Well, I'm really torn on this card. The production level was superb, had a lot of big moments involving multiple characters that set up plenty of good things down the line, i.e. all the hallmarks of what NFW does best. But ultimately, I felt that the moments where the card really needed to deliver, it fell flat.
Starting with the good...
The preview show was cool, and I hope this becomes a regular staple for all long-form cards. It's no secret I've been trying to add more elements of boxing/MMA style title-fight hype involving guys like Devin Millwood, and "YouTube media"-esque hype-men like Queens' finest Smith Wesson. Pro-wrestling used to actually do those things quite well back in the day, but after the WWF/E rose to prominence, stopped talking about titles like they were important, and stopped hyping multiple contenders. Without interesting contenders, belts aren't important, and without important belts...the league isn't important. That goes for wrestling, combat sports, and of course, leaks into our little niche world of FW. I'm doing my part to infuse more of that into NFW, and am thrilled to see things like the preview show.
The matches were ALL great. This might be one of the more action-packed NFW shows in a long time. From the segments to the matches, there was something for everybody.
Now, for the bad and the ugly...
So, lemme get this straight: for over a year, the entire league has been built around an ownership angle between Eddie Mayfield and Troy Windham's Clan, a feud which has encompassed everyone and everything, and it got blown off as a result of...Troy Windham forgot to sign some papers WHAAAAAAAAT? What do you mean he forgot to sign his papers? You mean to tell me Troy went through the trouble of bringing this league to the razor's edge, heisting himself a 50% ownership stake, and now it's GONE because he forgot to send the IRS his 1099s? Troy doesn't deserve to be the night manager at Piggly Wiggly after a slipup like that! All this time devoted to Windham drama, and Troy finally gets his comeuppance from a random security guard.
It's not unlikely that I misread something, missed a detail, and maybe this whole thing makes more sense than I'm giving it credit for. But at the very least...it was pretty damn convoluted. I wanna be fair, so if missing something here, feel free to put my ass in check (as I'm going to do to Pete when I explain my own convoluted sh*t!). The JTP/Eddie stuff didn't really end in a way that made sense either, which to be honest, wasn't entirely the fault of the booking. Things happened. Devin went AWOL, Stevens dropped out, and the whole purity/drug testing thing got a quick epilogue and forgotten about. In a hobby as come-and-go as this, it happens. But I'd hate to see that happen, again, to an even better angle.
What's the deal with the Triforce? I get that the PURE Championship was garbage and it had to be got rid of. I get that the Nat Title wasn't popular, and some of us felt like it was crap (raises hand), but I'd rather see a unification bout between the TV and Nat champions (National Television Title?), rather than combining three crappy titles to make a single slightly-less crappy title with Zelda box art on it. I fear the eventual winner of that belt will be endlessly mocked with Zelda-inspired insults. I, for one, have beaten every Zelda game, including the f*ckin Adventures of Link for NES, and have material for years that I will gladly share with future challengers of that belt. Anyway...all we did was turn back the clock a year and a half before Bloodhunt welded the PURE Title in his garage, and simply...renamed the National Title, which for all of it's alleged flaws, at least had some history behind it.
On to Impulse. DUDE...JJ Deville KILLED YOUR SON. And you're not gonna brain him with a chair because it would violate your personal ethos? I get what you were going for with this, but at the same time...the crowd would totally lose respect for Impulse at this point. This is what I would call Impulse's Michael Dukakis moment. You know, the guy who ran for President in 1988, and lost in part because when asked if he would support the death sentence for a guy who rape-killed his wife, he responded "NO". People don't like that sh*t. I'm pretty sure it's an unwritten rule that when somebody pulls a rape-job on your wife, or a kill-job on your son, YOU BRAIN THEM WITH A CHAIR. Instead he goes after Jack Bryant, who while an asshole, certainly never killed anyone's unborn son. HE KILLED YA SON, RANDALL!
Finally, we come to the main event. The match itself was excellent. A little spot-heavy for my tastes, but there's precedent for that not only in NFW but...pretty much everywhere. It reminded me of AJ Styles vs. Kurt Angle, when they kept kicking out of each other's finishers. You can critique that all you want, but begrudgingly, it's exciting as hell. The Strife-Ryan series will instantly go down as a classic.
Onto the ending. Ryan hits what I thought was GAME OVER when, against the odds, Castor kicks out of a top-rope sit-out powerbomb. Time ends, and the crowd is screaming for five more minutes. HERE COMES EDDIE! YES! He's gonna pull a Gorilla Monsoon and declare that the match WILL GO ON, in overtime! Except he doesn't do that. Turns out, he showed up to collect royalties from Eric Dane. DRAW! SHOW'S OVER FOLKS, THANKS FOR WATCHING!
