Read this full blog post at the author's site
Ingredients:
Throw it all together and mix it up like hell.
Serves: A lot of blood, injured bodies, tired roleplayers, and hopefully a lot of satisfied readers.
Some interesting results:
There have been 7 Pier Six Brawls.There have been 6 Pier Six Brawl Champions.
I was going to make a "Priceless" joke, here, but I just can't.
With the Pier Six Brawl, one of the most anticipated events on the A1E calendar, now done and over with for another year, I thought it might be cool to talk about it a bit. What goes into the Brawl?
What's it all about? What makes the Pier Six Brawl?
Well, you all saw the ingredients above. For those of you that didn't read it fully, or maybe just skimmed it over, here's the logistics:
You've got a wrestling ring surrounded by barbed wire, nearly ring-apron high and 15 feet deep (I'm sure that number grows like an urban legend every year). Two wrestlers enter the ring by crossing a specially made bridge so that they don't get caught in the barbed wire. Those two fight, and new wrestlers enter the match every two minutes until all the signed up competitors have entered the ring. Eliminations can happen at any time by throwing a person over the top rope and INTO the barbed wire. When everyone's been eliminated and we're down to the final 2, the Cell lowers over the ring AND encases the barbed wire.
The only way to win is to leave the ring, wade THROUGH the barbed wire, and exit the Cell.
That way, EVERYONE'S guaranteed a trip through the barbed wire.
Oh yeah, did I mention that whatever you can get to the ring to use as a weapon is legal?
When Roger (perhaps better known as Housefly, and the previous head booker in A1E) devised this match way back in 2002, I thought the sonfa***** had lost his mind. It was brutal. It was hardcore.
The potential was unlimited.
In short, it was awesome.
Everyone loved it, so we kept it around.
So why did we do this? The initial reward for winning the Pier Six Brawl was to become the #1 contender to the A1E World Heavyweight Championship. That's one hell of a reward. Anyone from anywhere could enter the ring and have an equal shot at becoming the next World Heavyweight Champion, from rookie to seasoned veteran. It didn't matter who you were or where you came from - everyone was on equal footing.
That's evolved over the years, though, to it's current incarnation in which the winner of the Brawl gets to choose the match of their choice, be it World Title match, any other title match, a dream match they've always wanted to work - whatever the case me be. That change has been required because we've had a few storylines we just couldn't interrupt, even though someone was scheduled a shot at "X" time of year.
So what makes the Brawl?
The Pier Six Brawl is perhaps the most grueling, intense, draining match I've ever been a part of. It's a Free For All style match, meaning everyone can respond to anyone at any time. If I put up a RP/"promo", anyone else can respond to it ASAP. And as soon as someone else has gone, then I'm free to go again. And the cycle continues for 8 days.
I don't have the numbers in front of me - I could go back through all the matches and count, but I don't have the energy or patience for that right now, but there's been a lot of varying numbers of people participating. The first year I think we had 19 people. Another year we had 14.
This year, we had 23 official entrants.
That's a LOT of roleplaying.
Add on the 5 EPW guys invading, Torment's surprise return, and Christian Sands entering at the last second, we had 30 people enter the ring in 2008.
That's a huge freaking match!
And the match wouldn't be anything without a pretty good writeup to back up all the work gone into the RP's.
When Roger designed this match, he took on the responsibility of writing it as well, since he didn't want to torture anyone else with his creation. And for 5 years, dozens of entrants, and hundreds of virtual pages of sacrificed 0's and 1's, Roger set the bar very high for delivering an action-packed, brutal, amazing match.
And when Roger had finally called it quits and handed over the reigns of A1E to me, guess who got the unenviable task of writing this monstrosity?
I've tried to pawn it off, unsuccessfully several times, but the rest of my Booking Committee are pansies, and don't want anything to do with it.
I'm just kidding. I wouldn't want to make anyone else write this unless they really wanted to. For all the pissing and moaning about how big this match is, and how draining it is to knock this thing out, it's actually quite fun. It really challenges you as a match writer to weave all the storylines involved with putting 30 people into a match, along with all their histories, and setting things up for the future that it's actually fun to write.
