Review #7 – Universal Wrestling League – Double Show Review! (Part 1 of 2)

Name of Fed: Universal Wrestling League
Type of Fed: Independent
Name of Results: Only The Strong Survive & All Star Spectacular
Date of Show: 25th February 2011
Show Type: PPV

Link To Results: http://uwlonline07.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=supercardresults&action=display&thread=12960

So…here we are again, review #7 and a few things, as you can probably tell, have changed. First of all, I’m proud to announcewww.efedreviews.com as our main base for operations and this is the first review I have personally done on these boards but already there have been several great reviews posted by new reviewer LOH and existing reviewer Jer. I am grateful to these for the hard work they put in and am glad to see the boards coming to life even if it is a slow process.

On with the statistics. Last week as absolutely fantastic and it’s encouraging to see the wordpress site still gathering steam. Today alone (on day of posting new review), we are sat at 9 views and overall, across the two weeks, we totalled 149, with 59 of these coming in ON the day the Fast Action Grappling review was posted. Of these, Roughkut remained our most loyal base of readers, and CWC remained our second most loyal. A few came from Fast Action Grappling itself, but more came from resource sites which I am happy about.

So on with the review itself. This week is the turn of Universal Wrestling League. I’ve not heard of this promotion prior to this review which is actually a good portion of what efedreviews is all about – exposing feds that haven’t had as much exposure yet. The fed, I am assuming due to the double card, is an independent, or rising sized promotion and according to the requester of the review, once a year, holds a “double shot” PPV, doing one show on one day and another on the next.

That’s one hell of a lot of work and I hope I’m not in for a novel sized reading here. I would hate these to be spoilt by having 2 huge shows, rather it should be two smaller shows I feel with an emphasis on the actual action.

I‘m going to start with Only the Strong Survive, the first of the two shows, and I want to say this now – the name of the show itself is fantastic.

There’s no flower or hype to this show. It’s purely straight in. Actually for a Pay Per View, maybe I’ve grown to expect it but a bit of hype works well. Rather, we leap immediately into commentary then straight into a segment which almost kills the mood of the “big night atmosphere.”

The segment we kick into seems to be by a power group (Just how many of these are in efedding now anyway? There’s at LEAST 1-2 per every fed…) and actually…I’m compelled from the off. The character Stanton seems to have a southern drawl from the dialect used and actually I love to see characters with dialect, it adds to the character. That’s not an opinion, it’s a fact; it stops the character being the SAME as everyone else which is great.

Commentary is well placed in the seg, breaking up what would be heavy blocks of speech with well placed quips and one line sentences though I feel immediately the characters on commentary are a little bland and characterless. The segment itself goes on to talk about various matches throughout the two events, showing they are indeed linked, which is a great move.

As we switch to The Debonair, I feel a little less compelled by the character. In my mind, Stanton is easier to follow (see dialect) as Debonair honestly sounds like something I’ve seen over and over.

I was right with the theory of there being at least 2 power groups it would seem as another is made clear by Sharp who is…apparently heel. So let me get this straight. Main event of night two is a heel v heel…oh dear. I sense a problem. But wait. There’s ANOTHER faction. SERIOUSLY NOW let me ask this. This is the second fed I’ve seen this with. From what I’m reading, we have 3 groups. War Machine, Mainstream and 3. This causes a problem for me; That right there is 9 roster members. Pretty much ALL of them are guaranteed to be heel as you can’t have a “good” faction. So thats 9 HEEL persona’s going at one another…

WHY do feds find it a necessity to push these groups? Why do people find it SO “good” to join or create a faction or stable? If anything it hinders storyline enhancement and if current real programming is ANYTHING to go by, surely if there’s to be A group, there should JUST be one. We’ve tried multiple at any one time and NONE of the members end up getting over. Reason? The storylines get BORING…and true to efedding, the very moment we end up with more than one power group…it becomes boring.

The BEST faction storylines are when it involves ONE face character and ONE faction. Eventually friends of the face character help, the rest of the locker room get sick of seeing the selfish acts, everyone bands together and EVENTUALLY the faction is forced into ending – or the faction implodes by the end of the angle. Faction angles are only good when the faction SPLITS. Not during. So having three groups makes little to no sense. Having two heel factions makes no sense. Stick to ONE. Just the one.

So booking rant over, I can go back to the show. Finally the segment ends, and it…well is quite a long segment to say the least, one of the longest I’ve ever seen in a show like this.

Suddenly though the formatting does something I dislike. The writer decides it’s a good idea to use a post break…and posts the next match in a separate post. IMMEDIATELY this KILLS any flow. Flow is a MAJOR sticking point for me and I feel like I actually don’t know what I’m getting into. There’s NO reason for separating the posts other than bumping post counts…I don’t agree with it, I hate flow ruiners like this.

So here we go with the first match. Ryan Andrews vs Heath Savage. Commentary does a good job to begin with and short, sharp entrances are well received.

