because Tchu ransomed the Golden Ticket for the destruction of the stable, although it's interesting to see what the new, streamlined version of that group is going to say in reaction at ReV 131. It's a good end-swerve for different reasons than WBIIN1, but still, a jaw-dropper no less. I'm wondering though if the injury angle with Sonny means Seth is going on the DL. I hope not, because he's pretty much my favorite part of the fed right now. I'm also pretty interested to see what happens with Nova, seeing that he virtually burned his bridges with Troy and Tchu, and FU! doesn't want him anymore. Should be good times for the PRIME uppercard.

The other notable surprise was the return of the Illustrious Face-Eater and his reuniion with Mike Wade. The Unfuckables were pretty much the most dominant pairing in AWC history, and it'll be interesting to see what they can do in PRIME. I have to think something's going to happen between Tchu and Facey from that segment where Facey revealed his return, but I think the meat of matters is going to be between Facey and Jack Murphy. Hopefully I can get off my ass and make a nice tag match happen at Colossus IV between the Unfuckables and SullyMurph Enterprises. That would be very nice.

The rest of the show was decent. Matches were good, not spectacular, but not bad either. Could have done without some of the longish segments. It's a PPV folks, focus on payoffs and matches.

Also, Killean, you'll be missed. Sad to see the character ride off into the sunset, but I'm sure Darryl isn't through with eW just yet. Maybe he's got another character idea cooking, maybe he doesn't. Still though, Killean Sirrajin was one of the great eW characters of all-time, and I feel like he's underrated outside of PRIME.

PTC: End of an Era

This past Monday, Ross Fynmore, aka Argyle, announced he was stepping down as the head of the PTC interfed and from the site altogether.

The resignation post

The timing caught me off-guard, but this was something I had been anticipating for a little while now. Despite GTT6 moving along at a relatively brisk pace (something I attribute to the judges getting their shit together), a lot of interfed events have been sidetracked and delayed due to the real life constraints of all admins involved, especially Ross. I knew that with every PM I got from him telling me about how hectic his life was/is that he wasn't going to have the time to continue.

This isn't a bad thing for him. Let's face it, for those of us past the undergraduate level in college, time for eW is at a premium. It's selfish for anyone of us to expect someone to operate at a high level while expecting them to give us allowances for our real life happenings. Ross spread himself as thinly as a good coat of paint in order to keep things going. He's endured several incidents of plagiarism, people bitching at him for GTT results, controversy between one of his admins and a member fed and hell, he owned a site at which Jeremy J. was allowed to post for an extended period of time. That last one in and of itself is grounds to have him canonized.

So let's give Ross a good sendoff. He did well during his time as lead administrator of Primetime Central.

At the same time, we need to scramble and find a solution to keep PTC going. The hub is too important to the hobby for it to go by the wayside. The interfed activities have to continue, but the question is who is going to run it and still deal with the message board bullshit? Pete Speer, the other admin, is also severely lacking for time. He can't be expected to do it all. Thankfully, Ben "Pants" Morrow and Andy Hewitt have taken over the running of the Unified Title and IG divisions respectively. The interfed bases are covered. There's no need for the i-fed to disband. I think that Pants and Andy will do a fine job, but to whom will they answer? Does Pete have the time to administrate that as well?

Honestly, I think Andy and Pants should be left alone to co-moderate all the interfed dealings until they feel they can't do everything by themselves. That would leave Pete to scan the message board and be the superadmin. If he can't do that by himself, then there are plenty of great candidates to take the job. Ben (Stephen Caldera) and Dean (BraveHeartFan) are two ideal ones. Some people may point to former admins... some may even suggest RJ (Hanshi no Shikaze) could do an adequate job.

It's true, he was always on the boards and he caught everything. You could even say that if he was around now, there wouldn't be a problem. However, RJ was too polarizing a figure, and if he were given the reigns, then I can guarantee you that at least one fed, if not three, would have bolted from the i-fed. PTC would have died or been greatly diminished. It's a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't, but I think PTC can pool together fine now.

So while we bid a fond adieu to Ross now, we must make sure that PTC survives and thrives into the future. The world of creative writing based RP feds needs to have a hub like wrestling promo based RP feds have FW and the angle feds have W3:16. All of us have to work together.

