Toxxic

When do we find out if we're squaring off against the New Blood champion or not?

Ah, well that's where I'd disagree, you see. As far as I'm concerned, unless a camera crew is explicitly stated to be present, it doesn't appear on SWF programming. Landon for one makes up for this by having Landon 'notice' camera crews who have been inplausibly hidden behind a bedroom door for several minutes, or something, but I've never really gone for that. It's like the idiocy of heels discussing their plans in front of a camera. Obviously this has to happen in real wrestling or no-one would ever know their plans, but we can employ different methods. So yeah, for any promos I write, unless a camera is mentioned being present (normally with Ben Hardy), then the fans don't see it.

I don't know if you noticed, but the last show featured Badger On A Pole. ...OK, I see what you're getting at. The point is that no-one in the casual audience will hear about these things, they're not being filmed, these are simply events that are occurring. Unless Rev-0 go out and say 'hey, we played all these tricks on Alan Clark' the crowd won't know.

You all seem to forget that this is an e-fed, and we can make the crowd react however we please.

Spike, you're just jealous we weren't using inflatable moose during your stint. Fulmy - all will be revealed.

You're right. Disney would probably censor it. Sorry, Clark.

I can't tell if the guy in the Case for Innonce is using a real or fake British accent. Seems genuine to me. A bit weird, but genuine enough. Seconded. A bit prissy perhaps, but sounds real.

About as worrying as DiBiase having an erection when taking the fight to Savage in that tournament for the vacant title? Even as a kid I remember him dropping those standing fistdrops and thinking "whoa, that's a Million Dollar boner". Well, I didn't think that, in fact I probably just sniggered with the guy I was watching it with in a pre-pubescent Beavis and Butthead way, but you get the idea.

MANSON's already said that the show was a month ago, Fulmy. Don't ignore the words of MANSON.

Happy Birthdizzle, Fleshizzle.

I will go over other things in more detail later, as I'm not booked this week I will certainly attempt to give feedback on both Alexander's and Fulminatus's matches, if Killa or Nightwing have a losing match to post I'll try and do something for them too. Have just read through W&D's match. I can't really have complaints to losing to it, it was a good match, but there were a couple of things I picked up on. You confused my elbow-drive bulldog with Landon's Landon Eye (it's a regular front facelock for mine, not an inverted facelock), and you also mixed up the names of Sly's finishers as his Lionsault is the Sky Surfer, not the So-Cal. That's more of an error in my book really, because you should really try and get an opponent's finishers straight. Also, I'm a little disappointed at basically being caught by a variation of my own finisher by Wildchild on the outside - I've no doubt that he's got the speed to pull off an asai moonsault into an inverted DDT, but since that's the Sunny In England variation I've used a couple of times (including to beat Flesher at Genesis) I'd have preferred you didn't use it, or at least mentioned the similarity when you did. The main problem I had with the match though, was the way you guys treated Sly. Right from the start with the commentary, you buried him. Even the Suicide King, who should have been claiming that Sly would be enough to take you single-handed, was basically writing him off as a threat and saying that it would be down to whether Toxxic could carry him. Then in the first half of the match I don't think he got a single offensive move in that wasn't a rake to the eyes, usually to allow me to tag in. And yes, I can see that WC's speed might be too much for Sly at times, but I really think you overplayed it. The Sly character is a former Cruiserweight Champion and (I believe) USJL Champion, and debuted not long after me. Granted he's not been around for all of the interim, but he's still not the green rookie that his behaviour and performance here suggests. A couple of weeks ago he beat the everloving shit out of Kibagami, for crying out loud. And yes, Kibagami is no-showing all over the place again, but the character is still dangerous in kayfabe. No matter your opinion of the Sly's actual writing talents (which I maintain are underrated by virtually everyone, including himself), you should have put him over as more of a threat. If nothing else, "Mega-heel Toxxic and his menacing muscle backup Austin Sly" makes for a better dynamic than "Mega-heel Toxxic and his bumbling incompetent partner Austin Sly", because it makes it easier for W&D to be sympathetic babyfaces if their opponents are booked as being a threat to them. As it was you only made me into a threat. I remember a match in early ROH where CW Anderson had claimed he was such a good tag team wrestler that he could team with anyone and win against anyone. So he teamed up with a member of the ring crew Elax against Joey Matthews and (I think) Christian York, who won in the end. If I was pushing Toxxic as that, someone claiming to be an awesome tag wrestler, I think this portrayal would have worked. As it is my title reign with Davis was forgettable, and with Landon I was teaming with another recognised main-event talent, so there would be little credibility in Toxxic trying to claim that he's some tag genius. It's a gimmick that could work for a heel Raynor, but not me. Despite the long-windedness of this, I don't think that you guys wrote a bad match. The fact that you've been teaming for four years (most of that time, anyway) really shows, you've got an excellent handle on tag matches and how to write yourselves in it as the perennial Rock 'n Roll Express. My problem is that although it was a good match, the portrayal of your opponents to fill their roles was not entirely appropriate, in my eyes.

