Interview with a VP

Hosted by Steven Smith

Steven Smith - We are here tonight to interview a man who for all practical purposes is indescribable as far as his contribution to UFW goes, the man known as VP-L. 

VP-L - Thank you Steven.  I'm happy to be here.  You do realise though that I had other names as well?

Steven Smith - Of course.  I'd like to touch on those later, but I want to begin the interview by answering the question that is on everyone's lips...

VP-L - You mean who's going to win the AFL (Aussie Rules) Grand Final next weekend?

Steven Smith - No.  The question is - Why close UFW?  Why now?  Why at all?  Why not just find other staff members?

VP-L - Nice to see you haven't lost your touch there Steven, cutting right to the heart of the matter with minimal time wasted (cough).  The answer to your four questions is not as simple as people might think.  UFW has been my life away from life for a long time now, probably about 9 of its 10 months.  I started out as a regular member who happened to be related to the Prez, helped him out where I could with ideas and suggestions, as well as providing some interesting characters on his Roleplay Board that literally kept others coming back for more (I'll touch on that later).  I won't say I'm entirely responsible for the growth of UFW, as it was well underway before I started, but my own ego tells me that without my contribution it would have only lasted 3 months tops (more on that later too).

Steven Smith - Large claims there VP.  I'm sure you will tell us more later, but cut to the chase and answer the question.

VP-L - Well, there are several factors.  The first is that you could look at the management structure of UFW as similar to a house of cards.  Take one out, and the structure stays.  Take two out, it might wobble but it stays still but not as strong.  Take three out and half the building collapses.  Take the 4th out and there is no more house.   Each card is the same as a VP, and UFW was the house.  

Steven Smith - I think I understand, but I've already interviewed Ed Novak, and one thing he said that VP's were replaceable.  Couldn't you have just replaced the ones that dropped out?

VP-L - That is another kettle of fish altogether.  How to answer this side question?  Well, looks can be deceptive.  I knew for sure that we were losing VP-N (Novak) and VIP (Mike Nightmare) as cardwriters at the end of August.  I was fine with that, as their contribution had helped keep UFW alive and pumping for a long time.  I didn't however anticipate them losing interest before that.  This was a gradual thing, or was on the surface anyway.  When I finally realised that they were gone and weren't coming back, I just wasn't willing to go through the whole process of training a VP again.  VP-T's also caught me by surprise.  We went from having three reliable cardwriters, to three one day late cardwriters (they probably got well and truly sick of me saying "It's Okay if you are late, just tell the members in advance" on the staff board).

Steven Smith - That's not answering the question though.

VP-L - True.  I never get straight to the point though :)   Okay, this is also related to the original question.  When I was Prez I talked to these guys, especially Ed and Mike, almost every day.  First by mail when I was hiding my identity as Layeth and Prez, then by ICQ later on.  I got to know them pretty well within the confines of UFW, and looked forward to their conversation every day.  Sometimes I would be finishing work, catch one or the other online, and end up leaving the building three or four hours later instead of on time.   So, there was this trust thing with them.  Later came Anguish / VP-T (his name is Mo).  I didn't talk to him as much, but to be honest he was my favourite of them personality wise.  He reminded me of me in a lot of ways, some of the things he would say and what my intuition was telling me that he was feeling about certain things.  Anyway, despite not talking to him as much, Ed gave him a good rap, so he was in.  The day came when I gave up being Prez, and Ed and Mike immediately put their hand up to help out with cards etc.  We had to wait a while for Mike to be available, so Adam and I took over Friday's, alternating one per fortnight until Mike was ready.

Steven Smith - That's all very well, but...

VP-L - Yes yes, I know.  I'm talking about things out of sequence.  I had this great level of trust built up with the three cardwriters that replaced me - Sam (The Body, VP Body, my second ever feud as Layeth) took Monday's, Ed took Wednesday's and Mike took Friday's.  As I said, I knew them all very well, and knew that their hearts were in the right place as far as UFW goes.  Thus they became VP's (Sam was already one, but that is something else I'll cover later).  Anyone who became a VP had to know me very well.  After this happened, I stopped talking to the members.  I had a lot of things I wanted to achieve as far as updating the site went, and if I talked it left me with no time to do these things.  Without that talking, I didn't build up the same sort of rapport with anyone else whom I would be prepared to offer the position of VP.   That's essentially why VP's can't be replaced at UFW, because I had developed a largely closed doors policy on communication.  In retrospect, that was a very big mistake, but I'll cover more of that later.

Steven Smith - Okay, so we've established why VP-ships were hard to come by.  I assume you will cover VP-K and the others later, but for now, back to why UFW closed.

VP-L - The straw that broke the camel's back ironically occurred only within the last week.  Some guy applied for membership.  By now I was run off my feet with work and trying to fill in for missing VP's, so I had fallen behind in the applications.  This guy mailed me separately to say "its been two days, am I in or what?".  I mailed him back saying I would get back to him on the weekend.  I then missed that promise, so mailed him with a brief "I haven't forgotten you, I need a bit more time".  He took that as leave to start posting.  Some of you might have seen a joke of a post from "OZZY AND STATIC".  It copped 12 reads, so had to have been about a third to a half of the regulars saw it, but anyway, I deleted the posts, mailed back this guy with a pretty stern letter saying he'd broken the rules and I wasn't happy about it.  I was tired and stressed at the time, and to be honest a little depressed with how things weren't running smoothly, so, being the closet asshole that I can be at times, I took a dig at his posting as well.  I said "Apart from posting on the board before you were given permission, your posting was absolute crap, and good enough to get you rejected had it been your sample".  Well, my attitude didn't get across too well with him (surprise surprise).  He mailed back, probably a little shocked and hurt that the Prez had spoken to him this way, and his reply was in about the same tone as mine, saying sorry but defending the quality of his posts.  I didn't like his attitude, forgetting that mine had probably been worse, so ripped into him some more.  It went back and forward for a while, until he finally said "that's it, I quit, I'm not joining a FED with such an egomaniac asshole as the Prez".  Thought about that for a while, tired and burned out as I was, then sent back to him saying that the people who knew me would know I am anything but an egomaniac (not entirely the truth, but never let that stand in the way of a good story....), and that one of the perks of running a FED was telling 14 year old assholes (there's that word again) to go to hell if I wanted to.  I then thought to myself "he might be 16 though", so I put something on the end saying that I didn't care if he was 14 or 16, but I was putting money that I wasn't far wrong.  He wrote back with "I'm 19", and that was it.  Last I heard of him.  I let it go, but after a while it got to me, this egomaniac comment.  I was thinking where the hell could I get more cardwriters to keep thing going, as I didn't think the arrangement we had come up with where VP-T does Monday's, Bio (Lewis)  and I sharing Wednesday's and Adam and Kit (VP-K) sharing Friday's.  Frought with danger I thought, because Lewis has this reputation of going away to France at the drop of a hat (straight after he won the world title, bang gone for 2 weeks without much notice, he wanted to be Commish, bang gone for 2 weeks, he became Commish, bang gone for a week, he had to do Live in London by himself, bang gone for the three days immediately before it).  I don't begrudge him his holidays, but this really worried me as far as stability and last minute cover his missing ass goes...hehe.  Kit I was never sure of either.  His heart is certainly in the right place, but a lot of things he promised were never delivered (I know he will say the same thing about me, and justifiably so.... more on that later).   Anyway, I knew I didn't want to write weeknight cards anymore.  To do a good one takes 4-6 hours.  My own last few had been rather lacklustre - solid but nothing sparked them.  For those of you who read the story I did about the UFW alcohol ban and members Elite running riot in the spa, it was actually based on something that happened at my work...hehe.

Steven Smith - So we have this guy who called you an egomaniac, and you were worried about the stability of the cardwriters.

VP-L - Yeah.  Then I got a message from Scholar, in the middle of some protracted negotiations about something else with him that I'll mention later, that he might be leaving next month, due to work and study commitments.  Then on the same day I read this cryptic posts from PHD that said he would be making an announcement regarding his career on Friday.  The state of mind I was in at the time, due to having well below my required quota of sleep for the month, had me thinking that he was quitting as well.  I know Ed picked up on this as well - PHD and Scholar worked very well together, and were one of my main points of interest in today's model of UFW.  There are others, which I will go into later.  Anyway, at that very second, I thought, if these guys go, and I don't know what's going on with staff, and I don't know anyone else well enough to invite them to become a VP and know that they won't let me down, where's there to go from here?   At that very point, I decided to call it quits.

