Im going to try and go back and talk about some of the, what I percieve to be, major points as far as this whole thing goes, since I really feel like people are only getting part of a story, or heresay, instead of both sides, or actual fact.
One of the first points made was this :
" He also put me and Seth in the match (even though I told him we didn't deserve to be in the match given the shit show we put up and AFTER I told him Seth was having some familial issues and might not show up on time) with the intent of having you and Sean go over established names in order to boost your profile. Despite the fact that I didn't want the tag belts at the time, was content with facing you guys at a later date, and was only advocating towards a storyline heavy feud with Manny and Jay between myself and Seth." - De
Yes, the card did have De in the championship match with Seth. Im sure a lot of you know about the whole Ultimatum 3 issue, so I wont go too far into detail, but part of that whole scenario was that De felt like the card Drew and I agreed on wasn't very good. He asked if he could propose a card of his own so he did.
"Heres the revised card in question:
Full Metal Wrestling Presents: Ultimatum 3
Tag Team Grudge Match
The Comeback Kids (Slegna and Butters) vs. GSW ('Truly Talented' Jeff Whitt and Storm)
Full Metal Wrestling Tag Team Championship Match
The Broken Saints (RAMPAGE! and Seth Omega) vs. Gray Inferno (Nicholas Gray and Damien Inferno) (c)
OR
Full Metal Wrestling Tag Team Championship Match
The Broken Saints (RAMPAGE! and Seth Omega) vs. The Comeback Kids (Slegna and Butters) vs. GSW ('Truly Talented' Jeff Whitt and Storm) vs. Gray Inferno (Nicholas Gray and Damien Inferno) (c)"
De also went on to say this:
"Nick has told me, verbatim, that Seth said we no longer wanted to contend for the tag titles when Seth never said that according to him. He also said that we can be used quote 'in different areas on the card'."
So, was I lieing then, or am I lieing now? This is all on the forums, its in the head office, which only admins and HW's can see. Which also brought me to the implication, from Slegna I believe, that I abused my 'admin powers'. Firstly, I didnt even HAVE admin powers then, which is why I asked Slegna to remove De's after the head staff collectively agreed to remove De's admin abilities. You can tell this is right by these lines of De's post
"As of this writing, I have come to learn that Slegna was strong armed by Bryson into de-admining me for which he can confirm when I reinstate his admin rights."
This is during the argument where I was IP Banned, and Slegna had his admin rights removed, because of a heated argument. For the record, I've never banned anyone for disagreeing with me, and everyone has been more than welcome to say their opinion and views on the fed with no reprocussions from me. Ever. I dont even think Ive ever banned anyone for anything, really, but I have had a few conversations with people about how they say things or act towards other forum members.
Now, when it comes to talking about ben, this one is going to take a while, and theres a lot of old stuff that will have to be brought up. I do, however, ask you please go through it, since its important
"I was ready to retire Smitten, and as an added hurdle, I accidentally C-4 Championed myself. Oops. And accidentally, i couldn't actually lose it. Again, oops.
So, anyway, as C-4 Champion, running my last angle, which involved Smitten being diagnosed with a Brain Tumor. I tried to make the angle as low-key as possible. For those who know me well, and knew me in FMW, and in LPW to a large extent, I don't like to harp on about myself and what I do. I largely just go about my business and try to fly under the radar in character.
So, that's how I decided to go out. An emotional storyline of Smitten needing to leave to fight a brain tumor. The climax, and conclusion of Smitten in FMW came with Smitten walking into the office of the boss (his own old office), placing the C-4 championship down, and walking away. The next show, this being crucial to the whole "going un-noticed" thing, would be a C-4 Championship match to crown a new champion, with Smitten having named those two names in his vacation/farewell segment. Sounds simple, right?
Wrong.
Nick booked a 5 way match for the main event that night, which was secretly for the C-4 Championship. This would highlight the fact that I'd gone, and make a bigger scene of it, something I didn't want to happen. I also kinda wanted to know if people would notice if I'd gone. All of this happened unbeknown to me, because I'd had confirmation from Nick that this would be the way we would go. I completely (and unfairly) unloaded on Edible. After many harsh PMs between Nick, Myself, with Edible sitting there moderating in a way, I got my wish, only by being as stubborn and pig headed as he is, and offering a compramise, by making the Anwyl/Striker make a pandora's box match instead.
Anyway, that's my story." - Ben
This is where I have to bring up our conversations publicly. I want everyone to be told this first, I dont like making my private conversations public, because when people come to me with issues they come to me privately for a reason. I dont like basically being told that I have to make things that get handled, supposedly, private public to defend myself. I feel like it violates a certain trust between any roster member and the Head Writer. With that being said, its obvious people are not getting the whole story, so I guess I dont have much of a choice.