But I think we can. I think we will succeed.

Ending an Era the Right Way

The other day, an era ended in A1E history. Roger Albrecht, handler of Housefly, Haven, Damon Blackburn and others, stepped down from the A1E Booking Committee. For the last six-plus years, he's been the head booker and the overall guiding force of the fed. This is about as big a deal anything in the hobby. You can view the actual thread by clicking below.

Roger Albrecht's farewell thread

I've already said a lot of things in the thread, so I'll just say this here. Roger left the right way. In his resignation, he sets an example for several other fedheads to do when they're faced with the same decisions he had to make.

You could make the case that Roger had no other choice seeing as A1E's run by committee, but I make the argument that while Roger had no other choice, he was in that position by design. From the very beginning, Roger delegated power to a committee (that's had several members over the years, myself included) and made A1E more of a fed for the handlers by the handlers. He made it such so that when there was a time he had to step down, he didn't have to close the fed with him. This is how a fed should be.

There are examples, most recently AWC, o fpopular, active feds closing because the fedhead stepped down. To me, that is among the most tragic things that could ever happen. An active fed is probably the greatest asset there is in the hobby. Handlers come and go, but it's so hard to start up a fed and keep it going. Many feds that open can't get past their growing pain stages (look at places like MCW, LVW, the old-school fed Al was going to open at PTC, KINGPro, all places ended before they could even really begin), and when you do make it and become active and bustling, you've bucked a trend. When you have to close, you make handlers disillusioned. I point to another example of this. When I first got to FW, there was a fed run by Andrew Medina called the NWL. For whatever reason, he couldn't remain the fedhead, and he closed it. Most of the guys in the fed were disappointed, but they latched onto another FW fed eventually. There was one guy who handled Ronnie Valentine who made this post lamenting the fact that he lost his push and had to start over again in another fed... a whole sob story. Now, it was his own fault for not seeing that starting over in another fed wasn't necessarily a bad thing and that losing your push in an e-fed isn't nearly as bad as losing it in the WWE. But still, premature closures harbor those kinds of feelings in people.

So for this reason and many others, let's give Roger some applause on his way out. He wasn't perfect; no one is. However, he was as much a part of A1E as anyone else.

His replacement will be Jarret Aubry, who many of you know now as the handler of Beast. He's been with A1E almost as long as Roger has and has been involved in the administration of the fed for just as long. I'm not sure there's a better choice than Jarret to succeed Roger. In fact, his tenure got off to a very rousing start with the latest edition of Warfare (which you can access through the A1E site). A lot of my critiques of A1E's card flow have been followed up upon, most noticeably teh segues between segments and the continuity.

Plus, I'm told that you can expect a huge in-character announcement from Nathan Houston on the first Warfare after Bloody New Year. I don't know what it is (and even if I did, do you think I'm the type who gives spoilers? :p), but I'm promised it's going to be huge.

AWC closes

For those who don't know, AWC closed tonight. Hyde posted the second half of Triangles (which I haven't been able to bring myself to read yet), and then posted a note about AWC closing on the PTC forums.

The decision stunned me, especially since I was finally hitting my stride. So many other guys were hitting theirs too; it looked like 2007 might have been the year we made a run at the other top PTC feds.

However, Hyde is legitimately busy with schoolwork. College comes first. Real life comes first. That's been my mantra all along, and I won't change it now, even with this devastating blow to the PTC community. I don't agree with the decision to close, but this is Hyde's baby... we can't force him to give it up or continue to work on it. If this is how he wants to end it, then so be it.

Right now though, even in my state of shock, I choose not to remember the time I spent in AWC with sadness. I choose to remember the happy times, the good things, the stories and angles and matches. I'll remember Facey, Murphy, Paddy, Wade, Darcy, Anton, Pierce, Chainz, GBJ, the Fists, Aimz, Ellis, Red Rock, Afeaki... the Stanislav swerve, Prometheus, the Empire, Sasha, Pearl, Chainz going nuts, the Jewel of the Seas...

AWC is dead. Long live AWC.

