[Jet City]

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Almost Got Me
Kaneohe, Hawaii
15 MAY 2023
OFF-Camera



I thought we had a plan. After Kris blindsided me in London after a night out, I figured that we were all finally on the same page. He was going to give me the benefit of the doubt about last year. I never meant for any of this to spiral the way that it had. I never wanted the guy to get shot. He understood why I made the decisions that I did, and even took part of the blame on himself. Hearing those words were a weight off of my shoulders that I never realized I had been carrying. I felt like I could breathe for the first time in a year. It was a strange sensation to be relieved of guilt you didn’t know you had been burdened by. Something about Kris trusting me had flipped a switch for me. I wasn’t just looking for the way for myself anymore. If he was willing to put a little bit of faith in me, then I should at least give their plan a shot to work. I didn’t want to fuck it all up for them. That would bring back the weight that he had lifted. I wasn’t trying to carry that any further than I already had.

That was why seeing Kris’ name pop up on my social media feed had been like seeing him come back from the dead all over again. Everyone else was equally as surprised, but they had a reason to be. I already knew the guy hadn’t perished. I had seen him; even talked to him. However, throwing a flare up into the social media world had never been part of our plan. I was supposed to make the call when the time was right, and we would bring Jaycee’s old friends directly into our trap. We were supposed to work together. There was no way that was going to happen now. The news of Kris making posts on Twitter traveled quickly. Before I could make any kind of call, my phone was ringing. I had been trusted to find Jaycee. They thought Kris had been taken care of, only for the two of them to be tweeting about going to Vegas. Kris was apparently pulling strings in Sin City to get the two of them in front of a camera. He was going to explain his absence to the whole world. That wasn’t something the people back in Chicago were going to allow to happen.Their trust in me was gone. When my phone rang, they didn’t want to know if I had seen either of them; they wanted to know where they were now. In their eyes, I was either shirking the duties that they had impressed upon me, or I was incompetent. There was no middle ground, which meant they had no use for me anymore. As far as they were concerned, I was a loose-end the same as the other two. Kris and Jaycee’s little change of plans made me a target.

It was all that I could do to convince them to go to Jet City South. It seemed like it added up. That was the place where all of this started. Of course that would be where Kris would hide out until the show. He and Jaycee were far enough away to be safe, but close enough that they could drive to the show and stay off the radar. I figured with everyone headed to California to cut them off I had time to make a stop before making myself scarce. Kris and Jaycee had kicked the hornets nest instead of going about this intelligently and quietly like we had planned. I wasn’t going to get caught in any kind of crossfire. If they wanted to go public, they were going to do it without my help. It’s not like they ever really trusted me anyways. If they had, I wouldn’t be back on the run.

As soon as I hung up the phone, I was on my way to Hawaii. I knew that Kris and Jaycee would be there. What made the whole thing so funny was how Kris had been right under their nose the whole time. These people came to Hawaii to recruit me, but had no idea that Kris had been there the whole time. Eiley and I had been working the beaches not far from where the guy had been holed up for most of the last year. I never even needed to go to Jet City. If I had just stayed where I was, they would have gotten their answers so much sooner. Better yet, if they had known that he was right here within reach the whole time, they would have never needed me in the first place. I could be out living my life, and not having to look over my shoulder at every turn. There was one positive to the situation though. If they hadn’t found Kris here, that made his hiding spot the smartest place in the world to go.

Mikah’s gym was way nicer than Jet City South ever could be. One side of the place functions as a fitness center for anyone that walks through the door, while her actual wrestling academy had its own wing. In between the two was a big banquet hall style space meant for holding events. She had really thought of how to maximize the profitability of the place all while giving Kris and Jaycee all the cover they needed to hide in plain sight. The big events hadn’t yet started rolling in, so the two idiots had set up their own private gym inside the locked hall. It wasn’t smart to go confront the two of them, but after all of the pressure that they had put on me to help them, I couldn’t just bring myself to walk away silently. They had screwed me over just as badly as I had screwed them over last year, but they did it intentionally. All of their self-righteousness was just an act. All of the guilt-trips were bullshit. I proved that they would have done the same thing in my shoes, and I needed them to see that clearly. I needed them to be just as wrong as I was. I needed to shatter their delusional belief that they were so much better than I was. They weren’t. They were worse. I didn’t even know what I was going to say when I rolled up to the gym. Before I had come up with anything I was already at the door, and all of the emotions I brought with me took over when I kicked it open.

