Same Page
Jet City South - San Diego
9 July 2020
OFF-Camera
Training against their Trenton Tigers stand-ins hadn’t gone perfectly. Mikah would argue that the whole day was a success, because she had managed to hold her own much longer than anyone else was willing to give her credit for at the start of the day. On the other hand, Kris was able to prove to her that there were, in fact, kinks that needed to be ironed out. Courtney Pierce had been trained by Mikah when she was at the top of her game. She hadn’t had the easiest time pulling one over on her old student. It helped both Kris and Mikah to work as an actual team, instead of just showing off to one another.
Kris: You know, you were actually kind of impressive earlier.
He didn’t mind losing the silent battle that they were having about who was going to admit that they were wrong, or at least not as right about how their day would transpire. It didn’t help that one was just as arrogant about their abilities as the other. Put them together and instead of doubling, it increased exponentially.
Mikah: ...and to think you doubted me, even for a second.
Clearly Mikah was not willing to concede her victory like Kris was. After all, he was the one that needed a partner. He was the one that wanted her to come back. This was his doing. In her eyes, if he had doubts, he shouldn’t have bothered. Since he did, all these hoops she was jumping through were pointless. Kris was quick to cut her big head back down to size though.
Kris: Calm down. I am not saying that there weren’t rough spots and you were perfectly flawless by any means, but you held your own. To be honest, we got people that I think are better teams than the Tigers to train with us. I think we have this thing won.
She was glad that he was finally coming around to what she had known from the moment the match was announced. For all his big talk in front of a screen, he really was kind of a pushover. Maybe that was how he and Fenris happened. She was not going to dwell on the thought though. She tried to keep it out of mind.
Mikah: Maybe so… it still doesn’t change the fact that you thought I was going to show up and mess things up for you. It’s the same kind of thing that Drake would do. You didn’t trust me enough to let me in on anything, and just assumed that I wasn’t really paying attention or putting any work in. It’s insulting. We are supposed to be partners. Hell, we are supposed to be friends.
According to others, they were supposedly a lot more than that. The two of them had drawn a line at calling themselves anything other than friends. It was the truth. Despite the fact that it was widely drowned out by the news about the benefits of their friendship. Still, the fact that they were friends should have meant comparing him to Drake was off limits. Kris was having a hard time stepping around her feelings while she was throwing jabs at him like that.
Kris: Can you honestly blame me though? Look, I said that you did well today. You proved me wrong. Are you saying that I am a shitty person just because I wanted to see that in an empty gym before we went out and did it for real? I already have enough people telling me that I am stuck in 2017. I didn’t want to give anyone another reason to shoot us down before we even get started.
There it was. He was so obsessed with his own mistake that he was just projecting it onto others. It was the reason that he had traveled to his brother’s debut in another company and helped him to a victory that he had well in hand. It was the reason that he was lecturing Mikah all week. She was actually upset with herself that she hadn’t picked up on it sooner.
Mikah: Yeah, well, you could have gone about it some other way.
Unfortunately, Kris wasn’t the type to think things through. He was more of the act on first impulse type, for better or for worse. Usually for the worse.
Kris: What other way?
After a moment of thought, she realized that maybe that was better said than done. Instead of admitting that though, she spins it back around on him.
Mikah: I don’t know! One where you don’t seem like such an ass all the time! You could have come down to the gym while I was working out. You could have asked me what I was doing to get ready. Instead, you just assumed that the answer was nothing at all. I can do more than run my mouth, unlike most of the bombshells.
She knew that there were going to be more than a few women on the roster that weren’t going to be happy about her return. Mikah told herself that they were just jealous of her accomplishments though. They wouldn’t hate her if any of them were actually in her league. Hate always starts at the bottom looking up.
Kris: You’re right. I just didn’t think you were serious about it. It’s not like you jumped at the opportunity to come back the first time that I asked you.
She was surprised that he was backing down so easily again. She must have really surpassed his expectations earlier. Of course, that itself was offensive. Exactly how low had his expectations been? It was not her fault that he had twiddled his thumbs for a month in SCW before really deciding what he wanted to do.
Mikah: Have you ever considered that I didn’t think that you were serious? I mean, you had already pitched being a team to Alicia Lukas. Court is even training for a comeback. You could have picked her. How am I supposed to know when to take you seriously, and when you are just being….well… you.
The whole thing had always seemed so simple to Kris though. It made too much sense to ignore.
Kris: What? We are part of the reason that this whole division even exists. How many times did we try to make them let us take a stab at the tag belts before they combined the divisions and tried to take the credit for it? If there was ever a team that was supposed to rise up and take control of mixed tag matches in SCW, it is us. We wanted it. Now we have the opportunity to pick up where we left off.
