Wrestling and my new universe (newniverse?)

So after my last post blew up the Internet, shut down Twitter, and almost won me the Nobel Peace Prize, it seemed imperative that I follow up with a more in-depth description of what the eff I was talking about.  And by 'blew up the internet', I mean 8 page views.  My blog is the literary equivalent of a selfie. 

Not that there's anything wrong with selfies

If you recall, sometime last year I came up with this ridiculously awesome idea to run my very own fake wrestling league/universe.  The idea was practically flawless and even though it's been done before, there was just no way that my iteration wasn't going to take the world by storm.  Aside from the fact that, you know, I would be heavily, HEAVILY involved in it.

Obviously it did not happen and I quickly realized that my initial idea wasn't realistic, especially given some of the (admittedly very cool) extra-curricular stuff that was going on at that time.  Still, I knew that I had to give the people what they want.

It was around March Madness time where I stumbled on the brilliant idea that I am totally shilling to you right now- wrestling tournaments.  It's wrestling AND it's tournaments.  How can it fail?  Plus, as ludicrous as creating and managing a video-game driven fake universe revolving around not-real people engaging in a sport with pre-determined outcomes may be, it's at least a little respectable because hey, tournaments. 

With the sheer volume some would say plethora of championships in the game, I will not be at a loss for new and fresh material.  Indeed, I'm just going to have a bunch of tournaments until they're all gone.  It will be easier to manage a series of tournaments for the purposes of blogging because they're basically short term self-contained entities as opposed to the never-ending "season" that wrestling essentially is.  Think of it like eating a regular gobstopper instead of an everlasting gobstopper.

Don't worry, wrestling fans- I'll still try to include storylines and (hopefully) cutscenes.  I also plan to tie my universe together with continuity, random facts about my (real and pretend) subjects, and I'll probably even solve the mystery of life while I'm at it.

I'm past rambling but if you would suffer me a couple of final thoughts:

1) The past couple of WWE video games have had "Retro" versions of some wrestlers, such as Brock Lesnar before and after he tattooed a giant phallus on his chest.  I will not be choosing between the two for competitive purposes, and in fact will encourage doppelgangers to throw down.  If Thuganomics John Cena faces Fruity Pebbles John Cena for the WWE Championship (Miz edition) then the good guys have won.

2) The previous champion receives an automatic bid to the next tournament.

3) For reasons of good form, I will not be playing any of the matches.  I am also going to be a slave to the automated result.  It's not always going to be optimal, and sometimes you end up with crap like Darren Young defeating Andre the Giant, Abraham Lincoln, AND Stone Cold in the qualifying Royal Rumble to advance to the round of 16 in my first championship tournament (results of which are coming soon!).  But life is not usually by the script and, like they say, when life hands you lemons you make a chicken sh*t sandwich.

4) Damage retention is ON. That means if somehow Bret Hart gets decapitated in victory, he will advance to the next round with no head.  Just like God intended.

5) I'm going to barrel through with this, whether anyone reads it or not.  I will also make an effort to write about real, actual things, so if for whatever reason you frequent my blog in hopes of non-wrestling/non-pretend play tomfoolery, you will be sated at some point.  But try to keep an open mind about wrestling tomfoolery.

Watching my children play make-believe with their toys and talk about their own made-up 'worlds' makes me realize that there is great value in having active imaginations.  I've always loved to pretend.  It's actually one of the few things I'm really, really good at.  Reality can be tough.  We have to live there and work there and pay bills there and if you stay there too long, it can kill your imagination.  When imagination dies, so do dreams.  When dreams die, so does hope.

Basically if you don't read my virtual toy stories, you will lose hope and life will have no meaning.  The end. 

PIC- Selfie- http://stcommunities.straitstimes.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/bxslider_photo/gta1.jpg
Triple H- http://images.mstarz.com/data/images/full/20918/triple-h.jpeg

YWL: Crisis in Kayfabe

They say that "an apple a day keeps the doctor away"- but apparently if you fraternize one time with Mr. Apple will set into motion a chain of events which leads to the downfall of an entire organization.

Pictured: The face of corporate decept-hey, is that Wildcat Willie??  

Let's just get this out there right now- the YWL is no more.

Seeing as I've seemingly made it my life's work to write about things I want to do and then just going out and not doing them, I'm imagining that there's not a lot of surprise out there in Cyberspacelandia.  However, since wrestling is involved, you can't trust what your eyes are seeing and what your brain is telling you.  Because there is a swerve here of epic proportions, I need you all to sit down because I am about to blow your mind through the bottom of your pants.