JAYCEE: Looks like you finally made it….

Just as I suspected, they were both there. Neither of them were putting in work on any of the equipment they had gathered though. Instead, it looked like they had been sitting around and waiting for me to show up. Kicking open the door hadn’t even made either of them jump up in surprise, or attempt to flee.

KRIS: I wonder what took him so long… 

Nothing they said really even registered at the moment. I was livid, and their carefree way of mocking me while we were all literally being hunted down was only making it worse. I stormed across the room, but neither of the two of them seemed worried in the slightest.

JAYCEE: You think maybe he is mad about the whole Twitter thing?

I wasn’t going to give Kris a chance to answer with yet another dumb joke. I stepped right up to Jaycee without hesitation.

OZ: You think this is a game? You two begged me not to say anything until the time was right. I held up my end. Now you two go and hang me out on the line alone? There was a way that we could have all walked away from this. These guys are going to be coming after me now!

I tried my best to keep the words level, but by the end I was screaming in his face. The whole was made worse by the fact that the dumb smile on Jaycee’s face never shrank or disappeared. He was happy to see me angry.

JAYCEE: Doesn’t feel good does it?

And then I understood. They were never going to work with me to come up with a real plan. This was always going to be their play. Sure, they wanted out of the predicament that they had been in for the last year, but they also wanted to get a little revenge on the person that pushed over the first domino. I was naive for not seeing it coming before now.

KRIS: You’ve gotten to run around free, and enjoy the last year of your life, right? You got to go to bed every night knowing that you were safe. You didn’t have to worry about someone kicking in the door and putting you to sleep permanently…

Yesterday morning it felt like I was finally nearing the end of this whole debacle. We were supposed to be free as soon as the tour was over. Kris and Jaycee never had any plans to save anyone but themselves though. They were perfectly okay with selling me out.

JAYCEE: How long do you think that you’ll last before they find you?

Maybe there was still a way out of all of it though. I could have told them that I was heading to Hawaii. Even better, I could have sent them to Hawaii. I have a feeling that Kris and Jaycee wouldn’t be swayed by that information though. They would see it as just trying to save myself, and they weren’t necessarily wrong. It wasn’t exactly noble that I bought us all some more time. It was self-preservation.

OZ: You two sit will sit there and look down on me for trying to save myself, but how is what you are doing any different?

The two of them looked at one another, and the smiles on their faces only got bigger. There was something here that I was missing.

KRIS: There was no way that we were ever going to trust you to make that call, kid. You had to know that. You making calls was how we got into this situation in the first place. Plus, they would have seen that coming from miles away. 

There was no way that he could know that with any certainty. They had always taken all of my information and acted on it. If I would have been allowed to set the spot where they would come for Jaycee, we would have had the upper hand.

OZ: We would have at least been able to control the situation if I made the call. We would have known when and where they were coming.

Again, the two of them looked at each other, but this time the both burst into laughter. I was dumbfounded, and I snapped.

OZ: WILL ONE OF START TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY?!

Before I even finished speaking, Kris was up from his seat, and in my face. The joking expression on his face was gone. He wasn’t laughing anymore. In an instant, the two of them had gone from enjoying my misery to being annoyed by my presence.

KRIS: The two of us are the only ones taking this seriously, you’re just too fucking stupid to see it for what it is. Did you really think that they were just going to sit back and wait for you to make a call? You don’t think that they have had someone on you the whole time just to keep an eye on their investment?

I don’t know who these two thought that they were speaking to. I might be new to the whole wrestling and entertainment scene, but making sure that I’m not being stalked from the shadows was kind of my entire occupation until recently. I tried to defend myself against the accusation that I would have been so sloppy, but Jaycee cut me off before I could.

JAYCEE: You had a tail the whole tour, with the exception being Romania. Kris made your tail in London. That’s why he didn’t come up to you until you were in an elevator alone.

So posting on Twitter hadn’t been some kind of spur of the moment plan for these two. They had been cooking up something for weeks without telling me; maybe even before either of the two of them even revealed themselves to me. The realization started to set in that I was never part of the plan. They were never going to trust me. The whole gambit had been to prevent me from blowing the whistle on them too early, nothing more.

KRIS: Obviously none of the big three could show up while you two were overseas. These guys weren’t ever going to come collect Jaycee from another country. It would have made everything too complicated. They were always going to wait until he was back stateside to make a move.

