Colin Locke

The fatal four way was carnage, and just unbelievably fun to watch. Just a great intro into one of my favourite all-round OCW shows in a while, a great time. The DNS stuff is all-round fantastic, and they are just dominating the shows for me, an incredible team. I'm also all in on the Tre/Mac/Marisa story, we've had #FreeTreGolden, and now we have #PremiumTreGolden, the spear on Marisa was a great little moment, and I'm really hyped to see where they go and how their match plays out. I reckon this story will make both guys so much more valuable here, and I'm all for it for both of them. Highlights of the werdz, Jynx is shaping up nicely and showing some solid writing potential, Sheldon has really upped his game recently as a writer, I really enjoyed the Mugen promo, but overall, I reckon my werdz of the night might be the Karmine promo. Just an all-round really solid wrestling promo, got me hyped for the match, was exactly what it needed to be. Can't stress enough though, this show overall was a brilliant time, everyone involved did a great job, and, as always, thanks to Maxx, John, and Jamie for tolerating my insanity when I told them that Will Ospreay was a master fisherman in the OCWVerse a few weeks ago while I was preparing to fly home.

I heard claudio stardom went to ikea once and didn't stop for meatballs

xylophones

I warned ye about them sanctum bois

That is really clutching at straws considering that these things are wrestling conventions in general and aren't exclusive to the OCW OOC. If anything, playing to that convention is what I expect will give this story life, and dig into what's going on with Aisu mentally, and how that affects how OWEN is perceived and carries himself as a champion. But yeah, I mean, OWEN could've just been interrupting and now we can't buy the official OCW cereal Aisu-Os from all good retailers and some rubbish ones, now Aisu has to show his moral fibre, as well as his regular fibre to get them back in stores. Either way, I'm never a huge fan of 'no you're critiquing it wrong', I don't think anything good can be picked apart so thoroughly that it becomes bad, and really getting into the guts of how stories are crafted are how we improve.

'Meta-analysis' is kind of a non-criticism, to be honest, things'll be judged based on general media and storytelling conventions and how well something executes or subverts them. I agree that the retirement angle could cause problems, and is probably better suited for TV wrestling's pre-determined nature, as it does point to one particular ending (which I won't spoil in case that ends up playing out here), and it'll be interesting to see how it plays out if Aisu wins, and then has a title to work with. And speaking of meta, I think Maxx's discussion of Harri/Marisa is a great reason why we should discuss the metagame, and why it'd be healthy to do so as the new games roll out. I think something that's gone underappreciated about 2k22 is how unpredictable it's designed to be. Assuming perfect play, a 2k19 match is over once the first move is hit, whereas a perfect play 2k22 match will be a five star classic decided by the stun metre. Obviously, none of us are robots, so we'll make mistakes, or we'll give our opponent's an 'in', so we aren't just squashing them, and when that happens, the momentum swings are bigger, more dramatic, and offering majors, 'ins', and other flavour stuff doesn't put us at the advantage it sometimes did in 2k19. Not a perfect game, but it gives moments like this a chance, Ry played incredibly well, really loved working with him, and the win was very well deserved, the women's division's looking amazing from here. Regarding the Marcus audio, that is a shame now I've seen Harvey explain his intentions, as I reckon if the crowd noise was more 'Woo, Marcus is good, beat John up' that'd be a great moment for both Marcus and for John's story. That said, can always be worked with and fixed later on, so if nothing else it's a great sign of things to come for Marcus. I enjoyed C-Note's monologue, too. Despite it going on for ages, it didn't feel out of character, and John just being out of it for that long kind of matches the lap of misfortune story that's been brewing with him, too. In terms of writing, I really enjoyed the Jay/Spider promo, Rust's promo on Harvey (that match'll be a monster), and I reckon CG did an ace job of tying Megan with La Commandante in Megan's promo. In general, great, great show, feel like the break did us some good. Bit weird trying to do reviews when I was in 50% of the matches in this show, but everyone was fantastic to work with, had a great time on VP, and I am hyped for the rebuilt Hito Gui.

