Also known as AWL: Ultimate Upgrade. After a couple of years running this little fan parody wrestling league off of a PS1 game, this is the first episode of the Animated Wrestling League to use a PS2 game as a platform. This is as good a jumping on point as any wrestling show will ever give you so please enjoy and feel free to comment.
I'm typing this while waiting for the video to upload and I may as well give some background on what the heck the AWL is. Over 10 years ago the AWL started as my friends and I fooling around with one of the first Create-A-Wrestler programs in the WWF Attitude video game. For over a decade I used the AWL to act out my personal "Armchair Booker" fantasies because I knew that, if given competent writing, pro wrestling would be 20 times as popular as it ever has been.
The AWL is pure parody and I do not make one penny from it. Therefore it's covered under fair use copyright law so please don't bring that up. I try to remove as many of the WWE logos as I can but some naturally slip in there.
Wow, this thing is taking for freaking ever to load. The problem with the video capturing and and video editing software that use is that it leads to VERY large video files. I'm not too familiar with Blogger's video posting system and I hope to God that there isn't a size limit.
I guess I can use this time and space to opine on what's going on in pro wrestling today. I'll start with the very basics: YES, I know it's fake. You don't have to tell me that. Also, Hugh Laurie does not have a limp, Daniel Radcliffe can not work magic, and Lenard Nimoy doesn't know squat about science. Wrestling is a TV show and nothing more. The only reason anyone gets their knickers in a twist over the real vs. fake debate is that once upon a time (circa 1910 to about 1960) pro wrestling was actually a con. It was actors pretending to be really fighting each other and charging money for it. Well the lid has been blown on that for over 50 years now and any wrestling fan over the age of about 7 knows that this is not real. Here's the thing: We don't care!
But on the other hand, there has been a bad trend in wrestling programs lately to talk down to the audience because "Hey, it's not real so we don't have to take ourselves seriously." This is 47 different flavors of stupid. From opening credits to closing credits, you must take yourself seriously. Watch any other TV show and you never want to be reminded that the characters are not real and are being played by actors. By the same token, I don't want to see wrestlers say "We're going to have the match of the night." "I'm trending on twitter." Or, valid complaint though it may be, "Who writes this crap?" Just create your fictional world and live there for an hour or two.
That's what I try to do with the AWL. You and I and anyone else watching this show know that these are computer generated images. However, for the length of each and every video these are real people and they are competing in a real professional fighting league and, though they each have their own motivations and methods, they all have the same goal: To become the Animated Wrestling League World Heavyweight Champion.
And this damn thing is STILL uploading so I'm going to go make myself some dinner and watch Big Bang Theory.
And I'm back. Still uploading. Memo to self: Screw high resolution, make these things smaller.
OK, it's literally a day later and I've found another video hosting site for my stuff. Yay! Watch the show please and please comment. All positive comments and constructive criticisms are welcome.
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