[Official] Inside The Mind Shoot Interview Series

Welcome to the first episode of our season premiere. Joining us right now is current WFWF owner and a Hall of Famer... here is Drakz! Welcome to the show, man.

Two time Hall of Famer and it's a pleasure to finally do one of these with you pal ;-)

It's a pleasure to have you here, you ready to not have any friends left after this?

I don't have any to lose......

Let's roll

Let's go back and start at the beginning, shall we? When and why did you get into the e-fedding game?

crap, good question. Since changing accounts I've lost my original sign up date. I think I joined the overall forum because my brother used it in 2003 and quickly happened upon this weird board where people pretended to be wrestlers. I'm not sure why I didn't totally dismiss it but for some reason I signed up with the same character I use today, Drakz.

What are the origins of the Drakz character? When you first signed up to the WFWF, did you think at the time that you would eventually become a two-time Hall of Famer and be involved in one of, if not, the best stable the fed has ever seen?

With regards to The New Epoch first, I honestly didn't expect to ever really work as a team with anyone, and for the most part I never did. Drakz and Kyzer would have involvement in each other's angles etc but we never properly teamed until the start of The New Epoch in 2012 was it?
As for the origins of the Drakz character I guess I was, 14(?) when I started writing him and was an angsty teenager who listened to metal so it really probably started as just another run of the mill gothic character. It just evolved over time I suppose.

Going back into my notes here, you won your first World title in early 2006, while going into ownership with Michael Kyzer. How was your first time as owner alongside the man you later teamed with as The New Epoch?

Yeah I actually won the belt and then things changed, so I vacated it as I didn't think I'd have time to RP competitively and run the fed at that time. Everyone else seems to remember all of the names involved much better than me, but I do know Flaps was in charge, then left, then two others were assigned as mods but never really got started so me and Kyzer took up the challenge. We had fun with it man. We made some jokes, kept the development centre (R.I.P) in good shape and booked what I still think is the most stacked Superbrawl card if not the most stacked card this fed's ever seen. Have you ever seen it buried in the results board?

I often go back and read the results, because I have no life, we're talking about SuperBrawl IV, aren't we? With a main event of Michael Kzyer versus Revvie.

Indeedy. I just took another look at it and it's gold top to bottom.
Unfortunately the graphics have gone but here's the link to anyone who reads this and is interested: forum.wrestlingfigs.com/thread/11348/super-brawl-iv-card
It's crazy to think we had 33 people booked on that card and that at least 15 of them are still remembered today. I personally think our roster level is pretty good right now in 2015 but it was 17 people booked at The Clash, which is admirable but only just half of what that Superbrawl had.

How different is it from your first reign as owner compared to your time now?

I think me and Trace are a lot more organised. I'm still RPing this time around and I'm not a teenager so I've got plenty of stuff on my plate to juggle, so I guess I have to be. This ownership has been nice as Drakz isn't on screen owner like he was last time so I can focus on other stuff. Trace handles that bit very well. When it was me and Kyzer we'd literally take over whole shows with the pair of us popping into every other wrestler's dressing rooms unnanounced, attacking people and getting wasted. It was chaos, but very fun to write.

Seeing as you've been a successful owner twice now, out of the whole roster, who would you see being a good owner in the future?

It's a tough question to answer because most good writers could handle the job, it just depends on who's got the time to do it really. Whenever it came to it the decision would be largely based on timing I imagine.

Who would you want to see become an owner?

If there were no time constraints I'd love to see Joe Bishop, Demento, Kirkbride or Josh Dean working in that capacity. I'd like to see what Mike (Penny Shannon) would do if he had the time as well. Has Mike ever been mod? Probably.

During the third Phillp Schneider shoot interview, he mentioned the idea of having a booker for the fed. Somebody who would work with the talent and map out feuds, do you think this idea could work? Should the WFWF evolve into this idea?

I personally like doing a lot of that myself however having someone to help out with that would work for sure. Being able to come up with ideas for angles etc and then having someone to work with the guys to get the angle rolling would do nothing but good.

Let's go back to the summer of 2014, we had a big blowup on the board that led to your coronation as owner. What did you think of the events that had occured between Shawn, Dex and David Brennan? Could it have been avoided?