Hearing them lay it out step by step made me feel even more stupid. All of it made sense. The only reason that I hadn’t seen it coming was because I was so focused on saving myself to see it from their perspective.

OZ: We still could have made sure they showed up at the right place at the right time. We could have done this together. Everyone would have gotten to go home.

It sounded less like a statement of fact, and more like a plea for help. Kris offered only a half smirk and a nod of his head.

KRIS: We did. You just didn’t know it.

He looked past me to the door that I had kicked open on my way in to confront them. There was a commotion outside, which was strange because the main entrance to the fitness center was on the opposite end of the building.

JAYCEE: Since they were watching you, they knew about me already. They were never waiting for a call. They waited until the right time to call you so that they could spook you into bringing them straight to me.

Jaycee also looked past me to the door that I had come through, which caused me to actually spin that direction.

OZ: What is going o--

I didn’t actually need to finish the thought. As I turned towards the door, the two men that had come to Hawaii over a year ago stepped through. I wouldn’t have been worried, but they were followed by two people that I hadn’t ever seen before. Jaycee moved past me to address the two of them directly though.

JAYCEE: Good to see you again, Willie. It’s been a while, like a year, right? I’m surprised you didn’t get demoted when they found me.

Jaycee’s voice seemed to pain the taller of the two men. When he said his name, it pieced together what I was missing. William MacDonald was the man Jaycee had borrowed his ring name from. I had heard Jaycee talk about the man like he had been a father figure. Willie was the one that helped him escape Chicago, and set him up with a new life. The guy had been in too deep to walk away himself, but had a soft for Jaycee.

KRIS: ....and you other three as well. I should have known that when the boss saw you didn’t get the job done last year he would send you to correct the error.

Kris’ words filled in the rest of the blanks. That made the second of the more important looking men, Reg. He had been the one to order the flunkies to take Kris out last year. He was also the one that sent them to collect me. None of the men said anything as they stepped through the threshold. Instead, they spread out, two to each side of the door, and waited as one more person came through. Fortunately, this was a face that I knew.

KING: I didn’t send them to do anything. When you want something done right, you do it yourself.

King had been the first one of the group that I ever met, and it was pure dumb chance. I didn’t even know what I was getting into at the time. Jaycee had always talked about the big spenders back where he came from. I hit up one of their events to try and line  my pockets with easy money. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of taking out the pockets of the scariest person in the room. Selling Jaycee the first time around bought me my life, and the nightmare that it had become since.

OZ: Guys, we can talk about this, right? There’s no need for this to--

King held up a hand, and my mouth slammed shut. I don’t know what I had planned to say in order to talk my way out of this, but it didn’t matter because he wasn’t even going to let me try.

KING: I’ll say this once, because I don’t want to have to make a mess of this gym like we did the one in San Diego last year. The three of you can let these two pat you down, and you can get in the car… or…

Kris may have been the only one of the three of us that wasn’t intimidated, because he started to close the gap between the three of us, and the mob at the door. I could see why he got himself shot just over a year ago. This was clearly one of those moments to shut up and live to fight another day, but Kris wasn’t that type of person. He was going to go down swinging today, because fuck waiting for tomorrow. He pulled his shirt over his head and threw it at the group of them before pointing furiously at the holes in his chest that they had left him with.

KRIS: ...or what!? You’re going to have them shoot me again?! Use your big boy voice, because I want to hear the words! Last year, you sat at home and sent three of your lackeys to do your dirty work back when I was just collateral damage. But here you are, face-to-face, and now I’m a problem; a problem that you created. So if you’re going to threaten me, I’m going to need to hear the words. Say it with your chest, unless you forgot how to do that after all this time having people do it for you.

This guy was crazy. I don’t think it was until that moment that I understood how and why he got shot last year. They had only been there to collect Jaycee back then. But I could imagine that he was just as boisterous back then. They didn’t need him, and thought they put him down for good. Because they were wrong, now they wanted all of us.

KING: To make a long story short, yeah. You can come with us, or you can get laid out right here for your friends and family to find later. One seems a lot more humane than the other. EIther way, the three of you have lived your last day. There’s no reason to make your loved ones see what’s left of you when we’re done.

There had to be a third option. I wasn’t trying to meet my end next to these two. There was a lot more that I needed to do with what was left of my life, and if this really was the end I wasn’t going to let Kris do my talking for me.

