UCW Scars 'n Stripes

Reader Shane C. from West Virginia, Pittsburgh, or whatever part of the sticks of the Applachians he's from :p, requested a review of UCW's latest PPV, Scars 'n Stripes. Now, for those who want to invoke the last entry, well, that was specifically for folks who are in feds that I don't currently cover. Didn't say anything about the ones I already do. Plus, I try to review all the PPVs, and I just missed on this one.

I did read the show as it came out. I thought it was a solid effort overall, not anything bad, but not their best card either. I'm not going to break this down hardcore, but I will give it some detailed thought.

First up, new additions to the roster. For one, I'm glad to be a part of UCW again. I know I kinda flaked out twice in the past, hopefully three times will be the charm. Hopefully, Jimmy has more juice left than Braumeister or BA had. The other big debut was Shawn Hart. Great addition for the fed if Ryan's got his legs under him.

Onto the matches... I thought there was something lacking here. I can't put my finger on it. The undercard was solid, but something was missing. The main event was well-written though. Congrats to Stanton for capturing the World Title again. The First is a pretty entertaining character, and he's a good anchor for the fed. Hopefully someone new can step up to challenge him though. Maybe Cameron Cruise?

Two other big things happened. One, we found out that BGB isn't Midnight Rider. I'm pretty intruiged as to who he is now. Plus the segments with him and Cloverleaf were amusing. The other big thing that happened was that Bryan Storms defected to UCW. I'm not sure what this does to the rest of the MCW invaders, but there's definitely some heat between them. It's all up to Rob Franklin and Nakhita Dahaka to step up and make a feud out of it.

I'd probably give this show three and a half stars out of five. Solid effort, something to build off of. Shane's been through so much with this fed with server issues and his co-booker crapping out on him, but I think he has things on the right track.

Some updates

- The Ultimate A1E Tournament voting on the Allen Thomas bracket concludes tonight. I'll put my own votes in a comment to that entry, and then we'll move on with the next bracket first round tomorrow or Saturday. On my glancing over the votes, no matchups really seemed close except for Torgo/Drifter, which surprised me. But regardless, we move on, so who knows what surprises lay ahaed.

- UCW's Civil War was posted, and it was a pretty good read. Great job by Shane and Dan to get a good show out after the server problems. There's a temptation to sort of put out a sluggish card after such problems and after RP for the card was so sluggish (I'm one to talk, seeing as how I only RPed once as Benoitholic... I'll get out more matierial with him as I get more comfortable with him, I promise!), but the steak of the show matched its sizzle. Joey Melton and Mr. Incredible... two surprises and two great additions to the UCW roster.

- Still more at ENN, and a little self-promotion here too, TRASH TALK~! I'm hoping this will help build up the RPs for round one by giving everyone some material. Big ups to everyone who trash talked so far, especially to Devin, who opened up with a phenomenal trash talk with Lord Lowell and really got things going. Shane G., Bryan and of course, Bill have also gotten up some really, really good material.

- Last, but certainly not least a huge, huge, HUGE congratulation goes out to Garbage Bag Johnny for winning AWC's Zero 2 Hero tournament. He faced some stiff, and I mean STIFF competition, and there really isn't anyone better to be carrying AWC's banner right now. Also, huge props to everyone who wrote and contributed to the tournament, especially to Mike Wade, Joe Schmidt and Fergus the Loon for concocting a brilliant swervy angle with Wadester turning on Adam Dick. This is a must-read segment. All in all, this write up has gone a long way into establishing Z2H as the premiere event on the AWC calendar, and hopefully, it will garner the attention in the PTC world and all across the e-fedding universe as one of the big, mark-your-calendar events.

Shows and stuff, plus A few of my favorite characters -- UCW

First thing's first heeyah, the blog has made a splash over at the PRIME forums, specifically, the post about death in e-feding. Really cool of Sebastian (their fedhead) to put this up for discussion on their boards and give me the free advertising. Love discussion and advertising, that I do.

Anyway, some more shows I have to report to you, first off, this is kinda late, but as the Offical LVW Mark of the Blog World, I have to put up a link to Prelude, their last show before crowning the first ever LVW World Heavyweight Champion (and Las Vegas Champion too). Good read, Ybok and Stanton haven't put out a card that I haven't enjoyed yet.

Next up, an NFW Double Feature! Crash TV! Midnight Madness! Fun for everyone! Pay special attention to the East show and an angle featuring Maggot... I crave feedback for it!

Finally, we get to the ENN Awards show, which was put together very nicely by Lindsay and everyone who contributed. Once again, I want feedback on JA's opening monologue.

Alright, now to the meat of the post... the last one of these favorite wrestler entries for an active fed, and that active fed is Ultimate Championship Wrestling, which is in a slight state of flux right now due to ENN's server troubles. I'm sure they'll get right back on track though. Once again, in no particular order...

