Starrcade Feedback.
There is plenty of hype about your work, you seem to be pretty highly regarded around here, so I thought I’d check it out. Please keep in mind I have no idea of the background of your thread, so if I miss anything, forgive me. Hopefully the hype is warranted.
Match 1 – Samoa Joe v Umaga.
To begin, props to you for having the guts to do this match. I know a lot of people who don’t want a bar of it because of the regular Samoa Joe/Umaga comparisons. This really is a huge match by all means to kick things off too. One would expect a match of this calibre to be lower on the card. Alright, total confusion already and I’m only in the first line of the match. The first sentence “Samoa Joe has taken by surprise the Samoan Bulldozer, and he starts nailing his opponent with lefts and rights on the outside of the ring.” Read that again, and tell me it makes perfect sense. I had to read it three times to realise that Somoa Joe was on the offensive because it sounded like at first read, that Umaga had made the jump on Joe. Your first paragraph really set the scene for the match and you made it clear just how personal this match is and how physical it would be. On the downside, your spelling and grammar is very ordinary. “Umaga KNOW advances...” “Umaga relentlessly just drops the steel steps over the body of Samoa Joe, THAT screams in pain” I know this sounds petty, but presentation is everything. It is important, in my opinion, for matches to flow and be easy for the readers to, well, read, and with poor spelling and grammar is takes longer to read the match because I see there and go WTF?! Causing me to go back and figure out just what the hell is happening. Your match writing ability is quite good, I like your vast use of adjectives, it certainly adds to the match and is a credit to you. I don’t like that you’re constantly referring to the competitors as “THAT” instead of “WHO” or “WHOM” etc. The flow of the match was quite contrary to be honest, some times it would be very good and other times it would be extremely ordinary - something to be fixed, in my opinion. As the match progressed, it continued as it started – a fight. A very physical encounter indeed, thus why I expected a stronger finish to be honest with you. The fact that such a brutal, physical match ends with a roll up after a competitor went through a table is a little disappointing. I expected a little more to be truthful. The final sentence wasn’t written very well, it made it hard to visualise just what happen because the sentence wasn’t structured very well at all so it made things hard to get a visual on. Never the less, a solid match. Great way to open the show. I notice you don’t make note of how many minutes you match was??? Any particular reason for that?? Do you use a words to minutes ratio at all? Or do you just write?
Match 2 – Sabu & RVD v Christian & MVP
Back to back matches? No promo other than the Turning Point thing? Okay. I mark for RVD and Christian and I hate MVP, so this should be an interesting read. Another ordinary opening in terms of description of the action. One minute RVD and Sabu were attacking “them” then suddenly they were attacking “him”. I know it’s petty, but good descriptions are crucial. Having said that, this match definitely picked up as it went on, it flowed much better than the previous match and you gave all four competitors a solid amount of spotlight, which can be hard with them all legal men at the same time, so props for that. It still had its share of grammar issues, but no where near as much as the first match. You need to be careful in tag matches like this when all four men are in the ring at once with referring to competitors as his “opponent”. When you start a new paragraph, you should reiterate who RVD (for instance) is currently squaring off with because it could be either Cage or MVP. “The BTW Continental Champion is likely to go over the top rope however last minute he catches Sabu fully back to his feet on the outside of the ring and he reacts with a Swanton like maneuver over the ropes and landing Sabu completely on the outside of the ring completely” Another sentence that makes just about zero sense. I literally had to read it 5 or 6 times to figure out what the hell was going on. One minute Christian is thrown out of the ring by RVD but at the last second he manages to halt his momentum then hit a Swanton like move to Sabu on the outside? Is that right, because I really have no idea??? The finish itself, once again, lacked substance and excitement. I was quite disappointed to see RVD take the fall as I thought that dignity might have been reserved for Sabu, but not to be. I’ve never seen MVP hit a drop kick. I’m not going to say he’s never hit one, but I’ve never seen him use it myself and even if he did, I strongly doubt it would be booked as a predecessor move to a finisher. A little more crowd incorporation wouldn’t have gone astray at various stages of this match either to be truthful. Another solid match mate, your ideas are great and the only problems I can find this far are only minute ones albeit crucial ones.
