Two years of kumquats, making people look like Hitler and just being Blogotron

Hard to believe, but the Blog is two years old today. I never thought I'd take it this far or that it'd become this big, but hey, stranger things have happened. I mean since I've started this thing, angle fedding has become an endangered species, PTC has ceased operations as a full-time interfed and yes, NFW has finished its second season four years ahead of schedule.

Not to sound pompous or self-centered, but I feel like this blog has become bigger than I am. It has become this place where people come to find out about places they're not fully familiar with, a place for people to get news or opinions, and occasionaly for them to bitch at me when I say something they don't agree with :p Regardless, over these two years, with all the characters I've handled, the most important one has become the character of the Blogger, which isn't a character at all. I'm somewhat of a journalist, and really, the only one that eW has right now.

I'd like to let you in on a little secret; I never meant it to be this way. I really don't want to be your only source of eW news because, quite frankly, I don't have the time to be your only source of eW news. I always thought that I'd be the first in a wave of several eW bloggers, a veritable e-fed blogosphere. For awhile there, I thought that was going to be the case. You see the sidebar to the right of where this is. It's full of links to other blogs. The only problem is, some of those links are dead, and others haven't been updated for months, and if they have, it's been sporadic at best. That's a damn shame.

I'm not saying that people need to step up and be exactly what this blog is. I try to take a more worldly approach, a broad scope. If there were two or three more bloggers like me, that'd be fine, but everyone who aspires doesn't need to focus on anything more than a fed or two that they're familiar with. We need a more parochial approach to blogging, people who comment on just some of the old PTC feds, or a guy who covers NAPW and REBEL and so on and so forth.

People complain that the hobby is dying. I still see a ton of handlers lurking around the big sites, and that tells me that there's at least a passing interest. If the hobby is dying, it's only because people don't care anymore. If you start caring, you do things like handle in feds and promote them. Blogging is one of those ways to promote.

Give your Blogger feedback

Thus marks the 300th post on this crazy thing, and as with any milestone post, there has to be a crazy gimmick involved, right? No? Well, you're getting it anyway.

I really try not to talk about myself on the blog, and in fact, the last time I really asked for thoughts about me and my work, it was the 200th entry, so I'm doing it again. If you don't like it... tough cookies :) It's just a series of questions about the blog, about my work in eW and things I've done and what I might do. So here goes:

The last time I did a self-post, I asked what your favorite character of mine was. If you didn't answer last time, tell me, what is your favorite Holzer-character? If you did, has that answer changed since the last time?

I love gimmicks and I love handling gimmicked characters. I've done the Ottoman throwback, the masked GOPundit and a score of others. What kind of gimmick would you like to see me do in the future?

Those of you who actually read RPs, how have I been since I came over to FW in 2004 and then started the blog in 2005?

What do you think of the blog? Be honest, if you think there's something missing, something wrong, something I'm doing or allowing to be done that just plain sucks, please let me know. I'm glad people like the blog, but if I hear nothing but knob-slobbering praise, I have no idea how to improve, because let's face it, I'm not a perfect writer and I'm not a perfect judge of content. I need to know, people!

That's it. You don't have to answer all of the questions if you do answer, but if you do, please, please, please, PLEASE answer the last question if you only do one.

250th Entry: What I Want to Be When I Grow Up

Yep, yet another milestone. It's a quarter of... a thousand! Pathetic, I know, but you take whatever milestones what you can get in this life. It can be short. This past week was a painful reminder of that.

Anyhoo... "When I grow up..." that's something you always say when you're younger, but how many times do you end up being what you say you want to be when you're a kid? It's what you want to be when you're a young man that defines you. When you're 25, that's still pretty young (Quarter of a century, quarter of a thousand entries? Coincidence? Yeah, probably :p). So what do I want to be when I grow up, in this hobby? Silly question, you might ask.

But really, how many people in this hobby do you know who are older than the age of 30? You PTC heads probably don't know anyone like that. It's more common with the FW crowd. Usually, the oldheads, like Chad, Steve, Katz and JAAAMMMMARRR~!!!! *shakes fist* don't have the time to be as active as they want to be.

However, there are a two guys who are among the most passionate in the hobby, and they're both over 30 years old. They come from the A1 community. They're Dan West, who many of you either know as The Spoiler, Chip Friendly, Victor Molotov or Steve Watson - CPA, and Shane Gerlach, who's a workhorse as IrishRed. These guys have jobs, lives, families and friends, and they're as integral to every fed or competition that they're in as anyone else. How do they do it? I can't even begin to pretend to know. Maybe it's because they love wrestling. Maybe it's because they're masterful jugglers of time. Maybe it's because they can actually stop time. I don't know.

But what I know is... when I'm in my 30s, I want to have the passion for this hobby as they have. I want to be as much a part of the hobby as they are. Maybe I'll be in the same capacity as I am now. Maybe I won't.

