MAW 2023.
I was struggling with my heels not being successful enough compared to my top faces. So I imagined Miller Fforde, who had just lost the MAW Championship, as a good top heel contender. Before I threw him back into the title picture, I wanted to keep him busy for a while.
Before he turned, he stopped being in the ring and focused on supporting title challenger Frantic Ali. At Where It All Begins Again, Ali wins and Miller Fforde turns on him.
A few days later, on Rampage, the TV show, he announced that he was fed up with the new guys from TCW, that they had too much privilege and there were far too many of them (in fact, I had created a title for them several months earlier, the MAW University Championship). He feels that MAW has sold its ass to TCW and is no longer relevant. So he, who is the soul of MAW, is going to put the business back in order.
In the following weeks, he beats up several members of TCW. He becomes their fear and they almost avoid going to the ring. As a result they form a clan, The Academy. Fforde does the same, The MAW Order is born.
For a year, the two clans grow, they fight, they win and lose but neither of them gets the upper hand. Titles are involved and the storyline takes up all the space in the company. So much so that soon all the titles are occupied by either The Academy or The MAW Order. Never have they had all the titles at once. But at Where It All Begins Again, The Academy makes an incredible move. With no titles before the show (not counting the University Title), they end up with the entire championship. The MAW Order had the Tag Team Title and the American Title. The Main Event was Miller Fforde vs. Seth Whitehead vs. "I Can't Remember Who" (the one month transitional champion who was leaving for a bigger company). All matches were won by members of The Academy.
As a result, many of my TCW graduates moved up the card quickly as my upper midcard became too competitive, giving a reason to grow The MAW Order. Miller Fforde remained my best worker all year and six months later, he finally won the championship ... which he would return to less than a month later by signing to the ... TCW. Fair enough.
I really enjoyed this storyline and it took me a year to finish what was supposed to be three months, six at the most. I was so proud to see my youngsters so high on the card, even ahead of some of the company's veterans.