I said it at the end of the last episode but some people might have already tuned out after the last match ended, but this week we won’t have a show due to me going to some kind of social get together regarding some “birth day” of someone I know. Because I like my friends I will go. But what I usually do when not able to run a show for whatever reason is to give some insights into the making of the show as well as some miscellaneous facts and numbers. So let’s talk a bit about what goes into booking a show.
Our roster has 50 active wrestlers right now (48 of which have debuted so far), with a few more in the pipeline (and submissions being still open). So if you don’t see your own creation or submission for multiple weeks, this is why. We try to give everyone air time even if it’s “just” in multi-person matches. This doesn’t mean your character is not interesting it just means the spotlight is on other people at the moment. As time goes on the plan is to cycle people in and out of that “spotlight”. To make sure we don’t forget to book people I have actually dedicated some space of my monstrous spreadsheet…
The spreadsheet keeps track of all kinds of shit I don’t even use and allows me to narrow down a timeframe. Only want to consider data from episodes 4-8? I can do that.
With our 50 active wrestlers, although, we’ve only seen 48 at this point, we already have more than in my last e-fed, LPFWA. It had a roster that was 48 people deep. Although these numbers are the same it’s actually a very different situation. First of all, we’ve just had episode 9 of OHPW and as of right now 48 people have debuted, that’s exactly the number of people we had in LPFWA. However, in LPFWA the latest debut (Grace Thoruson) was in episode 45… out of 52. So very close to the end. The last incarnation of LPFWA was run in WWE 2k18 which forced us to have separate men’s and women’s divisions (which interestingly, seems to have deterred people from submitting characters with non-binary gender identities, as we have a few of those now but didn’t really before). Separating divisions like this pretty much caused us to have one 30 man roster and one 18 woman roster with tag teams crammed in there too.
We have a lot more freedom now which is both a blessing and a curse. While we can do what we want in terms of pairing people up for matches it’s also harder to find the same amount of focus that was there in LPFWA where people trickled in over time and there were two separate divisions.
I realize you might have been wondering who “we” is. Deathmaster780 and YerPalhal are helping me out when it comes to booking the shows. I’ll ask for input even if I already know what I want to do. Often they have the same general idea. Other times I missed something important and that is being pointed out to me, other times still we change course away from my original plan. While LPFWA 2k14 had a creative team too, LPFWA 2k18 didn’t for the most part. So now having to justify some of my decisions to other people again makes me realize how much thought I actually put into making little video game people throw each other around.
As far as the booking goes we are in this weird place between a shoot and a work. On one hand we try to book matches based on who we think could beat someone else on the other, especially when it comes to debuts or title contenders, we also go at it with the intend to get someone specific “over” in some way. We can’t give everybody this treatment, of course, but for instance, before debuting Malfest Goat-Monster we discussed how he should appear before his first match and who the opponent should be and while I didn’t do a test match (I like to be surprised) we booked the match against Vacation Skeleton because we thought Goat-Monster could probably beat VS. Goat-Monster having this threatening aura initially is pretty important for simply establishing the character as a threat and with the whole “shoot” aspect what might happen next is Goat-Monster losing to someone in embarassing fashion. There’s a lot of moving parts, some of which we can control. Others we COULD control (but I don’t want to) and even more that are completely unpredictable.
Essentially, and a lot of people don’t really understand this, you can’t book an e-fed with conventional wrestling logic because you don’t control the outcome of a match, which is why we often resort to building up to the blow-off of a feud without really having matches. You can’t just say “the dastardly heel Palpatine wins by shenanigans against the valiant face Grace Thoruson at the go-home show so when Grace beats Palpy at the PPV people will be happy to see him get his just desserts.” or “Goat-Monster squashes a couple of people before going on to more competitive title matches or feuds” It’s more like: “All right, we’ll book Flamander vs. Rosette for a No. 1 Contender match and whatever happens happens.” Even if I have my own favorite, who I think should win for one reason or another there’s no guarantee that it’ll happen and even if it does it might be a count-out or DQ which doesn’t hold that same amount of weight.
