LVW... the return?

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

The Lifeless One

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just Wrestling: eW results writing coming full-circle?

I often at times wonder why people would flock to e-fighting or e-MMA feds. I honestly couldn't imagine why people would prefer one of them over e-wrestling when the set-up would be the same. You'd still have to write RPs in order to get over and judge who'd win matches.

One day though, it hit me. I thought about the reasons why people liked MMA, pit fighting or even boxing and not professional wrestling. It's all about the "real" aspect, how those sports didn't really need the outlandish storylines that wrestling seems to need, or if they had those storylines, they were organic and dealt mostly with the competition inside of their arena. So that's what I thought would be the appeal. No segmental writing, maybe a promo interview here or there for the card, but the bulk of the action was the fighting going on in the Octagon.

But then I thought of something else. MMA and fighting really doesn't lend itself to the way we write and the way we as writers envision a "good" match going in terms of length. However, our little game we play is a lot more of a "shoot" than the real thing is, at least in RP feds, in that we compete to win matches instead of angling them for the advancement of a greater storyline.

Then I thought something completely different from what that was. What if the results writing process of wrestling was combined with the competitive spirit of MMA? Well, someone already did that. Hyde created Just Wrestling. Well, it's sort of like that. The results process isn't as detailed as other feds. It's more like an EPW short-form, which I think lends itself fine to e-MMA writeups, but still, it retains the panache and the versatility you can get with a wrestling moveset.

Why has it taken so long for something like this to come out? My guess is that people thought that flowery writing, tons of angles and long matches had to be there for fed quality. My own perception is that it's especially true of the angle-fed/PTC crowd. So I was surprised that only has JW taken hold here, but is really flourishing with the name talent it has scored thus far.

It made me think about two things. The first was whether we've actually come full-circle in eW now that we're all mostly older. In the early days, at least from what I've seen in archives and what I've been told, write-ups were fairly low-key. Then again, RPing was fairly low-key as well. From my time in the very early days of A1E, even the standard wrestling-promo styled RPs weren't all that sophisticated. A lot of times, it wouldn't be all that far-fetched to see matches go 10 RPs a person. Hell, the inaugural Tag Team Championship match between Beast/Necromancer vs. Mikey/Snake went something like 80 RPs with a 1-week RP session. That's unheard of nowadays. Still, the mantra of putting out something proportionate to what is put in was as in-effect then as it is now.

With the shorter write-ups both in JW and in TEAM though, there hasn't come a shortening in effort for individual RPs for the most part. The RPs aren't getting shorter by any means, at least the ones that are winning the matches. This, to me, that at least some folks are letting down their guards on wanting the fedheads to put as much out as they put in, if only for reasons of expediency. I've always been a firm believer in putting out what you get in, but I've also always liked having punctual results. The TEAM short-forms for me were always the happy medium, and for the most part, my guys didn't mind waiting for the extra special cards.

It's surprising that those among the angle/PTC crowd are also letting their guard down, but at the same time, maybe the perspective coming from growing up and empathizing with fedheads who have to juggle cardwriting with increasing real life responsibilities. Of course, the reasonable expectation is still there for other feds who have reliable matchwriters to fall back on, but I think we can all agree that places like PRIME and A1E have different structures than JW and are billed as differently. It's also safe to assume that people still like to write matches and big, long segments (more liking the latter than the former, I'd assume).

But playing off that last sentence, the second thing I thought about when thinking about JW is how long that structure will last. While it does take an inspired soul to actually like writing matches 24/7 (like that of Chris v. 2.2398423), segment writing seems to be a passion for most RPers, especially on the PTC side of things. I wonder how many times Hyde has gotten the request for a writer to put an embellished angle segment on the show, and if he hasn't, how long it's going to take. I'd hope that people lining up to join the fed realize that their commitments should be focused on RPing for the competition, since that's the niche that JW is seemingly providing.

I'm all for great storytelling, I really am. However, I do like to see some heterogeneity [sic] from time to time. When a niche fed comes up, I want to see it succeed. I didn't have such a hard-on for NFW back in the season format because Katz paid me. It was a great concept that I loved seeing and was sad to see go. NFW is still a great fed, one of the best in eW history, but for me, it was a little sad seeing the season format go away. Thus is life though, and Katz and JN had their reasons to switch over. Even now, their format is different enough from the other feds that it's still something unique in the game.

