GTT7

Holy crap! I'm updating this blog!

The thing that has gotten me to dust off the "new post" button on this blog rather than the Wrestling Blog (are you reading it yet, bitches?) is GTT7. After taking two years off, many people thought that with the shift from e-wrestling to creative writing that PTC was undergoing, that there'd never be another GTT. Well, Ross and Pete have brought it back, and I have to say, they're doing a great job hyping it and promoting it. Of course, I was supposed to help them promote it, but I got caught up marking out for Chikara and CM Punk rather than PRIME and Joe the Plumber.

If you take a gander around the forum, you'll see that the bigwigs have done a fantastic job of crafting excitement and anticipation for the tournament's start. In an era where hype has become just throwing up a post in an advertisement forum, this is art. It almost made me want to break retirement to join up, almost being the operative word. (gonna tough it out for a year before even thinking about returning, btw)

While it's not much of a post, I figure Ross and Pete deserve a pat on the back for creating a vibrant and lively event surrounding their marquee tournament. Here's hoping that it's a rousing success and that as few people no-show as humanly possible.

Viva GTT!

LVW... the return?

First off, let's welcome Stanton back to the eW blog-ring:

The Lifeless One

He ran the eW dirtsheet before, which was a cool gimmick blog, but one that I could see getting tiring to write after awhile. Check out his first two blog posts, especially the latest one, where he offers insight into the main event to the latest EPW Aggression card, which he wrote. If you've ever wanted to glimpse into the mind of a matchwriter, here's your chance.

That's not the thing the juiciest thing I gathered from reading the blog though. Take a look at the first entry he posted, specifically this passage:

I'm trying to get LVW re-opened on FW.com. I sent a message to the Godfather about it, hopefully the tab comes up sometimes shortly. I'm unemployed, and my WoW guild leaves me weeping so I got nothing better to do then to start up the land of a thousand gimmicks again. I have ideas for a bunch of characters, so if anyone's interested about LVW, IM me at War on Eurasia on AIM or Stantonmjs on Yahoo.

If he can get the ball rolling on that... wow, that is huge news. If you remember back from the first blog-run I had, LVW was a pet favorite fed of this establishment. While it didn't stick around and only one of the main characters from the fed has found a regular home outside of it (Olvir), it was great for what it was, a breeding ground for gimmicks that ranged from the ridiculous to the sublime.

If and when it does come back, I think it could be a huge shot in the arm for FWC, especially with people slowly trickling back to the hub after months or years of inactivity. What would be a better place to shake off ring rust, especially with a new character concept, than in a new or new-to-you start-up fed?

Plus, I still think people have their freak flags hidden and want to be able to fly them again. LVW can provide a good breeding ground for that, just as it was in the past. We saw guys like Dove, McNic, Siegel and even Gerlach shake off their one-character chains and try something new to varying degrees of success. If LVW can draw someone else who has handled maybe one or two characters for their career to come in and try something new and off-the-wall, then it's a success (provided that the usual suspects come back for it... I know I'm there, and hopefully the guys who are still around like Siegel do as well).

But anyway, I can't recommend trying something out in this fed if and when it comes back. Let loose and try something new. Who knows, you might have a good time.

In defense of the PRIME/GCW inter-card

Along with NFW's WrestleBowl 2 and the long-awaited CSWA Gold Rush, the most anticipated and lauded event on the FW calendar this year was the joint EPW/NEW PPV, WrestleStock. Both Brunk and Edmunds spent good time promoting it, despite the event coming up right before a regular PPV in each company. Not many feuds were blown off during the event, and actually, the only thing that I thought was resolved during the whole card was EPW's King of the Cage tournament. Looking at the card, there was reason to believe that the event could result in a disappointment, but it didn't. You know why? Because the RPers for the most part promoed their asses off for it, and the people writing the card on both sides put the time and effort into making it a special event despite the fact that it was coming right before major events on each fed's calendar. And do you want to know how many inter-fed matches there were on the total card? Zero.