Ben approached me, firstly, about wanting to move back into the Full Metal Championship picture, because he never got his rematch for when he lost the belt a few years ago. I told him that Id be completely fine with that, because he deserves to be on that level. However, I was worried that people might take it the wrong way, and I didnt want any backlash against him, so I came up with the idea of the King of the Ring tournament we ran at Lethal Injection, where we had one tournament take the entire event up, and I would give him a spot in it due to his rematch. It got him back in the scene, got him his match, and it let me do something I havent seen an e-fed do, so it was win win.
Fast forward a little later, and Ben's won the C4 belt. It was during this time that we were thinking of how we could get him in the FMC that he approached me and told me he didnt really have much time to himself and that he was in a position to pick between FMW and LPW, and obviously he chose LPW because of his responsibilities there. I understood, as much as I didnt want him to leave, and we began talking about his exit.
This is what I was first told
"
November 10, 2011Ben Milne
We probably should eh. I got a couple of ideas floating around in my head. I'll get back to you in a couple of days. It's not important for Death Row. Anything that's goonna happen, I'd like to happen at 14.1. Other than taking the C-4 Championship from me. Do that however you'd like, I don't care"
Please note the last 2 lines. "Other than taking the C4 belt from me. Do that however youd like, I dont care".
I asked Ben if I could book him in a match, he didnt have to show up, but he was pretty adamant on not having another match, which I understood. I did ask again if he would, but he wanted to vacate (the reason why I didnt want to vacate the belt was because the FMC and TV were already being vacated on Death Row, and I didnt want to vacate another belt.)
"Ben Milne
This us the way I see it.
I've bent over, done everything right by the fed to the best of my abilities. I've been screwed over countless times, but only raised my voice once.
One more match is not going to happen. I'm putting my foot down there. I don't have it in me. At this point, my only care is sending Smitten off right. One more match screws it. That's the way it WILL happen.
I understand not wanting to strip/vacate but please respect my desire not to do this again"
This was Bens Idea:
"Ben Milne wrote: OK, so I think I've got this figure out, how I'd like it to go down.
Death Row, have Smitten make no appearances, other than his match. I don't care how that finishes, whether Smitten's on his back KOed, standing tall, or whatever.
14.1, Smitten makes one appearance, where it's just him and Deveraux. Smitten just comes in, have some small talk about the brain tumor between the two, and Smitten says "I wanna name two challengers to the C-4 Championship" "I don't normally do this, but OK." "Wrestler A and Wrestler B" (Who they are is completely up to you). "Ok done. They will chall..." Smitten stops him, takes the belt off his shoulder, and leaves it on the desk. "I suppose they'll need this then if they're fighting each other for it". "What do you mean?". Smitten just walks to the door, he opens it, and turns around, and says "If I never see you again... well... I never liked you. I hope you fail miserably". End.
I don't wanna go out in a big fanfare. Quitely. No last match, so big "thank you" segment. It's much more important to be pushing through new tallent. This way, we get my quiet send off, and dignified as well, while giving new stars a chance to shine, AND, kind of hiding the fact I'm vacating the title."
Ok, we did. So we moved forward with how he would vacate. This is the PM I got from Ben:
"I came up with the idea as a way to make it look like Smitten was more vacating the title more than anything else. Vacating it on his terms, and making sure the title went into hands he respected (who that was didn't really matter to me). At the same time, announcing a match for the C4 Title without Smitten a whole show early took the impact off Smitten going, and gave two people a big push, and huge hype and excitement for a match at the next show. I'm going to be blunt and say that I feel FMW has lacked this hype and excitement, and I thought if I kick started some myself for two people, newer members of the roster would see it and go "Cool! Look at what we can do!"
The problem I have with Smitten coming in and going "hey, take my title, give it to the winner of the main event" is two fold. One, it's a much less subtle way to go out that a sly booking of two challengers and leaving a belt. Two, i think the championship itself deserves more than that. The belt is the first championship ever crowned in FMW history. I think rushing a transition like this cheapens both the new champion's status, and the championship itself. It also makes the whole angle seem like a bit of an after thought"
My thought was, since on that current Ammunition we had a 5 man match with people who all could legitimately lay claim to being C4 champion, Smitten would walk into the office of the then GM, ask who the contender was, and when the GM would hint at the 5 of them, Smitten would say 'Fine, I guess they'll be needing this' and setting the belt on the desk and walking away, his word being the last. My concept was basically exactly what Ben was asking for, except he says the number FIVE instead of Two, and the belt doesnt stay vacant leaving the show.