But back to JW, I really hope that people who join see the niche that the fed fills and want to work in context of that, not just because it happens to be the "hip" fed to join nowadays. I think Hyde is onto something here, and if he keeps going, he can have JW around for a long time with a varied roster of all-stars coming in and going out without any negative effect on the fed.

And it just goes to show that the more things change in this game, the more things tend to stay the same.

The advantages of keeping it short

Firstly, as you can see, I made some template changes, separating the "active" bloggers from the people who haven't posted something in six months and such. I removed all the dead links too, and I pared the fed listing, since really, why lead people in the direction of feds that may or may not be open anymore? Exceptions are the FW feds that are sloooowwww rollers right now and LoC, which will remain there until I know they've closed for good.

Secondly, two new blogs have been added to the active section. First one is the Ice Tre blog, an in-character blog from the greatest character in the history of all e-wrestling, and possibly the world of entertainment. The second one is a new, official PTC blog, where Pete, Ross and whoever else wants to contribute will be able to post their ruminations. Go there now, especially if you've asked some questions to Pete in that thread on the forums. He's answered a bunch of them.

And now, onto the meat of the post...

For what seems like eternity now, I've been using and advocating said usage of shortforming for weekly television shows. I know we're all in this hobby because at one time or another, we've been fans of wrestling, and the biggest part of that fandom is watching matches on television or pay-per-view. Because of that, there's been this feeling that the match should be the most important part of the cycle, and thus always should be written out. It's always been the unspoken rule until recently, when I started implementing the short-form highlight package style for TEAM writeups, and other FW feds decided they'd go the shortform route themselves. We all did it for differing reasons. I started mine because the interfed structure really needs to move at a rapid-fire pace, especially if you're not obliging people to stick around any longer then they absolutely have to. Brunk and Edmunds started using shortforms because the well of matchwriters had dried up and they didn't want their feds to lag.

Yet, it's always seemed that people would assume that if you could write out every match, you should, especially if you wanted to be considered a top-flight fed. This has been the case in PRIME for some time. Despite the focus of their shows changing over time from matches to segments, they've strived to have longform matches on every card, but according to a conversation I had with a roster member or two, there's a growing sentiment to drop the longforms on ReVolution and stick with shortforms. This group feels that it takes forever to read through shows, and the long matches are the reason.

On the surface, I can see where that comes into play. TO tell you the truth, I haven't fully read a PRIME show in a long time. To be fair, I haven't read a lot of feds' shows completely in a long time as well, and all that has more to do with my own ever-decreasing time rather than interest in eW or certain feds. Still though, when I was able to read PRIME fulltime, I did get the feeling that the shows could have been shorter.

However, I ask myself whether it was because of the number of matches or the fact that they were longformed, and I came to the conclusion that it wasn't. Very rarely when I read a show do I read the matches fully and completely as I would the segments on the first run, pay-per-views excepted since the matches are, or at least should be the show there. Therefore, I pay a lot closer attention to matches on those bigger cards. Still though, every regular TV show that I read, I skim the matches first and then reread if I feel I've missed something or if I feel that it's worth the time and effort to put in. Why should long matches make my PRIME reading experience any more difficult than something similar that I'd encounter in A1E or NFW? In fact, if my memory serves me well, PRIME's matches were shorter in comparison to other feds' shows.

This narrows the weight problem down to segments. I've always been somewhat critical of PRIME having a number of segs that'd be better suited being off-camera RPs rather than on-show pieces. In fact, when Pete instituted the seg limit and slots on the shows, I praised the move, even though it was never a hard seg limit and people went over all the time. Of course, many people don't see this as a problem, and admittedly, I don't think it's something all that critical to the health of the fed. I mean, I'd rather have that problem then people not giving a shit about the fed altogether. So really, how do you solve a problem of weightiness when the problem isn't really the matches? Force people not to write segs?

Sorry, I can't really advocate doing something like that. Everyone has a story they want to tell, and if they're in the fed, the should have the right to say it. It would be up to the fedhead to keep excess people out of the ranks if they didn't want a million segs on the show, and right now, with the slump that this side of the eW universe has been in, no fedhead should be turning away applicants unless that applicant's name happens to be Jeremy Jenkins or someone of that same dishonorable reputation.

So in the end, the answer has to be shortforming. Once again, TV matches should really only be used to further storylines anyway, thus making anything worth writing in the match bullet point-worthy. Of course, when the PPV rolls around, you better bet that I'd scream bloody murder if the matches were shortformed. If that part of matchwriting ever goes to the wayside, you might as well start calling this Competitive Creative Writing and not e-Wrestling. But for TV shows, pshaw, use the shortform.