Steven Smith - So, despite Ed Novak's claims of being the one to bring down UFW, it was actually PHD?

VP-L - No, Steven, he was merely the straw on the straw on the straw... 

Steven Smith - You have openly said to others that you like guys like Ming's work.  Ullrich as well.  Surely if it eventuated that Scholar and PHD left, they could have held the fort until some new guys came?

VP-L - The day I admitted PHD, I took down the UFW is Full sign on the join form, because we had dropped to about 40 members who were either posting or on holiday and promising to come back (shame on you Little Joe Williams, you were in such fine form before you left... hard to believe that you and Total Package were the same guy!) or I hoped would come back (Reverend for one - I just loved everything he wrote).  Anyway, most if not all of the applications since then have been crap.  I got enough heat for admitting X-Treme to UFW, and her (X-Treme is a woman, a nice, sensitive young 16 year old) sample was better than 90% of them.  The others who put large samples in used names like Justin Sane, who we already had.  I didn't have the energy to reply to them to say that the name was taken so pick another when other than that the sample was quite good.  Incidentally I had three apps from different guys last week to be Justin Sane.  Great original name, wouldn't you say?

Steven Smith - Absolutely.  So, you've discussed the events leading up to the decision to close UFW.  In context of how much work you put in, its quite interesting. 

VP-L - I'll talk about how much work I put in a bit later.  What's the next topic?

Steven Smith - What about you?  Who are you VP-L?

VP-L - Well, I'm VP-M's uncle.

Steven Smith - Very funny.

VP-L - I'm a funny guy!  (c) Ron Jeremy

Steven Smith - Answer!

VP-L - Sorry. Yes, well my name is Ross.  I live in Melbourne Australia (a small suburb called Glenroy, up until about 6 weeks ago I lived about 7 kilometers away in Airport West).  I'm 28 years old as of 2 weeks ago tomorrow. 

Steven Smith - So you were 6 months old exactly on Valentines day!

VP-L - Uh, yes.  Kinda... Yah.

Steven Smith - So, what else?

VP-L - Well, I work as a technical writer for a medical equipment manufacturer.  I write software user guides, help files, factory floor instructions, quality procedures, marketing stuff...  you name it, I do it!

Steven Smith - That sounds so... exciting...

VP-L - It pays the bills.  Helps with my typing speed, and there are heaps of nice people that work there. 

Steven Smith - Anything else?

VP-L - Well, I drive a 1993 model Commodore, I don't have a girlfriend, but I do have a lady friend who I spend time with when we are both free on the night.  You know, watching videos, movies, dinner, and the sort of stuff that Stevie Richards is trying to outlaw :P

Steven Smith - So how does she cope with you spending so much time on the computer?

VP-L - She hated it.  The amount of times she went to bed early and I missed out due to having to do something for UFW are just phenomenal...

Steven Smith - Okay, so we know you have a life out there somewhere, back to UFW.  How about some of your characters?   Start off with the original and some say the best...

VP-L - Layeth the Smack Down... One word.  Over-rated. 

Steven Smith - How can you say that?   All those great news and meeting posts...  You consistently had 20 plus reads for every single post on the board.  You get mentioned by people several times a week, even though you haven't been active since April!

VP-L - Look, I got lucky.  I joined at the right time, and won the world title at a grand total of 2 wins and 5 losses, or something very close to that.  Its very easy to gain notoriety if you are a posting champion.  I guess that's where a lot of my attitude towards recent champions has come from.  The potential is there for them to step into legend-hood, if they would only realise it and take advantage of it!

Steven Smith - Okay, so now we know your opinion, give us some details...

VP-L - Well, I never even knew about Layeth's first match until it was all over.  I got this phonecall from Adam (VP-M) saying that I just had to join his new E-FED.  I have to admit I wasn't enthusiastic.  My first experience on the internet was looking for something about the WWF.  I didn't even know what a message board was, but I managed to find through yahoo an E-FED.  I dunno who's it was, but I looked around, read a few of the posts, they were by people called Shawn Micheals and Bret Hart, and thought to myself "this is total crap!".  The posts were so awful...  But I didn't know what it was that I was looking at.  I finally figured it out, then left it for what I thought would be forever, wondering why on earth people would want to waste their time on such innane rubbish?!  First impressions last... more on that later!  Anyway, I joined, but his form didn't work at the time.  He wanted me to resubmit it so he could make my character.  I procrastinated, so he made it himself.

Steven Smith - It would have been easy for him to give up on you....

