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.
Showing posts with label real world comparisons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label real world comparisons. Show all posts
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Monday, September 24, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, September 17, 2007
We got the moves
There are many debates in eW right now, and most of them seem to be about writing styles and all that jazz. Of course, because everyone seems to be on the burnt out side of the hobby at this point, those debates have died down a bit, which is good, becasue I really, really, REALLY tire of people sniping back and forth about FW vs. PTC or script vs. narrative. That being said, there are a few minor debates contained in places other than writing style. One of the hotter ones, and one that's been discussed here before, has been whether we should allow mentioning "real" wrestlers in our eW writeups/RPs/hype pieces/whatever.
I'm not looking into exploring this debate. My thoughts are well-known (at least I think they are). I do think that real wrestlers do have a place being mentioned, although not as a crutch. They should be sparing if any. I mean, coming from a guy who handles the whole Anonymous family, that should be a no-brainer :p However, I do understand the need for our community to become self-contained really, to have a sense of history. For the three of us who actually read writeups (and that number is probably two now since I barely get any time to read them at the present moment), it's one thing to see a move referred to as an "Arn Anderson quality spinebuster," but it's a much different and more mark-out-worthy event when you see things like "Hornet splash." I know I'm still a big offender since I use the real wrestler references in nearly every edition of EPICENTER. The thing is though, how many of us have commonplace moves that we're well-known for?
By and large, we choose our movesets because we like the way certain guys do those moves, and every signature move that we have for the most part are finishers. Honestly, if you describe Dan Ryan doing a Spoiler-quality powerbomb, Brunk would flay you. Trust me, I know from experience not to compare the characters ;) Most people don't really signature-ize their common moves, and for the most part, the legendary characters that are in the forefront in peoples' minds right now are still active, a phenomenon that's totally opposite to what's going on in real wrestling, at least in this super-community.
So, how do we make our moves our own again? How can we start substituting our wrestlers for guys like Anderson or Rick Rude? Well, for one, we can start trying to read matches again. Stop laughing, it's true. Of course, this discussion's been had many times before, so then what? How about more feds employing shortforms, like TEAM or NFW, in highlight form? Have your wrestlers submit a sort of "five moves of doom" spot list for the main shortformer to highlight, so that the common moves, the strikes and the minor slams can become ingrained into folklore like the legendary finishers on the scale of the HIDADRIVER~! (oh the humanity).
I know that may be blasphemous, since 99% of us are workrate marks. Hell, I'm one myself. However, I also know that the nature of the beast is to captivate attention. Even in writing, if you can pick out spots that are common to your wrestler, it might help people read even longform matches better.
And maybe we can start to replace the real wrestlers with our own legends to associate with moves.
I'm not looking into exploring this debate. My thoughts are well-known (at least I think they are). I do think that real wrestlers do have a place being mentioned, although not as a crutch. They should be sparing if any. I mean, coming from a guy who handles the whole Anonymous family, that should be a no-brainer :p However, I do understand the need for our community to become self-contained really, to have a sense of history. For the three of us who actually read writeups (and that number is probably two now since I barely get any time to read them at the present moment), it's one thing to see a move referred to as an "Arn Anderson quality spinebuster," but it's a much different and more mark-out-worthy event when you see things like "Hornet splash." I know I'm still a big offender since I use the real wrestler references in nearly every edition of EPICENTER. The thing is though, how many of us have commonplace moves that we're well-known for?
By and large, we choose our movesets because we like the way certain guys do those moves, and every signature move that we have for the most part are finishers. Honestly, if you describe Dan Ryan doing a Spoiler-quality powerbomb, Brunk would flay you. Trust me, I know from experience not to compare the characters ;) Most people don't really signature-ize their common moves, and for the most part, the legendary characters that are in the forefront in peoples' minds right now are still active, a phenomenon that's totally opposite to what's going on in real wrestling, at least in this super-community.
So, how do we make our moves our own again? How can we start substituting our wrestlers for guys like Anderson or Rick Rude? Well, for one, we can start trying to read matches again. Stop laughing, it's true. Of course, this discussion's been had many times before, so then what? How about more feds employing shortforms, like TEAM or NFW, in highlight form? Have your wrestlers submit a sort of "five moves of doom" spot list for the main shortformer to highlight, so that the common moves, the strikes and the minor slams can become ingrained into folklore like the legendary finishers on the scale of the HIDADRIVER~! (oh the humanity).
I know that may be blasphemous, since 99% of us are workrate marks. Hell, I'm one myself. However, I also know that the nature of the beast is to captivate attention. Even in writing, if you can pick out spots that are common to your wrestler, it might help people read even longform matches better.
And maybe we can start to replace the real wrestlers with our own legends to associate with moves.
Monday, June 25, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Confessions of an E-Fed Conservative
The words "conservative" and "liberal" are tossed around in politics like softballs in a beer league game, even if the terms don't match the person they're describing. For example, many Republicans nowadays are called conservative, yet they spend taxpayer money like their names were Franklin Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Re... err, wait a second :). It's not to say that the GOP isn't a conservative party. They lean right on many issues, but it just goes to show that there aren't many people out there who are 100% right or 100% left on anything anymore.
The same goes for eW, at least in most cases. The right and the left are clearly demarcated around the communities, mainly in terms of writing style and wrestling topicality in shows. Some communities, like FW, are homes to staunch conservatives on the surface, while the PTC crowd leans more to the left, at least that's what it seems. There are opposite elements in each camp. You wouldn't know it on FW because discussion for the most part has gone the way of characters like Stone Cold Rocky Helmsley, but if you pay attention to some writers there like Steve, Jamar Short, Lindz, Pete Russo and even Katz sometimes who write stuff that is panned by and large by the "old guard." This isn't to say that they're eW "hippies," and they rarely ever write things that don't have a damn thing to do with their character as wrestlers, but it's still something different. At PTC, the debates rage all the time, with the right mostly being manned by Ben (Caldera), Dean and, surprise-surprise, myself.
Yes, I tend to think of myself as an e-fed conservative. You might not know it from posts like this where I advocate blasphemous things like off-camera, topically non-wrestling related RPs and writings, but I guess just like most in the political arena, I'm not wholly on one side ot the coin. The reason why I say I'm conservative is that I don't go for the supernatural in the ring, and I tend to be against the supernatural characters out of the ring (even though I will never, ever try to keep a supernatural character from being able to do his thing). I like for everything in the ring and on camera to be realistic. I hate when people come up with contrived finishers, and I hate it when people use stuff like the Burning Hammer or Tiger Driver '91 in their regular movesets (remember that, Brunk?). Although I fully support all ex-PTC feds and am in PRIME, I do prefer "old-school" RP feds, and I think everything's better in script.
Yet, I think people who choose to develop their character off-camera in situations where they may not be even thinking about the arena is not only okay, but it should be encouraged for those who want to do it like that. Of course, I believe everything at the end of the day should tie into that person's character as a wrestler, whether you're explicitly mentioning matches, the fed, angles and such or not in the RP. Why even be in something called e-wrestling if you're going to ignore the wrestling part? I do feel like people should have as much creative freedom as they need to express themselves. Besides, why should they care what Randomposter X or William Morgan think about their RP if they're just looking at one RP in one shot out of context of everything that person is doing in their fed? It should matter to the fedhead, the admins, the people in that fed who've been following that arc and that angle, and who know the history behind that RP and where that person may be going with it.
Does this make me any less of a purist? Honestly, I don't think it does, seeing that the goal of the hobby is to create memorable moments with our characters, be they in the ring, on the stick or any which way else. Those who say it's not realistic... well, you may be right, but having a 24 hour promo channel isn't realistic too, and many of us still RP like there is. That's because we in this hobby have several degrees of freedom more than what the folks in the real world have. Our message boards and promo boards act as if we do have all-access to every wrestler out there. If we have that freedom, why should we have to limit ourselves? Why can't Katz and Steve collaborate on an RP or a segment that features Mike Randalls and Joey Melton hunting sand pirates while Scott Riktor dresses up in a bear suit? Okay, maybe that might not have been the best example of something realistic, and yes, I did have to strain to suspend my disbelief at that whole series, but it was entertaining to read, and a lot of times, that's a perfect remedy to the whole non-topical subject.