Ah, that's fair, I'm definitely more in the camp 'here's this rope, let's see if you hang yourself' when it comes to bad segments and whatnot. No naming, as I don't wanna dig up old wounds, but I've seen some recent catastrophes that now border on non-canon because of how well the handler took criticism and went onto do more great work, and some where the handler's lack of self-awareness following the incident caused them irreparable damage, or at least gave them a mountain to climb. I dunno, I'd rather people have the chance to do good, do bad, and not be shitheads when something doesn't land or even offends, and if they fail that, then action gets taken.

I agree that giving out punishments isn't flying off the handle. I've always been of the opinion that someone breaking FPR once or twice, that's their issue, but if someone's breaking FPR every time they appear, I've gotta question why they're being booked still more than anything. Reese/OWEN was particularly egregious because the crapple led into a long sequence where a match-ending stun happened, with many opportunities for OWEN to have just stopped, regrouped, and got the match back in gear (particularly with the lead he had), and he just didn't. Should've been a redo, but I get that not everyone has the time/wants their time wasted by retrying matches over and over again if they're not precious about their wins and losses (as most of us aren't, after all, they don't matter). Vetting content, eh? I don't think I saw anything on the show that was below par in terms of quality, maybe the 'entrance + read the werdz' format will outstay its welcome eventually, but it's no issue for the time being. I put Terra for the promo of the show, Deaver/Luis for match of the night, and I really loved the Nate and Marisa Through Glass segment. Fantastic song choice, perfectly used, and the characters just fit well together. Mac really impressed me in general, I put him as biggest impact, he's not one of the tougher players competitively speaking, but for me, that makes it more impressive that he didn't seem out of place in the main event against Quartz. The promos of the show were really good, the live-action segments are always loads of fun, and while I'm usually one of the louder voices complaining about distraction finishes (as anyone who's ever offered me one will know), the pacing of Claudio's appearance was really solid, Iceman had a little comeback before the Black Phoenix so it didn't just look like he looked away and died immediately. Very excited to see where that storyline goes.

Brawlful Choice have been informed that newly crowned OCW Women's Champion Harri Etiquette has spent much of her Christmas break arranging high profile sponsorship and merchandise deals for the new year. Sources close to Harri have advised Brawful to 'keep [our] fucking mouths shut' because 'this was meant to be a surprise', and so the nature of these deals is not yet known. We can, however, speculate, based on very little, that Marvel is looking at Harri to be a key player in their fifteen-post-multiverse-phase, a non-speaking role in an upcoming Battlestar Galactica series will make Harri larger than the wrestling business itself, and we have heard that shortly after The Clash, Harri spent all night repeated singing her theme song while obstructing a hotel corridor. Various other sources have noted that we will find out the exact nature of these deals in the coming weeks, and that OCW programming will be a key part of the promotional strategy for these many Harri Etiquette related properties. Subscribe to BrawfulChoice.com for $69 a month for more groundbreaking news on the wrestling business.

I mean, I'm sure if you told him you were uncomfortable with it/you felt it was undermining your character a bit and you'd prefer to try a different approach Jake might be receptive? I'm not sure how constructive criticism about commentary became an entire discourse, surely when several people are saying the same thing, it's something worth taking on board, or at least reflecting on, rather than have people spring to their defense and make a big thing out of something we'll probably forget about by the next show

And we've arrived in splitting hairs territory, my point wasn't about who is and isn't 'in on the joke', it's got the same meaning if you replace 'in-joke' with 'running gag'

Is there any argument that the whole 'suspiciously no homo but pushing the boundaries to an insane degree' thing isn't Nick and Parca's general running joke on commentary? I would've thought that'd be the one thing not up for debate unless we're really gonna split hairs on what's a running gag, what's an inside joke, etc