VP-L - Very.  He rang me again a week or so later and told me to post.  I got on and asked him why I had already lost some matches.  He told me.  Boy was I pissed....  Anyway, after procrastinating some more and being reminded of the URL about 7 times, I finally got on and I read an open challenge from the original Myst, and answered it.  My first real match was with him, despite the fact that I got lots of mileage out of being in UFW's first "Main Event" (a two match card...hehe).  I lost, but that wasn't the point.  My answer to Myst was nothing special...   I lost the match.   Damn...  I got in some other ones, lost a few more.  In desperation, I put an open challenge out and Myst himself answered again.  I had another match with him, lost it as well.  I challenged him to a third, then made the mistake of issuing an open challenge for a handicap match.  Myst took up both, and I lost both.  The thing was that I was only checking every 3 or 4 days, and people were answering my posts.  The old board used to e-mail you if you put your mail address in if someone replied to your post.  I have no idea if the new board does it, because I stopped putting mails in when I started getting Layeth over as hated by a few people, and have never started since.  My record was looking very gloomy.  Anyway, I disappeared for a few more days, then Adam rang me and told me that he'd booked me in the main event of the first PPV in a three-way dance with Myst and then champ The Body, and that he'd already done the results, this was like about 4 days early, and I'd won, so if I loved him at all I'd better get on and RP for the match (he didn't quite say it like that, but you get the drift...).  I RP'd against Myst, as I think The Body was on holiday.  He came back to find that I'd taken his title... boy was he pissed!  This upstart newbie had taken his title.  I'd read some of his posts and thought to myself gee this guy is good I'll never beat him.  So, I agreed to defend the title against the winner of a match between Justin Sane, The Body and Myst, in one week's time (no sense in losing the title straight away).  Conveniently for me, The Body started with the "Prez make him defend his title!" posts.  I took to this like a duck to water, and started posting against him. Nothing what you would call Roleplays, just insults, and telling him he was no good, and why he shouldn't be champ.  Really strong stuff, or so I thought back then.  Truth to tell I've got no time for people who post like that these days...  I started calling him names - the first being The "I'm too sexy for my cat so I'll sleep with my dog instead" Body.  That lasted a few posts until I got bored with it.  I then changed it.  Then again.  Then each time I posted I'd call him something different, ridiculing his name.  While this was going on, Myst won the three way dance against The Body who posted once against Myst but the rest of the time defending himself against this barrage from the Heavyweight Champ, and Justin Sane, who had by this time disappeared from UFW and was on his way to a 0:9 losing streak - being UFW's first true jobber, even though all the matches were never rigged back then (more on that later).   Myst then whipped my ass in the title match, and became champ.  He put up this post of him being in a spa, celebrating beating the young upstart Layeth, for his first title reign.  He was also US Champ at the time I think.  Anyway, this set me on fire... I hated him with a passion, he took my title.  I challenged him to a rematch, but he set me this challenge of winning 6 matches within a week to get the match at the next PPV, which I accepted, and this also gave him immunity from defending for about 3 and a half weeks, which further pissed off The Body.  Body, no doubt sick and tired of the name calling by now, challenged me to a loser leave UFW match.  I said I would, if he won three matches, that I set him.  I think the first was against Tommy Mauller, but I could be wrong on that.  The second was against Screaming Eagle (more on him later), which he won, and the third I set him to defend his newly won TV Title against a guy who had just beaten him, JD Stalker.  Body went on holiday, and lost the match not being able to RP for it.  To be honest, JD could post back then and whipped his ass on the RP Board, so deserved to win.  There were other matches between us, an evening gown match which I actually joked about and Prez (Adam) made happen and I didn't even know about until afterward.  I was pissed, then realised that I won, so got more mileage out of it.  After he got back from holiday, I had run out of names, and he went on to other things.  In the mean time, Myst had decided to retire from UFW.  I was feuding with him in non-title matches, losing them all (stupid Gen...).  He, Adam and I cooked up this thing where I would injure him in a card, and so he was gone, and the Heavyweight Title declared vacant.  Adam said it woud be decided at the PPV.  I had agreed with Myst to make it instead of a two way match, a three way dance with him, I and the winner of a huge Royal Rumble match.  Heaps of people posted for it.  A guy by the name of Lil' Big Man won it, and he had never posted anything.  Raker won the tournament to replace the "injuired" Myst.  Adam did the PPV results a few days early, and told me that Raker won.  I was spewing....  I then got shifty and sucked up to Raker, telling him that I thought he had the best chance of winning out of everyone either the tournament or the rumble (he was last eliminated in the rumble too, further adding to his legend).  I challenged Raker to a match the card after the PPV - if either of us won the heavyweight title, he would give the other a rematch.  Blatant cheating (yes Nemesis, I have cheated, but that was before I was on staff..hehe) of course, but it got me what I wanted, my title back.  I kept it for a month - I defended once against Iceman (he won a qualifying battle royal that I set, then defeated Raker as the ex champ) and Tommy Mauller (UFW's original whiner other than The Body when he lost his title to me, more on Tommy later - he got his spot in this match as a direct result of whining, he was going to leave, it was my way of getting him to stay), retained, then organised a large tournament, to defend at the PPV - giving me another 2 and a half weeks where I didn't have to defend.   The tournament was popular... enter guys like Jake Douglas and Total Package... newbies who challenged the Heavyweight Champ for a  title shot.  I spent my time justifying to them why tournaments were better, they gave everyone a chance.  The whining from them came when they were eliminated in the first or second round...  Iceman got a bye into the final due to a guy called Zev taking his whole stable out of UFW (Tiree was one of them, and had made the semis) and Krusha.  Digressing here, one of my side things to mention in posts was that I was going to be responsible for dismantling Demonic Minds.  This was great press for me, because DM fell apart on their own without my help.  Body was on holiday, so I encouraged Iceman to leave and join myself, Krusha and the turncoat Biatch in Tights (later Insomniac then VP-I then Dynamite Jack).  Iceman, Krusha and I joined the Vindicators, and they were ironically the finalists in my tournament.  I defended the title successfully and became the subject of the first ever ??? beatdown on someone.  The ironic thing is that ??? submitted the ending to the match, which Iceman actually won (sorry Nick!).  He had told me on ICQ about a week ago that he wasn't interested in being Heavyweight Champ yet, and was happy with being TV Champ.  I relayed this to Adam, and said that if he doesn't want it, let me keep it and I'll drop it to someone who does want it.  Adam agreed, then from memory it was at about this time that he said he was going to close UFW, and that he was very sorry, but he wanted his life back (UFW was about 3 months old by then, and going great guns!). I offered to take it from him, but give it back to him any time he wanted it.  He never asked for it back, but helped me run it - I couldn't have done it without him.  Me being Prez and Heavyweight Champ (one that not everyone liked, but was popular because of the News Posts - more on them later) didn't mix in my book, so rather than vacate the title I decided to tell nobody except for VP-Body (he won the VP-ship from Geno - details in VP-M's interview).  To his credit, Sam kept my secret for almost 2 months, and wasn't the one to let the cat out of the bag that I know of.  I had this double identity thing going.  On ICQ as Layeth, and E-mail only as Prez.  It infuriated the Wollongong mob (Kit, Sam, Campbell (VP-I) and Nick (Iceman)).  I felt so guilty about not tellling even my own stable mate, but I wanted to remain impartial, so felt it better that he didn't know.  He was really good about it when I finally told him.  As you will see in Kit's interview, I did have a great deal of trouble keeping the identities separate - not letting on that I knew what the other knew and vice versa in conversations.  I had to play along often being told the same things twice, and was told as Prez that BIT/Insomniac was going to betray Vindicators long before I was told as Layeth...  I found that rather amusing ;)   Anyway, I had full control over UFW, a nephew that would help me after he had a rest, and this VP that I didn't know what to do with.  I never asked him to do anything, because I wanted to do it all on my own, with only a bit of help from Adam.  He stayed on as VP mainly in name only - getting all the best lines in the hand written commentary (which he never thanked me for, so I wonder if he ever read the results....hehe) that I did and I got him to organise his own card, called the VP-Body invitational tournament.  I also kept my promise to Adam, and dropped the Heavyweight Title back to him (Body) on purpose.  He was an okay champ - good heel.  Jake Douglas won the tourney - the prize of which was a shot at the title of your choice.  He made Jake wait a LONG time for that shot, so much so that I forced the match on him, which I felt guilty about for undermining his VP position, but the PPV was coming up in a week so it had to be that night.  Jake lost to Body legit, then he defended on the same card against Insomniac (his stable mate), who won the match.  I then found out the next day that Insomniac had been rude to his mother, so I stripped him of the title and put it up in a tournament at the PPV.  I wanted some serious heat for my first PPV, and felt that these guys could single handedly ruin it if I didn't intervene.  Campbell took it rather well - he said to my face that he was happy to be on the title history as champ.  Check it out, its up there, Insomniac.   At this time, Ed Novak and Mike Nightmare were going great guns on the RP Board.  I decided that Mike was going to be the next champion no matter what.   I got Layeth into the main event by defeating 12 jobbers in a row (my payoff to myself for dropping the Title was the jobber challenge - a stipulation going to the loser of Body vs Layeth title match, and something that would keep me in people's faces but doing minimal work on the RP board as Layeth because I was busy being Prez - just pick 12 guys that don't RP for them anymore, make Layeth fight them in the opening match (ultimate humiliation for a guy who's gimmick was that he had to compete in the main event... notice any similarity between that and Groan's gimmick?).   I won the first three legit, then the fourth I lost to Derek "The Man" Grimes - a guy who had left UFW for IWO.  I rigged that result, and then rigged the rest of them to make Layeth win by submission.   If anyone noticed, they didn't say anything about the way I won each match being the same....  Anyway, Mike was the latest member of ???, so I wrote the match up that he and Body (ex champ getting a shot) would team up and beat the stuffing out of Layeth, then Body sat up on the corner of the ropes horizontally, and watched as Mike beat Layeth, becoming the first ever champ.  Layeth won the title back from Mike when I introduced Groan in UFW (more on that later), and then Layeth and Mike had a rematch, in which Roody Poo was the guest referee.   Layeth's third and final reign ended when Roody Pinned both of us and announced himself as Champ (I ripped that idea off from a WWF PPV - Austin vs UT vs Kane).  Mike won it back on the next card, then dropped it at the PPV I think to Iceman (another rigged match, more on that later).  I always meant for Mike to have a longer title reign, as his RP's were superb, but for some reason he was never as popular as he should have been, getting 10 to 12 reads most posts.  He went on holiday for a month after the PPV loss and saved me the pain of that decision - I always like to have popular heavyweight champs... something I haven't always achieved ;)

Steven Smith - That's a long story.  Surely there were other feuds.  After all, Layeth retired with 53 wins, 33 losses.  

VP-L - Sure there were.  Tommy Mauller - I loved messing with his mind.  Every thing he would post, I would post a reply to it knocking him in some way.  I know for a fact that I broke his spirit doing that, because he complained bitterly to me as Prez about that when I was still hiding my identity.  I was really worried about him actually, his writing was from a very disturbed individual.

Steven Smith - Wow.. What happened?

VP-L - I backed off, and he took it really well when I finally came out and told everyone that Prez and Layeth were the same, the day I retired from being UFW Prez who did everything and also retired Layeth.

Steven Smith - With the pressure off for being Prez and Layeth, why did you retire Layeth as well?  Getting 20-25 reads per post still at that stage must have been hard to give up.

VP-L - Well, without the title belts anymore - I had gone through all the singles titles by then, Layeth's popularity started to wane.  My acceptance post which was done in the form of a party only got 12 reads, and to this day I think it is one of the funniest posts I have ever done.  Much the same as Groans today, I think they are really funny, but he's never been popular.  More about that after.

Steven Smith - So back to what other feuds?

VP-L - JD Stalker, I feuded with him before he retired.  Another injury written up beautifully by his wife Pandora, I think I was intended to get the blame, but ??? turned it around so that Jake Douglas was blamed.  The poor guy spent more time denying that he caused JD's accident than anything else he did in UFW.  I think he believed that we believed it was really him that drove JD into a tree in the car....  classic stuff!  When JD came back, he tagged with me as New Breed.  I did about 2 posts for New Breed, concentrating instead on what was left of my stable (Vindicators), he did one, we had a terrible win/loss record, and for some reason we won Tag Team of the Year at UFW.  It would have been more logical in my mind if the one man team of Biohazard and The Avator had won (Avator didn't have Internet... I kept him on the roster for over 6 months to keep Biohazard happy).

Steven Smith - Any others?

