GCL Finals Feedback Thread

[Damien]

Alright guys it’s that time again, you know, the one where Justin and Jeff ask for feedback, two people say something as unhelpful as “I liked it”, one person gives back something constructive and the rest of us sit there in silence because we’re all lazy fucks.

That time.

Well, I’m going to get the ball rolling this time, purely so as I’m not accused of being a lazy fuck.

I guess I’ll also be doing this in part because Jeff stayed up until 6am to get the show out. I’ll try to ignore any ordering problems based on that simple fact.

I’m going to give you fair warning. Here be spoilers. Also, here be my actual thoughts as I read the show for the first time. I don’t know what’s going to happen, I don’t know any bar 2 of the results. I’m not going to hold back, if there’s something I like I’ll let you know, if there’s something I don’t, guess what?

Correct, I’ll let you know.

Just so you know, I’ll be going through the show segment by segment noting my thoughts as they come to me. But I’ll start with some pre show thoughts:

Before Reading:
I’ve been waiting for this for fucking ever. I know Sandy happened and that fucking sucks for a lot of our handlers and friends, but the RP period for this show ended two weeks before Sandy, didn’t it? Couldn’t we have gotten our shit together a fuck lot sooner so that this delay never happened?

Either way, I hope it’s worth the wait. We’ve been building to this exact show for over a year now. Ever since Justin came to me on AIM and said “A points based league where everything is fast and furious.”

Well, it’s not really been fast and furious, and the points were more of a headache than anyone could have imagined, but it’s been fun I think. We’ve seen fantastic work from most people, we’ve seen no work from some people, and we’ve seen over 40 characters come and go over the season.

I’m going to congratulate the finalists right now on making it to the final 4. I know I’m included in that list, but I’ll still give myself a pat on the back. I’m glad I made the final four, and of course I want to win the whole thing, but if I don’t, if I don’t even make the final, I’m pleased to still be in the running at the close.

Opening Segment:
Nice way to briefly recap the final 4’s time in the league and let people who might be reading their first Defiance show who exactly are still competing. Reminds me a little of TNA’s opening videos with their usual voiceover guy.

Opening Commentary:
Run down of the matches for the show, pretty standard stuff. Not sure what to say about this.

Dentari/Christenson:
- Match starts exactly how I’d imagine, with Dentari wanting to beat the everloving crap out of Heidi. This thing couldn’t start as a wrestling match, that just wouldn’t have made sense.
- I never thought how difficult it would be for anyone to write a match with the gorillas at ringside without actually naming them. I mean, they have names, but I’ve not given that information to anyone yet. I was planning on properly introducing them at 3.0 ep 1, but we’ll see what happens.
- Gorillas getting involved, nice. Win by countout? Nice.
-Heidi getting back in the ring? Not nice.
- If Dentari isn’t going to retaliate to these low blows with a cunt-punt then I don’t know what’s going to happen.
- Dentari hits his finisher, covers, and pulls Heidi up? 1) Does this tournament mean nothing to him? 2) I don’t like what that foreshadows.
- Oh, Dentari’s MDK finisher, awesome. I’ll take my place in the winner’s circle now, shall I?
- Oh...
- I knew I didn’t like where that was going.

- Right now Dentari should be kicking Mark Shields’ head off of his shoulders, then all the way up the ramp like a soccer ball. Instead he’s asking for a replay?
- Didn’t the bell ring? Wasn’t the match over? How could Dentari be disqualified when the match wasn’t actually happening? I seem to remember something a little similar to this (although very different) between Cena/Miz/Rock at Wrestlemania 27, where the match was restarted after The Rock gave Cena a Rock Bottom. Something big has GOT to happen with Shields here to make this make more sense.

Congratulations to Renee. I’m not going to lie, I thought I’d done enough to make the final, Maybe not win the whole thing, but make the final at least. I’m a lot more disappointed than I thought I’d be, but then again, I now know that I’m not going to win something I’ve worked for for over a year. I’d love to know what you guys thought of my RPs or if there was a particular reason why I didn’t make it to the final.

