Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Topics - Jet City

Pages: [1] 2
1
Climax Control Archives / Limitless: Changing Narratives
« on: January 26, 2024, 11:47:03 PM »
==========================================================
===========================================================


Solo
Long Beach, CALIFORNIA  - Court’s House
25th JANUARY 2024
OFF-Camera

The last few weeks have been quiet. Oz hadn’t heard from Eiley since she decided to head to Barcelona to hide away from the world for a few weeks. As far as he was concerned, she had earned the break. They had a successful run as Mixed Tag Team Champions, and if they were going to gear up to make another run at it, he was going to need her to be at her best. Maybe a few weeks of decompressing was a small price to pay for what they would be able to do when she returned. However, just a couple of days after she got there, she went radio silent. Oz hadn’t heard anything from her, and when he had the doorman check on his apartment, he said it was like nobody had been there in months.

Oz didn’t have the time to go chasing her across the world, so he went to his next best guess. Even in the times that he hadn’t been in contact with Eiley, Jaycee had been. They had the sort of relationship where they checked up on one another regularly, even though they would have never hung out with one another without someone else as a buffer. Oz got the feeling that Jaycee thought of her as a younger sister. Honestly, Jaycee pushing him was one of the only reasons that Oz had been confident enough to approach the subject of the two of them getting together. It seemed like if it was something Jaycee was hyping him up for, he already knew where Eiley stood on the matter. If anyone was going to know where she was, it was Jaycee. The problem was, Oz couldn’t seem to find him either. He beat down his door on several occasions, but never got an answer. It wasn’t like the guy had a phone or social media presence either. He was basically a ghost when he was outside of his house and Jet City.

Unfortunately, the fact that both of them were gone drastically limited Oz’s options of who to turn to for help. His only remaining option was a longshot at best, and he knew that she wasn’t going to be happy about him dropping by unannounced. Luckily, as he was rounding the corner from the backyard to head back to his car, she came through the backdoor heading for the garage.

OZ: What have you done with my friends?

The Bombshell Internet Champion froze in place for a moment. When her eyes finally caught Oz she let out a sigh of relief, and then seemed irritated for having had that reaction in the first place. She doesn’t stop to talk to him either, rolling her eyes before continuing on her path.

COURT: I guess that’s one way to try and start a conversation…

Oz ran a few steps to catch up with her, and then followed her into the garage through the side door before explaining his accusation.

OZ: Eiley has fallen off the face of the world. Jaycee has been missing for like a week. The way I see it, since I don’t know where they are, it must have something to do with you.

Court shook her head, still not turning towards him to give him her full attention. She started going through some of the cabinets and drawers like she was looking for something, but Oz didn’t get close enough to solve that particular puzzle. He knew that somewhere in here was something sharp that she wouldn’t hesitate to throw or stick into him if he bothered her.

COURT: You’d be wrong. I haven’t seen Eiley since she said she was going on vacation.

The way that she absent-mindedly dashed his hopes almost made him turn and walk away. However, something about her answer told him that she wasn’t telling the whole truth.

OZ: I can’t help but notice you casually left out one of the two of them.

She shrugged before moving on to a different set of drawers, opening them and sorting through items that he couldn’t see before frustratedly slamming them closed.

COURT: Technically I haven’t seen him either.

He knew that wasn’t an actual answer either, and unlike the first time she had tried to get him to give up and walk away, he immediately asked a follow-up question.

OZ: ...so does that mean that you “technically” know where he is? Why do you people always have to turn simple questions into riddles?

This time she physically waved him away from her before even opening her mouth.

COURT: He’s helping out at the gym…

That wasn’t an answer that Oz was going to buy either though. Before driving all the way up to see him at home, Oz had stopped by Jet City and he hadn’t been there. In fact, nobody had seen him in a couple of weeks, so there was no way that he could have just missed him.

OZ: No, he’s not. I just drove all the way here from San Die--.

She cut him off, losing patience to even deal with him absent-mindedly.

COURT: Seattle.

However, instead of making things clearer for Oz, she had only worked to confuse him even more.

OZ: Seattle? In January? What gym up there is even worth helping out?

She sighed, now letting some of the frustration from her body language seep into her voice as well.

COURT: Jet City needed help finding someone to put into the Blast from the Past tournament. He has experience.

Oz’s face scrunched up, and he considered whether or not Court had simply hit her head too hard in her last match. Nothing that she was saying was making any sense to him.

OZ: Jet City is in San Diego.

Her annoyance had finally risen to a level where she had to turn around to face him. He knew as soon as they locked eyes that he had made the mistake of asking too many questions. He found himself thankful for the ten feet of space between them, as he knew what she was capable of when irritated.

COURT: Jet City South is in San Diego.

He was thankful that she maintained composure to correct him without violence, but pressed his luck with another stupid question.

OZ: There’s more than one?!

She rolled her eyes and went back to her search without wasting any more energy on him.

COURT: South isn’t even the real deal. It all started in Seattle. Don’t you know anything about the place that you never shut up about?

She looks around before turning her attention to the loft above the two of them. She pulls down a wooden ladder that unfolds in three sections and starts to climb up to the second level, leaving Oz behind.

OZ: Apparently not. Why would Kris send an unsupervised drug addict, fresh out of rehab, all the way up the coast?

She answers on her way up the ladder, but Oz doesn’t dare follow her. She was already yelling down to him like she expected him to keep his feet firmly on the floor so there was really no need to even try his luck.

COURT: It wasn’t him. It was his brother.

He knew that his next question would have gotten him stabbed, or at least punched, had she still been on the ground, but the extra distance between them helped him be a little more bold.

OZ: He has a brother?

There was a long pause before she poked her head out from the second story and looked down at him with the most sincere look that she could summon to her face.

COURT: Look, going through the history of the gym sounds fun and all, but I have more important things to do today.

He holds up his hands innocently, and takes a step back from the ladder defeated.

OZ: I get it. Sorry to bother you. Thought you were going to be more helpful, or maybe Jaycee would have heard from Eiley by now.

She doesn’t have anymore time to humor him though and ratchets up the tough love.

COURT: Tough shit. Focus on the things that actually matter. Jaycee can take care of himself. Eiley is clearly in search of some peace and quiet. Distractions like those are probably what cost you the match with Austin. Don’t make that same mistake against Miles.

Oz confidently blew off her warning without giving it much thought.

OZ: I’ve beaten him once already.

She was ready for that though, and cuts down his argument while going back to her search.

COURT: You’ve beaten him with a partner there to back you up. Standing on your own two feet is never as simple. I think you already know that though. He already got that loss back from you.

Oz stood quietly for a second, but thought better of arguing any further. He knew it was only a matter of time before objects started flying down at him from above. Instead of yelling back up to her, he mutters his response under his breath before making his exit.

OZ: ...that’s not what I signed up for….



==========================================================
===========================================================


Finding Motivation
San Diego, CALIFORNIA  - Jet City South
26th JANUARY 2024
OFF-Camera


The talk with Court hadn’t gone the way that he wanted it to. He was still no closer to talking to either of the two people that he most commonly went to for advice, and Kris was busy with his 9000 children. If he was going to find a way to win this match against Miles, he was going to have to do it on his own. In order to do that he was going to have to get to work and keep his mind off of the other two as much as possible. He needed to regain the focus that he and Eiley had when they walked into Summer XXXtreme as nobodies and walked out as the Mixed Tag Team Champions. The only place that he could do that was Jet City. He had a few days left until his match, and he was determined to sharpen all of his skills in the time that he had left. It wasn’t like this was some kind of unknown opponent. It wasn’t like he was going to be giving up a ton of size or reach. He and Miles were perfectly matched for one another, and they had shared the ring twice before. Each of them had a win under their belts, but this was the one with the most on the line thus far. If Oz won this one, he would guarantee himself a shot at the Internet Championship that Miles was lucky to be carrying around. More importantly, if he won on Climax Control, he would have won the rubber match, and would go into any potential supercard match with the momentum. Regardless of what happened down the line though,if he was going to survive on his own while his friends were gone, he needed to come out and put on a show in this match.

ROUX: Oh look, the sad and quiet boy lost all of this friends…

He didn’t even have to turn to see the person that the words came from. As soon as her voice hit his ears he could feel his blood pressure rise. Roux was the whole reason that he and Eiley had a rocky couple of months. Then again, they also got back on the same page by uniting against her, but she had almost torn them apart in the meantime. He didn’t want to be involved in whatever it was she had going on with Court, which was why he hadn’t brought it up when he saw her. He knew better than to get involved, no matter how much this girl had tried to drag him in.