Ah, I'm rambling again... my point is, no one is completely on one side of the spectrum. I mean, if I had to portray myself with a counterpart, I'd probably be Rudy Giuliani. He's a Republican, and he's no doubt a Republican on several issues, but he leans very much to the right on a few others, like abortion. He's a pro-choice Republican. That may seem like an oxymoron to you, but to others, well, it just means he's a human being. Same with Log-Cabin Republicans or Hawkish Democrats like Joe Lieberman. Or storyline-RP loving eW righties like myself ;)
Besides, I can think of only a few people whom I think could fit the mold of a total extremist on each side. I know Shane Gerlach HATES anything narrative, and feels like if anything has to be told, it should be told in the ring, on the stick, at the arena, or if it has to be out of the arena, that your character acts as if he was on camera the whole time. I also know that Joe Schmidt and Ryan Murray both believe that you don't even have to write about wrestling to get along in this hobby, and that most people are better off staying away from the in-ring aspect. Even in those cases, they aren't completely set in their ways. I know that Shane can pull a storyline RP out of his ass because he did so for the ToC last year (another subliminal plug! ;p), and both Ryan and Joe at least keep their characters somewhat grounded when they write in-card. You're never going to find someone that goes all the way to one side.
And that's how things ought to be. People shouldn't fall in with an ideology. They should stick to their ideals and be themselves, believe what they truly believe is right, what they believe is entertaining, what they believe is enriching.
One more thing before I go... the post from W3:16 that I linked to was in response to the aforementioned Morgan, who said that he had me on ignore and then goes on to say that I'm on there because I "bash" him for no good reason. Well, I can't believe I'm giving him the time of day on here, but I don't bash anyone for no good reason. If I called him out, it was because he was making stupid, ignorant posts like the ones he was making in that thread. I call 'em like I see 'em. I don't pick on people just because I don't like them. I pick on them because they continue to say stupid things, trump them up like they're gospel and then shirk away from any stimulating mental debate that challenges their short-sighted world view because their wittle feewings were hurt that I "bashed" them. Fuck that. If you can't take having your views challenged, and if you can't stand up and defend them without calling your opposition stupid or cowering away from them, then you have no place being on a message board interacting with other people. I have no patience for intolerance and I have no patience for ignorance, and I will say something if I see either one. You all know this to be true.
The same goes for eW, at least in most cases. The right and the left are clearly demarcated around the communities, mainly in terms of writing style and wrestling topicality in shows. Some communities, like FW, are homes to staunch conservatives on the surface, while the PTC crowd leans more to the left, at least that's what it seems. There are opposite elements in each camp. You wouldn't know it on FW because discussion for the most part has gone the way of characters like Stone Cold Rocky Helmsley, but if you pay attention to some writers there like Steve, Jamar Short, Lindz, Pete Russo and even Katz sometimes who write stuff that is panned by and large by the "old guard." This isn't to say that they're eW "hippies," and they rarely ever write things that don't have a damn thing to do with their character as wrestlers, but it's still something different. At PTC, the debates rage all the time, with the right mostly being manned by Ben (Caldera), Dean and, surprise-surprise, myself.
Yes, I tend to think of myself as an e-fed conservative. You might not know it from posts like this where I advocate blasphemous things like off-camera, topically non-wrestling related RPs and writings, but I guess just like most in the political arena, I'm not wholly on one side ot the coin. The reason why I say I'm conservative is that I don't go for the supernatural in the ring, and I tend to be against the supernatural characters out of the ring (even though I will never, ever try to keep a supernatural character from being able to do his thing). I like for everything in the ring and on camera to be realistic. I hate when people come up with contrived finishers, and I hate it when people use stuff like the Burning Hammer or Tiger Driver '91 in their regular movesets (remember that, Brunk?). Although I fully support all ex-PTC feds and am in PRIME, I do prefer "old-school" RP feds, and I think everything's better in script.
Yet, I think people who choose to develop their character off-camera in situations where they may not be even thinking about the arena is not only okay, but it should be encouraged for those who want to do it like that. Of course, I believe everything at the end of the day should tie into that person's character as a wrestler, whether you're explicitly mentioning matches, the fed, angles and such or not in the RP. Why even be in something called e-wrestling if you're going to ignore the wrestling part? I do feel like people should have as much creative freedom as they need to express themselves. Besides, why should they care what Randomposter X or William Morgan think about their RP if they're just looking at one RP in one shot out of context of everything that person is doing in their fed? It should matter to the fedhead, the admins, the people in that fed who've been following that arc and that angle, and who know the history behind that RP and where that person may be going with it.
Does this make me any less of a purist? Honestly, I don't think it does, seeing that the goal of the hobby is to create memorable moments with our characters, be they in the ring, on the stick or any which way else. Those who say it's not realistic... well, you may be right, but having a 24 hour promo channel isn't realistic too, and many of us still RP like there is. That's because we in this hobby have several degrees of freedom more than what the folks in the real world have. Our message boards and promo boards act as if we do have all-access to every wrestler out there. If we have that freedom, why should we have to limit ourselves? Why can't Katz and Steve collaborate on an RP or a segment that features Mike Randalls and Joey Melton hunting sand pirates while Scott Riktor dresses up in a bear suit? Okay, maybe that might not have been the best example of something realistic, and yes, I did have to strain to suspend my disbelief at that whole series, but it was entertaining to read, and a lot of times, that's a perfect remedy to the whole non-topical subject.
Ah, I'm rambling again... my point is, no one is completely on one side of the spectrum. I mean, if I had to portray myself with a counterpart, I'd probably be Rudy Giuliani. He's a Republican, and he's no doubt a Republican on several issues, but he leans very much to the right on a few others, like abortion. He's a pro-choice Republican. That may seem like an oxymoron to you, but to others, well, it just means he's a human being. Same with Log-Cabin Republicans or Hawkish Democrats like Joe Lieberman. Or storyline-RP loving eW righties like myself ;)
Besides, I can think of only a few people whom I think could fit the mold of a total extremist on each side. I know Shane Gerlach HATES anything narrative, and feels like if anything has to be told, it should be told in the ring, on the stick, at the arena, or if it has to be out of the arena, that your character acts as if he was on camera the whole time. I also know that Joe Schmidt and Ryan Murray both believe that you don't even have to write about wrestling to get along in this hobby, and that most people are better off staying away from the in-ring aspect. Even in those cases, they aren't completely set in their ways. I know that Shane can pull a storyline RP out of his ass because he did so for the ToC last year (another subliminal plug! ;p), and both Ryan and Joe at least keep their characters somewhat grounded when they write in-card. You're never going to find someone that goes all the way to one side.
And that's how things ought to be. People shouldn't fall in with an ideology. They should stick to their ideals and be themselves, believe what they truly believe is right, what they believe is entertaining, what they believe is enriching.
One more thing before I go... the post from W3:16 that I linked to was in response to the aforementioned Morgan, who said that he had me on ignore and then goes on to say that I'm on there because I "bash" him for no good reason. Well, I can't believe I'm giving him the time of day on here, but I don't bash anyone for no good reason. If I called him out, it was because he was making stupid, ignorant posts like the ones he was making in that thread. I call 'em like I see 'em. I don't pick on people just because I don't like them. I pick on them because they continue to say stupid things, trump them up like they're gospel and then shirk away from any stimulating mental debate that challenges their short-sighted world view because their wittle feewings were hurt that I "bashed" them. Fuck that. If you can't take having your views challenged, and if you can't stand up and defend them without calling your opposition stupid or cowering away from them, then you have no place being on a message board interacting with other people. I have no patience for intolerance and I have no patience for ignorance, and I will say something if I see either one. You all know this to be true.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Paranoia runs deep
Yeah, I haven't been too active in the last couple of weeks, but that's because I've been a mite busy lately. That also means that I'm probably not going to catch up back fed happenings enough to actually sit down and write reviews for shows, even if they're quickie reviews. It just wouldn't be timely for me to write a Cold Snap or Revolution or even a Culture Shock review in the middle to end of April. I still plan on reading everything, but just to make things clear, so that when you don't see your fed's show reviewed here, don't take it personally.
