One Last Farewell Message

[Kaertos 0]

It's taken me a while to write this, because I wanted to be sure of what I wanted to say. To be honest, I've started writing this four times before, but it quickly took on too negative a tone and I want to avoid that. So here goes...

 

Part One - Farewell

As I am sure you all know by now, I have retired from active duty in the SWF (again), from all CC duties (finally) and the Grand Slam character entirely. I feel like I have taken him on a long journey from his SJL days through the World Titles and Midnight Carnival heyday and, finally, to an emotionally draining (and apparently little read) final match with my best friend. Short of a final heel turn (which was discussed several times) bringing the character full circle, I feel that I have wringed every available story and emotion out of the old man's bones. I love the character, and there will always be a part of me that remembers "Grand Slam" Mark Stevens fondly, but he is retired and put away. Theoretically, my user name will be changing to "Kaertos" soon (some of you may remember this as my handle at IGN), letting me put the Heavy Hitter to rest.

 

Part Two - Thank You

So here it is, the big part of every retirement post where people scan for their names, read that part and skip to the end. In this case, I ask you to read all of these entries as every single person listed deserves it. And, by the way, the order is not important. I wrote them as they came to me. Now, on with the show...

 

Suicide King: I'm not sure how many of you know that I was the one who dragged this legend kicking and screaming into the Fed. Honestly, it was one of my proudest moments. everytime someone mentions how much of an impact King made on the SWF, I smile a little and think to myself that I had a little something to do with it. And, as I am sure you all know, King is a close friend of mine in the "real world" as well. I shudder to think of the amount of time we spent sitting in my living room or out at restaurants talking about the Fed and planning out angles.

 

To my good friend, I say "Thank You." Thank you for being the yin to Grand Slam's yang. Thank you for reining in some of my more outlandish ideas. Thank you for trusting me enough to ask me to be on CC when you were put in charge. Thank you for coming back and writing a couple of matches so that I could put Grand Slam away without regret. Thank you for coming up with a way for Grand Slam to go out the right way (on his back getting pinned clean) while still finding a way to let me win. Thank you for helping to write what I consider one of the best (if not the best) match of my long career here. And finally, thank you for being my good friend and taking this ride with me. You are the best. Ever.

 

Edwin MacPhisto: I'll be honest here, I had no idea who this guy was most of the time he was in the JL. I read very little of his stuff before he was bumped. Then, next thing I know, I was in a stable with him. And I never regretted it for a second.

 

Edwin, you are one of the coolest and most together guys I have ever had the pleasure of talking to. We have spent hours chatting on IM about this and that, and my wife asks me often how you are doing. I regret that I have let this friendship slide a little recently. It was a great pleasure to have you by Grand Slam's side in the last Genesis match and I am very proud to be listed in the Tag Title records with you as my partner. You are class my friend, and I want you to know that being retired (the first time) by you, then watching you parlay that into a hugely successful World Title run is one of the best moments of my career. Thank you for coming out of your own retirement twice to help my little storylines along. Just... thank you.

 

H-Ville Thugg: I could not stand the guy for the longest time, and it was made worse by him being the one guy I could never beat in a one-on-one match consistently. But somewhere along the line I caught him online (or he caught me, I forget) to apologize for some argument or another (there were several) and I found out that he was a good guy.

 

Thanks for coming back (as Bastion) and helping along the Commissioner storyline (even though, apparently, everyone hated it). No one but me knew at the time that it was the first step to Grand Slam's ultimate exit a year later. Thanks for hours of chatting about work and significant others and God knows what else. Thank you for being a stand-up guy when we disagreed, and thank you for all of the kind things you said about me over the years. You are an original man, and I consider it my honor to have known you.

 

Oh... and SWF Kliq 4 Life...

 

Chris Raynor: Nobody meant more to the Carnival than Chris. It survived King's betrayal storyline, it survived Grand Slam's retirement, but once Chris turned it slowly started to fall apart. I think that says everything you need to know about Chris Raynor as a writer and character in the SWF. I had the honor of dropping the ICTV title to him and always hoped to drop the World Title to him, but it was not to be.