Because really, I'd rather the time and effort going into making a huge show go into something you know people are going to read intently the first time around.

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.

Shortforming, plus NEW BELLS AND WHISTLES WHOO~!

Before I get to this entry, you might have noticed something different with the blog. There are now labels at the bottom of most posts (all the recent ones and some of the ones that go all the way back). I'm in the process of tagging all my entries so you can click on one link and see all the posts about a certain topic, whether it's about a fed or a topic.

Plus, if you notice on the side, I added a few new feds to the mix. Three new angle feds.

Spinebuster Wrestling - Unique and old-school name, unique show name... gave the roster a once over and noticed both Andy Sharp and Jeff Garvin on the roster. Although there are too many NPC characters (the ACW crew brings ACW habits?), that's a strong base and this is a fed to follow.

Universal Wrestling - These guys have been pimping hard on FW and cIm, and they feature Turk on the roster, as well as Derecho's handler fedheading it. Could be interesting.

Revolution Pro Wrestling - Another fed that's gotten the hard pimp on cIm and some major backing over at PTC from Sean Williams. They have major balls to put out shows with just four characters. Major risk, but at this point, with angle fedding being at the point of stagnation, it's a welcome risk. The only thing I don't really like about this fed so far is their members ganging up in the cIm Wrestler of the Week voting and just voting for each other. Kinda cheapens the process (the same with the Global and nbW guys... it's a competition, not a shill). Still, watch out for these guys. With the people involved, this could be the big angle fed story of 2007 (unless Travis somehow gets the fWo kickstarted).

I may not be able to follow those feds as closely as the feds I do now, but I'll be sure to keep an eye out for them. I expect big things from them, and hopefully, they can revitalize the angle fed community.

Now, finally...

For years, we've all slaved over our computers to write matches in a somewhat timely fashion (although at FW.com in the last year, timely means within a month :p). We tell ourselves that since we put so much effort into RPing/promoing, the matches have to reflect that. Yet, I'm willing to bet that more than half any community doesn't take the time to read matches except maybe at PPVs. I know most of the time, unless I'm really in the mood, I skim the contests and look for big angle advancement things. PPVs and special events are different, but for most regular TV shows, I'm reading for segs and angle advancement.

So, we kill ourselves writing matches and then no one ends up reading them. Shows get delayed for posterity, so that we can look good for our peers, when odds are, most of them will just skim through it. It's a bad habit for everyone, but at this stage of the game, where most of us are getting older and have less and less time to read and write wrestling matches, it's becoming more and more understandable.

For many years now, I've been leading the charge for e-fedding to stick to its roots of wrestling, and it would seem that those roots include writing out full-form matches to make shows feel like wrestling shows and not just TV sitcoms or dramas with a requisite ensemble cast. It might be a bit hypocritical for me to suggest what I'm about to suggest, but in light of the breaking news that when you get older, you have less time to devote to hobbies like this, I think it makes all the sense in the world.

For e-fedding to retain much of its past life and vigor, unless a new influx of late high school-aged to college aged people enter the hobby, all matches for your free TV shows should be shortformed.

Think about it, what's the thing that usually holds up cards being posted on time? Matches. Why is that? Because writing matches in longform takes time unless you're a wunderkind or you pay no attention to things like detail, flow, plausibility, angle-advancement, psychology, etc. That time that was so abundant to us when we were in high school or college now is limited as we enter our working lives, having to worry about things like paying bills, keeping jobs, getting married, etc. We still want to participate in the hobby, but it's increasingly difficult to do more than put up a couple of promos a week or write one, decent storyline RP (although the PTC community seems to be where the FW/A1 community agewise was a few years ago, which is why they have more feds that are regular in the traditional sense).

Because of that, compromises must be made. Most of the time, free TV matches serve the purpose of angle advancement or heat building, places where you'd normally use a Dusty finish or where happenings in and around the match matter more than the outcome. It's always been true in real wrestling (with a few exceptions, like the legendary Bret/Benoit Owen Memorial Match on Nitro or the infamous Austin & Trips/Benoit & Jericho tag match where Trips tore his quad). You build the feud during the show and then blow it off at the PPV, where the wrestling really, really matters. So why not let the writing reflect that? Shortform matches give the reader the satisfaction of knowing the finish, flow and major happenings of the match in less time and with clearer results than if the match was written out, and the writer gets to put his story across in a conciser manner where he/she wouldn't feel as stressed or pressured to get it done.

