After the Bell - First Edition

Welcome everyone to the first edition of “After the Bell” the brand new Strike Fantasy Towers Magazine for all your news and gossip about the goings on in SFT. The management (which is me today) have given me permission to create our very first episode, another first for me! So let’s get to some news…

Episode 11 of Monday Night Chaos saw an epic main event with the Intercontinental Title switching hands. Robert Saints put up a tremendous effort against Lucas Balkan to capture the title. However on Episode 12 of Chaos, Saints could only draw against Twilight whilst Balkan got back to his winning ways against Redd and is starting to once again look the dominant force he was before he lost the title. I would expect these two to meet again at some point in the near future.

Speaking of a dominant force, I see that Glenn Owen is still our world champion, and has been since our rebirth. I won’t comment too much on him because, well that’s me! But I thought I would mention it, because what’s the point of having a headline news section and not mentioning the world champion!

In other news, Reno Destiny has returned to claim the second Owners spot. It’s sure great to have him back after he took care of business, so expect to hear a lot more from him in the future; he is after all the co-owner of the company! I wonder what he has in store for us all?

And lastly, the SFT website continues to grow and expand. Make sure you check the forums for regular updates and future planned features….

Many people have been putting in a great effort as of late. Balkan and Redd did some excellent roleplays this week (anyone who can roleplay about putting their hand in piles of crap deserves some credit), also Emerson impressed greatly in the main event on Episode 12 of Chaos.

Rumpke is making a big splash and looks to want to cut a promo each and every day. Whoever fights him next is going to have their work cut out just to keep up!

Nobody has really been cold, well apart from maybe TK Money who went missing in action!

Given it’s our first addition of the magazine, I thought I would write a short article about something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, what makes a good Promo? (roleplay)

I wrote the first ever in depth “official” roleplay guide for SFT way back in 2002, and the mistake I made then way trying to convince everyone that my way was the right way. But if truth be told, there is no right or wrong way when it comes to cutting a promo. Everyone has different styles, different ways of writing and that’s what makes things interesting! It’s also important to remember than when having a match in SFT, you can do nothing wrong and still lose! Take it from me, I remember the best work I ever did came in a loss to Fox! I was upset at the time because for the life of me I had done everything I needed to win the match! But sometimes it’s just not to be, and we have to learn to live with that.

Some people like to focus their promo’s on their character speaking, and that’s great. I started life as the British Badd Ass (I know I know, laugh away) and I was all about the trash talk. My promo’s descriptions were literally “BBA is standing with a mic in his hand in his penthouse” and that was it, I would be off!

Over time though my style changed, I was influenced by Legion and Shadow. Legion more so to start with, as this was a character that never spoke…. Ever….. Think about that! A Wrestling character that doesn’t speak a word…. So Legion would have to be brilliant descriptive and make his points and case for winning through actions and emotions and feelings. That to me was the essence of creativity, and to be honest I probably look for creativity above all else as a voter these days.

I’ve noticed recently that a lot of promo’s people are writing seem to be following a trend…. They tell an interesting story, explain how this made them feel and then in the last paragraph relate that to themselves and why they should win the match. I think that’s all fine and it gives a great insight into the characters mind which I also enjoy. Me personally, I like to constantly tell stories within stories…. I’ll explain a little…

If I put myself in a location, there is always a reason for that location…. I will hint at it a few times throughout my promo, but I won’t say it directly! I like to express my feelings in less obvious ways and not literally describe what I’m feeling. That’s always been my style and it’s probably come to define me as a writer…. It was a trick I learnt from Shadow. For example, if I wanted to explain that my character is daydreaming, I could start off my promo saying “Glenn stares out of a window daydreaming” but that’s just boring for me. It would be far better to say “Glenn stares out of the window with a stoic look upon his face… he sees all there is to be seen, yet there is nothing of real interest out there” Do you see what I mean? I’ve described what I’m going through without telling you, and I like to draw people in that way. I also love to use music, and I actually write whilst listening to the song I end up using in the roleplay because music sets the scene and emotion of a scene….. I’ve actually spent far longer looking for the right music in the past than I have typing out the promo…. That’s how much I value music and why I always prelude my posts with “put your speakers on”

So there’s a little insight into my mind, but again, everyone is different, and that is truly a good thing. I’ve often thought about creating a character who is an old skool 70’s DJ, a wrestler who relates each roleplay to a disco song and plays on the words within it and uses that to make points to his opponents. Shadow was famous for using nursery rhymes. Some characters like Balkan are rough and well defined men with a dark history, whilst others like Twilight plays on the concepts of reincarnation. It’s all good and keeps things diverse, so I guess to sum up the article, in my opinion it’s really not anyone’s role to say what’s good and what’s bad. We all have to write and find our own styles, harness them and perfect them and then let the land lay where it falls.

I hope you enjoyed this article.

And now for your favourite part…. Well the first rumor is that Nirvana and Big T are heading back to SFT. I guess we’ll see what happens but no doubt you have been away of some negotiations taking place with Joseph Black.

I heard on the grapevine that Reno Destiny took a leave of absence to rest in a silent monastery where he found God and is now a born against Christian! If that’s the case then maybe Saint Jude will finally have a tag team partner should the belts ever be pressed back into action.

I also hear in the grapevine that Rumpke is itching to get into a match with our current World Champion Glenn Owen. Glenn’s time is limited these days but maybe if Rumpke pushes the right buttons he may just get our Champions attention!

And last but not least, I hear that Redneck Wild (one of our company’s main sponsors at the present time) is recruiting extra staff in his company, since the advertising he’s been paying for on Monday Night Chaos seems to have led to an explosion in business. I mention this because one of our very own commentators is thinking of applying for a job with him, so we fully expect a knock on the office door soon demanding a bigger salary!

Well that’s it for our first ever edition folks. I hope you have learnt something and feedback is always welcome. If you have any ideas for articles etc, well speak to Joey not me, this is his domain and not mine!

Thanks for reading