The camera cuts to a cold morning in East London, where Ben Jordan is seen walking at pace through a park, his eyes are oddly focused and his jaw set firmly.
"Alright people!" He says as the wind nips at his cheek. "I'm sure you expected me to be starting in a chair again, having a good old rabbit about me and what's been happening lately but honestly people, I got the right hump and I have done since last Sunday."
Ben continues to walk as he talks.
"All week I've been like a bear with a sore head." He tells people. "All week I've been proper wound up and I think you all know why I haven't been my usual self. It's pretty obvious why. Not happy with just coming at me in this whole thing, I certain plonker decided to really get under my skin, you go for the people around me."
Ben turns his head from the camera.
"Cheap as anything you can do Alexander." Ben says through gritted teeth. "It's a proper chopper move because you saw you wasn't overly bothering me at all, you were just there trying to get under my skin, but now it worked. You wanted this side of me, you got it."
Ben narrows his eyes as the sun hits his face.
"And because of that, I've been walking around all week fuming. I've been walking around not exactly my chipper self, but that's what you wanted Alexander." Ben says with a slight growl to his tone. "That's what you wanted out of me, you wanted to bring something out of me that you think puts me in an uncomfortable zone. Well here's something I lived by for a long time."
Ben stops walking for a second.
"When you fight enough monsters, because monsters come after you enough time, you start becoming a monster yourself." Ben says softly. "And that's what you've turned me in to. So give yourself a pat on the back for getting what you want. Pat yourself on the shoulders and take a bow mate. You've taken the pure side out of me and I take that very personally."
Ben narrows his eyes again as he looks down the camera.
"You've turned me in to a miserable, detached so and so." Ben admits. "And that's what I'm gonna show you all this week. Full spoiler alert for people who want to sit and judge me, I'm not the Ben Jordan you expect anymore, certainly not until I get this cretin out of my sights."
He breathes deep.
"So yeah, this is what sore head Ben has been up to all week." He says with a finger gun point to the camera.
Sunday - Climax Control.
"What the hell..." Ben said as he paced outside the medical room. "Why the hell..."
"Calm down Ben." Sam voice can be heard saying.
Outside the medical room, Ben Jordan and Sam Marlowe waited anxiously on any news on Jamie Dean after Alexander Raven's unprovoked attack on him.
"You know this is my fault, right?" Ben said as he stopped and looked Sam directly in the eye. "That numpty Raven attacked Jamie because of me, because of my friendship with him. There's no other reason. If it was anyone else who walked to that ring, Raven would have sat in the back with a bottle of cheap scotch and put his face in the catering and not done a bloody thing, but nah, cause it's a friend of mine, he's done it. It's the same with getting Luna on your case, because you're a friend of mine. He's using you all to get at me."
Sam looked at Ben, trying to offer some form of comfort, but Ben wasn't buying it.
"What's next?" Ben asked. "Fenris goes for a run and he smashes him with a bar? Or Amy wandering to playground with her little un and him sending Luna after her? Where does this pony stop?"
"In a few weeks time when we deal with them." Sam told Ben, but Ben wasn't having it.
"No." He said sharply. "It needs to be dealt with before then, or at least a message needs to be sent to him that he can't keep screwing with the people I give a monkeys about. It need to be dealt with now."
Ben attempted to walk past Sam but she put her hand in front of him, stopping him from moving past her.
"And where do you think you're going?" She asked Ben with a stern look on her face.
Ben gritted his teeth, a determined look on his usually cheery face.
"I'm gonna go find Alexander Raven..." Ben said through those gritted teeth. "And I'm gonna put my foot so far up his arse, he'll be tasting boot polish for a god damn month."
Ben attempted to move past Sam once more, but the determined redhead quickly blocked his path, forcing him to stop.
"I don't think that's a good idea." He told him straight. "Y'all go do that and y'all get yourself suspended and we won't get a chance to face them at the supercard. Need to think this through."
Ben shook his head as he looked at Sam.
"A message needs to be sent." Ben told her firmly. "And it ain't gonna get sent while I sit here and do nothing."
Ben turned away, his hands behind his head as he looked at the floor, at nothing in particular.
