Read this full blog post at the author's site
Well, I'm back. Back again.
Tom temporarily shuttered his blog today, which sucks. Tom has become as close as I've ever seen to a non-kayfabe (to avoid Ivy mentions) e-wrestling journalist as there is in this hobby. A few years back, I got on this kick to start trying to siphon some non-FW.com handlers into EPW and specifically started by chatting up and recruiting handlers in A1E who I thought were talented. It rankled some people, but I didn't care. We had gotten to a point where fifteen or so of us were all in the same feds fighting each other every week. It was getting really stagnant. Tom and I had many long conversations about this sort of stuff back then, and really EPW suffered for it as many of the originals fought this trend pretty strongly. It was proven a solid strategy however as EPW grew much much stronger for it and it opened the door for the end of an old A1E vs. FW.com 'they're biased against us and vice versa' opinion. I gave them a chance. The ones who worked and wrote well, I pushed. Things started to change and some of them ventured into other feds on our site. Tom was one of those guys, actually. He was an A1E guy who I actually clashed with initially, as documented in his own blog. But in those conversations around the time of my push for A1E talent to try us out, he came up with a plan that took my whole thing to another level, and that's where TEAM was conceived. I had no delusions of ever even thinking of doing anything on that kind of a level, but he did, then he did it and executed it. He also was the only blogger among those of us who started writing to establish himself as a voice that handlers from all over would read and listen to. That also had a lot to do with his own branching out, which took him across genres to places I'd never go in a million years. Styles that didn't match up with his work? Didn't matter. He took them on.
Hopefully, this temporary hiatus from his blog is temporary indeed - but as a married man I know how hectic that sort of a change can be. For those who I've been around in the game who have gone from single to married in front of me, there tends to be a curve between a single guy doing this **** around work and school, to a married guy getting used to life as a married man where you feel like a douche if you even think of saying "I'll be there in a minute. Just lemme finish this roleplay!"
Still, Tom and his blog have done more for bringing different ends of the e-wrestling world together than anyone I'm aware of, so I thought on the day he shut it down for a while, that ought to be said.
The other thing I wanted to talk about is the big angle going on in A1E. Now, Jarret and Phil both have commented on it so far but I figured I should weigh in since I'm so prominently featured. I might as well give my perspective, eh?
Well really, the genesis for all of this goes back farther than even Jarret and Phil mentioned. Truthfully, as long as I've known Jarret he's always wanted to be a part of what he calls "the big angle". We do cycle to cycle angles all the time, and some of them even end in strong or amazing ways. Jarret was a player in the EPW Dis angle, although no one on the planet knew who Dis was gonna be - I even had alternates planned in case Lindsay either couldn't complete the angle or in my opinion, didn't roleplay worthy of the title. I don't godbook, so I had several avenues prepared. However, Jarret wasn't in on the planning of that angle and that's something he's always wanted to do - orchestrate a mind blowing, oh my god did you see that?! angle that people would talk about.
So he's come to me several times with snippets of ideas or questions and we've bounced off of each other constantly with things like concepts of what shocks in e-wrestling these days. What's unexpected and how to you invoke that true sense of wonder in a reader, a real mark out moment? I'm a pretty hard person to get to mark out. I mean, really hard. People who know me, know I can be kinda cynical especially with wrestling concepts. Katz has PM'd me on many occasions, some from his fWo days where he did really great stuff and linked me to stuff to read and ask for an opinion. My standard line "it was pretty good" would inevitably come back. LOL. Rarely would you get the 'holy ****, that rocked' response from me. On the other hand, if he got it he knew I REALLY liked it. I suppose that there are "tried and true" concepts in wrestling that bore the **** out of me and others that I subscribe to, but I had long since left the mindset where much of anything could shock me anymore. Even the last couple of awards shows I've seen and some of the "shocking" moments over the last few years have left me with a huge "EH".
I remember a conversation with Phil Banet during the Cross vs. Anti-Cross feud. It was building to a big unmasking and it was coming to the climax. In an IM conversation I told Phil..."I'll bet you $100 that's Jarret bringing Beast back". Phil was on the BC, so he did his best "why do you say that?" Sure enough, Beast it was. I saw many people going ape**** not believing it was him. Maybe that's the thing about being a fedhead though. We book angles so much that we've just about seen it all. We can see most things coming a mile away.
