[Roux]

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Words v. Actions
San Diego, California  - Jet City South
31st January 2024
OFF-Camera

Christian may have tried to convince me that my first main event of the year was a fluke, but being involved in two of them in one cycle was more than enough proof of my worth. I may not be the Bombshell World Champion anymore, but clearly the two of them know that I am the biggest star that they have. Despite the fact that the Bombshell roster was far more stacked than the men’s side, I am the one constantly finding myself at the top of the card. I am the champion that they want to showcase. I am the Bombshell that matters. I wasn’t going to let that go to my head like it had as the Bombshell World Champion. I wasn’t going to take my eye off of what was important, even if the championship itself didn’t matter to me. What matters is being the very best, regardless of what anyone else tries to sell the bosses or the fans. It doesn’t matter if all of them hate me. It doesn’t matter if people think that I am holding the new generation down. The spotlight is mine, and I am not willing to share it. Of course, that means making sure that I keep all of my skills sharpened. I spend significantly more time in Jet City now than I ever did last year. I am not only competing against our newcomers, but anyone and everyone that steps through the door. I have been making trips up to Seattle to train with the veterans. I have spent every waking moment trying to figure out what I need to do in order to be ready for the next chance that I get to compete for the championship that I deserve to be holding.

Granted, none of that comes without a cost. The fact that I am spending all of my time hyper-fixated on greatness hasn’t gone over well with most of the people in my life. I have a younger sister that is begging me to fail. I have students who say that I am selfish for not dealing with their petty squabbles. Most importantly, I have a wife that thinks I have been freezing her out. The first couple of those things I can shrug off, but Prudence feeling like less than the most important part of my life hasn’t been easy. I thought that having her back on tour, and back and ringside would do more to bridge the gap between us, but it seemed like it was only drawing attention to how big that gap actually was.

RUBY: I can’t help but feel like you’ve been avoiding me a lot lately…

I was finishing up a long day at the gym, even by my standards, so I wasn’t necessarily at my best.

COURT: Sorry you feel that way.

I wanted to take back the words as soon as I said them, but I knew she wasn’t just going to let them slide anyways. We were off to a bad start.

RUBY: That’s more of a deflection than an apology…

She was right, and I already knew that but I couldn’t help but feel like this wasn’t the time or the place to have this kind of discussion. We weren’t exactly alone in the gym, and I wasn’t the type of person to air out all of my business for the world to hear. That’s why I avoid talking about our life on social media. Maybe it was best to just try to get this over with as soon as possible.

COURT: What do you want me to apologize about then?

If my first answer had been bad, this one was even worse.

RUBY: You know what? Nevermind.

Instead of standing her ground, she turned away from me and threw her hands in the air in defeat.

COURT: Wait! No! Don’t just come in here, pick a fight, and then run off!

I chased after her, happy that she avoided leaving through the front doors of the gym and instead turned to head back towards the offices.

RUBY: I guess I’m just supposed to be doing that at Climax Control, right?

I caught up to her as she made it into the hallway, but she was rounding the corner towards the back door before I was able to grab hold of her arm and stop her. I turned her back to me, thankful that we were able to at least break away from the crowded floor before arguing.

COURT: Is that what this is about? Are you still mad about the Tempest thing? That feels like it was forever ago, and I have a match with her in a few weeks where we can make sure to get back at her.

She rolled her eyes.

RUBY: What about the Twisted Sister thing?

I had forgotten about that one. She really was instrumental in all of my matches lately, which usually involved her getting the short end of the stick. It wasn’t like I was the one booking the matches, or picking the stipulations though.

COURT: I didn’t even have anything to do with that!

She sighed, not buying into my excuse at all. I had underestimated how much all of it had been weighing on her, because she had already been prepared for my response.

RUBY: Maybe not, but you weren’t exactly concerned about what happened to me either. As long as I was able to be a distraction, my job was done.

I thought that she knew that was part of the job description of a manager, but then again, that was never the plan for her career either. She wanted to be where I was. Anything less than that was just settling for a role being close to me. Some part of me could understand that, but those words never made it to my mouth.

COURT: I made sure I got you unhandcuffed as soon as I could!