"This is what he wants." Sam said, trying to reason with Ben. "He wants you to lose your cool and do something stupid."
Ben turned on his heels, looking back at her.
"What he wants is a reaction." Ben told her. "What he wants is for me to react and he can have that but if he thinks for a second I'm gonna react calm, and all of that stuff, he's got another thing coming because I'm done with being cool, I'm done with being calm. He wants to pull something out of me that he never thought I had in me, well he can have it but I promise you this, the man is not gonna like it at all. He wants a reaction, I'm gonna give him a reaction he don't expect, so please let me get on past ya and go kick him square in the bollocks."
Sam put her hand over her face, slowly shaking her head at Ben.
"I wouldn't recommend that." Christian Underwood's voice can be heard saying off camera. "It won't lead you anywhere good."
Ben recognised the voice as his boss and turned around to look at Christian.
"This crap needs to stop and it needs to stop right now." Ben said. "So I think at this point, you should turn a blind eye, and let me go and deal with this knob head. I mean you're throwing me in a street fight anyway, so let me go and kick that one off nice and early."
Ben looked to walk past Christian but it's his boss this time that puts his hand up on Ben's chest, stopping him from moving past.
"Look." Ben said with a glare. "I'm a reasonable man, I always have been, always been on the company side, never once pulled off anything sneaky in here, but this geezer is taking the piss not only with me, but attacking innocent people just to get at me. You need to let me get at him."
"I can't let you do that." Christian told Ben. "Random backstage brawls gets you fired from here. Mark and I don't let that shit happen backstage ya know, unless, well, you know how it works. You go and do that out of anger and we have to draw the line."
"Mate, I'm drawing the line with him going after people I give a monkeys about." Ben said back to his boss. "I'm drawing it and that numpty is stepping over it constantly, so it's time for you to look away for a bit and let me do what I gotta."
Christian again shook his head, much to the disappointment of Ben.
"Ben, I don't want to have to let you go for backstage stuff." Christian said.
"But it's ok for him to go around doing whatever he wants cause it's in front of a camera?" Ben asked. "Tell ya want, send a camera, record me kicking the daylights out of him, when he asks why, tell him its to air next week or something, I don't give a damn."
"I've never seen you like this." Christian commented with a sign.
"I never had someone push me this far." Ben replied.
Christian looked at Sam, just standing watching this.
"Take him out for a drink." Christian told her. "First rounds on me, just stop him from doing something he'll regret."
"That's it?" Ben said through gritted teeth. "Take him out for a drink? Buy him a pint and all this goes away? That's not good enough mate, that alone will never be good enough mate. Not for all the crap that's going on right now."
Christian sighed as his eyes darted between Ben and Sam.
"Well, what would be good enough?" Christian asked Ben.
"Well, if you won't let me beat the crap out of him back here." Ben said. "Next week, I'm not asking, I'm demanding you put him in the ring with me and let me handle my business right there and then, nice and legal and no one needs to get fired."
Christian tapped his chin as he pondered the request but shook his head.
"You have him in a street fight soon." Christian said slowly. "Putting him in the ring with you so close to that match might water things down."
"You're having a giraffe mate." Ben said much to Christian's confusion.
"Giraffe?" He asked.
"Laugh." Sam said jumping in.
"She's getting good at this translating thing." Ben said looking towards her. "Look, I'm not asking for this match, I'm demanding it Christian. I don't ask for much around here and I am known as a team player but this needs to be done. If not, I will wait for him outside and take matters in to my own hand and you'll have people to bail out over firing."
Christian looked at Ben's determined look and sighed.
"If I can get your word that you will not go after him between now and then." Christian said with a slow shake of his head. "You can face him next week."
Ben rubbed his chin and looked at Christian.
"You have my word." Ben said.
The two men shared a nod in the silence but a female medical assistant left the medical room.
"You can see Mr. Dean now." She said as she looked between the three.
Ben pointed his thumb towards the door.
"I gotta go now, I got some apologies to make." Ben told Christian. "Feel free to let Mr. Raven know that next week, he gets to be the first to see a different side of me."
Ben didn't wait for Christian to answer as he turned around and quickly made for the door and in to the room as the camera faded to black.