New Blood for the A1 feds (and a sad farewell)

IF you've been paying attention, there's been somewhat of an infusion of talent into the A1 family of feds. We've seen the returns of Cross and Beast and addition of Rocko Daymon to A1E in the last few months, but the former are A1E vets, and with the success of Cross and Dan Ryan in the Home Fed, it's not surprising that Strawsma made the jump headfirst. Same with MBE, where Justin Evitable and Jogi Fresh were drawn out of retirement, Doc Silver was drawn from his A1 exile and Ryan Poole, former handler of Liquid Snake, brought in a new character called Jock McCrunk. A lot of old faces. Now I'm not saying that these additions are bad at all. Personally, I think the proceedings between Cross and Beast are Feud of the Year material. Daymon has made a strong statement since coming into A1E, and I think it's a matter of time before he's holding gold. Doc's the MBE Champion while beating Evitable for it; both men are deserving of that honor. Jogi Fresh and Jock McCrunk have been entertaining while they've been around.

However, it's not new blood into the community. Among these guys, the only one who might be considered to be a fresh look is Daymon, because Strawsma is new to the A1 feds. However, I feel that the line between A1 and FW has been so blurred and intertwined that we're almost one, big, mixed up community.

But when I see names like these:

Fusenshoff
Cool Frank Cutta
Ace Mason
The Canadian Luchador
Logan

...it makes me smile. It seems to me like these are all new handlers to the community on the whole, and as someone who's been bemoaning the slow death of e-fedding as we know it in the combined A1/FW world, guys like these coming in embolden me in thinking my fatalistic attitude is wrong.

CFC has been making a splash in MBE for about a month now, and he's the longest running character of the five. The other four have just signed to their respective feds in the last week or so. But getting back to CFC, he seems to be getting into the groove nicely, settling into a feud with Jock, who, if he's around, is always a great feud partner to have.

Now, it's entirely possible that all of these guys are familiar with the A1 world and are just hiding their identities really well. Over at A1, the custom is to have a separate board name for all your characters. It's a lot easier to keep people off guard that way. In fact, I think no one knew that Bill was handling Mr. Amazing! as well as Freakfish until the grand unveiling of Amazing, Inc. at High Stakes '01, a feat that is the greatest testament to the separation of character screen names. So there is a chance that my giddiness is for naught.

But still, it looks like these guys are all new, and that's a good thing. Hopefully, this is the start of a reversal in trend and the next resurgence in eW is about to begin...

...especially when guys like Al Larcher leave the hobby. For those who don't know, Al, who handles Duke and Hoyt Williams, suddenly retired from the hobby this week. Because his announcement hastily followed Sean Williams' departure, I initially thought that it was a joke and he was going to turn around and reveal he was working us. However, it appears to be the real thing.

Of all the guys who could leave the hobby, in particular, the PTC community, Al was the worst case scenario. His light-hearted attitude made people smile all the time. He had a heart firmly entrenched in the old-school, something that made him stand out amongst the community.

I don't know what made him leave the hobby. Something tells me this runs deeper than schoolwork/full-time job kicking his ass or general malaise for eW. I hope all is well in the Larcher household.

I also hope that Al makes his way back to eW someday. Until then, here's to Mr. Larcher, the President of E-Fedding. You will be sorely missed while you are gone.

More Random Notes

I'm chock full of random notes lately, aren't I?

- First thing's first, I got a buttload of people who want to do guest bloggings, and I've only received two. Please don't disappoint me. I'm looking forward to your bloggings so. A few hints too.

1) Stick to IC and OOC... don't switch between the two.

2) Read over your entry before you hand it in and make sure it's something you want to represent you on a site that you don't operate. I don't mean to sound like a pompous ass, but I try to maintain a level of quality on the site. I'll publish whatever it is you want published (as long as it's not an out-and-out shill, that is), but make sure it's your best.

- HOLLA! HOLLA! You thought they wouldn't make it, but they did. NFW. Wild Card action, Eastern style. I haven't read through it all yet (I also have A1E and PRIME results to slog through too), but there's an interesting segment with Kooter near the beginning. Not sure what to think of it, but it certainly blurs the lines.

