An old debate brought up again

[Toxxic 0]

So, the Tag Titles are on VDN. With MANSON and Alexander fighting for the title (both deserving of that honour, I might add), we have no obvious challengers. Leading us to the question that has bugged us before - should one person be allowed to control both wrestlers within a tag team? I'll outline a few positives and negatives that I can think of:

 

POSITIVES

 

1) No writing half a match, only to have your partner no-show his/her half. This can be incredibly frustrating and lead to a double no-show when half of each team actually wrote.

2) More unity. Previously tag teams have almost always been combinations of two different wrestlers who have had to grow together over time (see, Wild & Dangerous). The only exception I know of is TKO, where myself and Card created a tag team specifically to be an established tag team, who came in at the same time, as a team, with a unified gimmick. Unfortunately we fell prey to 1) above. For the most part however the SWF has had teams of a Benoit & Jericho make-up, rather than a Legion Of Doom, Hardy Boyz, Deuce & Domino (I know, I know) make-up.

3) The tag division can be revitalised, as we'd only need half as many people to get it running again.

 

 

NEGATIVES

 

1) All the eggs are in one basket - there's no having a partner to cover for you, if you don't write, nothing will get done. In a similar way, there's no-one to bounce ideas off either.

2) It'll only work for tag team matches. We can't have both wrestlers in a team wrestling a singles match on one card, not unless the writer is REALLY dedicated. This will leave us slightly limited.

3) It's just not the SWF way. I'm not saying that "because we've always done it that way" is enough of a reason to stick to a practice if there are better options available, and I would encourage anyone adopting that line to think of other arguments, but there is something to be said for the notion of the Tag Titles going to an actual team who co-ordinate their writing efforts.

4) Tag team break-ups, a natural part of wrestling, would be difficult to handle with the same person writing both guys. In fact, since we are not looking at having someone control more than one singles wrestler, one half of the team would just have to be dropped. And even if we were to drop one guy after the finish of the break-up angle, having an entire angle orchestrated by one person with a pre-determined outcome and the matches written by them takes us away from the competitive foundation of the SWF and more towards the OAOAST environment.

 

 

Please feel free to chip in with your thoughts, and to vote. This isn't a decision that we want to make lightly, and I'd prefer to have the system we have now and which we have always had in place work properly. Unfortunately, the Tag Champions have no obvious challengers and I'm not sure if I just want to throw together two people simply in order for us to have a division of two teams.

Edited February 11, 2008 by Toxxic

[Mad Scientist 0]

I'm down with allowing a single person to control a tag team if that will help the division as a whole. The positives of this approach outweigh the negatives that I can see.

[Retard Girl 0]

you know...

 

you bring up Deuce and Domino. where were these two before they were sucked into this gimmick they have? and after the gimmick runs its course, we'll most likely never hear from either one of them again. unless they become jobbers. you know what i'm saying? one person could write as a tag team... we could pull a WWE and just drop people without warning XD

 

it is a lot of writing too, for one person.

 

how about retiring the tag titles for now? what other titles are there? seriously... i don't know.

[Mad Scientist 0]

you know...

 

you bring up Deuce and Domino. where were these two before they were sucked into this gimmick they have? and after the gimmick runs its course, we'll most likely never hear from either one of them again. unless they become jobbers. you know what i'm saying? one person could write as a tag team... we could pull a WWE and just drop people without warning XD

 

it is a lot of writing too, for one person.

 

how about retiring the tag titles for now? what other titles are there? seriously... i don't know.

 

There are the New Blood Title (which Alexander should probably drop, but he's too egotistical to drop any sign of his obvious superiority), the Cruiserweight Title, the Tag Team Titles, and the World Title. There's also that elusive Hardcore Title that Landon's been keeping in his desk.

[Guest This is Bo]

I've been in this game since IGN and I've always thought that a tag team should be done by TWO people. As well as a three on three, it should be done by three people.

 

I understand that if one of the tag team does a no show then it's going to hurt, but that's where communication gets involved.

 

If I have a tag partner, we already have a agreement to work together. now if by any chance my partner cannot make it then I would do my best to write the whole match.

 

I think it should go back to the old days and have co-writers.

[Mr. S£im Citrus 0]

Two people; we're not tracking days with the title anymore, so it's not like it's important that the belts be defended every week. At this point, the only currency with any of the titles is successful defenses, so let the belts be defended when they get defended, but keep it at two-person teams.