 

Chris, I never spent a huge amount of time on IM just chatting with you, but you influenced my writing so much that I had to mention you here. One of my fondest memories of the Fed will always be the one all-night Stables Title match writing session I was able to attend. I've never seen that much creativity in one place before, and you were the glue holding it together. You are one of the best writers I have seen in this place, and I was thrilled when you agreed to be a part of the "Dream Match" at G5. Thank you for being there, and thank you for your inspiration. In my opinion, you should have been a part of the Kliq, and in my mind you are. Oh, and when I read the goodbye tribute Edwin put together after my first retirement, I always get a little misty reading your part. Consider the feeling mutual, my friend.

 

POOFNAR indeed...

 

Mistress Sarah: I was thrilled when we recruited this spitfire into the Carnival. She was a breath of fresh air and I benefited by recruiting her to be Grand Slam's tag partner. After her retirement, I kept using her character as a way to let Grand Slam talk about things he would never "cut a promo" about. In the process, I actually traded e-mails with her and we became friends.

 

Sarah, thank you for being my friend both in and out of the Fed. You helped me through some tough places and I like to think I might have helped a little when you were in some tough places yourself. Please keep in touch Sarah.

 

Z: You know, before he took over CC, I don't think I ever had more than a very brief conversation with Z. My loss.

 

Z, Thanks for helping out with the final angle, and I am glad it turned out well for you, getting you out of a Commssionary Position you didn't want to be in anymore. Thanks for being supportive of my brief return to the active roster and thank you for giving two old timers the semi-main event in our last PPV.

 

Tom Flesher: I found out in the last year or so what people have known for a while around these parts. Tom is the best. Good to work with, good to collaborate with, very hard to write against... simply the best.

 

Tom, thank you for using your amazing retirement moment to add a little sentiment to an over-booked "legends" match. It was a great honor to, as it turns out, write your last match. I hope I did you justice.

 

Landon Maddix: Very simple entry here... Thanks for letting me use your character as the "face winner" in the legends match. I hope it boosted things for you a little. I'd like to think that that was one of the last pieces in the puzzle that started the transition from "Maddix - mid-card champ" to "Maddix - Main Eventer". Good Luck.

 

The SWF: Yes, as a whole. There have been too many people who made an impact on my time here to list them all individually. Suffice to say that I will forever look back on my time in the SWF fondly and remember most of the people here likewise.

 

Thank you all for pushing me to be the best writer I could be. I assure you that when (not if) I publish my first novel, the SWF will receive an acknowledgement. Thank you for hours upon hours of pretending that I knew anything about wrestling. Thank you for letting me be someone else for a while. Thank you for all of your hard work to make Grand Slam look good.

 

The Outside World

My wife, Debbie: Thank you for being there for me always. Thank you for putting up with this ridiculous hobby. Thank you for not minding being referred to as "Mrs. Stevens" or "Lynn" online. Thank you for all of the ideas I did and did not use. Thank you for proofreading long matches you were not that interested in reading. Thank you for not being mad that I spent several hours of your birthday writing my last match. But mostly, thank you for loving me.

 

My friend, Kelly:Thank you for giving me the laptop all of my last matches were written on. You let me push the story along while still pretending to have a life.

 

My friends: For putting up with me talking about a fictional pro wrestling league around you when most of you aren't even interested in real pro wrestling.

 

Part Three - Regrets

Very short list here, but there were a couple I need to mention:

 

I regret never successfully defending the World Title.

I regret writing a storyline nobody but me liked for G4.

I regret not reading more, and not commenting more.

I regret never getting the chance to win the tag titles more times.

I regret not making the King / Grand Slam World Title match the biggest thing ever.

I regret not writing more "Breaking Kayfabe" articles.

 

Part Four - Constructive Criticism

And, here is the part you all will skip...

 

I left for good for many reasons that have nothing to do with the Fed and everything to do with priorities. I just did not have enough time to devote to doing well either as an active writer or as a booker and marker.