STJ/Sawyer Seg:
- I’ll ignore the formatting errors.
- I know a segment that’s coming up later that makes me hella excited for the Sawyer/Turner combo.
- If Chris didn’t write STJ for this then I wouldn’t know. I know Chris has been out of action for several reasons lately, which is why I question it. I chuckled a couple of times, especially at the “Uh, I gots no clue whatcha jus said. I thank ya said ya wants me ta help ya fight tha bad, but, uh, I ain't sure. If'n ya does needs some help ta fight bad peoples, I'll help ya.” Line. I could just picture the entire arena sitting there in silence trying to work out what STJ said.

Borchard/Sullivan:
- I wrote this match. Borchard is fun to write as well. Maybe it’s because I could get away with just having him slam the crap out of James ‘No Show’ Sullivan.

Dewey/Sawyer Seg:
- I had a hand in this, but Kevin did the leg work. Dude is such an asset to any fed and I’m glad he’s back here.

Laliberte/Barton:
- I like Christopher Barton’s micro because he has a beard. Micros with beards look completely different to those that don’t.
- A quick win from Barton, not much to note from the match, but I enjoyed the little post match beat down. And when I say beat down I mean German into the turnbuckle.

Moral Majority Segment:
- Let me preface this by saying I love Bronson Box.
- She’s not been around long but I like this Quell woman. She comes across as a bit like Bronson Box, only more feminine and probably a little more socially adjusted.
- I can just imagine Box and Quell going at it like Simon and that chick in Die Hard With A Vengeance. I don’t really want to, but I can.
- Awesome end.


Goldman Pleads to Evo Seg:
- Dentari had better not help Heidi. As god is my witness if Dentari lifts a finger to help anyone but himself in the final I’ll... Well, I won’t quit, but I’ll be really, really pissy for the next... however long until the next show comes out.
- Until last week Heidi was going to completely fuck up Goldman’s chances of winning this. I’d have thought this segment would make a lot more sense if Heidi wasn’t there and Goldman was just telling everyone on Evo that he wants her to win.
- Maybe it’s just me wanting to give Alceo the spotlight, but I’d have had Dentari make a dramatic entrance half way through, make someone stop talking when he enters. That’d have had a lot more effect than just having him standing around in the same room with the woman that just cheated him out of the final and the man that he’e been having serious problems with for the last few weeks.

Moral Majority/Sloan and Penn:
- Does Quimbey sound like Howard Finkle? Because that’s how I reads him.
- We like altering matches half way through these days don’t we? The WarGames teams, this one... Ok, so there’s been two, but still...
- I’m looking forward to seeing more from Evan in regards to Quell.
- This match, despite only being a trios match for a limited time, shows me that we’re going to have one hell of a trios division on the reboot. With MM, Sloan/Penn/Burke, Dentari and his guys to name a few.

Moral Majority/Sloan and Penn:
- Wait, what?

Light/St Sure:
- Last time we saw these two go at it, it was fantastic. I’m not expecting that kind of match again, especially as this is just the middle of the show. And that’s nothing about the writer’s ability, more I’d imagine them being told, “don’t kill yourself over it.”
- I don’t know what to say about this one. It’s solidly written, but...
- And there’s the finish, Kort and Jones making sure Light and St. Sure aren’t 100% for the final.

I was fully expecting this match to have a winner. But I thought it would be the person that ultimately didn’t win the final. It kind of makes me question ‘why have the match, why not just have them both attacked backstage?’

Post Match Shenanigans:
- Ok, I can buy Dentari attacking Light and St. Sure. I won’t complain about that.
- So many people so quickly!
-Wait, Heidi attacks Kort? Wasn’t he out there to help her by attacking Light and St. Sure? I know they’ve had their problems, but is Heidi mental?

Oh, again..:

Cancer Jiles/Dragon Jones:
- Ok, I’m at work right now and I’m getting behind. I’m going to skip this match because I can see it’s fucking long, but I’ll come back to it later tonight.

Jiles/Raptop Seg:
- Cancer Jiles is going bye byes. Does that mean he’ll play a major part in the final? It usually does on a wrestling show.

White/Kort:
- So, wait, did Kort get KTFO by Heidi not that long ago or not?
- I’ve been waiting for Eddy White pay somebody to fight for him. It’s a shame I don’t know who this is that he’s brought in.
- I’m missing the commentary in this one. I never thought that it would stand out so soon, but it has.
- White takes the fall in fitting fashion. The show so far is coming off a little overbooked, kind of like a TNA PPV. There’s not been many clear cut, clean finishes. Especially not in the ‘BIG’ matches.