[Bruce Blank 0]

I suggested this a long time ago and I still think it has merit - of course it's BEST to have two men writing and well a two man writing team has a natural advantage over someone writing a match in isolation but I see nothing wrong with someone writing team matches or one singles match per. team member for a show.

 

Like Tox said we get the "thrown together" kinda team where we usually just wait to see what their breakup angle will be - and who says a team has to have a break up angle? I agree that there should be ground rules to keep 1 guy from having two seperately active guys and feuding with himself (OAOAST, it's right below us, check it out) but I think it could work.

 

Hell if this had been a rule I would have returned as a team

[Golgo 13 0]

I like the old way of doing things and used to hate the idea of this or of becoming the OAOAST/other federations, but as we evolve and basically try to stay alive, it becomes necessary to take a risk and try things like this and other ideas we wouldn't even have considered before. If it actually brings people in, as long as it doesn't completely betray our identity, I'm for it.

 

For some, basically handling two characters at once would keep things fresh and cause them to stick around. Like Bruce said, too, no one says these teams have to break up, since they would presumably stick around and would be in more of a true tag team fashion, and feuds can be carried by just the one half of the team competing per week. I don't think it would be awful to have one half of the team be a designated 'primary' character, either, with which you can go after titles other than the tag belts. Especially as we continue to place increasingly less focus on things like match records and overly detailed title histories. I actually think it's advantageous to write these things by yourself, which was my initial concern. But, much like the non-competitive tomato cans, which has worked fine, we may as well give it a shot.

[AnnieEclectic 0]

There's also the "do both, when in a pinch allow one to control two but hope to keep having two person teams" approach. I like that.

 

Plus I ALWAYS wanted to let the Onita sisters tag up, but unless I tagged with Tom writing Allison, I'd never be able to do it.

 

-Annie "you know, there's only two titles I haven't gotten yet..." E

[Toxxic 0]

Oh, Michael, didn't I tell you? You've already dropped the New Blood Title You lost it when you cashed it in for your World Title shot. I was sure I'd told you that...

[Mad Scientist 0]

Oh, Michael, didn't I tell you? You've already dropped the New Blood Title You lost it when you cashed it in for your World Title shot. I was sure I'd told you that...

 

I'm pretty sure you didn't , but this just adds more fuel to Alexander's conspiracy ideas. I've got to get that promo about that done...

[The Amazing Rando 0]

The tag titles are something I've always wanted, though I've only really had like two chances at them (and arguably should have won both times, especially that time with Bruce). As much fun as it was to hold the World Heavyweight Championship for the sixty-whatever days I did, it only really involved three defenses (two successful), so I don't really think I'm ever going to be remembered in the Hall of Fame for that particular reign - going after the tag titles would be pretty fun.

 

I just don't know whether I'd be better off going into it as a heel or a face, especially if I got to write as my own partner (Edward James FTW). I could do the Wayward Sons as a heel team, too. It would also be the one thing that would probably get me back writing in the fed would be to get to write fun tag matches. There's more variety there I think with four different people than with two. I had a LOT of fun writing heel Alan Clark last year and was doing things with the character that I always wanted to do in-ring wise, but even I'll say I was starting to *feel* repetitive, even if I actually wasn't (and hell, I actually went back and read my matches against Landon/Johnny, Spike, and Hawke just last week).

 

Bring it on, I say. It would definitely get me interested again.

[Guest This is Bo]

I would love to do a tag team, but I would need a partner that is dedicated to his/her work. Doing things by yourself with three different styles is difficult when you have to do the whole match by yourself.

 

I've always said two heads is better than one. Two separate minds joining into one is far more entertaining than just one person doing the whole thing.

 

That's my opinion. I stopped writing a long time ago because I felt that I could never...EEEEVVVAAAA contend for any title. I lost the love, but now, I start reading and I feel that I can compete, but I need to try something different that's what I'm doing.

 

Doing tag team would be something great for me, I never had a partner. I had stablemates when I was running ANARCHY back in the day, but a good tag team, never had that.

 

I guess that's wishful thinking.

[Mr. S£im Citrus 0]

Speaking of asking whether S.I.N. needs a manager... the manager would come with a free behemoth tag team partner...

[JST 0]

How about leaving it to the writer's discretion?

 

Shut the F up, guy-who-used-to-be-Tod.

 

Right, right...

