Toxxic

7.00? Christ. All my school started at 9am. As for the 'straight wins' theory Landon, the problem is that we're working a competitive fed here rather than a worked one. So if it worked out that everyone was after the world title, everyone (well, some people) would want to be booked against the weakest, least-showing opponents so they could get a shot. I mean, if you'd just taken two wins on the trot, wouldn't you bitch about then facing Flesher? Also, you'd probably have more contenders than convenient title shots. Another problem is that you'd probably have the same people getting the shots over and over again. It's no secret that Flesher's the best writer in the fed, and it's also no secret that me and Bruce show more that pretty much anyone else, and are therefore more likely to win matches than some. Mr Fourteen Successful Title Defences could have taken four World Title shots out of his Ultraviolent reign - not that I'm saying that Bruce as a World Title contender is necessarily a bad thing, but although you might slightly change the personnel you wouldn't make the World Title more accessible, it'd just be the same crowd on top over and over again. The likelihood would be that you'd have the same four people or so qualifying for a title shot every month or so. If you're going to do something like that, then I reckon an order of contendership would be the way to do it. Under the World Champion there's a list of five names. For argument's sake (and pure argument's sake) I'll do a fairly arbitrary list here: WORLD CHAMPION - Michael Stephens #1 - Jimmy The Doom #2 - Tom Flesher #3 - JJ Johnson #4 - Landon Maddix #5 - Bruce Blank Remember this list is PURELY ARBITRARY. Now, by my system only people in this list would qualify for a title shot, and the following rules apply: 1) The person at #1 gets the first shot. If they lose the match, they drop to #5 and everyone moves up one. 2) If someone outside the list beats someone on the list, they take that person's place on the list. 3) If the person beaten occupied #1-4 then they drop to #5 and the person who was at #5 drops off the list. if they occupied #5, they just swap out. 4) A beaten World Champion drops to #1, so they essentially swap places with the #1 contender who just beat them. This means that they would qualify for a rematch unless someone else beats them first to take their spot. I think this is a reasonably fair system, however it does suffer from the problem of not allowing the World Champion to engage in angles around the title (unless the person he's doing an angle with is good enough to stave off all competition).

Hey, blame Strangler.

Happy Birthday Zeddums!

I dare you to pick the Midnight Carnival.

Message received and understood. I'll destroy the fed before allowing myself to lose the belt.

*marks for the "It's Raining Men" Frogsplash, even though it never actually appeared*

Go on Janus! Danny's tall enough to actually reach you now!

Hey. Defending against no-shows doesn't make a title reign impressive, I'll admit, although the fault for that lies entirely with the people who no-show rather than the champion, but we're not talking about defending against no-shows. You said that you were the only person out of the multiple champions who had only lost one title. Drea showed that this statement was incorrect, albeit only in regard to her current character. Did that need pointing out? Maybe not. Did you need to get so fucking arsey over it? Again, probably not.

You're not. Davis left with the Hardcore Gamers Title and Jimmy The Doom won the new Hardcore Title in a bizarre match also featuring Spike Jenkins, Scott Rageheart and... someone else. Hey, there's a handy results thread you can check if you really want to know! On the other hand, i see no reason why we should allow Sarah to take the belt.

I don't think that comment about match lengths was necessary Bruce. If Drea had done a full match and no-one else had showed the result would have been exactly the same. Bottom line is, she bothered to show when no-one else did.

Danny at 6'2 is far more of a beast, and I'm looking forward to this.

You're still claiming that the Stable belts were legitimate titles? For shame Raynor, for shame. Also Landon; how about a title histories update? It's been months.

Thoth was officially declared to have 13 title reigns two years ago when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. So there. Also, I may only have 9, but they were 9 bitchin' reigns.

Oh, but you post it under your name and claim credit for his hard work then? Typical exploitation of the working man.