I really, really hope the final ends clean.

Buy Our Shit:
- If I was in advertising I’d tell it like it is. “The new McDonalds burger, it goes in your face and comes out your ass an hour later.” I’d still buy that shit.

Sawyer/YAZ:
- I wrote this and I like this.

Sawyer/YAZ:
- I know I said I like this, but I didn’t need to read it twice.

The Final:
- Same deal as Jiles/Jones here. I promise I’ll read and properly feedback later tonight. Right now I’m going to skip to the end because I need to know who wins.

Congratulations Brian.

I’ll be honest, the right person won this thing. Brian does a fantastic job writing Light and he thoroughly deserves the title.

Dane/Goldman:
- I don’t think I should read this without reading the final. I spotted Dentari’s name while scrolling through the final which makes me think I really need to read that before this. Promise, I’ll do that tonight as well.

I will say though, that I’ve read the very, very end, and... well... I’m not entirely happy with it.

This event should have ended with Christian Light, hands raised in victory. Not unconscious on the mat as the person that he pinned holds their hands up. That’s just taking a squat over everything that 30+ handlers have worked for over the last year and shitting right on it.

Ok, it might not be quite that bad, but that’s my initial feelings.

Also, Christian Light should be World Champion right now. That’s what the ultimate prize should have been. The moniker of Master of Wrestling as well as being crowned the world champion.

All in all, the show was good. Over booked at times, confusing at others, but good none the less. There’s plenty of questions that need answering on 3.0 and loads of people that are going to have to settle into the card somewhere now that we’re headed back to a clear hierarchical system with an upper, mid and lower card. And we’re fucking stacked with Brian, Renee, Kevin, Lee, Evan and many, many more that could viably at any point be placed in the main event picture.

I think that was part of the reason I was looking forward to this show so much. Because it signalled the end of the league and the beginning of Def 3.0, which should be completely, 100% amazing.

 

[Evan H.]

Virginia's debut was so dope they had to write that shit TWICE, son...

After some polish and transitions this will be a great show. But the post main event shenanigans? Epic.

The new season is going to be stable war-rific.

 

[The God-Beast]

Awwwwww, man.

You guys put in such fantastic work. I'm sorry I couldn't see it through with you.

Errors aside (which have already been established as being due to complications from the storm and Jeff working himself to fatigue), everything on this show delivered. Brian worked his ass off since he joined up with DEF and deserves the win more than anybody.

While I, on paper, agree with Damien that maybe the show should have ended with Christian Light, the complete victor, in his glory, I love how the final segment set the pace for DEF 3.0. Goldman formally given his send off courtesy of being massacred and betrayed by his hired gun, and the establishment of a new Big Bad in the form of [READ THE DAMN CARD!], and already the pace is set for DEF 3.0.

Probably the best card DEF's had top-to-bottom since the Season 3 finale in 1.0. Excellent job.

 

[JBorchard]

oirst, apologies if I spoil anything, but since I'm giving my feedback after Damien I'm sure everybody knows to not read this before the results. -nods- Also, if I fail to mention something, its an oversight there was tons of noteworthy things to feedback on and I'm not trying to novel. haha

Nice introduction, and thank you for that. A lot has happened in this shin-dig and that recap was a nice touch.

I want to put this out here now. Based on pure storyline and likeability, Tom Sawyer was the MVP of the Finale. I'm excited to see his war against the storm progress. I also love the fact that he picked two characters that are gaining as much momentum as he is in Turner Jr. and Eugene. Sawyer was all over the place, which is pretty much what ya get with him. It's no secret that Sawyer is in my fave five, bruddah. All those segs crept and slept in my noggin. Staying power.

Speaking of staying power, Alceo v. Heidi shocked me a little. I knew it would be EXTREMELY close, but I believed that tiny little Mafia guy pulled it off. That opening match was actually 'Match Of The Night' in my book. There might have been a few too many false-hopes and too much of Chuckles & Knuckles in the goonseats. That got a little tiring, with the name switches but thats only minor nits. The bout was fantastic, I thought.