[King Cucaracha 0]

4) ....And even if we were to drop one guy after the finish of the break-up angle, having an entire angle orchestrated by one person with a pre-determined outcome and the matches written by them takes us away from the competitive foundation of the SWF and more towards the OAOAST environment.

 

You make that sound like a bad thing!

 

 

2) It'll only work for tag team matches. We can't have both wrestlers in a team wrestling a singles match on one card, not unless the writer is REALLY dedicated. This will leave us slightly limited.

 

No, but if the plan did go ahead, there's no reason why people couldn't be booked in singles matches as one member of the team or the other. Which actually becomes another positive. In the long run, it'd mean writing less singles matches as one character (if that is infact what you want) all the time. MANSON's idea for one of the team being made the primary character would work for any time the division got too crowded. Plus we wouldn't want any potential change to become a distraction from the singles divisions, if everybody decided they were going to become a tag team at once then we'd have a problem.

 

Obviously IF this plan went ahead, we'd still encourage people (and hope this idea would encourage some people) to create teams of two writers. But at the moment, we have VDN, MANSON/Alexander and that's it. So keep the opinions coming and we'll weigh everything up soon.

[The Amazing Rando 0]

Tod really needs to give himself more credit. His pessimism boils my Disney blood.

[Mr. S£im Citrus 0]

4) ....And even if we were to drop one guy after the finish of the break-up angle, having an entire angle orchestrated by one person with a pre-determined outcome and the matches written by them takes us away from the competitive foundation of the SWF and more towards the OAOAST environment.

 

You make that sound like a bad thing!

That's because it is!

 

The whole appeal of this fed is the competition: you pitting your writing ability against another writer, and ostensibly exerting your will over your opponent. I'm against anything that's going to migrate us away from that, in any way.

[JST 0]

There's gotta be a way to have both ways. While I certainly agree with the competitive aspect of this place, one goal should also be to produce entertaining shows, right?

 

Sorry Rando; looking back at some of my old (old, oooold) posts here, I realized I had attention-whore (with a hint of butthole) tendencies which may have turned some people off and indirectly in some way hastened my departure.

 

Carry on.

[Toxxic 0]

I agree with Wildchild - the SWF was, is and should be about competition. Now, if two writers sit down and DECIDE they want to team up and do a pre-planned angle, that's up to them. However, if we all start running our own angles with our own characters then we lose that. And Landon, I know you're involved in the OAOAST as well, but that's what it's there for - people who want to do pre-planned stuff can do that, people who want to write competitively come here.

 

Also, we're not saying that if we go for the change all tag teams MUST be one person Tod. What we're saying is that it gives us the option. Obviously, if we can get a functioning tag team of two people then those two people have half the workload each, so it should feel like a bonus to them compared to slogging it on their own (an argument Bo has put forward). On the other hand, Bruce has shown that you can still write a tag team yourself (and we've all covered for our partners here and there), and it'd give us more options.

 

I'm inclined to lean towards the option of trying it and seeing how it goes, but we'll wait for further opinions. It looks like we've only garnered negatives from WC and Bo so far, I'd like to see if anyone else is against it.

[Guest This is Bo]

There has been many times that "Tag Teams" was forced to be written by one person. I think that's wrong, now I think having the option of writing the match by yourself should be there but that should be discussed by the partners at hand.

 

If by nay chance they can write together then so be it. Like I said before, two head work better than one. Although, if there is communication between the partners and it's concluded that one person should write the match by him or herself than it shouldnt be a problem.

 

IMO, I think it should be up to the tag team at hand.

 

Another thing is, how many active writers are in the fed at this particular moment?

 

 

[King Cucaracha 0]

I was only kidding, but...

 

 

...PRIDE!

Edited February 13, 2008 by Toxxic

[muzz 0]

I have no problem with one person writing a tag team, especially at this stage.

[Guest vitriol]

My opinion means nothing, of course, but it seems to me the logical thing to do is to allow either, as the situation warrants. Allowing one person to write both characters of a tag team is fine, but it shouldn't prohibit others from teaming up to take him on.

[Toxxic 0]

It looks like we may be heading towards a consensus.

[Guest This is Bo]

I agree with Vitriol...it's up to the writers.

[Retard Girl 0]

i've yet to vote on this, because i can see both sides, plus i'm indifferent to this. as in, i'm okay with tag teams being written either way. or both ways. whatever works better for everyone else.