Another thing to point out is that Jay's comments on KINGU/Omega were entirely about the characters. I find the criticism strange, considering that, regardless of your taste for that kind of humour, he pretty much nailed the fact that those two are (apparently) important wrestlers elsewhere (with Cody doing the 'new heights' thing from the Indies and KINGU showing up like Tony Khan's gonna hug him and give him a contract after the show goes off air), whereas the ME commentary's criticisms are mainly based on the fact that it wasn't entirely about the characters and focused on an in-joke that didn't hit for a fair amount of people. Obviously, flavour and personality are important, but if there's gonna be a running gag that isn't about anything happening on screen, there has to be a good balance between putting over that joke (and, if it's just one joke, recognising you're limiting your audience), and putting over what's going on on screen. Whether you found it funny or not, 'This reminds me of KINGU vs Laundro Matt as Wrassle Castle 23' x100 is at least about the characters and putting them over, 'Speaking of taking someone from behind' x100 is far less relevant, regardless of whether it's your sense of humour or not. I'm amazed why there needs to be the 'what about *insert thing*' defense, it's always better to have constructive criticism out in the open to give people a chance to reflect and see what they can do better next time.

So yeah, show was a solid time! Some good stuff, some bad stuff, will do the good stuff before I swing the hammer a bit. Good stuff nice time yessy good fun time Claudio is a bloody champion, and Tre is the guy I've been rooting for him to be since we were doing our storyline last year. Very underrated handler who just needed to put things together in the right way to get over, and Ry is obviously in top of his game. The promo was simple, visually it was primarily a pictures and text thing, but the visuals were chosen well, the Bunni Sisters were fun, Tre dancing is still great, and Claudio does command an aura about him, he's someone I always prefer to see rather than read about. Jasmin RP! This was a really nice read, the style felt fresh, and I liked the concept with the video game cutscene. Jas' character is really strong and clear right now, I'm liking the Dragana appearances, and yeah, overall really good stuff, keep it up. Omega vs KINGU KINGU got exactly the reaction I was hoping for, with the mixture of confusion, hatred, enjoyment, and over-the-top fake lore from his time in MJPW. Cody did have some little FPR niggles, but the guy was very nervous and eager to entertain as best he could, and he took the loss very well. I hope he sticks around, I've got a lot of respect for his attitude from our talk surrounding this match, and I can see his 'MJF but in a monocle' thing getting over huge in a very weird way over time. Deaver RP, lets go, now, I usually find this sort of 'babyface with a lot of heart' style promos to be very dry, very tasteless, and the reason why I don't really watch AEW nowadays, but I think Deaver's done a great job transitioning his character and selling the consequences of the last month or so. The angle that he now has believers because he has an enemy (essentially) is a really nice little idea, and that's just a little detail I love. The idea of being a believer has changed, but the gimmick is still intact, it struct me, I don't know, solid stuff. Rust and Pugh got me hyped. I really liked this segment, it didn't jump off the page at me like some of the other work both of these guys have done, but in one written promo, it laid out the terms of their fight, and it's something you can get into, regardless of how much or how little context you have about the characters. Very nice work, Pugh's promo style is pretty striking and really clear, and I'm excited for the match. Kasstianity RP. Yep, still invested in Kasstianity. There's one little formatting issue, which is a shame, but the content itself is really nice. Tight writing from every member, each one has a distinctive voice and style about them, and I'm finding the current Furiosa storyline to be pretty intriguing, keeps me tuning in whenever I spot a Kasstianity RP on the horizon. Some other matches were good! Particularly enjoyed Scotty Xylophone, he's becoming a guy I'm excited to see now, I really liked CG/Aisu, too. B17 is back! No other words, I've missed him, he was one of the two 'The Guys' to me when I first got here, and it's an utter shame he's not been about. Great to see him, can't wait for the match. Debbie, the D stands for DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL. Good turn, though, quickly becoming a standout figure in the women's division. -- Abandon all hope ye who enter here -- Damn, that Hanzo ending. The finisher discourse has been beaten to death, I think the new finisher is a bad move, it's one of the least impressive parts of his moveset, but it's a shame that discourse has overtaken the actual finish. Crapple into a stun to finish, I really hope I never see that again, Hanzo had a one yellow to finishable lead, that was just absolute shit to see even before the weird finisher thing happened. I really hope he does better, because this handler has a good work ethic, and some in game skill, if and when he uses them to create a coherent moveset and put on exciting matches, be they even, squashes, or upsets, he will have something very special. This'll get me killed, but the ME left me a bit cold. I don't know why, maybe it was the ambition style commentary (I'm really not into the 'I want to have sex with you' x100 stuff), I kind of wish Tony's stage setup came on in time with the lights changing (slight production niggle, but that stuff just prods my brain the wrong way), and maybe I wish Bax would've mounted more of a comeback, but I dunno. The match wasn't at all bad, nowhere near my least favourite thing on the show, but considering how much I've really enjoyed both Bax and Tony in the past, this just didn't do it for me? Equally, this could also be an issue with the run up to the ME, on another night this could've been a worthy cap off to an all-round solid show, but for me the show didn't become solid until I took in the werdz. Yeah, don't know how I feel, so I'm just gonna judge this on how I felt sitting there watching on VC. TWC's RP takes a strange angle. Now, I've been enjoying TWC recently, I think John, in particular, is finding his feet characterwise, so for me, this was more a weird misstep. Aisu's outburst to Marcus didn't really make sense to me, the writing could have been clearer, especially as Marcus was eventually present in CG/Aisu. John's characterisation also seemed to do a bit of a 180, last I saw him, he was chewing out Marcus, promising that he was gonna make a move very soon, and creating this great show-wide arc that led to Spider betraying him. I don't dislike measured, sensible John trying to wrangle TWC, however, when recently it felt more them (particularly Marcus) trying to wrangle him, I can't help but feel I want a smoother transition in a storyline that I was really enjoying, and most likely will continue to enjoy in future. The Dick Rider meme on discord.