Anyway, now that that's out of the way, ze post!
By our own admissions, most of our main characters are extensions of ourselves. So many times I've heard in IMs or seen in profiles that so-and-so is an extension of the handler or is that handler's real-life personality "turned up to eleven." (Just one of Spinal Tap's many gifts to our fair society!) Because of that, it can sometimes be very, very hard to keep our OOC feelings from spilling over into promos. As natural as that is for characters who are extensions of ourselves, we should also keep in mind that there is a fine line between spillage and shootage. We don't want to get too chippy, or else things aren't fun anymore.
However, there are people out there who feel that the line isn't as fine as it really is. As much as you can have people who freely cross the line and shoot on folks as part of their promo style (put the gun down, Gerlach, I'm not ripping you :p), the opposite perspective is true, i.e., there are those out there who think that the slightest comment that could be taken as a shoot is a shoot. I'm talking about the paranoid, the hypersensitive, those who could literally take the teenage-FW "i r better than u lol" style in today's game and think that the kid is shooting on them.
Let's take the most recent example of this, which is in truth the impetus for this entry. On the latest FUSE card, Ryan and Craig thought it would be a larf to promote their PTC Global/Extreme Title Unification Match. In doing so, Craig's character Dusk, a member of PRIME, came onto the show and cut an in-ring promo. In that promo, he put down several members of FUSE, including the World Champion. To many people, to most sane people, this would be a non-issue. However, there was a vocal contingient on the FUSE roster who screamed bloody murder at the fact an outsider came onto the show and buried their Universal Champion. They complained that it made their fed look bushleague and said that things like this wouldn't happen between the WWE and TNA. Let me take this apart one by one.
First off, the whole basis of at least 75% of wrestling promos is to badmouth someone. A past opponent, present opponent, future opponent, someone who isn't you, I mean, watch any wrestling program in the last 20 years and you will see big, sweaty guys talking smack about people they're not supposed to like in character. It's a huge part of the game. So what if Dusk came in and ran down John Covel? He's a member of another promotion, trying to build heat for an upcoming match with a member of that promotion. What do you expect him to do, come in and give Covel an verbal blowjob, just so people's feelings won't get hurt? Christ, where have these people been for the last forever? Since when has a wrestling promo been the measure for OOC or off-camera respect? When Shawn Michaels feuded with Diesel and Razor Ramon, I can bet you any amount of money that at the end of the day, Michael Hickenbottom was going to be hanging out, probably throwing back brews or just relaxing with Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, no matter what kind of words were being thrown around on-camera, and do you know why? Because they understood that everything on-camera was SCRIPTED!
Diverging off-track for a moment here, it's interesting to note that this happened on the PTC side of things, where some people admittedly don't RP about wrestling related things. I've never read a FUSE RP, and to be fair, I really don't read RPs in general, not for PRIME, the PTC interfed, even in FW feds most of the time unless it's TEAM. I can't tell you from firsthand experience whether this is true for FUSE or not, but the fact that people have admitted that they don't RP about wrestling and the fact that people who do read RPs complain about this points to a problem that could have lead to this blowup. People may have become so out of touch with how wrestling works (since there are many in this hobby who don't watch the real thing anymore... I was one of those people until WrestleMania and Raw the night after sucked me back in) that they don't know what a wrestling promo is anymore. They're more concerned with getting their writing out for feedback that anything negative is construed as an attack, even if the giver of that negativity clearly doesn't mean in out-of-character. (And isn't it funny that one guy who is the most blatant about not including wrestling in his RPs has the best grasp of this idea?)
Back on track now, for whatever reason, people couldn't grasp that. Their reasoning was "hey, it never happens in real life!" Well, it actually does. ROH, indie feds and puro feds often have talent going back and forth among each other. Of course, those are on a level here below consciousness (i.e., the national major promotions), so I have to agree, it doesn't happen up there. But let me ask you this question... where at in America can you find a construct such as PTC? Major, national promotions in cooperation with each other... that's unheard of, it's something we have unique to us, so who's to say we have to apply artificial rules that correspond to the real world for us? The facts are these; FUSE and PRIME are in a loose relationship where there are Championships and tournaments involved. To me, they'd be silly not to cooperate if it meant that both companies could benefit from this. I believe they'd benefit from it financially if they were both real companies, and there's no question that they're benefitting now. I mean, when you get activity like this, you get people who wouldn't normally read FUSE checking in to find out the latest dealings with the interfed or checking on one of their own from PRIME. Then you may have someone who reads the whole show and likes it. Then, people who were for, against or even unaware that something like that was going down benefitting from it because more people are paying attention to their writing. How is that a bad situation?
The answer is that it's only as bad as people let themselves make it out to be. This whole ordeal could have been avoided had the people crying about everything took a few steps back and realized that everything was in character. No one was shooting, and Criag has said on many occasions after that he's had nothing but respect for FUSE. Still, people want to be up in arms about it. Well, it's their loss for taking everything so damn seriously. If you keep a light air about you and you keep everything in perspective, then you'll do fine in this game. However, the moment you start thinking that everyone's out to get you, even if they're just playing the game themselves, you're going to cause a lot of problems for you and for everyone else.
Anyway, now that that's out of the way, ze post!
By our own admissions, most of our main characters are extensions of ourselves. So many times I've heard in IMs or seen in profiles that so-and-so is an extension of the handler or is that handler's real-life personality "turned up to eleven." (Just one of Spinal Tap's many gifts to our fair society!) Because of that, it can sometimes be very, very hard to keep our OOC feelings from spilling over into promos. As natural as that is for characters who are extensions of ourselves, we should also keep in mind that there is a fine line between spillage and shootage. We don't want to get too chippy, or else things aren't fun anymore.
However, there are people out there who feel that the line isn't as fine as it really is. As much as you can have people who freely cross the line and shoot on folks as part of their promo style (put the gun down, Gerlach, I'm not ripping you :p), the opposite perspective is true, i.e., there are those out there who think that the slightest comment that could be taken as a shoot is a shoot. I'm talking about the paranoid, the hypersensitive, those who could literally take the teenage-FW "i r better than u lol" style in today's game and think that the kid is shooting on them.
Let's take the most recent example of this, which is in truth the impetus for this entry. On the latest FUSE card, Ryan and Craig thought it would be a larf to promote their PTC Global/Extreme Title Unification Match. In doing so, Craig's character Dusk, a member of PRIME, came onto the show and cut an in-ring promo. In that promo, he put down several members of FUSE, including the World Champion. To many people, to most sane people, this would be a non-issue. However, there was a vocal contingient on the FUSE roster who screamed bloody murder at the fact an outsider came onto the show and buried their Universal Champion. They complained that it made their fed look bushleague and said that things like this wouldn't happen between the WWE and TNA. Let me take this apart one by one.
First off, the whole basis of at least 75% of wrestling promos is to badmouth someone. A past opponent, present opponent, future opponent, someone who isn't you, I mean, watch any wrestling program in the last 20 years and you will see big, sweaty guys talking smack about people they're not supposed to like in character. It's a huge part of the game. So what if Dusk came in and ran down John Covel? He's a member of another promotion, trying to build heat for an upcoming match with a member of that promotion. What do you expect him to do, come in and give Covel an verbal blowjob, just so people's feelings won't get hurt? Christ, where have these people been for the last forever? Since when has a wrestling promo been the measure for OOC or off-camera respect? When Shawn Michaels feuded with Diesel and Razor Ramon, I can bet you any amount of money that at the end of the day, Michael Hickenbottom was going to be hanging out, probably throwing back brews or just relaxing with Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, no matter what kind of words were being thrown around on-camera, and do you know why? Because they understood that everything on-camera was SCRIPTED!
Diverging off-track for a moment here, it's interesting to note that this happened on the PTC side of things, where some people admittedly don't RP about wrestling related things. I've never read a FUSE RP, and to be fair, I really don't read RPs in general, not for PRIME, the PTC interfed, even in FW feds most of the time unless it's TEAM. I can't tell you from firsthand experience whether this is true for FUSE or not, but the fact that people have admitted that they don't RP about wrestling and the fact that people who do read RPs complain about this points to a problem that could have lead to this blowup. People may have become so out of touch with how wrestling works (since there are many in this hobby who don't watch the real thing anymore... I was one of those people until WrestleMania and Raw the night after sucked me back in) that they don't know what a wrestling promo is anymore. They're more concerned with getting their writing out for feedback that anything negative is construed as an attack, even if the giver of that negativity clearly doesn't mean in out-of-character. (And isn't it funny that one guy who is the most blatant about not including wrestling in his RPs has the best grasp of this idea?)