Now, this may seem like the short way out. Let me let you in on a little secret. It certainly is a short way out, a quick fix. Usually, those are bad, but in this case, it's a necessary evil. Until God decides to give us 8 more hours in the day, we're stuck with the dilemma of deciding between work and this great hobby of ours. It may seem like short-shrifting, but if it means the FW.com feds come alive again, if it means the PTC feds never have to experience a slowdown like FW has experienced, if it means more people getting involved in writing stuff for shows instead of just writing it for their promos/RPs, then it could save the hobby if we never get another new handler to come into it.

Matchwriting tip

Matchwriting seems to be such a daunting task for folks, which is a shame. That's because late matchwriting is the downfall of, I'm betting, 99% of all feds. If more people wrote matches, we'd be on Aggression 50 in EPW, through probably three full seasons in NFW and Courage 100 would have passed months ago in ACW.

But it's not easy. It really isn't sometimes to write, because matches are really alot harder to write than RPs are. Creativity is alot harder to manifest in a wrestling match than it is in an RP or in a speaking promo segment on a card.

Yes, I used to think that matchwriting was a bitch, but it really wasn't the actual fact of matchwriting. It was my method. I used to go along and just write as I went, stream of consciousness. I held up plenty of cards, A1E (when I was a BC member WAYYYY back in the day), EPW, NFW.

The hardest thing was how to phrase everything, how to flesh out the spots and make them look real, and also what spots to put in. Doing both at the same time stressed me to no end.

But then, I had an idea. What if I outlined the spots beforehand, no commentary, no dressing-up... just a list of spots, in the order of how they would appear in the match. What if I outlined the match?

The first match I did this for was Suleimon/Republican II at ACW Honor and Glory. And to my surprise, the match was so much smoother and easier to write. Seriously, I was just amazed at how easy it came out. And the amount of content... in the time it would take me to write a six page match for EPW, I banged out twelve pages.

Same for the TEAM Tournament Final, and that clocked in at something like thirty pages.

And most recently, the Abu Ghraib Death Match (aka, Suleimon/Republican III), I got three pages done in like five days. Just today, I've written about ten pages alone for it.

It's so elemental, it's not even funny. So easy.

I mean, going on a stream of consciousness is too rough on your brain, especially since this is a hobby. You shouldn't have to rack your brain. So just try it once. Outline a match and then flesh it out. You'll find writing will be easier, and maybe matchwriting will be fun. And if matchwriting becomes fun... then feds can get out on time.

Everyone wins :)

Tapping Out, pt. 2

No, this is not a continuation of a previous post. It's actually about submissions in e-fedding, or mainly how no one likes to see their guy tap out.

But why does no one want to see their characters submit in matches? If I was going to guess any reason, it'd be pride, perhaps the deadliest of e-fedding sins. A lot of people don't like their characters to show ass; they want their characters to be presented in such a specific matter where if they have to show any kind of weakness, it has to be on their terms. Tapping out is usually never on their terms. And even guys who do know how to build a good program through showing ass don't like to have their guys tapping out. Either way, tapping out is usually equated to giving up or surrendering, and no one really wants their character portrayed as a quitter. They want to be portrayed as someone who keeps fighting to the end, and if they have to lose, they'd rather it be because the other guy did so much damage that he couldn't kick out of a pin rather than tapping out.

I used to be of that school of thought, actually, but recently, I did some soul-searching, some thinking, and I wondered... what the hell is the difference? Really, it's no big deal if your character taps out.

For one, in most instances, it's smarter for your character to tap out in some instances. Since all submission moves target some part of the body, in-character, your character could suffer some major damage to a vital joint, limb or organ if he can't escape and doesn't tap out. It's all about the realism.

Two, it's really not fair to folks who have submissions as their finishers, and if someone who is trying to build a submission as a finisher is the one balking at tapping out, it's highly hypocritical. Everyone wants to have their finishers be feared, be deadly. But if you have it so that your character refuses to tap, then you're sabotaging anyone who wants to build a submission hold as a finisher. Everyone deserves to have a strong finisher. Of course, someone playing Devil's Advocate could say that having more than one finisher is the solution, but we know not everyone is going to do that, and that's okay. Therefore, they need to be accomodated.

Now, there are some instances where having a character not tap is the logical thing to do. Like if your character is a giant freak of nature or a pain sponge or something like that. But then again, even they need to be able to tap out in some instances.