Yes.

Fulminatus’ match: I like ‘hardcore harlequin’. That’s great. A little confused about exactly why Fulminatus would charge a seven-foot clown holding a kendo stick but hey, your character. Aaaaaaaaaaaand a Dace reference. You’ll forgive me for trying to work out who you ‘really’ are all the time, I hope. The succession of Singapore cane shots is sufficiently brutal, despite Fulminatus’ rather confusing reaction to them, and Killa makes good use of his height to drop Fulminatus onto the guard rail, a good spot. One thing I’m not convinced about is the DDT, as when picked up by a man that size I really don’t know what Fulmy could do to get the sort of leverage he needs. Even if he kicks his feet to try and unbalance Killa, the guy’s so big I’m just not sure how effective it’d be. Coffee to the face… nasty spot there, possibly not sold as much as it should have been. The ambush in the locker room is neat, the music quite hilarious, but again I’m not sure about the respective sizes and weights. Killa was apparently quite able to casually walk down a corridor, hoist Ced off his feet and then kick a door down, so I’m not sure why one kick to the knee would then cause him to be unable to simply sandbag on one of those Irish whips, especially against someone as small and (comparatively) weak as Fulmy. Nevertheless it’s a good little bit of violence, and the ice skate is really rather nasty. And the description of ‘an ocelot trying to flirt with a chicken’ is one that will stay with me. But why would a referee, in a match with no rules, try to stop Fulminatus from using an ice skate? It’s something that needs a motivational factor. A sentence like ‘Nick Soapdish, mindful of potential complaints from censors and the resulting wrath of Tom Flesher, tries to wrest the ice skate away from him’ would have done the job, at least explaining what was causing the referee to basically go against his job (which is just to count the pin). The finish is to me a combination of anti-climatic and unlikely. Fulminatus manages to get off Killa’s shoulders, but then somehow unbalances him down the stairs. We’re not told how, even something like kicking him in the back would help here. Also, Killa is getting on for twice Fulmy’s weight so it’s going to need to be something fairly hefty to send him tumbling down all those stairs. But he gets back up, then gets hit with the Confusion Bomb. Which means I’m supposed to believe that a man described as being barely able to stand is able to leap down a flight of twenty stairs with enough height, distance, force and accuracy to cut a flip in mid-air and land a senton bomb on a standing opponent, then manage to stay on top for the pin (which was presumably done by a teleporting referee, as there was no mention of him descending the steps to count the pin, and it apparently happened instantaneously). If anything, for me a decent hardcore match can be harder to do than a decent pure wrestling match. You need to be able to weigh up the respective talents of each wrestler and find some way to have them use weapons and so on to make it interesting and actually fulfil the point of the match, but not fall into the no-selling trap. Theoretically, the first person to lay their hands on a weapon should win, if you think about how chairshots and so on are normally used and the effect they normally have the amount of punishment most wrestlers take in an average hardcore match is ludicrous by comparison, and then they just turn around and start hitting back with no flow to it. I see no reason why Fulminatus would try and escape to the back for this match. The ring should be where he fights, he has open space, he can retreat into the crowd, he can get added momentum off the ropes, he can hide under the ring, he can come off the turnbuckles to surprise Killa… he has a whole load of things he can do to even the score with the bigger, more powerful man, and that’s without even resorting to weapons. Instead he runs and actually shuts himself in small enclosed space with a man a foot taller and getting on for twice as heavy. Granted, he’s not exactly sane, but I think that’s pushing it a bit. It’s impossible to ascertain the motivation of someone as deranged as Fulminatus is described as being, but it hurts the match for me. Those are my thoughts, anyway.

BUT, the beginning of a match doesn't have to be one-sided. It can be a quick back-and-forth exchange of offense to get things moving and the crowd into it before it settles down into more extended periods of control for one person or another.

MANSON is beyond awesome.