Now, the PTC community has its own interfed event coming up on the calendar. PRIME and GCW are promoting their own supercard, the combined Devil's Night/Great American Nightmare. Like EPW and NEW, this event isn't taking place at a major PPV for either company. GCW has NC-17 coming up, and PRIME is about ready to segue into its Jewel in the Crown tournament. Unlike their FW counterpart though, there are going to be interpromotional matches on this card. Much like the FW show, there could be a chance that this event might disappoint, but once again, I feel that with the people involved in the proceedings, it won't.

There are those people who are clearly parked in the disappointment camp though. This thread is a clear example of that. Now, don't get me wrong. Some of these criticisms do have sound basis in them. Sure, some of the interfed matches don't seem like they have build behind them, and yeah, it would have been nicer if a GCW World Championship match was there to stand side by side with the PRIME Universal Title match already booked. Still though, I can definitely see what Ben and Matt were doing when they put this card together. So what if there weren't more interpromotional matches? Really, if one of the big criticisms was that some of the cross-fed matches didn't have build, shouldn't you hold off on the REALLY BIG matches like Lia Ambrosi vs. Lindsay Troy or Rich Rollins vs. Jason Snow until you've had a chance to build more heat in those categories? And outside of feds mutually invading each other, wouldn't the best way to build that heat be a slowburn across one or two interfed shows before the much larger one?

Besides, WrestleStock proved that you don't need interpromotional matches for a crossfed card to be successful. I applaud the folks involved for putting on these matches, but they didn't need to. The point of the whole thing, at least to me, was to take two "minor" PPV events, combine them, make them "major" by association, get people talking about both feds and give each fed's audience some exposure to the other's. For PRIME and GCW, the exposure part is bigger since PTC feds have more of their own "exclusive" readers than the FW feds seem to have.

Honestly, you can dwell on the hype, or lack thereof, all you want when it comes to Devil's Night/Great American Nightmare. Any event can fall flat on its face if the people involved in preparing it let it. However, interfed matches or no interfed matches, big name matches or no big name matches, the quality of any card is judged by how it's RPed for and how it's written. I have full faith that the combined crews for this card will deliver in a big way, and everyone will end up being pleasantly surprised when the show's over.

More random notes

I was going to have this big long post about the happenings this weekend, but I figured that'd only unneccessarily raise my blood pressure and my urge to kill everyone who has pissed me off in the last 72 hours. It's healthier to let sleeping dogs lie anyway and not dwell on the past. Let's concentrate on the positive, like everyone who did well in the ToC. Congrats to ChrisNova for adding yet ANOTHER trophy to his mantel for this year. Big ups to everyone in the top 10, becuase it was a damn good crop this year. There have been some other pretty good developments too, like...

- WrestleStock, Night One posted! With everything that was on my plate today, I haven't gotten a chance to sink my teeth into it, but I did skim some results. Big ups to Jamar Short for winning the King of the Cage with "Triple X" Sean Stevens. You deserved it, and if I had to job to anyone, I'm glad it was you.

- If you haven't had the chance yet, go over to PTC and check out what Mat Waters has done with promoting his new angle fed, One World Wrestling. This very much reminds me of an idea I had back before I started brainstorming the original concept for TEAM: Nation-based wrestling. He's been busting his ass, hyping this thread with teaser matches and now, roster profiles. What's unique about the fed is that he's not starting it from the ground floor. He's putting in a backstory, giving the fed history. That's ballsy, very ballsy, but I'm very intrigued by the idea. Hopefully, he'll let his roster input some things about the history, make things as organic and spontaneous as you can with this kind of thing. Here are links to each of his hype pieces thus far. If you've got the stomach for narrative, check them out:

• The Maltese Falcon vs. Nadir


• Persia vs. Greece... aka the movie 300 in wrestling form!


• THE ROMAN SOCCER HOOLIGAN~! in action


• 40 Man Over the Top Battle Royale Spotlight on 100 Freaking Punches


• Our first taste of STOICA~!


• The first profile, naturally, it's STOICA~!


• Introducing the PRIME KILLER~!, Digital Mortality!