CAUSE I'M JUST A BOTTOM-FEEDING DIRTBAAAAG, BAAAABY But yeah, as we've seen recently, burying people is bad. If that's sort of the only thing that makes your guy a heel, the character has a sell-by date of about a week or so, unless you pull out a Black Knight gimmick and just keep claiming you're the best despite eating disastrous losses, which you'll have a silly excuse for. Even still though, read the shows, watch the stuff, get acquainted with everything around here, hopefully you'll be able to come up with a kind of character we don't have at the moment.

Etiquette

While, obviously, I respect your point, to me, this part in particular is the issue. This might not have exactly been what you meant, but I latched onto this in the same way I latched onto Jay's comment about 'factions' in the sit rep. You might know something I don't, you might be in certain situations where you see certain pieces of info, you might have had people come to you to tell you things in confidence, or rant their perspective at you when something went wrong, or right. Equally, I might know more than you, I might have had experiences corroborated by things I've heard from heard from people, I might have had people say things to me, everyone's got a different context for this that makes them read it in a certain way. Now, that can't be avoided, but when we seemingly have groups of people that have had vastly different experiences, some that seem unaware of anything happening, and some that seem to be aware of everything, I see a problem. I don't believe that Sanctum's handlers were cackling and rubbing their hands together at the thought of bullying TWC. I don't believe TWC's handlers are hiring hitmen to track down Sanctum. However, I do not believe, after a public tantrum on discord, an overt display of stubbornness, and someone who seemed barely able to speak, while other members expressed confusion, anger, disgust, even, that Sanctum are gonna burst out of the wardrobe with a hidden camera going 'YOU JUST GOT PUNK'D' and Jay, TWC, Rust, Pugh, Jake are gonna start howling with laughter and going 'damn Colin, you're one gullible bastard'. After all, like I said, godawful video, one of the worst I've seen in my time here, that's one thing. A public tantrum, where it's outright stated that a member should be able to wear that attitude because of 'all they did for OCW'? That's another, and as a handler that puts a lot of time and thought into what I do, who sees people like yourself, Maxx, Jake, and countless others that put hours into doing our best while still not being able to fathom the workload Jay has for most part, that pisses me off. Maybe I'm getting worked, brother, but if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, I'm not gonna assume it's actually Ashton Kutcher in a duck costume. To build on Maxx's 'let it play out' point, the reason why 'let it play out' is being laughed at, is because it's arrogant here. Every variation of 'yeah, you don't get it, let it play out because here's what we're doing' is barely galaxy brain booking, it's straight point a to point b storytelling with a bit of pointless 'point a 2: tokyo drift' to make the whole thing less clear and less fun to follow. 'Let it play out' is something you say when you've earned enough trust, put out an esoteric or left field story beat, and you have people wondering what's going on. It's for 'Why did Maxx end up on the floor after beating Kass?', it's for 'Wait, is H2O Quartz' literal brother', or 'Wait, are there really two Elliot Parkers?'. It's not for when the near-unanimous opinion, held by legends, veterans, newcomers, and the bloody site owner alike think what you've put out stinks worse than most things they've seen in their time here, and it's negatively affected the way they look at the people who made it. This is the time to swerve, and make your story clearer, take on the criticism and use actual skill and craft to make this story something worth watching, reading, engaging in. No one should ever assume that they already are weaving their stories with so much craft and skill that these plebs just don't get it, man. Every one of the 'let it play outs' I just listed point to a flaw in the execution, in the storytelling. A fixable one, and one that was eventually clarified, but a flaw nonetheless, even the best here can lose sight of their intentions and make something that doesn't quite hit. That's fine, that's what progress is, shit, that's what I've been doing for the last seven years of my life getting to a PhD level of music, getting shit wrong and serving up things that only I understand until I dropped my ego and started learning. At this point, I'm really just hammering the same point, but this shit is tiring. If anyone looks at all this and can use any of this discussion as advice, even if it's just a general 'do not do this', it's worth it. This could have just been a particularly bad video that we could move on from. But nah, we had to be arrogant with it, pretend that people who've done this for years don't get the most basic wrestling story that you could possibly conceive of. We had to have the public tantrum, the attitudes that are making people think that this is malice rather than stupidity. Or maybe I'm just being worked. Who knows. --- I'm really enjoying the Terra/Sue stuff at the moment, that's a general set of developments that's got me tuning in and reading the werdz, I wanna see where it ends up, it's a nice little story. That's it, that's my positivity for today, I'm mildly old, tired, and on wednesdays I teach composition to children.