VP-L - I had a great feud with Screaming Eagle.  Before he left and became Howler, we had a "winner gets the losers valet" match.  I won, and got his valet Little Cloud for a week.  Every day I posted the Little Cloud diaries.  B.A. if you are reading this, you did okay with Linda, but I did it better!  I made him look totally stupid by having Little Cloud talk about what had been going on.  I had Linda train Little Cloud for a woman's title match against Pandora, giving Pandora something to RP about when defending her title, and just took the absolute piss out of Screaming Eagle.  The last two were the best ones, which I actually wrote at work and didn't save.  I'll find the file of the ones I did save and post it somewhere here.  As I said, the by far best ones were lost.

Steven Smith - I'm sure there were others, but who was your final feud?

VP-L - Well, Mike Nightmare was the final one. He got mileage out of saying he was the one that ran Layeth out of town. Sad to say that Layeth's last match was at a PPV, against Mike Nightmare.  The same night as he killed Roody Poo with one punch to the face for costing him the Heavyweight Title - Layeth was eliminated in a tourney to get to the title shot thanks to Roody's interference (one of about 12 deaths of Roody that night).  I didn't have time rewrite any of it, and for that I'm sorry.  Not a great way for a legend to bow out...hehe.  There was also a potentially good feud with Myst and Cain Manson Crow, but I was so busy being Prez that I didn't have time to post for it.  Myst and Cain carried the can.  I made sure Layeth didn't win the match, and I personally apologised to Randy (Cain) for not posting in response to his fabulous efforts when he left.  He was really good about it.   That all started when Cain, posting great guns, got a huge push to start with by getting into a match with Myst and Layeth (we both pushed him by responding to his posts to us and got in a three way dance - we spike pile drove him off from a ladder onto concrete and double-pinned him, leaving it a null result (another use of the double pin idea from the WWF PPV) and a great match for the PPV, which I just said I didn't manage to follow up with.  That's one of my main regrets - not trying to match it with Cain on the board.

Steven Smith - So, that is a brief synopsis of the career of Layeth.  You didn't even touch on being the first wrestler suspended in UFW and a whole bunch of other stuff.

VP-L - I'd love to, but they would all fall asleep...

VP-Body - You got that right ya big goof!

VP-L - Quiet Bodylotion!  Back in ya box!

Steven Smith - What about some of your other characters?

VP-L - Well, my Chameleon was the same as Myst's Krusha - totally different character.  I brought him in to be Layeth's partner in a tag match against The Body and Screaming Like a Woman Eagle (c) Original Myst.  The name Chameleon means something masquarading as something else - i.e. Layeth masquerading as Chameleon.  Chameleon entered into a brief feud with Layeth, and in thier only match defeated Layeth with his own speciality, a Kendo Stick.  Chameleon was an idiot.  I made sure that people didn't know it was me by using my father's computer to post the messages (the IP addresses are different) and speaking in a totally different dialect, and showing no glimmer of intelligence at all.  I got bored really quickly with Chameleon, but kept him around when Jake Douglas needed a stable mate for the first stables titles match.  Jake was the most turned-on member in UFW history.  I planned to do it to him again right from the start.  I made it worse by joining his stable, then not posting, thus giving him no support whatsover.  I then wrote the stables match (the first fully hand-written match in UFW, great spot with Kaos taking out Raker by cutting some electrical wire and electrocuting him repeatedly.  Yes, the stables title was Kaos's idea, but once he mentioned it he disappeared for a while, so I pushed it through and finally got Adam to agree on the basis that I write the match.).     Layeth and the Vindicators were about to win, but in Myst's return from injury (Adam was starting to post for him) I had Myst come out, beat up Bill Fraser and take the referee shirt, then ref the match.  Chameleon and Fandral (Iceman's other character at the time) turned on Jake, making a mess of his head with a chair.  They then left him laying.  At the last minute, with Jake beaten to a pulp and Layeth showboating, Myst went to make the three count, but instead whacked Layeth with a chair and gave the stables title to Jake.  I thought this was hillarious - a one man stable winning the 6 man titles.  I did it to see how many people would suck up to Jake, just so they could say they were a champion.  Nobody joined his stable, but he ended up chasing down Tommy Mauller and Total Package (then known as Million Dollar Dream Team), and then Geno chased them all down and made them unite.  He immediately stopped posting (read VP-M's interview) and left the other three with the stables titles and a dodgy name (Elite).  It didn't suit them at all, and they brought stable disunity to new heights.  It was great fun to witness.

Steven Smith - Why did you do that to Jake?

VP-L - As you might have seen in VP-M's interview, Jake was the perfect heel, without even trying.  I couldn't stand him, but I respected his tenacity.  His RP's were rather repetitive (how many times can you beat up an interviewer?).  I'll never forget his response to my Kendo Stick Strike though.

Steven Smith - What was with that?

VP-L - Finding I had no time in my day to post for Layeth, I wrote this post where I strongly objected to other members using Kendo stick in their RP's (Jake had one, Tommy had one, and a few others mentioned them as well.  Tommy called it a Kendu stick which annoyed the crap out of me for no reason at all).  Anyway, I said in this post that I was on strike until the Prez (me) did something about it.  A few people replied almost immediately.  Tommy called me a whinger.  Me, tired and cranky, missed the point that I was generating good heat, and posted as Prez telling peole not to upset Layeth and that I would fire anyone who made UFW's best RP'er leave. Tommy made me post quickly without thinking quite often...  After that post, Jake popped up and said that he was really sorry, and that he was going to use a lead pipe instead.  It was at that point I realised my mistake in the Prez post, in that I had probably just killed what would have been the most successful angle in UFW that far, when it was only an hour old.  Right then, the original Kamakaze posted a reply as well, calling me a whining moaning whinger and some other very unflattering stuff.  He had just tried to join Vindicators, only to be told that he had to be invited, and had done some really horrible posts containing graphic detail about what his opponents family did to each other after the lights went out.  Anyway, his stocks plummeted, and I posted back as Layeth saying I would take revenge out on him at every opportunity until he apologised (he never did....).  I wrote in a savage beating into the next card in the main event, despite the fact that he beat Mike Nightmare earlier in the night in a 30 story building match.  After that, he got pissed off and didn't post much anymore.  I always thought he, T-Money and Ice were the same person, but it turned out that Kamakaze and T were close friends.  I was told later that Ice (singularly the WORST roleplayer UFW has ever seen) was in fact another of T's friends, but I don't believe him to this day...   What happened with T and Kamakaze I'll get to later in Groan's story.   Anyway, the use of Kendo sticks in UFW has never been popular since, except with Tommy who kept it up probably just to piss me off, claiming he did it before me, despite the fact that I was whalloping Geno in Kendo Stick matches before Tommy even heard of UFW (Geno was the first victim in probably about six Kendo Stick matches Layeth had.  I used to lie and say I was 11 and 1 (1 being Chameleon, my own character) and that I was pretty unbeatable in them.. never let the facts stand in the way of a good story ..hehe).

Steven Smith - Okay then.  Now, what about The Gimp?

VP-L - He was my first ever serious effort at Roleplaying.  Sure, I was doing the Vindicators meeting posts as Layeth, having conversations with Iceman in them (funny stuff, very popular), but they didn't have much in the way of scene setting or real character development, just playing it for laughs.  Anyway, we had this Cruiserweight Champ, Jaguar, who had no opponents for his title.  I rolled off a good introductory RP (it might even be in the sample section from memory) and challenged him to a best of seven series for his title.  The stupid git said no, and put me through 5 opponents.  Immediately after that, UFW's worst ever roleplayer, ICE, reappeared and said he was the rightful number 1 contender.  Jag immediately gave him a shot (which is why I maintain that with the same posting IP and the same idiotic posting structure, they are one and the same person).  I genned the match, ICE won with a shooting star press.  I changed it in one of my first actual edits in cards from that move to his "sighature" move "The Walls of Jericho".  ICE used to end all his posts with his catchphrase "YOU WILL BE STACKED AND DROPPED IN THE WALLS OF JERICHO".  This, people, is why I was so adamant about keeping any trace of WCW/ECW/WWF out of UFW.  In your own mind you look cool by emulating your favourites, but in others minds you come across looking like a tosser who can't think originally.  Anyway, Ice was now champ, and never to be heard from again.  Jaguar reappeared when I gave him a title shot at the PPV, mainly so that I had a way of getting the title of non-posting Ice.   I genned the match, and decided that if Ice won I would change it to The Gimp, but if Jag won, he became champ again.  My almost first rigged match wasn't rigged, because Jag won.  Bitch...hehe.

