Match Writing
As many people know, I am currently on the A1E booking committee. What people might not realize is that this is my third tour of duty. My first stint came to an end when my job in Indianapolis disappeared, and I was forced to relocate. Moving and changing jobs took up a lot of my time, and I wasn't able to give the BC the attention it deserved, so I stepped down.
After things settled down, I gave the BC another shot. Unfortunately, very shortly after that, my job responsibilities changed again, and I was once again forced to back out of the BC. This time, it also contributed to the rather long hiatus of Richard Farnswirth.
As of last summer, just before Golden Dreams, I have been back on the BC for my third tour of duty. I must admit, I really enjoy it. I enjoy putting my head together with the rest of these guys and throwing ideas at each other. I enjoy planning out cards and angles. And I really enjoy watching everything develop.
But one thing I do not enjoy is match writing.
I am totally fine writing an introduction to set the stage for a match, and then writing the finish. Putting in any angles that I want to happen (i.e., interference, injury, ref bump, etc.) and making that come off in a believable way is interesting.
What I find tedious is everything in between. I could care less that Wrestler X went from an arm bar to a drop toehold to an upper wristlock all while smiling to the hot blonde in the front row. It doesn't matter to me that Wrestler Y favors exotic versions of the Boston crab to setup his opponents for his finisher.
I'll tell you what is really growing on me, and that's the write-up style that Dave Brunk uses for the Onslaught cards in EPW. Those couple of paragraphs tell me everything I need to know. They give me the details of momentum shifts, whether the match was close or a squash, and any angles that fallout of the result.
He doesn't waste time opening up a dictionary of wrestling moves and throwing in the longest names he can find. He boils the results down to only what's important.
Back to the BC. For those that don't know it, I agreed to re-join the BC last summer if I could be limited to writing one match per card except in special situations. Sadly enough, even though I've mostly settled into this new job, it still demands a lot of my time. Running two characters is hard enough to do during the promo week, but I'll tell you that writing one match is more effort than I put into promoing for both guys combined.
There's a reason that I've been able to have 3 runs on the BC. The turnover is that bad. It's not that people don't enjoy it, but they get burned out. The time commitment starts becoming too much. Hell, when Jarret has to take a hiatus from the BC, you know the time commitment is getting to be a lot. He has lived and breathed this fed nearly as much as Roger has.
I know that there are a lot of people out there who really do enjoy reading the shows and getting into the entire card. I also know that Roger (as well as the rest of us) take great pride in putting together a solid show for you all to read. But, it takes a ton of work every two weeks to put these things together.
Personally, I could do without seven page write-ups for a match that only had three promos. Why am I spending more time on a match than the guys who were in it? How's that a reasonable way to spend my time?
So, that brings me to the end of my rant. Chalk it up to me just finishing my match for this week and feeling very tired after being home sick today. All I know is that, when I wasn't on the BC, I very rarely read a card from top to bottom. I skimmed it looking for the results and any angles that I could find.
That would be easier if that's all that were included.
posted by BigDaddy @ 9:54 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Match writing definitely becomes the bane of any fed's existence (at least in my limited experience). I had an idea on how to change things up in that regard that would hopefully get people more interested in reading the whole card at the very end of the MBE Cup thing that I hope to bring into play if we ever revisit MBE again.
I really appreciate the extent to which the A1E bookers go to make every match matter and feel important to the participants, but I think that you guys sometimes tread a fine line of overkill which dilutes the main events and blowoff matches.
FF
I agree one hundred percent with your feelings about match writing.
By and large, the middle section of most matches is just filler that can become tedious to both write and read. And all it tends to do is delay the results and give folks reason to skip large sections of the results card and only look for winners and losers.
Personally I find the Onslaught style, one-paragraph results to be a little bit too "shortform" in terms of getting angle developments across in a meaningful way.
But I really did dig the SportCenter style that JA had going in the early rounds of the TEAM Tournament where you still got the specific "Highlights" of the match and the important angle development segments and just lost all the filler.
Full form results could perhaps just be saved for PPVs to keep them special. And my guess is that folks would tend to read them more fully as they would in fact be something different from the norm.
I agree with this whole heartedly. If there is one thing I can't stand about e-fedding it is trying to write a full form match out. I am much better at telling the important points of the match to help the reader understand what is going on. I think that the full form makes the match lose it's identity.
The Sarge
I think it depends on the handlers of the characters, and what the booker wants me to do with the match. I've had times when I've been told "Squash", so I squash the guys out as quickly as possible (one match was Irish-whip, drop toe hold, STF, tap-out. That was it!) - it's when they say on a non-PPV "Make it close" and it's styles of wrestlers I'm not overly keen on or are limited (power or brawler types, for example) that I start to struggle. I try and split the offence so it comes across that it's a close match, but on a non-PPV card that can be really hard. Once I get into the flow of it, though, especially with technical or high-flying matches, they come out really easily, and I think people do read the full thing once they've seen the results (I do that sometimes - go back once I know the results, lol).
Anyways, just my tuppence ha'peny.
-Karl
Here's my two cents (again, cause I can't get enough of these great topics Phil ;) )
I'm a sucker for simulation. As a child, I remember not wanting to play Ken Griffey Jr. baseball on SNES because it didn't have the real names of the players on it and I couldn't stand G. Crumb being the one that hit the homeruns instead of Barry Bonds. I would actually sit down for the hours it took to change everyone's name just so that I might be able to crush one into the upperdeck at Yankee Stadium with Bernie Williams.
I feel the same way about E-fedding. I think that the little in-between stuff really makes it feel like I'm getting grade A stuff. It makes it seem like a real cable TV show and that it's something I should be tuning into watch (God knows it would be better than watching WWE right now)
I do agree with you that match-writing is the very bane of my e-fedding existence, and most of the time, I drag myself to the computer to get it done. Things are even worse you have a dismal turnout for the match you're writing.
But this goes back to the writing discussion we had in EPW a few months ago. In a stunning turn of events, I actually felt myself agreeing with Jarret ;), in the fact that the match-writing should reflect the RPing. You never know when you're going to give up a blockbuster on TNW or Aggression that really deserves an amazing write-up and yet, you can't because the rest of the card is in shortform.
I do agree with you that match-writing sucks, but as half of a team that puts up 5-6 match cards every other week, I know that in the end, I really do enjoy putting together a good top-to-bottom show. I wouldn't want the WWE to turn into a Goldberg-fest where every wrestler only had three moves and then the match was over. Or would I? Sorry, bad example. Anyway, because we're working on two totally different meanings from e-fedding and real wrestling, there can always be a debate, but personally, I favor the 5-7 page write-ups.
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