Post by Sidney J. Warwick on Aug 13, 2018 20:40:17 GMT -5
Greetings, Action Wrestlers.
For the last week, I have kept pretty quiet OOC because I want to maintain some mystique around my character and where he was headed until after I published my first RP back.
Now that I've written that RP and that the dust has settled on Uprising, I feel the need to publicly discuss a few things, in large part because I want to clear the air about some misconceptions some seem to have about me and my time in e-wrestling. Those misconceptions manifest themselves mainly in some private messages that I've received since the last Clash, and I figure if some people have those misconceptions and are contacting me about them, there are even more people who have them but are remaining silent.
As many of you know, I was part of the WCF roster from June 2017 through January 2018. I won the WCF World Title in January, and about two weeks later I lost it via a Money in the Bank-style contract cash-in that I did not know was coming and that frankly I didn't even know was possible under the rules of the contract.
At that point, I left WCF. I didn't give anybody any notice that I was doing so aside from putting a pretty terse message in the shoutbox on their forums. I also deleted every thread and post of mine that I possibly could from the forums. After I left, a few of you tried to find ways to reach out to me and a couple succeeded, mostly through sending me private messages on the Discord account that I set up to participate in the WCF's War event. I got all of those messages, but I ignored them.
Reading this story, you're probably thinking one of two things, either, "Man, that guy really got screwed over," or "Man, that guy sounds like an immature, whiny d-bag and I'm not sure I want him here."
That's why I wanted to come here and make this statement. I want to make two things clear, because even some people who I have explained this to before don't seem to fully understand:
1. I absolutely, 100% have no ill will towards anybody who is now or ever has been associated with WCF, even the ones that you think I would.
2. I didn't actually quit WCF because I was upset with how I was beaten for their world title.
I was pretty heavy into e-wrestling when I was in high school in the mid-and-late 1990s. I stuck with it for a a couple of years into college but ultimately dropped out due to a combination of factors. Prior to 2017, if you had asked me about e-wrestling, I would have told you that I knew nothing about its current status but that if I had to wager a guess, my guess would be that it was a fad that died out several years prior.
Then, in early 2017, a guy who used to be involved in some feds that I was involved in back in the 1990s reached out to me asking if I could provide him with some background information for an article he was writing about e-wrestling. (He is now a freelance writer professionally and credits e-feds with launching his career.) It was that point that I learned there was still somewhat of an e-wrestling scene.
I looked at various feds just to see what the modern day scene was like, and eventually I found myself wondering if I still had the creativity it took to run a character. That's when I developed Sidney Warwick and signed up for WCF.
Sidney was never meant to be a long-term character. I've got a pretty stacked "real world" schedule, and I assumed that I would only have time to run a few quick feuds and then drop out of e-wrestling again, satisfied that I'd dipped my toe back into the water for a nostalgia run.
However, the whole thing wound up lasting much longer than I thought it would, in no small part because I kept winning matches and became a more prominent part of the fed than I ever intended to be. I was honestly as surprised as anybody with my success, because I really didn't get into this trying to do well. I still have no idea why I won War, because there are three or four guys I would've picked over me if I were the one making the decision.
When I got that War win, I was presented with a bit of quandary, because my schedule during the first half of each year is particularly difficult, and I didn't see myself maintaining the level that I had been performing at while dealing with what I needed to deal with in the real world. Yet, on the other hand, I had a world title match on the biggest show of the year, and I didn't feel like I could walk away from that when so many other people had put so much into War.
So, I came up with a plan: I would do my level best to win the World Title match, but, as soon as I lost the World Title, I would gracefully bow out of WCF, perhaps returning when my life was less hectic.
Then, I lost the title far sooner than I expected to, under circumstances that I certainly did not expect to. A bit after I read that result, I chuckled to myself. I wasn't upset at all. I thought it was a pretty good swerve. If you know me personally (which I suppose none of you do), this isn't the type of thing I get upset over. This is a game. If you think about, it's a pretty ridiculous game at that. If it legitimately makes you mad, you need to reevaluate your priorities.
I wasn't mad, but I had an idea. My character was (is?) a petulant, entitled brat. I already told myself that I was going to leave when I lost the title, but why not have some fun on the way out? Why not blur the lines between fantasy and reality? I decided to do just that, thinking it would make for a bigger return down the road than leaving "professionally" would.
That's why I left WCF the way that I did.
A couple of weeks after that, I came up with the idea of Max Masked, which was a tool used to keep my foot in this world while not having the pressure of writing at a main event level. Originally, my plan was that Max would start in New Blood Wrestling and eventually join WCF, where his "unmasking" would occur, setting up a return run for Sidney. Ultimately I changed my plans and decided to pull the trigger on the unmasking here instead, because, with no offense to anybody who is currently in WCF, it seems that the AW product is far superior at the moment.
This post wound up being about twice as long as I expected, but I felt that, after so many months of hiding out and deceiving people, I should make my true feelings and intentions known. This seems like a great crew of people, and I look forward to contributing - though I'm going to be up front about the fact that I'm not entirely certain how long it will be for.
You should all be proud of yourselves. You've built something special here. Keep it up.