My biggest concern was that in all of this as well we were announcing the FMC tournament, which we still planned on going forward with, and I didnt want this to interfere with potential matches going OUT of the show, as in moving forward with Smitten gone. I felt like it was cleaner to just have the belt decided in that main event and move forward. I responded to Ben's private message, when he PMed me to include me in his talks with Edible and himself, and explained basically what I just said. My PM ended with this
"As I've said to you before you are one of the people I've met here who I regard in the highest, probably second to Drew, and you and I have a very long and creative history with one another. Even when I was made HW again the first thing I tried to do was to get you handled in a way that you could enjoy and get you back into the main event scene, which was the plan with this whole tournament. Obviously, if you can't you can't and I know you'll appreciate the effort, but what Im trying to get at is that the reason why I did this is because of how I said earlier that I interpreted what you were saying. I figured it wouldn't be an issue to increase the ammount of people considering the end result is the same and potentially increases the rub for more people now from your character instead of just two.
So thats really what the thought behind it and everything of the like. I'll try to get back to your response asap." - Nick Bryson
There were exactly 3 PMs between me and Ben regarding the issue, and none of the words I would use to describe my vocabulary include 'harsh' and 'pig-headed'. Ben had asked me later if it would be ok to use Cyborg Lincoln for something, and I told him Id be happy to do whatever he needed with the character. To end the long story, if you go back and read what happened on the shows, everything went down exactly as Ben had asked, with no reservations or attempt to stop it from me once we had our discussion, and Edible and I decided we could at least do Ben this service, though I've never seen anyone, Jaro included, dictate their exit from a fed and the direction of the belt they held moving forward.
Austin brought up a point that I was 'content to put shows out slowly', but in the time when I first had left FMW, I was gone for about a year and a half, just under. In that time span, I missed a grand total of 3 shows. Austin was a head writer in this time, so he should understand what its like to have staff issues.
Since I took over as HW for Amm, at Bens suggestion and the other Head Writers requests (and not how you've been lead to beleive), We produced more shows in the year and a half than we had in quite some time. In some months, we were producing 4 shows (2 Amm and 2 Corr) each month and while we didnt reach the goal I wanted of 2 shows a month, 24 shows total for the year, we werent that far off for how up and down staff things can be in these feds.
As far as the accusations of rigging scores goes, thats really not true. I admit, when I took over for NHB I did my math wrong and it did change the result of the match. However, it was brought to my attention that I did do my math wrong, by Edible, in a chat where Drew and Leon laughed at my inability to do math. I wrote the match in question (the Tag Scramble) and the outcome of the match was the correct one, in which Jamie and Manny won. If I had rigged the scores, dont you think the outcome would be different, since my match was unedited? I also wrote the next tag match on Ultimatum III, the one with many many teams in it, and THAT match also had the correct outcome too.
Damien Inferno and Nicholas Gray (3.9aps + 3.96aps + 1.1avs = 8.96 total)
Harlequin and MASS Caesar (4.34aps + 3.96aps + 0.5avs = 8.8 total)
Bobino and Slegnadamus (3.64aps + 3.92aps + 0.3avs = 7.86 total)
Leviticus and Jonathan King (3.72aps +3.4aps + 0.4avs = 7.52 total)
RAMPAGE and Seth Omega (4.4aps + 0.0aps + 0.3avs = 4.7 total)
This match was not a blow out, in fact was very very close, and Inferno and Gray did get the most votes. This was a match that was also looked forward to by the roster, helped bring life to the tag division, and was nominated for a match of the year.
Not to mention the glaring issue that Jamie, whom I have a good friendship with, and Manny, who I respect so much and talk to on a semiregular basis (including being the first person to ask to join my stable YNG), are my friends and people I respect and appreciate their work. Why would I screw my friends over? Im sure someone will say 'To book' but that really comes down to 'because you wanted to' and Im not one to screw my friends over something so meaningless as 'because I wanted to.'
This has really been an attack on me, pushed forward by some peoples dislike for me. I understand not everyone will like me, but Ive never been one to turn anyone away for any reason when having a conversation about their concerns and gripes. I've already spoken to many people, like Nick2, Damien, Brooks, even Az now, and have done everything I can to hear their concerns and respond to them the best I can to make sure they're not walking away with the same issues.
If this is really about FMW, and people are really wanting to get back and be involved, I invite you to please do so, because I've been in FMW since show one, and appreciate the work all of you have given, and the time you've voulenteered. Our e-fed has been one with a very storied history with a lot of people involved. Besides, if you're wanting to do staff, excellent, because lord knows I could use a hand.
Subject: Response to SPUNK 
Thu Sep 27, 2012 8:49 pm