OZ: I did what you asked me to do. I didn’t call any of you earlier, because I knew that it wasn’t just Jaycee on the hook. I knew there had to be more to it. If I had given him to you a few weeks ago, you would have never known about Kris. Then he could have gone and blabbed about it before you could stop him. It’s because of me that you were able to cut this off before it got out of hand. That has to buy me something.

Everyone on the opposite side of the room laughed, with the exception of Willie MacDonald. He seemed upset about the fact that he had been made to come along to collect Jaycee. He wasn’t even looking our way, or maybe he just couldn’t bring himself to look Jaycee in the eyes while he was leading him to slaughter.

JAYCEE: You really spent all these years protecting me just for it to end like this? You’re just gonna let this happen?

Willie shrugged his shoulders, and for the second time, refused to acknowledge Jaycee’s words. King reached back towards him, and Willie started to pull something from the inside pocket of his jacket.

OZ: Come on guys! We can figure this out!

Willie placed the gun in King’s hand, and in a flash, he had leveled it in the direction of Kris.

KING: My condolences to your family...

At least I wasn’t going to be the first one to go. I could take some kind of solace in that. I fought the urge to close my eyes, and watched as Kris spread his arms out to his sides in order to make himself a bigger target. I took a step to my left in order to be more behind him, but Jaycee’s feet seemed glued to the floor. I saw the flash of the explosion inside the gun as the trigger was pulled, before the loud crack in the air made my ears ring uncontrollably. It was followed by a second, a third, and finally a fourth. However, Kris never recoiled. He never fell. I looked over at Jaycee, and it was the same, except for the smile on his face. I thought maybe it was just shock and I hadn’t felt anything hit me at the moment but I patted myself down to find nothing out of place. Four shots, and none of us had been hit. King couldn’t believe his eyes. He turned to Reg for an answer, but it was Kris that gave it.

KRIS: Thank you. 

The doors all around the banquet hall flew open, and what seemed like an entire police department came rolling through in response to the several shots being fired. In an instant, the group of men were surrounded, and chose not to try and fight their way out of trouble. Reg and the two flunkies were slammed against the back wall and handcuffed before being removed from the room. Willie surrendered himself easily, with both of his hands raised innocently. Jaycee rushed towards him to wrap his arms around the man as he was arrested. It was only then that the shots started to make sense. King hadn’t missed. There had been no projectiles fired from the gun Willie handed him. It was all part of the setup. King was searched substantially before he was cuffed and led away, but his eyes never moved off of the three of us. Kris clapped me on the shoulder with a half smile, before grabbing his shirt from the floor and pulling it back over his head. Jaycee left with Willie, probably to give a statement about how he had actually helped save the three of us from dying right then and there. That had to buy the guy a little bit of good will, despite the circumstances of his arrival.

KRIS:You’re free kid, enjoy it.

Everything happened so fast. Not long ago I was storming through the door to berate the two of them for leaving me out in the cold, but now it was all over. I had done so much to start this whole mess we were in, and they had gotten us out of it in spite of me. I didn’t know how to feel. I didn’t know what to think. There weren’t even many words that came to mind to thank either of them for what they had done for me.

OZ:I tried to throw you two under the bus to save myself.

I couldn’t understand how he could be so calm, when he had just heard me try to sell them out.

KRIS: Eh, I would have done the same thing in your shoes. You didn’t know the gun was firing blanks. You did what you could to try and save yourself. Can’t be mad at that.

I sat down, not even really registering what he was saying. I got the sentiment of it, but the exact words would be lost to time. I watched as members of the police force started taking pictures, and taping off the entryways to start cataloging all the information they would need later down the road. The world kept moving around me, but I was still lost in that moment. It was as close as I had ever been to losing it all, but I was still in one piece. That was a win. Hopefully not the last one of the week.



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>Here We Go

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”I think the powers that be want me to feel intimidated…”

The words come out with a laugh as the scene opens on Oliver Zahn, affectionately known to his friends simply as Oz. He was standing inside the ring at Mikah’s training facility in Hawaii, with the camera slowly circling him from the apron outside the ropes.

”I mean, I faced some of the best in the Blast from the Past tournament, and even squared up with the greatest of all time, J2H.  Then, at Into the Void, they had me fighting a guy that nobody has ever seen or heard from, a literal ghost….”