OZ: Has anyone ever been happy to see you?

The words were meant to drive her off, but she seemed to enjoy them instead. She cheerfully skipped across the room, and then leaned against the mirrored wall in front of him so that he couldn’t help but see her out of the corner of his eye as he started his next set.

ROUX: Not really. I guess it’s as much of a gift as it is a curse. I couldn’t help but notice as I was walking around this dump that I didn’t see your girlfriend anywhere around. You already push her to find a new gym to get away from you?

Oz shook his head, using the frustration as fuel to help him power through this set.

OZ: It’s not like that. What are you even doing here anyways? You’re not part of Jet City.

It’s not like that would have barred her from the grounds. Jet City had plenty of walk-ins that just wanted to feel the place out before officially starting their training. Roux was smart enough to catch someone at the desk that wouldn’t know who she was, and wouldn’t ask her too many questions. Her ability to get in wasn’t really what he was questioning though. It wasn’t so much that it would be difficult, as much as it was that he couldn’t figure out what she gained by dropping in. Court wasn’t there, and wasn’t even scheduled to be. What was her objective?

ROUX: I could be, if the people around here were smarter and I were more interested in mediocrity. I mean, I am the biggest future star set to appear in Blast from the Past. They should be begging me to let them slap their label on me.

Oz finished his workout and sat up to give her his full attention for the first time. The playful look on his face convinced him that he was actually the reason that she was there. Maybe she was going to make another run at trying to be his partner now that Eiley really was out of the picture. He wasn’t about to fall into that trap though.

OZ: You might be hot shit wherever you’re training, but you ain’t the biggest future anything until after you step into a ring and do it for real.

She countered almost like she had anticipated what he was going to say, and didn’t hesitate to turn it around him on.

ROUX: You mean like you?

Oz shook his head immediately.

OZ: No. Not like me.

He knew that there was no point trying to talk up his own record in Sin City. There was a reason that he hadn’t been chosen to be the future star last year. As far as everyone was concerned, he had already risen up further than he ever deserved. Nobody was expecting anything more of him, aside from maybe J2H.

ROUX: Apparently the greatest of all time thought you were good enough to give a chance to… how did that work out for you?

Again, he didn’t even try and downplay the truth of the matter. He owned his losses, because they were the only things that made the wins worthwhile.

OZ: Yeah well, the big title isn’t for me. Every time I step into the ring alone, I get my ass handed to me. My whole vision for stepping into the ring was to do so as part of a team. J2H throwing his championship away wasn’t part of the plan. This new “Golden Opportunity” wasn’t either.

She feigned surprise, and even brought one hand up to cover a fake gasp that he really wished hadn’t worked to make him more annoyed.

ROUX: Oh, right. I remember! You’re terrible when you’re on your own. Isn’t that the whole reason that you and Eiley started your little team. What is it called? Limited?

He wasn’t going to play the game with her. The whole reason she approached him months ago was to replace Eiley on the team. She was incredibly familiar with them, and just wanted to get under his skin.

OZ: Limitless, and I know that you know that. It doesn’t matter though.

She wipes the smile off of her face, and gets serious when she realizes that he wasn’t going to take the bait.

ROUX: On the contrary, I think that it does. Limitless started because you couldn’t get it done. After AJM wiped the floor with you a couple of weeks ago, you pretty much proved that hasn’t changed.

She wasn’t wrong, but the fact remained that she was still here wasting her time on him. She wanted something from him, so he couldn’t be totally useless like she was making him out to be.

OZ: ...and yet here we are…

His indifference finally puts a crack in her playful demeanor.

ROUX: That’s not a winning attitude. Do better!

He shrugs, sensing that truly not caring was going to be the only way to annoy her into finally leaving him alone. If she wanted to call him a lost cause, he was willing to play the role to get her to go away.

OZ: I don’t know if I can.

She looks up at the ceiling, and then takes a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself down. It didn’t have much of an impact because once her mouth opens, all of the contempt came right back with her voice.

ROUX: There’s only one way to find out, and being a bitch ain’t it.

He shrugged again, again shifting the focus back to her.

OZ: It seems like it works wonders for you…

Frustrated, she kicks off of the mirrored wall, and moves around him back towards the half-wall separating him from the larger floor of the gym. It looked like she briefly considered storming off, but stopped and tried a different approach.

ROUX: You’re not me. I want the big stage. That spotlight is mine, and once I get started there’s no way that I am going to want to share it with anyone. I don’t think that you have any of that mentality in you. You’re more of the sneak around in the shadows type. That’s fun and all, but when you don’t have Eiley around to be your distraction, what happens?

He answered honestly, when he could tell she was trying to provoke him into fighting back.

OZ: Something painful most of the time…

This time she was prepared for his apathy, and pushed through it.

ROUX: Don’t you think it’s time you changed that narrative? Maybe when she sees that you don’t need her, she’ll come running back. Then you won’t have to hunt her down at all.

Oz stood up and grabbed a towel off of a nearby cart while he considered her words. He dried his face and then hung the towel around his neck before having to concede to her.

OZ: That might not be a ba---

He turned as he spoke, but stopped when he realized that she hadn’t stuck around to hear his answer.



==========================================================
>Prophecies

==========================================================

”I must have missed something….”

”I was under the impression that there was a certain established hierarchy in Sin City. I thought that there was some kind of structure in place to organize the division. We all know that the World Heavyweight Championship is at the top; that’s a no brainer. I have always heard that the bottom tier was the Roulette Championship. I mean, it makes sense. It is the gimmicky belt with so much random violence attached to it that it doesn’t need a big name to carry it. Until Peter Vaughn got hold of it, it kind of bounced around several unremarkable talents for years. Bill Barnhart is the one that specifically comes to mind, but if you look at the history of the Roulette Championship, you’ll see a whole lot of names that nobody has ever given a shit about. Granted, you’ll see several names on the list that held that championship and then went onto greatness. That really only backs up my point though. The people that win it are nobodies in this company. They are at the bottom of the roster. Whatever did or did not happen to them after winning the championship is irrelevant.”

”...and I only mention the other two championships as representing the very top and very bottom of this company because I think it makes it obvious that the Internet Championship is meant to slide right in between them. As Court has been telling the Bombshell Division, the Internet Championship makes you mid-card royalty. It means that you fall short of being qualified to be the face of the company, but at least you don’t have to get beaten senseless in whatever way a roulette wheel decides. It is a comfortable place on the roster, because you have worked far enough up the ranks that you don’t have to fear for your job. It’s also a painful reminder that there is still a glass ceiling lingering over your head. Sometimes it means that you aren’t ready for a shot at being the top guy. In Miles’ case, it means you have had too many shots at the top, and come up short every time.”

”...coming up short like letting the bottom tier champion eject you from the World Heavyweight Championship tournament….”

”...not only did Miles prove that he belongs exactly where he is on this roster, he managed to make everyone question the established hierarchy. I don’t care how hot Peter Vaughn has been over the last year, there was no way that Miles should have let some gimmick champion beat him. The Internet Championship is supposed to represent a step up from the Roulette division. Miles is supposed to have grown up and become the Big Dog instead of the Underdog. He was allegedly the man to beat in the whole damn tournament…”

”...and he ended up just another dude that GOT beat in the tournament….”

”I guess I shouldn’t really talk. I was one of the names picked for that tournament. I didn’t make it out of the first round. Then again, nobody really ever expects me to do much when I come through the curtain all by myself. Since the moment that I debuted in this company I have been an unapologetic mixed tag team talent. I haven’t ever had any interest in going it alone, and it shouldn’t be hard to see why. Usually when I walk out to the ring by myself, Austin James Mercer is down there ready to flatten me. Anytime I walk through the backstage area solo, I get laid out by someone who has taken exception to something that I have said or done. I wasn’t the Man of the Year last year, I was one-half of the Mixed Tag Team of the Year, because that is where I have always felt that I belonged.”

”Lately that hasn’t been the case. I came to this company as part of a group of three. Those three became two, and then those two became just one. Me. Alone, but that was never part of the plan. That was why when I was presented with the opportunity to become the World Heavyweight Champion, I wasn’t really motivated. I didn’t see the point, because that was never where I saw myself in this company. I didn’t think that I needed, and I definitely am not ready, to be the face of a company. I don’t want to be the guy at the top that everyone is trying to pick apart. I don’t need the already sizable target on my back getting any bigger than it already is, so losing to Austin and dropping out of the tournament never bothered me. It was the easiest loss that I’ve ever taken, and afterwards I packed up all of my shit, went home, and didn’t lose a second of sleep over it.”