"Geezer or lady who wrote that card up wasn't kidding around." Ben says with a shake of his head. "Because I did demand that match and I would have demanded it over and over till my face turned a funky shade of blue because this geezer has a lesson to learn and there's no one better out there to teach him said lesson then this guy right here."
We return to Ben just sitting at a bench in the park.
"But this was planned from day one, wasn't it Alexander?" Ben questions. "From the second we ended up fighting in that bonkers match, from the minute you saw I could do it, it got in that little nut of yours and you knew you had to find a way to break me. You knew you had to kill the purity in wrestling that I showed because I make this place a place where people like you don't fit in, so you had to drag me to your level, just so you can feel like you belonged in a place that you don't. You tried to drag me in to a version of wrestling that things evolved from a long time ago, because your one trick pony malarkey of needing weapons to hide the fact that you're a pretty lousy wrestler, no longer works in this day and age."
Ben puts his hands out in front of him.
"Because the fans are smart these days, they can see inside what we do, and they've seen you as the fraud of a wrestler that you are so yeah, you have to drag us all down to your level because you've run out of levels, you've hit your ceiling." Ben says as he points up. "You've not evolved and happy being a caveman in this game. Thing is, I remember those days of wrestling where you could get over swinging a chair and you want me to come down to that rubbish?"
Ben leans forward.
"You're gonna regret that one mate." Ben says seriously. "I'll put the fact aside that wrestling wise, could take you every day of the week and twice on Sunday, and look at what you've done to really get on my bristols. You went after my friends and that just don't sit well with me at all. You went after the people close to me, because you think that you need to strip everything away from me, and I mean everything. You think that is gonna rattle me?"
Ben slowly shakes his head.
"What's done is it's made me lose the feeling of guilt about picking up a weapon and using it." Ben replies honestly. "See that was always my problem, the fact I felt rotten having to go that route, pick up weapons and inflict life changing injuries on people, that wasn't part of the art form for me. You going after my friends, means I don't give a monkeys anymore and if I have to hurt you, sod it, I'll do it and I thought I had to wait for a couple more weeks to do that but you forced my hand, I couldn't wait to get my hands on you and if you're sitting there thinking that's a great thing, then your bonkers. I think you played this one to get me to react and I have done, but I ain't playing in your hands with this one mush, I'm coming to Arizona to kick the living daylights out of you and make you see that when it comes to that street fight, you'll be the one doubting yourself."
Ben puts his arms to his side.
"I'm from East London mate. I'm a Millwall fan mate, I've owned a boozer mate." Ben says strongly. "Do you really think I haven't been in my fair share of punch ups in the street long before I found wrestling? Do a history check up and see that East London used to be the arse end of London, that Millwall fans riot and ninety percent of punch ups start in boozers. I'm not scared of getting my hands dirty Alexander. You've stacked the deck in your mind, but I'm telling ya, you stacked it against the wrong guy and on Sunday, I wouldn't expect technical Ben."
Ben smiles as he shakes his head.
"You shouldn't know what to expect from this one." Ben says with a wave of his finger. "You've got your goal of changing me but trust me pal, you've not changed me that will make it easier for you because now I don't really give a monkeys about you, your safety or any of that rubbish. Get through the match safe was on my mind but screw that because it's like your attack on my friends, it's taken away the safety measure in my mind and now all I can see me doing is hurting you and it starts this week. I might not be able to pick up a chair and wrap it around your melon but I will hurt you in other ways."
Ben stands up and looks in front of him, his eyes focused on the River Thames.
"Going for my friends scream of jealousy because let's be bang on the nose here, you don't have many of those of your own, do ya?" Ben questions. "The lone wolf thing is overplayed and I think you're damn jealous of me for actually having people I can turn to. You're like that kid at school on his own in the corner of the playground, watching the groups of kids play, wanting to join in but won't and it burns you up, so you go around pulling hair and throwing stuff at them just to get their attention. I know this is a foreign concept on you because you don't have anyone that close in your life, but you mess with my friends, you get to see a side of me you are not ready for. I know you wouldn't have the opportunity to die for your friends, but for mine, I would, over and over again."
