Rotten Toto's Scribbles

...So, I've been wondering what the best way could've been to serve the character Malakai Black. What was the suitable method to properly cook and serve the unique ingredient?

After some thought, I came to the conclusion that he could've been worked better if he were treated less like a wrestler but more like a BBEG in games.

I mean, the idea shouldn't sound that odd if we write down the features of HoB and Malakai.

House of Black is an emerging cult which is threatening people. There are a few core members and over 10 other members.

Their dogma is cryptic and difficult, but something about embracing violence as a part of human nature. They assault others according to it.

Because of their dogma, the members are trained as fighters. The core members are especially well-trained.

Their leader, Malakai Black is not only a skilled fighter, but also a cunning manipulator who can even wield some black magics.

His supernatural abilities include reading the future with cards and corrupting human minds by black mist. It’s said that he actually brainwashed at least one of the core members by himself.

Malakai Black’s right eye is pale, looking like leaking black liquid, and surrounded by dark colored skin. His fit body is covered with tattoos, and he often wears occultistic mask, but despite the intimidating looking, he mostly acts calmly and logically. Yet, you can still see his vicious side underneath.

It’s even said that he is actually possessed by evil higher entities.

…I think I didn't add anything extra here and this sounds like it belongs to a game like Skyrim or Dungeons & Dragons. And when the vibe of the character is this different from other wrestlers, it's not really surprising when it doesn't work great in normal wrestling context.

Then, what does that mean by "treating like a BBEG"? It surely includes Malakai being booked really strong because he will be the final boss of the quest named "House of Black." If the BBEG is weak, it's not rewarding to defeat him in the climax. However, I think there's another important thing. That is, letting his opponents to know that they are meant to defeat him and there are many different paths for the goal. In other words, letting them know that they are the players of the game.

So, imagine this. You are playing a game and have a fight in early stage against the BBEG of the current quest. The BBEG is super strong and some of your best attacks don't even inflicting damages. Your party is defeated and now has to regroup.

...Even when this kind of event happens, many of the players won't find it bad. They wouldn't think the BBEG is ridiculously OP or so. Instead, they think "Oh, there should be some gimmicks with this boss. We must figure them out."

And I think the reason why the players can think like that is because they have the context of the game. There's a fundamental belief that the game is playable and there's a way for achieving the goal. However, they don't have this context in wrestling. So, it's as clear as day that it will go catastrophic if the setting is applied without providing the context of the game.

...The concept is explained, but how can it be done? Well, I don't know much about their creating process but starting with telling them that they are meant to clear the game would be good for better understanding. Like, “Here’s your BBEG. Physically, psychologically, magically dangerous entity possibly possessed by something even larger. Now, what will you do to defeat him?”

And instead of making normal wrestling scenarios which focus on matches and promos, it might be more exciting to let their opponents play them like TRPG with vast choices. Say, he cannot be defeated easily, especially with normal physical attacks? Some may say "What is the source of his power? We'd break it", "I'd like to have some talks with the members to betray him", or "Welp, let's just burn him then. It will burn whatever the entity inside of him, too" Or some may even say "Actually, I know a way to use magic attacks. Let me contact with my vampire friend." Here, the opponents should be allowed to think completely outside the box during the campaign, then Malakai will react to their actions, trying to win the game, too. (If you are familiar with TRPG, what I mean here is letting Malakai be as the BBEG while having Tommy or the scenario director work as a DM.) Of course, this will be difficult to manage, but this is where the players get creative and build up one and only experience.

Also, if the flow of the scenario allows it, Malakai may be allowed to show extra backstories about himself and the cult. He may reveal the root of everything and path to the true ending, along with HoB members' human aspects which must be hidden deep. Then, players may decide to save some of them, let them have some redemption arcs, or not. That will also deepen the drama.

Before moving on, I must say that I’m not a marketing professional. I'm just another person who’s been studying some marketing methods because I’d like to live off my creations one day. So, my logics can have flaws.

For those who are in hurry;

QR codes allowed the audience to find something to talk with small amount of labor. Less labor to find impactful images = more people to share the findings = more chances to be found by analyzers who will explain the lores.

It looks like this:

The Fiend's lore was difficult but successfully rode the cycle to gain popularity. The company saw that and allowed him to work more on his character.

