Open show Changes

[OrochiGeese]

This has been building for a few months and I think it's a good time to discuss things. One of the original main purposes of putting wrestlers on the Reserve Roster (and in Open shows) was to give wrestlers a place to "stay warm" until the next league. Then the Open shows became prominent enough that I felt the Nexus Championship was merited. And then the roster grew even more and the story lines started to get more involved and become ends in themselves rather then being hold-overs to the leagues. In fact, these stories are becoming SO prominent that a bi-monthly Open show schedule alone just isn't doing justice to it. There's just way too much time in between shows and so the storyline momentum tends to dip.

I floated the idea of summary write-up style house shows in the Welcome thread. Dave liked it and I'm guessing there are others that do too. It's just a question of how to implement it. Cause the more i thought about it, the more I realized there are a lot of different ways to do this.

Note: All mention of "schedules" still refers to a loose time frame. I got myself off a strict schedule last year and intend to keep it that way. But schedules still matter as to the order I do the shows, especially how I alternate with my other feds shows. So just keep in mind that when I say something like monthly or bi-monthly, that's a very, very loose suggestion Ok, to the plans!


Options 1 and 2: Keep the Open shows on a bi-monthly schedule and use the alternate off months to do House shows. That way the Reserve roster, as a whole, gets roughly one show per month.


Option 1: The difference between Option 1 and Option 2 is that Option 1 doesn't designate or limit either shows for Reserve vets or new guys. Each member of the Reserve roster can be booked on either show.

The advantages to this plan is that wrestlers won't have to wait so long to get booked. Newly signed wrestlers can appear at the next show there is an opening, regardless of month. And vet/rising wrestlers can continue their storylines month to month and not have to wait 2 months to do so.

The difference in shows will mainly be that the Open shows remain video based and the house shows are text based. But in addition to that, Open shows will still retain a bit of prominence over house shows.

Option 2: The Open Show/House show alternating schedule as mentioned above. But the House shows are now limited to new Reserve wrestlers and the Open Shows are for the higher card and rising Reserve wrestlers. The advantage here is that Open shows more fully retain their importance while house shows will be the main place to introduce the new wrestlers and poke fun at jobbers.

I'm not as big a fan of this plan. First, it gets us right back to square one since each wrestler will have to wait two months for their next bi-monthly show!! Secondly, the Amplitude/Voltage setup doesn't work for UBL because UBL has a far bigger and more dynamic situation due to the leagues. Once any new league starts, the Reserve Roster is totally transformed and that makes it difficult to keep a balance over time.

I think Option 1 allows things to stay dynamic in that respect. The video/write-up split retains the individual feel of each show while the whole roster is available to me to book. I still wanted to mention Option 2 cause I had thought of it and I am open to convincing, but I'm not too fond of it at this moment.


Option 3: Make written House shows the monthly fix for the Reserve Roster and keep the Open shows more like bi-annual PPV's. Throw in occasional video matches on the house shows for main events.

The good: Less frustrating and time-consuming video simming for me, more opportunity for story IN the match, and a more traditional build for the Reserve Roster.

The bad: Even though video simming can be frustrating, I love getting great videos. And a lot of the newer people enjoy seeing their wrestlers featured in UBL videos. the Battalion already has a majority of write-up matches anyway so I feel videos would be cut out a bit more then I want. But I suppose I could feature one or two videos per house show to balance things out.


Option YOU: Uh...if you guys have any other ideas that I haven't covered, vote Option YOU and make a post with your own suggestions. I'm seriously open to them as I was with Battalion plans

[Davey]

I vote for this:

Quick summarised house shows whenever the fuck you feel like and written shows for monthly fix, and maybe have the bi-monthly open show.

I mean like old PWW/Spunk Pro format. Where maybe say, weekly results are given with a quick 2 paragraphs saying who won, maybe a storyline note, and how it went overall.

[wholenothalevel]

I say role with option 1. Whatever you do...do what fits best in your schedule and for your matches. With UBL, SFW, SCW, CWA and the pack there are a million places for people to get their edits some shine. Book how you want to book, etc.