Internet clashes have to happen. It's part of the fabric of life. I got bored of it a while ago and usually just kind of take a behind the scenes approach when anything kicks off. I tried to convince Shawn to stay on but he had his reasons to leave and I think he's happier for it personally. His writing is much better, he has no problem calling me a d*ck on the board and he's involved in what will turn into a huge storyline in the fed, so I think he made the right decision in the end. People don't always see eye to eye I suppose. Can't be helped.

What were your thoughts on Dex being awarded the World title following SuperBrawl earlier last year?

I thought it was a daft idea personally. No offense to Dex but he wasn't ready for the position and on top of that I don't think he'd been doing this long enough to deal with the amount of hate he got for it. One good thing did come out of it though, Dex got a lot better very quickly. He had to, and I hope when he does eventually come back that he can carry that progression on from where he left off.

Let's go back to SuperBrawl of last year, what was the reason you and Schneider started your feud? Was it to get both of you back into the game?

I got back from an extended trip in Asia and wanted straight back in as I'd been having fun right before I left and The New Epoch died. If I remember correctly I dropped Schneider a message on here and put it simply that I thought it was time we had it out haha.

Let's say you only had one last feud in you at the moment (just for interview sake), who would you want to work with?

Kyzer. It's the biggest feud we've never done. The payoff from that is going to be huge.

Are we going to see it in the near future? Perhaps when the next SuperBrawl arrives?

The writer Kyzer is here already so somewhere down the line it's got to happen. We're both very excited at the prospect of it, even if we didn't get round to it for another year.

With every interview, we have a signature of sorts. I'll name a person and you give your honest opinion on them. Ready?

Ooooh it's about to get grizzly is it?

Damn right. Let's start with David Brennan, now known as Daniel Kirkbride.

Solid guy. My favourite writer in the fed right now. He could write about any old sh*te and I'd still find it entertaining.

Shawn Malakai.

It still boggles my mind that Shawn was mod of this board for as long as he was. No one can deny he's dedicated to this place, shame he's such an bunghole ;-)

Harsh. Next up, Joe Bishop.

Firm but fair. I haven't really spoken to Bishop much outside of being a pain and asking him to do mod things for me. Trace always deals with his angles as he's a Final Revolution nut, however I think the guy's got real talent. I'm still waiting to see the piece from him where he's not against the clock and has everything he needs creatively in his mind, but when that happens he'll be gunning for the Heavyweight Title I reckon.

Dave Demento.

Another guy who needs to find his spark so he can step things up a gear, but these things take time and work so I'm patiently awaiting that moment. In terms of outside of RPing he's been a great help with a number of things while me and Trace have been owners and it still baffles me to think it's the same guy who was writing the Dave Demento/Randel Benjamin tag team to be honest.

Ante Whitner.

I'm just glad he's stuck around. You never know with the new writers wether they'll stay and perfect their style or not. It can be intimidating when so many of the current writers have been doing this for ages, but he's National Champion and continues to learn, so 2015 should be fun for him.

Michael Kyzer.

A good friend whom I don't speak to as much as I should these days. One of the most exciting characters to ever work in the WFWF and a man who inadvertently made me a much better writer over the years. I know people respect the guy but I don't know just how many people know how much he changed this place just by being here. When I joined it was very much people cutting promos on each other with very little else to speak of but then on Kyzer's arrival/return (I think he was there under a different name before I joined) he blew things wide open with his story style of writing that today has become the norm.

Phillip Schneider.

Funnily enough we've never had that much communication up until we had our match at Superbrawl, and even then we kept things simple, so the Phillip Schneider I know is the one everyone knows. Cocky. Brash. Uncompromising. He's a good writer and a great match writer. I wish I had more of an opinion on the guy but like I said we've just never really had much of a relationship one way or the other which is funny considering how long we've both been around for.

Trace Demon.

An all round good guy. Our conversations had been limited to the angle we ran a couple of years ago until I became owner but now we talk stuff over pretty regularly. He has good ideas and we have a similar mind set I think with regards to what we want to do with the fed, and how we can improve it. He's a writer I always enjoy working with and RPing against as our characters are similar in a number of aspects and the one upmanship is always a lot of fun. Every time we do have a match though I always leave it up to him to write it as he's one of the best match writers I know of, meaning it's always a treat to read Drakz in action under his guidance.

Where do you see the Drakz going in the next few years?