DigiMort is the first non-Waters created character featured so far. I'm very intrigued to see both the NPCs that Mat's keeping around like STOICA~! and the handlers who are going to be involved. My advice is to keep an eye on this fed. Hopefully, it can withstand the almost insurmountable entropy that seems to doom angle feds before they start nowadays.

- Another great idea from the PTC fold - PTC Wiki! Big ups to Craig for starting this, and hopefully people pick up on it. FW had one of these rumored too. I know Edmunds has or at least had one for NEW and I think he even proposed one for FW. Edmunds is always thinking a step ahead of the game; it's just too bad a lot of the doers at FW are few and busy with their own projects to be able to help out fully. Either way, Wikis are a great idea to help get outsiders better acclimated to the forums and feds with centralized information. Just another thing that would probably be a lot more fleshed out of we got paid to do this kind of thing :)

Shilling!

So yeah, I'll admit I haven't exactly been the most active blogger in the last week or so. I've been pretty busy with lots of things; computer problems, wedding planning, football and last but not least, shilling my ass off for the TEAM Invitational Tournament.

I see a lot of people shilling stuff on various boards in the advert forums. I don't know how successful they are. I'd imagine the ones with snazzier presentation at the very least snag one or two guys from the main boards, but I can't imagine that most of them are that successful. The reason I think that is is because in order to be a successful shill, you've gotta know people.

Knowing people alone, though, won't get you your desired results. For one, you've gotta know your market. What's the supply of handlers? What's the demand for a certain event or fed? If you're looking to start a hardcore narrative written angle fed, you don't go to A1's Efed Smarts and Marks forum or to FW. If you're looking for longterm committments to a fed that involves a lot of writing in short intervals, you don't go to Sean Williams, Dan West or myself first. However, if you're looking to start a long-form storyline RP fed in a community such as PTC, where two feds recently closed, one went on hiatus and another one is looking to close in about 15 months, then you might get a response.

Another thing would be intestinal fortitude. You can't be intimidated by names or think that people on your buddy list aren't going participate in your fed or event because it's just not prestigious enough. Everyone you know should be a target. Who knows, you might get many of the names on your wishlist. It's all in asking. The worst they can do is say no.

But what if they don't say no, but don't say yes? You have to be persistent! You can't let the people who say "I'll get back to you" not ever get back to you. Get back to them regularly until they give you a yes or no. Now, you can't be too persistent. I mean, if you bug someone like a blue-assed fly, they're more predisposed to say no. Also, don't keep bugging someone who's already said no to your invitation. If they don't want in, they have a good reason probably. Maybe they don't have time, maybe that kind of RPing isn't their bag or maybe they're just having a rotten spot of health in real life.

If you keep all those in mind, you'll be successful recruiting for your happening. I mean, I thought I was going to struggle to equal last year's number of folks for the TEAM Invitational (32), and as it stands right now, I only need five more to double that total.

You just gotta know how to work the crowd ;)

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.

PTC vs. Archibald MacGregor: THE PPV~!

What's this in the pipeline? An Interfed PPV from PTC?

Here's the forum on the PTC boards.

Now, before I get into hyping this, a commentary.

I've been saying for awhile that the interfed is the best part about the PTC communities. The best way for any group of feds to grow is interaction among them, and events like this are the best way for interaction to happen. In the year or so that I've been a member at PTC, this is the first time I've seen them hold an I-fed PPV. Of course, I really didn't pay much attention to the I-fed section of the site until we got to GTT5, but that was in November or so.

The point is, events like these should happen at least four times a year. Make 'em regular events, center them around different happenings. Build your I-fed titles into something everyone from every member fed wants to achieve, not just something the forum regulars want to have.

Regardless though, I'm very much looking forward to the PPV. Now, let's preview~!

The Official Pete Gimmick Match for 2006!

When I first read about this match, I laughed my ass off for about 15 minutes. Then I made the conscious decision that I wanted... nay, needed to be involved in this match.