I mean, it's not that hard to swallow your pride, especially in e-fedding, where we're all friends for the most part, and where your heat is more elastic than what it would be if your character was a real wrestler.

But then again... real wrestlers tap otu all the time. And guys like Triple H, who find ways to keep their stroke in legit or underhanded ways, still tap out in the ring.

(And as an aside here... the method of having someone pass out in a submission hold rather than tap is old, tired and way overused, and it should only be saved for special occasions.)

Posting shows without matches

NFW is coming off a 2005 that saw them post thirteen new shows and partially reverse their image that they were a slacker fed. It propelled them to the MVP fed position for FW.com.

Yet, there's the sinking suspicion that they can do better. If you ask Katz, he'll probably say that only an act of God would get the schedules moving faster, seeing that there's always someone writing matches in either conference that's lagging behind.

While I agree that real life comes in and hits hard sometimes, causing delays in shows, I do think that there could be room for slight improvement. Now, given the size and scope of the NFW roster, that might only mean improving to getting, say fifteen shows in a year instead of thirteen. That might seem miniscule, but any extra show helps.

Now, the latest group of shows were supposed to be put out before the New Year, which would have upped the total for 2005 to 16. But asking folks to produce during the holiday season is a tricky proposition.

But here we are, 17 days into 2006, and we're still waiting on matches. Well, only three matches for the main shows, and then the UWA stuff which only has one match that has bearing on the ULTRATITLE. There's a push to post the cards without the matches in question. While NFW hasn't posted an incomplete card yet this season (outside of Midnight Madness Week Four, the main event to that I still don't think has been posted), the supporters for posting sans the four matches would say that it at least gives us sharks a little meat after smelling the blood.

But then again, would reading Midnight Madness or Crashmas be the same if there were matches missing?

It all depends on your perspective, and whether you had an angle in the match that was missing. Usually, if you just have wrestler A vs. wrestler B with no other angle involved than "hey, I want my 10 points," then it's okay to omit the matches and post the finish as a holder until the match gets done. A1E has done similar, and many of its lowcard matches have really no angle bearing on them.

However, many matches this year have some kind of underlying storyline to them, especially out West, which is a hybrid-angle fed.

So what do you do?

Honestly, I don't think Katz is going to post the RP threads for week seven until all the results are written, so even if he does post, he may go the EPW route, post part of the results and then keep the rest hidden until they're written.

In which case, it might be better to wait for the whole thing, especially since NFW and EPW are totally different feds in structure.

So after all that rambling, I guess all I can say is good things come to those who wait. Although if we have to wait much longer, it might turn into Season One all over again.

And that's NOT a good thing.

Happy Festivus: The Airing of Grievances

Jerry Stiller's character on Seinfeld introduced us to Festivus, a holiday alternative to Christmas. Despite the show being off the air for a good seven years now, many of the gags, mannerisms, sayings and et ceteras on the show have become cultral phenomena; Festivus is one of them.

Now, a big part of Festivus was the Airing of Grievances, so as we celebrate Festivus today, I have a big grievance to air as it concerns this hobby of ours.

Long, boring matchwriting.

For those of you who know me, you know that in the past, I've railed against things I've seen as pretentiousness in music, movies and general attitudes in the various places I post at on the Internet or from just talking to me in real life. But usually, it's in an area that you can pretty much ignore. I don't like Kid A and beyond era Radiohead because I find them pretentious. Oddly enough, Creed after their first album is the same way with me. I don't have to listen to them. I have a vast CD collection of music that I can just dive into.

But when pretentiousness invades e-fedding, especially feds that I'm in and want to follow, it gets pretty irritating. I can't really just skip over the matches, because I want to get the full effect of storylines. A lot of times, that's lost if the match is too winding.

I mean, it seems to me that a lot of times, when a match is too long, I assume the matchwriter is trying to make an epic, a match on the level of of Steamboat/Savage at WM III or Hart/Austin at WM XIII or any other epic match in wrestling history. I mean, that's all well and good, but if you notice, there are a vast variety of matches shown in real wrestling. Not every match is a 20 minute five-star classic. However, most good matches on TV at least try to get across a statement, a point, something to further the storyline.

I feel a lot of matchwriters need to focus on that aspect rather than the "oh-em-gee, I wanna write Benoit/Angle again!" aspect. Say something in the match. Who cares if it's not 15 pages in MS Word, or if it doesn't have thirty-million nearfalls, or if both wrestlers don't come out of the match looking like ring generals. Just write the match to where it gets across a point and where both wrestlers look good (unless one or both of them no-showed... then I wouldn't mind to see them buried).