So that's where it came to. I told Jarret, and he was of the same mindset - we needed to do something that would shock the two of US. What would shock me? Jarret wanted to do something jointly between EPW and A1E. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I'm pretty famously vehemently opposed to invasion angles. It's absolutely the most overdone angle in wrestling since about 1997 or so. ******* NWO.
So I started throwing some crazy random **** at Jarret on the only way I could see some invasion variation working. Lindsay Branca was privy to some of this conversation because I mentioned some of it to her and she cringed...which was what I was trying to get out of Jarret anyway, hoping he'd abandon this whole invasion nonsense.
One of the things I brought up was Dan Ryan taking the A1E belt to an EPW ring, pulling down his pants and taking a **** on it. I waited for the horrified reply, and Jarret says "that might be possible".
So, what would shock me? I guess that would. Either he lost his damn mind, I thought or else he trusts me pretty implicitly with protecting and rebuilding his title.
Naturally, I told him I didn't actually want to do that but it got me thinking more legitimately and seriously about doing that "big angle".
The beginning phase of it, which has already played out was outlined in a very thin and rough form by Jarret in a private message, and over the next month or so I would reply back and fill in some details on what I was thinking should happen. He'd say he loved it, send me some thoughts of his which I would in turn like as well, and we would go back and forth like this for a while.
Dan Ryan taking over A1E under the radar like this was his baby, really. It's what comes next, that you haven't seen yet that's mine. It leaves both feds looking much much stronger, I believe and it delivers hopefully a climax that people will talk about for a long time.
Of course, now that I've hyped it up it may not...heh.
When I read the final match of the Dis angle, the Dis vs. Beast title match, I felt inside like I was watching an old school Wrestlemania main event, back when you'd jump up and down at the finish or gasp at the big swerve - and I knew what was coming. I gave Jeff Bolichowski extremely detailed, down to spot by spot instructions on what story I wanted told in the match, even going so far as giving him a detailed match outline for the write-up and he delivered a masterpiece.
I enjoy creating that feeling with a story more than anything else in e-fedding.
I still like to win. Who doesn't? But evoking moments like that, making people remember being a kid and marking out - that makes this fun for me.
Hopefully this will be the first in a longer line of posts from me this year. We'll see.
Hope everyone's holidays kicked ass.
Even Siegel's.
Read this full blog post at the author's site
Well, I'm back. Back again.
Tom temporarily shuttered his blog today, which sucks. Tom has become as close as I've ever seen to a non-kayfabe (to avoid Ivy mentions) e-wrestling journalist as there is in this hobby. A few years back, I got on this kick to start trying to siphon some non-FW.com handlers into EPW and specifically started by chatting up and recruiting handlers in A1E who I thought were talented. It rankled some people, but I didn't care. We had gotten to a point where fifteen or so of us were all in the same feds fighting each other every week. It was getting really stagnant. Tom and I had many long conversations about this sort of stuff back then, and really EPW suffered for it as many of the originals fought this trend pretty strongly. It was proven a solid strategy however as EPW grew much much stronger for it and it opened the door for the end of an old A1E vs. FW.com 'they're biased against us and vice versa' opinion. I gave them a chance. The ones who worked and wrote well, I pushed. Things started to change and some of them ventured into other feds on our site. Tom was one of those guys, actually. He was an A1E guy who I actually clashed with initially, as documented in his own blog. But in those conversations around the time of my push for A1E talent to try us out, he came up with a plan that took my whole thing to another level, and that's where TEAM was conceived. I had no delusions of ever even thinking of doing anything on that kind of a level, but he did, then he did it and executed it. He also was the only blogger among those of us who started writing to establish himself as a voice that handlers from all over would read and listen to. That also had a lot to do with his own branching out, which took him across genres to places I'd never go in a million years. Styles that didn't match up with his work? Didn't matter. He took them on.
Hopefully, this temporary hiatus from his blog is temporary indeed - but as a married man I know how hectic that sort of a change can be. For those who I've been around in the game who have gone from single to married in front of me, there tends to be a curve between a single guy doing this **** around work and school, to a married guy getting used to life as a married man where you feel like a douche if you even think of saying "I'll be there in a minute. Just lemme finish this roleplay!"
Still, Tom and his blog have done more for bringing different ends of the e-wrestling world together than anyone I'm aware of, so I thought on the day he shut it down for a while, that ought to be said.
The other thing I wanted to talk about is the big angle going on in A1E. Now, Jarret and Phil both have commented on it so far but I figured I should weigh in since I'm so prominently featured. I might as well give my perspective, eh?