Place: A motel somewhere in Europe Time: Well after Alan Clark’s bedtime The motel room is a good one. The beds are large and comfortable, there’s room service, and there’s air conditioning. Alan Clark lies asleep on his bed, possibly dreaming of blood, barbed wire and Mickey Mouse ears. His bed is, in contradiction of the traditional mother’s wisdom that sleeping in a draught gives you a cold, directly underneath an air conditioning vent. Walter Reynolds is asleep next door, through the door that connects their twin suite. After all, when your World Champion cannot defend himself against physical attack it would be pointless to give his bodyguard an entirely separate room. The door is locked, and those air conditioning vents would be impassable to anyone who might have a beef with Clark, bulky wrestler as they would be. Well. Impassable to nearly everyone. “Tango Foxtrot Juliet to control, come in control, over.” The sound is muffled and tinny, but definitely coming from the roof space. Someone has somehow managed to get up there and is, against all probability, conversing with a third party. Presumably via a walkie-talkie. +This is control, roger that. Confirm status of target, over+ “Target is visible and apparently asleep, over.” +Commence Operation Arachnophobia+ There is a faint noise as the air conditioning grille is lifted away, and moments later an object about the size of a man’s hand appears. It starts to lower from the ceiling, apparently suspended by a thin black thread almost invisible in the dim light inside the room. The grille is gently replaced, and Alan Clark remains unaware as the new arrival descends towards him and alights gently on his chest. “ELB* away. Target still asleep, over.” +Advise HydroAlarmClark method, over+ There is a faint pop, such as the top coming off a sports bottle, then a thin trickle of fluid drizzles down from the ceiling and spatters onto Alan Clark. Some only hits his pillow, but a decent amount catches the World Champion square in the face. “Whfg…?” Clark mutters, starting awake and wiping his face. He reaches for the light switch and slaps it on, then looks up to try and find out where his unexpected shower has come from. However, his attention is more immediately grabbed by the thing resting on his chest. It’s large. It’s black. It’s rubber. It’s a freaking rubber spider. “The hell…?” Clark mutters, swiping the thing off him irritably. “Control, we have negative reaction. Repeat, negative reaction, over.” The spider tumbles off the bed, but remains attached to the thread that lowered it and so swings back again. Clark, still half-asleep and confused in the extreme, grabs the thing and throws it. The spider flies across the room, but a small fishing rod equivalent on the end of the thread rattles down through the air vent and lands on Clark’s face. “Ow!” “Make that extremely negative reaction.” Alan looks up, hearing the whisper above his head and figuring out that for things to be coming out of the ceiling it’s likely that there’s someone up there… so he scrambles out of bed (leading to the revelation that the World Champion sometimes goes to sleep in his pants) and peers angrily upwards. “WALTER! GET IN HERE!” “Shit! Position compromised!” +Abort! Abort!+ There is a scuffling and banging as someone hastily beats a retreat down the air conditioning vent, momentarily drowned out as the door bangs and Walter Reynolds barges in from the other suite. He looks around, seeing no immediate threat to his charge… “There’s someone in the damn ceiling!” Clark spits, “boost me up there!” Walter obliges, cupping his hands and lifting Alan up so he can push the grille aside and peer along the vent. There is very little to see of course, air vents not being known for their illumination, but a faint glimmer in the direction of the scuffling noise shows that someone planned for this and brought a torch with them. Angry though he is, Clark isn’t going to start chasing someone down the length of air conditioning vents so he drops back down and heads for the door of his room. With Walter in tow he steps outside, but the banging has receded and he is left without a trail to follow. “So someone was in the ceiling?” Reynolds asks, still completely nonplussed. Clark nods as he looks down the corridor, seeing a member of hotel staff taking room service into a suite a few doors down. “Yeah. Dropped a rubber spider on me, and some water. Weirdest thing I ever saw.” The door reopens and the hotel staff member scampers back through, pursued by a hurled sandwich and a cry of “Bread! Only the breadulations, no with the cheese and the mustard also!” “Jimmy,” Walter grunts. Clark nods and turns around, to find himself face-to-face with a masked man doing a one-man tango down the corridor with a bucket of ice on his head. “GREETINGS, POPE CLARK! AND YOUR GOOD LADY!” Alan Clark and Walter Reynolds watch Fulminatus parade past, one arm outstretched, the other hugging his chest, and yes, a rose clenched between his teeth. With a bucket of ice on his head. The challenger for the New Blood title disappears around the corner, and Clark finally blinks. “This company gets worse all the time…” * Eight-Legged Beastie