Back on track now, for whatever reason, people couldn't grasp that. Their reasoning was "hey, it never happens in real life!" Well, it actually does. ROH, indie feds and puro feds often have talent going back and forth among each other. Of course, those are on a level here below consciousness (i.e., the national major promotions), so I have to agree, it doesn't happen up there. But let me ask you this question... where at in America can you find a construct such as PTC? Major, national promotions in cooperation with each other... that's unheard of, it's something we have unique to us, so who's to say we have to apply artificial rules that correspond to the real world for us? The facts are these; FUSE and PRIME are in a loose relationship where there are Championships and tournaments involved. To me, they'd be silly not to cooperate if it meant that both companies could benefit from this. I believe they'd benefit from it financially if they were both real companies, and there's no question that they're benefitting now. I mean, when you get activity like this, you get people who wouldn't normally read FUSE checking in to find out the latest dealings with the interfed or checking on one of their own from PRIME. Then you may have someone who reads the whole show and likes it. Then, people who were for, against or even unaware that something like that was going down benefitting from it because more people are paying attention to their writing. How is that a bad situation?
The answer is that it's only as bad as people let themselves make it out to be. This whole ordeal could have been avoided had the people crying about everything took a few steps back and realized that everything was in character. No one was shooting, and Criag has said on many occasions after that he's had nothing but respect for FUSE. Still, people want to be up in arms about it. Well, it's their loss for taking everything so damn seriously. If you keep a light air about you and you keep everything in perspective, then you'll do fine in this game. However, the moment you start thinking that everyone's out to get you, even if they're just playing the game themselves, you're going to cause a lot of problems for you and for everyone else.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Guest Bloggings: Teh R3n3gade
Just when you thought that the guest bloggings stopped... they haven't! (a reminder to everyone who promised a blog and haven't delivered yet.... there's still time :p) This week, we get yet another PRIMEate (although he's a recent one... he made his PTC bones in GCW) in the from of Andrew Delling, handler of GTT5 Champion "The Renegade" Rich Rollins and Iblis. Here goes...
The Tale of the Tape
by Andrew Delling, special guest to RRoaEL
Somebody once said "… no chance in hell," and suddenly, I was hooked.
If you're reading this entry, I'm going to assume two things; a). your childhood was spent watching the likes of Hulk Hogan or Stone Cold Steve Austin suplex your television on a weekly basis, and b). you couldn't get enough of it, no matter how much crap you had to swallow from family and friends. In short, if you're reading this now, you almost certainly learned to appreciate the theater of professional wrestling (not this new-fangled sports entertainment bullshit, but that good old fashioned professional wrastlin') before falling in love with the athletic, almost poetic, and undeniably hypnotic nature of the business. On a side note, aren't "real" professional sports entertaining, too? What makes pro wrestling so spectacular?
The short answer: storytelling. It isn't a dirty word, folks. It's the magic word.
Every single conceivable storyline, whether original or otherwise, has in some way been represented on Monday night television courtesy of Vincent K. McMahon. Angry protagonist looking for revenge? Check. Jealous lover looking for retribution? Check. Ambitious newcomer looking to climb the corporate ladder, regardless the cost or condition? Ditto. Lesbian adultery? Yup. Devious villains looking for new and creative ways to defile the corpse of Katie Vick? Done and double-checked.
Most people dismiss these stories as testosterone-infused flights of operatic fiction, carried out on a canvas stage surrounded by the lowest of brow and whitest of trash, but seriously… when did "opera" become synonymous with "oppression?" Fuck the critics. I'm not ashamed of my fascination with so-called low-brow entertainment. After all, if we all started condemning our baser instincts, strip clubs wouldn't be far behind on the endangered species list; tittie bars might make good company with the manatee, but wouldn't that just make us all a bunch of dumbasses?
Okay, I know what you're thinking. What the hell does all this have to do with e-wrestling? It's simple; this hobby strives to celebrate and emulate our (once) preferred form of entertainment through writing stories. Some people act it out with mattresses in their backyard, others in hotly-contested video game re-enactments, and some like to live it out through message boards and AIM conversations on the internet. Hell, for anyone reading this, at some point or another it was probably all three. I've been there, done that, and have the embarrassing backyard videos to prove it.
Our emulation of the "real" pro wrestling is so spot-on, in fact, that we've taken not only the muscles-and-spandex spectacle of Monday night television and made it our own, but we've adopted a far less endearing aspect of the business: the bullshit. The drama. The backstage bickering. The "politics."
This is a statement on the hobby as a whole: unless your name is Jesse Ventura, you have no business as a backstage politician. Feeling like you have to walk on eggshells simply so you can maintain friendships is stupid, but believe me, it happens. Don't get me wrong; a good eighty percent of the time I've devoted to e-wrestling over the past seven years has been fantastic. Without a doubt, this hobby has changed my life in ways that I'd have never thought possible. It cultivates a healthy, hands-on approach to creative writing, and whether or not you actually consider yourself a writer is irrelevant. We don't do this for money, we do this because it's passionate and sincere, and we do it on our terms. That's the very definition of art, and I'm damn proud to be part of it.
This isn't World of Warcraft (thank god). The irony of it is, it's people like us and communities like this that were the foundation of massively successful games like Everquest and its bastard spawn. Remember when online roleplaying was in its infancy, when it gave pimply D&D fans a chat room or email service to conduct their campaigns through? I remember simming, personally. "Simulation" rooms were all the rave back when AOL was actually a monthly service provider and not just a free instant messenger. This new MMO craze is just the next step on the ladder of roleplaying evolution, where big software companies are injecting our imaginations with formaldehyde and providing us with a flashy, graphics-oriented alternative. There's a huge difference between an (overly-indulged, goddamn life-sucking) MMO and e-wrestling. We create something new every time we sit down at the keyboard, because we build our own world. Blizzard fans are just playing in someone else's sandbox, and personally, they can keep their crusty catshit surprises all to themselves.
I'm not segueing any of this very well, am I? I apologize for the erratic changes of topics here, but hell, I'm just saying some things "out loud" that I've been mulling over for awhile now. Anyway, I'll cut to the chase.
E-wrestling as a whole is kinda like a Baskin Robins ice cream parlor. Our true appeal is in the variety of our styles, our flavors. The old-school script-style trash talkers are like the amaretto chocolate next to the fledgling novelist's strawberry pecan. You want a more traditional, grassroots grasp that focuses on the entertainment value instead of the writing? Try the vanilla. It's the staple of any decent sundae.
Just remember that at the end of the day, you can't make a banana split without the chocolate and strawberry, too.
On the whole, the majority of e-wrestling has been the same solid core groups of people who are the cornerstone of any given e-wrestling community. Most of us have known one another for years. We've grown up together, matured together (well…), and become a voice together. The hobby is healthier than it's ever been, and you want to know why? It isn't about playing some numbers game, about the steady decline of our "real" alternative, or even the lack of fresh meat trickling in from the digital void; it's about the evolution of the game itself, and from looking around at how far we've come, once again, I'm proud to have been around to watch it happen.
Now, watch me eat my words when the world's first eW MMO hits store shelves next Fall.
The Tale of the Tape
by Andrew Delling, special guest to RRoaEL
Somebody once said "… no chance in hell," and suddenly, I was hooked.
If you're reading this entry, I'm going to assume two things; a). your childhood was spent watching the likes of Hulk Hogan or Stone Cold Steve Austin suplex your television on a weekly basis, and b). you couldn't get enough of it, no matter how much crap you had to swallow from family and friends. In short, if you're reading this now, you almost certainly learned to appreciate the theater of professional wrestling (not this new-fangled sports entertainment bullshit, but that good old fashioned professional wrastlin') before falling in love with the athletic, almost poetic, and undeniably hypnotic nature of the business. On a side note, aren't "real" professional sports entertaining, too? What makes pro wrestling so spectacular?
