{Current Mood: Jumpy}
Pond People,
It’s been a week of firsts for the Scummies here at Camp PSS. Last week, we put out the first known fantasy wrestling strategy articles. On Monday night, The Joan wrote a piece about The Shield that became the first PSS article to break 1,000 views. Her “Push Fantasy Wrestling” article followed suit and is now the most viewed PSS article so far at 1,269 views at the time of this writing.
My Sleepers and Busts article broke 300 views and the previous record for most-viewed PSS article was my piece on Beyond Wrestling that I wrote back in October which is sitting at 488 views. I guess if she can’t beat me in our head-to-head RFW battles, she’s going to have to settle for obliterating my previous record for most viewed PSS article and I’m ok with this.
In all seriousness, thank you all for taking some time to listen to our musings and be on the lookout for much more content, fantasy wrestling and otherwise.
Today, I’m releasing the results of the first two known RFW drafts. The Joan and I decided since we wound up choosing nine of the same ten people for our head-to-head contest last week, that we would draft our own teams this time around to make sure that didn’t happen again. A coin flip gave me the #1 pick for our Raw draft and, subsequently, she received the #1 pick for the Weekly draft.
Below are the teams we drafted as well as point totals and some analysis as to why I did what I did and how I thought The Joan fared with her picks. For the skeptical, we actually had a lot of fun drafting our teams in person. We both love live drafts when it comes to all the other fantasy sports we partake in and we found out with elements like the player sniping, reaching for players out of panic, & the picks that we wish we could take back 30 seconds later, that wrestling live drafts will be no different.
RAW DRAFT RESULTS BY ROUND:
GOATFACE KILLA (my team)
1) Daniel Bryan (#1 overall pick) (39.85 points)
2) Seth Rollins (25.6)
3) Curtis Axel (27.1)
4) Randy Orton (36.4)
5) AJ Lee (8)
6) Jerry Lawler (29)
7) Kaitlyn (4)
8) Dolph Ziggler (6)
9) Justin Roberts (13)
10) Summer Rae (0)
Total Points: 188.95
WEED THE PEOPLE (The Joan’s team)
1) Dean Ambrose (#2 overall pick) (16.1 points)
2) Roman Reigns (15.2)
3) Alberto del Rio (2.5)
4) Kane (35.45)
5) Paul Heyman (7)
6) Big E Langston (21.9)
7) Chris Jericho (24.4)
8) Ricardo Rodriguez (2)
9) Natalya (0)
10) Nikki Bella (0)
Total Points: 124.55
Analysis: Daniel Bryan is the Adrian Peterson of fantasy football. And if AP is “Purple Jesus,” does this make Daniel Bryan “Vegan Jesus?”
It does now.
Spoiler alert: Vegan Jesus was the #1 overall pick in both of our drafts. And his 39.85 points, on the strength of 63 total strikes (for 6.3 total points), carried all of the squads that selected him. There’s no reason he shouldn’t be in your lineup every week. Once RFW starts holding legit drafts for these things, he’ll be the consensus #1 overall pick and a guy to build lineups around. Especially since he’s on a career-making kind of hot streak at the moment.
All three Shield members were taken next. WTP took Dean Ambrose at #2 overall and wound up with two of the three Shield members. But having both Seth Rollins and Vegan Jesus in my lineup for their free TV match of the year candidate gave me 65.45 points. Even though they were the two low scoring members of The Shield, WTP drafting both Ambrose and Roman Reigns was the right call.
Curtis Axel and Randy Orton were easy early round selections to make but now we’re getting to the issue of making sure the players we draft fit into our $100,000 salary cap. I decided to go cheaper in the middle rounds and then see where it left me for my last three picks. And by cheaper, I mean I took the two most expensive female options and the cheapest commentator who is also mad expensive.
AJ and Kaitlyn were the only females that were basically guaranteed to be on Raw so I had to break the bank for them. This did not make The Joan happy and she even took to Facebook about the issue. The first dick move of the night goes to me for hoarding the females.
After seeing how much money I had left and doing some quick math, I decided that I could afford to take a chance on one of my sleepers in Dolph Ziggler as long as WTP didn’t take Justin Roberts or Summer Rae with either of her last two picks. At least Dolph made an appearance but it’s a chance you have to take because if he wrestles, he’s capable of putting up 30-plus points on any given night.
But between him not wrestling and Fandango being held out of Sunday’s PPV, it seems like the WWE is taking this whole concussion deal very seriously. I took a chance on Summer Rae even though the news of Fandango’s concussion broke before we picked our teams. This is definitely something to be cognizant of going forward when choosing lineups.
What killed WTP was the 4.5 combined points she got from her four low scorers, including goose eggs from her females. In contrast, my four low scorers netted me 18 points and my females netted me 12 of those. The rest of her draft was pretty solid. She sniped Paul Heyman from me and got predictably great performances out of Chris Jericho, who represented the best value of anyone taken in this draft as a seventh-round pick that put up 24.4 points, and Kane.
What wasn’t expected was Large Edward Langston putting 21.9 points. A lot of this came from peripheral stats like being a part of a show-closing non-match (5 points). If you take away the seven points he received for both that and his mic time, he only scores 14.9 and doesn’t look like much of a sleeper pick.
But I was definitely pretty accurate in my assessment that we would see more from Large Edward than we usually do with the return of Dolph Ziggler to television. I just didn’t realize how much we would be seeing from him which is why I only listed him as a sleeper instead of a must-play.
And Large Edward should get extra points for his fantastic dress shirt.