”...I bet Miles can’t say that he shares that same experience…”

”I’m willing to bet that the loss has been eating him up inside. I see him carrying on with the same stupid social media shit with Carter like being a failure isn’t eating himself up inside. I see the attempt to make everything look like business as usual, but something tells me that when he comes down the aisle that won’t be what I see. I bet I’m going to see a man that’s adrift in company. I think I am going to look into his eyes and see fear. If Miles didn’t feel like he had Imposter Syndrome right now, I’d be surprised, because after losing another shot at the big belt he has to feel like maybe he doesn’t belong. Losing that shot to a champion that is supposed to be beneath you has to be salt in a gaping wound.”

”...so while he was coming into 2024 as a champion with all the confidence in the world, he was already shaken to his core in the first thirty days. He started off his year, and his time as champion, with an embarrassing loss when everyone expected better of him. I thought that maybe the bosses would throw him an easy match-up so that he could get his groove back, but instead they put my name across the card from his and attached a warning to it. Sure, this match is a Golden Opportunity for me, but for Miles, it is a threat. It is Mark and Christian shaking a finger of disappointment at him and saying ‘lose again, and that title around your waist will evaporate before you know it’.”

”They could have made this a contender’s match. They could have put me against any other non-champion in the company and said whoever won got a shot at Miles. They could have given him time to prepare for the inevitable confrontation with his championship on the line. Hell, they could have brought him out to ringside for a contendership match, and he would have gotten an up-close-and-personal look at his next challenger before he had to share the ring with him. The Internet Champion was given no such advantage, and that tells me just how ready the bosses are to see this little failed experiment come to a quick end.”

”I might not have felt qualified for the top job in this company, but I don’t think it’ll surprise anyone to hear me say that I see the Roulette division as being beneath me. I have no interest in leaving my career up to the chance of a spinning wheel. I like to have control of my destiny, and being the Internet Champion feels like it makes the most sense. I don’t think there is any better way for me to transition out of the Mixed Tag Team division and show people what I can do on my own. I think I can easily slot myself in, and fill the void that Miles has created as a subpar champion, and all I have to do to ensure my shot at his championship is go out and beat him in the center of the ring.”

”Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it?”

”The bosses are determined so see what I have to offer as a singles talent, so I am going to seize this opportunity before they try to toss me to Vaughn next. I see the writing on the wall. I can tell what is expected of me, and if they are going to force me to pick a championship to chase, then I am calling my shot against Miles right now. Going down to the ring and pinning him will just be a formality. We have already shared the ring a couple of times before and I have never been impressed.”

”Sure, he may have taken me down once before in a singles match, but there wasn’t anything in that one for me. I had a singular focus, and he was in it to avenge his loss the first time around. And why was I victorious the first time around? Motivation. He was the one standing in the way of me  holding the Mixed Tag Team Championships, so I spiked him in the center of the ring and pinned his shoulders to the mat to pick up the win. I was given every reason to go out to the ring and take him apart, and that was exactly what I did. I certainly left an impression because he came out of the bells swinging in that second match, but it didn’t matter. I needed to save myself for the Mixed Tag Team Championships that I went on to win. I had a goal, and I stopped at nothing to make it happen. He has experienced what it’s like to be in the ring with me when I don’t want to lose.”

”He knows what it is like to stand between me and a championship that I have my eyes on.”

”He got dropped, and history is about to repeat itself...”

”Call it a prophecy if you want to.”


2
Climax Control Archives / One Match at a Time
« on: December 01, 2023, 11:42:04 PM »
==========================================================
===========================================================



Shake-Up
Columbus, OHIO -- GalaxyCon Columbus 2023
1st December 2023
OFF-Camera

For the record, I hate this. However, given that I have basically proven myself expendable over the last couple of shows, I am not really in a place where I can say no when I get told to show up at events. It doesn’t matter that this sea of midwest nerds probably couldn’t care less about a wrestler from the west coast. It doesn’t matter that even those in the crowd that knew who I was still wouldn’t want to stop and talk to me. It doesn’t even matter that in the three hours I have been sitting at this desk, not a single person has asked for an autograph. It is still an event where someone representing Sin City showed up, and put up all the signage. Even if people didn’t stop and talk to me, maybe they would at least check out the company. My job was to simply be a billboard. It hadn’t mattered much when it was Eiley and I doing things like this together, because we could keep one another entertained. Doing it solo made time feel like it was standing still.

The worst part of it was that I used to love places like this. Anywhere that people were more focused on what they were seeing than what I was taking out of their pockets would have been a five-star day before Sin City came around and made me a semi-notable individual. There was too much risk in it now. Even if nobody here knew who I was, if anything I did made it to the internet there was an entire Sin City fan base ready and willing to throw me under the bus. Therefore, there was absolutely nothing to do other than sit at this table and count the minutes until I could finally pack up and leave this shit hole. I still needed to track down Eiley before then so that we could reattempt to have the conversation that fell apart a few days ago.

FAN: So you’re definitely losing this rematch coming up, right? I’m not going to be disappointed if I bet against you, am I?

I don’t know how long I have been lost in my thoughts. I had definitely dissociated long enough for whoever this individual was to sit down at the desk across from me. For all I know, I could have been absent-mindedly talking with the girl this whole time, because the way she was acting made me feel like we were in the middle of a conversation that I didn’t remember ever happening.

OZ: I’m sorry, but what?

Whoever she was, she laughed in my face. It already felt like she was more comfortable at this table than I was, which put me on edge. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but I couldn’t quite place it.

FAN: The rematch that Limitless has coming up. You two are going to bomb, right?

I blinked a few times, and did my best to try and look like I wasn’t totally lost in this conversation. I looked around at the signage around the table, and then back to the girl across from me in disbelief.

OZ: You actually know who I am?

She seemed confused given that even if she had no clue who I was I was surrounded by more than a handful of helpful hints.

FAN: Yes?

My mouth fell open and closed a few times wordlessly before another fan stepped to the table, and tried to pull the conversation away from her. He pointed at me first, and was working his way towards her before she even noticed the lurker over her shoulder.

FAN2: I’m sorry, are you two jus--

If I had blinked at the wrong time, I would have missed what happened. It was so fast that nobody at the surrounding booths had a chance to react before the man’s head was slammed into my table and held there by the girl that had pulled me out of my thoughts. She had grabbed him by the wrist, and quickly wrenched his arm behind his back which is what gave her the leverage to slam him face-first into the table. I watched him try and push himself up with his free arm, but she must have wrenched his arm even harder, because he thought better of that almost instantly.

FAN: Can you not tell when people are in the middle of a conversation?

He didn’t answer right away, so she added a little more torque to her grip in order to elicit a response.

FAN2: OWWW!!! What is wrong with you? I ju---

His words cut off and his face twisted in agony as he did his best not to let her know how much it hurt. The man punched the table with his free hand, which just got another laugh from his assailant.

FAN: You feel that, huh? Just a little bit further and I could probably snap this thing and then you’d have to explain to all of your idiot friends how you got beat up by a teenage girl….

I looked up at her, surprised at her age, and she took her attention away from him long enough to wink at me with a slight shrug while mouthing the word “nineteen”. Apparently that was enough of a distraction for her to slightly loosen her grip, because the man that she had trapped found the willpower to speak up, this time with a little more bass in his voice.

FAN2: Lemme go!

She cranked one more time on his arm, and then dropped her lips nearly to his ear, speaking so low that we were likely the only three people that caught the words.

FAN: If when I let go, you don’t walk away with your tail tucked between your legs, the next thing I grab hold of is getting separated from you, feel me?

She may have just been a teenager, but a chill ran up my spine when I heard the words come out of her mouth. They were chilling, but more importantly, the man believed them. He nodded once, and she let him go. He immediately took a step back from the table, and looked back and forth between the two of us a couple of times before quickly shuffling off into the crowd wordlessly. I was impressed, to say the least.

OZ: Seems almost like you should be on this side of the desk… uhhh.. Sorry, I am not sure that I got your name.

She extended her hand with a smile.

FAN: Roux.

I shook her hand, albeit a little on edge from what I had just seen her to do the last person that gave up an appendage so easily.

OZ: Nice to meet you, Roux. I thought you midwesterners were supposed to be a whole lot nicer to each other than big city people, ya know? Not that I am complaining about the show or anything.

She smiled but shook her head before correcting me.

ROUX: Oh, I’m not from here. Long Beach born and raised. That guy was probably from around here though, and today he learned a very valuable lesson about trying to cut in line.