The short answer: storytelling. It isn't a dirty word, folks. It's the magic word.
Every single conceivable storyline, whether original or otherwise, has in some way been represented on Monday night television courtesy of Vincent K. McMahon. Angry protagonist looking for revenge? Check. Jealous lover looking for retribution? Check. Ambitious newcomer looking to climb the corporate ladder, regardless the cost or condition? Ditto. Lesbian adultery? Yup. Devious villains looking for new and creative ways to defile the corpse of Katie Vick? Done and double-checked.
Most people dismiss these stories as testosterone-infused flights of operatic fiction, carried out on a canvas stage surrounded by the lowest of brow and whitest of trash, but seriously… when did "opera" become synonymous with "oppression?" Fuck the critics. I'm not ashamed of my fascination with so-called low-brow entertainment. After all, if we all started condemning our baser instincts, strip clubs wouldn't be far behind on the endangered species list; tittie bars might make good company with the manatee, but wouldn't that just make us all a bunch of dumbasses?
Okay, I know what you're thinking. What the hell does all this have to do with e-wrestling? It's simple; this hobby strives to celebrate and emulate our (once) preferred form of entertainment through writing stories. Some people act it out with mattresses in their backyard, others in hotly-contested video game re-enactments, and some like to live it out through message boards and AIM conversations on the internet. Hell, for anyone reading this, at some point or another it was probably all three. I've been there, done that, and have the embarrassing backyard videos to prove it.
Our emulation of the "real" pro wrestling is so spot-on, in fact, that we've taken not only the muscles-and-spandex spectacle of Monday night television and made it our own, but we've adopted a far less endearing aspect of the business: the bullshit. The drama. The backstage bickering. The "politics."
This is a statement on the hobby as a whole: unless your name is Jesse Ventura, you have no business as a backstage politician. Feeling like you have to walk on eggshells simply so you can maintain friendships is stupid, but believe me, it happens. Don't get me wrong; a good eighty percent of the time I've devoted to e-wrestling over the past seven years has been fantastic. Without a doubt, this hobby has changed my life in ways that I'd have never thought possible. It cultivates a healthy, hands-on approach to creative writing, and whether or not you actually consider yourself a writer is irrelevant. We don't do this for money, we do this because it's passionate and sincere, and we do it on our terms. That's the very definition of art, and I'm damn proud to be part of it.
This isn't World of Warcraft (thank god). The irony of it is, it's people like us and communities like this that were the foundation of massively successful games like Everquest and its bastard spawn. Remember when online roleplaying was in its infancy, when it gave pimply D&D fans a chat room or email service to conduct their campaigns through? I remember simming, personally. "Simulation" rooms were all the rave back when AOL was actually a monthly service provider and not just a free instant messenger. This new MMO craze is just the next step on the ladder of roleplaying evolution, where big software companies are injecting our imaginations with formaldehyde and providing us with a flashy, graphics-oriented alternative. There's a huge difference between an (overly-indulged, goddamn life-sucking) MMO and e-wrestling. We create something new every time we sit down at the keyboard, because we build our own world. Blizzard fans are just playing in someone else's sandbox, and personally, they can keep their crusty catshit surprises all to themselves.
I'm not segueing any of this very well, am I? I apologize for the erratic changes of topics here, but hell, I'm just saying some things "out loud" that I've been mulling over for awhile now. Anyway, I'll cut to the chase.
E-wrestling as a whole is kinda like a Baskin Robins ice cream parlor. Our true appeal is in the variety of our styles, our flavors. The old-school script-style trash talkers are like the amaretto chocolate next to the fledgling novelist's strawberry pecan. You want a more traditional, grassroots grasp that focuses on the entertainment value instead of the writing? Try the vanilla. It's the staple of any decent sundae.
Just remember that at the end of the day, you can't make a banana split without the chocolate and strawberry, too.
On the whole, the majority of e-wrestling has been the same solid core groups of people who are the cornerstone of any given e-wrestling community. Most of us have known one another for years. We've grown up together, matured together (well…), and become a voice together. The hobby is healthier than it's ever been, and you want to know why? It isn't about playing some numbers game, about the steady decline of our "real" alternative, or even the lack of fresh meat trickling in from the digital void; it's about the evolution of the game itself, and from looking around at how far we've come, once again, I'm proud to have been around to watch it happen.
Now, watch me eat my words when the world's first eW MMO hits store shelves next Fall.
Monday, November 13, 2006
You Cad!
For those who've been following PRIME lately, do me a favor. Count the faces who are currently active on the roster. By my count, I only see five, really, and the ones that I do count as faces, several of them are listed as "neutral" under their bios. Five guys (from my followings of the fed, they're Tchu, Shawn Stewart, Paul Cain, Jonothan Winters and Adam... Lindsay Troy would be a face, but she's inactive righ now), out of a roster of 23 actives that I count (24 if you count the holographic projection of the Illustrious Face-Eater). That's less than 25%. Make no bones about it, PRIME is heel heaven, especially with the turns of folks like Johnny Noble, Jason Snow and most surprisingly of them all, über-face Nova, going to the Dark Side in the last few months. The most dominant stable on the roster, which includes the aforementioned Snow and Nova and of course, eW legends Rich Rollins and Angelo Deville, is heel. Arguably the most entertaining wrestler on the roster, Mr. Silver, is heel. The most impressive newcomer, Sun Tzu, is heel.
But here's the catch. For anyone who follows eW, this isn't a new trend. It's been like this for awhile, and anywhere you go, I bet most characters in any fed are heel. Also, I don't think it's that big a problem. In fact, I don't think it's a problem at all. So why do handlers tend to handle on the heel side, and why isn't this a problem?
First, let's tackle the why. Why do people want to handle heels more than they want to faces? Well, let's make a Star Wars analogy with Jedi and Sith. If you're a Jedi, you can't love, you can't show emotion, you can't get high, you can't think for yourself, you can't do what you want when you want to do it. It's the honorable life, but there are so many restrictions. Conversely, if you're a Sith, you're not bound by any morals. You can tap into the Dark Side of the Force at will without someone standing over your shoulder, lecturing you on why you shouldn't do it. You've got a carte blanche on how you can believably act. It's more fun to be a Sith, and in that comparison, it's more fun to be a heel from a writing standpoint. You have more freedom with your character. You can do pretty much whatever you want with him with it still being realistic.
It's also more fun to write as a heel, really. Something about being unscrupulous and dickish... y'know, I can only speak from personal experience, but in real life, I try to be as nice and curteous as possible. I hold back a lot when dealing with people, and really, you should do that; unless a person really gets under your skin, it's for the best that you hold back. However, what happens when you get a forum where you can play a character that gets to say all the things that you wish you could say out loud but really can't? It's like taking that pesky belt off and unbuttoning the top latch on your pants after Thanksgiving; you're letting it all out and it feels good.
And if you look at Internet message boards and chat rooms in general, aren't there more rabblerousers, trolls, flamers and outspokenly brazen characters discussing and arguing about things than what you'd see in real life? The Internet is the biggest outlet for the loudmouthed and the glib in the history of mankind. Isn't it obvious that message board trolls would be more likely to play heels than goody-two-shoes faces? I'm not saying that every heel is a message board asshole, but I can only assume that rather than make people think that they're assholes, eW heels let out all their aggressions in-character so that they can get all that out of their system and still get to make friends and be cool with folks online. They have their cake and eat it too. Brilliant :)
Now, why is all this okay? Why is it that you can have 80 heels and maybe 10 faces in your fed, and it's still not going to suck, or be too heel-heavy, or seem boring? Well, there are three reasons from three very different camps here.
One is that in "real" wrestling, heels have been faces-by-proxy for almost ten years now. I mean, the face archetype has been shattered over the years by guys like The Rock, Steve Austin, and of course, Sandman, who is the original "heelish-face." While your character does some pretty shittily heelish things, he/she can still get cheered because, once again, the "fans" live vicariously through them. No longer are the faces moralists and heroes. The anti-hero has taken over, and it's so easy to go back and forth from face to heel (a development that has made Lex Luger a very happy man, I'm sure :p) that it really doesn't matter what your affiliation is.