 

However, there were some things that contributed to the decision that were SWF-centric. I am going to try to hit on those points here, mostly because I think they need to be said, and what the heck, I'll go out on that limb.

 

Fun: There was always an aspect of fun for me in the SWF. People were not here just to write emotional angles, they were here to laugh a little also. I think this is something that has been shifted to the wayside in the last couple of years. The characters have become far more serious, and anything humorous done to them is viewed as an attempt to ruin or bury them. As I've said to King many times, there is no way the Midnight Carnival could exist in the SWF today and be anything like it was before, there would be too many people upset that we dumped a million stuffed pandas on them or blocked their access to the toilet with a manatee tank.

 

Planned Angles: Now, I know what everyone is thinking, and yes, I ran my share of angles planned out far in advance. But the vast majority of angles I was involved in were written on the fly. The breakup with Anarchy was just done. My feud with Chris Storm just happened. I trusted the others in the Fed enough to let them respond to my last promo with one of their own. And people trusted me to write their characters at least mostly accurately. I think this "I wonder what will happen next" atmosphere that I loved is a thing of the past, and I am a little disappointed about that. Losing a match doesn't mean as much anymore. When I was active, it meant that, at least for that match, your opponent took control of the story. I could have written in a little thing at the end of my match where I nailed Thugg over the head with a chair, but unless I won (or by some miracle Thugg wrote the same thing) it didn't happen. The challenge then was to get the same point across in your next match, or write a promo that accomplished the same thing, or even adapted to what someone else wrote. It was a challenge, and that made it more fun for me. And I think it contributes to my next point...

 

Apathy: It seems to me that only a very limited number of people active in the Fed actually care about what is happening in it, and to a lesser extent who wins the matches. Why bother? You and your opponent have agreed that a certain ending happens no matter what, so why do you need to read his match and see how it ends, or what happens? For that matter, why do you need to write at all if losing accomplishes the same thing winning does? I don't know... maybe this is partially bitterness at my epic opus of a Hell in a Cell match being mostly ignored, but it was something that bugged me way back when I was booking. I had way too many people tell me "I know my opponent is showing, and we talked about what is happening, so I'm no-showing because I am tired." Another symptom is a lack of comments. I think, at this point, people read their stuff and skip everyone else's because it has no bearing on them.

 

Solutions: I'm not sure. The easiest thing to say is to lighten up and take it less seriously, but that is a cop-out at this point. I don't think there is a solution actually. The more I think about it, the more I think that the SWF may have just evolved past me, to the point where I wouldn't be competitive even if I had the time to compete. Hopefully, this evolution continues and takes the Fed great places. I fear though that it may be evolving to something that can't support itself anymore. However, I have faith in the current group of bookers and markers to keep things lively. I believe that the next generation, as I have taken to calling it, will find answers to the problems that those of us from the old IGN days can't see. I hope so, becuase I don't want to see this place die. I have too many good memories and have made too many friends here that I have become very attached to the idea of the SWF, and regardless of my "duty status" I still think of myself as part of the SWF Family.

 

An old part, I grant you, but a part nonetheless.

 

 

As for me... well, I can't just drop this place. I'll still be around, and I still would be happy to help with angle ideas and things like that. Kind of an "CC-emeritus" position, I guess. Feel free to chat me up if I am around, and I will keep an eye on all of you...

 

Thank you again, and farewell.......

 

- Chris Hicks, formerly "Grand Slam" Mark Stevens

[muzz 0]

I've always admired the way you've gone about things and conducted yourself. I don't think there is, or will be, a more nicer and pleasant guy to have around and to talk to. I had to grin every time you had a go at someone, though.

 

You'll always be remembered as one of the fed's true 'greats' and someone I honestly look up to. I regret never applying myself to reach a higher level so we could have a momentous match or feud, because losing to you would have been an honour.

 

It's 3 in the morning and I'm tired so I'll add more later. See ya 'round big guy.