I looked around at the sea of people moving through the aisles behind her. Nearly every other booth had lines, and some of them had lines big enough to have their own turnstyle of ropes to herd the masses in an orderly fashion towards whatever pseudo-celebrity they were dying to meet.

OZ: Well, not much of a line. You’re the only one that has stopped all day.

She shrugged her shoulders again, likely just trying to make me feel better about being an insignificant draw.

ROUX: What do you expect? This isn’t really a hub of popularity for Sin City Wrestling. When was the last time they even booked a show all the way out here? It’s usually either the west coast or some foreign country.

She was giving me information without really telling me anything. Whatever this was, she had definitely planned it out.

OZ: True enough, yet they still sent me. The better question is, what is a random girl from Long Beach doing in Columbus, Ohio of all places? Especially if you have moves like that!

I wanted to see how she took the compliment, but instead of addressing it at all, she moved right past it. Whatever she was actually after clearly wasn’t my attention or blatant flattery would have gotten some kind of response.

ROUX: Not all of us are lucky enough to get our foot in the door of a place like Jet City.

My stomach turned, and I sat up straight in my seat. It suddenly felt like she could see straight through me. She knew about the company I was representing. She knew about Jet City even though it wasn’t featured on any of the signs around us. This was feeling less and less like a random occurrence by the second.

OZ: I get it. You know your shit. You know about the company that I work for, and the gym that I train at. I can’t help but feel like I am being set up or something.

She shook her head with a half-frown on her face.

ROUX: Setups are usually your thing though, right OZ?

I could feel my blood pressure spike. This wasn’t just some casual fan that came across me at a convention. The way the corner of her lips turned up into a devilish smirk when she asked the question told me that she knew something of the life I was leading before coming to Sin City. I supposed that could have been because of the massive stories about Kris’ return to the realm of the living, but I wasn’t so sure about this. It didn’t feel like she had some inkling about the person I used to be. It felt like she knew everything about me.

OZ: Who are you?

I could tell that she tried very hard not to laugh at the question, and at first she didn’t answer at all. She pushed herself up out of the seat across from me, and grabbed one of the photos from the table with Eiley and I holding up the SCW Mixed Tag Team Championships.

ROUX: In a word? Trouble.

She picked up one of the sharpies from the table, and bit down on the cap to pull the marker free before writing a number across the very center of the photo. Frowning at it, she shields it from me before starting to draw on the rest of it.

OZ: That much is obvious. This doesn’t feel very random though, and you don’t really seem to be the comic-con type. Why do I get the feeling that you’re just here to talk to me?

She shrugged before turning the photo back around towards me. She had successfully scribbled Eiley out of the photo, and drawn a stick-figure labeled as ROUX standing next to me with her hand holding up Eiley’s half of the championship belts.

ROUX: Just introducing myself before you hear any of the bad stuff. I wanted to make a first impression before somebody else did it before me. Is that so wrong?

The number written across the center of the photo wasn’t long enough to be a phone number. If I had to guess, it was a room number, but it could have been to any number of hotels in the area. If I wanted answers, I was going to have to earn them. Although, there was always the option of throwing the picture in the garbage and choosing not to play her game at all. Something told me that she knew that wasn’t going to happen though.

OZ: In my experience, you shouldn’t trust anyone that knows way more about you than you do about them.

She shrugged, and backed away from the table.

ROUX: Well, when you’re done with all this… come find me. Maybe we’ll talk.

I looked down at the number on the photo again, but when I looked back up from it, she was gone as quickly as she had appeared.

OZ: I might just do that…



==========================================================
>One Match at a Time
==========================================================


”None of us can change the past…”

”The losses that Eiley and I have suffered lately as a team can’t be wiped away. My loss last week will be in the record book forever. Losing the Mixed Tag Team Championships will be part of High Stakes history whether I like it or not.”

”There is nothing that I can do about any of it. It is what it is. Just like there is nothing that I can do about the fact that everything that has been said about this match has been absolutely true. Eiley and I have been on a downward spiral lately. We have been coming up short more often than we have been having our hands raised in victory. It has been a long time since the two of us have left an arena on the same page, and I am not exactly sure how we are going to fix that moving forward.”

”...so I am just not going to dwell on it.”

”You all can if you want, and I am sure that you will let us hear about it during our match this weekend at Climax Control. Fans don’t have to get into the ring and actually back up the things that they say, so they can afford to have long memories. I can’t. I can’t let the things that have gone wrong get in my head, or they are bound to keep repeating themselves. If you go into a match thinking that you are going to lose, that’s exactly what is going to happen. If you walk down the aisle thinking that your teammate won’t have your back when you need them to, they won’t. If you are expecting something to go wrong, it will. Competing in that ring is all about tuning out the noise, and doing what it is that we do best and that is exactly what Eiley and I intend to do once the bell rings. Nothing else that came before matters. Nothing that happens weeks from now is within our control.”

”Eiley and I need to put on a performance at Climax Control that reminds this division why we were at the very top since the Mixed Tag Team Championships were reactivated.”

”It really is that simple.”

”That’s not to say that it is going to be some kind of walk in the park. Sure, we have beaten the team of Bill and Bea before, but right now the two of them have nothing to lose. Limitless is the team with the guaranteed Mixed Tag Team Championship match coming up. We are the ones that are in position to take back our titles, regardless of what has gone wrong in the last couple of weeks. Bill and Bea can leapfrog every other team in the division if they were to take us out on Sunday. They can go from the bottom rung of the Mixed Tag Team Ladder, to the rightful number one contenders if Eiley and I can’t get our shit together when the bell rings, and that makes them dangerous even if their record in this company says otherwise.”

”What Eiley and I proved over the summer was that even the longshots can make some noise if they are given the right opportunity, and I am sure that Bill and Bea are looking at this match as their next big break. This the gateway to them getting their hands back on the Mixed Tag Team Championships, and a step towards the entire division having to take them seriously…. ”

”...but therein lies the rub, ya know?”

”See, for as long as they have been here nobody takes them seriously. For as big and imposing as Bill is, he doesn’t inspire fear in his opponents. The fans look at this card, and they see one thing: an opportunity for Eiley and I to get right before our rematch for the Mixed Tag Team Championships. Because that is what this really is. While Eiley and I have been trapped in a downward spiral due to a handful of losses, Bill and Bea have been operating as usual. Not because they have been successful lately, but because nobody expects them to be. All they have to do is show up. Their losses aren’t critiqued. Their shortcomings aren’t put under a microscope. The reason that Eiley and I are catching all kinds of shit from the roster, is because we have fallen off the top of the mountain. Bill and Bea have never risen above sea-level. They have nowhere to fall when they lose, because that would mean that at some point in their time here, they would have had to do something worthwhile.”

”As little as people think of me, the last time I was in the same ring with Bill, he was the one that was forced to tap out in the center of the ring. So people can talk about how Eiley and I can’t manage to get on the same page all they want, it didn’t seem to stop Finn and Kayla from winning the Mixed Tag Team Championships, did it? Those two weren’t even speaking to one another heading into High Stakes, and they still managed to overcome the odds. Seems to me like Eiley and I have a lot more of a chance to walk out of this match with a victory than anyone is willing to give us.”

”So go ahead and put all your money on Bea and Bill. While you’re at it, hold your breath for the two of us to call it quits as a team and strike out on our own. Just don’t be surprised when you end up penniless and gasping for air as Eiley and I are celebrating in the center of the ring; one step closer to regaining the championships that we should have never let anyone take away from us.”

”Like I said, I can’t change anything that has already happened, but I can make sure that the spiral ends on Sunday.”

”First The Barnharts. Then the champions.”

One match at a time.


3
Climax Control Archives / The Sky is Falling
« on: November 24, 2023, 11:41:16 PM »
==========================================================
===========================================================



Your Problem
San Diego, CALIFORNIA -- Shoreline Recovery Center
24th NOVEMBER 2023
OFF-Camera

Oz had mistakenly thought that things would have gotten back to normal by now. He thought that the speed bump that he and Eiley had hit at High Stakes was going to be easy to overcome. He thought that Court would rebound and get back to the top instantly. He thought that Jaycee would be back on the road with them, and everything would fall back into place the way that they had been over the summer. As it turns out, it had simply been wishful thinking. Ruby made her return to Court’s side, but things had  only continued to spiral out of control for the two of them. He and Eiley were so out of sync that he wasn’t sure if they were ever going to be able to break out of the cycle. To top it all off, the thirty days that Jaycee was supposed to spend in rehab had turned into sixty, and then that sixty had turned into Jaycee not quite knowing when he was going to be able to trust himself back out in the real world. He hoped that the pit in his stomach was just impatience. Oz didn’t want to believe that the dominance of Jet City had come and gone basically within the span of a summer, and a few weeks ago he still would have been able to laugh off their struggles. That wasn’t the case anymore though.

