Leagues and Online Wrestling Communities

A lot of you guys belong to a league already - especially those of you who've been playing here since close to when the site started back in January 2008.  But I actually think a majority of players are completely without a league! 

So with the 6th season kicking off here next weekend, it's the absolute perfect time to either join an existing league or create a brand new one! 

You might not know what the point of joining a league is - so, before I get to the list of leagues, first let me run through all the benefits you'll have once you're a part of a league.

• When you're part of a league, you aren't just ranked against every player on the site - you are also ranked within your league!  You might be ranked 600th on the site, but with thousands of players here, it's tough to have a conversation with everyone to talk about it without becoming a regular blogger here.  Once you're part of a league, you can see not only your rank on the site, but you can also see your rank within your league.  600th on the site could potentially be in the top 10 of your league - depending on how the other members of your league perform, of course.
• And of course, without a league, you're only getting ranked against other players.  But when you join a league, you're also competing as a league against all the other leagues at the site. 
• Have you seen a PPV prediction game after a PPV has begun airing?  Or the many blog posts we post that contain the current standings of predictions?  They show the overall percentages for each match winner, question, etc. - basically, showing you what percentage of our players made each pick.  But by joining a league, you can also see the percentages that only include the members of your league.  We have thousands of players here, and you may not trust that a majority of our players make the best picks.  If you join a league that contains fans that share the same opinions as you, the percentages that only include those people may be of more value to you
• Also, many of the leagues available for you to join here represent an existing online wrestling community.  Sure, you can blog right here at our site (and please do!), but most of those leagues have their own forums where you can have more intimate conversations, potentially with just an audience that shares your own viewpoints. 

So, let me run down a list of leagues available for you to choose from.  I'm not listing all of them, as some prefer to be more of a closed community and I don't know that they'll want me pushing random people to their sites - and I'm mainly going to cover the ones that I've seen have topics on their forums specifically for users to join in at playing here in their league.  But the full list of leagues is available for you to browse so you should take a look at them all before making a decision.

Before I get into the well-established online communities with leagues here, I want to give a quick mention to a burgeoning community that has a league here. It is the WWE Universe Forums - website found at http://www.wweuniverseforums.com and league page found at http://www.fourdown.org/leagues/wweforums. This site and league are run by one of our 4-UP Fantasy Wrestling admins, wwefan18. If you play 4-UP, you should at the very least give his site a visit. And as a brand new site and league, by joining you could very well help shape the community there!

The first of the well-established community leagues I'm featuring is Talk Wrestling Online - their website is http://www.talkwrestlingonline.com/ and you can find their league page at http://www.fourdown.org/leagues/two.  The description of their forums is: "We are a UK based forum offering a fun and friendly environment for you to discuss pro wrestling, MMA, Puroresu and lots more."  So if you are a UK-based wrestling fan, you might fit right in!  The owner of the site makes a post for every PPV prediction game, found in the US Scene Spoilers sub-forum, so you can be sure that you can always post your comments about our prediction games and get feedback from other members of the league.  They also offer their own prizes, which are in addition to prizes we offer here - so how can you beat that?

The second community league is Gawd Almighty (and I wish I had a small picture of Jim Ross to put next to the name!) - their website is http://gawdalmighty.com/ and you can find their league page at http://www.fourdown.org/leagues/gawdalmighty.  A quick description found on their site is: "Gawd Almighty was formed following the demise of a young, start-up forum. With a loyal, fun group of people, Gawd Almighty kicked off as simply a forum in June 2008."  But of course, just as with Talk Wrestling Online above, and likely many of the community-based leagues, they feature a non-forums homepage that features news and reports.  (you'll see for many PPVs they post a blog here informing you of live coverage at their site - a courtesy I extend to any leagues that actively play here)  I was notified that their forums feature some content intended for MATURE AUDIENCES, so be forewarned!  They have one specific thread in their general wrestling forum meant for discussion of the prediction games here, but I'm sure if they get a nice influx of new users who want to play along with the league, that threads specific to individual PPV games could start happening.

And last of the three community-based sites I'm mentioning, but certainly not least, is 3 Count Wrestling - whose website you can find at http://www.threecountwrestling.com/ and whose league page you can find at http://www.fourdown.org/leagues/3cw/. This is a great community and I would highly suggest checking them out even if you don't join their league (I'd suggest the same for the two above, also!). I have to be honest, I had been checking their site fairly regularly and hadn't noticed posts for individual PPV games, but just did a search on their forums and found that they are in the Announcements section. So now I'll be visiting them more regularly to check in on things as well. :) Final Verdict has always been great in supporting us here, and I believe he's the reason a number of other online communities ended up forming leagues here!

So let's say you already belong to a community, or have no desire to do so, but still want to enjoy the ability to compete in a league here. There are TONS of leagues here just for you. I'm going to run down the newest bunch of leagues, since the more leagues with active players, the more fun the league competition will be!

First up is Europe's Elite - you can find the league page here at http://www.fourdown.org/leagues/europe. If you're a European player, and you want to team up with fellow Europeans to try to display your dominance over the rest of us non-European folk, this is perfect for you!

Second is 3:16 - you can find the league page here at http://www.fourdown.org/leagues/316. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to know what kind of fan would be right for this league! If you want to open a can of whoop-ass on the rest of the leagues here, this is the league for you, and.. that's the bottom line!

Third is The Originalz - you can find the league page here at http://www.fourdown.org/leagues/originalz. This one is made for fans of both the old and new ECW. I think the 15th anniversary of Shane Douglas tossing the NWA title in a trash can has either just passed or is coming up, so the time is now to show your support for Paul Heyman and/or The New Breed!

Fourth is MONEY INC. - you can find the league page here at http://www.fourdown.org/leagues/money. This one is run by ICEMAN who has been one of the top players of the past here at the site, and this new league is just getting started. I don't think he means it to be limited to just fans of the Million Dollar Man and I.R.S., but if you want to play with the money players, this one's for you.

That's it for now! I highly recommend joining any of the above leagues. And definitely take a look at the full list of leagues before making your final decision. I didn't leave off any leagues due to any reason, I just like to shake things up and give mentions to leagues players may not have considered before. And of course the leagues that really get what it's all about are the ones I like to focus on!

Couldn't end this without giving a shout-out to the all-time great leagues, though - WrestleHut 2000 (the league I belong to!), The /wooo/ World Order, F4W, and Wrestlechan /nWo/ - you guys are all great and if I ever hear word that you want me to give out some links for you guys, all you need to do is ask. :)