She took the opportunity to go back to her point in their original argument since he was backing down left and right.
Mikah: ...and we could do that by cashing in your opportunity and taking over now.
He shook his head instantly.
Kris: I---
Mikah waved a hand at him and finished the thought for him. She had heard it enough already.
Mikah: ...don’t want to do it that way. I get it. As wrong as you were about me not being ready, you were right about one thing. That shot is yours. You can use it however you want. If you don’t think that we need it right now, then that’s your call to make. If you think we can make it to the top without it, fine. I’m willing to give it a shot.
It was really the only words that he had wanted to hear her say all week. She was notorious for not wanting to put the work in. She had always argued with Mark about not wanting to come to shows she was not booked on. Or drinking backstage and not taking it seriously. All Kris needed to hear was that she was willing to put in the effort instead of taking the shortest possible route. He pinched himself in case he was dreaming, but didn’t instantly find himself waking up in bed.
Kris: Wow….
She looked up at him, confused by the surprise on his face.
Mikah: What?
He laughs at her, and shrugs his shoulders almost at a loss for words.
Kris: I never thought I would see the day where you admitted that you were wrong about something.
It was not something that she was going to let him hold over her head. He had admitted that he was wrong about her. It was the least she could do. It was not like she was going to be able to change his mind anyways. At least, not with the direct approach. If she had to, she could come up with a way to get him to agree. He would probably even think that it was his idea. Maybe he was right though. It was possible that they could go out and be so impressive that they wouldn’t need it.
Mikah: Yeah, well you started it….
She quickly amends her statement to squash any hope he might have of it being a recurring thing.
Mikah: ...but don’t get used to it!
He holds up his hands in front of his chest as if he is pleading his innocence, but with a smile on his face.
Kris: Wouldn’t dream of it.
He does get up from his seat and start to make his way out of the room though. He could see how worn out she was from the day, and training hadn’t been a walk in the park. Unlike him, she had more important things that this match to worry about for the next couple of days, and he wasn’t going to make the mistake of forgetting that.
Kris: Get some rest. I’m sure those kids of yours will have you up and running around again before you know it, and we have a lot more work to do before we head to Vegas for the show.
She watches him go, considering asking him to stay but knowing better than to push it after such a tense day. Right now she could chalk up the day as a win for her. With Kris, that wasn’t always a guarantee. She did not want to ruin it, but the least she could do was put some of his negative thoughts at ease.
Mikah: Hey...
He turned back to her at the door without actually responding to her.
Mikah: You know we got this, right? At some point you are going to have to get out of your head about that. You never let people hold you back before. Don’t start now.
He nods wordlessly, and taps the door frame with his knuckles before making his way down to his studio and leaving her to rest for the remainder of the night.
==========================================================
The Black Sheep Return!
ON-Camera
You know how people use the phrase “the more, the merrier” like it is supposed to be a good thing?
Kris is seated in the black office chair that we have seen sitting behind his desk for the last few weeks. Using the small space to film his promos had become a habit after his brother had berated him for using the gym downstairs.
The Trenton Tigers are the exception to that rule. They think that it is a problem for people to have to gameplan for four of them instead of two. They are wrong. Instead, it makes them twice as big of a joke as they appear to be on the surface.
He allows himself a laugh at the expensive of the fearsome foursome that he finds himself planning for this week on Climax Control. He has his feet propped up on the desk forcing the chair he is in to lean so far back that only his head and shoulders come into view behind the desk. The Miracle almost looks carefree, despite the advantage that his opponents have on paper. He starts to explain to the audience exactly why that is.
Think about it. Brandon and Daniela come into SCW feeling real good about themselves. They have a peppy high school team name, a record of success, and finally stepped up to the big leagues in SCW after feeling left behind in SCU. They came in and smashed up the Barnharts, and then even got one over on Malachi and Bella. Everything looked like it was smooth sailing there for a second. There was a point where people were talking about them as mixed tag team championship contenders without having to stifle a laugh.
He frowns at the camera to indicate just how much the times had changed. In his opinion, the team had run into a roadblock by making one fatal error.
So they think it is a bright idea to add a couple of new members to the team. They get laughed at for trying to pass off their Mixed Tag Team Championship shot to their buddies, and then go on to lose anyway. At this point basically all of them have dropped the ball when it comes to facing off against Wolfslair, and even though they started out by making Sass and Bash look like chumps, the tables have certainly turned. Char Kwan may have been worth a look back when Gamers Inc was at the top, but she has been nothing but a weight around the Tigers’ neck. And if Daniela has learned the hard way that adding a sibling to the team doesn’t always go the way you want it to, but hey, we have all been there, right?