OZ: I understand that you’re working on yourself and all that, but things are really falling apart without you.

JAYCEE: Don’t put that on me. That’s not fair.

OZ: I wasn’t putting it on you, it’s just a fact. The two things might not have anything to do with one another, but it certainly feels like it does. And I get it! You are here working on yourself, and I totally support that…

JAYCEE: Sure doesn’t sound like it. It sounds like you would be much happier if I was out there getting beaten up for money, just because it would put you back in your comfort zone.

OZ: Well if you say it like that of course it sounds bad.

JAYCEE: Say it in a way that doesn’t sound bad then.

OZ: All I am saying is that it would be nice to have you back out there with us.

JAYCEE: For me, or for you?

OZ: Why can’t it be both?

JAYCEE: ...because it’s not. You want me out there because the whole Jet City house of cards fell down. I don’t see why you can’t just be happy about the ride you got to take during the summer. You exceeded all expectations. As a group, we dominated everyone. That kind of thing isn’t meant to last though. It was always going to slow down. You just gotta build it back up, ya know?

OZ: ...and all that I am saying, is that would be easier if we had you back out there with us.

JAYCEE: Who is this “us” you keep talking about? You’re here alone. The last five or six times you have showed up you’ve been alone. Have you and Eiley even spoken since you lost the titles?

OZ: Not much.

JAYCEE: ...and you don’t think that is a bigger problem then coming and messing up what I have going on here?

OZ: I think that if you were around as a buffer, that would be an easier problem to solve.

JAYCEE: No. It would give you a way to avoid the problem without ever fixing it because the two of you would have to act normal around me.

OZ: And?

JAYCEE: Grow up.

OZ: It’s never been something that I was good at.

JAYCEE: Well then put some effort into it, bitch! You keep coming here like I am going to have some kind of answer for you, but the thing you need to be doing is talking to your girl.

OZ: She’s not my--

JAYCEE: Isn’t she though?

OZ: It’s not like that.

JAYCEE: Isn’t it though?

OZ: No, and it never really has been. We’re friends.

JAYCEE: Friends that have a history of being more than. Friends that live together. Friends that travel together, and share hotel rooms. Friends that share a car. You two had to split bed at Summer XXXtreme after you fucked up and got caught trying to steal rooms. You two are a lot of things, but “just friends” ain’t one of them.

OZ: Somebody should probably let Eiley know that then…

JAYCEE: Yeah, YOU should do that, and you don’t need me standing there living through the awkwardness with you. You need to do that shit on your own, and then the two of you need to get your heads out of your asses, because they ain’t going to hand you rematch after rematch until you get things right. If you want to get back to where you were, there’s really only one way to do that and it don’t have shit to do with me.

OZ: Well, it would still be nice to have you back out there with us…

JAYCEE: I don’t know if or when that will be a thing, so stop holding your breath.

OZ: They aren’t going to let you stay here forever, ya know?

JAYCEE: I know, but I’ve been thinking about just taking a job at Jet City like Court did and kind of laying low for a little while. I am not sure the spotlights and the travel are what I want out of life. It would be enough to get to be normal, which is what I like about this place.

OZ: ....normal. That does sound nice.

JAYCEE: Then go talk to your partner.

OZ: Maybe I’ll stop being afraid to do that when you stop being afraid to sign yourself out of here.

JAYCEE: ...something tells me I will probably win that race too, so you don’t want to take that bet.


==========================================================
>The Sky is Falling
==========================================================


”I see the snide little jabs at us that everyone is taking…”

”The problem is these days, it doesn’t seem like Jet City has a leg to stand on anymore. Over the last month we have truly lost everything. Court has fallen from the top of the mountain. Jaycee has run away to find himself, and Eiley and I can’t seem to figure out exactly where we went wrong…”

”...but all of you seem to know exactly where we went wrong. I mean, you have pointed it out over, and over, and over again since High Stakes. Hell, you shoved it in my face during that entire show as well. Eiley was the Future Star of the Year. Eiley is the one that all of the legends recognize as the rookie that might actually go somewhere in this business. She has earned every bit of our success, and I have been the one to shoulder every bit of our failure.”

”It doesn’t matter that I was just as impressive in Blast from the Past as she was this past spring. It didn’t matter that the only reason that we won the Mixed Tag Team Championships was because I saved her ass. It didn’t matter that I stepped in and took the beatings from Austin and Tempest that helped up keep the titles around our waists. The only thing that any of you people saw was that when we fell short, it was me that was taking the fall. When we didn’t live up to expectations, it was because I was the weak link. At every single turn I have been reminded that as far as Limitless goes, I’m not shit.”

”...and that is how this week came about. I mean, this isn’t my thing. I don’t like competing on my own. I don’t enjoy walking down the aisle as a solo act. Something about it has never felt right to me, but it feels like it is a necessity at this point. I need to be able to step into that ring and start to disprove some of the disparaging chatter coming out of the locker room. I need to rise and shine on my own in order to silence the social media dirt sheets. I need to change the narrative, because I can’t stomach being killed by all of you people, week after week, even when Eiley and I were successful.”

”...and the only way that I can do that is on my own. Even if I was the one picking up the fall to regain the Mixed Tag Team Championships, it wouldn’t be enough. There would always be something for people to nitpick. I would be accused of simply picking my perfect spot to strike, and nothing would change. The only way that I can force anything to change is to do the thing that makes me uncomfortable. I have to come out to that ring by myself and handle something that Limitless has failed to get done as a team.”

”That’s where Carter comes into it.”

”...and sure, he has had his own colorful history with Jet City. Eiley and I had fun at his expense back when he was being left off of shows that we were winning championships on. Court called Carter and his tag team partner failures in order to get under Ariana’s skin months ago. Jaycee even made a joke out of him before their match at Summer XXXtreme. Yet, Ariana has done more to get Court off her game than just about everyone in this company. Carter shut down Jaycee before he could even get back into a groove in Sin City. And then Carter and Ariana finally got their shot to take the legs out from under Eiley and I and they did it without breaking a sweat. All of us have taken shots at him, but it has been Carter with the last laugh at every turn.”

”Unwittingly, we have turned Carter into the perfect foil for all of us. He and Ariana proved that when the two of them beat Eiley and I at our own game. But it wasn’t the two of us that lost, it was me. Just like it has always been. I was the one that was embarrassed. I was the one that got beaten, and the only way that I can fix that is to go out and hand him a loss myself. Everyone else is banned from ringside. There won’t be any background bullshit for people to point to. If I go out and win this one, it is something that nobody will be able to take away from me, and it will be a big step back in the right direction.”

”So that is why this match has to happen. This is the way that I turn everything back around. This is where I make everything right. I am going to walk into Climax Control by myself, and I am going to do everything in my power to make sure that by the end of the night, nobody thinks of me as the weak link anymore. Over the last month or so, Jet City has lost everything. I have lost everything. I may have even lost my partner. But if I can find some way to pull this off on my own, maybe things can start to get back on track.”

”...and it would be about time too, because I don’t have anything left to lose.”



4
Climax Control Archives / Limitless: Low Point
« on: November 03, 2023, 11:44:57 PM »
==========================================================
===========================================================



Low Point
San Diego, CALIFORNIA -- Jet City South
3rd NOVEMBER 2023
OFF-Camera

Things have been pretty quiet over the last couple of weeks. Oz had no idea where Eiley went off to, but didn’t really feel like he was in a position to ask too many questions. The two of them were no longer undefeated because of him. They were no longer champions because of him. The fact that she wasn’t around felt like the punishment that he deserved. It also felt like all of the things that everyone was whispering behind the scenes were true. Jaycee had been hyped up about being the next big thing when he came back at Summer XXXtreme. Eiley had just won future star of the year at High Stakes. If there was a weak link between the three newcomers out of Jet City, it was clearly him. So the fact that Eiley had better things to do than waste her time with him made sense.

It didn’t mean that he stopped showing up though. He came to Jet City daily, and allowed the remaining trainers to put him through the paces. He studied up on his opponents, even though he was more than familiar with the two of them over the last couple of months. All-in-all, he should have been confident. Ariana and Carter had fallen to teams that Eiley and Oz had beaten effortlessly. The moment that this match was made, he should have been able to do the mental math required to turn this into a win. He didn’t have it though. Not anymore. His team had been torn apart by two people that couldn’t stand each other. They got exposed, and all at once, the comparisons between Limitless and Reckless Elite became punchlines. The rookies’ time in the spotlight was over, and it was likely that the team would be as well. Eiley definitely had better prospects than being handcuffed to him when her career had the potential to take off.