Steven Smith - The Gimp had several shots at the Cruiserweight Title.

VP-L - Sure.  Others as well.  I gave the first Rising Star Title to the Gimp.  At the time we had a competition on for naming the title.  People could put their suggestion up and if they won the match their name got used or they got to select one from the list.   Half the names sucked, and I didn't want to take the risk of having a sucking name for a title I introduced, so I rigged the match, named the title, then on the very next card dropped it on purpose to Howler, who was busy being ignored by all and sundry because of absolute woeful posting   I posted a challenge for a return match.  Gullible Howler accepted, and I won it back legit.  From memory I was then in a feud with Howler for a shot at the Hardcore TItle.  Ed Novak challenged us and the match became a three way.  I really wanted to win that match, because I could have had the Gimp holding the Rising Star, Cruiserweight and Hardcore Title in the one week.  I lost all of the matches....  I was so tempted to rig them, but didn't.  Anyway, Novak beat both Howler and I for a shot at Cain Manson Crow, who in the mean time dropped the title to Jake Douglas and retired immediately (probably out of pique that such a talented RP'er had to job to such a schmuck...).  

Steven Smith - What happened with Ed and The Gimp?

VP-L - Gimp feuded with Novak on and off, starting off with a Whip vs Bob match (Gimps carry whips - watch Pulp Fiction...hehe).   Novak won the match by cutting the whip with wire cutters while it was wrapped around his neck and he was being hung over the top rope with it.  Gimp fell back directly onto Bob and Novak got the duke.   The feud went quiet, and then came alive again when Novak needed a challenger for the Hardcore Title after he won it from Douglas (I rigged that match without hesitation - probably the first real rigged match I did myself - I wasn't going to risk losing Ed if he didn't win and decided that he got ripped off).   Poor Jake, he also lost another rigged match in the JD Stalker naming rights.  Jake came up with JD for Jake Douglas.  Stalker hit the roof, and asked me to deal with it, and was very concerned because his name was everything to him.  I booked a match between them for it.  Jake RP'd for it and Stalker did as well.  I hit the "Wrestler 1" wins, so again we will never know if Jake was the real JD or not.

Steven Smith - Do you mind if I talk to you about rigged matches later?  I'd like to finish off Gimp's story.

VP-L - Sure.  I did a few hardcore posts.  Ironically, I did a small sendup of hardcore challengers as Layeth when I was toying with Body over who would win all titles first.  I needed tag and hardcore, and he needed US and Hardcore.  He never got US though, although I did say he could have it after he lost the world title to Insomniac.  If I had known about Insomniac's home troubles earlier I would have left the strap on Body... (same goes with Bloodshed and Biohazard when Bio went on holiday).  What can ya do?  Anyway, I would have Layeth say "I'm hardcore" in a conversation, and then post something that wasn't hardcore to talk about getting the shot.  Subtle humour that probably was missed by most people.  Anyway, I did some hardcore posts with Gimp, having him trained in Mistress Rosella's hardcore dungeon of doom, filling the posts with thinly veiled sexual innuendo that could have also been talking about legit hardcore wrestling.  Gimp lost a hardcore title challenge to Ed Novak (it was his first defence - he won by Brinking Gimp through a chair... I was so disappointed, but knew it was for the best).   Ed then vacated the title due to lack of challengers (the hunt is more fun than defending, as Myst once said), and put the strap up in Novak's fun house.  To my surprise, Gimp won that match, so I was new Hardcore Champ.  One hardcore post later, and I decided I was truly lousy at them, so lost the title to someone else, then ended my feud with Novak in the "Most Sadistic SOB in UFW" title match.  Ed won it from someone else - it was the same sort of harmless thing as Gravedigger's Big Man title, so I allowed it to happen.  It was fun writing that match with Ed.  My main contribution was as he mentioned, Gimp hanging Ed upside down in the corner in the tree of woe, cutting some barbed wire off Bob while Ed was watching helplessly, then wrapping it around his neck and tying him to the ringpost.  Ed wrote most of the rest of the match.  Brutal stuff...hehe.   After that, I did some funny posting about Gimp coming out of hospital and falling in love with Cain Manson Crow's valet, Gothica.  I don't think Cain read the posts because he never acknowledged them.  Cain left, Gimp had no gimmick or opponent, so I retired him, and only brought him back as a support character for Groan's later RP's.

Steven Smith - Interesting stuff.  What about your portrayal of Kamakaze the jobber?

VP-L - The original Kamakaze and I never got on well after that Kendo Stick business.  There was some stuff that happened in between that will go in Groan's story, but he occasionally found other computers to spam the board with (He was blocked immediately after being party to posting pics of Sable in Playboy on the HTML test board and over at IWO).   He spammed and said some unflattering stuff about Layeth, who had been retired for donks, so it had to be him, and Kamakaze the jobber was born.   I remember some of his catchphrases and used them in Kamakaze the jobber's five line challenges.  I added some humour to them as well.  He was mortified when he found out, but still dissed me when telling me to stop, so I didn't.

Steven Smith - Cool!  Shaving Cream Ahoy!  Okay, what about Groan?

VP-L - Groan came about because I used to read IWO's board to keep an eye on T-Money and Kamakaze, who had left in UFW in disgust after one of my bad-tempered blowups on the board (I suggested to T-Money if he wasn't happy in UFW that he try IWO, where they are crying out for peole of his calibre....  He didn't get the insult, and took me up on my offer, and only reappeared as Jaguar when the Cruiserweight Title was under threat,  (T-Money = Jaguar).  I saw some really bad posts over there, so I just replied with Name = Groan and Subject = Groan, just as a way to indicate to the guy that I was groaning about the quality of his post.  As usual, the guy didn't get it....  I wonder why?   Anyway, I later decided that I wanted to join IWO because T-Money was over there running roughshod over anyone who posted anything.  I filled out the join form, but couldn't think of a name, and didn't want to join as Layeth and ruin my image.  I chucked in Groan, and Groan was born.  I won my first match there against Y2J Bledsoe (I think he was Eminem here for a short time) then immediately chased after Kamakaze, who was the Cruiserweight Champ there at the time.  I did some really insulting posts at him, and nicknamed him Dogmeat.  He hated that.  I beat him in two non-title matches, because he refused to defend against me.  I then started challenging T-Money to non-title matches (he was US Champ at the time) on the basis that I hated his jobber stick (as I said, he used to browbeat two line posters rather more savagely than was warranted - he tried it as Jaguar in UFW one day, but I threatened to fire him and made him defend the Cruiserweight Title against Lil Parth (a five-ten line poster who never amounted to much other than sparking a large racism debate because of his Indian heritage and someone made a sly remark about his name, which turned out to actually be his name (Parth).   Anyway, I lost 4 matches in a row to T-Money, despite severely out RP'ing him with several "Groan's Pit" posts.  I even did one where I ran a support group for browbeaten jobbers - I picked 12 people off the RP board that he had bullied, and had them come on an Oprah-like show, and interviewed them and had them all break down crying  after telling about his treatment of them.   Given that I was getting nowhere in terms of beating him, I started getting nasty and dissecting his posts.  Every paragraph I would explain why it was worthless in terms of a true Roleplay, and that he was using a lot of words to say nothing.  He hated that...hehe.  I lost to him still, and brought in the re-inforcements.  Whinge (Myst), Moan (Body) and Whine (Pyro) came over to help me, and formed the stable WHTM (We Hate T-Money....hehe).  They asked several times what it meant, and I don't think ever guessed.  I won the Heavyweight Title from T in a tournament, dropping four of IWO's finest including Kamakaze on their head with a Death Valley Driver.  That became Groan's recognised finisher, for good luck...hehe.  I agreed to defend in a three way dance against Enigma and T-Money, and to defend wrote the one in the library that sits in the sample Roleplay section.  I lost the match to Enigma, who did a 20 line crap post telling us he was going to kick our asses.  So much for rewarding his recent good posting.  T got himself a rematch with Enigma by beating me again, and was set for his title shot when the Prez announced that IWO was closing.  Within 48 hours T had written up his first lot of results and won back his world title, I thought enough was enough and  was about to quit because RP'ing there for Groan was taking too much time, and with the new Prez T who didn't like me I would never win another match and  would be beaten down on every card (never happened because I didn't stay around long enough.).   THe next day we found the porno posts on IWO's board, which he didn't have the passwords for yet so couldn't get rid of, and our HTML test board.  I fired him and Krazie (Kamakaze) immediately, and quit IWO officially, requesting that my name be immediately removed from the roster, and my title reign there erased from the title history (I don't think they even had that).   After writing that, the lightbulb went on and I erased Jaguar from the Cruiserweight Title history, and made it as if he never existed.  I can honestly say that Mike (T) would have died if he had seen that, as he loved that CW Title.  I put it back later on about a month later when I cooled down...hehe.  I later bumped into him on WFW, and saw his opening post saying that he was a 3 time UFW CW Champ and couldn't understand why he had been fired there.  He did apologise for the porno posts, but I just didn't like him or want Krazie/Kamakaze posting in UFW anymore, so wouldn't let him back in.  Krazie's posts were long and tedious.