She shook her head, and I could tell that all I had done was make her more angry.

RUBY: Conveniently, only after you won a title that you don’t really care about.

She turned to walk away but I was able to slip around her in order to block her path to the door leading out to the alley.

COURT: For fuck sake you sound like Roux! Has she been in your ear telling you how terrible of a person I am or something?

The words were out of my mouth before I had any plans to say them. I clapped a hand over my mouth in surprise, but she didn’t get me the opportunity to take them back before throwing them in my face.

RUBY: No! You freaked out on me last time I talked to her. I have tweeted at her once since then, but I didn’t want to start another argument. I actually take your feelings into consideration when I do things!

She tried to side-step past me again, but I backed up closer to the door in order to keep myself in her path. I didn’t want to let her drive off angry, and I wasn’t going to let her leave thinking that she wasn’t the most important thing in my life.

COURT: Are you saying I don’t care about your feelings?

She shrugged again.

RUBY: Or my well-being apparently…

It was a step too far. I was actually feeling bad, but I wasn’t going to accept full responsibility for everything that she had been through in the last month. Even if I was MOSTLY to blame, she definitely needed to shoulder part of it.

COURT: You were miserable at home! I did everything that I could to get them to let you back into the arenas! You are allowed to be on Climax Control because of how big of a shitfit I threw about them banning you. Is that not enough?

I felt like I was getting blamed for the actions of others, which I would have been okay with if I was also getting any of the credit for trying so hard to get her job back. Would it have been worse to stay on tour without her? It was like there was no winning no matter what I did.

RUBY: I didn’t realize that I was signing up to be a punching bag between you and everyone that wanted your championship. I just wanted to be out there and be supportive.

Again, she was acting as if I was the one doing all of the punching.

COURT: Well when everything you say pisses people off, you have to expect that someone is going to keep that receipt. When you jump up on the apron during my matches, some people are going to take action to neutralize you. I thought you knew what you were in for when you wanted to be a manager.

Maybe I was just being defensive, and I will probably lose sleep thinking about it later, but I had a hard time believing that she didn’t know that squaring up with my opponents was kind of part of the job.

RUBY: I expected that you would have my back the way that I had yours! I expected us to be in it together. Instead, it seems a whole lot like you let me get beaten to a pulp without a second thought.

If after everything we have been through, and everything I did to bring her back wasn’t enough, then maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut.

COURT: If that is the way you see it, just stopping coming!

It was my turn to attempt to storm off, but this time she was the one that wasn’t done with the conversation. She reached out and pushed me backwards when I tried to go around her, somehow more upset now than she had been when she walked away earlier.

RUBY: So you really don’t want me to come with you?!?

I sighed, defeated.

COURT: I want you to do whatever it is that you want to do. If you want to be there with me, then be there with me. If you don’t want to become a target, then stay home. I don’t see any real middle ground between the two though. You knew what was going to happen when you showed up and we started taking shots at everyone.

She shrugged, and tried to throw it back at me again, looking determined to be right at any cost.

RUBY: It’s been pretty great for you.

I was too exhausted to keep the argument going, and tried one last time to get her to see it from any other perspective than her victim narrative.

COURT: Maybe, but I can’t handle what is going on inside the ring and outside the ring at the same time. How bad would you feel if I ran to save you, and it cost me the championship?

She opened her mouth a couple of times wordlessly, before apparently coming to a thought that didn’t involve backing down.

RUBY: A championship that you don’t even care about?

She was right. I didn’t care about it, and it was never something that I saw myself chasing after either. That wasn’t the point though, and on some level I knew that she knew that.

COURT: Would that actually matter to you? Think about it. I come and save you, but then turn around and get blindsided by Luna this weekend. How would you feel about that?

She takes a step back, and seems like she finally starts to see it from my side of things. She isn’t happy about it, but she concedes to my point.

RUBY: Not great.

I shrugged, and her eyes fell to the floor. Maybe she was feeling guilty for having picked this fight before trying to see things from my side, but I didn’t feel the need to rub that in her face. Instead, I tried to show her that things weren’t any easier for me either.

COURT: ....just like I don’t feel great about a lot of the positions that they have been putting you in lately. It’s not fair to you. The only thing I can really do to stop that in the moment though, is wrap up what I have going on in the ring.