So what goes into writing the Brawl?
I thought it might be interesting if people knew what all needs to take place from a writer's perspective. And this isn't in any particular order, just what's come out of my head at the moment...
1. Further existing individual feuds.
a) In this case, there was Beast vs. James to consider, and James came up with the fantastic idea of putting us #1 and #2 to help that along.b) There was also the entire Beast/James/Big Dog dynamic during the RP session to build on.c) There's individuals who met in earlier matches who aren't necessarily believeably going to just drop that because they're in a different match. Example was Fanatic vs. Simply Beautiful. I know these guys didn't get a chance to go all out in their title match because they also had the Brawl to consider, so moving them along together was a necessity.
2. Further existing overall feuds.
The big one here is obviously the A1E vs. EPW feud that's going on right now, and that was the major overall focus. Various parts of that feud:
a) The "EPW five" invading the Brawl. This was kind of a last minute thing that I put together. Well, the idea was always there since I conceived this angle, but I didn't know exactly who it was until I started writing. Having them coming in and dominating the A1E guys I think put a nice touch on things, which led to:
b) Torment's return. Wow, we've been waiting to pull the trigger on this for so long, I think poor Justin was going to have a fit. I don't know how he held it in, but props to him.
c) A1E vs. Chronic Collizion. Those two were the number two defectors in this whole thing, and having them alternately dominate and then pay for it was a good story to be told.
3. Acknowledging history and not forgetting it.
There's several big feuds from the past that have kind of resurfaced throughout this whole interfed angle, and I think you have to touch on those whenever you can:
a) HPSC vs. TPSC. Andy, James, and Irishred, along with the invading Sargeant were involved in this major stable vs stable feud, and that's just history you can't forget.
b) Beast vs. Lindsay Troy. A historic feud that crossed over from A1E into EPW and now back again.
c) Beast vs. Christian Sands. We were the two that built that foundation of EPW with our early World Title feud, and JB had some great ideas on the Brawl - hence the darts and Sands' surprise entrance before the final 2.d) Christian Sands vs. Irishred. Sands views himself as EPW, and to have Red try and tear that down was blasphemy to Sands.
4. Creating new feuds.
Or at the very least dropping small nuggets suggesting they might happen. All building blocks for the future, and the Brawl is an excellent tool for that.
Duchess/Lindsay Troy, Lindsay Troy/Beast, Chronic Collizion vs. Everyone, Wraith/Apollyon, Apollyon vs Everyone he beat up in the barbed wire... all that and more. We can play off all these minor "moments" that happened in the Brawl and use those as stepping stones for future feuds.
5. Establishing/pushing new talent.
This is the second major point of the Pier Six Brawl. As I mentioned earlier, the Pier Six Brawl is a level battlefield for anyone to step up and grab hold of the reigns. A good finish at the Brawl will generally net you a push as a reward for topping everyone else in a huge field. This year, Simply Beautiful was the standout of the "new crop", finishing an outstanding fourth, especially after being in the fed for so short a time. We've always said the Brawl is a huge stepping stone in making it in A1E, and he did a great job. Other notables were Cameron Cruise, who despite the double elimination with Adam Benjamin to open the Brawl, actually finished 7th overall. Quite a respectable showing, but he was gracious enough to work an angle, and his finish in the writeup didn't reflect the spot he really earned, so he deserves mentioning. And just behind Cruise, were Fanatic and Josh Novell. I'm a big fan of those two so far, and with them, along with the debuting Donovan Astros, who, let's face it, never got a chance to show what he's capable of in a match like that - but I've got a feeling he's going to be awesome as well, and that makes for a fanatastic crop of future stars.
6. Working in surprises.
As I said before, we worked in a few extra people this time around in order to push the interfed war angle going on with EPW. Christian Sands, the "EPW five", and Torment were all additions to include and work around in the context of the Brawl.
So I've got to take all that into consideration when the Brawl's being written.
