So, it is about time I actually set about doing another one of these after not being able to properly commit to a BTB in what has been about three years and this project will be my first time doing this over here on WS. I’ll be up front that the FWA is my priority when it comes to wrestling writing (and I’d implore all of you to check it out), but booking is something that I have done before I even knew what a wrestling forum was. Yep, I was that kid that ran and watched simulated matches on old wrestling games and I created my own little stories from there.
I began writing BTBs in 2010, when I was fifteen years old. I had a few non-starters at the beginning but by the time mid-2011 rolled on by I settled into a WWE 2011 thread which I worked on for on and off over five years across two forums, which amounted to almost six months in booking time. Looking back, it was a fun project to do, but adult me would have done things a lot differently and would have made better use of the greater amount of free time I had back then before getting a job, getting married and having a child.
That project is by far the biggest I have ever worked on and any subsequent attempt after that never got as far. I had some success with a couple of single-wrestler oriented BTBs on WC - first centred around Cesaro and then Ric Flair. The Cesaro one being the project which won me my first and only BTBOTM award.
The long and short of it is that I’ve never been able to make something stick. Deciding on a new project was difficult, because I seem to be gravitated towards certain periods of time where I think things that were done in real life could have just been done better. I’ve plotted out ideas for rebooking the Invasion, The Nexus, Jinder Mahal as WWE Champion. Fixing things where I felt they were broken is the kind of thing that I want to write. Chiefly, because once I’ve done what I feel I need to do to correct the course, I can move onto something else.
That is the goal for this project. I do not expect it to be a long one in terms of length of time booked, but it may be a while in real time before I get there. Who knows?
As for what this project will be about? Well, I’ve already given a few examples of things that I think could have been done better (or not at all in Jinder’s case) but deciding on what I would tackle first was difficult. I had to think back and consider what I had experienced in my fandom that was so egregiously bad in my eyes that I feel like I need to rectify it?
For all of the “What if?’s” and the “This should have never happened!’s”, there is one thing which stands out above everything else to me. For me, that is the end of Total Non-Stop Action Wrestling being a viable competitor to the WWE.
I began to watch wrestling regularly in around late 2003, I’d say. I do not recall much of what happened back then from memory (of course I have since supplemented my knowledge), but I watched WWE as much as I could from then. I was a WWE Experience guy because we couldn’t afford Sky Sports when I was younger… but then one day in 2005, I was flicking through the channels we did have access to and I found out for the first time that the WWE was not the only wrestling company in the world. On that very day, I discovered TNA.
So, my attention began to shift. Don’t get me wrong, for the rest of 2005 and the entirety of 2006, I was enjoying what was to me, the best era of WWE I can recall watching. But from 2007 onwards… I was a TNA guy. I watched it every week, recorded all of the PPVs and saved them on Sky Plus and watched them as many times as I could. I was obsessed.
I continued to follow TNA regularly for the next couple of years, watching as I perceived the product to be growing with the introduction of more and more names I recognised from WWE. I truly believed that even with the slew of ex-WWE guys coming in, TNA had the right mix and still gave enough focus to their originals so that they had the perfect balance to become a true competitor to the WWE, especially as Raw in 2009 was the drizzliest of all of the drizzling shits with the guest hosts, DX-Lite and Hornswoggle vs Chavo.
Then, in late 2009… something changed for me. A new force arrived in TNA with Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff entering the company and immediately making changes which turned TNA from the alternative to the WWE to well, the joke it became for many years afterwards. Sure, people liked the Hogan-era of TNA, but I was not one of them. The abrupt changes to things which set TNA apart made me fall out of love with the company very quickly. Gone were the exciting matches and focus on building the stars to the future and coming in were the likes of Val Venis, Orlando Jordan and the Nasty Boys. They even changed the iconic ring!
By early 2010, I was right back on that WWE train and I managed to find enjoyment where I could not before because I knew what the alternative had become. I didn’t know any indies or how to watch them.