Basically, this match is a throwback to 1999... ie, the days of Geocities and Angelfire, where character rip-offs abounded and how much HTML you used was the way you won instead of your promos. The lineup of folks for this match so far is pretty good, so I expect this to be an entertaining read all around. I'm not picking a winner here because really, the winner is going to be the fans :p

PTC Tag Team Championship Match

At this point, the only ones who've been confirmed for the match are The Furious Fists of God from AWC and Team Baked, representing GCW. It's more a commentary on the sad state of tag teaming in e-fedding right now than apathy towards this match, I think, but hey, we got two really good teams going at it. Should be a heated match, and I'm picking The Furious Fists of God to take this one home.

PTC Global Championship Match

The big title is taking a backseat this PPV, but that's okay, seeing that the Extreme Title is the reason why this event's happening. We know about Uber Judge and what he brings to the table. Handled by Ben Morrow, aka the most eccentric mind in e-fedding today, he's dominated the IG and defeated the GTT5 winner for this title. Shadow has made quite the mark in her home fed of GCW, and she also went pretty far in last years GTT.

So who wins here? I'm gonna take Uber Judge, because there's no way he's losing this on his first defense.

PTC Extreme Championship Clusterfuck

It would be good to list everyone who's in this so far.

The Champion is Archibald MacGregor, ie, PTC Public Enemy #1.

AWC's representative is Relentless Champion Red Rock.

PRIME's sending Karina Wolfenden

GCW is sending their U.S. Champion, Vivica J. Valentine.

Global's got Kyo Kushinaga.

XUW will give this match CW2 Winner Cereal Killer.

And last but not least, FUSE is going to send their Custom Chaos Champion, Tigera.

Quite the impressive list, which is also pending one more addition. Maybe it'll be Brandon Youngblood, who still has an ET shot lined up from a previous event. Maybe it'll be PTC admin nominee Jake Hix, who along with K-Wolf, has also put up quite the effort in the ToC. Maybe it'll be someone completely different. But until then, this is the Super Seven.

Now, who's going to come out of this match? Well, looking at that list, I narrow it down to four.

There's K-Wolf, who is considered one of the top characters in the entire e-fedding universe let alone PRIME or PTC. Dan West is even a fan now. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say she's the favorite, but I wouldn't say she's the overwehelming favorite.

Not with Cereal Killer lurking about. He won a major PTC tournament, defeating McGregor in the process, so he's got the historical stroke here.

Then, there's the darkhorse, Red Rock. I've been reading his work in AWC for a while, and he's got the stuff to compete with the heavyweights. I wouldn't be shocked if this was his coming out party in the interfed, but I don't think he's going to take it home.

That's right, because I think the winner of this match is going to be Archibald MacGregor. I like his confidence, saying that the only way he loses if it's a no-show. Usually, when the hunted isn't scared like that, he knows a way to get out of the hairiest of situations. Despite the caliber of the hunters chasing him, I think he's got a trick or two up his sleeve.

Besides, this is all he's got. The other guys have duties within their feds.

So there you have it. The Fists, UJ and MacGregor.

And before I sign off on this entry, in other PTC news, Al (handler of Hoyt Williams) has an idea for an old-school fed to join the ranks of PTC's member feds. I think it's a great idea, although I would have liked to have seen what some of those guys could do in... say, EPW or NFW's Eastern Conference, but hey, it's still a good idea. I'll be following it here, and hopefully, it takes off and perhaps leads to some spillover into the FW.com feds.

EPW Unleashed: The Preview

That's right, I'm ambitiously previewing the next EPW PPV, which requires me to read the RP threads and forecast what I think based on those and other mitigating circumstances. Now, I know what you're thinking, I'm an EPW bigwig, I shouldn't be doing this, but I assure you, I don't have any say in the booking of the matches, and if previewing this was any sort of conflict of interest, I wouldn't be posting it at all, seeing as though Brunk would rip my nuts off :)

(Speaking of the Brunkster... I don't know if it's happened yet or not, but he's about to welcome another Brunkling into the world, I think tonight or sometime near tonight. So let's congratulate him! Cigars are on me!)