The game sense is real, top tier stuff

As I said last night, there's the implication that the crowd are watching a black screen reading the words. This can't be sidestepped, either you're using OCW as a format to do things (which can be done well), or you're sticking religiously to 'this is a wrestling show where every implication and part of that should be taken seriously', again, can be done well. This, if we are to believe this doesn't have shoot elements (which, I don't, because it does), seems to try and randomly jump between those two philosophies, and it's jarring. Straight up, it isn't a good look that someone vocally against the sit rep, believing it didn't apply to them is on the team that agreed this video was a good idea, along with someone who's expressed vocal frustration about how OCW seems to play fast and loose with whether or not wins and losses matter. For all their faults and teething issues, TWC are a team I love to hate, they've done great stuff, and not consulting them in a video like this was a mistake. I don't even hate the idea in its most abstract form, it makes sense that we should hate the smarmy 'ah yes we do real wrestling' team when OCW is a place where the most entertaining stuff often has nothing to do with wrestling. However, I don't have faith in the craft of this apparent storyline when a key part of the storyline have not been consulted. The reason why this is being read as a discord beef is because this promo is exactly what we've seen over discord for the longest time. TWC vs Sanctum could have had some cheeky winks to the camera, but this, the phrase 'Aisu later joined TWC lol' says it all, it's the same verbiage we've seen on discord. It's baffling to me that people are so shocked that a long, visually uninteresting video that plainly lays out exactly why Sanctum are not 'ducking TWC' is being received badly, when we've seen these words over a similarly black screen in show discussion, say that 'Sanctum isn't ducking TWC, TWC just keep fumbling the bag'. Everyone makes mistakes, not everything can be a gem, and it's a shame that there's seemingly not even an 'alright, yeah, this may have been a bad call, but we're brewing up something', and just an arrogant, outright 'no you don't get it let it play out'. Tiring, honestly. --- Scotty vs Samsin was really solid, felt bad that we were all memeing on it before the bell rang, but they did a very solid job. For me, MOTN was the main event, my heart was in my mouth at times, I did think the taunt was gonna end the match, but yeah, really solid playing from both guys involved, makes me proud to be a semi-established player in the women's division, and that's kind of the best feeling for me to have as a handler, watching a title fight. I'm also really enjoying Ry's spooky shit, I did hope Noimara was a bit spookier, but the flavour's there in her moveset and playing, so I reckon that something great it coming here. Maybe not full Bray Wyatt spoops, but perhaps this opens the door for a more fleshed out character that has this horror as an aesthetic, as a hook, rather than it being their whole deal, I like it. More positive werdz incoming hopefully.