As a final word of note regarding this draft, I personally wouldn’t have touched Alberto del Rio this week (not that there’s anything wrong with that), especially with Randy Orton still available. Del Rio hasn’t done anything over the last few weeks that would make me rush to draft him. Berto has had his moments where he’s put up decent point totals but has had nothing to do over the last few weeks except wrestle against Large Edward in the wake of Ziggler’s concussion. And I don’t see him putting up good point totals consistently unless this rivalry winds up continuing for a little bit or Berto winds up taking the World Heavyweight title, which I can’t see happening just yet.
WEEKLY DRAFT RESULTS BY ROUND:
WEED THE PEOPLE (The Joan’s team)
1) Daniel Bryan (#1 overall pick) (39.85 points)
2) Roman Reigns (15.2)
3) Weekly Referee (12)
4) Alberto del Rio (2.5)
5) The Ryback (8)
6) Kaitlyn (4)
7) Damien Sandow (34.5)
8) Brodus Clay (7)
9) Natalya (0)
10) Justin Roberts (13)
Total after Raw: 136.05
GOATFACE KILLA (my team)
1) Seth Rollins (#2 overall pick) (25.6 points)
2) Dean Ambrose (16.1)
3) Curtis Axel (27.1)
4) Randy Orton (36.4)
5) AJ Lee (8)
6) Sheamus (10)
7) Paul Heyman (7)
8) Wade Barrett (13)
9) Summer Rae (0)
10) Naomi (0)
Total after Raw: 143.2
Analysis: This match-up is much closer than our other one which says a lot to the different strategies you must employ to draft an effective weekly lineup, no matter how many people you could theoretically be drafting against.
You never know which member of the Shield is going to be the high scorer which is why a lot of people hedge their bets and play all three guys. It’s a great strategy but one that doesn’t work in a drafting environment. Being a high-flying tag team champion who finds himself in a lot of six-man tag team matches is a great recipe for bushels of fantasy points on the right night. This is why I went with Seth Rollins at #2 overall (technically it was a reach considering he went third overall in the first draft. But was it really?). But he proved that even as a singles competitor, he can carry The Shield’s scoring on a given night against the right opponent.
Again, Daniel Bryan and the three Shield members went first. WTP then fleeced me big time by snagging the weekly ref and his 20-plus guaranteed points with her third pick. Well played. I stuck with my Axel/Orton/AJ combo while WTP took a chance on The Ryback who I figured wouldn’t be wrestling much this week after a grueling contest with Vegan Jesus last week and a 3 Stages of Hell match coming up at Payback.
WTP smartly started Round 6 by drafting Kaitlyn right after I chose AJ in Round 5 so that I couldn’t hoard the females again. HOWEVER, my ADP data shows that this was a reach. Kaitlyn went 13th overall in our previous draft while WTP panicked and made her the 11th overall selection in this one. But it was still a smart move since I would’ve taken Kaitlyn with my next pick.
It’s all good, because WTP’s reach allowed me to draft Sheamus with my sixth pick. Who knew that he wasn’t going to be wrestling on Raw for the first time in Jeebus knows how long.
After WTP scored the value pick of the night with Ray Ray Marz sleeper candidate Damien Sandow and his 34.5 points in the seventh round, she thought she got the steal of the draft with HHH and his 22 points in Round 8. However, she couldn’t put HHH in her lineup because she wouldn’t have had enough money to fill out her roster. We were already at the start of Round 10 when she realized this so she had to go back and select Brodus Clay for that spot. And because of that st00pid lumberjack segment to end Raw, she got seven points out of him.
Meanwhile, I did some math and came up with what I thought was a foolproof strategy to close out my draft. I decided to take a chance on one of the guys I had listed as a bust for this week in Round 8 with Wade Barrett and hope that even if he didn’t do much on Raw, he could put up a decent point total on Smackdown to make up for it. I would then close out my draft with Summer Rae and either Lilian Garcia or Stephanie McMahon.
This strategy was going swimmingly until I realized, as I was about to make my final pick, that I screwed myself terribly. I had to pick Summer Rae in Round 9 because if WTP had taken her, I wouldn’t have had enough money to fill out my roster. Unfortunately Summer Rae, who used to be listed as a female wrestler, is now listed as a non-wrestler and was slotted into my second flex spot. I couldn’t get Lilian or Steph into my lineup because they’re also listed as non-wrestlers and I needed a female wrestler to close out my lineup.
This is why I took Naomi and the subsequent g00se egg. In hindsight, I should’ve went after a cheaper sleeper option like a Large Edward Langston instead of one of my bust picks in Wade Barrett who was $1,000 more expensive. Live and learn.
CONCLUSION
We’ll see how the rest of our weekly match-up shakes out but I can at least take some solace in knowing I’m currently 3-0 in head-to-head RFW battles against The Joan and hit on two of my three sleepers while accurately calling at least two of my three busts (it’s tough to call Wade Barrett a bust since he got me 13 points without wrestling, but he also didn’t wrestle). Drafting our teams definitely added a layer of fun to our little ongoing competition and if Monday night was any indication, I can’t wait until RFW officially introduces live drafting.
It’ll change the way you look at your team structure unless they make it so that you don’t have to fit your team under a salary cap when you draft. In all fairness though, I think that keeping the $100,000 salary cap would make drafts infinitely more interesting. It would make you have to plan ahead and strategize a lot more as it did with us during this little test run.
Keep checking back with us here at PSS for more fantasy wrestling pieces as well as some more random musings on the world of sport, reality and fantasy alike. I swear we write about more than just fantasy wrestling. But just like Vegan Jesus, RFW’s momentum is picking up and I don’t want to be left in the dust.
#KThanksBye
-Ray Ray Marz-
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