She was at least hearing me, but I wasn’t sure she actually believed anything that was coming out of my mouth. The fact that she was even considering my words was an improvement though.

RUBY: It just feels like you would just sit back and watch if I was being torn in half….

I stepped forward, causing her to look up, and once her eyes were locked on mine I made sure to let her know that wasn’t the case at all.

COURT: Never! The only reason that I can stay focused is because I know that you are more than capable of handling yourself in most situations. You’ve been trained well. You have been in that ring almost as much as I have! You won Blast from the Past, which until last year was the only worthwhile thing I had ever done too. If I thought you were in real significant danger, you’d be the only thing on my mind.

I threw my arms around her and pulled her close, but when she put her arms around me I could tell that it was only a half-hearted gesture.

RUBY: .....

I held her closer, hoping that even if she wasn’t going to hear it in my voice, she would be able to feel it in my embrace.

COURT: I wouldn’t want to do any of this without you, and being on tour by myself sucked. I want you to be with me. I don’t know what else you want me to say.

She pulled back, and took a step away from me.

RUBY: It’s more about what I want you to do. You always manage to say the right things, but then when the time comes it’s not really what everyone sees.

I reached out and caught her hand, and luckily she didn’t try to pull it away from me. Instead, she laced her fingers with mine and for a moment it looked like she thought about smiling.

COURT: I’ll do better.

The words just seemed to deflect off of her without any consideration.

RUBY: Don’t promise things that you don’t actually intend to follow through on….

She shakes her head, and then gives my hand a squeeze before turning away and heading back towards the gym floor. It was a smart move. I followed her back here because we could have our conversation away from all of the eyes in the gym, and she knew I wouldn’t continue to push the issue in front of everyone. I had to let her go. More importantly, I needed to come up with a plan for how I was going to manage to fix things before we had to walk into Climax Control on bad terms.

COURT: .....fuck.



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>COURTside: The Real Champion

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”Here we go again…”

”I think it is time we all get a couple of things straight. I started the year defending the Bombshell Internet Championship in the main event of 2024’s first Climax Control. Now, I am in the main event of the final Climax Control before My Bloody Valentine, once again defending the Bombshell Internet Championship. That makes two defenses before we ever even get to the first supercard of the year, and yet there are women in the back that want to pretend like I’m not still the face of this division, the biggest star on the roster, and the best champion that Mark and Christian have to offer.”

”I might not be out in the ring wasting air time every week with a microphone in my hand. I might not have the biggest social media presence. I know that I rarely let any of the interviewers ask me questions backstage, but there is no mistaking how hard I bust my ass for this company. We have champions that only want to defend on the big stages. We have champions that are scheduled to appear, and bail at the last moment. For fuck’s sake, this company has champions that throw their goddamn titles down in the middle of the ring and walk away. Yet last year I was the one vilified. I was the one that apparently wasn’t giving this company my all. I was the one that everyone said needed to be knocked off of my pedestal. It goes to show that none of you know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

”I am the only rookie that ever skyrocketed to the top and had staying power. I am one of only a handful of Bombshells to sign here as a rookie and stay here for my entire career. I won Blast from the Past as a rookie. I won the 2023 Woman of the Year and the Bombshell World Championship five years later. The world knows that I should still have that championship, and should be in the midst of the FOREVER reign that I deserve because that is where I belong. I have earned it. I put in the work, overcame the obstacles, and made this company a whole bunch of money while making it look good. I am the most dominant champion currently in this company, and I have been in the main events to prove it.”

”The sad fucking thing is that I don’t even care about this belt. I never wanted the Bombshell Internet Championship.Frankly, it’s beneath me. It is a consolation prize. It is Mark and Christian’s way of telling me that they are sorry that Ariana inserted herself into my Bombshell World Championship rematch. Winning this championship was simply a matter of getting revenge against someone that should have never crossed me. It wasn’t about the belt. It wasn’t about being a champion. It was about taking something from her just like she took something from me. Unfortunately, I could only take something that she was good enough to win in the first place. The Bombshell Internet Championship represented the best that Ariana was capable of. She only had the talent and ability to rise to the middle, so that was where I had to meet her in order to rip a championship from her hands.”