IN Clockwork Orange, Alex has his "droogs", which are his thugs who he does some of the "good old ultraviolence" with. You're telling me you used 'ultraviolent' and 'droogie' in the same sentence and you haven't seen/read Clockwork Orange?

Atlanta, Georgia Early 2002 "HEY!" Toxxic doesn't look round, and nor does Livvy; it's a noisy environment backstage at a wrestling show, and the chances of someone trying to attract their attention are remote. Karl Winter, on the other hand, has a deep-seated fear that anyone who ever shouts anything is always shouting it at him, so he turns around. And it is Karl, therefore, who first sees the three muscular young men bearing down on them. "Hey, I'm talking to you!" the one in front shouts. Karl grabs Toxxic by the shoulder and the Englishman pulls up, then turns around. Livvy stops as well, and the two trios come face-to-face. "You're the guys we're facing tonight, right?" the apparent leader of the newcomers says, looking them up and down and plainly not drastically impressed by what he sees. His manner isn't openly hostile, but there's a certain testosterone-fuelled aggressiveness that hints that hostility is a definite option depending on how this conversation goes. "So," he continues, "what happened to that pussy Drake?" "You what?" Toxxic asks. "Drake," the other man repeats, "it was meant to be you two and a guy called Drake against us tonight, now he's bailed and we've been told it's down to a regular tag. So what's the deal? He scared of us or something?" "Scared?" Toxxic scoffs, "do us a favour and go find some ten year-olds who might be impressed with your shit, cos we're not buying." "Oh, a limey huh?" one of the others sneers, "so the team was going to be a pussy, a limey and Mr. Silence here," he continues, nodding at Karl, "no wonder this Drake guy didn't want to get his ass whipped!" Livvy places a restraining hand on Toxxic's arm. "Question is, are you sure you want a regular tag?" Karl asks, finding his voice. "I mean, you've been preparing to all team together. Wouldn't be fair for us to change things on you at the last minute. Maybe it should be you three against me and Toxx?" "You're kidding, right?" the leader laughs. "The fuck he is," Toxxic chips in, "tell you what, if three-on-two's not good enough for you, I'll take you all on. On my own," he clarifies, tapping himself in the chest. "How about it, ladies?" "You're bluffing." "Try me," Toxx challenges him, "you want it, we'll go find the booker right now and change it. If he's OK with it, I'm OK with it. All at once or one at a time, makes no difference to me sunshine." The opposing trio look at each other uncertainly for a second, then the leader jabs his finger at Toxxic. "You'd better just get ready for the tag match," he snarls, "we don't need extra numbers. We'll take both of you down in five minutes," he adds, glaring at Karl for good measure. "Five minutes?" Toxxic asks, quirking an eyebrow. "Damn right," the leader replies, turning to leave. Toxxic reaches out and grabs him by the elbow. "Sunshine... prepare to be proved wrong." He grins lopsidedly and releases his grip. The leader glowers for a second, then snorts and moves off. Toxxic watches him go, then strokes his chin thoughtfully. "Hmm... I like the sound of that..." * * * "You know, for a second I thought he was gonna go for it," Karl remarks, winding athletic tape around his wrist. Toxxic just grins and shakes his head. "No chance mate," the Englishman replies, "once we offered it he had to turn it down, he'd look like a wuss otherwise. But even if he hadn't," he grins, "can you imagine that? Three-on-one in my first ever match. I'd have got the shit kicked out of me, but I'd have made a name for myself instantly." "I'd rather make a name for myself by winning," Karl mutters. He pauses for a moment. "You scared?" "Scared?" Toxx asks, looking at his teamate. "Well... nervous." "Nah," the young Brit grins, "what's to worry about? If we win, that's great. If we lose, it's our first match, we can only get better." "Yeah, but we're gonna be in front of all those people," Karl says, "it's a big crowd. I don't mind telling you Toxx, I'm kinda jittery." "You're going out there as Karl Winter though, aren't you," Toxxic says, leaning against a wall. "I'm going out there as Toxxic. When that guy announces us, he's not announcing my real name. He's announcing a character, someone I've made up. All of this," the Englishman continues, "is a performance for me. None of 'em are gonna be watching me. They're gonna be watching Toxxic. And as it happen," he grins, "Toxxic loves the spotlight." "...alright then," Karl says, not entirely sure he follows his friend but willing to go along with him anyway, "then you can go first!" "Guys!" They turn around just as Livvy runs up to them. She holds up a cellphone. "Gabe just texted me, he wishes you guys luck. Says he'd rather go into an Inferno match than be at his parents' wedding anniversary, but there you go." "I'd swap," Karl says, but Toxxic slaps him on the back and waves a black-nailed finger under his nose. "Don't you dare sunshine," the younger man mock-chastises him, "we've got a match to win, right?" "Oh, yeah, about the match," Livvy says, "there's... been a last-minute change." Toxxic and Karl turn to look at her. "See, after what those assholes said in the hall I went to the booker and... asked for a change to the match." Toxxic and Karl turn to look at each other. Then back at Livvy. "Let me guess? It's three-on-two now?" Toxxic asks. "Well, not exactly..." Livvy hedges, but at that moment the voice of the ring announcer thunders out, audible where they are backstage, about to go through the curtain. "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, TONIGHT'S OPENING CONTEST IS A MIXED-GENDER SIX-PERSON TAG MATCH, AND IS SCHEDULED FOR ONE FALL..." "What?" Livvy says innocently in the face of Toxxic's and Karl's stares, pulling her sweater off and tying her hair back, "no-one calls my boyfriend a pussy and gets away with it!" Toxxic and Karl look at each other again; then, as Livvy marches through the curtain and onto the entrance ramp, Toxxic turns and hurries after her. “Bloody hell girl, Gabe made me promise to watch out for you…” To Be Continued...