Well really, the genesis for all of this goes back farther than even Jarret and Phil mentioned. Truthfully, as long as I've known Jarret he's always wanted to be a part of what he calls "the big angle". We do cycle to cycle angles all the time, and some of them even end in strong or amazing ways. Jarret was a player in the EPW Dis angle, although no one on the planet knew who Dis was gonna be - I even had alternates planned in case Lindsay either couldn't complete the angle or in my opinion, didn't roleplay worthy of the title. I don't godbook, so I had several avenues prepared. However, Jarret wasn't in on the planning of that angle and that's something he's always wanted to do - orchestrate a mind blowing, oh my god did you see that?! angle that people would talk about.
So he's come to me several times with snippets of ideas or questions and we've bounced off of each other constantly with things like concepts of what shocks in e-wrestling these days. What's unexpected and how to you invoke that true sense of wonder in a reader, a real mark out moment? I'm a pretty hard person to get to mark out. I mean, really hard. People who know me, know I can be kinda cynical especially with wrestling concepts. Katz has PM'd me on many occasions, some from his fWo days where he did really great stuff and linked me to stuff to read and ask for an opinion. My standard line "it was pretty good" would inevitably come back. LOL. Rarely would you get the 'holy ****, that rocked' response from me. On the other hand, if he got it he knew I REALLY liked it. I suppose that there are "tried and true" concepts in wrestling that bore the **** out of me and others that I subscribe to, but I had long since left the mindset where much of anything could shock me anymore. Even the last couple of awards shows I've seen and some of the "shocking" moments over the last few years have left me with a huge "EH".
I remember a conversation with Phil Banet during the Cross vs. Anti-Cross feud. It was building to a big unmasking and it was coming to the climax. In an IM conversation I told Phil..."I'll bet you $100 that's Jarret bringing Beast back". Phil was on the BC, so he did his best "why do you say that?" Sure enough, Beast it was. I saw many people going ape**** not believing it was him. Maybe that's the thing about being a fedhead though. We book angles so much that we've just about seen it all. We can see most things coming a mile away.
So that's where it came to. I told Jarret, and he was of the same mindset - we needed to do something that would shock the two of US. What would shock me? Jarret wanted to do something jointly between EPW and A1E. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I'm pretty famously vehemently opposed to invasion angles. It's absolutely the most overdone angle in wrestling since about 1997 or so. ******* NWO.
So I started throwing some crazy random **** at Jarret on the only way I could see some invasion variation working. Lindsay Branca was privy to some of this conversation because I mentioned some of it to her and she cringed...which was what I was trying to get out of Jarret anyway, hoping he'd abandon this whole invasion nonsense.
One of the things I brought up was Dan Ryan taking the A1E belt to an EPW ring, pulling down his pants and taking a **** on it. I waited for the horrified reply, and Jarret says "that might be possible".
So, what would shock me? I guess that would. Either he lost his damn mind, I thought or else he trusts me pretty implicitly with protecting and rebuilding his title.
Naturally, I told him I didn't actually want to do that but it got me thinking more legitimately and seriously about doing that "big angle".
The beginning phase of it, which has already played out was outlined in a very thin and rough form by Jarret in a private message, and over the next month or so I would reply back and fill in some details on what I was thinking should happen. He'd say he loved it, send me some thoughts of his which I would in turn like as well, and we would go back and forth like this for a while.
Dan Ryan taking over A1E under the radar like this was his baby, really. It's what comes next, that you haven't seen yet that's mine. It leaves both feds looking much much stronger, I believe and it delivers hopefully a climax that people will talk about for a long time.
Of course, now that I've hyped it up it may not...heh.
When I read the final match of the Dis angle, the Dis vs. Beast title match, I felt inside like I was watching an old school Wrestlemania main event, back when you'd jump up and down at the finish or gasp at the big swerve - and I knew what was coming. I gave Jeff Bolichowski extremely detailed, down to spot by spot instructions on what story I wanted told in the match, even going so far as giving him a detailed match outline for the write-up and he delivered a masterpiece.
I enjoy creating that feeling with a story more than anything else in e-fedding.
I still like to win. Who doesn't? But evoking moments like that, making people remember being a kid and marking out - that makes this fun for me.
Hopefully this will be the first in a longer line of posts from me this year. We'll see.
Hope everyone's holidays kicked ass.
Even Siegel's.
Read this full blog post at the author's site