Borchard v. Sullivan was a little disappointing, not by matchwriting standards but by sheer want to outduel. Damien wrote Borchard very well. I wishBarton/Laliberte was combined with Borchard/Sullivan in a four-way. Not a bad way to end the Masters with two no-shows. I'm looking forward to progressing. Two low-key victories for Borchard/Barton respectively. Nothing wrong with that.

Skipping ahead to The Moral Majority seg, nicely done as always. Virginia Quell will be a force in this dangerous group. I actually thought this was the alliance Tom Sawyer was constantly babbling about, with whomever YAZ really is the 3rd member. I actually thought YAZ was going to unmask as Jeff Andrews for some flippin' reason. I knew Ultra Raptor was running around but I thought YAZ was the key leading to this particular team. So, yeah, swerved me good.

I wasn't completely enthused with Kort/Dragon interfering in Light v. St. Sure.I guess because Kort has been shuffling in and out of the heel/face locker rooms. Could this be a new allegiance or am I reading too much into a joint attack based on E-Gold's wishes? The match was well-written, and I can't fault a storyline angle to finish it off I suppose. Should be interesting to see Kort/Jones go on from here. Glad to see the Heidi/Dentari tie-in at the end of it. Pretty little cleanup to keep this bulldozer plowing toward the ME.

I was looking forward to Jiles/Jones. I thought this would have went either way as well. Since they are both heel [I think], I assumed there was going to be a screwy finish. Didn't go that route. Wouldn't hurt my feelings if they met again. A one-off would make me sad. The Jiles thing at the end kinda confused me but I got to be patient on shit. =)

Another debut, Jane Katzee, I think that was the spelling. I love the influx of fresh faces, and Defiance is starting to import some extremely dangerous women wrestlers. With Edward White not showing up for his promos previously, it was a lightbulb moment for me. Kudos. I honestly couldn't get into the bout, I think because I actually wanted to see Edward White in his heelish entirety do the deed. So, congrats, I believe you succeeded in baiting the reader in hating White. As for Kort, I love him better as a racist heel for some reason. I can't buy him in any other role, so I was looking for a hope-spot so to speak.

The Informercial was cool, I kinda grinned at Def 1.0. All those old fogeys, wondering if VAMN would be noteworthy enough to skim into that DVD package. I'd buy it.

Sawyer v. YAZ was a neat moment. I love that Sawyer overcame, because he really put himself as the face of this PPV. It was a huge win for Tommy Saws.

The final was a toss-up indeed. I didn't really have St. Sure in there, I had Alceo pre-Finale against Heidi/Light. Not to take anything away from St. Sure, I thought Alceo did a fantastic series. But, not my place to nit-pick over an eyelash-close decision. I don't favor match judging at all when it came time to pick a winner they all deserved it. Light came across as the Defiance Saving Grace he has become for most of the tournament. Heidi & St. Sure pulled no punches and it is always nice to see triple threats here in Def. I almost broke my laptop in two pieces with E-Gold came out, but it was one of those necessary evils.

I kind of wish the screwjob waited until a clean finish. Congrats to Christian Light, btw, nice work throughout. The matchwriter did a bang-up job on making sure nobody got lost in the shuffle when things broke down.

The 5 minutes of E-Gold pummeling was expected to be screwy, it is afterall E-Gold. But I don't think anybody expected Kai Scott to be walking around pissing on Eric Dane's cheerios. I seen The Untouchables coming back, but not on such a large scale as that. Well-played. Diane Parker got lost in the shuffle a little, but that can be explained by pure shock. I can't wait to see what translates next, but I will say here and now I miss E-Gold. Not exactly sure what is to come of him once he pulls his head from out his ass. The beauty part in all of this is trios, baby. We have some top-shelf teams already within the close of the Masters.

So in closing, formatting issues and all-that aside, this was not a finale more-so than a beginning. It really gave me a hunger to get crackin'. I was also glad it wasn't too lopsided with segments. That would have killed me. Was the ppv easy to read? No. But!...it was DAMN good with plot. And that is what we do this for. I'm fkn ready now! Lets GO!

 

[Kahrytes]

One thing I should say up-front about the actual show is that I'm pretty sure any segments or matches that play twice are errors that are taking the place of segments. There's YET ANOTHER Tom segment that vanished during that time. If it doesn't get fixed, I'll post it on the forums or something.