I don’t think a lot of people care about or pick up on these things, especially if they are sometimes more subtle but it’s important to me to have it in there for those who do. Not that OHPW is a particularly deep show or anything. It’s a wrestling company in which a Pizza and a Pineapple were the tag champs once.
I’ll now just dump some stats, most of them in a kind of “Top 3” format. Since I have this huge ass spreadsheet I might as wall put some of the numbers out there for people to look at. So see you next week when we go back to our regularly scheduled weekly shows. The match card will come, as always, next Wednesday. Unless I forget, in that case it would be Thursday, maybe. Or Friday or uh… well. Let’s no think about that.
Roster:
Total Characters: 57
Wrestlers: 53 (not all of which are done yet)
Referees: 4
Wrestlers that are in teams: 25 (Some of these haven’t been established as a team on screen yet.)
Highest Win % (of people with more than 1 match)
- VACANT: 100.00%
- Suzan Blades: 83.33%
- Fomore and Firestar: 80.00%
Had the most matches:
- DivineCoffeeBinge (9)
- Angus McMutton and Mr. Shakedown (7)
- Suzan Blades, Canada Alderman, Undeddie Guerrero and Flamander (6)
Appeared in Most Scenes:
- SATAN and Majestic Goat-Man (5)
- Malfest Goat-Monster, Angus McMutton, Vacation Skeleton, Dash Rendar, Palpatine and IGgy (4)
- DivineCoffeeBinge and HazMatt (3)
Best Singles Wrestlers according to a simplified ELO formula
- Suzan Blades
- VACANT
- Mr. Shakedown
Highest Average Match Rating (of people with more than 1 match)
- Harley Havik (98.67%)
- Boob Marley (98.25%)
- Nawt A Robutt (98.25%)
Higheset Average Singles Match Rating (of people with more than 1 singles match)
- N-T Punk (97.00%)
- Boob Marley (96.50%)
- King Skeleton (95.00%)
Longest Average Match Duration (People with more than 1 match)
- The Ego (27:38)
- Kelsey Slaughter (23:31)
- Harley Havik (23:31)
Longest Match: Princess Slaughter vs. Vacation Skeleton vs. Ego from Episode 1 - 45:29
Shortest Average Match Duration (People with more than 1 match)
- VACANT (11:50)
- Kayu Zakisaka (12:30)
- Black (12:50)
Shortest Match: Kayu Zakisaka vs. Black from Episode 8 - 5:03
Longest Title Reigns
In defenses: Mr. Shakedown’s Bunny Title reign (4 successful defenses, 35 days) and DCBs Jabroni “reign” (4 failed offenses over 35 days)
In days: Suzan Blades’ ongoing Hellweight Title reign (37 days, 1 successful defense)
“Do you know what the difference between good soul, and a bad souls? The Drunken Scotsman Angus and the endless darkness Black were good souls. They proved to be challenging opponents and worthy of my time!”
Mina saunters down to the ring with a 24 pack of beer
“Hey guys, it’s your favorite Panda Girl, Anna May back again after several weeks off. Sorry for the lack of updates guys, I’ve been getting used to my new job down here in hell. Wrestling is hard especially since I’ve had to balance wrestling with school. I gotta get all A’s or my Mom’s won’t let me go to Prom.”
"Wrestling hasn’t been any easier either, in my first match I got to challenge for the Bunny Title but I was beaten by this pink Lady Rosette. Then a few weeks later I had to fight in this Fatal Five Way where I had to fight off four other people, including this creepy old space wizard and this guy with a massive chest. Bigger than any Anime’s I’ve ever seen.
But my trusty claws helped me through and it got a me a second chance at the Bunny Title! This time was against this guy named Mr. Shakedown. I guess he’s called that because he kept demanding my money during the match but I preserved and won the title!
Robbie D: “Yo cous, the camera’s on!”
Kelsey: “SHUT UP ROBBIE, I KNOW IT’S ON!!!”
Paulie: “You tell’em sis!”