He doesn’t turn with the camera, allowing it to pass behind him. There is another laugh at the expense of the man that he beat at Into the Void. Clearly Oz wasn’t too worried about offending him given the ease in which he had won their match.

”I am not the type to complain, but it hasn’t been the easiest, carefree run in my first handful of Sin City matches. I get that I kind of signed up for that with the Blast from the Past tournament. The people that join that thing are to be taken seriously, because they come from every promotion in the world in order to get a shot at Sin City gold. The tournament was never going to be filled up with scrubs, and any team that wasn’t up to the task was going to be handled in the first round.”

The camera came around his opposite side in time to catch the relief on his face. It was no secret that he had been nervous about being eliminated early before the tournament ever started. The fact that he was barely eliminated by the team that went on to win the whole damn thing had made his first lot a lot more palatable.

”I didn’t make it to the end of the tournament, and that’s a damn shame. I thought that Ariana and I were going to be able to surprise the world. I thought that people had underestimated us just enough to be able to slide into the finals almost under the radar. Teddy Warren and Sam Marlowe went down easy. They never saw us coming. But then we ran up against the team everyone said was going to win the whole damn thing from the moment that they signed up. Our chances apparently went from slim, to none. Nobody was giving us a chance, and they ended up being right. That doesn’t make that whole night a loss though. I mean, everyone got to see me and J2H trade hands in the center of the ring. That guy is apparently the greatest individual that has ever graced the Sin City ring, and he couldn’t put me away. It took his partner pinning mine, because when he was in the ring with me, he couldn’t get the upper hand. I might be a rookie, yet to make a name for myself, but squaring up with J2H and not getting embarrassed isn’t something that a lot of people can brag about. Yet, I did it two matches into my career.”

Of course, he was giving himself way too much credit for a match that he didn’t end up winning. Then again, none of the teams that went up against J2H and Devona could say anything different than he was. They had steamrolled the entire tournament, and rarely had anything nice to say about the people they beat. Oz had been an exception, as had Eiley.

”...and if that is just a fun and colorful way for me to polish up the first loss of my career, so be it. It could have been much worse. I could have been the one with my shoulders pinned to the mat. I could have been the one to cost my team a shot at the top championships in this company. I could have been mocked and ridiculed by J2H post-match the way that he gloated in the faces of nearly every person he had beaten before me. That didn’t happen though. Not even a whimper. Why not? Because the greatest of all time knows that he didn’t actually beat me, and that is a fact that every person in the locker room should keep in the back of their mind when they see my name on the card.”

He knew that wasn’t going to be the case. He had heard as much before each of his matches, and even backstage at the events themselves. He wasn’t going to be taken seriously until he had done something seriously impressive. Nobody was given the benefit of the doubt until they earned it. Too many promising prospects had flamed out in the history of Sin City Wrestling to believe in anyone’s hype.

”I showed what I could do against the best during Blast from the Past, and then showed what I could do against any old hack at Into the Void. Apparently Sal, or Saul, whatever the fuck his name actually is, came from another company with all kinds of accomplishments to his name. It didn’t stop me from dominating him the entire match. It didn’t stop me from putting him down with relative ease. Sure, I walked into the match as the underdog because I had never competed on my own before, but by the end of that match, Mark and Christian must have realized they made a major mistake.”

There was a hint of pride in the way that he spoke. He had successfully dismantled one of Mark and Christian’s shiny new prospects at Into the Void, and had never been more confident in his abilities as he was at this moment.

”...a mistake that they appear to be rectifying this time around.”

He said it with a slight change in his tone, but still without fear. He had been surprised when he saw what this week held for him, but nothing that resembled real intimidation. If anything, he saw this match as an acknowledgment of his abilities. It meant that Mark and Christian knew that he was ready for bigger and better things than beating up curtain jerkers. He was ready for a real challenge.

”On Climax Control, I get Austin James Mercer, one-on-one.”

Just saying it out loud sent goosebumps traveling up his arms and down his spine. It was a marquee matchup. Some people in the back would never rise to this kind of opportunity, but Oz was already there.

”I mean he is the best and most dominating member of Wolfslair.”

The way he said it with a smile on his face let the viewing audience know that he was less than sincere before another word even came out of his mouth, but he let the statement hang in the air for a second.

”Well, the most dominant member not named Alex Jones… or Alicia Lukas.”

He considers that for a second, but finds that he is still wrong.