There were a few problems behind the scenes with this show, but it all boils down to Jeff having to take on a Herculean effort to get this show up and done. His writing is in just about every segment and match, even in my finale.

Which should have been left untouched BECAUSE I WROTE GOD DAMNED ART

And as much as I wanted to have the finale end with Light standing tall, the plot dictated otherwise. So I tried to give him his moment during the actual pinfall. Unfortunately, it's the job of the babyfaces to get the shit beaten out of them during the setup so the heels look like the devil. Hence why Tom got murderfaced, Light got murderfaced...

As for the stuff in the undercard, I am gonna say this. All the false finishes and clusterfuck endings can be seen as a final tribute to the idea of Goldman and EVOLUTION. Hopefully now that that dude is gonna fuck off into the night, we can get more definitive match endings.

Evan brought some serious awesome fire. Damien wrote a fantastic match for me, and I really enjoyed it. Once the few editing errors get fixed, I think this overall show ranks up there with the Riot Show as some of the best that DEFIANCE has done. Applause goes to Jeff for getting this shit accomplished.

 

[The God-Beast]

WHAT THE FUCK

 

[JeffOLW]

About the interference in Light/CSS.

The whole idea was that the winner of that match would've gotten to enter the main event five minutes late. Goldman, not wanting that to happen, called for Evolution League to make the match end in a no-contest. Kort and Jones just happened to be the ones who caused the DQ.

Then Heidi, who's been anti-Evolution League since her return, came out and attacked guys from EVO.

I cut the fedwide brawl off much sooner than I'd intended to originally, because it was just taking forever to get anywhere writing it and I wanted to move on.

If everything about that angle is this absolutely unclear to everyone, I can fix that while I'm fixing other parts of the card.

 

[Duncan]

Quick feedbax before I sleep:

Having a commentator named Duncan and having Angus say stuff like "Dragon Jones is fucked now, Duncan" really FUCKS WITH ME THE MOST.

 

[CCJ]

LAWL.

To continue with the quick feedback portion of this affair: show was a nice send off for the grand tourney, the right guy won the whole thing, Brian put a lot of work into this and I'm glad it paid off for him.

3.0 should be a gas, can't wait.

 

[Lee R.]

I thought the show was quite awesome, actually.

Things that could have been better is I think the commentators should have provided more exposition. There seems to be a lot of confusion about what happened and why it happened. I've been in on a lot of the booking so I knew ahead of time.

The thing I think was missing the most was Yoshikazu YAZ, who really should have been out there talking shit and selling the fact that the storm was coming, and that kind of happened because it's been sort of awkward dealing with him since YAZ is Jeff's character only he was secretly Kai Scott who's my character and it just didn't get done.

You know what else would've been cool? To play up the fact that Eric Dane was kind of a dick to ruin Light's victory moment because he wanted to beat Goldman up right now.

Oh. Kai arranged to have Dan Ryan injure the real Yoshikazu YAZ. Don't feel bad for Real!YAZ though, he's a worse person than Kai ever was.

So yeah. Awesome show, right person won (although if Renee'd written a 3rd as good as her first 2 I'd have said she should take it), needs more commentary exposition.

I need a badass nickname for Kai Scott. "Ace of Heels" kind of dates back to 2002 when he was breaking kayfabe and using netspeak for heel heat.

 

[Kahrytes]

You know what else would've been cool? To play up the fact that Eric Dane was kind of a dick to ruin Light's victory moment because he wanted to beat Goldman up right now.

I think I know what Kai is gonna say on ep. 1.

 

[JeffOLW]

I just want to say that Christian Light vs Claira St Sure was the most ridiculously close match I've ever had to judge in my 13 years as an efedder. Justin and I ended up calling in 3 votes, and it really came down to Lee's second CSS RP - myself and Tim Wood (former CAL President) liked it and Justin, Kevin and Brunk didn't dig it so much, so Light took the match in a 3-2 split vote.

Any other situation where we could've possibly avoided picking a winner we would've, this was practically the drawiest draw that ever drew.

Brian and Lee are Terry Bradshaw and Roger Staubach. The end.

 

[Justin]

Not only was the vote 3-2, but all five votes came with the caveat of "but I could go either way."

 

[CCJ]

Also, whoever wrote my match did an awesome job.

For realz, the finger smelling bit had me in stitches.