Over the years, some of my fellow fed-heads (my term for the head cheese of an e-federation) constantly ask me for advice and feedback on what to do right and avoid doing wrong, I figured the best way is to tell the tale of how my first e-federation blossomed into success and how it spiraled out of control until its untimely demise.
I think other fed-heads would benefit to learn from my mistakes and failures, while others would be thoroughly entertained by the tale I have to tell. Unlike several former individuals from my federation, I have complete access to an archive of conversation logs, private messages, and the entirety of my first federations' results archive. I will tell this tale from start to finish - with many jokes and serious moments to be had - while staying true to what happened from my role as the owner of ZXWWF.
To my former colleagues and friends who have been with me for this journey, this is MY story. Not the "he said, she said" versions that have sprung up after the e-federation died out, but what happened through MY eyes. If you have a problem with that, get the fuck out of here now.
CHAPTER ONE -- SACRIFICE
Thorough this series, I'm going to mention several rules and guidelines I recommend any aspiring fed-head to take heed and hold to the heart.
Lesson 1: To be a successful fed-head, you will have to sacrifice a lot to reap in the benefits to your federation in the long haul. That includes your free time, your sanity, your personal life, and possibly (and more unlikely) a lot of people who tend to call themselves your friends.
Contrary to popular belief, when I started my first e-fed I had no idea what I was doing. The concept dawned on me when my best friend who I have jokingly created several Original CAWs with on the WWE Smackdown series throughout the years was going into the military and he would miss out on the comedic, yet action-packed adventures of our wrestling talents. At the time, WWE was quickly losing our interest while TNA Wrestling was doing little to our morale as well. While I began college, I pondered on a possible alternative on how we could collectively continue our exploits.
Enter ZXWWF.
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| The first ever ZXWWF logo. From left to right: T-Bone (my best bud IRL and IC), ZX (me), John Cena, and April Hunter. |
Even to this day, people still ask me what does that stand for. Oddly enough, it doesn't stand for anything. It's a joke in the company name as I honestly didn't take it seriously - much like our original characters and their gimmicks until much later down the road. ZXWWF simply means "ZX's WWF" (ZX being my online alias for a while now) as I figured I could put on a better show than Vince McMahon and his chimps on Creative Control could. I just figured we had a good thing going so why not share it online with the rest of the world after discovering the delightful website known as Caws.ws.
What is Caws.ws? Back in the day, Caws.ws was filled to capacity with real wrestler, non-wrestler, and original formulas for CAW modes for several wrestling titles, but nowadays you see much less formulas being posted, thanks to the novelty and convenience of the addition of Community Creations in the newer WWE titles. I was blown away at the sheer amount of original characters and wondered at the possibilities of how their creations would fare and interact with my own. Soon I found myself printing out CAW formulas at my office job at the time between workloads, then racing to add these lovely individuals to wage war with my own creations. Then it hit me - if I'm so anxious to see my creations go against someone else's, then wouldn't the original creators be just as pumped as I am? That's when the wheels started turning as I made a mediocre (read: shitty) free site off Tripod (known as Tripod/Lycos now), but I didn't launch an official forum for the federation until September 6, 2006. I know, I know. Big mistake there. Of course, that would be the first of many rookie moves I made first starting out.
Truth be told, no matter how committed I am to my nerdy habits, I'm not going to buy a web domain unless I expected to make money off that said website.
So in January of 2006, ZXWWF officially launched. I didn't have any members and I didn't have much of an audience other than my buddy in the military who I originally cooked up this idea for - and he had little internet access as it is.
Here's where your sacrifices begin to take place, folks. If you have any sense of dignity you flush that down the toilet and begin whoring out news and advertisements for your e-federation on every wrestling-related forum you can find. Having a listing on RoughKut does wonders - even more if they manage to write up a good review or response about your e-federation. Take notes from their several topics on writing roleplays, recruiting members, and managing your federation. There is a reason why those guys are respected as the #1 eWrestling resource on the Internet. They know their shit. Everything that I have managed to do right in my tenure as a fed-head I owe to those guys. A lot of my free time was spent reading their articles on do's and don'ts of fedding.
When you don't have any real members to your federation, that's where the fun part comes in. Like real wrestling, the show must go on no matter if you have one guy on the roster or a hundred. As the guy in charge, it is your responsibility that the show goes on. The most common way to accomplish this is to play multiple characters. In starting out, this is highly acceptable but over the years, I have seen fed-heads go overboard with this technique to garner interest and make themselves look good. Truth be told, my characters have garnered a lot of success in my own federations as well as others, so I see no reason to sacrifice them as lambs to make the next up and coming Superstars and Divas look stronger in the competition, especially when their handlers put in the hard work and creativity to boot.
