2017 Year in Review + 2018 Preview

Well, 2017 is pretty much done. It's year-end retrospective time at The Cave. Obviously, there's a ton of craziness in the world, especially for those of us living in the US, but my Canadian passport and proximity to the border gives me some level of comfort. And it's even resulted in a few marriage proposals (at least until the guys find out I'm staying put). Yes, Canada is cool these days.

Being Canadian became
cool(er) this year.

Anyway, this post is about the blog and there's only room for happy stuff in a year-end post. Accomplishments? Things I'll remember about this year? Here's a few ...

• Posted 189 times.
• Kept my story-posting schedule.
• 24 stories + 2 shorter story posts.
• Launched four new series.
• Inspired an amazing piece of fan fiction featuring my characters!
• My first-ever Q+A.
• Averaged almost three comments per post (not including my replies).
• And I passed a major milestone when I surpassed one million page views in October.

To date, this year's three biggest stories are: (1) Cody's reunion with bitter ex-boyfriend Jax (here); (2) Jae's encounter with Toyboy (here); and (3) the start of Steve's weekend in BIGBeast against Jimmy Wildfire as documented by Camera-boy (here).

In terms of reviews, Thunders Arena earned the most coverage in 2017 with a whopping 39 reviews that covered 43 matches. Not surprising, if you followed the Caveys.

Out of those posts, Scrappy and Blayne were my most popular wrestler subjects, appearing in 13 and 10 reviews, respectively. They were also very popular with you. Blayne appears in six of my top ten Thunders reviews, including the top 3. And Scrappy appears in five. If you're thinking, "That's 11 videos in a top ten", it's not. See, you also enjoyed reading about them together. All three of my Blayne vs. Scrappy reviews were top ten material and their first meeting was my number one review for any company by a mile (reviews: BvS 1, BvS 2, BvS 3).

Scrappy taking down rookie Blayne is #1.

You came back for more in May.

And the September ring match showed
the third time can really be a charm.

I talked about BGEast action in 23 reviews, 17 of which were new action. The remainder were classic action, featuring stars like Mike Columbo, Tarzan Tyler Reese and the studs of the delicious Hunkbash 3. I like covering the classics, but you prefer reading about the latest and greatest.

My first three BGEast reviews of the year were the biggest. Not just because of time. They have a significant lead over the others, so even if I check back in six months, they'll still be the top ones. My favorite match of 2017 (Cole Cassidy vs. Josh Goodman) was your favorite BGEast review of 2017. That was followed by Jonny Firestorm vs. Calvin Haynes and Zip Zarella vs. Royce Perry.

Cole and Mr. Joshua got the year started off
right. No one's been able to catch up all year.

You liked Jonny manhandling beefy Calvin.

And the debut of rookie indie punks Zip + Royce.

Wrestler4Hire was featured in 23 reviews. 15 of these featured indie pro studs bringing their skills to the various W4H locations and stories. And eight of my W4H top ten featured at least one working indie pro wrestler. Interestingly, my biggest W4H post was actually part one of my Questions for Cameron (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).

Cameron answered. You read.

You liked seeing indie pros
stretching into new territories.

The combination of indie pros
and superstars caught your eye.

Last one I'll highlight is new group Muscleboy Wrestling. I reviewed 13 of their matches in 12 posts. Justin Powers was my favorite MBW subject (four reviews/five matches), but Nick Flex, Chris Cannon, Bruno the Beast and Steve Tanner all earned two reviews each. While you and I were in sync on the other promotions, not here. Your favorite review was Steve Tanner vs. Jake Zane, which was my least positive review. Rebels.

You didn't have a problem with my review.

I loved some loincloth action.

And dominant new heels.

No one else earned more than 10 reviews. Austin Cooper/Frey did get 7 reviews across three companies (Wrestler4Hire, Thunders Arena, Rock Hard Wrestling). The veteran wrestling superstar really showed off his versatility by switching companies, settings, storylines and styles with ease. My review of his Cavey Award-winning match vs. Mark Muscle was his most popular.

Twitter

I used Twitter ( @AlexWrestler68 ) quite a bit this year to post about my reviews and to follow wrestling. I'm over 650 followers, although I don't really follow that too much. Like most people, I look more at the engagement rate. For a small base, I feel like I get a good number of likes and re-tweets. Below are my top 5 tweets based on engagement.

What About 2018?

Well, I'd love to show you a bunch of exciting new stuff, but I'll be honest. I'm running a little closer to post-date lately. So I have a plan, but executing it is taking a little longer than I'd like. So not a lot of exciting teasers this year.

The Cave will continue to be the core of the blog, of course. New episodes of all four series (The Cave, Adventures of SuperStar, Undercard and Unleashed) are all planned. And I have a checklist of 16 personal and fan favorites that are likely to appear. In fact, there are only six brand new, never-before-seen characters scheduled across 15 planned Cave-titled stories, plus one seen-but-never-seen-wrestling character.

The few. The proud. The newbies.

I can also tell you is that there will be no new series this year. Oh no! Wait, it's actually a good thing. Why is that a good thing? Because it means a lot of 2017 stuff worked and I want to keep it going. Camp Grapple probably won't appear this year, but there's more BIGBeast, CLAW and Rival coming.

Steve + Camera-boy meet up with BIGBeast stars
 like Kid Kain, Jack Jacobs and Cooper Boston

Rounding out the 24 stories for the year, I've got a sequel to Tarzan and James scheduled to come out exactly two years after the first one (just like a movie) and we will likely re-visit those model roommates to see Travis' first outing as a wrestler for hire.

William Clayton joins the adventure in
"Tarzan and James 2"

So it will be a busy 2018. You can see how 24 stories is a ton to do, but also a small amount given the number of characters and series that now exist. I will continue to do my best to post regularly and I hope you help out by commenting whenever you can. Even one word is amazingly inspiring and encouraging.

I wish you all a happy, safe and prosperous new year.

Alex