- In a stunning bit of GTT6 news, Iblis, that "newcomer" to the tournament, isn't a newcomer at all, but it's Andrew Delling, handler of "The Renegade" Rich Rollins. I'm surprised at who it is, but with all the raves over the writing, I guess it's not much of a surprise. Kudos to Andrew for getting another character over, into the tournament and that far before having to bow out. He says it's his tournament finale, but he said that after he lost at first in the tourney. Never say never in this hobby ;)

- Speaking of bowing out, Sean Williams, handler of Seymour Almasy among others, is bowing out of the game for now due to pressing law school concerns. I wish him the best in his endeavors, and hopefully he comes back. He's definitely one of the most creative minds in the game.

ACW... Farewell?

It's hard to believe that only four months ago, I named ACW my Fed of the First Quarter. I thought we were onto something big. I thought it was going to give LoC a run for its money in terms of angle fedding.

But then the bottom started falling out. Butch lost interest and pulled KSZ. Both Renner and Dupin quit, sending Max Danger and Coral Avalon out of the fed and leaving the Blue Rogues in the hands of Seth as bit players in the background of Andy Sharp's meteoric rise to the top. Cimon lost his mind on several occasions and finally quit. Devin decided that Lowell and Jimmy Cain weren't wrestling characters anymore (and in a way... I guess I could agree with his reasoning, but you know me... I love outrageous gimmicks and characters). And of course, I got a full-time job and couldn't keep up writing every week without being late all the time.

And so here we are, at Courage 100, which could very well be the last ACW show ever, and I think it's a damn shame. We had so many really great writers, but somehow, it all fell apart. Not even Zezu coming back (which fulfilled one of my 2006 predictions for ACW :p) could save it.

This last show... I'd say it was enjoyable. I thought Lowell's angle was very entertaining, Devin always knows how to keep my eyes glued to the screen. It's great to see Sharp finally get his due as ACW Champion, and of course, Dean Matthews using Duran Duran as a backdrop is always classic.

There were several outs for a reboot, and honestly, I hope they don't capitalize on them unless they're focused on putting out a quality product... it doesn't even have to be weekly, it just has to be well-written.

If this is farewell though, then farewell ACW. It's a shame to see you go, but you had one hell of a run.

A (temporary?) farewell... and a few of my favorite characters -- LVW

First off, Gregg Gethard has announced his retirement from e-fedding. Huge loss to the CSWA, NFW West and EPW and to the hobby altogether, seeing that his characters are among my favorites in any fed he's in. He has hinted that he'll be back, but for now, I'd like to wish him good luck with his Masters, his upcoming marriage and his writing career. We don't know if he's gone for good or just for a bit, but if it is permanent, well, it's nice to have a proper send-off.

And now... back to the favorite characters. I'm skipping the fWo because of the limbo we're in there, so that brings us to my favorite new fed on the block, Las Vegas Wrestling. Honestly... this is the hardest fed for me just to pick five favorites, because everyone really has a kick-ass character here, but I do what I must. Once again, in no particular order.

Olvir Arsvinnar The pornographic Viking... who really is a Viking. Seriously, this may be the greatest character ever (along with Lowell Dot Com and Professor Tremendous). I knew from the moment I read his first preview segment on the third LVW card that this character would be money. Honestly, I salivate at the entertainment value an RP thread between him and my own Jimmy Donovan would bring.

Elvis Aaron Presley It's a shame he had to run into Olvir in the LVW tournament, because an Elvis impersonating wrestler is an idea that's overdue. I guess a fed based in Las Vegas, the Elvis impersonator capital of the world, had to come along for Elvis to enter the ring. Still, it's a great gimmick.

Hans Nowak Sometimes I read a profile and I just become enamored with the little things. Like Nowak winning the U-62's World's Strongest Man competition three times. The little things. That's not to say that's the only thing I like about Hans. I love the RP style, and I'm interested to see what he does with Miss Ann too. All in all, I think he should be the co-favorite to win the LVW title (With Olvir, of course)

Bill Bellmoth A guy who talks to janitors about how great he is and wears a headset in the ring to call his own matches, most of the time while getting his ass kicked... folks, this character is gold. Proof that you don't need to win matches to have an über-entertaining character.

Ben Lerner Once again, another gimmick whose time is overdue, the sue-happy loawyer wrestler. Honestly, unlike Elvis, this character could work well in any fed, but for some reason, I think it clicks the best in LVW, even though schyster lawyers aren't really associated with Las Vegas in any big way.