”Granted, I thought after that things were going to get boring. Sure, I thought that I would enjoy beating Ariana into the ground a few times. However, I figured I would probably have to give up the championship and go on vacation in order to get rid of it. I thought that all of the mediocre Bombshells on the roster would be too afraid to step up to me and take their best shot….”

”Or maybe I just thought that they would know better…”

”Yet, the table for My Bloody Valentine is already set, and there isn’t one, or two, but three idiots. Three women that think they have something to gain by stepping into the ring with me. There are three women that think a chance at the Bombshell Internet Championship is worth getting embarrassed on the biggest stage that Sin City will be on this month…”

”...but that’s a story for another time I guess…”

”This we--”

”Correction: This MAIN EVENT, is about one of those three women hopping the line. See, it wasn’t going to be enough for Luna to walk down the aisle at My Bloody Valentine and compete against three other women for a championship. She wanted the chance to be the one bringing the Bombshell Internet Championship to the party. That’s why she jumped my wife and I backstage three weeks ago. That was what she wanted when she was named as my partner for the match a couple of weeks back. Luna has been trying to put herself at the very front of the line all year, and now the bosses caved in and gave her an extra opportunity at greatness.”

”I could have been mad about that. I could have thrown a fit. I definitely could have gotten this match canceled. Cards are subject to change, am I right? How many canceled championship matches are we up to already this year? And it is not like this one really matters anyways. No matter who wins this match, we are both headed to the match in a couple of weeks where we will be joined by Tempest and Krystal. There’s no real risk in losing here. Nothing changes. If I don’t want to put in the effort, I don’t have to…”

”...but we already have too many of those types of champions in this company. We already have too many people that talk a real good game, but can’t hold themselves to the same standard that they do their opponents. I don’t want to be that kind of champion, even if I couldn’t possibly care less about this fucking belt. I am more than happy to come down to the ring and teach someone a lesson. That is what I get paid to do. That is what I love. I am here to prove that between the bells, there is no other Bombshell in this company that I can do the things that I can do. Nobody is on my level. And the more that I think about it, the more I think this match is incredibly beneficial to me. I might be the only one out there with anything to lose, but I also have everything to gain. If Luna walks out as the champion, she is still going to be fed to the three of us at My Bloody Valentine. If I walk out as a champion, I send a message to Krystal and Tempest about exactly what I am capable of when I put my mind to it.”

”...and that’s what you’ll be this week Luna. A couple of weeks ago I walked out on you because I didn’t think that you were worth my time. As far as I was concerned, they added you to the match with Tempest and Krystal because they needed to make sure someone was there to get pinned or tap out at the end. They don’t go as far as pre-selecting the winners around here, but rest assured the match at My Bloody Valentine already has a chosen loser, and that’s Luna. Nobody is going to be surprised when it happens. Everyone already sees it coming, but that is what makes this Climax Control main event worth my time. I get to prove that I am capable of single-handedly taking out any Bombshell on this roster. I get to show Tempest and Krystal that the only thing waiting for them in a couple of weeks is a beatdown that they won’t forget.”

”...and Luna earned the honor of being my messenger when she stepped up to me backstage. The moment that she put her hands on me like she was my equal, her fate was sealed. She inserted herself into this situation, and I cannot be held responsible for the lesson that she learns this Sunday. I am not going to lose any sleep if she can’t manage to scrape herself up off of the mat. I am not going to feel guilty if she doesn’t make it to My Bloody Valentine, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Tempest or Krystal opted out of their spots after witnessing what I am willing to put people through in that ring.”

”Eventually you people are going to realize that I am not to be trifled with. The whole lot of you should have stayed out of my way. Fortunately Luna won’t have to sit around for two more weeks thinking about how big of a mistake she made. I am walking into Climax Control in an attempt to take her off the board. When my hand is the one raised at the end of the show, nobody is going to cheer, but not one single person in the arena is going to be surprised either. The match itself is simply a vehicle for delivering one last warning to everyone with the Bombshell Internet Championship in their sights…”

”This title is spoken for.”

”Sorry not sorry.”