The smirk on Kris’ face is sure to irritate his brother Jason if he is watching from home. In recent weeks he has not shied away from reminding his brother about their confrontation on Climax Control where Kris walked out with his hand raised in the air.
In just a few short months this team that had a lot of potential, finds themselves at the back of the line. They were gifted back-to-back shots for the championships, and came up short regardless of the configuration that they chose to run with. For all of their talk and grandiose plans, they have amounted to little separately, and absolutely nothing together.
Kris shrugs, not feeling bad about telling it like it is. The Tigers were always the first to tell people that their independent accomplishments didn’t matter, and they were a long lasting team. To Kris, if they were worth anything, they would be able to prove it, and thus fair they had failed to impress him.
Now we know what they are going to say, because we have seen them say it over and over again. Time after time they come up against teams like the Barnharts, or Sass and Bash and say that they are not a real team. That they are more worried about their relationship dynamic outside of the ring than they are about what happens between when the bells sound. Mikah and myself won’t be exempt from that line of bullshit.
Not that they were exempt from it beforehand either. The whole backstage had been buzzing with rumors before Mikah outed certain parts of their friendship. Everyone had been jumping to incorrect conclusions since, and it was clearly eating at the Grand Slam Champion.
Most people in SCW have sniped at us one way or another. People think that we are dating. People think that I am the reason that she and Drake are no longer together. They think we bicker too much to ever be a functional team. They think we are too cocky for our own good.
At least a couple of those were probably true, even though Kris had no intention of validating any of them.
Tell me how that makes anyone on the current roster different from the people we both walked all over a few years ago? Everyone thought Mikah talked a big game at first, but then she built a career out of backing that talk up. She is constantly ranked amongst the best of the best that this company has ever had walk through the doors. If this match were Char Kwan or Daniela against Mikah on her own, there would be no debate about who people would put their money on. Only one of those three is a Hall of Famer in this company. Only one of them has done anything worth noting on her own. Gamer Inc might have carried Char Kwan to a tag title reign, but she has proven over and over again that when she flies solo she can’t get the job done. Either female member of the Tigers will be outclassed and overmatched before they even ring the bell to start this thing.
He was not going to just heap praise on his partner though. Anything Mikah could do, he could do better. That is why his name came first on the show.
...and the same is true on my side of the match. I have done things that Brandon Sludge and Vector only dream of doing. I have dominated every single division that I have been a part of in this company. I won the Internet Championship against all odds. I set Roulette records that nobody thought could ever be broken. My brother and I popped into the tag division as a joke, and went on to make every team on the roster look like our bitches. Not to mention, I was the last person to hold the SCW World Heavyweight Championship in the air before the company was going to close its doors forever, and the people in attendance for it blew the roof off the place.
It would probably remain the defining moment of his career, as he finally shattered the glass ceiling that had always held him back.
I get that singles accomplishments don’t count for much in tag team wrestling, but let’s be honest: this isn’t really tag team wrestling. Jet City was tag team wrestling. I could be trapped on an apron while my brother was getting dominated on the other side of the ring and there was not a damn thing that I could do about it. The other team could tag in and out to stay fresh while they laid waste to half of Jet City. All they had to do was isolate and attack. That’s not a strategy that works in mixed tag matches though. Why? Because as soon as anyone tags out of the match, both partners change. This isn’t tag team wrestling, this is a bombshell match, and a men’s match happening at the same time in the same ring.
Char Kwan or Daniela Rodgers have to somehow beat Mikah, someone we have already established is out of their league when it comes to singles wrestling. Their male partner isn’t going to be able to bail them out of trouble. They are going to have to do it on their own, and they are not up to that particular task. They are struggling on their path to finding tag team relevance and facing someone who is coasted her way into the hall of fame. What are either of them going to do when they bring their sad ass offense against someone who has forgotten more about technical wrestling than either of them have the capacity to learn? My guess is that someone is going to get choked out. I have seen Mikah’s Cupid’s Chokehold up close before, and that shit doesn’t look fun at all. I almost hate to see which one of these ladies will draw the short straw and have to step into the ring this week. It’s going to be a slaughter.
He has to reconsider that maybe they are not as terrible as he thinks. Maybe they will actually put up a fight.
I mean, unless somehow they manage to make it to their team’s corner and tag in some help. That would solve their Mikah problem and buy them some time to recover, but the news isn’t so great for their tag team partner, whichever one that ends up being.