Two, if you take a solely real life look at things, it's only natural that heels proliferate in eW. I mean, in the real world, there aren't very many decent people out there. There are very few people in the workforce, politics, on the streets, etc. who are the true definition of the word "face." We all have our foibles to varying degrees, and really, if you take reality as a model, not only should there be scores and scores of heels, but those heels should thrive.
But even if you buy into the original constructs of wrestling, where the faces are faces, the heels are heels and they struggle in one giant morality play, the heel bonanza in eW is justified because of the Identity Principle. What is that, you might ask? Well, this is how I define it. We e-fedders want the hobby to be close enough to the real thing to be a homage to our fandom to it, but different enough so that we can claim we had our fingerprints all over it. IE, we have our own identity, not just as people sitting on computers, pretending to be wrestlers, but as wrestlers ourselves who happen to have a lot less wear and tear on our bodies :). So using that principle, having a million to one heel to true face ratio is alright because that's how we put our identity on wrestling. We put out compelling angles and build hot feuds even if we don't have a truckload of traditional faces on our rosters. It's how we want to do things, and we'll be damned if we let someone tell us how.
And this is all coming from someone who's made a living handling and taking pride in the fact that he handles faces for the most part. Heels are more fun, but faces are more challenging, and therefore more rewarding the long run.
So when you see that heels have taken over the place like cats take over the abandoned projects, don't bemoan it. Sit back and enjoy it. These are people doing their best work, and there's no reason why we should let a little thing like traditiona face/heel constructs get in the way of that.
But here's the catch. For anyone who follows eW, this isn't a new trend. It's been like this for awhile, and anywhere you go, I bet most characters in any fed are heel. Also, I don't think it's that big a problem. In fact, I don't think it's a problem at all. So why do handlers tend to handle on the heel side, and why isn't this a problem?
First, let's tackle the why. Why do people want to handle heels more than they want to faces? Well, let's make a Star Wars analogy with Jedi and Sith. If you're a Jedi, you can't love, you can't show emotion, you can't get high, you can't think for yourself, you can't do what you want when you want to do it. It's the honorable life, but there are so many restrictions. Conversely, if you're a Sith, you're not bound by any morals. You can tap into the Dark Side of the Force at will without someone standing over your shoulder, lecturing you on why you shouldn't do it. You've got a carte blanche on how you can believably act. It's more fun to be a Sith, and in that comparison, it's more fun to be a heel from a writing standpoint. You have more freedom with your character. You can do pretty much whatever you want with him with it still being realistic.
It's also more fun to write as a heel, really. Something about being unscrupulous and dickish... y'know, I can only speak from personal experience, but in real life, I try to be as nice and curteous as possible. I hold back a lot when dealing with people, and really, you should do that; unless a person really gets under your skin, it's for the best that you hold back. However, what happens when you get a forum where you can play a character that gets to say all the things that you wish you could say out loud but really can't? It's like taking that pesky belt off and unbuttoning the top latch on your pants after Thanksgiving; you're letting it all out and it feels good.
And if you look at Internet message boards and chat rooms in general, aren't there more rabblerousers, trolls, flamers and outspokenly brazen characters discussing and arguing about things than what you'd see in real life? The Internet is the biggest outlet for the loudmouthed and the glib in the history of mankind. Isn't it obvious that message board trolls would be more likely to play heels than goody-two-shoes faces? I'm not saying that every heel is a message board asshole, but I can only assume that rather than make people think that they're assholes, eW heels let out all their aggressions in-character so that they can get all that out of their system and still get to make friends and be cool with folks online. They have their cake and eat it too. Brilliant :)
Now, why is all this okay? Why is it that you can have 80 heels and maybe 10 faces in your fed, and it's still not going to suck, or be too heel-heavy, or seem boring? Well, there are three reasons from three very different camps here.
One is that in "real" wrestling, heels have been faces-by-proxy for almost ten years now. I mean, the face archetype has been shattered over the years by guys like The Rock, Steve Austin, and of course, Sandman, who is the original "heelish-face." While your character does some pretty shittily heelish things, he/she can still get cheered because, once again, the "fans" live vicariously through them. No longer are the faces moralists and heroes. The anti-hero has taken over, and it's so easy to go back and forth from face to heel (a development that has made Lex Luger a very happy man, I'm sure :p) that it really doesn't matter what your affiliation is.
Two, if you take a solely real life look at things, it's only natural that heels proliferate in eW. I mean, in the real world, there aren't very many decent people out there. There are very few people in the workforce, politics, on the streets, etc. who are the true definition of the word "face." We all have our foibles to varying degrees, and really, if you take reality as a model, not only should there be scores and scores of heels, but those heels should thrive.
But even if you buy into the original constructs of wrestling, where the faces are faces, the heels are heels and they struggle in one giant morality play, the heel bonanza in eW is justified because of the Identity Principle. What is that, you might ask? Well, this is how I define it. We e-fedders want the hobby to be close enough to the real thing to be a homage to our fandom to it, but different enough so that we can claim we had our fingerprints all over it. IE, we have our own identity, not just as people sitting on computers, pretending to be wrestlers, but as wrestlers ourselves who happen to have a lot less wear and tear on our bodies :). So using that principle, having a million to one heel to true face ratio is alright because that's how we put our identity on wrestling. We put out compelling angles and build hot feuds even if we don't have a truckload of traditional faces on our rosters. It's how we want to do things, and we'll be damned if we let someone tell us how.
And this is all coming from someone who's made a living handling and taking pride in the fact that he handles faces for the most part. Heels are more fun, but faces are more challenging, and therefore more rewarding the long run.
So when you see that heels have taken over the place like cats take over the abandoned projects, don't bemoan it. Sit back and enjoy it. These are people doing their best work, and there's no reason why we should let a little thing like traditiona face/heel constructs get in the way of that.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
The real thing in our world
Never let it be known that I don't take requests. Does this make me less of a pansy, Steve? :p
Anyway, mentioning real wrestlers in our e-fed world... a very hot button topic if you bring it up in certain circles. I think if you know me and my history, you know my feelings on it. If you don't, then you should probably be aware that I handle a character called Jericoholic Anonymous, and his gimmick for awhile was Gimmick Infringement ®. Basically, he was meant to be a low-grade Jericho fanboy who imitated everyone except Jericho. Ineptitude at its finest. (worst?) Plus I reference real wrestlers all the time in matches. Arn Anderson quality spinebuster, Hennig special, suplexes trio a la Eddy Guerrero. Memphis piledriver.
But why do I take that stand? Well, the simplest reason is that this hobby wouldn't exist without the real guys. Basically, everyone who's in this thing is doing it because they saw someone on WWF, WCW, ECW, TNA, whatever television, tape or DVD and they admired them enough to want to pretend to be like them in a way. As a wresting fan, e-fedding is the ultimate homage to the business, and it's the best thing you can do to show your total nerdosity for wrestling outside of going to school to train to be a wrestler.
People can counter with the "fantasy world" aspect of things, and that's fine. If you're one who doesn't approve of the use of the real guys in our hobby, I'm not going to get up in your grill about it. I respect your opinion and such. But I also think that the fantasy rationale can be used to include the real guys in with this. I mean, it is a fantasy to believe that there are this many national level wrestling promotions to compete with the WWE and TNA right now, and it's a fantasy to believe that the JAs, Danny Fergusons, and Richard Farnswirths can coexist in the same world as the Chris Jerichos, Terry Funks and Ted DiBiases, and in some cases having met them too.
There are other technical aspects... like how do you describe moves like the Stunner/Ace Crusher or Pedigree without using their almost synonymous real world names, especially if they're being used in a match where there is no other gimmick name for them in the fed you're in? I mean, this is a real petty reason, but it's a reason.
Now, I don't condone the use of real wrestler references as a crutch. I almost always try to make my e-fedder to real wrestler ratio be at least 80% e-fedder. If there's an e-wrestling example I can use, then I'm all over it. However, sometimes the real wrestler reference is the best one to use. It's the funniest, it packs the most meaning.
I would never advise on relying on real wrestler references as a crutch. But once in awhile is okay.