Anyway, we'll go match by match, starting from the bottom, and of course, omitting my matches, both of which are no-shows in favor of me so far... *sigh* I hate that shit, but that's for another entry and another day.

Lane Stone vs. Ken Cloverleaf

Judging from the one promo apiece in this match, there's no doubt whom I think was the better wrestler here. Lane Stone should win this match hands-down.

We've all talked about how there was so much potential in John Rivera, but it wasn't manifesting itself very clearly. The problem there was with the channel; he was using the wrong character all along. In John Doe (where he's actually had some success in NEW and EUWC), he chose to do a character that had a complex gimmick with very many intricacies, yet he RPed him like your standard, rookie character, the arrogant, I'm better than you spiel you see from everyone's first character. What happened? It didn't work as well, and that, among other things, led to Doe not working in EPW.

Lane Stone is a much more basic character, and the RP style he was using with Doe works with Stone. And along the way, he's gotten much better at refining that RP style. Add that to facing a clearly slumping Ken Cloverleaf, who waited until Saturday to get his first up, and you have an easy win, based on that alone.

Some might say that maybe Stone should have doubled up. I don't subscribe to that theory at all, and I rarely do double up on folks, even in situations where maybe I should.

Winner: Lane Stone

Foxx vs. Cameron Cruise

Yawn... not much going on here. Some dick-waving; it seems like Foxx is bored with facing Cammy, but hey, that's what feuds are made of. Cruise seems off his game here; he was doing some inspired stuff when he was programmed with Melton, both in the CCP and in feuding. Meh... have to flip a coin here, and it lands on heads.

Winner: Foxx

"Phenomenal" Frankie Scott vs. The Sergeant in a NO DQ, Taped Fist, Falls Count Anywhere in the building match

Honestly, the only thing holding Frankie Scott back is his real-life constraints, because this match shows why he belongs in any discussion of guys who could breakout and win the EPW Title on a moment's notice.

The same could be said about Sarge... the only thing holding him back right now is Scott Franklin's real-life constraints. Why do I say this? Well, because he was in a feud with Frankie and stuck with it, through thick and thin. Sometimes, this doesn't work. If that were the case, Sarge would be getting a no-show win. But despite Frankie's late start, they got to be in a hot blowoff match at this PPV, and it was one of the funnest reads on the card.

Now, who should win? Well, both guys have a lot going for them. Frankie has the one-liners, the flair, but Sarge brings the workrate. It's kinda like arguing Rob Van Dam vs. Chris Benoit here.

In this case though, I'm going Benoit. But I'll be damned if it isn't close.

Winner: Sergeant

Blitz (Max & Jecht) & Leonard Johnson vs. The Highland Park Social Club (Richard Farnswirth, Chip Friendly & Slambo the Clown) for the EPW World Tag Team Championship

Well, I honestly didn't think this match was all that close, and I thought the HPSC was pedestrian, outside of Slambo. But if the HPSC was pedestrian, then Blitz was kinda standing still. I thought their work was just "stating the obvious," a trap you can easily fall into if you underestimate them based on their gimmicks. Because of that, even an ordinary performance from the Club looks monster.

But of course, the Slambo piece was brilliant.

Winner: The HPSC

Adam Benjamin vs. Mike Evers w/ Wisconsin Bill for the EPW Television Title

This was another close match, and with gold on the line, you have to be more careful in judging it. On one hand, Mike Evers is a lot more refined and polished in his RP syntax and style. He's smooth like a good cognac, unlike Benji, who can be a little choppy and have those typos at times. On the other hand, I thought Benji brought a lot more depth and flesh to the story with his character. You could tell that there's alot of meat on those bones, whereas Evers seemed to be a little generic in spots.

On one hand, Evers has a great way of diffusing the sometimes pretentiously serious air of a title match, especially with his interactons with Wisconsin Bill. That's a great trait to have, because unless you're Bill Dempsey or someone of equal eloquence and "chops," then doing serious promo after serious promo can get pretty fucking boring after awhile. On the other hand though, Benji should get a ton of credit for basically carrying this feud and angle, slogging through for months, coming up with each idea and making this match essentially the semi-main event for the card. I mean, the build was so old-school, but that's what made it brilliant.