But I still want to be a part of this game.

Happy Birthday, Blog! (aka, what I have learned in the last year)

So tomorrow, the blog turns one whole year old. I didn't think it would last a week let alone a year, but hey, here it is. I'm updating now so you guys don't think I abandoned it... I'm leaving for Virginia tomorrow and I won't be back til Sunday.

Anyhoo, I've learned alot about our little hobby over the last year. Here it is:

- Gregg Gethard, Jamar Nicholas and Steve Thomas ought to just rename themselves to the Father, Son and Holy Ghost *dodges lightning*

- RP feds aren't just for trash talkers anymore. They're also not the place you want to go if you're plagiarizing Greek history for RPs.

- Organizing events is like herding cats.

- Jon Katz may be the hardest luck fedhead ever.

- Angle feds are fun!

- You can get far in the hobby with a green, rabbit-shaped vibrating sex toy.

And finally...

- I've learned you can get into a lot of trouble with a blog like this. But hey, if getting in trouble is wrong, I don't wanna be right. Here's to hoping I can be a little more provocative, a little more insightful and rile a bunch more people into positive action with this thing in the next year.

If I last that long!

THE E-FED BLOG 100TH POST EXTRAVAGANZA~!

Oh yeah, 100 posts. I didn't think I'd make it this far, but now that I have, let's hope that there are hundreds and hundreds more.

So what am I going to do for this monumental occasion? Well, first, let's link some shows! I haven't read them all fully yet, so no quickie reviews.

Holla, holla, Midnight Madness, week 6... NFW, down Mexico way... beware, thar's teabagging in them thar pages :p

NEW Era Raucous... first show of the new year for NEW... hopefully it's the first of many!

AWC Fresh! (Tilde omitted for fear of jobbing :p)... I got through less than half of this show last night before I realized I had an ACW deadline to meet. Amazingly long promo from the Unfuckables to start, which was Triple H-esque, but unlike a Levesque Borination Special, it had more than a few good moments.

ACW Courage 88... self-shill here, check out the Suleimon and GOP matches, and lemme know what you think about the angle I have between them. I love feedback, even if it's negative/constructive.

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

For my 100th entry, I thought that I would recount the most shocking, controversial, imoportant, best-written, etc. moments I've experienced in e-fedding history. The key part of that is moments I've experienced, firsthand. So sorry NFW fans, no Hurricane Eddy Love moments, cuz in fairness, I didn't realize that firsthand. I read it months later, so the importance wasn't as dramatic on me.

But anyway, this is in no order except for maybe chronological...

MBE Comes to A1 Before Message Board Entertainment came to A1Wrestling.com, the perception was that it was this foreign, elitist fed where only the friends of those in charge were the ones who'd get pushed. I heard this from a few people, like Janitor and Lady Rebellion. But I really didn't pay them that much mind. I mean, Janitor told me I'd never amount to anything in MBE unless I played politics.

Meanwhile, I was one of the longest reigning MBE Champions of all-time, and I don't think I had to do any backstage convincing to do it. But that's neither here nor there.

I was really one of the only ones who believed that MBE wasn't this fortress, this ivory tower. I wasn't deterred by going back to 1Wrestling.com, a site that everyone at A1 either left after being fed up with Ryder and his WCWocracy or were booted for speaking their minds. Others were though.

But then, MBE moved and came to A1. I don't know the exact reason; Dan West might be better to ask. However, what I do know is that when MBE came to A1, more A1E faithful tried it out, and the haters who thought it was this big, insular party found out that MBE was actually more egalitarian than A1E was. They found out that you didn't have to brownnose to certain folks to succeed.

And to think, all it took was a change of scenery to get that message across.

A1E's Tag Team Championship Match Usually, when a match nowadays goes 4 or 5 plus promos apiece, it's considered hyperactive. People wonder where folks get the free time to get up all those RPs.

Yet I remember a time when if you didn't put up at least five, you were slacking.

Well, Beast, Necromancer, Liquid Snake and Mikey F'n W certainly weren't slacking when they faced off to determine the first ever A1E Tag Team Champions. In fact, they kinda went insane to the tune of 58 (I think that was the final number) total promos.

Fifty-eight.

I'm sure Jarret, Mat, Ryan or Mike would pretty much look back at that match and wonder "How in the hell did we get all that activity?"

I mean, even for that time, when things were different, 58 was a big number.

God, I miss those days.

Amazing, Inc. Honestly, there aren't very many things in this hobby that absolutely floor me. When I found out that Bill Dempsey was also the handler for WhiteNoise and Mr. Amazing!, as well as Freakfish, well, I was floored. How he was able to keep that secret for as long as he did, well, in this day and age of everyone needing to know every little fact before it's dissemenated, it was shocking.