Anyway, mentioning real wrestlers in our e-fed world... a very hot button topic if you bring it up in certain circles. I think if you know me and my history, you know my feelings on it. If you don't, then you should probably be aware that I handle a character called Jericoholic Anonymous, and his gimmick for awhile was Gimmick Infringement ®. Basically, he was meant to be a low-grade Jericho fanboy who imitated everyone except Jericho. Ineptitude at its finest. (worst?) Plus I reference real wrestlers all the time in matches. Arn Anderson quality spinebuster, Hennig special, suplexes trio a la Eddy Guerrero. Memphis piledriver.
But why do I take that stand? Well, the simplest reason is that this hobby wouldn't exist without the real guys. Basically, everyone who's in this thing is doing it because they saw someone on WWF, WCW, ECW, TNA, whatever television, tape or DVD and they admired them enough to want to pretend to be like them in a way. As a wresting fan, e-fedding is the ultimate homage to the business, and it's the best thing you can do to show your total nerdosity for wrestling outside of going to school to train to be a wrestler.
People can counter with the "fantasy world" aspect of things, and that's fine. If you're one who doesn't approve of the use of the real guys in our hobby, I'm not going to get up in your grill about it. I respect your opinion and such. But I also think that the fantasy rationale can be used to include the real guys in with this. I mean, it is a fantasy to believe that there are this many national level wrestling promotions to compete with the WWE and TNA right now, and it's a fantasy to believe that the JAs, Danny Fergusons, and Richard Farnswirths can coexist in the same world as the Chris Jerichos, Terry Funks and Ted DiBiases, and in some cases having met them too.
There are other technical aspects... like how do you describe moves like the Stunner/Ace Crusher or Pedigree without using their almost synonymous real world names, especially if they're being used in a match where there is no other gimmick name for them in the fed you're in? I mean, this is a real petty reason, but it's a reason.
Now, I don't condone the use of real wrestler references as a crutch. I almost always try to make my e-fedder to real wrestler ratio be at least 80% e-fedder. If there's an e-wrestling example I can use, then I'm all over it. However, sometimes the real wrestler reference is the best one to use. It's the funniest, it packs the most meaning.
I would never advise on relying on real wrestler references as a crutch. But once in awhile is okay.
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Shelf Life, e-fed vs. real wrestling, plus shows, shows and more shows
Before I get to the meat of my blog today, some pimpage.
First in the queue, FUSE's latest show, KillZone 3 is up for your perusal. FUSE has become a fed to watch over at PTC. Jason's got a good thing going here, and hopefully, with the influx of some new guys, they'll climb up and join AWC and PRIME as the cream of the PTC crop.
Speaking of AWC... Divide and Conquer! Once again, AWC turns in a fine PPV effort, punctuated by a brief Unfuckable reunion, new Alliance and Frontier Champions, some big returns and a nice set of backstage brawling segments featuring Chainz and Aimz. Congrats to Mike Wade for making the AWC Legends Roll and farewell for now... please come back soon!
NEW finally came out with their anniversary RAUCOUS. A very solid show, and hopefully it marks a return to regularity for NEW, a fed that when it's running on all cylinders is one of the best around.
And now, the entry for today.
I was talking to Joe Schmidt (handler of Adam Dick) the other day and he told me he was leaving AWC. I was pretty taken aback by it, especially since AWC was losing Wade too. I asked him why, and he said he had done everything there was to do in AWC. That's a good enough reason to leave, I suppose.
But if you look at real wrestlers, guys like Hulk Hogan or Shawn Michaels or Steve Austin, they achieved it all in the real business, but they kept sticking around. In fact, it's the nature of professional wrestlers to keep holding onto their limelight, taking jobs in indie feds just so they can keep wrestling, hoping that people will plunk down money to see them.
In e-fedding, there are a lot of things we take from the real thing, but for the most part, this desperation to hold onto our spots isn't one of them. There have been several people who've walked away or tried to walk away, from just one fed or from the hobby itself. Some were successful, others weren't. However, unless you're The Rock or Brock Lesnar, it's almost unheard of in the real thing.
Why is that? Well, the obvious reason is they get paid, we often juggled this with doing things for which we get paid. Easy enough.
But there's still exploration into why some people can put such short shelf-lives on their characters. Why isn't there a desire to become multiple time Champions? Why don't people try to "do it all" again, using a different route? Perhaps there's life in AWC for Dick as a face, who knows.
Honestly, I think that people have an easier time walking away because most of us aren't ego-driven to the point of needing to prove things over and over again. Once again, we don't get paid for it. We're not slaves to ratings. Theoretically, we do this for fun. So proving that we can do things once is enough, at least with one character.
I think another huge reason is the timetables at which things happen. Normally, wrestler X enters the business and his first World Championship doesn't come for years after the fact. In e-feds, that timetable is shrunk considerably. If it took five years for people to become World Championship contenders in e-feds, then there probably wouldn't be as extensive an e-fed network as there is.
The point is, though, that people walk away. Do I think that guys may come back later in different feds or with different characters? Sure, it happens all the time.
However, one way that our world will never relate to the real wrestling world is that our characters do not have nearly the shelf-life as the real guys do for the most part.
There are exceptions to this though. A1E is the most like a real life fed in this regard. Beast, Big Dog, Fly and even to an extent my own JA have been around forever, through World Titles and without them.
First in the queue, FUSE's latest show, KillZone 3 is up for your perusal. FUSE has become a fed to watch over at PTC. Jason's got a good thing going here, and hopefully, with the influx of some new guys, they'll climb up and join AWC and PRIME as the cream of the PTC crop.
Speaking of AWC... Divide and Conquer! Once again, AWC turns in a fine PPV effort, punctuated by a brief Unfuckable reunion, new Alliance and Frontier Champions, some big returns and a nice set of backstage brawling segments featuring Chainz and Aimz. Congrats to Mike Wade for making the AWC Legends Roll and farewell for now... please come back soon!
NEW finally came out with their anniversary RAUCOUS. A very solid show, and hopefully it marks a return to regularity for NEW, a fed that when it's running on all cylinders is one of the best around.
And now, the entry for today.
I was talking to Joe Schmidt (handler of Adam Dick) the other day and he told me he was leaving AWC. I was pretty taken aback by it, especially since AWC was losing Wade too. I asked him why, and he said he had done everything there was to do in AWC. That's a good enough reason to leave, I suppose.
But if you look at real wrestlers, guys like Hulk Hogan or Shawn Michaels or Steve Austin, they achieved it all in the real business, but they kept sticking around. In fact, it's the nature of professional wrestlers to keep holding onto their limelight, taking jobs in indie feds just so they can keep wrestling, hoping that people will plunk down money to see them.
In e-fedding, there are a lot of things we take from the real thing, but for the most part, this desperation to hold onto our spots isn't one of them. There have been several people who've walked away or tried to walk away, from just one fed or from the hobby itself. Some were successful, others weren't. However, unless you're The Rock or Brock Lesnar, it's almost unheard of in the real thing.
Why is that? Well, the obvious reason is they get paid, we often juggled this with doing things for which we get paid. Easy enough.
But there's still exploration into why some people can put such short shelf-lives on their characters. Why isn't there a desire to become multiple time Champions? Why don't people try to "do it all" again, using a different route? Perhaps there's life in AWC for Dick as a face, who knows.
Honestly, I think that people have an easier time walking away because most of us aren't ego-driven to the point of needing to prove things over and over again. Once again, we don't get paid for it. We're not slaves to ratings. Theoretically, we do this for fun. So proving that we can do things once is enough, at least with one character.
I think another huge reason is the timetables at which things happen. Normally, wrestler X enters the business and his first World Championship doesn't come for years after the fact. In e-feds, that timetable is shrunk considerably. If it took five years for people to become World Championship contenders in e-feds, then there probably wouldn't be as extensive an e-fed network as there is.
The point is, though, that people walk away. Do I think that guys may come back later in different feds or with different characters? Sure, it happens all the time.
However, one way that our world will never relate to the real wrestling world is that our characters do not have nearly the shelf-life as the real guys do for the most part.