Sure, I checked into TNA every now and again for the next few years after I had defected back to the WWE, but it seemed that every single thing in this company revolved around one man.
And well… that doesn’t work for me, brother.
I began writing BTBs in 2010, when I was fifteen years old. I had a few non-starters at the beginning but by the time mid-2011 rolled on by I settled into a WWE 2011 thread which I worked on for on and off over five years across two forums, which amounted to almost six months in booking time. Looking back, it was a fun project to do, but adult me would have done things a lot differently and would have made better use of the greater amount of free time I had back then before getting a job, getting married and having a child.
That project is by far the biggest I have ever worked on and any subsequent attempt after that never got as far. I had some success with a couple of single-wrestler oriented BTBs on WC - first centred around Cesaro and then Ric Flair. The Cesaro one being the project which won me my first and only BTBOTM award.
The long and short of it is that I’ve never been able to make something stick. Deciding on a new project was difficult, because I seem to be gravitated towards certain periods of time where I think things that were done in real life could have just been done better. I’ve plotted out ideas for rebooking the Invasion, The Nexus, Jinder Mahal as WWE Champion. Fixing things where I felt they were broken is the kind of thing that I want to write. Chiefly, because once I’ve done what I feel I need to do to correct the course, I can move onto something else.
That is the goal for this project. I do not expect it to be a long one in terms of length of time booked, but it may be a while in real time before I get there. Who knows?
As for what this project will be about? Well, I’ve already given a few examples of things that I think could have been done better (or not at all in Jinder’s case) but deciding on what I would tackle first was difficult. I had to think back and consider what I had experienced in my fandom that was so egregiously bad in my eyes that I feel like I need to rectify it?
For all of the “What if?’s” and the “This should have never happened!’s”, there is one thing which stands out above everything else to me. For me, that is the end of Total Non-Stop Action Wrestling being a viable competitor to the WWE.
I began to watch wrestling regularly in around late 2003, I’d say. I do not recall much of what happened back then from memory (of course I have since supplemented my knowledge), but I watched WWE as much as I could from then. I was a WWE Experience guy because we couldn’t afford Sky Sports when I was younger… but then one day in 2005, I was flicking through the channels we did have access to and I found out for the first time that the WWE was not the only wrestling company in the world. On that very day, I discovered TNA.
So, my attention began to shift. Don’t get me wrong, for the rest of 2005 and the entirety of 2006, I was enjoying what was to me, the best era of WWE I can recall watching. But from 2007 onwards… I was a TNA guy. I watched it every week, recorded all of the PPVs and saved them on Sky Plus and watched them as many times as I could. I was obsessed.
I continued to follow TNA regularly for the next couple of years, watching as I perceived the product to be growing with the introduction of more and more names I recognised from WWE. I truly believed that even with the slew of ex-WWE guys coming in, TNA had the right mix and still gave enough focus to their originals so that they had the perfect balance to become a true competitor to the WWE, especially as Raw in 2009 was the drizzliest of all of the drizzling shits with the guest hosts, DX-Lite and Hornswoggle vs Chavo.
Then, in late 2009… something changed for me. A new force arrived in TNA with Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff entering the company and immediately making changes which turned TNA from the alternative to the WWE to well, the joke it became for many years afterwards. Sure, people liked the Hogan-era of TNA, but I was not one of them. The abrupt changes to things which set TNA apart made me fall out of love with the company very quickly. Gone were the exciting matches and focus on building the stars to the future and coming in were the likes of Val Venis, Orlando Jordan and the Nasty Boys. They even changed the iconic ring!
By early 2010, I was right back on that WWE train and I managed to find enjoyment where I could not before because I knew what the alternative had become. I didn’t know any indies or how to watch them.
Sure, I checked into TNA every now and again for the next few years after I had defected back to the WWE, but it seemed that every single thing in this company revolved around one man.
And well… that doesn’t work for me, brother.