Alexander’s match: Nice opening sequence where we establish that Alexander is the superior wrestler but Blue Leaf isn’t totally out of his depth. I do like the mule kick to escape the inverted dragon screw, too. I’m still a little undecided about the structure of some of the sentences, particularly the short ones like ‘He does not look happy’ dropped into the middle of the flow, which I think would work better if incorporated into others. On the other hand my sentences tend to go on too long, so who am I to talk? Not sure what ‘careens to backwards’ means. ‘walking comic book convention’ is a GREAT line. As is ‘Canadians are sneakiest when they’re obvious, Francis’. I like the way you’re writing the commentary team. Good middle section of the match with Alexander controlling his opponent, and the slap that reawakens the FIRE~ in Blue Leaf as well is very heelish. Also a good point is that Blue Leaf starts fighting back with kicks, instead of punches that would require the use of his injured arm. Unfortunately he’s able to fire forearms a few moments later, but then his arm gives out on him for the Uranage which might be an example of slightly haphazard selling. If his arm can hit elbow smashes, why not punches? If he uses his left arm (which isn’t specified) for the smashes, why not try the uranage with that? A second example is the fact that after suffering a nasty leg whiplash on the ropes Blue Leaf is able to not only hit a dropsault into Alexander’s back, but then leap up onto him for the Niagara Falls. I have no problem with the finish though, a nice bit of nastiness with the snake eyes to set up the Event Horizon, which has to be one of the better-named finishers I’ve seen. Alexander comes out strong and definitely hateable, while Blue Leaf gets a reasonable showing even in defeat. Overall it’s a good match, as can be seen with the fact that I haven’t found a lot to comment on. My only real problem is with some of the selling; I’m not an advocate of absolute, set-in-stone limb psychology because I think there is more to a match than that, but I think you need consistent psychology, or at least an explanation. It’s feasible that Blue Leaf’s arm might have felt OK when he was throwing those elbows but when he went for the uranage the impacts had actually hurt it more, but something like that would need explaining in the narrative to make sense. Anyway, this is still really good stuff and I can’t wait to see what you bring out for the ladder match!

Trouble is, I can never think of anything amusing to do to faces. Well, we all took the piss out of Spike, maybe that counts. It seemed to amuse WC, anyway. I'll work on it.

Revolution Zero ARE heels. They're just heels who enjoy having fun at other people's expense.

Cena makes money, yes. I suppose the problem is, is he stopping anyone else from making money? No heel can beat him so for all their building of monster heels, none of them will actually BE monsters. Without a monster heel, or even a successful heel, you can't have a face chasing a belt, which is good for sales. And of course there's the 'Vader Syndrome' (courtesy Jim Butcher/Harry Dresden) of where the monster heel turns face and everyone orgasms their way into buying the new T-shirt.

Abyss as Gene Simmons is truly worrying, and won't help.

YES!

I wrote the Rev-0 / Spike promo, for reference. I've been writing Spike in promos for about three years, so that part was easy. I'm just trying to get us over as a bunch of wiseass heels rather than evil, menacing, super-destroying heels. Although this unfortunately seems to result in us all losing our matches. Right, pull out the headdrops, lads.

Hey, the stats are there. Do it, they both count as New Blood. Also, I have suggested the stip to end all stips to Drea, and I hope she comes through with it.

Jericho. Pushed and treated with respect, not jobbed out. Fuck, it would be so easy for him to come back and rip into Cena, if they cut him loose he'd get the crowd behind him in no time. I'd venture that a returning wise-ass tweenerish Jericho laying into clean-cut babyface Cena would be enough to get Jericho massively over and end up turning Cena heel naturally, which would at least be a change of pace. Cena: "I'm here to fight!" Jericho: "How can you fight, Junior, when you can't even think!?" Only rather better than that half-assed example I've just thought up. You can surely imagine what I mean. Secondly, Samoa Joe. Again, with a big push. I thought TNA were actually going to run with him, but they keep bringing in dead-enders like Sting and Angle and Joe just can't get the title reign he should have had. So if I had a choice between seeing Joe limited to the upper-midcard in TNA or WWE, I'd pick WWE where at least he gets more exposure. Also, his moveset wouldn't actually have to be that limited; he doesn't pull out headdrops, the Muscle Buster can be pretty much a flat back-bump, the Rear Naked Choke is a perfectly legitimate submission that won't damage anyone - sure, he kicks hard, but if they were prepared to live with that Joe could be in there. He doesn't have 'the look', but if they can avoid packaging him as Umaga II he'd surely do enough. Push Matt Hardy as a singles wrestler, to the point where he's a potential World Title contender. Not terribly realistic, but not hard either. Get a decent Cruiserweight division. Hell, hire most of Shimmer (without enforcing implants on them) and let them wrestle. It's not the best wrestling I've ever seen, but most of them are fairly decent and it would be a welcome change from Diva 'matches'. That all I've got. None of it will ever come to pass.