So you've got two equally strong contenders going; one who has really good RPs, and another who has good RPs but who has pretty much strapped the angle and feud to his back and made it the strongest title-related story in the fed. Honestly, I think your Champions have to be strong at building feuds and keeping heat going for both characters. So I think Benji should be rewarded here.

Winner: Adam Benjamin

And For the EPW World Heavyweight Championship:

"The Queen of the Ring" Lindsay Troy defends against Joey Melton, Beast, Karl Brown, "Triple X" Sean Stevens & Kin Hiroshi in an elimination style six-way dance.

Well, Beast didn't RP, so he's out first. But I think it was designed that way to give Jarret an out for his downtime. And in my opinion, when he comes back, his spot should be safe. It has to be.

Which leaves us with five.

The next elimination should be Karl Brown. Not that his efforts were bad per se. He had a good run, but it was too little, too late. At least he has the IC title to fall back on and the comforting thought that yes, he will be back someday to claim his shot at the EPW Championship.

That leaves four, and here's where it gets murky. You could make a claim for any of the four remaining to walk out of Unleashed the EPW World Heavyweight Champion and no one would begrudge you your opinion too vociferously. But I do think there is a method to paring down and getting a winner.

I think first you can eliminate Joey Melton. Not that Steve's work here was bad or anything, but for one, I think he flamed out a little early, which is the opposite of Karl's problem. His last RP was roughly a week before the deadline, and he didn't add much to the finish of the match. And while his three RPs had solid gold potential, I thought that he went back to the CSWA crutch a little too easily. Granted, with Stevens' limited history in the company, that's a great way to build heat, but still, it's a World Championship match... it should be the EPW stuff that carries your case, not Poison Ivy.

Next out... and this is agonizing... is Sean Stevens. I read in a feedback thread on FW that his work was all quanitity and no quality. I think that's a very unfair slam, because after rereading his RPs, I found that there was a lot of solid stuff in there. I mean, Trip is good, or else he wouldn't have won that battle royale. However, I don't think it's World Title level good yet. I mean, I think he could very easily walk away with the Intercontinental Championship with that material, and he probably should get shunted into a high-level program, be it with Melton, JA or even Karl Brown for that IC title, after this match, but I'm not sure I want him to hold the EPW title just yet.

That leaves Kin Hiroshi and Lindsay Troy. This is a tough choice. But I think out of the two, Lindsay retains.

Why?

Both of them exhibited the pure RP quality to win the World Championship. I daresay that it's a crime that Kin hasn't held any version of the World Championship yet. But I think Lindz showed a little more creativity and imagination, with her press conference and the psychiatric finale she did. I think she proved that she no doubt belongs in the World Championship club, and I think that she escapes with her title.

Winner: Lindsay Troy

Disclaimer The above predictions and opinions are representative of Tom Holzerman alone and do not necessarily reflect the stances of Empire Pro Wrestling.

Adding Sizzle to Your Steak, PLUS Begging for Feedback

Now, before I get to my entry for today, I'm going to do some self-shilling and link to the TEAM Tournament Finals:

clicky clicky

Now, I've posted feedback threads at FW, A1, ENN, EWN and PTC, and a grand total of two people got back to me; BraveHeartFan and Josh Ray. I appreciate both their feedbacks (and Josh's was very insightful and thoughtful). But I want more. I crave more. I know more than just two of you read the match. I wanna hear what you think, and I want to hear strong opinions too. I don't just wanna read "oh, it was okay," or "oh, I didn't like it." Praise me. Rip into me. Do something. I wanna know what I'm doing wrong and what I'm doing right.

For the love of God...

Another thing before the entry... Scott Perry over at EWN has opened up a new, funky little concept. It's called the Hotel, and he's described it to me as a soap opera by day and a fighting fed by night. All of this will be written by Scott himself, so it's kinda like my EWA project, which I promise you, is not dead. I'll at least try to follow this, because it looks different, and different is good most of the time.