The other big point about the Brawl is elimination and exit order. The exit order's easy enough - the more points you have, the longer you last. This year, the opening was a mix and match due to several people earning the default points for sending their votes, so a lot of people had the same amount of points, and, not to speak down to anyone at all, but they had the least amount of points. Those people were eliminated in the best spots I could find for them based on what was happening, who else was in the ring, and also taking everything else I've written about into consideration. Then, starting with Troy Douglas, people were eliminated in the order they were voted, with the exception of the aforementioned Cameron Cruise and the surprises. While you're eliminating people, I'm taking into consideration everything else I've touched on - create some new feuds, make some people look strong for the future, acknowledge old feuds, and everything else - it's all there.
So that's how they're eliminated, but what about the entrance order?
I don't know if anyone knows this, but "on screen", it's announced - like at any WWE Royal Rumble - that the competitors all drew a random number and that's their entrance order. I think people may be surprised to know that I actually DO do a random drawing to establish entrance order, minus angled stuff like James and Beast appearing as numbers 1 and 2. I put everyone's name down, and cut them out, throw 'em into a hat, and make a draw. So that's something else I have to work around while keeping everything *else* in mind.
But I do play with it in order to make it the best possible. I moved a couple names last year, and this year, I moved around two names to make them fit in some of the earlier eliminations, but the rest was all pure random drawing. Even though you guys don't know about that until now, at least for me and in my mind it establishes some kind of authenticity and challenges me that much more as a writer to make it all work.
So, that's it. That's the Pier Six Brawl as it happens in my head. I hope it was at the least interesting to see how it's all put together. But remember, I can't make the Brawl as good as it is without the efforts of the roleplayers. As many people that have posted on the A1 boards, or caught me in chat or over PM and told me how much they loved the match - and believe me, I really appreciate it, I and I thank you all for that - that the Brawl wouldn't be nearly as good without all the hard work of the guys spending an entire week busting their ass to RP and try and win this thing and giving me a great foundation to build a match around.
So thank you all for that.
Till next time!
Read this full blog post at the author's site
Ingredients:
- 1 wrestling ring.
- A whole lot of barbed wire surrounding the ring, nearly up to the ring apron high, and 15 feet deep.
- 23 wrestlers.
- 1 bridge, for said wrestlers to cross over said barbed wire and enter the ring.
- 1 Hell In The Cell.
- 1 Royal Rumble-styled match.
Throw it all together and mix it up like hell.
Serves: A lot of blood, injured bodies, tired roleplayers, and hopefully a lot of satisfied readers.
Some interesting results:
There have been 7 Pier Six Brawls.There have been 6 Pier Six Brawl Champions.
I was going to make a "Priceless" joke, here, but I just can't.
With the Pier Six Brawl, one of the most anticipated events on the A1E calendar, now done and over with for another year, I thought it might be cool to talk about it a bit. What goes into the Brawl?
What's it all about? What makes the Pier Six Brawl?
Well, you all saw the ingredients above. For those of you that didn't read it fully, or maybe just skimmed it over, here's the logistics:
You've got a wrestling ring surrounded by barbed wire, nearly ring-apron high and 15 feet deep (I'm sure that number grows like an urban legend every year). Two wrestlers enter the ring by crossing a specially made bridge so that they don't get caught in the barbed wire. Those two fight, and new wrestlers enter the match every two minutes until all the signed up competitors have entered the ring. Eliminations can happen at any time by throwing a person over the top rope and INTO the barbed wire. When everyone's been eliminated and we're down to the final 2, the Cell lowers over the ring AND encases the barbed wire.
The only way to win is to leave the ring, wade THROUGH the barbed wire, and exit the Cell.
That way, EVERYONE'S guaranteed a trip through the barbed wire.
Oh yeah, did I mention that whatever you can get to the ring to use as a weapon is legal?
When Roger (perhaps better known as Housefly, and the previous head booker in A1E) devised this match way back in 2002, I thought the sonfa***** had lost his mind. It was brutal. It was hardcore.
The potential was unlimited.
In short, it was awesome.
Everyone loved it, so we kept it around.