Kris was more than confident that he would be able to take on either of the male members of the team.
Sure, Brandon has me by like 100 pounds, but it’s not like the guy can keep up with me for very long. Good ol’ Sludge comes out of a background of bodybuilding and weightlifting. You know what that tells me? The dude could probably bench press a bus even though he looks like a beached whale. However, nothing about bodybuilding screams endurance. The guy doesn’t have the stamina to keep up with someone like me. I wouldn’t even have to run circles around him. He couldn’t keep up with a light jog. He’s going to get tired and have to tag in his partner for Mikah to pummel some more. Or, the giant is going to fall a little too far from his corner, and he definitely has that “I’ve fallen, and can’t get up” type of vibe to him. Then he is too far out of reach for anyone to save him, and stuck in the ring for me to pick apart. My offense is already hit and run. I don’t have to lift the hippo. I just have to stick, move and wait for the big guy to tire himself out. See, someone like Sludge is like a picnic for me, and I am a nightmare for him.
It felt like Brandon was going to be the Tiger’s best answer for him, even though it was still the wrong answer.
...but what other option do they have? At least if Brandon manages to get a hand on me, he can do some real damage. If they let Vector slide in and take his shot, people are going to laugh. This is a guy that couldn’t hack it in SCU, a brand that has sorry ass O’Malley as its champion. He couldn’t manage to break out of the pack on the B-show, and came running to his twin to take pity on him and let him into the tribe of mediocrity.
The problem for Vector is that I have made a career out of making people just like him Just Take The L. Sure, it would be a hell of a lot more exciting for the people watching at home to watch the both of us fly around the ring as opposed to watching Brandon breathe heavily and struggle to keep up. The fact of the matter is, it still wouldn’t matter. I have beaten better people than him in my blackout drug days. In fact, I have both tagged with, and beaten someone who has the exact same style that he does. People remember my brother Jason as being part of Jet City, but everyone should watch back what happened when he tried to step up and say he was better than me. He ended up on his back in the middle of the ring asking what went wrong.
He shrugs.
The answer was simple. Nothing went wrong. I was just better.
Kris keeps pushing forward though, not lingering just to gloat.
...but again, it is not just me this time. It is Mikah too. It is The Black Sheep finally together again and doing the thing that we have always said that we were going to do. There is a reason that I am the only person that Mikah would ever team with. I am the best at what I do. Don’t believe me? Ask Griffin Hawkins, O’Malley, or even our World Heavyweight Champion Ben Jordan. What do they all have in common? They have never beaten me. Not once.
It was not just his individual work that mattered here though.
Mikah and I are undefeated as a team going against a group that hasn’t won since Blaze of Glory despite the fact that they have doubled in size since then. These people actually have the ability to surprise opponents with whom they send out to the ring, and still haven’t been able to get the job done. Why? Because they just aren’t that good, even with the stupid ass Freebird rule in play.
He rolls his eyes. Usually it would be more difficult to prepare for more opponents, but there was no combination of the team that was causing him to lose sleep. The only wildcard in his mind had been Mikah, and he had already gone out of his way to make sure that she would be ready.
...but Mikah and I aren’t going to whine about not knowing which combination of these never-will-be’s that we will be facing. Instead of worrying about something out of our control, we have just been preparing to face all of them. That way, no matter who comes down the aisle, The Black Sheep can walk out after having their hands raised in victory.
It was the only outcome that made any sense to him, on paper or otherwise.
I’m not going to stand here and rattle off cliches like about not taking the Tiger’s lightly, doing my best, and giving 100%. I will leave that to them and their same old tired lines that thousands of people have spouted off before them. I am standing here to say that The Black Sheep are going to win because of one simple fact: We are better.
He drops his feet from the desk and sits up in the chair. Sometimes facts hurt and he was going to throw a few more at the lens of the camera. He didn’t want people to mistake a relaxed posture for a lack of seriousness.
Together. Separate. It doesn’t matter. Mikah and I are the most impressive team that this division has ever seen. We are not a married couple like the Barnharts. We are not two people just in the division because we couldn’t hack it on our own like Sass and Bash. We aren’t a joke like the Trenton Tigers.
He would argue that as far as jokes go, they weren’t even a good one of those.
We are winning this match and coming for Wolfslair’s Mixed Tag Team Championships sooner rather than later. I dare anyone in this division to step up and try to stop us.
He gives a knowing wink to Malachi and Bella, hoping that they are keeping an eye on The Black Sheep. As Kris flashes a smile, the camera cuts to a black screen.