Just in case you missed it last time

Our story begins (and ends) with three key ingredients.  There is a CAW of Mr. Apple.  There is a bug in the WWE '13 game itself.  And there is  kayfabe.  Like a good magician, I'm going to give you a step by step explanation of the science behind my illusion so that you know exactly how you got tricked.  Except that is not what good magicians do.  Also, I suppose good writers stay away from mixing metaphors.  But we're well past the point of pretending that I am actually a good writer.

Let's start with Mr. Apple.  To most people, Mr. Apple is Steve Jobs.  But to Marquettians- Mr. Apple is a mysterious dude in a mascot suit who stands on the corner of Washington and Third during the summer to tout the wares of Farmer Q's.  Pretty much the run-of-the-mill mascot- but to the kids (at least mine), it might as well be the Pied Piper handing out Turbo Man dolls.  THIS JUST IN: Kids love dudes in goofy costumes. 

As I've stated a few times, much of my motivation for doing this whole league is to have something fun and crazy to do with the kids.  So when we passed Mr. Apple on the streets that fateful afternoon, I just knew that Mr. Apple was destined to set foot in the squared circle against the likes of The Rock, Stone Cold, and Homestarrunner.  Doggone it though- all of my CAW slots were taken up with those other goofs.

(Clearly there is a second PS3 user name that I'm sloughing off some of the additional "Hey, that guy would be awesome to have in a wrestling game" CAW slots onto- but for the purposes of this post, you don't know that).

What to do?

Well, I decided to usurp my resident Spongebob CAW- for a few reasons.

1) I have different plans for Spongebob.
2) It's freaking Mr. Apple.
3) Somebody else already did the work to create a mascotly shaped puffy body.

Once the decision was made, the creative process didn't take real long.  After a few minutes of adjusting some colors, sizes, and shapes- PRESTO- welcome to the YWL, Mr. Apple.

It is here that I bring up the glitch- or, more ominously, The Glitch.

Apparently, as is standard practice amongst video game companies, WWE 13 was released slightly unfinished and with a few bugs.  You can read about them here.  One of those bugs would completely reset the teams and rosters of the WWE 13 universe mode.  They did release a patch shortly afterwards to fix some of the above glitches, and since I purchased the game several months after the premature release/patch process, I have only known the patch.  Unfortunately, the WWE Universe mode reset glitch was not (at least fully) addressed during the lone patch.  Unfortunatelyer, THQ went bankrupt and dissolved in January and any subsequent follow-up patches went by the wayside.

The end result was chaos.  Altering my Spongebob into Mr. Apple undid all of my tag teams and reset the rosters to their default setting.  While my CAWs were in their updated slots and the rivalries stayed intact for the most part, the rest of it pretty much went back to stock mode.  Which means that a lot of time and effort went out the window and my Universe mode was left in shambles.

Needless to say (but said anyways), I was Frust. Rated.  I don't want to embellish my reaction, but I seriously began to think it would be easy to just let the whole thing crash and burn, chalked up as another failure of the impulsive loud mouth ramblings of the idiot that runs this blog.

It is here that I bring kayfabe into the equation.

To the uninundated, kayfabe is basically the set of "rules" that govern the wrestling universe.  It's the understanding between the wrestler and the fans that basically acknowledges the actions of said wrestler within his wrestling "universe" are "real" for the sake of enhancing the performance.  For we, the fan, our part in kayfabe is to "play along" even though we know the scripted, pre-determined nature of what we are witnessing.

It's what makes wrestling awesome instead of just watching some well-oiled grown ups play make-believe fighting.  It's also what has given second life to my ludicrous meanderings for at least another day.

So please disregard everything I have said about my stupid video game getting reset because I decided to turn Spongebob into an Apple mascot.  That's not what happened.  Actually the YWL folded due to lack of financial solvency.  Poor attendance at televised events, low ratings, and an insufficient buy rate for "Hit Guys With Chairs" led to the untimely demise of the company.  Fortunately for you, the fan sitting at home, it didn't stay demised for long.  It was absorbed into the bigger, financially more powerful (and definitely not going to be messing with the roster-ness) of the YWA- Youshouldknowjasonparks Wrestling Association.

And next week, I'll be absorbing the YWA into you.

Or something.