The first paragraph of action is done well. It’s a slow, methodical pacing to the introduction of the match that works well. My only feel is that I’m expecting to see a pin at the end of every paragraph and it’ll go to a two count more often than not. So early on, 2 counts aren’t good. The psychology of a match screams for a couple of easy kick outs before the action truly begins. Commentary again seems forced and generic. Yes it tells the story well but there’s limited viability if I’m not “excited” by what they say.

In the next paragraph…Savage pulls not one, but two piledrivers on his opponent. I expected the other character to be dead or have his neck broken but…no. He kicks out. Sorry but…a part of this game IS realizm. I’ve been slammed for this in other reviews…the whole “but it’s not real” argument. We do this to EMULATE real life situation, to pretend to be wrestlers…or highly paid soap opera stars, depending on what you want to call it.

It’s no surprise that the opponent actually gets in NO offence whatsoever in the match. This is for all intensive purposes a squash match and I figure it was written out to not “upset” the other RPer. Honestly, he knew he was getting a win. Don’t draw it out, give him the W and move on. All you’ve done is dragged out results here and it’s a waste of space.

NEW POST.

I felt like doing that to highlight the fact that we’re probably going onto the next segment now. Just as per the previous posts have separated, we’re likely to be on a new post.

Yes, yes we are. This post is the whole of 13 lines long and ruins the flow once again. I would MUCH rather see a segway into this from commentary but there is nothing. It’s winner of the match then seg.

So up next, after another post, is a fatal four way.

What confuses me is this; I get a LOT of people when requesting reviews, saying that their show is the end to all their rivalries and is the end of stories and they want to see how they did. This was one of those requests…yet I ACTUALLY DON’T see a story at all in EITHER match so far. Maybe I’m looking too hard but right now I’m seeing random pairings and there’s no REAL storytelling to the matches. Matches are only as good as the story they tell. Get the characters involved more, show off more of the gimmicks. Don’t just list move after move; which is what the matches ACTUALLY do in UWL. Constantly I’m reading move after move. Yes, it’s a good flow of moves and this fatal four way is NO different whatsoever. However you may well think you’re doing well by listing move after move in your roster’s move set and maybe even creating some of your own…but you’re not. There’s NOTHING new in doing this, what you NEED to look at doing (and this goes for any fed, not just UWL as I’m yet to see many do it…FAG broke the ground for me on this) is having characters be INVOLVED.

Show expression on their faces. We can’t see it so explain it.
Have heels scream at the crowd.
Have faces pander.
Get the crowd as involved.

THIS sort of stuff tells the story…otherwise all it is is a collection of moves.

As the win is gained in the four way, I find myself thinking back to a previous review. I think it was APW’s Survive and Conquer where I said about excitement. APW did it the wrong way in that they spaced everything out hugely but UWL don’t space it enough. At the end of matches, ESPECIALLY multi person matches you NEED to have commentary build it up. Simple things like between the 1 and 2…”Moxie’s got it…” then add between the 2 and the 3 someone trying to get back to break it up and commentary eating it up…it works. Seriously.

So next we have an RP…no wait. Segment. Sorry. It’s a pretty long interview section but it DOES tell the story of the main event well. This is the first I’ve really seen of anything to do with the main event…there was no preamble or hype about it in the intro so I wasn’t aware of ANYTHING to do with the match until now.

As we head into the next match there is an unholy long entrance and I start to wonder if there ARE any faces in this fed. Nonetheless, we continue and again I see a string of moves. Overall the psychology is nice in as far as the actual moves that are being done but there’s a lack of emotion felt in the match. For instance…

Chris steps through the ropes. He stands on the ring apron. Chris moves up to the top rope. He jumps off with an Asai moonsault, but Stephen moves out of the way. Chris lays on the floor, as the fans gasp in shock.

First this is found RIGHT at the end of the FIRST paragraph in the match. The match leaps from great psychology to this.

Now…we can do 2 things with this INSTANTLY to make it a bit better…

Chris steps throw the ropes, the crowd actually unsure of whether to cheer or boo. Standing on the ring apron he takes a look at the turnbuckle and smiles, before pointing towards it, riling the crowd further. 

Barry Sharpe: Where the hell is he going?

Fred Overstreet: High risk land Barry, high risk…and it could pay…

Barry Sharpe: MY GOD, WHAT A MOONSAUL…JESUS! NO! NO!

Fred Overstreet: He…HE MISSED!

So what did I do? First of all, I added crowd emotion. He’s heel, right? Well a top rope move is GOING to earn their respect regardless. So thats #1. #2, commentary. I rabbit on about it but LOOK at the emotion it added. Suddenly the match has meaning. It MATTERS that he missed. Instead…the commentators in this laugh it off almost.

Barry Sharpe: I didn’t see that coming!