[Toxxic 0]

I'd like to say that from what little I really know of your active contributions to this fed, they have been pretty damn impressive. Thanks for all the work you put in, thanks for letting your character be the target for Toxxic's newly heel-turned wrath... and, oddly enough, thanks for booking me in the match I hated. When I found out that I was booked in my first ever tag match with a non-showing Jimmy Liston vs you and fellow Former World Champ Tom Flesher and Flesher informed me that you'd done it to 'put me over' but you still wrote to win... I admit I was a bit narked. But I ended up using that as momentum for Toxxic's character which worked out well for me, even if not for everyone else

 

Cheers Grand Slam. Hope you hang around.

[King Cucaracha 0]

SOMEBODY MENTIONED ME!

 

I must be getting old.

 

And I agree with all the constructive criticism because it seems the only time people comment in droves anymore is when Rando wins a match. And that's NEVER a cue for positivity. A lot of the time, I tend to wish I'd joined this place a year earlier which is quite a rough thing to say I guess. Besides that, I'd probably have been in the JL until it went under anyway. Not that that's a bad thing. Spike.

 

Anyway...so long Slammer.

[the.weej 0]

Y'know, I do think we talked two or three times before I became head booker... you IMed me to ask what was up with the number of Blue Jays on the fantasy baseball team I picked for you last year.

 

You're one of the all-time classiest people to ever be involved in the fed, and that is a true bonus given how easy it is to find someone with a bad additude who's been involved in the SWF. You're also an example of everything a writer should be, selfless and commited, although I sometimes think your booking suffered from being inconsistent.

 

I have a lot of matches I'd consider favourites, but only two I'd name as most favourite. Edwin vs Raynor and Edwin vs Mark Stevens.

 

See ya' around.

 

-Z

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Grand Slam is one of the few characters I'd randomly come out of retirement for at pretty much any notice. The coolest old man I know. Take it easy, cap'n.

[Ace309 0]

Chris, it's been a pleasure having you around. I've always thought of you as a Greek chorus of sorts - you seemed to step in at times and just shout reasonable things at the rest of us, which was usually what we needed.

 

I wish you luck in your future, hope you can find a kid to mow your lawn and shovel your walk so you feel like you're renting again, and generally am glad to have dealt with you.

[TheBostonStrangler 0]

As Z said, there is nobody classier in this fed than Mark Stevens. Even if he screwed up, or ended up in a disagreement, which as all humans besides myself do, he only ended up there because he thought he was doing the right thing. He had one of the greatest gifts a person could have: He didn't talk for the sake of hearing his own voice. Very few people, in this fed and in real life, are able to get respect by being quiet and talking only when it's important, and Stevens is one of them. On top of that, he wrote the greatest pure face character the fed has ever seen. Edwin and Raynor were both great faces as well, but there was nothing as purely good as Mark Stevens...fitting that the nicest guy in the fed had the nicest character in the SWF. I always marked out for Stevens. The match Z mentioned, Edwin vs. Stevens, is the best booking I've ever seen in the SWF. Watching Mark lose that one, knowing that he was probably planning on retirement but praying he wasn't, reminded me of Cactus Jack retiring, and getting compared to Mick Foley is about one of the greatest compliments I can pay someone in the SWF. Mark and I talk on occasion, and I won't forget him congratulating me after the Red Sox winning it all...you could tell he was legitimately happy they won it, and happy for me, rather than just telling me that because he knew I was a fan. That was the great, defining quality about Mark: He went that extra mile, and you could tell that he meant everything that he did. No one in the SWF will ever touch him, and they should never try to.

 

Amazing that a guy with a baseball gimmick came this far, huh? I'll miss you, Mark.

[Dace59 0]

You're a good man GS, it's been good having you around and such for all the time I've been here.

 

Have a good time man, dont have much to say beyond that, but it counts.

[Mr. S£im Citrus 0]

Damn; so now I stand alone as the "old guy in the fed."

 

Fair winds and following seas, "Mark." Thanks again for your years of contribution to the fed.

 

- Dub Cee

[HVilleThugg 0]

:::Teary::

 

I'm probably relatively late here because I haven't been checking the boards. But, all I can really say is that the feeling is mutual Chris. I still think it is amazing how one gigantic argument can turn into one of the best friendships I've had with someone I've never met. I assure you, that if I'm ever in Ohio, you, me, and King are going to hang out and grab a beer.

