This Means War

Everyone in PRIME and FUSE can fornicate themselves with a rusty piece of metal.

Now, before you get all up in arms, allow me to explain what I mean by that.

What I mean is that you should all find a piece of rusty metal, turn that sumbitch sideways, and--

No, not that.

Let's take a little trip down memory lane. While a portion of the people in the PTC community have been late to the scene, I'd wager that the vast majority of us have been around since wrestling's glory days. That's both "real" wrestling and e-wrestling; the glory days of both coincide, and it's no coincidence.

We can all go back and look at old wrestling clips from the mid to late nineties with fondness, and even the early part of this century didn't totally suck. But I don't think it's much of a stretch to assume that the PTC community, and wrestling fans in general, almost universally hate the current wrestling product on television. WWE's talent is weak and their storylines either bad or a rehash of something bad they did ten years ago. TNA is run by WCW washouts who clearly have no idea what they're doing, and aside from a few pretty bright spots their talent is a lot of WWE retirees.

But it wasn't always this dire. And if you're looking for one moment when the transition began, when wrestling's decline was in full force, it was the day Vince McMahon was seen on WCW television on the last broadcast of Nitro, telling the wrestling fans he'd bought his competition and now intended to bring an unceremonious end to wrestling's glory years with the biggest botched opportunity since Tara Reid's boob job.

So what changed? In a word, competition. What made WCW and WWF so great back in the day was that competition, that ferocious war for ratings that drove both companies to excellence. Most of us that were watching back then can claim allegiance to one company or the other; myself, I considered myself a WWF fan first and was happy to see them win the wars. Despite that, I still watched Nitro every Monday night, too, and I loved the NWO storyline, I loved heel Chris Jericho, stealer of gimmicks, and I loved their ridiculously populated main event scene. Every week the writing wasn't just meant to give you a decent show, it was intended to beat the pants off that other show. When the WWF finally pulled ahead in the ratings, WCW fired back by giving away Goldberg vs. Hogan on free television, which was a dumb business move but was a giant gift for wrestling fans.

The point is, the heavyweight battle of WCW vs. WWF was good for us. There may have been a lot of genuine animosity there, but it was good for us. Knowing that on any given week both shows would be top notch because even the slightest slipup would mean giving away ratings points was what made it the golden age of wrestling. In modern times, WWE writers can throw random crap at the wall no matter how stupid or ridiculous, because fans have no choice but to watch it. If you turned on the WWF back in 1997 and saw Jonathan Coachman chasing around a midget dressed up like a leprachaun who was also Vince McMahon's illegitimate child, would you have tolerated it? No way, you'd click right over to Nitro and watch Chris Jericho read off his list of reasons why he's better than Dean Malenko.

So, how does this explain why I want everyone in FUSE and PRIME to suffer horrible, horrible pain? I think you see where this is heading.

Part of the reason GCW vs. PRIME stands to make PTC a better place is because of the animosity it will breed. Not genuine, "I really hate that Lindz chick" sorts of animosity, but "I really hate that Lindsay Troy and I want to make her suffer" animosity. For the last couple of weeks, the PRIME logo has adorned GCW's banner, and the GCW logo complete with Caldera's handsome face has been atop PRIME's website. Why? To make the other team hate us.

And this is good. Behind the scenes it has allowed us to get to know the other side a bit better; I know that I've never spoken to a larger number of people in the game before. I've been in close contact now with a good portion of the PRIME roster, and even those I don't talk to I know how to get hold of. But I hope to breed a competitive edge, something that makes every member of every fed remember as they write for their show each week that they need to make it the best they possibly can, because you're competing with other feds that are damn sure going to be doing the same.

That competitive edge is what made wrestling so great in the late 90s, and it's what will make e-wrestling so great now in the mid 00s. But in that respect, we have one major bonus. We know each other and we can work together to take advantage of that competition and give the people what the want to see.

If someone had offered you the chance to see a WCW vs. WWF card back in 1997, wouldn't you have paid any amount of money to see that show? I sure as hell would have. But it couldn't happen, it was impossible (well, it could have happened when Vince bought the place, but I won't delve into that quagmire).

But nothing is impossible for us. At the same time that we're breeding this kayfabe contempt, we're breeding new connections with the handlers and leaders of each fed. I'd never spoken to Mattchu before the idea of this event came about, and because of it I now have a working relationship with the fedhead of PRIME. I talked to Lindz fairly often before, but now (in part, too, due to PTC competition) I speak to Joe, Nate, Al, Matt, Craig and others. The result? You're going to see matches like Tony Gamble vs. Vivica J. Valentine at Devil's Night/Great American Nightmare, and that's like getting to see The Rock vs. Goldberg when they were both still on their way up.

With respect to PTC, there isn't a lot the community can do to aid this. This is a task best left to the individuals participating in the "Big Three" of FUSE, GCW and PRIME. PTC, as presently constituted, is the perfect environment for interfed competition of a different color; Death Row Incorporated, GTT and such. But to create the sort of competition that we can feed off of directly, it should remain exclusive to the feds themselves.

Therefore, in an effort to differentiate this blog from the PTC community, I hope to shift focus a bit and dedicate my coverage to creating, maintaining and broadcasting that competition. I'll certainly continue to cover PTC events and the community itself, but my main objective will be to help forge and maintain the connections that will be vital to creating an environment like the one wrestling enjoyed in the 90s.

GCW vs. PRIME is just the first step. It will blaze a trail, and in doing so the leadership on both sides will be able to find out what works, what doesn't, and what to look for in future interfed events. From there we can get far more aggressive with our pursuit of competitional-excellence, and it is my hope to be a leader in that quest.

What we are entering is an era in which the "interfed" is obsolete. And yet we must pause to appreciate the long history of PTC and the role it played in getting us to this point. But consider for a moment the history of e-wrestling and the interfed. Back when the entire literate wrestling fanbase (at best only a third of the whole) was engaged in wrestling, the interfed was the best way to keep it all straight, and feds had to try their hardest every week because, for a member, the alternatives were plentiful. You had to go to PTC or WO to even find great feds, and even then there were great feds outside the community.

But now e-wrestling is reduced and operating on a much smaller scale. That larger structure is no longer necessary. If e-wrestling was a sprawling metropolis at the start of this century, needing one governor to stand up and lead the way through the masses, the game now is a small town where everyone knows everyone's name.

PTC ceasing operations as an interfed allows this new sort of connection to be made. PTC remains a crucial element to the equation because it allows for interaction on the forums and competition in other forms to break up the monotony (see: DRI). And I think this will become more important, because more and more often I am encountering people who don't even like wrestling any more, but stay in the game because they are writers. And the writing in this condensed version of the game is far and away the best it's ever been, meaning we've got people who can actually consider taking the skills they learned from this game and turning it into an actual career. PTC will be the place where the pure writing can be explored and exalted.

But the actual interfed is now an unspoken, unseen bond formed directly between the Big Three. And as we strengthen this bond and begin to use it, I think you'll see e-wrestling's lifespan extended quite a bit. If PTC allows the community to explore and exhibit its amazing writing skills, this new invisible interfed will allow the community to exhibit their fedding skills.

The result is an environment that promotes excellence at the absolute highest level. PTC will sharpen our writing skills while interfed competition will sharpen our commitment to our feds and our friends within them. So we're about to create for ourselves a world just like the one that made WCW vs. WWF so amazing, only we get to be friends with the members of the other companies... at least, when we're not trying to destroy them.