So why did we do this? The initial reward for winning the Pier Six Brawl was to become the #1 contender to the A1E World Heavyweight Championship. That's one hell of a reward. Anyone from anywhere could enter the ring and have an equal shot at becoming the next World Heavyweight Champion, from rookie to seasoned veteran. It didn't matter who you were or where you came from - everyone was on equal footing.
That's evolved over the years, though, to it's current incarnation in which the winner of the Brawl gets to choose the match of their choice, be it World Title match, any other title match, a dream match they've always wanted to work - whatever the case me be. That change has been required because we've had a few storylines we just couldn't interrupt, even though someone was scheduled a shot at "X" time of year.
So what makes the Brawl?
The Pier Six Brawl is perhaps the most grueling, intense, draining match I've ever been a part of. It's a Free For All style match, meaning everyone can respond to anyone at any time. If I put up a RP/"promo", anyone else can respond to it ASAP. And as soon as someone else has gone, then I'm free to go again. And the cycle continues for 8 days.
I don't have the numbers in front of me - I could go back through all the matches and count, but I don't have the energy or patience for that right now, but there's been a lot of varying numbers of people participating. The first year I think we had 19 people. Another year we had 14.
This year, we had 23 official entrants.
That's a LOT of roleplaying.
Add on the 5 EPW guys invading, Torment's surprise return, and Christian Sands entering at the last second, we had 30 people enter the ring in 2008.
That's a huge freaking match!
And the match wouldn't be anything without a pretty good writeup to back up all the work gone into the RP's.
When Roger designed this match, he took on the responsibility of writing it as well, since he didn't want to torture anyone else with his creation. And for 5 years, dozens of entrants, and hundreds of virtual pages of sacrificed 0's and 1's, Roger set the bar very high for delivering an action-packed, brutal, amazing match.
And when Roger had finally called it quits and handed over the reigns of A1E to me, guess who got the unenviable task of writing this monstrosity?
I've tried to pawn it off, unsuccessfully several times, but the rest of my Booking Committee are pansies, and don't want anything to do with it.
I'm just kidding. I wouldn't want to make anyone else write this unless they really wanted to. For all the pissing and moaning about how big this match is, and how draining it is to knock this thing out, it's actually quite fun. It really challenges you as a match writer to weave all the storylines involved with putting 30 people into a match, along with all their histories, and setting things up for the future that it's actually fun to write.
So what goes into writing the Brawl?
I thought it might be interesting if people knew what all needs to take place from a writer's perspective. And this isn't in any particular order, just what's come out of my head at the moment...
1. Further existing individual feuds.
a) In this case, there was Beast vs. James to consider, and James came up with the fantastic idea of putting us #1 and #2 to help that along.b) There was also the entire Beast/James/Big Dog dynamic during the RP session to build on.c) There's individuals who met in earlier matches who aren't necessarily believeably going to just drop that because they're in a different match. Example was Fanatic vs. Simply Beautiful. I know these guys didn't get a chance to go all out in their title match because they also had the Brawl to consider, so moving them along together was a necessity.
2. Further existing overall feuds.
The big one here is obviously the A1E vs. EPW feud that's going on right now, and that was the major overall focus. Various parts of that feud:
a) The "EPW five" invading the Brawl. This was kind of a last minute thing that I put together. Well, the idea was always there since I conceived this angle, but I didn't know exactly who it was until I started writing. Having them coming in and dominating the A1E guys I think put a nice touch on things, which led to:
b) Torment's return. Wow, we've been waiting to pull the trigger on this for so long, I think poor Justin was going to have a fit. I don't know how he held it in, but props to him.
c) A1E vs. Chronic Collizion. Those two were the number two defectors in this whole thing, and having them alternately dominate and then pay for it was a good story to be told.
3. Acknowledging history and not forgetting it.
There's several big feuds from the past that have kind of resurfaced throughout this whole interfed angle, and I think you have to touch on those whenever you can:
a) HPSC vs. TPSC. Andy, James, and Irishred, along with the invading Sargeant were involved in this major stable vs stable feud, and that's just history you can't forget.
b) Beast vs. Lindsay Troy. A historic feud that crossed over from A1E into EPW and now back again.
c) Beast vs. Christian Sands. We were the two that built that foundation of EPW with our early World Title feud, and JB had some great ideas on the Brawl - hence the darts and Sands' surprise entrance before the final 2.d) Christian Sands vs. Irishred. Sands views himself as EPW, and to have Red try and tear that down was blasphemy to Sands.