Steven Smith - So Groan had no home?

VP-L - Layeth was on the way out - when a guy has to resort to mentioning things he's done in history in order to challenge for a title, then its time to go.  That was a good post by the way, but the fact that I couldn't think of anything else to write for Layeth, yet had plenty of ideas for Groan.  I knew what I had to do.  I brought Groan in when I won the third world title from Mike Nightmare and had him throw the ringsteps over the top rope and hit Mike in the head with it.  Mike got mileage out of Layeth cheating, and I got the title. Mike and I agreed to do the quick title change back and forward, because I said I wanted to have it a third time before I retired Layeth.   Mike generously offered to lose it to me, providing he won it back a the PPV.  I was surprised at the offer, and took him up on it.  We never got around to organising things properly, and then he had to go away on holiday after the PPV, so as a result his second title reign was cut short.  Incidentally, I believe he deserved a third as well, but he never seriously challenged for it after that.  I would have supported him if had come out and asked, but I don't know about some of the other VP's.   Work that one out for yourself by reading some of their interviews.

Steven Smith - You didn't do many Groan's Pit interviews in UFW.  Why?

VP-L - Well, I could have I suppose, but I came up with what I thought of was a better idea.  Groan won the Rising Star Title, which I then defended against a few people, I think War was one of them, and then deliberately lost it to Pain, the second character of VP Body.  He won the title, then disappeared, and no-showed for his cardwriting duties shortly after.  We didn't hear from him for a few days, then fired him.  He reappeared a few weeks later, and we made peace.  I always liked Sam once I started talking to him after our feud, so I didn't stay mad at him for very long.  He did let me down once more after that, with a small tourney for Malice In Wonderland, for the Rising Star Title - the title I stripped from his character Pain.  He was on until lunchtime the day the matches were due, then disappeared.  At the end of the day I quickly genned some matches and put them in.  No harm done, other than I didn't trust him anymore.  I still liked him though.  Anyway, after losing the Rising STar Title, I wrote up Roleplays about Layeth and Gimp pressuring Groan into being more successful, but Groan was Layeth's younger half brother, and an underachiever.  He won some matches, but without two tourneys he was in (Zircus Von Tot and the World Title tourney before Mind Games) his record would have been about 14 wins 20 losses or something similarly proportional to that.   I eventually dropped the Groan being pressured by his predecessors gimmick and moved on to the King of the Midcarders Gimmick - kind of a parody of my earlier must be in main event gimmick I had with Layeth.  I actually introduced the concept of main events in UFW, in order to get myself over.  Adam just used to book them in order of 1 to 8, in the order that he received the match bookings.  I asked him to put the original Myst and myself in the last match of the night, and change the label to Main Event.  Thus, I became the loser of the first unofficial and the first official main event in UFW...hehe.  I then morphed that into the last few promos I cut where I sent up Pedro and Richter with mannequins, and then the battle royal training promo was a generic idea I use (meeting posts sprinkled with humour and references to UFW history).

Steven Smith - How did the manequins start?

VP-L - That was back in IWO.  I used them to get around the "don't use others in your RP's" rule, and took the absolute piss out of T-Money and Kamakaze.  One match with T that I lost had a stipulation that I could never mention his name in my RP's again.  I cut a promo with me putting my favourite T-Money mannequin on a bonfire.  I brought the burned out mannequin with me to UFW, and mentioned in my first promo that it was a historic piece of my history, and i was going to restore it one day.  A later RP had the Gimp kicking me out of Vindicators HQ, and throwing the mannequin out the window and it smashing all over the pavement from a great height.  One piece of Groan's history gone, but most wouldn't have gotten the significance of the act anyway.   The day after  I beat T for the world title, he didn't come on.  I cut a promo having Groan sneak into the local doctors surgery, and see a figure on a gurney through some unclear glass - I put descriptions that matched T-Money's character, but never mentioned his name, and had the doctor come out and  say he was in shock.  After that I called him "the man with no name" until I won the world title, then he relaxed the rule.  After he lost the title, JD Stalker was there at the time, and although he never told me it was him, was helping me by calling T the man without a belt, further rubbing in that T had lost the US Title to Mack (he was here for a while, he has a post on the board now as Steve W) and the World Title to me.  He made some references to things that had happened in our UFW feud, so I knew it was him (that and the IP addresses matched.. I used to keep a list of who had what IP address, until I lost interest in such trivial things).

Steven Smith - Well, that just about covers your characters, briefly, what about your reign as Prez the first time?

VP-L - Well, I've covered that a lot already, was there anything specific you wanted to know?

Steven Smith - Well, you mentioned match rigging.  Tell me about that.

VP-L - Happened very rarely at first.  Then when the VP system took over, we rigged all the PPV Heavyweight Title matches.

Steven Smith - Why?

VP-L - I had this thing where I wanted charismatic champions who were known posters.  My first rigged championship was Mike, then Iceman.

Steven Smith - Iceman?  His reign was a flop!

VP-L - True.  He did post when his title was under threat, but, same as Kit, he wasn't driven to post like I was when I was champ. 

Steven Smith - You use yourself as a measure for most things in UFW, don't you?

VP-L - Also true.  I remember how things pumped when I was champ for the first two times.  The tourneys and battle royals and stuff went down really well.  The first tourney I did, I posted brackets after each round, as a graphic.  I made it into an animated gif that flashed the word "Jobber" or "loser" over the people who got eliminated.   You would be amazed at the effect that had on people.  I dunno if it was because they were not wanting the word jobber to be flashing over their name or not, but let me tell you the Heavyweight Title has never been so much posted for or so saught after since.   I always wanted it to be like that, but the champs thereafter were never able to capture the same atmosphere.

Steven Smith - What about Bloodshed?

VP-L - He surprised me. Really, he did.  He had posted great guns at an earlier PPV when he was defending the TV Title, then lost it to a newbie.  I did feel bad for him, but given that he'd only just started posting stuff that was worth taking the time to read, I thought he would go further.  He went quiet for a while, then had a spat where he complained a lot about things.  He ripped into Howler once after he won the Hardcore Title (despite earlier claims by me, the match was rigged, but he was fighting newbies when he won it, so was given it by default).  I took away the swear word restriction on the board and let him have it with both barrels.  He'd also made complaints about the VP's holding all the titles, which was almost true, but in most cases they had been won legitimately.  The VP's earned their right to be VP's by posting quality (if they could post well, they had a fighting chance of writing a good match) as well as being my friends.  Anyway, that was about the same time as JiN was making waves, so my whole argument was built around affecting the morale of the other members.   Anyway, Bloodshed went quiet for a while, then suddenly turned up the winner of a tourney for the World Title shot at Malice.  We mailed him and told him he had about 12 hours to RP for it, then we would have to change the result because he hadn't posted.  He posted, and ended up winning the title.  (I was going through a guilt trip about the VP's holding titles, so made sure that he won it).  Anyway, after he won, he came back from holiday a few days later (what is it about champs and holidays?) and announced that times were changing, and the same old names weren't getting a shot and that Biohazard was.  HIs stable mate.  That was fine by me, as long as he defended on time and posted.  He did, and he did.  What he posted might not have been the absolute best, but it was well above average and outstanding compared to what he started out with.  Bio responded in kind and they both posted the place down!  It was great, we had a pumping Heavyweight Title division.   The VP's plan was to always put the belt on Bio as soon as we knew the challenger was him, but as the time got closer, I developed respect for both of them that I never had before, and let the gen decide.  Bio won, and straight away went on holiday...sigh....Division dead!

Steven Smith - What other matches were rigged that you know of?