There are exceptions to this though. A1E is the most like a real life fed in this regard. Beast, Big Dog, Fly and even to an extent my own JA have been around forever, through World Titles and without them.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Setting the mood... theme songs
"Man in the Box"
"Come Out and Play"
"Real American"
"Also Sprach Zarathrusta"
"Iron Man"
If you're a wrestling fan, you can immediately associate them to wrestlers, the song and the superstar, indelibly linked for all time. (And if you don't know, Tommy Dreamer, Raven, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, the Road Warriors)
They're perfect fits for the characters, and they're all important in defining who that character is. Do you think Hogan would have been as huge if he came out to "Endless Love" or "Raining Blood," hm? Probably not. But also, would he have been as huge if he came out to "Wind Beneath My Wings" or something of that ilk? Sure, it would be fitting to the Hogan character; he was the wind beneath the fans of millions and millions of Hulkamaniacs. But it's also not aggressive, it's not grandiose, it's not... a wrestling theme song.
So what is a wrestling theme song? And why do some e-fedders have problems picking good wrestling theme songs?
I know I'm probably going to come off like a jock or a metalhead here, but really, isn't wrestling a "sport" that appeals to jocks, meatheads, metal freaks and the mullet-sporting crowd in its most basest form? And by the violent nature of the in-ring product and the theatrical bestowment of glory as a result of what happens in the ring, even if some or even many of wrestling fans don't like the things that stereotypical wrestling fans like, shouldn't wrestling theme songs be on the aggressive, theatric, lively side?
I mean, I know we tailor our characters in this hobby to what we like. But whenever I see a SweetJesusFunk list "Nutshell" as a theme song, or Sebastian Dodd list "Stellar" as his, it boggles my mind. In the case of Dodd, "Stellar" is an inadequate song on all levels. What's Dodd's character? He's an arrogant, pompous jerk who thinks he's better than everyone. What's "Stellar" about? It's about a guy who is telling his girlfriend how good her girlparts make his peepee feel during happy time. How does "Stellar" start out? Very quiet riff, romantic mood... it's like Dodd is trying to seduce his opponent rather than intimidate him or make him aware of how great Dodd is. Yes you get some distortion-laden heavy metal-esque riffs in the chorus, but the lyrics read "How do you do it, make me feel like I do. How do you do it, it's better than I ever knew." Totally a misfit.
So what constitutes a good e-fed theme song? I look for a few things.
- Does it fit the character?
Like, does the theme song mesh with what the character's all about? If the character is a tax accountant turned wrestler, what Pink Floyd would be a better fit for him, "Money" or "Interstellar Overdrive?" The choice is easy. Of course, this is not a complete requirement, especially with characters who aren't heavily gimmicked.
- Does it have a killer intro?
Does it have something memorable to hook the audience at the beginning of it, to make the crowd shriek in delightment or toss the beer you just spent $6.50 on with no mind at you? Songs like "Highway to Hell," "Whatever," (the OLP song for Benoit, not the Godsmack song) "Real American," "Also Sprach Zarathrusta"... memorable intros, they get a crowd riled up. They're a lot better to use than songs with generic punk guitar songs, or folksy songs, or songs that begin with quiet words.
- Does the song have 'oomph?'
I was going to ask if the theme song had aggression, but really, songs that aren't balls out heavy metal work well as theme songs too. Just take a gander at "Zarathrusta" or "O Fortuna" or whatever various techno theme songs are used. But what those songs have in common is that they're vibrant, they're lively, they get a crowd tapping its toes or moving its feet or headbanging. The song has to have life.
Just by example, let's take a look at Jericoholic Anonymous, my flagship character, and I'll break down why I picked the theme song I did, "Eat the Rich" by Fozzy.
JA's character, by nature, is that he's a giant, huge fan of Chris Jericho. It's not his whole character, but it's a part of it. So a song by Jericho's band fits the character perfectly. The introductory riff is electric, it's somewhat unique and it's an attention grabber. And it's an aggressive song with great, lively lyrics that capture further JA's character, the dreamer who's always had to fight adversity to get where he's at today. I think it's a perfect fit.
You can feel free to disagree, but I feel it's the perfect theme song for JA. Soemtimes getting the right theme song is a thoughtful process. Sometimes it's easy.
But when you get it right, it can help make your character that much more memorable.
"Come Out and Play"
"Real American"
"Also Sprach Zarathrusta"
"Iron Man"
If you're a wrestling fan, you can immediately associate them to wrestlers, the song and the superstar, indelibly linked for all time. (And if you don't know, Tommy Dreamer, Raven, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, the Road Warriors)
They're perfect fits for the characters, and they're all important in defining who that character is. Do you think Hogan would have been as huge if he came out to "Endless Love" or "Raining Blood," hm? Probably not. But also, would he have been as huge if he came out to "Wind Beneath My Wings" or something of that ilk? Sure, it would be fitting to the Hogan character; he was the wind beneath the fans of millions and millions of Hulkamaniacs. But it's also not aggressive, it's not grandiose, it's not... a wrestling theme song.
So what is a wrestling theme song? And why do some e-fedders have problems picking good wrestling theme songs?
I know I'm probably going to come off like a jock or a metalhead here, but really, isn't wrestling a "sport" that appeals to jocks, meatheads, metal freaks and the mullet-sporting crowd in its most basest form? And by the violent nature of the in-ring product and the theatrical bestowment of glory as a result of what happens in the ring, even if some or even many of wrestling fans don't like the things that stereotypical wrestling fans like, shouldn't wrestling theme songs be on the aggressive, theatric, lively side?
I mean, I know we tailor our characters in this hobby to what we like. But whenever I see a SweetJesusFunk list "Nutshell" as a theme song, or Sebastian Dodd list "Stellar" as his, it boggles my mind. In the case of Dodd, "Stellar" is an inadequate song on all levels. What's Dodd's character? He's an arrogant, pompous jerk who thinks he's better than everyone. What's "Stellar" about? It's about a guy who is telling his girlfriend how good her girlparts make his peepee feel during happy time. How does "Stellar" start out? Very quiet riff, romantic mood... it's like Dodd is trying to seduce his opponent rather than intimidate him or make him aware of how great Dodd is. Yes you get some distortion-laden heavy metal-esque riffs in the chorus, but the lyrics read "How do you do it, make me feel like I do. How do you do it, it's better than I ever knew." Totally a misfit.
So what constitutes a good e-fed theme song? I look for a few things.
- Does it fit the character?
Like, does the theme song mesh with what the character's all about? If the character is a tax accountant turned wrestler, what Pink Floyd would be a better fit for him, "Money" or "Interstellar Overdrive?" The choice is easy. Of course, this is not a complete requirement, especially with characters who aren't heavily gimmicked.
- Does it have a killer intro?
Does it have something memorable to hook the audience at the beginning of it, to make the crowd shriek in delightment or toss the beer you just spent $6.50 on with no mind at you? Songs like "Highway to Hell," "Whatever," (the OLP song for Benoit, not the Godsmack song) "Real American," "Also Sprach Zarathrusta"... memorable intros, they get a crowd riled up. They're a lot better to use than songs with generic punk guitar songs, or folksy songs, or songs that begin with quiet words.
- Does the song have 'oomph?'
I was going to ask if the theme song had aggression, but really, songs that aren't balls out heavy metal work well as theme songs too. Just take a gander at "Zarathrusta" or "O Fortuna" or whatever various techno theme songs are used. But what those songs have in common is that they're vibrant, they're lively, they get a crowd tapping its toes or moving its feet or headbanging. The song has to have life.
Just by example, let's take a look at Jericoholic Anonymous, my flagship character, and I'll break down why I picked the theme song I did, "Eat the Rich" by Fozzy.
JA's character, by nature, is that he's a giant, huge fan of Chris Jericho. It's not his whole character, but it's a part of it. So a song by Jericho's band fits the character perfectly. The introductory riff is electric, it's somewhat unique and it's an attention grabber. And it's an aggressive song with great, lively lyrics that capture further JA's character, the dreamer who's always had to fight adversity to get where he's at today. I think it's a perfect fit.
You can feel free to disagree, but I feel it's the perfect theme song for JA. Soemtimes getting the right theme song is a thoughtful process. Sometimes it's easy.
But when you get it right, it can help make your character that much more memorable.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)