”...or that Johanna chick that partnered up with him for a while.”

Oz looks up, making sure that he has adequately placed him on the list now. He doesn’t seem totally sold, but doesn’t let the thought derail him any further.

”...but let’s forget about that and just focus on Austin James Mercer. The dude has held the championship that I was competing just to get a shot at. And that isn’t all. The guy is a former Mixed Tag Champion, one of the last few, and the first Internet Champion of the current SCW era.”

It was quite the list of accomplishments, but it still didn’t seem like Oz was impressed by his opponent’s resume.

”Granted, shortly after his mixed tag team championship reign, they killed the whole division. The only reason he got a shot at the Internet Championship is because that division didn’t even exist anymore, and had no champion. And the SCW Heavyweight Championship wasn’t around his waist for very long before he dropped it to a guy that spent most of his time talking to a cactus….”

Painted in that light, it was easy to see why Oz was less than impressed.

”Granted, all of that was before my time, so I can’t really judge. All I know about his championship reigns are what I have heard backstage and around Jet City. I haven’t seen much of his work for myself, other than what I saw at Into the Void, which was a big, fat, disappointing loss.”

Oz shakes in his head, feigning disappointment in the man that he was set to lock up with in just a few day’s time.

”...and that loss was one of many that Austin has suffered at the most inopportune times. I mean, for as dominant as the guy can be inside the ring, and as good as he is at chasing all of those titles, when it comes to actually winning them, he falls flat more often than not. In all of his years in this company, he won championships on less than a handful of occasions despite what looks like dozens of shots at glory.”

That was clearly the point that Oz was working his way towards making because the camera stopped along with his words. As a smile spreads across his face, the camera zooms in on him, cutting out his surroundings.

”...and that is the primary difference between the two of us: Opportunity.”

Oz takes a few steps forward, and rests his arms on the top rope in front of him.

”AJM has been granted every opportunity to prove that he is one of the best to compete in this company, but has yet to live up to any of the hype. Sure, he has proven that he can blindside someone when they aren’t expecting it. He has proven that you can’t trust him to keep his cool. He has proven that he will do whatever it takes to get whatever opportunity that he wants. He doesn’t care if you are his partner. He doesn’t care if you came out of the same gym that he did. He doesn’t care if the fans love you or if they hate you, he will take whatever cheap shot he thinks will get him ahead, even if he inevitably fails that task more often than not.”

The smile fades into a frown on Oz’s face before he shakes it off of his face.

”Just a few matches ago, I found myself standing across the ring from the type of person that I want to be in this business. I locked up with someone that wasn’t afraid to be booed. I squared off against a man that could find a way to win a match no matter the odds. I fought a superstar that has always found a way to win the big matches no matter what he had to do in order to get the job done. J2H is everything that all of us should aspire to be, because he has done all of the things that all of us want to accomplish, and he made it look effortless.”

He sighs, and shakes his head again.

”...and two matches later I find myself standing across from the man that I hope I never become. A man that is more flash in the pan than a superstar. A man that will always have more potential than follow-through. A man that will go down in Sin City Wrestling history as a guy that probably could have been more successful if he had his shit a little bit more together. Austin James Mercer is not someone that anyone aspires to be. He is the most forgettable personality that has ever come out of his gym, and the weakest link in the faction that used to operate in this company. Without the Wolfslair name attached to him, I doubt he would be a person of consequence, but because of who his friends are, we have to give him some amount of credit that he doesn’t deserve.”

It was harsh, but Oz clearly believed the words coming out of his mouth. This wasn’t some ploy to get under his opponent’s skin, although it would be a solid fringe benefit.

”So he can say whatever he wants about me. The fact is, I haven’t been around long enough for anyone to have made up their minds about me yet. I haven’t had enough matches in this business, let alone just this company, for anyone to properly gauge what my potential could be. I am just getting started in Sin City, and my entire career is in front of me. So let me ask each of you a question: when I have been in this company for as long as AJM, who do you think will have the more impressive resume? When I have been given the same opportunities that he has squandered, who do you think will be more decorated?”

Oz was going to let the fans make up their own minds. It wasn’t his place to tell them what to think, he was set on showing them in two days.

”Only time will tell, but that clock is going to start ticking this Sunday at Climax Control. If I am right, Austin is just going to be the first stepping stone of many so there’s nothing that he should be ashamed about when he falls short one more time. After all, he should be used to it by now.”