I think this is perfect opportunity to explore Lesson 2 in this chapter.
Lesson 2: You are the owner of a fictional, fantasy wrestling league. You are NOT Vince Kennedy McMahon.
I have heard horror story after horror story about this over the years. Fed-heads get that ego that they are God's Gift to Wrestling in this role and everyone beneath them are insects. As the owner, I'm not suggesting that you be a jackass, nor am I suggesting that you try to be the most naive person known to man. When you are in this role, everyone will try to kiss your ass and attempt to be your best friend -- all in the hope that this will help them reap the benefits of success in your federation.
I let people know straight up - I am their boss first in the federation and your friend second. If you don't establish this clarity in your relationships with the members of your federation first, you will have a slew of problems much later down the road.
There are going to be MANY people that will test your patience and endurance. Then others whose egos you are going to have to check at the door. I can guarantee that you will have that one guy who thinks he is the king of his world in some other dinky federation or on his own private universe on a particular WWE video game. Kindly let him know that he has to climb the ladder just like everyone else to the top, otherwise make him humble anyway you see fit - even if that means by force.
In the beginning, I wasn't that smart and wise. Fast forward to a few months later in ZXWWF's first year. I managed to keep things going short and simple in ZXWWF, garnering a bit of interest from members on Caws.ws after launching my concept idea of doing a Diva Search on July 7, 2006 to draw in more members. Caws.ws members that thread is still here. Shouts to LuckySeven and jhace2k as those guys were awesome in helping me recruit Divas for this contest.
This is the fun part of this tale as the irony of the matter is this -- majority of the Divas that were signed after the contest ended lost the contest overall, but showed so much promise from their interest in the federation. Yes, that means the lovely ladies that have known in federations for a LONG time, known widely as Kirsten, Raven, Tina Angel, "The Kat" Carrie Marie, and Amanda Cortez pretty much got their start here in ZXWWF after this initial Diva Search.
Kudos to several CAW makers who allowed me to use their creations in my federation, including the creators of Scorpion (SDL), John Moyer, Shadowstarr, Shia Storm, "Bonecrusher" Enrique, XtremeTony, "Sexy" Lexi Gates (Opagogo -- whatever happened to that guy??), Jesse Aguilera, CJ Hawk, Delta Madison (Shine It On Me -- more on her in a future chapter), Lizzy Winters, Spyder, and so many more that I can't remember but I respect your contributions to my fed in its infancy.
By the end of 2006, I had a lot fresh faces in the federation, including Shawn Damian and Sheena Marie on the roster as well. I have experienced some of the drama these two individuals bring to e-federations first-hand, but we'll get to that in due time. For the most part, things were looking up as I considered my first e-fed to be blossoming into a success in my naive record books at the time. Of course, I was wrong as things were about to go downhill.
Lesson 3: The Invasion angle is as bad as it was in reality in e-federations.
When first starting an e-federation, the first idea that crosses through a lot of fed-heads' minds is the Invasion angle. Don't get me wrong, it could work with the right amount of preparation and dedicated players, but with two budding feds that are both equally unknown among the eWrestling world, it's going to tank.
Enter MHWF, a fictional company made up by newcomer Damian Wilson. We talked about it via IM for weeks and decided that our champions and mid-carders would feud with his best at the upcoming event to feature both of our e-feds. On a side note, I STILL don't know what MHWF stood for. If any of my lovely readers know, please enlighten me.
The PPV rolls around with little to no build-ups to the so-called draws to the show. Would you believe that this was the only time that eWrestling icon, Sylas "The Prodigy" Styles appeared in ZXWWF for this event? I'm sure if I brought up this to his handler he would think I'm nuts. Contrary to popular belief, DW was just 'borrowing' original characters and real wrestlers from around Caws.ws and didn't really have a federation of his own. All of it was in his imagination. So yeah, this event tanked as a result. The actual handlers weren't behind the 'invading' characters so the whole concept just fell flat. I ended up having ZXWWF give them legit matches out of respect to their handlers as I wouldn't expect anything else for my originals being used without my consent, save for the main event where DW's own defected against their own and gave ZXWWF the win as a few of them joined the company. Lame, I know. At least that nightmare was over. Now I know how Vince and the WCW guys felt after the real Invasion angle... ugh.
Lesson 4: Beware of egos. They are EVER present in e-federations. They will strike when you least expect it.
Enter The Rebels -- Jack "The Criminal" Crazy and his girlfriend "The Icon" Litablaze.