All he wanted to do was get changed and get out of sight before Kris, Mikah, or Eiley showed up to tell him how big of a piece of shit that he was. However, as he was getting changed back into his street clothes, a hand hammered on the locked stall door behind him. He hadn’t even heard anyone enter the room.

OZ: Occupied. Fuck off.

He didn’t hear footsteps backpedal away from his stall, so he turned and unlatched the door as he pulled his shirt over his head. As soon as the lock was disengaged, the door came flying back towards him, knocking him off balance and causing him to fall back onto the bench that gear was still sitting on.

KRIS: Where the fuck is your partner?

Oz wasn’t surprised at all that the door got kicked into his face when he realized exactly who it was that was doing the kicking. This was the kind of situation he had been trying to avoid.

OZ: Probably doing everything she can to stay as far away from me as possible.

The words seemed to catch Kris by surprise. He took a few seconds to process them, considering the two of them were never far from one another’s sight. Most of the time the whole gym joked that they were literally connected at the hip because despite not being in a real relationship, they lived, traveled, and always worked out together. In Kris’ mind, if that had changed, there could only possibly be one person at fault.

KRIS: Why? What did you do?

Oz wanted to be offended, but all he could muster was a laugh.

OZ: You mean other than be the weight around her neck that cost us the Mixed Tag Team Championships and our undefeated streak?

The door started to swing closed, separating the two of them, but Kris pushed it back open, and then held it for a moment to make sure that its momentum had stopped before turning his attention back to his protege.

KRIS: That’s it?

The way he said the words actually pissed Oz off. It wasn’t as if he had given some small or arbitrary reasoning for his partner abandoning him. He cost them their championships. He was the one that came up short, and that had been a trend of their match-ups, even when they pulled out a victory eventually.

OZ: It’s kind of a big deal. It was the first thing that either of us actually won.

Kris shook that excuse off without even considering it.

KRIS: The two of you have successfully robbed scores of people blind. You have too many wins as a team, inside and outside of the ring, to let one loss tear the two of you apart. You have to have done something if she is actually mad at you…

Oz shrugged.

OZ: I don’t know. I guess I’d have to actually talk to her in order to find out. I haven’t seen her since High Stakes.

As he spoke, Oz turned his back to Kris and started throwing all of his loose gear back into his bag.

KRIS: She’s not returning your messages?

Oz shrugged again without turning back to face his mentor, and zipped up his bag once he had packed up all of his things. He put the strap over his shoulder, and tried to push past Kris, but the Hall of Famer wouldn’t move out of his way. He was trapped, and forced to actually answer the question.

OZ: I’d have to send some to find out….

Kris rolled his eyes, and then took a deep breath in an attempt not to blow up at yet another student. He wanted to be better than he was with Court. He didn’t want to make the mistakes that he made with Jaycee. Oz wasn’t making that very easy though.

KRIS: So what you’re actually saying is that you have been too afraid to talk to her, and have been wallowing in self-pity for two weeks instead of picking yourself up and actually getting back to work.

Oz wasn’t going to take responsibility for Eiley not being at the gym though. He had been here every single day since High Stakes.

OZ: I’ve been showing up everyday!

That wasn’t good enough for Kris though, and the rage finally boiled over as he started to yell loud enough to be heard outside in the gym.

KRIS: No, half your team has been showing up everyday, and by any metric, 50% is a failing fucking grade! I don’t care how sorry you are feeling for yourself! Pick up your phone, make a call, send a text, and figure this the fuck out!

However, Oz didn’t feel like pressuring Eiley into a conversation that she didn’t want to have was a good idea. In fact, he had seen someone go overboard on the Summer XXXtreme cruise for trying to do that very thing.

OZ: I don’t th--

Kris wasn’t going to let him make any excuses though.

KRIS: I’m not fucking asking you a question, Oz! I am telling you to talk to your partner or get the fuck out of my gym until after you do!

Kris stepped to the side of the stall to give Oz an open path to the door if that was what he chose. Honestly, he shouldn’t have expected the rookie to make the hard choice, because Oz didn’t even think twice before shaking his head, and walking out.





==========================================================
>Meh…
==========================================================


”I don’t know how I am supposed to be excited about this match…”

”Eiley and I are coming off of the worst outing of our careers, and that is mostly my fault. I figured that we might not be the next in line to get our championships back, but I never thought that we would fall so far as to be teaming up against people in the bottom half of this division….”

”...and yeah, I get that Carter has had some amazing matches in the main events of shows lately, but tell me how many of them he has won. I understand that Ariana is carrying around a championship belt now, but tell me which champion she actually got the better of in order to win it. The two of them might seem formidable on paper, but if you look a little closer you can see that these two are about as disappointing as they come. So much so that the Sin City world only thinks that they can hang with us at our lowest point.”

”I mean I can remember back to Summer XXXtreme where Eiley and I had to take down the best teams that this company had to offer, but I don’t remember seeing them there. I am not even sure that Carter had a match for the majority of the cruise, and if Ariana did, I guess it was a loss because it doesn’t ring any bells either. Yet, these two have continued getting opportunity after opportunity in an attempt to sell you people on the idea of them actually being worth a shit. Here’s a spoiler: they aren’t.”

”If Eiley and I were still the champions, this match wouldn’t be happening, because the two of them are so obviously beneath us. As it stands, I guess this is how far down the ladder that Mark and Christian think that Eiley and I have fallen.”

”....and I guess that is my fault.”

”...so maybe this is the match-up that we earned with our last performance….”


5
Climax Control Archives / Limitless: Lesson Learned
« on: October 06, 2023, 11:15:21 PM »
==========================================================
>
===========================================================



The Work
HAWAII -- Mikah’s Gym
4th OCTOBER 2023
OFF-Camera

I guess that I expected things to change after Kris and Mikah’s baby was born. I thought he would start to be the sketchy character that everyone at Jet City warned me about. Kris was notorious for disappearing, and not just because I accidentally got him shot. The guy had up and disappeared on people multiple times, and somehow always came back from it more and more popular. I figured that pushing out and taking care of a fifth child was finally going to cause that good ol’ Kris to show back up, but I was wrong.

Aside from the fact that Eiley and I were making the journey down to Mikah’s gym in Hawaii instead of training at Jet City, nothing had changed. One of the two of them met with us daily to work on different aspects of our style that needed ironed out. It was nothing like the horror stories that Courtney told about training with the two of them, but I kind of just figured it was because they had more invested in Eiley and I. Without the two of us ever even opening our mouths, everyone inside Sin City had labeled us the second coming of Kris and Mikah. We had the same outlook. Eiley and I have a similar dynamic. Something about it just clicks, and even if the two of them hadn’t been the ones to train us, people were going to make the connection.

For better or worse, our actions were always going to reflect on them. The problem with that, is that whether they were called The Black Sheep, Reckless Elite, Mikah and Kris, or Kris and Mikah, they never lost. They never set a goal that they didn’t accomplish. They never stepped into a championship match that they didn’t win. Neither of the two of them were pinned or submitted as a team, or as individuals after they joined forces. They were unstoppable. Now that we were connected to them, we had to be unstoppable. Anything less than perfection was failure, and I think that idea scared the two of them just as much as it did Eiley and I.

None of us asked for this, but it was done already. There was no going back, so we needed to make the best of it. There was no way that they were going to let us drift away like they did Court. They didn’t have the same margin of error with Limitless as they had with Ruby Steele, or Jaycee. We could rest assured that if anyone at either of the two gyms was going to get the short end of the stick because of their new child, it wasn’t going to be us. Somedays that was a gift, and other days it was a curse. I thought it was supposed to get easier after you had proven yourself, but I had never been pushed harder than I had been since winning the Mixed Tag Team Championships. Kris was obsessed with making sure that we were a lot more than paper champions that were just there to open the division.

OZ: I am surprised that you were able to pry yourself away from that baby long enough to put in almost a whole day here.

Everyone was following along with the life of the newest member of Jet City. Mikah was making sure of that. There wasn’t a day that went by that everyone wasn’t getting way more information than any of us asked for. The way that she told it, Kris hadn’t put the baby down since the moment she was born. Yet, we had killed the majority of the day going through every possible situation that The Barnharts might use to try and trap Eiley and I. Kris dismissed my concerns with a shrug, without seeming to consider them.

