Overall I thought this was one of the weakest and most "meh" NFW cards I've ever read or have been a part of. The booking for the 'money' matches looked all over the place and while I understand that things are currently in transition towards another major event, every wrestling show in a well - run (not that NFW isn't, this is an anomaly in a sea of awesome) promotion should always be feeding toward the bigger picture.
1. The Champion is supposed to be the Champion.
Billy's post-SC4 RPs indicated that Castor Strife was not going to be appearing at NFW shows until Futureshock. I understand why that isn't a feasable circumstance, since like Katz told me just the other night, he has no idea when Futureshock is going to be. Could be July, could be November, could be February 14th, 2016. You can't be without a Champion for an indeterminate amount of time - even when the title was vacant there was always an endgame in mind: if Futureshock has no set date and no idea how many cards are between now and then, it makes sense.
But besides that, the Champion is always supposed to be the best in the company and should be portrayed as such. Castor Strife has gone from two straight hours with the guy who is generally acknowledged as the absolute best wrestler of the past ten years to jerking the curtain against some guy. And while Castor didn't beat Dan Ryan, the fact remains that Dan Ryan didn't beat Castor - and that's just as significant. It shows that Castor has the chops to hang with the 'Big Ten' as well as he can with the freak contingent, and it shows that Dan Ryan is still a big deal and a win over him is the biggest of deals.
That's why it was such a big deal when Impulse pinned him - that was the moment that he became a player. Every bit of 'hype' before that was people going "Impulse is awesome because that guy who wrote Eli Flair writes him" and that shouldn't have any basis on the story at hand.
The World Title match is not always going to be the main event - particularly in Pittsburgh when the hype of the show was based around the Triple Crown match, it made sense. But if the Title match was going to be the opener, then there should have been less matches between it and the main event.
The magic number would have been zero.
Promo stuff - World Title match - more promo stuff - Gauntlet.
If you have to have the other two matches, they go first. Neither of them are more important than the World Title, and if they are, there's a problem.
2. The Triple Crown Championship followed a predictable series of unfortunate events.
I had to read the end of the match a bunch of times to figure out who won and where the finish was, because the only image that stuck in my head was Jack Harmen and Dr. Curiosity facing off or potentially facing off for the... I lost count.
Returns are exciting if they're done well and they're a good way to kickstart a new segment of story, but what was the story here? Curiosity didn't influence the end of the match, we had kickout after kickout after he left the ring. Was the story that the winner got to wrestle Rook and Stalker for the Triple Crown Championship and the loser would have to wrestle Curiosity for screwing them over by leaving them laying with time to spare to wrestle another five minutes? Did he hit Harmen just a little bit harder?
For that matter, with Stalker already in the Triple Crown finals, why wasn't one of the Fallen there at the end? They'd have to decide between supporting their boss and breaking out of the pack, and that's a character arc that could have turned traditional booking on its end for the denouement.
Speaking of which...
3. Stalker shouldn't have a posse.
I don't know whose idea that the Fallen were, but in my opinion they miss the point of what makes Stalker such a good character. He works alone, making deals in the shadows that he comes to collect on at the worst possible moments. He's very Faustian and Machiavellian in the way his mind works and unlike most of the manipulators in this game, the character has the patience and ability to wait a very long time to get what he wants.
When he showed up in NFW I was glad to see it, I thought "Here's a guy with no loyalty or affiliation and he's going to be able to throw complications, both into the Windham Clan's master plans and the anti-Clan contingent at the same time," and then he hangs out with a bunch of movie monster retreads and actually JOINS the Windham Clan with them?
If I could sum up my state of mind at that time into one word, it would be "What the f'k is this supposed to be?"
The Windham Clan works for Troy Windham and JJ DeVille because their attitudes are 'See how awesome I am, I have all of these yes-men telling me so.'
The Fallen does not work for Stalker because his attitude is 'See how awesome I am, I just manipulated the debacle in front of you into happening, and I didn't even have to get my hands dirty.'
If Stalker was at ringside, at least one of his followers should have made it to the 'endgame' of the match. And if Stalker has a posse, he shouldn't be bothering with details like being at ringside.
Except Stalker shouldn't have a posse. At best, with the Fallen's affiliation with the Windham Clan, Stalker is the third guy in charge, after Troy and JJ. And that shouldn't be where Stalker goes.
4. Jack Bryant is the best and most popular wrestler in the company so we're going to bury his talent with five other people.
The match is obvious from an OOC standpoint, Biron handles Bryant and he now handles the OSS so we'll team them up to get the OSS over as a team against the last tag team champions and the guy that is obviously the next guy to get a TV Title shot.
Except, if JB is the most popular wrestler in the company, he should be better showcased, which means he shouldn't have been too-late on his dive to break up the finish. Or not part of the finish. If the story has been built so far that Dorchester is insulting him and then refusing to wrestle him because the TV Title is beneath him, the natural finish is for JB to pin Dorchester. JB gets legitimacy in the eyes of the six remaining people who think Dorchester is World Title material, Dorchester gets to tell him that it wasn't a legitimate match between them because there were four other guys involved. This would flip the dynamic on its axis and turn Dorchester into the guy who's actively campaigning for the match to prove that JB's pinfall was a fluke while JB puts him through the paces because he's been an asshole so far and JB enjoys poking opponents who talk too much and don't back it up in the crunch. If the story is to build the OSS as an alternate team to the DRS and HWC show, then the finish should have been the OSS getting the pin on one of the HWC to throw some doubt into the HWC's minds over whether they're the heir apparents, and it would add another layer of mistrust to the Dynasty as Carlton - who has already made his move on Bryant - starts trying to romance the OSS because he's a golden title belt whore.
And to circumvent Dorchester's continued assertation that he's better than everyone, this match should have been the opener (instead of, you know, the WORLD TITLE MATCH), a pointed message to Dorchester and Calvin that they have a lot of work to do.
5. You just gave away millions of dollars by booking Tsunami, Troy Windham, and Mike Randalls in a free TV match.
I get it, I really do. This is where Troy and JJ start bickering and where things start to build to a last series of epic matches for Troy Windham. That makes sense.
But things were at a point where a Troy Windham match or a Mike Randalls match were an event - they were worth the price of admission on their own. This match should've taken place as the main event of Buffalo. Pulse vs. Legion vs. Deacon didn't need to be the main for the story to work, Ryan's rant didn't even need to be the go-home spot for the story to work. It would've been more interesting - and more of a character (or lack-of-character, hahahah) building moment for JJ to have to wrestle this epic match minutes after getting Humility Bombed. And it would've been interesting to see his reaction to Ryan's quitting before he'd get the chance to media-spin it and have a prepared statement to read. It's little moments like that that could've made what was a good spot an unforgettable one.
Besides, Randalls and Troy should never be an "Also Appearing" line on a run sheet. And unless they're wrestling each other one on one in a match where one of them has to retire if they lose, they shouldn't be going on after the Champion in a promotion where neither of them has ever been its Champion.
But that's just me.