...
No! Are you serious right there? Reloaded X ended on a Strife-Ryan draw, to build for a blowoff on the second biggest card of the year at Supercrash IV, so we could end it with...another draw? Paul Heyman would be outraged. Are we not Heyman men, all?
I'm going to presume Brunk feels the same as me when I say: I'd rather lose than retain on a draw. If Ryan won, this portion of my feedback would be simple: "Congratulations man, it was good while it lasted." This isn't Prodigy circa-1997 where you quit every time you lose because EVERYBODY KNOWS IN THEIR HEART OF HEARTS I WON! When you're talking about Dan Ryan, Impulse, Nova, Deacon, JTP, Stevens, etc. etc., and if I could be so bold to put Castor Strife in there...there is no beating those guys. Everyone is on a high level, and although we may THINK we got the better of the other, it would be damn insulting for the loser to say, "I SHOULD HAVE won". These RPs are so close, the winner probably winds up getting it on some stupid sh*t like, "I like the music he picked for his promo. WINNER!" Castor vs. Ryan, Ryan vs. Impulse, Nova vs. JTP...flip a coin, ya know? It's a judgement call at that point. Anything can happen. So with that said, even though I was hoping to win, I knew I had the thing with Dane going and had a decent feud regardless of the outcome. All you can hope for is a match that's worthy of the effort. And this match was totally worthy of the effort Brunk and I put in over two RP cycles...until the finish.
Now I kinda feel like we did all that RP for the pleasure of reading two draws. In my case, the payoff to RPing was the pleasure of reading two matches...that I half-wrote! Yes, losing IS a payoff. Maybe not a payoff that feels good, but it's closure all the same, and I feel a match like this deserved closure. From a storyline standpoint, I don't see how this outcome benefitted either man, other than it being clear you'll need C4 and a gatling gun to finish these guys after they threw the kitchen sink at each other. This also created problems for the post-match segment, which leads into Pete's gripe...
I am real, real proud of the segments we wrote. That said, it wasn't a conventional route to go, and I understand if people didn't like them. I wanted a feud that could work with or without the belt involved, with a worthy character that's been slightly under the radar, who is capable of pushing Castor more in the face direction because of his ability to garner heat in (and outside of) character. Eric Dane was a perfect fit. NOBODY expected this, and my intention was for it to start as Dane vs. Austin feud, and have it leak into Castor's world via some macho BS that escalated way, way too far. I got the idea from watching Cohen brother films, where some silly little mundane BS snowballs and enraptures the people around it until somebody's forced to detonate. Because of the ego and shortsightedness of the people around him, Castor (through little fault of his own) got dragged into a situation he is now forced to clean up. And the question is now: is Dane smarter than he looks, or did he just bite off more than he can handle? Because one thing is for sure: he just backed a very dangerous man into a corner.
I can see the similarity to the Troy-not-signing-papers thing and what I did here with Castor, but the two are essentially different. Lana slipped the contract into Castor's general paperwork, for which he doesn't have time to read as he gets ready for a big match. Basically, she cloaked it in bureaucracy so he'd sign it without reading. It happens all the time in offices. So I used it as a device to set up a much bigger angle, that will have it's own payoff.
The gripe that it stole heat from the end of the main event: I agree! But here's the problem: I wrote the segment with either a Castor wins or Castor loses scenario in mind. The segment would have worked fine in either case, but I didn't count on another draw. Whether Castor retains or loses, the match and the feud would be completely paid off - onto other business. ENTER: Eric Dane. With the match being a draw, nothing gets settled, and now Dane's post-match promo seems out of place because people still have Ryan-Strife on the brain.
Anyway, this is way, way too much analysis for such a niche hobby, but whatever...we put a lot of work into this, and analyzing it is part of the fun. I hope nobody takes this feedback to heart, because I respect everybody to the fullest and am constantly motivated to do "the next thing" here in NFW. But when I don't like something, I won't hesitate to voice my criticism. After this thread, that's the end of it and we move on.
Big props to Justin/Eric Dane for working with me on this feud. I'm excited to be doing something like this, and once again breaking open my character and putting him in uncomfortable scenarios for the sake of good-storytelling. Keep it unpredictable! Now I'm motivated to win Pete over. Hey, it's Valentine's Day! Yeah this is turning gay. Bye!
