This is it

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

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

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

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

Thank you to:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

December's Wrestler of the Month and a Temporary Farewell

This month's honor goes to Chandler Tsonda, winner of PRIME's Jewel in the Crown Tournament. He won two matches in one night at King of Kings, and took the month-long tournament in style, capping off his comeback with number one contendership to the Universal Championship. Congratulations!

This month's runner-up goes to Dan Ryan for retaining the A1E World Championship, dropping a huge bombshell by taking over said company and for his goings on in NAPW. Truly capping off a WotY worthy year.

2007's Wrestlers of the Month
January: Dan Ryan (A1E, NFW)
February: Clinton Sage (FUSE, PTC Events)
March: Nova (NFW, PRIME)
April: Dan Ryan (2) (A1E, NEW, TEAM Events)
May: Big Dog (A1E)
June: Lindsay Troy (PRIME, EPW, NFW, TEAM Events)
July: Nova (2) (PRIME, TEAM Events, NFW)
August: Lindsay Troy (2) (PRIME, EPW, TEAM Events)
September: The Illustrious Face-Eater (PTC Events, PRIME)
October: Dan Ryan (3) (CSWA, A1E)
November: Sonny Silver (PRIME)
December: Chandler Tsonda (PRIME)

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And now, for something completely different...

In case you're wondering, I'm not doing my year end blowout, mainly because I've been so out of the loop when it comes to the feds and their workings. I don't think I can give advice or credibly dole out awards for anything other than Wrestler of the Year. I've just been so busy lately with wedding stuff and with work and with other distractions that I'm losing a lot of my attention span when it comes to feds that I'm not involved in. It sucks, since everyone seems to look to me as the great connector, but I don't think I can do that right now.

So, what does this mean? I'm closing up the blog for now. I don't want to keep people waiting for entries that are never going to come, and I don't want to keep giving people shittily-written entries of opinion thinly veiled as analysis. I don't know about you, but I haven't been happy with my writing on here for awhile. So, if you're not happy doing something, why keep doing it?

This isn't my retirement from the hobby, not by a longshot. I just want to refocus my energies into TEAM and into RPing in the feds that I'm already in. And this doesn't mean there's no chance the blog won't come back in the future. It's just an indefinitely temporary hiatus.

So, without further ado, I'd just like to say thank you for reading my insane ramblings and making me feel more imporatant in this hobby than I ever had any right to be. Hopefully, I'll be back on here in the future, but until then, I'll catch you in the feds and on the forums.

What I'm Thankful For (The E-Fed Version)

Today is Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

It's a day we set aside to give thanks for everything that's good and wholesome in our lives. As an e-fedder, I'm thankful for plenty of things, as follows:

-I'm thankful for the CSWA Greensboro Championship... for the chance that Chad and Steve have given me to run with the ball in the oldest and one of the most respected feds on the 'Net, even if we only get a card once every three months ;)

-I'm thankful for everyone who's been supportive of the TEAM Tournament and the TEAM fed thus far. You've really made things fun the last couple of weeks, and hopefully we can make TEAM the toast of FW and the e-fed world in 2006 with some hard work and clever recruiting.

-I'm thankful for all the people who've worked with me on angles since I've started this. From the En Fuego stable and storyline (even though it was an abortive angle) to Maggot's crises in NFW and JA's dilemmas in A1E, I'm glad that I have laidback and creative people to work with.

-I'm thankful for my spot in GTT5. Hopefully, I can parlay that into a few rounds of Maggot-pwnage and make a name for myself outside of the FW/A1 community.

-I'm thankful for the respect given to me by my peers, by folks like Dave Brunk, Sean Edmunds, Jon Katz, Chad 'n Steve, Scifo 'n Shane, Roger and the Gang and Dan West, Jeff Paternostro, Bob Rodriguez and Bill Dempsey of the MBE Cup planners to push me and give me a chance to shine with my characters and storylines in their respective feds.

-And finally, I'm thankful for all the friends I've made through this hobby over the years, especially to Brunk, Katz, Lindz, Jeff P. and Dan West, who've been there to discuss many things and to listen to me bitch about inconsequential matters. If not for you guys, I don't think I'd still be in this thing nor would I have the passion for it that I do have.

Thanks all around today!