Fictional League Pro Wrestling (FLPW for short) is a "Create-A-Wrestler" promotion created by Geoffrey "TG" McCullough. It started out as a 2015 YouTube series using the video game WWF: No Mercy for the Nintendo 64, but transitioned into being a live-streamed show on Twitch in 2016 using the video game WWE 2k16. FLPW has so far existed in two different iterations: FLPW64, and FLPWLive!.
FLPW has a Blogspot page, which you can read here.
FLPW64[]
FLPW debuted on YouTube in 2015 as Fictional Lightweight Pro Wrestling. It was recorded using the video game WWF: No Mercy for the Nintendo 64. It ran for 6 episodes, ranging from 40 minutes to an hour each. The initial cast consisted of what was known as the Original Fifteen, all of whom are still present in the company in some capacity.
Most episodes started out with a warm-up match between two wrestlers. During the match, announcer Geoffrey McCullough would recap the previous episodes events using flashbacks, as well as hype up the other matches featured on the cards. Warp-up matches never had feud or story-line ramifications.
The show had four championships: the Light Heavyweight Championship, the Tag-Team Championships, the Intercontinental Championship, and the Hardcore Championship. For more information, visit the List of FLPW64 Championships and Champions page.
The advantages of using No Mercy to record the matches included utilizing different customized rule sets based on division, having run-ins occur, and even backstage brawls. In most extreme cases, Game Shark codes were used on the fly to manually swing the momentum of the match, since the usual momentum meter was hidden during the recordings. Having the matches be edited also resulted in much more coherent story lines. The problem was, without romhacking the game, you are only limited to only 18 custom wrestlers. Additionally, each episode took a while to produce, and the series was ultimately axed due to creator Geoffrey McCullough having to focus on schooling.
The L in FLPW initially stood for Lightweight because, at the time, every wrestler in the roster (except for Eddie Chumbo) qualified as a light heavyweight in the game's character editor. The series has been retroactively called FLPW64 to differentiate it between it and FLPWLive!. The L was changed to League sometime in late 2016, seeing how much more of the roster didn't even remotely qualify for Lightweight status.
In 2016, there were plans to split the (then) crowded roster of FLPWLive! and resurrect FLPW64 as a sort-of brand split. Nothing came of it, however.
FLPWLive![]
In August 2016, FLPW was rebooted as a live-streamed show on Twitch.tv, now using the game WWE 2k16. Due to it being live, matches were not predetermined and story lines were completely at the mercy of the A.I. wrestlers. Due to this, several things about the way FLPW worked had to be changed, including the introduction of the points ladder system and a bigger slant towards a more redundant style of humour.
Instead of the more traditional booking that happened with FLPW64, the federation used a points ladder system, where number one contenders spots are earned through victories, with the highest ranked wrestlers earning title shots at specials such as WinterWar! and Return to Form. This led to matches having a more "genuine" feel to them, however more often than not matches have led to some mediocre endings that have either killed good stories or made wrestlers look like complete morons.
Unlike with FLPW64 where each championship started vacant, FLPWLive! started in medias res with Chris Furious as World's Bestest Champion of the World, Jordan Wassink as International Canadian Champion of the World, Salty Marcellus as National US Champion of America, and The Beast Crew as Doubles Division champions. This is because FLPWLive! was initially going to be built off of the events of WWE 2k16's "Universe Mode", but most of it was retconned to be non-cannon. More information can be found on the List of FLPWLIve! Championships and Champions page.
FLPWLive! kicked off its debut with the a Full-Roster Single Elimination Tournament, which helped start a lot of feuds over the course of a seven-hour marathon stream. It was won by Eddie Chumbo, who pinned Tyler T-Man for the victory. Other major angles to come out of the tournament was the formation of Trent McRae and Marcus Gravy as a tag team (teaming up on the two V-Nation members that defeated them in round one and then going on through the rankings to almost win the Double championships), the first Canadian Championship feud between Jordan Wassink and Johnny Talladega, and a feud between the two tournament finalists that finished with FLPWLive!'s first ever hardcore match.
FLPW Reboot[]
On November 14th, FLPW re-debut on Twitch as its own Twitch channel. It also went back to using WWF: No Mercy instead of one of the newer 2k wrestling games, due to its mod-ability as well as No Mercy's feature of not having its editing capabilities disabled when 2k decides to shut down the servers to their games. It also upped its roster size to 40, signing newcomers Big Helton and Joe Fish.
The first stream featured a five match card, main evented by a giant 40-Wrestler Full-Roster Rumble where the wrestlers with the most amount of eliminations would be placed in a match for the now vacant World's Bestest Championship of the World.