Out there in E-fed land there are many Feds that have the owner roleplaying alongside the rest of the roster.It's a tricky subject and thing to do. Is it right? Is it wrong? Can it be done right and then made to be an OK thing to do? Was that a very miserable grammar structure sentence? Lets explore that shall we.

Owners open E-Feds because they want to provide a place for players to come and play in...a place to roleplay as wrestlers. They get to make most of the decisions and control most of the career directions, and write out the matches that showcase your creation. That's a lot of work and writing in itself and if done right, should be a forefilling job itself. However, some owners step into the ring themselves and Rp right alongside the rest of the roster. Now that can be considered both a good and a bad thing depending on how they go about it.

First off, I understand that a lot of owners RP in their own feds. However, the majority do so not to compete, but to be a force in the ring, a helping hand, and a feud starter. They RP so that certain people get a push in a certain direction and they have no desire to win over anyone. Thats all fine and dandy because sometimes the owner needs certain things done, to give certain people a particular match....and who better than the boss to control it to make sure it comes out as planned. A first hand approach in a feud or fight may give a roster member the push and help they need. The owner in this case always puts them selves last and their players first, all in the name of bettering the fed. Owners like this also only put themselves in matches where it would be benefitional to the other person.... never for a simple win or loss. Sometimes they do win over the roster member, but that's just to bring them out as a better Rper. Players get better when they have better competition. It's these unselfish owners that are a great boon to their Feds.

However, there are also those owners that compete, just to compete, like the rest of the roster. To me, that's just not right. Owners can get seperate judges for their matches all they want, but that still doesn't make it better. If an owner wants to RP and compete for titles like the rest of us, their are thousands of "other" E-Feds out there. Playing in your own Fed where you call the shots is not fair at all. I've read where some claim that these participating owners do so because they are very good RPers who still have the skills and desire to compete. Well, if that's the case, why are they owners in the first place? Ownership is a management position, sort of like being the owner of a sports team. Roleplaying is the more active role, like the players on a team. There will always be the stigma of favortism or the cloud of doubt over any big win or close decision that goes the owners way. Thats when troubles on the roster can start and lead to members leaving the Fed. This is not good for the owner, losing roster members, so why do theyput their roster through this sort of drama? Who knows?

A good example is to look at what is happening over in the WWE right now. WWE owner, Vince McMahon was once the ECW champion. Nothing was more stupid than that. It wouldn't make any difference if he was a better wrestler than anyone on the ECW roster... that's not the point. Fans want wrestlers to wrestle and management to manage. Anything else is just not acceptable. He's the owner, and no amount of reasons change the fact that he is NOT like the rest of the roster. Every time Vince, or even his son Shane enters the ring to compete, regardless of how well they perform in the ring, we will always doubt that they didn't have some sort of control over the direction of the outcome. After all, they are the boss? In my opinion, it's also the reason 99% of wrestling fans hated Jeff Jarrett as NWA champion, when his father had control of the company...it just didn't seem like the right thing to be doing.

Now all this applies to single ownership feds, only. Places that have staff members that "act" just like owners can be just as bad, since the staff may have as much of a final say as the owner does. I'm sure you've seen places like that, where the owner's "friends" make up the entire staff and they all RP in the Fed as well. In those feds, it's hard to pin down who the real owner is, since everyone of the 'buddies" seems to have the same amount of power. I was once in a fed that had an owner and his girlfriend actively RPing with each having a "stated" character on the roster that everyone knew was theirs as well as a hidden character that no one was told was theirs. Funny thing was these four characters always seemed to be main eventing or in one title fight after another. It's no wonder it's not around any longer.