[FishHookCrossface]

I voted option 1 as well. No real reason why, I just liked it better than the other 2. All of the options are really fine with me, makes me no difference any way.

[OrochiGeese]

Awesome feedback guys

I want to again emphasize that this whole reconfiguration is very much a work in mental progress. That long post of mine was literally written as I was thinking about it (and took like an hour to write) so that's why its a bit more stream of consciousness then usual (even for me!). And because of that, I appreciate your feedback that much more as its really helping to shape my ideas here. So I'm gonna give this at least a week to figure things out here and even when I do come to a conclusion, changes can still be made.

The one thing I will say for sure is that the October Open show will go on exactly as planned and is still rolling towards completion, so none of these new plans will affect that. Now on to your comments:

Deibu - I think that's great format advice that can be used for just about every plan listed. If I do use house shows/write-ups (and its pretty certain I will in some way), they will be a lot more compact then some of the previous Battalion style write-ups (which themselves will be more compact now that the first two "weeks" are over with). I'm gonna try to focus on narrative rather then play by play.

I may even steal an old Valiant Wrestling Alliance presentation device and have a specific "pro wres reporter" discuss the matches from his own point of view. That saves me the trouble of having general disembodied narration that often trips me up as I sometimes add my own snarky comments and kinda lose the narration voice. But if I can have one reporter doing a recap of the show in one clear voice/point of view, then I bet i can make shows and matches both quicker and more personality filled.

Level - That's an excellent point about having so many feds to watch video matches these days. A year ago that wasn't the case and so I put an emphasis on videos but I can be more flexible now as vid feds are so well represented. And as you said, I really should do what is best for each match and feud rather then having a blanket rule for vids or write-ups. More flexibility and proper fit is really the key here.

Fish - Option 1 is a strong one. I'm between Option 1 and 3 or some hybrid as Deibu suggested.

Furis - No I vill not cede UBL to you. You're lucky you still have your dental plan ;D

[athrin]

I vote for option 1 because i agree with level you should do what's best for the UBL.

[budnc6721]

I like option 3.

[OrochiGeese]

Thanks guys

Athrin - Option 1 is a strong balance of what we need. Level makes a good point that while people do like vids, they do have other places to go AND so many vids just might not be the best thing for UBL right now.

Bud - I'm glad you like option 3, I think there's definitely something to be said for a sort of "Tour" of write-up shows with the Reserve roster that builds up to a bigger Open show with video matches.

I also can see a combination of 1 and 3. Perhaps having 2-4 write-up shows and then an Open show rather then like 6 write-up shows. Having Open shows not necessarily be HUGE ppv type events but more like "Saturday Nights Main event" or "Clash of the Champions" style. That's a balance that could work

[Davey]

Quick example of a house show in the format the Fatman suggested for the weekly/bi-weekly shows for any not-PWW types:

PTFW 28/10/08 from Liege, Belgium - Attendance: 914

We kicked off tonight with 2 junior heavyweight bouts, the first between both Parks, which was an even contest until Cliff come out hit Hyun-Soo with a chair while the referee was busy admonishing Young-Tae for biting. Youn-Tae oblivious to what happened finished his younger brother with a powerbomb and a diving headbutt. Next up Cliff taken on young Irving, bu the old man was simply too much for her, and he put her out of her misery with a lariat at barely five minutes in. João was looking to capitalise on his recent good form tonight, but it looked to be one win too far as Lars Pedersen put him away with a Norwegian. Fuchs threatened an upset several times against Robinson here tonight, but in the end fell to a Burning Lock Beta when he missed a diving knee drop. Sit and Fairbairn up next, a great match as always, but in the end the referee declared a no contest when both men repeatedly ignored his orders to break.

PARK Hyun-Soo(Fatman Prowres) (X) (8:12 Double Arm Press after Diving Headbutt) (O) PARK Young-Tae
Jimmy CLIFF (O) (5:44 Shortarm Lariat) (X) Beryl Irving
JOÃO (X) (10:14 Norwegian Suplex) (O) Lars PEDERSEN
Markus FUCHS (X) (9:07 Burning Lock Beta) (O) (Fatman Prowres)Stuart ROBINSON
Dave FAIRBAIRN(Fatman Prowres) (-) (18:36 No Contest) (-) (Fatman Prowres)SIT Kwok Fu

[OrochiGeese]

Thanks, that IS a very good example

I could see perhaps doing something like that on a bi-weekly basis and then having slightly longer write-ups for monthly shows, and then video-assisted Open shows every 3-4 months

[Davey]

YEAH! I mean that whole thing taken less than 30 minutes from booking the matches, thinking up some results and writing it up.