Many other gimmicks struggle with ⓪ to ①. As ① affects the total number of the conversations on SNS, less spreaders will care about the topics and the lores found by few analyzers won't be seen by many. It leads to less support from the company (⑧).

If wrestlers cannot gain numbers in step ①, this cycle can work against them. Thus, sharing about them is important if we want to support them.

I'll elaborate on it below. It will be long.

When I read/watch some marketing tips for beginners, many of them contain these things: “Approach as many as possible” “Use SNS wisely to advertise your works” “Make some works which can have people talk about it”. The base logic here is that “Not everyone will appreciate your works, but some will do. To approach to your right audience, you must approach to many. In the end, 0.1% of 100000 is larger than 10% of 100.” When I put that on the figure above, it means "Increase the number in ① to get better number in ② which will get you actual customers."

And I think the Fiend paved the path very well.

They aired QR codes with cryptic videos and glitches during the show. As they were something out of ordinary, it inevitably gathered attentions from us. This is stronger presentation for ⓪ compared with normal vignettes. We wondered “What was that?” and then, we saw the QR codes. Many of us knew what to do with that and had our phones within our reach. And when we scanned the codes, we could access to extra contents with more details and mysterious clues.

…I think this is a part of human nature, but we really like sharing our findings, especially when it’s something non-ordinary. (Just like me right now.) So, when we saw the bonus clues, we shared them on SNS. And that process was also very easy, because for many of us, the tools we used for scanning the codes were conveniently the same tool which we used for SNS. I still remember the way many people tweeted the screenshots. It means he did really well on encouraging people take actions in step ①.

Then, as written before, better number in ① resulted in better outcome in ②. And reaching out for analyzers were important because the clues were cryptic and difficult to read the meanings. If no one explained that, people would have just left being puzzled. Breaking codes and reading messages behind cryptic images are not everyone's cup of tea anyway. However, those who aren't interested in that activity itself can be interested in the story behind and becoming big fans of the work.

So, the importance of analyzers is explained, but there's one thing not necessarily all analyzers are good at. That is, sharing their findings with many people. Even if one analyzer shared a perfect explanation of the character, it would mean less when there were only 10 active followers and the theory was kept in the small circle. This is where spreaders are needed.

Here, spreaders include both content creators and people who simply love chatting with others. In either case, they choose the topics they share according to their interests and others' interests. And they evaluate them by looking at the number of related conversations. Thus, once again, the number in ① makes the difference. (It might sound too calculated for the latter case, but I think they are naturally doing it unconsciously. Making a small search for your friends' interests and thinking "My friends were talking about it a lot. They must be interested in this, too" are not that weird.)

Once the cycle of ①-⑥ is created, the works for the wrestlers become easier. They just need to carefully grow the cycle by feeding them new lores in time. The Fiend did well on that, too. He provided new clues like every week. And I think the format helped him a lot because it required less TV time (and possibly less budget) compared with normal promos.

And when the cycle becomes big enough to make a good amount of profit, company appreciate that and provides further supports for the wrestlers. And the supports are something all the wrestlers are in need, because it affects the quality and quantity of what they are allowed to do (⓪). And this factor gets so important especially when wrestlers or bookings fumbled something. I mean, even the Fiend wasn't perfect. If the company had decided to discontinue the support after that notorious HIAC match, he couldn't have achieved a lot. However, WWE kept supporting the work of the Fiend, letting him try experimental things, because they've been seeing the numbers.

...So, I think this was how using QR codes helped the Fiend to get popularity among fans.

And as someone who tend to like some characters with cryptic vibes, I wondered other things: Then, why other wrestlers struggle with getting popularity? The only thing wrestlers can do is providing good contents at step ⓪, which will encourage the audience to share a lot. If so, are there anything I can do to support them?

I thought about it and tried to study the past examples which unfortunately didn't work well.

For example, one of my most favorite units ever is SAnitY. (I find it's fortunate that I can say "is" as they occasionally team up in indies.) The sadly never get popularity on main roster and their core belief wasn't known well. Actually, only few people (at least around me) knew their catch phrase and its meaning. It was "United we purge" which basically means "This world is full of sickness, so we must purge them together." (...Yes, it's something close to the concept of VBD. I guess that's the core theme for EY's character.)

