Title Belt Mergers

Due to circumstances beyond our control, the Moderators/Admin of the site have come to what we believe is an appropriate decision regarding a prevalent issue surrounding the AFW title scene. Active and thriving though our community can be...membership numbers and thread participation has been on a steady decline over the past few years. It's come to the point where we must actively either search the website for opponent's to feud with title owners or intervene in title matches ourselves as an ultimate last resort. While we have no issue with aiding title owners in their respective reigns, it's becoming far too unwieldy after all of this time, especially in regards to the Tension title scene. And it's quite frankly not a task we should be overtly burdened with to such an extraneous degree in addition to our other substantial moderator duties. Previous attempts at solutions unfortunately did not pan out favorably, including our title belt registry and frequent reminders that anyone who wishes to vie for championships need only ask one of us moderators. In summation, we lack the userbase willing to help us and accommodate the number of titles we have, and less drastic steps were taken before coming to this decision.

Therefore, sometime in the coming months, the moderators will begin the process of merging certain title belts between Friction and Tension making those championships effectively cross-brand, which means anyone from Friction or Tension may compete for these championships. The title belts that we are seeking to combine are:

-Friction/Tension Tag Titles

-Friction/Tension Hentai Titles

-Hardcore/24/7 Titles

In addition to these mergers...the Rising Star title will also officially become crossbranded...and we will respectfully retire the Kawaii Championship. Kawaii's will not be left entirely out in the cold however since they have always been allowed to compete for whatever belt they want. Doing so will effectively even out the number of championships between both brands, and the merger of the aforementioned titles effectively combines both rosters pools and adds a bevy of potential competitors for people to thread with. HOWEVER, this does not mean that those who are uncomfortable threading with members of the opposite sex will be forced to. Just that those who have no such qualms now have the option along with anyone else who was only registered within Tension. The exact details as to how this merger will occur are still being determined, but for now we want to make this news well known to the community in advance so no one feels blindsided when it happens. Although we are aiming for the mergers to be completed by SS 2022. This topic is open for discussions and you are of course free to air your opinions about the subject below. To reference, once the mergers completed, the title scene will appear as follows.

Friction:

Friction Championship - Main title
Entropy Championship - Mid Card


Tension:

Tension Championship - Main Title
Nekketsu Championship - Mid Card


Merged And Made Crossbrand:

Hentai Championship

Tag Team Championship

Hardcore 24/7 Championship

Rising Star Championship

TL'DR VERSION:

We have too many belts, not enough active players to justify so many belts.

Our various attempts to boost player and title activity has not worked, so we've taken some steps to ease management on the back end due to belt bloat.

To fix this, we will begin merging some belts and making them cross-brand.

You will not be forced to fight a Dude if you don't want too.

I am really sorry that this has to happen and I probably won´t be of much help with it except for a non-title match here and there because I just can´t bring the site back to full HTML status again so that I can neither open pictures or spoilers and often feel burned out for several reasons that are not grounded in AFW. AFW was my primary site of enjoyment for years, and even in several states of total burnout and frustration about this and that, I never fully turned my back on it. If this measure helps out to keep the site alive and lessen your moderation burdens, I am all for it. A main event belt, a midcard belt per brand and some lesser, more for fun sideway fun belts are what most real leagues also offer.

What I personally never understood was when people only made a male character when so many people stated that they were only looking for FvF. The world doesn´t suddenly turn into the other directtion because people want that to happen, so I can understand that this would cause frustration. But this is something the site itself can´t give a solution for, that requires some research and self reflection.

I have heard from many sources that there are several people who would be willing to cross between the two big sites, but for several reasons do not. Some feel alienated from old, basically ancient grudges. Others looked at the sites layout and then did not bite. Maybe there could be some research why AFW does not look so attractive to newcomers as the other site?

Regarding the old grudges, I don´t know what happened in detail and honestly I don´t even want to know. The old guard who majorly caused this is largely gone. But I heard from veterans of AFW who switched over and are active on the other site, so these people are not gone from the community of Anime wrestling but from AFW. Maybe reaching out and offering a fresh start would be of help? These guys have a lot of legacy here and it would be a shame if this all went to waste.

Then there was that infamous thread where the admin of the other big site opened a discussion around how belt were handled on AFW and the resulting schism was bad news for AFW and opened a deep rift between newer and older users. The admin of the other site already said that he does not have bad blood for AFW. Most people of the old guard of the other site found their first roots in female wrestling here but felt neglected or were disenfrancised by then patronizing residents. But again, these peopele are largely gone, most for years, or have mellowed with age so to say. Maybe a crossover event could be of help? Most people use the same characters but have them be different entities which I personally fibd very unfortunate.