People are really taking this don't come to new york thing seriously

I've been thinking about this since the podcast, and I think they did the kickout because the match can only be ended with the opponent being buried alive. Generally, I imagine this was tricky to do, because with the setup they had, they couldn't have done a flavour burial attempt, so the rules being, in a meta sense, two finishers and then someone is buried alive would have potentially been a bit weird to watch. Equally, a pre-match explanation that it'd be a ceremonial burial after one person was crowned the winner via pinfall might've been even stranger. The only thing I can think of is if the burial portion was an official unofficial addition, 'I'm gonna win the match, and then I'm going to bury you alive', but I'm not sure, even still. For me, it's something I could just accept within the OCW rules, to me it feels weirder for me to try and poke logical holes in it when, as viewers, we all sort of understand the difficulties of doing homebrew rules matches with cinematic portions.

is this an elliot parker

I dunno, I think retiring can easily lead to a boy-who-cried-wolf situation if it's not handled with care. If it's a fake-out retirement, you can really only go to that well once (unless you do a story where you're always retiring but no one will let you or something), and the word does carry more finality than others. Sometimes 'retire' is absolutely the word you need, but other times 'Guys, I need to go away for a while' can carry the same message with a more ominous tone, and there are so many variations to use. To build on John's point, Rust saying 'I'm gonna win the belt and then retire' would've carried a different meaning to 'I'm gonna win the belt and not renew my contract', so while I'm not necessarily against it, it's definitely something that is to be handled with care. Of course, if you don't say 'I retire' on camera, you don't get access to the OCW Retirement Home, and I've heard there are good tacos there. So there's that.

It's always interesting to read, personally, I never see Harri as scared of Furi (after all, Harri has a clean win over her and is declaring herself the true champion already), and navigating the FI in a situation like this is always tricky, if I had brought it out, it felt like it implies I'm gonna use it, Chekhov's Briefcase and all that, so I hoped it'd set a clear context that no, Harri is not gonna use it, and that sets the match in a certain light. I'll most likely start practicing what I preach and tell a slightly clearer version of Harri's story going forward so we all know the score. As for any eventualities, I've absolutely got that covered, no worries there. The werdz on this show are aggressively chonky. The highlights for me were Owen and Doc on page 2, again, Owen's writing is really clear and getting a lot more character to it each time I see it. I really liked the John Carter callback, and Doc/Owen is just a great pairing, it'll be very interesting to see them build this story with what feels like a renewed energy and a new emotion to it. I feel that that is underrated in a lot of writing, having a continuation of a story but with a different thought behind it, rather than just a longer version of one thing. A general story I'm really invested in right now is Quartz seemingly gathering people against Kasstianity, trying to stop them from gaining influence, rather than just win the pixels bruh, it's a nice little flavour for each title challenge to have, and a very interesting dynamic with two heel FI holders about. Everett and Quartz grabbed my attention because of this, and while, I'm not gonna lie, I'd like to see more challengers manned by handlers without a world title history, the timing is perfect for Tony to fight H2O, post Ortiz and with the vs Kasstianity thing happening right now. Scotty X promo, not a highlight, but he's a new guy around, so it's worthwhile to give feedback. I'd love to see more stage directions rather than just monologuing, what is he doing? What does the area he's in look like? When is he calm, when is he intense? Even the simplest promo can be spiced up and made more attractive with description, action, and proper presentation. Love to see the work put in though, just need to hone it and keep on improving. I really enjoyed CG and Wrex, I like the selling that CG is doing in story, the match result and what happened in the match played into it, really great stuff. Maybe it gets a tiny bit sloppy in terms of presentation towards the end, some minor spacing and grammar issues, but that's nitpicking on a really nice written promo, good job, you guys have more up your sleeves and I'm looking forward to reading. Jesus christ, the beat Drago meeting. I had to reread this so many times, it's so packed with insanity, but well worth it, you've got Overlord Mugen, Tony propped up on an iPad, it's just a spectacular mess of everything happening, and it's almost always done well in these segments.

Damn we got to page 2