And why did it happen? In their case, they already had trouble at ⓪, I think. Because the actual clues about their backstories were only shared on their IG while they were rarely featured on TV. So, most of the people never realized there were any of those things in the first place. (Side note but as I knew this concept of their character, I severely fumed at the way they were used as a bunch of goons of Shane.)

Then, what about other characters who were at least allowed to do some promos on TV? Say... Aleister Black?

As a big fan of his work, I guess one of his issues was at step ①. He is someone who puts a LOT of details into his works, but those things can be overlooked easily. Like, remember when he wore greenish colored costume when he fought against Buddy for the third time? That color meant him being "poisoned by anger". And to show that, he opened the match trying to hit Buddy with Black Mass. ...And why do I know that? Simply because he told us on his Twitch when he was fired. (Unfortunately, the VOD is not available anymore.)

Now, as I have those knowledges and know his way of working, I can assume he may put meanings to many of the things we see on TV. However, for those who don't know, those things won't even catch their eyes. (Plus, his clues require specific knowledges to understand. I haven't figure out the meanings of his two sigils on his second run in WWE yet.) So, in short, his game tends to be a bit too hard for most of the audience to have any clues. While I do love his subtle and/or extra cryptic ways to put some motifs and meanings, and I do understand his character isn't meant for everyone in the first place (he said that he wants to be a "black metal" in the world of wrestling before), it could have affected his presentation badly, because the company evaluated him with numbers.

If so, how about others who put rather clear message that you can find something in their works? Why didn't it work quite well with W6 and Karrion Kross?

W6 had some promos which told us about the characters. And when it comes to Karrion, his actions were rather straight forward (he just seemed to enjoy corrupting people). So, there should be less issues with them for not being seen or understood.

For W6, I think the problem was continuity (quantity in step ⓪). It seemed like all of them had some back stories to share, but they weren't elaborated enough after they aired the interview promos. They were in the cycle of being booked a bit then completely disappeared for some while. They couldn't provide new items to speak in time, which cooled off the interests from the audience.

In Karrion's case, I think it was at least partially because of he got nerfed as a devil's advocate (quality in step ⓪). If I think about it, the reason why people got interested in him was because someone realized his opponents have eventually turned heel. It started like an urban legend, and the scary part of the story was that he didn't have to win the feud (or even didn't have to have a feud) to corrupt somebody. However, that aspect had removed when he started working as the devil's advocate. It might have been too difficult for them to control the character, but if they allowed him to cause chaos all over the places, he could've been a bigger threat at least. (And I'm pretty sure they could've used Paul Ellering better than that.)

...Well, I thought about several different situations according to the figure, but I'm sure they are merely just some of the reasons why they didn't work, because while I was thinking about some examples, I came across with a peculiar one; the Retribution.

As far as I remember, people seemed to be interested in them, until they revealed themselves. So, their presentations to the point weren't that bad, and it wasn't about continuity nor quality. Possibly because of their character design? Maybe partially, but it shouldn't be the entire reason.

This is just the impression I got in those days, but it seemed like people lost their interests because "They wouldn't go anywhere." So, the thing was, the audience didn't have any hope for their future. Retribution was evaluated by the name values of the members even before they start working, and abandoned at the beginning. (Their design could've had bad effect here.)

This actually reveals one issue with the cycle. When people stop speaking about the wrestlers because they have "less value", the company will see that and also stop caring about them. It is already difficult to get supports from the company even if they have good popularity. So, when it happens, it can be fatal for their works. And what's worse, their works being abandoned only enforces the belief that "Their works won't mean anything when they don't have name values." (And I must address that the Fiend didn't have this issue.)

So, this is something I'm wondering. If the structure itself can be a big obstacle for getting over, what can we do to support our favorite wrestlers, especially those who are trying to build their names?

Unfortunately, I still don't have the answer for that. But there is one thing I can be certain. That is, we are in somewhere between ①-⑥. So, I think, what we can do is just keep on talking about them. Sharing our loves and supports, and analyzing their reasonings when we feel like it (and it's OK to be wrong). ...However, at the same time, we shouldn't force it on anyone including ourselves.

...Huh, a long post. And for those who went through it, here are bonus drawings I was thinking of using on the video.

I actually recorded a time lapse for the Fiend. (I was thinking of using it in the ending.)

Edit: I realized it looks too small on screen. So, here's the close-up around his face.