That's not to say that all long matches suck. I mean, I've read some really, really good epics. More recently, Miles/Mayfield and Miles/KVC are standouts. I mean, if you can write an epic and do it in a way where you keep my eyes glued to the monitor for the entire duration, then more props to you, and I want you writing the main event for the fed you're in.

But if you're writing length for length's sake, then reconsider why you became a matchwriter in the first place.

And now that grievances have been aired, may the Feats of Strength begin! Don! Brunk! Dan West! Jarrett! To the front! :p

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, or whatever holiday you celebrate, may it be joyous and safe for you and your family.

The matchwriting report card

Matchwriting: many people think it's the most important part of any fed. I'd be hard pressed to disagree, although I do think booking and your RPing staff play large roles (in an angle fed, bar none, matchwriting is most important)

But has anyone really stepped back and examined the matchwriting for various feds? I don't believe so. Most of the time I see matchwriting discussed on forums, it's platitudes for feds. No one really critiques them outside of IMs, where I've heard and dispensed many criticisms.

SO here we go with some matchwriting criticism for all the feds I'm familiar with, outside of Empire Pro Wrestling, where I'm the matchwriting assistant. I really can't look at them objectively, seeing that I've virtually written entire cards for them before, and I can honestly say that I think I've influenced most of the matchwriters for the fed.

So without further ado...

A1E

Honestly, I think matchwriting for A1E is subpar, and it has been for quite some time. I really can't put my finger on it. I think it's gone through periods where it was too self-indulgent (and trust me, when I was on the BC/matchwriting staff, I was DEFINITELY guilty of that). Right now, many matches seem rushed. I also don't really like how they implement their style of alternating declarative narrative/PBP. I think the PBP parts that come in seem out of place. I do understand why it might seem like that, seeing that the staff is dedicated to getting cards out on time. Sometimes they get good matches, like JA/Farnswirth or Maggot/Big Dog, but a lot of times, they seem dry. Another problem is their continunity between segments. A lot of times, you'll see a match, then one or two segments, and then the next match will pick up like they were going seamlessly from match to match instead of having the segments in between. I think A1E could use some work to get to higher levels where they could balance timeliness, which they're great at, and quality.

Grade C-

NFW East

I really can't do NFW as a whole, because each conference is intrinsically different. I do write for NFW, but I usually stick to my own matches. If anyone writes the bulk of the matches for the East, it's Mike McNichols. Stanton and a few others contribute from time to time, and for the most part, it's a solid crew. THey also suffer from the self-indulgence strain at times, especially McNichols. They tread a fine line. I think Ryan/Manson was a little over the top. Ryan/Red was really good though in a clever way. I like when they throw off-kilter stuff in there. BUt I think if they have it in their mind to make a match an instant classic, it suffers a bit from overkill.

Grade B+

NFW West

If Jamar wrote every NFW West match, there'd be one card a year cuz he'd burn himself out too quickly or not have the time ;). But if he had the inspiration and time, every NFW West card would be immaculate. If Jamar and Katz split the NFW West cards, they'd still be an A at the very least. But they don't. Jamar writes one match a card tops, but you cna't blame him. Katz writes a lot, and I mean A LOT for the West. When he writes PBP, the matches are good... rill good. But when he writes them prose narrative, or when we get Pants getting in on the prose narrative match train the result is more confusion than entertainment. It's not necessarily a bad thing that Pants' style is so different. I mean, he's got balls, posting matches in flashback, but it doesn't gel with me. Same with a lot of the PTC/angle circuit writers who came over. I mean, I don't doubt that the Almasy/Rook Black match was packed with psychology and mind numbing high spots that would have translated more than perfectly into the ring. It's just I can't get into the style. When I read a wrestling match, I can't read it as book style and envision what's going on. I need to see it done PBP, like I'm imagining the guys calling the the match, hearing Kerry and Hollywood in my head calling the match. But I will admit that they put a lot of time and effort into the matches.

And thankfully, Katz is the one writing the majority of the matches ;)

Grade A-

WFW

A lot of people praise WFW for solid matchwriting... I'll put it bluntly, I don't see it. For one, I think there's too much CAPSLOCK going on. There's definite overselling to the point where 85% of the match is the announce team screaming at the top of their lungs. The writing is also too choppy and doesn't flow as well as it should. The sequences in the ring are solid at times, and there's good psychology, but you can't tell that at times because the actual writing doesn't convey it as well as it should. Another strike against them is the way the cards are posted. Sometimes they go like days between posting matches. You don't get a good flow for the card. Even if you post the card without a match, you get a better flow than if you have matches go up over the course of a week. WFW's definitely on the overrated side when it comes to matchwriting.