Anyway, to the entry for today...

A couple of months ago, I wrote an entry on the mechanics of a good RP. Basically, it was my content criteria checklist. It was every ingredient to having a good steak.

But on Food Network, whenever they have cooking competitions, be it on Iron Chef or these pastry cookoffs or whatever, taste is never the only criteria for winning. At first, I thought that was stupid, but really it isn't. Think about it. Would you want to eat something that looks like shit? Probably not. Only the most adventurous of folks would venture to eat something that didn't look appetizing.

It's the same thing with RPs. You could have A+ talent and charisma, but if your formatting is shitty, only the most adventurous souls will try to read your shit. That will hurt you in the long run. If you have great content, you need to be able to show it off by making your prose read all silky and smooth. But how do you do that?

Well, we've all read badly formatted RPs before, we know the pitfalls... but what if we're the ones who are making the cardinal mistakes? Well, this is for you. Of course, I don't claim to be perfect, and I do make these mistakes from time to time, but I also know they're mistakes. So use this checklist and make sure your RPs don't confound your readers.

Spell-check Nothing will make you look dumber than you really are than spelling errors. One typo here and there won't do you in, but multiple spelling errors in multiple promos... well that doesn't bode well. We all know spelling doesn't make the message go round, but it can turn off a lot of people. So, if you feel like you aren't the strongest speller in the world, or if you're just a stream-of-consciousness writer who worries more about ideas than syntax when it's all coming out, just C&P your promo into MS Word and let the spell-checker work for you.

Paragraph breaks Seriously, paragraph breaks are your friends. Reading thick blocks of text can be hell on the eyes, and they're also great concentration breakers. If you're verbose, that's fine, you don't need to shorten your promos up. However, you should look into using paragraph breaks early and often. Get what you have to say out there in short bursts, with white space surrounding each small chunk of text. That way, the words don't jumble together, and people pick up more out of the promo.

HTML Contrast is also a big difference-maker in making your RP aesthetically pleasing. Differentiation between script text and setting-building text is especially crucial. In the old days, I used plain text encased in parentheses to differentiate the setting text. Looking back on those promos, I found they were harder to read than the ones I put out now. Getting fancy with the HTML is a great way to make promos look snazzy and streamlined. Very easy to read. Usually, I stick with regular bold and italic, but other folks like Dan Scifo and Josh Weiner incorporated colors, tables, fonts into their promos. If you have all plain text though... it just makes things look too homogenous. It's the same principle as using paragraph breaks.

Now, if you format your promos like a pro, that's not going make you a superstar. But if you have superstar-level talent, it will bring it to the forefront and take you to the next level. You need to have sizzle and steak. Having too much sizzle and no steak is no good, just like having your steak not sizzle at all is no good.

MCW's first show and... WOW! What a promo!

Holla! Holla! MCW's got their first show up, and it's pretty darn good.

clicky clicky

It may be only three matches long, but they go a long way setting up a direction for the company, especially with the end angle. Good strong show, and hopefully this is the first step towards growing their roster.

And a link for this week...

HOLY JASON PAYNE BATMAN!

Seriously... this is one tremendous promo. Everyone has been talking about YYJ, including myself and rightfully so, but he's got some competition this week. Katz said that Jason found his voice with this promo and character direction. I'd have to agree. Hopefully he keeps up the good work, because the stronger the chase for the ULTRATITLE is, the stronger the person who finally does win it looks, and the better it is for the hobby overall.

I'M MARKING OUT! I'M MARKING OUT!

Shane Southern to make two Week 8 appearances

This is huge. It's the first time we've seen hide or hair of J-Mart since his retirement in any capacity other than to stop by and say hi on the FW.com boards. He's one of the best handlers ever, and it's very good to see him back at least in this one-time only appearance. It's a great nod to NFW's past.

If this is a precursor to a fulltime comeback, it's even better.

But no matter what, it's great to see him back in action, at least for this one week.