KRIS: It’s Mikah’s shift. I guess technically I am supposed to be sleeping, but that is overrated.

From what I had pieced together, the two had been more or less working on opposite schedules to cover all of the hours of the day with all of their various children. The whole situation seemed overwhelming to me. I can barely take care of myself. I don’t even want to try wrapping my head around what it takes to run two businesses with a handful of kids to worry about.

OZ: That’s how you burn yourself out and get back into trouble…

I hadn’t ever seen it myself, but I had heard enough of the stories. They were enough to make me think that if anyone should be babysitting Jaycee, it should definitely be Kris. He would understand all of the things Jaycee was going through much better than me, Court, or Eiley. Kris had already gone through all of those trials and came out the other side.

KRIS: Not a thing. I don’t just have myself to think about anymore. There’s Mikah. There’s all of the kids. There’s two gyms full of people that require me to lead by example. I don’t have the time to figure out how to fuck it all up. It’s probably better that way.

It sounded more like a solid recipe for having stress kill him young, but that wasn’t an argument I could make. Between all of the relapses, and then getting shot, Kris already felt like he was living his life in some sort of overtime. Since he technically shouldn’t be alive, he was determined to make the most out of every day. He made sure to tell anyone that would listen how big of a wake up call that had been for him personally and professionally. I guess I couldn’t complain since I had been a beneficiary of his new outlook. Five years ago I probably would have gotten forgotten about and flamed out like Kyle Kavanagh and Aaron Isaacs.

OZ: Still, if you don’t take it easy sometimes eventually you’re just going to pass out for a few days while your body catches up. You’re getting old.

Kris brushed both of those two thoughts off instantaneously, even if it was some of the most useful advice I had ever given. It wasn’t the first time he had heard it, and he had blown it off when it had come from people he respected much more than me.

KRIS: Everyone wishes I was getting old! It would make everything so much easier for them around the gym. People are just waiting for me to take a day off so that they can take a day off, and I am not falling for it.

He was going to be determined to turn it into a game whether any of the rest of us were playing or not.

OZ: You took all kinds of days off on your way to the top, and still made it to the Hall of Fame. I think it’s fine that some of us need a breather here and there.

He did his best to try and look offended, even though there was no way that he could argue with my logic. This guy did disappearing acts for months at a time, where nobody would hear from him. And that was before he got shot and pulled that trick for an entire year.

KRIS: I agree. Some people need the time away for balance. I didn’t though. My time away got me unbalanced. I accomplished so much, but screwed myself out of a whole lot of time on the way there. I could have had another whole Hall of Fame career with the time that I missed. That’s why even though everyone knows I am good, I won’t ever be the best.

I knew that there were some that probably disagreed, but I couldn’t. Since I wasn’t going to toss him a fake compliment either, the least I could do was try and soften the blow.

OZ: ”The Best” is kind of an impossible goal, right? I mean it can only ever be one person. Feels like setting yourself up for disappointment.

He shook his head.

KRIS: Nah. I could have been. I honestly believe that. I just didn’t think it would be worth the effort when it seemed like I could just kind of slide into the Hall of Fame while half-assing it. I didn’t realize what could have been until it was too late.

It was strange to see him admit where he had fallen short when he was always so full of confidence in front of a camera or a crowd. He had always given the impression that he was incredibly sure of himself, but the more time I spent in the gym with him, the more I realized that wasn’t actually who he was.

OZ: Well not everyone is going to be as good as you are half-assing it either.

I expected him to discard the compliment just like he had everything else I said, but instead he turned it back on me immediately.

KRIS: You are. Especially when you’re actually invested.

It was the same kind of thing that I had heard my entire life though. People liked to see more in me than is actually there. I never really bought into my “untapped potential” because it always felt like just a way to trap me into something when he became boring. I am in this line of work because it is fun. When it isn’t fun anymore, then it isn’t for me anymore. Anyone reading further into it than that wasn’t reading out of my book.

OZ: I think everyone saying that I am just like you is starting to go to your head. Just because you would have gone to the very top if you were focused doesn’t mean I will. I don’t even know if I am going to put in all the years that have been active. It all just seems like too much to ask. Especially when I have a whole lot of life left to live. This is a blast right now, and it brought Eiley back into my life. So far it is a win-win. That could turn any day though.

The way that he smiled, I knew that he could relate to everything that had just come out of my mouth. I hadn’t done anything to convince him that we weren’t alike. If anything, it looked like I had simple reinforced his point.

KRIS: I spent a lot of time waiting around for all of this to end. I was certain that SCW or Jet City would burn down by now. I never really made any plans for what would happen if it didn’t. Now I know that was a huge waste of time.

He paused, probably just to make sure that I was actually paying attention and not just writing him off as he was speaking.

KRIS: Don’t waste your time.

I couldn’t help but feel like all of this would have been better for Jaycee to hear. The guy had been struggling, and making an ass out of himself, for the majority of the summer. Maybe if he were the audience for this little pep talk, it wouldn’t have to fall on deaf ears.

OZ: Hey! I am not the one that needs to be hearing that message. You have another Jet City alumni really fucking up his life right now. Go give him a speech!

He shrugged again, and had only a single word in response.

KRIS: Can’t.

He didn’t even make an attempt to explain himself, but I wasn’t just going to leave it at that. Why was I worth all the effort, but Jaycee wasn’t? I get that the two of them had their own history before I got involved, but it really felt like Kris was just actively ignoring a bad situation.

OZ: Can’t or won’t?

He shrugged again, but this time it was actually irritating to see.

KRIS: Can’t. He’s in rehab. I am pretty much banned from all of those that are worth going to on the west coast. My brother used to think that if he could just send me to the right one, they would be able to get through to me.

I was confused. At first it seemed like Kris wasn’t going to help him. Now he sounded like he had helped him, but maybe only superficially. I didn’t understand how he could make it sound like a positive when it hadn’t worked for him.

OZ: So you’re saying that it won’t help?

He shook his head, but I wasn’t sure how I could have gotten it wrong.

KRIS: I am saying that for it to help, you actually have to want to live. That was my problem. That’s not the case for Jaycee. All he did was lose his way but he’ll find it again. He just needed one of those breathers you were talking about earlier.

After watching some of his promos, it seemed like Jaycee needed a lot more than a breather. He was homeless, likely hooked on a handful of substances, and on an embarrassing losing streak that made all of us look bad. If he wasn’t a friend, I would have been advocating for us to cut ties with him. Then again, I really wasn’t the person to make that kind of suggestion either given how much trouble I had already caused.

OZ: You make it sound like it’s not that big of a deal.

For once, it looked like I had gotten something right because he stopped shaking his head at me.

KRIS: That’s because as you have already pointed out, I lost a whole lot of time in my career by making stupid decisions, and I still made it to the Hall of Fame. Jaycee’s missteps haven’t cost him anything yet. There’s still plenty of time for him to turn it around, and he’ll be better for it.

It all sounded a little too good to be true. In my experience, things never worked out that perfectly.

OZ: Overconfident much?

He shook his head at me again. There was something that I just wasn’t grasping and it felt like he was starting to get annoyed by trying to find the right words to explain himself.

KRIS: Again, I’ve lived it. If I can do it, anyone can, because I am just a guy. I am not the biggest, fastest, strongest, or smartest, and you have seen what I have done, and what I have built. Jaycee has gifts that I wasn’t given that give him a head start. I’m not worried.

Maybe that explained why Kris had taken a backseat to all of Jaycee’s issues, but it didn’t explain why Limitless had gotten pushed harder than anyone else at Jet City.

OZ: ...but based on all of this attention Eiley and I get from you and Mikah you are worried about us?

I was hoping that he was going to tell me that I was wrong as I had been about almost everything else, but he smirked at me with a nod.

KRIS: Correct.

Now I was the one that was annoyed. I hadn’t done anything bad enough to need someone looking over my shoulder all the time. I showed up and kicked ass everyday, and took being on the road with Sin City relatively seriously. I hadn’t missed a flight, let alone any of my commitments to the gym or SCW.

OZ: I don’t see how that math adds up…

Kris shrugged, and turned away from me with a laugh.

KRIS: Did I ever tell you about the time that I thought I was untouchable, only for Bill Barnhart to squash me in a match?

He started to head back towards the ring, a clear indication that our short rest period was over and it was time to get back to work. There was no way that he expected me to believe him though.

OZ: That didn’t happen…

He didn’t stop to laugh at me for being gullible, nor did he make any attempt to take his words back. He didn’t even break stride, causing me to have to jog in an attempt to catch up to him.

OZ: Wait… did that happen?!