Grade C-

NEW

I think Edmunds takes some hints from WFW when writing NEW matches. There's definitely a penchant for overselling. I think a lot of this is shown through the way that no-showers are written, ie, given any more than a token kick or punch. But I think the writing mechanics are alot better. I like the NEW announce team for RAUCOUS. I also think there's enough creativity going with some of these finishes that I think NEW can become a leader on FWC for matchwriting quality. As it stands right now, they're still behind NFW and probably the CSWA, but that's not a bad place to be.

Grade B-

CSWA

Ah yes, the grand ol' fed. I almost went incomplete, but I thought back to the cards during the UNIFIED tournament and Anniversary, and there was a lot of good stuff going on. I think the matches are prone to ramble sometimes, but it's never too too bad. I think what hurts CS the most is the inactivity of the fed. Once they get a good push going, it skids to a halt because Chad has to go on business trips. Chad says he hopes to rectify this with the new restart, and we can only hope it does.

Grade B

LVW

They've only had one card, which is far too few to judge objectively. But the first card was a good card, and if they build from that, we may have a leader in the clubhouse when NFW Season 2 ends and if Katz/JN decide not to do a third season.

Grade Incomplete

UCW

Shane and Dan show a lot of promise with their cardwriting, but there lacks a certain panache with the matches. I can't really put my finger on it, because the effort is definitely there, as is the psychology. Maybe it's the announce crew, I don't know. But these guys are getting better rather than worse at their craft, which is always good.

Grade C+

AWC

AWC has a ton of talented writers, but most of them seem to excel at character building segments rather than matches. Not to say the matches aren't good, but they seem a little dry. I have a lot of trouble getting through them sometimes and this is due to the style used, which like A1E, is a hybrid of declarative prose and PBP. the PBP portions are easier to palate; I rather enjoy the Kern/Marx/Smith announce team, especially Smith. However, when they switch to the block paragraphs describing the ring action, it gets a bit tedious. I would suggest switching to straight PBP if they think their writers can give the announcers that much personality.

Grade B-

ACW

Once again, the prose narrative style doesn't quite wet my palate as much as PBP does, but this is not to say that the ACW matchwriters don't take care to make each match as action packed as possible. I think though, that the way the matches are written, it makes it easier to miss plot developments and miss out on some details, which may take away from the out-of-match segments, something ACW writers excel at.

Grade Incomplete, because I'd rather not grade them on their matchwriting style if I haven't mastered reading it yet

fWo

See ACW, only I think their matches are easier to read sometimes.

Grade Incomplete, because I'd rather not grade them on their matchwriting style if I haven't mastered reading it yet

ACW: The good and the bad (no ugly)

I was over my neighbor's house for Thanksgiving today, and they have a non-piece of shit computer. So I was surfing the web there and checking up on all the cool e-fed related stuff that I just haven't been looking at because my video card at home has been shot and I didn't feel like scrolling massively.

I checked in on All-Star Championship Wrestling, a fed I've been trying to follow as of late. I didn't get a chance to read their latest PPV, Ready or Not until today. I was glad to know that they didn't really progress much after that right now. Only one other show was put up after that, so I was able to catch up easily.

I have to say that I was halfway thoroughly impressed with it. The character building pieces are brilliant. They have a lot of talented writers who really get wrestling storylines. The best was the Seymour Almasy/Andy Sharp/Khristain Keller arc where Sharp beat Almasy for the TV Title in what was considered a fluke; Almasy's body was so beaten down by his hyperactive schedule that it just gave out and Sharp got the much-too-easy victory. Their rematch was at the PPV, but there was a catch; if Almasy won, he also got to pick the stip for his title match at their flagship PPV Legends against World Champ Keller (Almasy won their Royal Rumble-esque event, End Game, to earn the shot), but if Sharp retained, Keller got to name the stip. Plus there was the inherent tension between Almasy and Sharp. Sharp needing to prove that he was indeed as good or better than his friend and didn't need to take advantage of his weakened state to win the match.

But then we got to the actual match itself, and I really couldn't be bothered to read it fully. It's just... I can't really explain it. I can't get into the way that the match was written. And mostly every match I've seen is written like the math was.