VP-L - Well, I'm not sure about the other VP's.  I looked very hard for evidence of it sometimes, and found once case of Mimic winning a battle royal to qualify for a title shot that appeared to have been edited (Bloodshed did a move to someone quite some time after he got eliminated, and it wasn't an genned interference...).   Other than that, I couldn't tell you as far as they are concerned.  As far as I was concerned, I recently asked Bio to give the US Title to Porter, only because Anguish didn't post for it (busy out having a life and not caring as much about UFW anymore, and I can't say I blame him for it).   What else?  Handicap matches.  I hated doing them so anyone who did the challenge lost the match.  Pandora winning the woman's title on her return - I wanted to make sure she stayed around and was happy - after all having a legit woman poster is a rare thing in E-FEDs....   She stayed until I quit as Prez, then left with the reason that whatever teenager took over wouldn't look after her and would run UFW into the ground.  I mentioned the two Jake Douglas matches before.  I had the Forsaken Brotherhood interfere in B.A. vs Groan recently (I chided Bio on the staff board about his stable not interfering in B.A.'s title defence....hehe).  This was so that I could say that the win wasn't clean, and we would have Mayhem, B.A. and myself all posting for the TV Title, instead of two people.  I then told Ed, who was supposed to do that card, that if I won the match I wanted the title to go to Mayhem because B.A. would have lost anyway and I shouldn't have been there.  Sure enough, I won, so Mayhem won.  He got sick and disappeared for a while, and the TV Title division died.   So much for my efforts there...  B.A. won it back at LiL, then gave it to Nemesis.  I wasn't very happy about that, in fact at the time I wasn't very happy with B.A. at all.  I would write these great promos for matches with him, they would take an hour each, and I would get in return one or two paragraphs in a larger RP directed at a few people.  The waxworks Museum post was the exception, but that was the way it went most of the time.  I thought about it for a while, and realised that the way I was posting (fantasy within fantasy) gave people very little in the way of ammo to fire back at me.  This wasn't deliberate, and I didn't understand it at the time.  My main aim was to make people laugh with my posts.  I would never be able to return to the level of Layeth as far as reads go, possibly because my name was an obscure entry on the Rising Star Title History instead of a multi-time world champ.  A lot of people missed reading some very funny stuff...  Oh well.   So, that being said, B.A., if you are reading this still, I thought at first you were giving me less attention in your RP's because I was a VP something, but now I guess there are several reasons, the one I mentioned a few lines being the most prominent.  It took, and I lampooned this in the recent TV Title battle royal post, Howard Porter using the same thing against me in multiple posts to actually indicate to me that it was very hard for someone to RP against my character, because while I always did character development, it wasn't anything that people could use.  Sorry guys!

Steven Smith - Any other major matches rigged?

VP-L - Well, we tried to share the stables title around.   I do remember rigging Tommy Mauller's first TV Title defence against T-Money.  Tommy had posted really long and hard to win that TV TItle, and I thought he would crack if he lost it straight away.  That was the day T discovered that I'd uploaded the results early.  He would without fail come and RP an hour before the results were due, and expect it to make a difference.  Sure, I updated his push rate if he did a good post, but not until the next match.  He checked at about 11.00 in the morning, and I didn't usually post them until 12.00 lunch time.  What I was really doing was doing them the night before, uploading with a different file name, then renaming the files at work.  Things were always on time that way, and people knew when to log on to get them. People who remember that time reallly appreciate it compared to the recent times....  JD Stalker vs Total Package for the US TItle.  It was a three-way, where I had New Breed double team and pin him.  The reality was that I didn't want the US Title because I had no time to post for it, so I genned a match between Stalker and Package, and Stalker won, and I edited Layeth in.  They were both posting pretty hard for it, and I felt bad for Package when he lost.  He disappeared for a few days so I mailed him and told him how I did the match.  He thanked me and came back after that.

Steven Smith - Tell me about push rates....

VP-L - Absolutely worthless.  It doesn't matter what the figure is set to.  If you gen a match and pick "Let Zeus decide", it was random, so you had at best a 50/50 chance in a singles match.

Steven Smith - That's not what it says in the site rules and FAQ.

VP-L - What's in there is what we believed at the time.  I first questioned it when I had to do Brendan Payne vs Layeth the Smack Down, and Brendan made a retirement match out of it and wanted to lose.  I ran 9 matches before Layeth won.  Interestingly enough, Layeth's push rate was more than 50 points above Panes.  That's when we started asking questions, and did some trials.

Steven Smith - So what did that mean as far as people's push rate goes?

VP-L - Saved whoever cleared the board the trouble of doing it.  The problem was that I used to save the good RP's for the sample section when I did that.  VP-M took over the board maintenance, and thus no samples have been saved, and push rate hasn't been adjusted for about 5 months.

Steven Smith - A lot of people aren't going to like what you just revealed.

VP-L - How else could we run UFW without being corrupt about it?  We knew the limitation, and for the most part decided to go with random rather than pick it ourselves.

Steven Smith - Okay.  Now, I want to say some names, and you give a comment.  I'll start with everyone's favourite heel, Jake Douglas.

VP-L - I've heard of him...hehe.  Actually that's one of the loose rules I had for RP'ing as Groan.  Mention Douglas in the post somewhere.  He was the original annoying git.  Always asking when will the results be up with about 25 !'s more than an hour before they were due.  Beating up reporters in his posts got really boring.  His colour scheme was annoying.  He looked like a git using Bret Hart as his role model and posting a pic base of him.  Towards the end of his stay here, his posts actually became bearable, but he made a bad impression to start with and was never pushed very hard.  I never rigged any of his matches other than the two I mentioned, but for some reason he didn't have much luck with titles.  He probably deserved a short run with the world title just for his persistance in the face of everyone not liking him.   As Adam says, he played the heel role perfectly.   I hear he's a nice guy behind the scenes, but my last dealing with him was rejecting his application to rejoin UFW as Jake Douglas - I didn't actually reject him, I just said if he was back he had to be back and posting, and that we weren't going to let his friend Ravager in (oh Ravager, if you knew how stupid you looked using those Pic bases.... and even more stupid repeatedly insisting on using them afterward).    Anyway, I mentioned before, I respected Jake's tenacity, but he didn't know how to play the game.  He didn't often interfere in people's matches, yet was constantly interfered by others.  He didn't know how to get a title shot, but blamed administration for not handing him one.  I could go on....

Steven Smith - Dark Man X / Ghost

VP-L - Again, I admired his tenacity.  He had some small success with titles after a long wait, but again didn't know how to play the game.  I ended up helping him out in getting noticed by and then a shot at Kaos, who was ignoring him rather blatantly.  He almost gained acceptance into ??? before going on holiday, and they went with JiN instead.  If he varied his Rp's he would have hit it big time, but they were often the same.

Steven Smith - Cain Manson Crow

VP-L - I, along with everyone else at the time, lapped up anything this guy wrote.  He literally drilled respect out of us by the stuff he wrote and the way he wrote it.   I was spewing when he left, really spewing, but he didn't have any quality opponents that would suit his style other than Novak.  It was laughable watching Jake feud with him.  Ironically, the American Death Match trilogy are probably some of the more violent and pushed matches I ever wrote.

Steven Smith - Bloodshed

VP-L - Late bloomer.  I've covered him already.

Steven Smith - Biohazard

VP-L - Late bloomer also.  More about him in the VP section.

Steven Smith - Ming

VP-L - Every post, no matter what size, yielded something original - what I looked for in a post.  I really like this guy's work and hope he goes back to E-Fedding one day.

Steven Smith - Bob Ullrich

VP-L - See "Ming".

Steven Smith - Emerald Fusion

VP-L - Enthusiastic, and will learn.  I may have been too jaded by the time he joined to appreciate his work, but his tenacity will take him a long way no matter what (as long as he doesn't do Jake-like things).

Steven Smith - Genocide

VP-L - Highly spoken of by some of the other VP's.  I did feud briefly with him as Groan, but again probably didn't appreciate his work for what it was.  I confess that was a major failing in the last month or so, just sticking to reading my favourites unless I had a card to do, and he wasn't one of my favourites.  I realised my mistake, and added another feather to the camel's back when I was trying to resurrect the Heavyweight Title situation and had no idea what Sticky was.  I asked Adam and he knew, but I looked hard and couldn't find it.  My loss I guess.

Steven Smith - Porter

VP-L - I really like his work, but recognise that there are flaws in it.  Hell the guy is only 16, so what he's doing for his age is nothing short of miraculous.  I actually thought he was about 19.  He will develop in to a top notch E-Fedder should he decide to go back into it.  I agree with my counterpart (I think it was Novak) that said he and PHD work well together.   I respect his effort so much that I offered to bring back Layeth at th PPV just gone for a match with him.  He pointed out rightly so that time was not on our side, and that we should build it up more perhaps for the next special event.  My idea was to have the members vote on our posting for a "torch on a pole" match.  He agreed to that, but I guess it will never happen now...  Howard, thanks for your contribution to UFW. 