Cameron Cruise Cruise is in like a million different feds, doing a million different things, but he seems to be clicking best in UCW. His feud with Dan Ryan is so old-school... and really, that's what attracts me to it. It's refreshing to find in a sea of everyone trying to outsmart themselves there are two characters who understand the basics of wrestling.

Dan Ryan See above.

BG Bruce 400 pounds and very homosexual... not many people would be able to pull that off, but in all fairness, not many people would have the balls to handle this character. It's more proof that Dan West may be the greatest e-fedder ever.

The First When I first read this character, I was skeptical of where Stanton was going to take him, but it turned out very well. Honestly, he was the best choice to hold the UCW Title first, kinda to give the fed a personality and to make a statement that, hey, this isn't just another retread fed. We have our own homegrown stars, and they're pretty good.

Damon Blackburn I'll flat-out admit that I didn't like the Damon character in A1E. However, Roger's playing the character very well here, and I really like the angle and character being played, especially since UCW is seen as the closest fed to A1E on the market outside of EPW.

A huge post about AWC

Alright, I'll trust blogger not to eat this post like it did earlier when I tried to save it to draft.

Anyway, before I get to the meat, I might as well pimp some of the latest shows for you to read.

First in the queue, we got LVW's Championship Madness, which of course is an all-around good effort. Seriously, check this fed out. You will be hooked. Most character/gimmick driven feds rock, and LVW is no exception. The only qualm I had with the show was the DQ finish being used in two tournament matches. I prefer pin/submissions in those situations, be they clean or Dusty. But those qualms were outweighed by the appearance of the GENTLEMAN OF LEISURE~!~!~!

Next up, UCW hits with their latest edition of Revolution. Solid effort, a little shortish, but it had some good stuff going on. Just want to take some time out to give props to both Brunk and Siegel for the Ryan/Cruise feud. They're in just about every fed, yet I think they're both at their most intriguing here.

Finally, we get to AWC FRESH~!. This week's show, very segment heavy, but with a roster that size and with everyone with at least one story to tell, it's understandable and expected. Two major things going on here. One, Mike Wade becomes the Frontier Champion, his third concurrent title. Triple Champion... impressive.

Second was Chainz's controversial and graphic angle to end the show. On this blog, I predicted that Chainz would cause a mid-level riot, but I never thought it would be this soon into the new year. For those who don't know, Chainz, the character, is a degenerate mysogynist, a sexual predator and a part-time pedopile who's spent time in the can for rape (I think). The angle involves him showing graphic footage of him killing Ellis' Nash's sister, delivering their stillborn baby and committing necrophilia on her, all this after Chainz had found out she was cheating on him and was going to abort their baby, partial-birth style.

Now, I can almost see most of you recoiling in horror at the angle. I kinda did too, but I didn't think it was that bad at all, at least the idea behind it.

Chainz is a lowlife scumbag as a character, so we should expect him to do lowlife, scumbag things. And since wrestling is by nature a business that is over the top. What Chainz did was extremely over the top. But honestly, it might have been too much so, at least in the way that it was presented. It came off very Katie Vick-ish, at least with the admissions of murder and necrophilia being open and graphic.

What Mike Sloan (Chainz' handler) should have done was not written the part where he was describing what was on the tape he was showing Ellis. Maybe have it so that the "Technical difficulties" screen was showing to both the "TV audience" and to us, the reading public. Showing Ellis' horror after seeing the video would have conveyed the same effect as showing the video, and it would leave a lot of gray areas as to what happened.

Despite the criticism, I think Mike should be commended for pushing the envelope, but he pushed a little too hard this time. He shouldn't be flogged too hard at all. We all make mistakes, but they all turn into learning experiences. Honestly, Chainz is one of my favorite characters, period, and I hope he doesn't rein in too much with what he's doing with him.

The other AWC note I wanted to touch upon was a topic that came up on their OOC board: how to deal with a waiting list.

If it were up to me, I wouldn't even consider having a waiting list for any fed I ran. I guess I "grew up" around a culture in A1E and MBE where everyone was welcome, no matter how grammatically or aesthetically bad your writing was.

But then again, A1E at its height had 20 handlers doing 25-30 characters (and that might be generous). Perfect size for a fed. They didn't have the amount of people wanting to get in like AWC (and most PTC feds) do. I know that I wouldn't want to have 50 handlers making Fresh shows almost unbearable to read due to the sheer size of them, so I kinda understand where Hyde's coming from.

In a perfect situation, everyone on your waiting list would be of equal stature and talent and you could let them in on a first-come, first-serve basis. But as most of us in this hobby know, no situation is perfect.

Which is why a straight waiting list system will never work if you want to keep harmony and quality high.