Ben turns and starts walking again.
"See, I'd fight for them over and over again Alexander and you targeting them, you've crossed the line." Ben says as he walks. "You've pushed a sane man in to doing what's right for the people he cares about. I'm willing to die for them but I'm more then willing to take you out to stop you from ever going near them again, are we clear on that one mate?"
Ben keeps walking, not even glancing at someone walking past him.
"This is not gonna be fun for you Alexander." Ben says firmly. "All this twoing and throwing and stuff, made me see what I have, what I have to do and it's to rid SCW of the likes of you. This week its my style and I'm gonna show you that you will never be able to keep up, couple weeks time, I'm stepping in to your world and I'm gonna show you that you're not even king of your own domain."
Ben points to himself.
"Maybe this is me." Ben says seriously. "Maybe this is the real me, maybe this whole Saint Ben thing was there to just make me look like the good guy and maybe this is the real me Alexander. Maybe people like you who dig and claw at what people's built just to make themselves look better then they actually are bring out the real me. Kedron Williams brought out a different side of me and he didn't fare well, the only thing Kedron got from me was respect at the end of it, but that's something you will not get. He never needed to go after others and it brought out the worst in me, but you've gone a level above and its not gonna end well for you after this one. You wanted a different me and you're gonna get a different me, but what you really need to ask yourself is if you can handle a different me, can you deal with the monster you've created?"
Ben shakes his head.
"No mate, you can't." Ben says firmly. "I should have said spoiler alert but you can't. You might be clever at the old sneak attacks, but face to face, nah mate, you don't have it in ya. That's where the 'aris starts to go. That's where the doubts creep in to your mind wondering if you can deal with what you've brought out of someone. See, I don't hold any fear in me anymore, I don't have those self doubts a few months ago that haunted me."
A police siren is heard in the background.
"Just another peaceful day on the Isle of Dogs." Ben mutters to himself. "But Easter Sunday in Arizona is gonna be as far from peaceful for you Alexander, as humanly possible. You got the rise out of me that you wanted but I'm telling ya, it's the worst thing you could have ever done. I'm not even messing around mate, trying to bring this side of me out is gonna be an absolute mess for ya. You've given me more of a reason to fight, you've given me more of a reason to win. A lot of the times, I roll with the punches, what will be will be and all of that, but you've given me a reason to get my teeth stuck in to something. This is when I fly Alexander, this is when I'm at my best, because I got more on the line and when I have stuff on the line, losing ain't an option to me. You need to know and pretty sharpish that I am more then you ever thought I was."
Ben strolls through the gate of the park and on to a side road.
"And you clearly didn't think very highly of me to begin with and probably even less of me since I refused to play your silly games." Ben says with a serious tone. "But now its time for you to know that I might be the happy go lucky guy, and that I might be pretty chilled and lot of the time, but I'm much, much more then that. I'm the guy who still feels the need to remind bellends like you who I am from time to time, because if it wasn't for people like me, there wouldn't be a place for you to call work. I'm still that Ben that led this place, I'm still that Ben who can win matches, face anything thrown at him and step on up. I was in my head a while ago on if I can be this guy again and well, now I know I can be this guy again."
Ben takes a left turn and continue to walk.
"This is what you're gonna see on Sunday." Ben says as he exhales. "Remember, you did this, you made a rod for your own back and now you're gonna have to live with the consequences of your actions. You're gonna have to reap what you sow because this is my chance to get my hands on you and show ya that ya messed with the wrong people, that you messed with things when you shoulda just sat there and said that'll you'll leave well and good alone. This is where it all bites you on the jacksy. I wouldn't have asked for this if I didn't think I could. It wasn't emotion driving me, but determination and it's gonna drive me on here too. Take this match as a warning Alexander and a future lesson on who you think you can screw with."
Ben looks at his watch.
"Well, I better get my skates on cause I got a flight to catch and an arse to kick." He says seriously. "Hope you lovely lot have a good Easter, except you Alexander, you can bugger right off. I'll see you Sunday but you will not be happy to see me."
Ben winks at the camera.
"Laters people." He says with a short, sharp nod.
And with that, the camera fades to black.