4. Creating new feuds.
Or at the very least dropping small nuggets suggesting they might happen. All building blocks for the future, and the Brawl is an excellent tool for that.
Duchess/Lindsay Troy, Lindsay Troy/Beast, Chronic Collizion vs. Everyone, Wraith/Apollyon, Apollyon vs Everyone he beat up in the barbed wire... all that and more. We can play off all these minor "moments" that happened in the Brawl and use those as stepping stones for future feuds.
5. Establishing/pushing new talent.
This is the second major point of the Pier Six Brawl. As I mentioned earlier, the Pier Six Brawl is a level battlefield for anyone to step up and grab hold of the reigns. A good finish at the Brawl will generally net you a push as a reward for topping everyone else in a huge field. This year, Simply Beautiful was the standout of the "new crop", finishing an outstanding fourth, especially after being in the fed for so short a time. We've always said the Brawl is a huge stepping stone in making it in A1E, and he did a great job. Other notables were Cameron Cruise, who despite the double elimination with Adam Benjamin to open the Brawl, actually finished 7th overall. Quite a respectable showing, but he was gracious enough to work an angle, and his finish in the writeup didn't reflect the spot he really earned, so he deserves mentioning. And just behind Cruise, were Fanatic and Josh Novell. I'm a big fan of those two so far, and with them, along with the debuting Donovan Astros, who, let's face it, never got a chance to show what he's capable of in a match like that - but I've got a feeling he's going to be awesome as well, and that makes for a fanatastic crop of future stars.
6. Working in surprises.
As I said before, we worked in a few extra people this time around in order to push the interfed war angle going on with EPW. Christian Sands, the "EPW five", and Torment were all additions to include and work around in the context of the Brawl.
So I've got to take all that into consideration when the Brawl's being written.
The other big point about the Brawl is elimination and exit order. The exit order's easy enough - the more points you have, the longer you last. This year, the opening was a mix and match due to several people earning the default points for sending their votes, so a lot of people had the same amount of points, and, not to speak down to anyone at all, but they had the least amount of points. Those people were eliminated in the best spots I could find for them based on what was happening, who else was in the ring, and also taking everything else I've written about into consideration. Then, starting with Troy Douglas, people were eliminated in the order they were voted, with the exception of the aforementioned Cameron Cruise and the surprises. While you're eliminating people, I'm taking into consideration everything else I've touched on - create some new feuds, make some people look strong for the future, acknowledge old feuds, and everything else - it's all there.
So that's how they're eliminated, but what about the entrance order?
I don't know if anyone knows this, but "on screen", it's announced - like at any WWE Royal Rumble - that the competitors all drew a random number and that's their entrance order. I think people may be surprised to know that I actually DO do a random drawing to establish entrance order, minus angled stuff like James and Beast appearing as numbers 1 and 2. I put everyone's name down, and cut them out, throw 'em into a hat, and make a draw. So that's something else I have to work around while keeping everything *else* in mind.
But I do play with it in order to make it the best possible. I moved a couple names last year, and this year, I moved around two names to make them fit in some of the earlier eliminations, but the rest was all pure random drawing. Even though you guys don't know about that until now, at least for me and in my mind it establishes some kind of authenticity and challenges me that much more as a writer to make it all work.
So, that's it. That's the Pier Six Brawl as it happens in my head. I hope it was at the least interesting to see how it's all put together. But remember, I can't make the Brawl as good as it is without the efforts of the roleplayers. As many people that have posted on the A1 boards, or caught me in chat or over PM and told me how much they loved the match - and believe me, I really appreciate it, I and I thank you all for that - that the Brawl wouldn't be nearly as good without all the hard work of the guys spending an entire week busting their ass to RP and try and win this thing and giving me a great foundation to build a match around.
So thank you all for that.
Till next time!
Read this full blog post at the author's site