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Bloodround - The Streaming Series!

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When the Quarantine started, I immediately thought “It’s time to do what I’ve always wanted to do, and actually begin to write some sort of wrestling themed movie or tv show pilot.” That thought was fleeting, as I very quickly got into “how the hell am I going to make it through this being stuck at home all the time?” thing. But now it’s abundantly clear that this is not ending anytime soon, so I’m back into, “let’s be productive” mode. It helps that I went through training for work on achieving goals the other day. As part of that training, it focused on breaking these larger goals into smaller objectives, which is what I did with this large project.

First, I decided that for what I want to do, a streaming show is going to be the best bet. There are going to be too many characters and overarching themes for a single movie to capture, so streaming series it is. Next, I began researching (a couple Google searches) how to write an Outline for a Television series. That should help this have some sort of order and structure, furthermore, I hope that familiar structure helps this outline have more foundation and direction than my scrambled thoughts and ideas would. Anyway, without too much more rambling, I need to take advantage of the emerging desire to get this done while I’m quarantined in my home. Let’s begin;

According to the “How to write a television series outline” that I found, it’s important to create a “Treatment”, which should answer the questions - “What is the main arc of the story, who are the characters, and where is it set?” So lets go through those one by one. 

  • The main arc is following Eric Crenshaw - a Freshman who has just arrived at The University of Central State, where he intends on continuing his academic and athletic career. He’s excited to have received a partial scholarship to what has been a strong D1 NCAA Wrestling program. He was recruited, but was far from a top prospect in the country. He comes in with a chip on his shoulder, but he’s tremendously more naive than he can even realize. Eric is going to quickly realize that his goals will have more than the opponent to beat him, and this story will follow him as he navigates his way through a series of distractions. Think Friday Nights Lights, but in College (which makes it a bit more raw and crazy) and with Wrestling instead of football, and without the daughter of the coach that sucked. Eric came on late in his High School career, and feels he has a long way to go before he reaches his peak abilities. His confidence and his belief in his abilities are very high, and he feels like he’s far from reaching his maximum potential. His mental toughness and conditioning are his top attributes, but his athleticism isn’t far behind. Surrounding Eric, you’ll get a good series of characters from the other incoming freshman, to the upperclassmen on the team, the coaching staff, and a series of recurring college students who are friends of Eric and the program. You’ll have rivalries, brutal matches, practice fights, parties, bad choices, good choices, scary choices, and more parties. We’ll watch Eric and his teammates fight to win their spots in the lineup, work towards their goals, and most importantly - get all of the life lessons that wrestling teaches us.

  • Along with Eric, we’ll get to spend a lot of time with the other teammates (names to be determined) as they challenge each other, party together, battle together, fight each other, and do the rest of the wrestling team stuff. As most teams are comprised of may grades and classes, we’re also getting the upper class men, coaches, and friends of the program (basically just college students who hang with the athletes). Names and specifics to be determined as this is developed further, but there is no shortage of plot lines to develop through and around what will quickly be established as a diverse and wide ranging roster. 

  • The story is set at the University of Central State in 1995. I think for this to work, it’s going to be important to not use real programs or schools. I don’t know how the legalities work on getting schools to agree to be a part of this, but it just seems best to create new programs out of thin air then to get the NCAA on board. Also, part of my wanting to do this is having been around for some insane parties with wrestlers and other athletes in college. There is just too much to go off of from my own experience, along with a little hyperbole, to make the colors of the story a little brighter. For example, I once was walking with a group of wrestlers from one party to the next, when one of them climbed a light pole and began head butting the light until it broke. That seems insane, and it was, and it’s getting included. Using fake programs will allow for more stories to be developed, embellished, and told, without incriminating anyone along the way. I went with 1995 as the start date, because that allows for a couple of things to happen. First of all, some awesome old school clothes, music, and wrestling shoes. Plus, I like the idea of this starting off in the early 90s, and making its way through the actual events of the early 90s. Like the idea of starting in 95, and having a chance to have an Atlanta Olympics subplot in 96, and continuing through some of the 90s golden years.