Into retirement to put it bluntly. I plan on making this my final run in the WFWF so I want to make it count. I don't want to half arse it and fizzle out. This run is going to cover a couple of years and I'm hoping I can work programs with everyone I've always wanted to work with. There's a couple of guys I'm hoping to coax back into the fed in the process, but yeah these next couple of years will be the final hoorah for Drakz I think. Who knows though maybe one day me and Kyzer will roll back and take over again when our characters are pushing 60 haha.

Who would you want to coax back into the fed?

Well now that would be telling wouln't it. I've approached a couple of guys and they've both said possibly. So we'll just have to wait and see.

Any hints?

Nope lol

Not even for our dedicated Inside The Mind readers?

I don't want to ruin the surprise for them all. Trust me it will be more fun this way ;-)

Plus if it never happens I'll look like a d*ck.

My money is on Andrew Carter. There we have it folks, Drakz vs Andrew Carter. The main event of the next SuperBrawl.

For God sake Proggy, why'd you have to ruin it?

*Mark Henry voice* That's what I do.

We're losing them mate.

Back when you first joined the fed, who did you work with? Was it fun being a member of the community during that time?

If I remember correctly my first angle of sorts was with Tha CBT and Thunder, feuding over the National Title, although I think it was the Television Title at the time. None of us really knew what we were doing and I'm half sad half glad that those RPs are now lost in the ether forever, never to be read again. Around then, when I took my first loss I think, I started trying to steer my own angle through the rants in my RPs, which were much closer to promos than they are now. I claimed the owner at the time, ZMaster, had told the referee to count fast and lose me the match. Then I just kept hounding Zmaster in my RPs until suddenly they paid attention and I popped my Superbrawl cherry facing him in a table match(?) that was supposed to be his first retirement match if he lost. Somehow I won and things progressed from that really. I guess it's almost an exact replication of what happened with Dex at the last Superbrawl. That's quite a funny coincidence actually.

You talked about the TV/National championship, what titles matches of yours were the most fun?

The first time I won the International Title was great. I was feuding with Ray Smith at the time and if memory serves we had a 2 out of 3 falls match for the belt. We actually both RPed 3 times though and each round had an RP assigned to it which was cool. If I had the time I'd like to do something like that again. After that match (or was it before?) we also had a match in which we dipped our wrapped hands in glue and glass and Drakz smashed Smith up so much his character started wearing a mask. We had a lot of fun with that.

Any other fun title matches/feuds?

After my angle with Smith I worked with his long term on/off tag team partner Johnny Michaels/Flaps who was WFWF World Heavyweight Champion and board mod at the time. We did a lot of fun segs and vinettes on the shows. Michael's gimmick was films, usually taking one film inparticular and writing an RP that mimicked that style. We took that idea and on the shows would write segs where we'd attack one another and try to make it look like a scene from a random film. I remember Drakz wrapping Johnny Michaels up in barbed wire mesh and then kicking him down the stairs in Philidelphia from the Rocky films. He beat me in our first encounter but the second time around Ray Smith was involved as well as Master Of Destruction/M.O.D in an electric cage match. It was a great match to read with some silly spots. I again somehow ended up winning and I think from then on my writing started to improve properly.

How was your run during the Flaps era? Many people criticize the overall wait time of the fed during the time, what were your thoughts on your writing and the fed as a whole?

Yes the waiting killed it in the end but he did a damn good job for the most part. I had and still have a lot of time for Flaps, we used to talk a lot back in the day and I know he wrote every part of every show. I'd offer to help but he was too much of a perfectionist to let me. He should probably have been doing some fantasy booking thing, or text fed really but either way he was dedicated. A lot of people forget the summer tour he organised where we had a different show every week all through the summer. That was great as it meant a lot of the newer guys had the chance to compete regularly and improve. He also was the first guy to put Drakz in the main event picture so I've got to be thankful for that. Everyone experiences moments in time in their own way I guess but from where I was throughout I enjoyed myself and thought Flaps was a good lad.

What would you say was your favorite feud/angle during your entire run here in the WFWF?

Hmmmm a lot of good stuff came out of my International Title feud with Trace Demon but every feud I think back to I always feel we could have done something better. I honestly believe the feuds and angles I have on the horizon will be the best ones I ones I'll ever be a part of.

And the future looks to be fun. Any last words before we wrap things up?

My name is Drakz. Go f*ck yourselves.