Snake's Amazing Run in the middle of 2001 Ryan Poole was one of my best friends in e-fedding in the beginning. Our characters (JA and Liquid Snake) were always linked in A1E since we debuted the same week and then faced off the week after Golden Dreams Zero in an epic match (we each posted like 9 promos apiece, building a history out of nothing.... the good ol' days of e-fed sponteneity), and then were involved in matches and angles. But Ryan had a tendency to flake out at times. In the summer of 2001, when A1E held its first ever title tournament, the odds-on favorite to win was Beast. I mean, he was riding the hot angle with his SIN feud, and really, it seemed like he was ready to take his run with the A1E Title.

Well, as is the case in any RP fed, the best laid plans of mice and men can be laid to waste by a really hot character. And there was no one hotter than Snake during that tournament. He was putting out stuff that was better than anything he had done previous or anything he would do again. I mean, this was something you had to be around for. He went into the tournament final against Beast, who'd barely survived his semifinal match with Mr. Hyde (my all-time favorite e-fed character), and just smacked him around.

Riding the wave of momentum into Golden Dreams I, Snake went in and just did the same thing to Fly that he did to Beast. I mean, I don't think it was all that close.

But then, after he won the title at GD, Ryan burnt out again. Mr. Hyde won the title easily at the next PPV, and Ryan just faded into the background, making spot returns here and there. That is not to discount Nick's efforts with Hyde, because he was a good Champion who I thought could have been one of the all-time greatest Champions had he more faith in his abilities and better computers at the time (one of his reasons for dropping out after he lost the strap to Big Dog was that his own computer was crapping out on him). But really, Snake could have been in that pantheon too.

It's a damn shame to see wasted potential like that, but that's life, y'know?

MBE closes :( All good things must come to an end. This is a truism. But still, it didn't ease the sting of MBE closing when it finally had to shut its doors.

But really, it was inevitable. The founding fathers (Dan West, Bill Dempsey, Jeff Paternostro, Bob Rodriguez) were all too busy to run the fed like it should have been run. I was burning out on e-fedding at the time. The other guys who were coming in and trying to run it weren't ready to run a big time fed yet, especially one with the tradition of MBE.

We got a good run out of the final card, a giant battle royale featuring a who's who of folks who had participated in MBE. But still, it was sad to see it go.

At the time, us folks at A1Wrestling didn't know of many other places outside of that realm to go. Or if we did, we didn't trust them at the time because of the Mike Stanton Experiment gone awry in A1E. It took me a good two years and a heart-to-heart talk with Dave Brunk before I could be ready to venture off A1.

And now I'm the e-fed maven.

But I'm off topic now.

Vote rigging and mistrust This was a very ugly period in A1E history. You basically had two sides: the A1E originals and Lindz and her FW folks who came over. Of course, not all of them were involved in the rigging. Paul Miller and Tom Siegel just came over and got lost in the shuffle, and Miller even complained about Jonathan Marx being fed to GUNS all the time.

But I think everything that went down could have been attributed to both our stubbornnness to adapt and their stubbornness to adapt as well.

I'm really glad things are better now, but you can't help but wonder if things might have been different had we all just tried to have gotten along...

Torment and the World Championship For the record, I don't blame Justin for everything that happened. In fact, I kinda feel bad for him, that his moment in the sun was tainted because Dave no-showed Euclid.

Personally, I don't think that any title should be changed on a no-show. I'd be much more comfortable holding the title up, but I wasn't in charge in A1E then.

At the time, I didn't think the A1E Title could return to its former prestige. But I was wrong. I think A1E has done an excellent job listening to its members and making changes for the better. But this was another ugly period.

Manson Wins! Manson Wins! I wasn't around much for Season 1 in NFW, but I think just from the reactions of everyone involved, hearing and seeing what everyone had to say, it was a watershed moment for NFW.

I mean, not many people thought that they would even finish Season 1, but they did, and it ended with Michael Manson taking on Shane Southern... the DREAM NFW match. Neither the RP nor the match as written disappointed, and this is from a person who really didn't have the grasp of the history. But I could sense it.

And that's what makes Jason's needing to leave e-fedding altogether that much more sucky. I mean, he was just involved in a huge match, and he finally made his big heel turn, and life just caught up to him.

I've worked with a bunch of folks on FW since I got here... but I don't think that my experience will be complete unless I get a chance to work with J-Mart. Hopefully he comes back.

Dis What else needs to be said about this that hasn't been said before? Seriously, this ranks up there with finding out that Bill was Mr. A! all along, and the subterfuge involved was the same level. Hell, I was fielding PMs from this Dis character and all along, I was talking to her in IM without knowing she was behind it all.

Honestly, as long as this corner of the e-fedding world exists, people will be talking about this angle. It was that impactful.