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

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

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

Shanty Jones' reort card

The career that got away

Rich Rollins likes fiber

Bong hits!

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

The Seymour Almasy dartboard

Hey, stop whackin' it in my shed

25 Reasons why Ryan Murray is teh sux0r

Titties!

Bitch, I'll kill you!

Brandon Youngblood = TO?

I walk the line

Token CAW-KEH CRAIG link

Losing to a retard

Biggest cock ever!

Titties get PWNED!

Golden Turnbuckle Tournament

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your e-fed link of the week...

For the second straight week, your LOTW comes from Empire Pro, this time in the match thread for August/Zoltan vs. Cloverleaf/Cirrus.

Take a look at these calves!

Gregg Gethard is a genius.

Your E-Fed Link of the Week

This won't be a Link of the Week regular type thing. This will be at least once a week, if not more, but I'll link when I find something thoroughly enjoyable to read.

And this week...

Midget Beast throws steaks and goes 'rawr,' Beast kills him.

Seriously, Brunk's a genius.

CSWA 17

CSWA's Anniversary show is in promos now. It's generally considered the biggest show on the oldest fed's calendar. I don't feel it yet, but that's because I'm relatively new to the whole FW circuit, but this is the sort of lynchpin to their whole reboot. New Presidential and UNIFIED World Champions, Eli Flair's retirement match against THAT DAMN HORNET, a fraudulent cancer patient in a cage, and of course, myself going for Greensboro gold.

But looking at the main event, I can't help but be reminded of A1E's biggest show last year, at least in the main event. A four-way World Championship match that's happening because the Champion vacated. Only this time, there's no facsimile for Torment, who was the A1E Champion going into Golden Dreams IV. The title very well might have been vacant.

I've come to grips with that after a long time. It's not Justin's fault that he was in the right place in the right time. But it doesn't really change the fact that there was no way he was making it out of that match the Champ. Even if there wasn't a distaste for his style at the time among the voters, from my observations, the voters in A1E respond to more than just the promos you put up. I'm a firm believer that Cross' A1E title reign was a clear sign of that. Not that he wasn't a deserving Champion, but there were political undercurrents that went into his defeating of Gladiator in my opinion, and once he went up against Euclid, who was pretty much not going to be denied the World Championship, well, it was all over.

And just like that, Torment was doomed from the start. But it was all for the best anyway. Ken Cloverleaf's title reign brought balance and stability to the A1E Title, and now this year, I'm getting my shot to take it at Golden Dreams with little controversy (knock on wood).

But enough about me and A1E.

There is a lot less turmoil surrounding the CS-Dub situation. Although Jason, much like Dave in A1E, had to vacate all his spots in e-fedding due to real life pressures, there wasn't an immediate question of succession, if only because the CSWA was somewhat dormant.

But now, Chad and Steve got the ship running again, and we're finally here at CSWA17. This Final Four is an intriguing lot, and it's pretty hard to handicap who's gonna come out with possibly the most prestigious belt in all the hobby. We have...

"Superstar" Vince Jacobs - No offense to SVJ's handler here, but I think this is the weakest link in the final four. I thought Boogie had him beat at the last PRIMETIME, but he's here and he's got a chance. I'm thinking though that he has to pull a really good effort out of his rear end to come out on top.

Vacant - He has an interesting enough gimmick, and I'm really interested to see who's behind the mask. However, I don't think he's gonna pull it out either.

To me, it's between Dan Ryan and Troy Windham. Both have had great tournaments so far, and both are CSWA lifers. Troy's got some more momentum behind him, but Ryan also has a built in storyline having been stripped of the CSWA title without ever losing it.

This match is too tough to call. Much like the A1E match last year was too tough to call. Last year, I thought James Irish was going to win, but it was Cloverleaf. So I guess whoever I pick this year will have my kiss of death, eh? But there's not stopping destiny.

So I'm sorry Gregg, but I'm picking Troy Windham to win this match. Hopefully for you, I'm less jinxy than last year.

But regardless of any outcome, CSWA 17 should be a great card. And who knows, maybe we'll get an ID on this hacker...