That's "droogie" WC, as in from Clockwork Orange. Unless you deliberately misread that, in which case it was rather funny. All I'm saying is, Hawke has to pick a sitting professor, who aren't normally noted for wrestling skillz. Blank, on the other hand, could potentially pick Chuck F'n Norris.

Unless Hawke picks 'Professor' Toru Tanaka, I can't help but feel that the deck is stacked against him in the wrestling stakes.

Bruce - the Spike character is probably mildly deluded. It would be easier for him to believe that your character had got success cheaply by 'gimmicking things up' than by earning them through hard work, therefore he could quite easily believe that you're just pretending not to want to conform. In fact, the whole "make a big issue out of not conforming" could be seen by him to be a gimmick. It's all a matter of perspective. And I believe that you SHOULD call Spike an emo windbag in character. The appearance of his wrestler could easily suggest such a thing, and the character whines. Therefore, 'emo windbag' would be an easy and possibly true insult to hurl.

Bruce, give it a rest. Everything Spike says in the promo is something his character might say. I can see 'Hollywood' Spike Jenkins being a) pissed off that someone he views as a big, talentless hick got notoriety from holding the Hardcore title for so long (and renaming it, which IS gimmicky thing to do), and b) now thinking that Bruce's 'remodelling' to be International Champion is a similar thing. Not to mention, in his egotistical world, the character would believe that his more wrestling-orientated approach is far better than the Blank character's smash-and-grab style. I think the point is not can you write a promo that separates in-character and out-of-character stuff, but can you give Spike credit for doing it and read this promo without automatically assuming it's meant by Spike-the-writer for you-the-writer, rather than as his character's assesment of the current situation involving him and your character?

This is a truly excellent promo Spike. Well-written, well-constructed, enough truth in it to be vaguely feasible but with enough pompous heel dickishness to work on that level as well. If you can bring this sort of effort to the title match my money's on you.

What he said.

Happy Birthday to the Muzztastic.

Alan Clark's had his own bunch of characters anyway.

Unless you look either like me or Alex Shelley, I don't think you'd have a chance sunshine. And I know you look neither like me nor Alex Shelley.