You need to run a selective waiting list process. Go with guys you know will bring the goods, or guys that people you trust refer to you. When you want to give someone new/unknown a chance (and believe me, as a struggling recent grad trying to find work, I'm all about giving the unknown quantities a chance), make them prove their way into the fed. Have them do stuff to get in your good graces: writing matches, talking about wrestling theories and stuff like that, brainstorming angles, getting to know the person in an OOC light. Odds are, if they write a good match, or if they know a bunch about wrestling, or if they link you to stuff that is just fantastic storytelling or anything else positive, they'll be a positive impact on the fed.

But letting folks in blindly... that could lead to disaster in large feds where waiting lists are necessary.

More shows

This has been a pretty active week for e-fed shows.

Two shows, two new big Champions crowned.

First up, let's hit up AWC and FRESH~! Big show for them, their return from holiday break, and really, it might get my nod for show of the week. A lot of good stuff on here, especially when concerning the Unfuckables. I was very much amused by the Zeldaesque chicken swording, and big ups to Adam Dick, the Artist formerly known as The Illustrious Face Eater, for winning the Transatlantic Championship.

Next up, we have UCW's New Year's In Hell. A lot of good action here, including the revelation of UCW's new face, plus, more big ups to IrishRed for winning the UCW World Heavyweight Championship.

UCW: Plus/Minus

Ultimate Championship Wrestling is at the doorstep of its second pay-per-view event. For a new fed, they have a lot of things going for them. They have a good, solid corps of handlers, great matchwriting (I actually underrated them a bit on the Matchwriting Report Card I put out a couple of weeks ago), and the main event scene is pretty jumping.

However, they seem to have a problem with guys in the midcard showing for matches. And that's a big problem.

They had thirteen guys booked for their latest edition of their flagship show, Revolution. Six of them no-showed. The turnout for the previous show was better, only two no-shows out of ten booked talents. And yeah, this previous show was over the holiday season.

However, six, nearly half of the booked talents, is a distressing number.

Shane and Dan deserve better. They put out a solid show every week, and illogical heatless face/face Bruce/First title match aside, they book well.

I really hope this is the exception and not the rule. UCW is a great fed, a fed where I hope to be returning in the near future. They have a solid group of handlers and characters with interesting stories. I mean, I read the last two shows, and the angle building is pretty solid. I'm really digging this Cruise/Ryan feud, Damon Blackburn's entry angle, and I'm intrigued by the way that they're bringing in Adam Benjamin. Whether it's elite handlers like Brunk and Dan West, or scrappers who bust their asses no matter you put in front of them like Jeff Kane and Shane G., you have a bunch of quality handlers here who can carry a fed when they all show up.

But that's the thing. They all have to show. It would be a shame if UCW was plagued by inactivity, because it's one of the more promising feds on the 'Net.

Traffic

In the summer, Dan Scifo and Shane Carnes decided they wanted to start their own new fed to sort of satisfy some of the rumblings for a second fed amongst the A1 community. I advised Shane that he should have taken Dan West on his offer and taken up the MBE name and keep the fed on A1. They decided to pass on both options. Now naming the fed something new isn't a bad idea. Ultimate Championship Wrestling is a fine name for their fed. However, they decided that they were going to locate the fed at Brian Jenkins' E-fed News Network. I like the ENN site, and I like its purpose. I wouldn't post there if I didn't. But I also don't think it's a suitable site for a startup fed to be located on right now.

The EUWC up until this year was situated on the FW.com boards. Then, at some point, there was no activity on their forums. I wondered where they went. Then last night, I found out that they moved to their own message boards, boards that might only get traffic from their own roster instead of the MASS volume of traffic that FW.com gets.

It makes me wonder, why do people eschew forums with large traffic for smaller ones of their own?

I can see why UCW would want to be at ENN. Perhaps part of it is establishing the fed with its own identity. Perhaps part of it is to help get some more exposure for Jenkins' site. In fact, I love the concept behind ENN... a place to discuss e-fedding.

But logistically, if they had gone to A1 or even FW, they could have still established their own identity outside of the MONSTROUS shadow that A1E casts at A1 and among the amalgamated yet related community of feds at FW. It might have taken a little work to do, but it still would have been worth the traffic and the amount of eyes that get exposed to UCW on a regular basis. The fact is, UCW would have gotten more exposure at A1 or FW than the exposure they're bringing to ENN by hosting the fed there. It's the same with EUWC, unless Matt Pickstock is good enough at recruiting and can keep an influx of exposure to his fed without being at FW.

The only feds that I think can survive off of not being affiliated with A1, FW or other interfed sites like PTC are probably PRIME, fWo (which does) and maybe CSWA, NFW and maybe, just maybe, A1E. ANy other startup would be wise to latch onto a vibrant community and try to carve a niche, granting that there is a niche to carve there.