Steven Smith - PHD

VP-L - Despite the temptation to rig the match and make you Porter's lab rat, I didn't do it and you won.  The outcome was very entertaining anyway, even if at the time it seemed like the less viable option.  Porter was pissed at first, but I think he warmed to your responses afterward when he saw what you could do.   Guessing your age, I would say you are older than me, but I'm not sure by how much...hehe.  If you can, work with Porter in the future.  I really liked your work, and as you might have read above your hint at leaving (that's how I chose to perceive it) sent me into final despair!

Steven Smith - Crazy Six

VP-L - Again, the other VP's spoke highly of you.  I tend to have trouble warming to guys who come and go as you did (damn those holidays!), so didn't really relate well to your work.  You are talented though.

Steven Smith - Howler

VP-L - I put him through hell as Screaming Eagle, and messed with his mind over at Raker's FED, but I've always had a soft spot for Howler.  VP-M and I thought for a very long time that Howler was a young girl, simply because he send us mails from his wife's e-mail account.  Some of the things he did and said made no sense at all though.  He ended up with the worst win/loss ratio in the FED, other than perhaps Revenant, but the only matches I rigged involving him were actually in his favour.  I guess the sim just doesn't like some people ;)

Steven Smith - Any other members that you want to cover?

VP-L - There are hundreds I could.  Reverend, B.A. Bruiser, Nemesis, Brian Gaines, JiN, Geno, Dover Citadel, Urban Warrior, Slasher, Hulk/Shadow, Shadowman, Excellence, Mack, Wicked Macy O-Rielly, FireStarter.... heaps of guys I could talk about...oh yes, there is one more....Revenant.

Steven Smith - The other VP's all made a point to mention him...

VP-L - I want to point out now that I don't dislike the guy, probably because of my policy of keeping off people's ICQ list, but his "in your face" attitude and way of dealing people, along with some serious attempts at becoming a VP, didn't do him any favours.  The way he did things has actually gotten me in trouble with other members - I'm in Nemesis and possibly B.A.'s bad books right now if they choose not to accept my explanation on certain matters.   I might do things not to their liking, but I had no intention of screwing Nemesis out of anything, and the way what went down got relayed to him by Revenant made me look very bad, unjustifiably so, but that's another story.  His win/loss record was lousy, but you can attribute that to the sim as well, except for his first hardcore title challenge, where I told him he was going to lose to Howler regardless, as newbies can't come in and in less than a week have a title that the incumbent guy has been posting for for several months... 

Steven Smith - Well, that's it for the members, what about the staff?

VP-L - I love those guys.  We built the mountain together!

Steven Smith - Come on, spill the dirt.

VP-L - Well, I've always been one to do what is best for UFW, and sometimes that involved pulling them back into line.  They might not have always agreed with me, and at times gotten very narcy at me as well as I'm fairly blunt when it comes to saying what I want on the staff board.  Most of the demands I make are based on experience that they may not have had nor would understand unless they did have it, so if they ever got shitty at me I understand.

Steven Smith - You mentioned before that Mo was your personal favourite.  How do you feel about the others?

VP-L - I know they respect me and my work, and that at the end of the day they know I respect what they did too.  Ed says he feels he started UFW's downfall.  That may well be true, but in the grand scheme of things it would have happened anyway, as what they say is true, it would not have functioned long-term without me. 

Steven Smith - Why is that?

VP-L - I was on the Internet far more than any of them, always had the RP Board open looking for trouble, always answering the Prez mail box quickly when important....  I dunno....  Heaps of stuff.  Every night I was on the computer doing UFW.  I have 50 long play videotapes of stuff to watch that I've collected, I'm 8 weeks behind in Raw, 4 weeks behind in Nitro....  I estimate 30 hours a week on UFW spent by me, without writing any cards.  That  went on for 8 months, even after I vacated the Prez-ship.  The others, when on the internet, chatted more than I did.  They had other interests, reading online comics etc, but when I got on it was for UFW. 

Steven Smith - Overdoing it perhaps?

VP-L - Undoubtedly...  Its nearly 3.00 am and I have to get up for work tomorrow and I'm writing this.

Steven Smith - So take the morning off....

VP-L - Maybe... I don't think I'll be able to.

Steven Smith - How did you feel when they were late with their work, or didn't take care of little details that are important?

VP-L - Well, when I handed over to Kit, I expected him to take up everything.  I clearly stated that I wanted nothing to do with administration, but wanted to go off and play on my Playstation for a month or so, then I would come back and Roleplay.  I stayed off at home, but at work kept checking, and got jack with watching things fall gradually apart and the members become unhappy.  I threw myself back into it, getting stuck into him in a big way.  It did no good - he had his life, and didn't match up to what I was doing.  How could he?

Steven Smith - True.  What made you "relieve him of the Prez ship"?

VP-L - 30 or 40 unanswered applications in the mail box for starters.  There were other things.  It doesn't matter now.  We are fine.  I did learn though that no matter how much I whined, if he didn't want to do something, nothing I said could make him.  I remember that when Ed took over.

Steven Smith - You left him alone?

VP-L - Adam and I helped him out a lot, because he didn't know much about how to maintain the site, and complained to each other when it became obvious that he was falling behind and not doing much about catching up.

Steven Smith - Did you fire him?

VP-L - No, actually.  He was late with results, probably the first time ever.  He straight away told me not to say anything....  I didn't.  Shortly after that he said that he wasn't coping and he wanted out.  We split up the authority and all became VP's.

Steven Smith - So who was Prez?

VP-L - We came to an agreement that whoever did the hack work got to be Prez.  I said yes, but posted as VP-L anyway.

Steven Smith - You recently started reposting as Prez.  Why?

VP-L - Two things.  I was hoping to get VP-L out of the admin loop and pick up this VP-L turned heel gimmick we started with sHs.  I didn't have any motivation to post for it though, possibly because Revenant was a one man team of he and Naket.  I hate one man teams...

Steven Smith - What was the other thing?

VP-L - I got a bit paranoid about some things I thought were a bit ridiculous, such as some of them wanting Pedro to win the Rising Star title from Porter.   I went on a rant on the staff board, and asserted my authority on final decision, and made it clear I would quit if I didn't get what I wanted.

Steven Smith - You said that?

VP-L - Not in as many words, but I offered the position up if anyone else wanted it.  I was tired and cranky, and saw that if they did this they might annoy some of the real members who were posting for that title - given that the RS division was the most popular at the time, I didn't want that to happen at all.  I jumped up and down, and they canned the idea.  I don't think Mayhem was happy about it.  I never got confirmation of that either way, but my intuition told me that he was in on it, and wouldn't have been happy when told that I vetoed the idea.  I could be wrong, but maybe not.

Steven Smith - Doesn't that prove a little bit Mo's statement that you take it too seriously?

VP-L - Yes and no.  I was doing what I thought was the right thing by the majority of the members, and I was prepared to butt heads with the other VP's to get my own way.  I looked at that particular set of events when I was analysing the egomaniac comment thrown at me by Mr. OZZY AND STATIC, don't worry about that ;)

Steven Smith - Back to the VP's...  Any dirt?

VP-L - Look, we all know they were late, and eventually lost interest.  It happens, they are human.  I said, I love them all and would love to meet them one day and shake their hands for the work they put in to make it work.   I miss the chats I had with Ed and Mike when I was Prez.  I hope Mike is okay, we haven't heard from him for a while.   Kit and I are okay now.   Adam and I will always be close after this, much to the dismay of his sister and brother I think.... 

Steven Smith - Anything else you want to say?

VP-L - Just this to VP-T and VP-N - The Steven Smith gay angle got old really quickly...

Steven Smith - Thanks for that Ross.

VP-L - No problem.  Can I go now?  Wait a second, I'm your boss.  I'm leaving now.  I'm sure I'll think of more, as I've only told less than 1% of my total UFW experience.  Having read the above, people might have some idea what I'm giving up and how hard it is for me, and that it wasn't an easy decision for me....

Steven Smith - Any last words?

VP-L - Well, I have the advantage of reading the other VP's interviews except for Mike's and Bio's before writing this.  I hope they like mine as much as I liked theirs.  Also, Adam mentioned that X-Treme asked to run UFW.  I'm still laughing at the very thought...

Steven Smith - One last question.... who was your all-time favourite roleplayer?

VP-L - Tough one here, honorable mentions go to Mike Nightmare as Roody Poo, but I have to say Ed Novak.

Steven Smith - Thanks for your time.