I still consider this to be my greatest mistake out of my entire tenure of e-fedding. Keep in mind that this isn't my ONLY mistake. Like most members I recruited to my e-fed, I met them through Caws.ws and thought their CAWs had a really unique look and wanted to do a program with them. Here's where the trouble came in -- I literally agreed to job my characters at the time to them upon debut at the next show and win the two most prestigious championships at the same time. Pretty much it was like Gail Kim walking into WWE upon her debut and winning the Women's Championship without anyone knowing who the HELL she was supposed to be. Or even worse, think of her recent return to TNA, where she won both the TNA Knockouts and Knockouts Tag Team Championships in less than 24 hours.
Looking back, this was my worst mistake on a lot of reasons. First of all, my e-fed was not a traditional fed, it featured a mixture of both real wrestlers and original characters. To have a literally unknown and underdeveloped character come in and lay waste to the champions makes the entire company looks bad as a result. It brings up the question of why was this individual even champion in the first place and how come no one else could topple this loser before these unknowns came in? Secondly, the Rebels were not original or 'new' at all. They were just that 'flavor of the month' in that era of wrestling that seemed to be over. Jack Crazy was unique on his own right, but Litablaze was as original as every other wannabe Team Xtreme (Jeff Hardy, Matt Hardy, Lita) clone out there in the e-fed world today. Sadly, they were a joint deal so I folded to their demands.
Naive as I was at the time, I was thinking like a McMahon, "I don't care that my CAWs lose as long as it's good TV, right?" Boy, was I wrong there. Little did I know was that I single-handed created one of the biggest ego-maniacs my federation has ever seen. Well, up to this moment anyway. Soon, my members grew to resent my mistake just as much as I did as Litablaze's ego knew no limits. I'll never know to this day, but it seemed like the so-called couple were handled by the same person, as Litablaze would do all of the talking and networking while Jack Crazy would sit back and rep in the rewards. It was obvious that my members were getting fed up with their egos as much as I was. To my amusement, I literally got the hint that I needed to do something about her when they actually shot and stabbed the bitch on the roleplay boards. Seriously, they went THAT far on hating her guts. Looking back, I think that was hilarious still even to this day.
Eventually, the Rebels' reign of terror ended at the end of that season where my CAWs dethroned them from their pedestals. Many ZXWWF alumni can thank Scary (now Sensational) Mary for that honor of slaying the savage beast. I quickly kicked them out of my federation shortly afterwards.
Lesson 5: Make the rules and conditions of your roleplay boards apparent as soon as you open your e-fed. Otherwise, your e-fed quickly goes from wrestling to MTV's Real World to late night Cinemax softcore and hardcore porn in one fell swoop.
I'm disgusted thinking about this but this lesson really needs to expressed. As I mentioned earlier, my e-fed was primarily a simulated affair, but I decided to incorporate roleplays into the message forum. Naturally, members flocked to this new option to play and flesh out their characters. A lot of my members were new to the roleplay game and it grew to be addictive. Trust me, I've been there. I'm one of the old people who still remember roleplaying back when Yahoo Messenger had private chat rooms, separated by topics and genres.
Of course, things got out of hand in two flavors:
- Members took advantage of my naive demeanor and did exactly what they wanted in roleplays, often deterring completely from wrestling altogether and just roleplayed with each other several -- if not multiple -- relationships, all of which ending with graphically and heavily detailed sex.
My issue with that is if you want to do that with someone one-on-one, do it in private. That's what emails, private messages, and instant messaging are for. Not in a public message board where everyone else can read that sick shit you're writing about and doing to each other.
The main individual responsible for headlining this movement was Shawn Damian and his handler (Mr.Black) creating an arsenal of sexual situations. I should have disciplined him much earlier than I did during my tenure as the fed-head, but of course, my mistake was wanting to go easy on the guy since I considered him to be a friend. To this day I still do, but I just wished he respected me and my e-fed enough to tone that stuff down to an extent.
As a result of my incompetence, his further activity on this matter led to him sexually harassing one of my female members out-of-character, thus causing her to promptly quit afterwards. If that woman in particular is reading this blog today, you have my deepest apologies that you had to suffer that type of treatment in my e-fed. - It led into a multitude of problems with members taking actions done in-character to heart, thus causing members who are not currently affiliated or feuding with each other to have real hatred and beef with each other.
Sheena Marie often found herself drawn into the personal dynamics of these roleplays and storylines and felt that she was constantly being attacked from all angles, especially from the handler of Sunny at the time. I had to play the part of referee during these verbal bouts between the two females, with no end in this hatred for one another in sight. Eventually, Sheena's temper got the better of her, resulting in her deleting her own account out of rage. I didn't have any other choice but to allow her to stay gone from the e-fed. The years have passed and we are finally on speaking terms again, but I would like Sheena to know this -- You have a wealth of creativity within but so much bottled up aggression as well. I hope you find the means to continue to express yourself while not allowing the world to tear you apart emotionally.
Sadly, the roleplaying issues didn't stop here. As ZXWWF entered its second year, things only got even worse...
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