Promo time? Is Orton face or heel? You said the crowd erupted but then Orton abused Borash (a good thing btw, coz he’s a fag) which wouldn’t be a face act. The content of this promo was quite good, Orton’s character was pretty good but again, the grammar and sentence structure was this time, horrible. Examples. “I am sorry, I’m sorry. Forgive Jeremy I’ve, I’ve just been a little off as of late” Shouldn’t it be “Forgive me, Jeremy”? “People said I wouldn’t hold on to it for longer than a week, I prove them wrong.” ” Last week, while my blood was coming down my face, getting into my eyes and mixing with swear” Mixing it with sweaT, perhaps? Also instead of blood “coming” down his face, “streaming” or “pouring” would’ve been much better words. Very much a hit and miss promo, I enjoyed the content but I didn’t like the errors and it was a little generic, but that’s just Orton as a face (which I’ve concluded him to be).
Match 3 – CM Punk v Edge
My two (alive) favourites. I love seeing these two in the same ring. Another big match early on the card, good stuff. Having said that, I really have no idea what matches are on the card! I’m coming into this completely blind. Lol. On a side note, I like your graphics, do you make them yourself?????? A pleasant change from the earlier matches, this one kicked off very smoothly. Your descriptive word choices were very good, and you created a clear picture as to what was going down. Edge going for a Spear early on is questionable, although it does portray his character well (hence, being desperate end the match as quickly as possible). This match certainly is a step above the other two as I read on. The standard of writing is at a higher level. Punk kicking out of the Spear is HUGE and does big things for him however, after reading that I now think he’ll definitely lose because there’s no way Punk would kick out of Edge’s Spear then put him away... unless you’re burying the Rated R Superstar, of course. Can I recommend using CAPITALS (or maybe even BOLD) to add emphasis to major points in the match. Two prime examples: 1. “CM Punk springboards and flies across the ring looking to connect his opponent, however out of nowhere he is caught in mid air buy an impressive looking Spear” Whilst worded appropriately, you SHOULD be putting much more emphasis on a spot like this, because it is big, potentially a MAJOR turning point. “CM Punk springboards off top rope and flies towards his opponent, looking to connect with the a clothesline, however he is caught off guard with an IMPRESSIVE MID-AIR SPEAR OUT OF NO WHERE TO A MASSIVE POP!” 2. “Edge makes the cover being able to hook one leg: 1…2…, CM Punk somehow is able to get one shoulder up.” That’s kinda meh, it would be much better presented (and worded) like this – “Edge makes the cover, hooking the far leg of CM Punk, 1... 2... PUNK SOMEHOW MANAGES TO GET A SHOULDER UP TO A HUGE POP FROM THE CROWD!” If you emphasis more phases of the match, you will add much more tension and excitement in my opinion. The finish was great. Punk looked excellent, hoisting Edge up in the Firemans Carry and looking certain to hit the GTS only to fall victim to a second spear, he isn’t weakened by that at all and he still looks quite strong. Really well booked, but once again, if you’d emphasised the final exchange a little bit, it would’ve been even better. Match of the night thus far.
Another hit and miss. Henry was horrible but Hassan was okay. Can’t blame you for hyping the match between ‘Taker and Hassan more though and this thing with Henry seemingly adds a little more tension to it.
Match 4 – Chavo Guerrero v Teddy Hart
To the untrained eye in this thread (ie. Mine), this looks very much like a filler PPV match but it seems it has quite the personal feel to it and is of some importance, so it sounds like you’ve had a good build for this one. Teddie Guerrero... that’s brilliant. I love it. Another solid match up, the matches are getting better as we progress further into the show. You’ve incorporated some solid cruiserweight style moves as well as using a lot of Eddie Guerrero’s move set, which is nice too. Wow. Teddy losing after he beat Chris Jericho is huge, especially for Chavo. Gives him a big rub. The finish was disappointing, a match like this needs to end by something other than a roll up. If Teddy Hart is losing (which he did), the match, for mine, needs a conclusive finish. This sort of finish screams at me “rematch”, which in this instance is supposed to be impossible. After seeing the build, and knowing that Hart has beaten Jericho, this decision to put Chavo over seems like a bit of a waste of Hart’s momentum that he seemed to be building. Hart could’ve won and then you could’ve put on an even more personal rematch with some sort of gimmick. Solid match though, your grammar was still average however.
WHAT?! Why are we waiting for more matches??? Please tell me there isn’t a limit on the number of characters that can be posted in a single post? That would suck. I hope you’re just building to the next bit, unless the forum forces you to break up your post and does indeed have a character limit, I hate that you’re posting this is two (or more?) parts.
I’ll try and get some feedback up for the next lot of matches, as there’s a couple of big ones. Sapp v Lesnar v Goldberg is destined to be a slugfest.