Alright, so we’ve locked up the main character, the supporting character archetypes, and environment. According to my “research”, a Title and Narrative Through Line are the next steps. So… Bloodround is the title of the series, until a better one reveals itself. I thought of Cheers, and Saturday Morning Whistles, but it appears Cheers has been taken, and Saturday Morning Whistles sucks. So Bloodround for now. Narrative Through Line, as it turns out, is fancy for how the title fits with the plot. Essentially, how can you drag the plot through the title and make it seem cool? So in this one, it’s fairly simple. Assuming we stay with the name Bloodround, Eric, or some of his other teammates, will have to wrestle in the Bloodround at NCAAs. It’s the round that determines if you are an All American, or if your season ends. It’s the match that pushes people to their brink, when you leave everything on the mat, because what the hell else do you have to compete for if you lose this one? So that’s the Narrative Through Line, and I’m sure we will be able to use that “all or nothing” story arch routinely in practices, relationships, and a variety of other social situations that Eric and his friends and teammates will come across. But that’s the beauty of it. You can have the characters reference the Bloodrounds of life, or whatever the situation is. I mean, anytime you can make things seem like the end of the world if an outcome goes in the wrong direction, makes for some high drama and excitement.

General Theme and Summary. That’s what’s next here, and ultimately the jumping off point for this. I mentioned before, think of a college version of Friday Night Lights, but there is more to it than that. College wrestling, and athletics in general, is such a broad world. Think of a couple things we could get from this. First year on campus, getting accustomed to a world away from his family, and on his own. Drinking too much, making choices that 18 year old kids make, meeting girls, school, making friends, dorm life, and that’s all before we get to becoming accustomed to college athletics. In that world, you’ve got to meet the team, coaches, and introduce him (and you, the viewer) to what a college wrestling room is like. It’s violent, it’s unrelenting, it’s competitive, it’s humbling, it builds confidence, it’s challenging, and it’s fucking awesome! The other thing that’s important to highlight here, is that the show will be funny. It’s not just intensity and violence and partying. I mean, it’s certainly those things, but wrestling is too tough a sport for there to not be fun involved. It’s too tough for there to not be genuine relationships and trust that grows through the sport. It’s going to be funny, and you’ll laugh with the characters.

Here is another quick list of random thoughts and ideas that will go into this project. Each episode will have a specific band that will provide the music for that entire episode. Whether it’s a montage scene (there’s going to be lots of workout montages), or it’s just a song playing in the background during some dialogue, the same band will provide the entire episode’s soundtrack. Think how great it would be to have an entire episode devoted to Hall and Oates, Outkast, Wu Tang Clan, Huey Lewis and The News, Ice Cube, ACDC, etc… Lots of options here. Back to the Montage’s, lots of them. Workouts, dates, parties, whatever! All of these things fall in the realm of things that will happen in this show, and they will be celebrated with montages. Lastly, there will be as many famous people who wrestled in this as possible. If you’re an actor, and you’ve wrestled, you’re in. Jay Mohr, Tom Cruise, Eddie McClintock, Matthew Modine, Frank Jasper, Ashton Kutcher, probably many more that I’m not thinking of. You’re in. We want authenticity in this project, and that’s how we’re going to get it. It’s like in Armageddon, when they chose to teach oil drillers how to be astronauts when it likely would have been easier to teach astronauts how to drill. We are taking actors who know how to wrestle, and putting them in this. It’ll work.

There is too much here, for this to not work. There is too much here to build on, and to capture the hearts and minds of the consumer. There is too much here for this to not grab the attention of everyone who has wrestled in the past, and too much here for it to not hook those who haven’t ever wrestled. The wrestling fan market is one that is mostly untouched from a television show perspective. I believe that in hour long episodes, you could go through a season in 12-15 episodes, and capture the attention of a market that would dive head first into this. I’m telling you, there’s just too much here.