Basically, ACW matches are written in narrative form, which isn't bad in and of itself, but there's a lot of flowery prose, a little omniscience from the narrator... I don't think it works for a wrestling match. Now, I think that it's just a matter of personal taste, but still, it's a big thing for me to overcome.

I guess I'm used to seeing wrestling matches either be written in straight PBP, PBP with dry narrative mixed in, or in dry narrative (which is how we wrote matches for UXW... we didn't have announcers because in storyline, we couldn't afford them). But that's how I think wrestling should be presented. Especially if you make a big deal about your announcers.

I'm totally not knocking ACW though, because I did apply there, and I still might be joining soon. But I guess I'm gonna have to start training myself to read their style of matches if I do choose to join.

Because you can miss a whole lot if you skim through a match.

Miles/Mayfield I

I feel deprived.

I didn't get a computer until Christmas of 1999. I didn't get into e-fedding until late 2000, and even then, I didn't get to FW on a regular, continuous basis until last year.

I missed a lot of stuff before I finally got there. Some of it, I don't mind. But other things, it makes me sad.

Well, after reading Miles/Mayfield I, I can tell you one thing.

Having missed out on most of Jamar Nicholas' active days as a writer makes me damn-near suicidal.

More often than not, when I sit down to read a really long match, it takes me two or three readings for me to get it to sink in. It's not a function of the matchwriter most of the time. It's just really long matches are hard for me to wrap my brain around.

However, this match took me only one sitting to get through. It read so smoothly. It was almost like I was reading the words of God if He wrote e-fedding. Just stylistically, it was the best prose I've ever read.

Going to the content of the match, I'm guessing that this is going to be the match of the year. Just a hunch, seeing that everything in this match made sense and it was over the top violent and full of big spots. It was the complete match. Everything, from Mayfield's "To Do" list to the "coal mining accident" phase to Nixon running out and cat-fighting on Mystic to the end. It had moments. It had flow.

The only problem I can see with this match is that it totally writes like a blowoff match until the very end, when you see the heel Mayfield escape getting his comeuppance and capitalizing on a Miles miss. The finish works, but the match before it is just so over the top, you'd think it was the WrestleBowl main event, not an early season matchup.

Knowing that this is certainly not the last encounter, I'm afraid the genie's been let out of the bottle. Katz and JN have their work cut out for them to top this one.

Because it was a doozy.

Katz told me before I read it that I should be prepared to give it six stars. I wouldn't go that far. But I will say this. It was the best match I've read since I came back to e-fedding full time last year, and it's up there with Spoiler/Freakfish from MBE High Stakes '00 and Beast/Torment from ORIGINAL Vengeance as all-time matches.

Why don't people read shows?

This question was posed at EWN in this thread.

I know I replied there, but here's the simple answer.

Shows have become too self-indulgent.

Only a select few handlers will want to write matches for any given fed. Those handlers tend to be the ones who are most hardcore into e-fedding; therefore, they're the ones who take the most pride in everything they do, be it promoing, matchwriting, whatever.

So it's only natural that they try to outdo themselves every time they write a match. Every match has to have tons of tension, all kinds of high-risk maneuvers, people kicking out of finishers, the SUPER MEGA IMPACT FINISHER being pulled out every match instead of on special occasions. All of that is good for the critics who have giant attention spans, but for the common handler, it only serves to push them away from reading entire cards and towards skimming for results and maybe, just maybe reading their own matches.

I'd like to think that everyone in the fed would be interested in more than just their own stuff. Frankly though, that's not going to happen in all cases. Katz raised an interesting point in that not everyone's going to be interested in all the segments on the real life wrestling. Like Katz said he changes the channel when Undertaker comes on. I personally flip back and forth between RAW and ESPN or Comcast SportsNet when Triple H is cutting a boring promo or during the Diva Search.

But really, if you're into e-fedding, you should be into most of the stuff that doesn't pertain to you. It's a hobby that's more encompassing than what involves you.

So what can be done to make things more accessible for everyone? I think shorter matches is a start. I mean, I know everyone has like five finishers and they all have pain threshholds that would make Wolverine look like a pussy. But come on, do we really need to see Savage/Steamboat every time out?

Save the big writeups for PPVs. Save the EPIC writeups for the Golden Dreamses, the Anniversaries, the Cyberslams, the WresleBowls, the WrestleVerses.

And tone down the writeups for the regular shows.