 

Thank you for being you,and thank you for saying (much more eloquently than I ever could) the things I've been trying to say about the fed for a year and a half. I hope, since you are you, the new generation of SWFers will listen to your statements and take them under consideration.

 

Thank you for making me a better writer when I was active. Thank you for helping me with fun storylines. Thank you for making me a better person. And, lastly, thank you for being my friend (despite the HORRIBLE things I posted about you in our fight). You're a good man, bro.

 

A legend is gone, but he'll live on (for me at least) as one of the best there ever was. He will live on as a champion, a hall of famer, a great man, and a guy who could NEVER beat me! J/K!

 

I'll know you'll be around, and I'll be able to catch you online at some point when we're not so busy.

 

SWF Kliq 4 Life!

[Guest Bobby Riley]

Grand Slam, I know you and I never worked together too much but I understand how much you meant to the fed. You were a spectacular writer and did so much work to make the IGNWF/SWF prosper. I respect everything that you did and I know that you will be sorely missed. I hope these people understand and take heed to the advice that you're giving, because it is all very relevant! Good luck and I hope to see ya around!

[Above Average 0]

Honesty sad to see you depart Mark. And you make sense, if that means anything. Some of the most fun I've had has come from ad-libs and rolling with someone 'burying' my character. Never really had a chance to talk with or write with/against you, but those are the breaks.

 

I'd just like to say good luck. Thank you for helping the fed and giving us a retirement story like yours.

[Guest TheAntipop]

In one of our few conversations, you showed me the blueprints to what would become your house. At the time you promised me that you'd build a room above the garage where King and I could hang/make out. I'll be in Ohio in the summer, and I swear that if King's not waiting for me in something lacey, I'm gonna be pissed.

[chirs3 0]

Most of the time, I steer clear of these kinds of threads. Not because I don't appreciate the comments or effort, and not because I hate you people... I mean, I do hate you people, but that's not why.

 

It's just that, usually by the time I get to these threads, everything I want to say has already been said, seconded, thirded, voted on, approved, recorded, chiseled into stone tablets, memorized by an order of monks as the absolute truth of the universe, then hidden away in ancient tombs, guarded by snake pits. By the time I get to the thread, really the only thing I could contribute is "Er... ditto to the above."

 

Which is essentially what I'm doing here, but let's just ignore that for now.

 

I noticed that the word "classy" has popped up in this thread a few times - I don't think there's a better word out there for you, Mark (I'm not calling you Chris ). Writing with you was always a blast, and the few times I wrote against you were equally fun (and infinitely more intimidating ), and when talking with you over AIM, be it about fed matters or just any old thing, you were always just the nicest, coolest, here we go again - classiest - guy.

 

Except for the baseball smilies, that is. Those I could live without.

 

Rock on in retirement, Mark. You've earned it.

 

EDIT: Five emoticons in this post. FIVE. This is your fault, Mark. I'm not sure how yet, but I'll figure out how to blame this on you.

[Guest Bo the Legend]

You know it's funny coming back to this board and catching up with things when the first thing you notice is Mark Stevens gone...and I mean gone for good.

 

This is sad for me in so many ways.

 

Frankly I dont give a damn about me not being mention, that's beyond the point, but Mark, seeing him grow up (Character wise buddy) and become one of the elite group in the SWF, that's something special.

 

I talked with Mark back in the old days of IGNJL when I first created Anarchy and asked him to join me, I didnt realize how big of an impact he would be in the fed.

 

I never been much of a good writer, never been good at anything...but I loved doing this and going against Mark made me want to do it even more because he takes out the best in me.

 

It's sad to see him go, we've talked on personal matters and I'm glad you and your wife are good and that you get that house that you wanted to get...

 

Stay longer without kids (Unless you already have one) because right now I have two and wow, it's hard.

 

Mark, I dont care about acknowledgement, but I'm glad that I had the privliage of meeting you, writing with you and against you and most of all, being somewhat of a friend..

 

Thank you

 

Bo