I mean some guys are probably thinking "But Dave, we don't get a good idea of what's happening!" and to you I say BAH! BAH, I SAY!

Take a closer look at the entire thing, in the first match, it gets over that Cliff doesn't like Park Hyun-Soo, and that Young-Tae was not involved in the incident, AND that Cliff is a sneaky bastard opportunist that likes a chair. In match 2 it shows that Cliff isn't all mouth and chair swinging, fair enough he was against a young female opponent, but I feel it gets the point over. In match 4 it shows that Fuchs is a fearsome guy in matching Stuart for so long, and also show's Stuart's alertness to mistakes and that he can quickly capitalise if given even half a chance, and the last match is a stock main event with 2 tough guys showing their want to win the match will sometimes lead them to seeing red to the point of not caring for the rules.

[OrochiGeese]

Yeah, and not only does it show that stuff, as you pointed out, but since this type of show would function as a supplement to other shows, it pretty much just advances storylines we already know the basis of.

One of the problems I've had in not doing frequent enough shows is that feuds/rivalries can sometimes not have the mid points that they often need, at least for traditional rivalries. When we already know there is heat between two wrestlers, a show like yours can progress things and raise the stakes in between bigger shows. It's especially good for tag matches involving singles wrestlers in a feud.

And as you mentioned, these shows don't take too long to write so using them as certain midpoints during shows can certainly work. Just cranking one of these out every 2 weeks or so shouldn't be too hard.

Honestly, I had been thinking about doing something like this for LAWL too cause LAWL runs so few shows. So if this small house show format works for UBL, I may steal it for LAWL too.

I think I'd debut new wrestlers on the monthly shows though as the smaller format doesn't really give me a chance to introduce them the way I want. I see the "paragraph show" format as great for continuing existing feuds or hinting at future ones. But I'd want new guys to debut on the monthly text show.

In terms of naming, the "paragraph or two" shows could be granted "House Show" status. I may continue to use the "Open show" name for the monthly larger text shows as well as the less frequent video shows.

[October Raven]

I'm liking option 1 myself, but that's just me, really.

[OrochiGeese]

Thanks for the feedback, Raven

Right now I'm feeling that we NEED written shows in some form. So that's gonna likely be an addition no matter what specific plan is chosen. My main concern now is finding the right pacing and balance.

My three main objectives here are 1) Not overwhelming myself but 2) Doing more frequent shows so we don't have this huge backload for booking new people and 3) Not losing feud momentum during far spaced apart shows. If you put those three objectives together, shorter shows are necessary and helpful.

It's just a question of how short. I like the house show idea but tha may be something that isn't implemented just yet, but something that may come over time if it works. Or it may even be something I don't specifically PLAN for but will sometimes just spontaneously do (as Dave mentioned originally). There actually are a lot of times that I've wanted to just put up a random show to surprise you guys but I didn't cause i didn't feel the format allowed for it. But now I can give myself that freedom.

So after the October Open, maybe we start with a show rotation that involves either 2 or 3 write-up shows and then 1 video show. And borrowing heavily from Option 1, we en sure that both types of shows are available to new people and UBL vets alike. And then I throw in a little extra flexibility by saying that the 2:1 or 3:1 ratio can be switched around when need be. So that's my thinking now.

[Davey]

Yeah Geese, I mean when I actually did Fatman Prowres/PTFW shows, I'd generally have my shows done in the above format, with more important shows(keep in mind that the important stuff for the Fatman Prowres/PTFW guys was done on PWW) being a paragraph or 2 per match, rather than a paragraph for the show. This format isn't great for debuts, but when everyone knows who everyone is I don't see why you'd need a big show every time, especially when paired with RPs.

It's what house shows were made for.