Fred Overstreet: Stephen Callaway saw it!

Barry Sharpe: You can say that again!

A move like that COULD end a career. It would DEFINITELY shorten a career. You can’t get away with that sort of thing and if you want to maintain a sort of realism to the fed then ACTUALLY think about things like this.

What I do like though is the matches don’t feel overly too long. This IS a good feature of UWL, that the matches seem a fair length but not too long. I can sit through and read them but I don’t feel emotionally attached which is what KEEPS you reading. That’s the downfall.

The next segment sees a medical office with the man who got attacked earlier in the show. I wish handlers would show more emotion with their characters in segs, either that or write them themselves and not let the fedhead do it. One of the two has happened here and I don’t know which, but either way, the segment lacks emotion.

Then wait for it.

I‘ve seen in feds…people have copied and pasted things in and not edited. This, below, is a CLEAR example of this.

The drums start as Thaurer steps out the curtain, a big smile on his face. He panders to the crowd as he performs his famous ‘T’ pose (think Raven).

First of all we reference a former WWF/ECW/TNA guy. Not really good when we’re trying to describe things. Second of all…THAT actually made it into the results. The simple rewrite of this is “He THROWS his arms out wide standing perfectly still as he does so, the crowd cheering loudly.”

Again this match between Robbie Venom and Thaurer starts well but degrades quickly. First of all…this happens.

He whips Thaurer into the ropes. Thaurer hits off the ropes. Robbie grabs him, turns throwing Thaurer down with a spinebuster. 

Barry Sharpe: Robbie throws Thaurer down hard with a spinebuster.

The commentary wasn’t necessary. Why not amp up the move a bit? Make it seem MORE exciting?

This is the problem with the WHOLE show. It’s GREAT in places. A few segments shine, the STARTS to the match are great but from the starts we slip instantly. And I know, “It’s not real”, but my aim when I write results is to write them as if they ARE a real event and…sorry but this feels…thrown together.

This feels like the results weren’t worked on in places, like they were pounded together. There’s little to no flow. There’s just sections of a piece your own together show. I could take one part and move it anywhere and it wouldn’t matter. There’s no excitement, no build up…and I’m meant to believe that this is a show that culminates several feuds? Then SHOW me.

Show the readers why this is worthy of them reading further than match #1. I struggled. Truth be told, what USUALLY takes me an hour to get through, took me 3. Not because it was hard to read or badly structured (which in places it is), but rather because I went off and did OTHER things for a good two hours. I couldn’t sit and read it…and if you want honest feedback, which this is intended to be…then this is me telling the owners of UWL that as a set of results go, I felt uninspired.

During the Faction wars in 6CW…I felt a bit excited at least. During Survive and Conquer, I WANTED to read that match, it excited me. During a lot of results I WANT to read on…but with this, I’ve reached a point where I don’t know if I CAN.

But none the less, I’ll try. I will try.

So as I get further into the match between Thaurer and Robbie, I find another pet hate. Laziness.

Let me explain.

but Thaurer moves towards him, and hits him with the Guyliner (Lariat).

Seriously. JUST WRITE the move out. “Hits him with a HARD lariat, flooring him” isn’t hard to write, then follow it up with commentary, explaining the move. Again, the brackets ruin flow. I had this problem with APW and I’m having it again here. It reeks of laziness and honestly…it doesn’t take much more, yet it adds so much more to write the move out properly.

Again, as the match comes toward an end there’s little emotion. A bit more than other matches but still not much and the end of the match could use some following up. The slapped handshake could use some disgusted commentary to make it work a bit better.

I feel now like…I could say the same again in the next match between Debonair and Callaway. I won’t though. There’s no point, it would be redundant, all I will say is again, a match that lacks excitement and enthusiasm. I’m sorry if I’m lacking too here at this point but I don’t see a point in repeating myself.

As I work my way down the card, I do find less and less segments. WHY the matches aren’t linked with commentary is beyond me but I do like less segments on a “super show”. It’s always a better way to go.

Working forward, it’s main event time. Yes, I know…there’s a few matches between but honestly I felt I would skip the redundant matter, which would have been me ripping into the results some more about the same old stuff. The match does much of the same, even ending on a flip tombstone piledriver, as if it’s a NORMAL move. It may be the guys finisher but…yeah. Still. Deadly.

My issue with UWL really isn’t the actual match writing.
It’s just the raw lack of emotion. The commentary is flat. The matches are flat. It’s all a monotone and while it’s all pretty well written and while there’s a lot of time gone in…it starts to feel more like quantity over quality. The results therefore grow tiresome and already I’m worried about having to do a second part to this review as I KNOW what my feeling will be on it already.

Due to this being a 2 part review, I WON’T be scoring it as of yet. I’ll do that at the end of part 2.

So until then, please join up to the efedreviews community, post up your feelings about the review thus far and feel free to request a review from one of our talented reviewers.

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