Kris took two running steps and then slid into the ring at the center of Mikah’s gym. He tossed his towel away and motioned for me to get back into the ring without explaining the circumstances of how one of the least successful men in Sin City managed to beat him.

OZ: You can’t just leave me hanging!

He shrugged his shoulders and motioned for me to get back into the ring once more. I hopped up on the apron, but paused hoping that he would at least give me some kind of context.

KRIS: If you want that story, you’ll have to come earn it.

There was a chance that he was just making it up to keep me on my toes, but I couldn’t hide the fact that I was interested. If I had to go beat it out of him, so be it. After all, he was getting old.



==========================================================
>Lesson Learned

==========================================================


”As much as it pains me to admit it, at the beginning of this week, The Barnharts had a real chance of stealing this match from Eiley and I.”

”I know that sounds a lot like a setup for a hysterical punchline, but I actually mean that. That is the one hundred percent truth about it. It may not have lasted long, and they definitely don’t have a chance anymore, but for a few fleeting moments, there was a shot. Although, I can’t give them any credit for it. Just like they didn’t do anything to cost themselves their shot at victory, they didn’t do anything to give themselves the edge either.”

”The problem, like most of them that plague Limitless, was entirely my fault. You people were already a witness to it too. From the moment that this match was announced, I have been mocking these two. They are the married couple that nobody is afraid of in the Mixed Tag Team division. They are one of the only teams that has been around from the beginning of the division. They have faced just about every up-and-coming team, and have gotten smacked around by each and every one of them. I figured that it was about time for Eiley and I to get the chance to lay one of them out for a three count. It seemed like a sort rite of passage in Sin City.”

”...and because of that, I started the week thinking that I might just hang out on the beach the whole time. I thought that I could let myself go a little, and drink myself into a stupor until about halfway through Saturday when I would need to get myself moving for Sunday. The way that I saw it, the result at Climax Control was already guaranteed based on the history of The Barnharts in this company. Everyone knows that the champions are going to walk out with their hands raised. Bill and Bea are going to over-promise and under-deliver the way that they always have. Everything was on track to be as it should be….”

”...but I didn’t take the week off. I wanted to. I tried to. I thought it was the perfect time for Eiley and I to slip away for a mini-vacation being that our trainers just pushed out another child into the world. I figured that nobody would even notice that we weren’t around until it was time for Climax Control anyways. I was wrong, and my assumptions didn’t  stop the phone from ringing. It didn’t stop the notifications from coming nonstop until I finally responded. See, I might have wanted to slide through the week stress free, but apparently that is not what we do at Jet City.”

”When I saw The Barnharts across from Limitless on the card for Climax Control, I laughed. When Kris Ryans saw it, he called me, and then he called me again, and again until I finally answered. He brought Eiley and I down to Hawaii, and he and Mikah have been taking turns putting us through every possible problem that we are going to have with The Barnharts. At first, I was pissed. It was insulting. Eiley and I have yet to lose as a team. We are the goddamn Mixed Tag Team Champions! It felt like they thought that somehow we couldn’t add up to this team that everyone else treats like a joke. It felt like they had more respect for these two than they did their own students. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it.”

”.....but that was just because I haven’t been around long enough to understand what all of you watching at home already know….”

”Since the Barnharts have been around forever, I never really looked into them. I never knew that once upon a time, Bill was more of an individual competitor than a member of a team. I thought that they just showed up together and spent their careers being in the bottom third of this division. Once again, I was wrong. Because years ago, Bill Barnhart used to spend a lot of time competing on his own, and even though that record isn’t particularly impressive, there was one night that sent shockwaves through both SCW and Jet City.”

”Kris, fresh out of one of his several stints in rehab, and finally wanting to make good on all of the promises that he had made to the fans, was working his way back into ring shape. He convinced Mark and Christian to give him another chance, but they weren’t necessarily sold. They gave him a match to test and see where he was at. That match was with Bill Barnhart. As you guys can imagine, Kris had the same kind of attitude about it that I did at the beginning of this week. He was talking about mopping the floor with his opponent. He slacked off thinking that the victory was in the bag. For that matter, once he walked out with the win, he figured his spot in the company was back on solid footing. Kris kicked back. He enjoyed himself heading into that random Climax Control match. There weren’t any titles on the line. It wasn’t a main event. It was just a regular night where he had to show up, and beat a very beatable opponent.”

”Only… he didn’t.”

”Kris went out to the ring and Bill Barnhart beat the shit out of him. Bill proved to everyone in the audience, and everyone backstage that Kris wasn’t back and better than ever. He wasn’t showing back up to the save that day with a new attitude. Bill derailed Kris his first night back on the job because that one random match proved that Kris was still all-talk. If Mark and Christian didn’t have a soft spot for him, that might have been his last night on the roster.”

”...and at that point, Kris had already had that gnarly Roulette Championship run. He had already busted his ass to win the SCW World Heavyweight Championship once. He had main evented supercards, not just Climax Control. Yet, it all could have been over because he was overconfident when he walked down the aisle. He didn’t put in the work, and he got his ass handed to him by the man that I am about to step into the ring with. People always ask me if it actually pays off to deal with all of the ups and downs at Jet City. Usually I try to avoid answering that question during the bad weeks. This week? This week it was worth everything that I have put into it, and then some. This week being a part of this gym gave me the wakeup call that I needed before I went out and fell on my face in front of thousands of people. This week being part of Jet City taught me that no matter who you are stepping into the ring with, you treat it like they are a generational talent. If you prepare for your opponents like they are a first ballot Hall of Famer, you’ll never be surprised out there.”

”That was the lesson that I learned this week, even though I am not sure I would have even considered it otherwise until it was too late. I have not main evented supercards. I have not risen to the top of this company. I am a rookie Mixed Tag Team Champion, so I can’t afford to make any mistakes in that ring.”

”History won’t be repeating itself, Bill.”

”This week you and your wife will see how truly Limitless the Mixed Tag Team Champions have become.”


6
Climax Control Archives / Really Real Talk
« on: September 29, 2023, 11:44:05 PM »
==========================================================
>Real Talk
==========================================================


The scene opens with Jaycee sitting in a chair in the center of the room. The lighting is dim, but not low enough that the viewers can’t see the dire state of everything around him. Countless empty bottles line just about every single surface. The bed behind him looks to be standing on only three posts, and is so droopy on one side that there is no way that it was comfortable to sleep on. Jaycee was just as disheveled as everything around him. His beard had started to grow unevenly, likely from an attempt to trim it that he only got halfway through before losing interest. The Jet City shirt that he was wearing was so wrinkled that it looked like he had picked it off the top of a pile on the floor before throwing it on. For those that were hoping that he may have turned a corner after hearing what Ben Jordan had to say about him, it was a disappointing sight. After taking a deep breath, and letting it out slowly, Jaycee’s eyes opened and it looked directly into the lens of the camera propped up in front of him.

”It’s not like I don’t hear what you people are saying…”

There wasn’t any hint of the confidence that had made him one of the most impressive additions to Sin City last year. His voice breaks halfway through the sentence; a sure sign of the abuse he has put it through in the last months. He had gotten his wish to be brought back on television following his appearance at Summer XXXtreme, and because of that, his downward spiral had been streamed out for the whole world to see.

”It’s not like I don’t want to be the guy that you all want me to be.”

The statement would probably be a whole lot more believable if it sounded like even Jaycee thought it was the truth.

”Everyone makes it sound so easy, ya know? It sounds like it should be, right? I mean all I gotta do is show up to Jet City during the week and put the work in ahead of time. It is not like that shit is hard. They got like ten trainers there, and all of them have been successful in this business. There is always some class going on. There is always something new to learn that some old timer is down there trying to pass on to the next generation. I mean I am only ever one text away from being inside a state-of-the-art gym with some of the best to ever step into a ring. How many people can say that they have that at their fingertips? How much easier do I have it than people without the means to get their foot in the door?”

He gets lost in that thought for a second, and makes a mental note to add that to the list of things that he had fucked up lately. That is, assuming that he was able to retain that thought for more than just a few fleeting moments. Confusion sets in, and he looks around the room trying to remember what he was doing. Once his eyes find the camera again, he snaps out of it and continues.

”...and I gotta read up on my opponents, and get to know them a little bit inside the ring. That’s easy enough because the whole Sin City back catalog is online. I mean that is probably the easiest part of all of this. It’s really just about being a fan. All of you people watching have probably watched and rewatched all of the best SCW shows. You could tell me when J2H first stepped into the ring without having to look it up. You can remember the rise to prominence, just like I can.”

His eyes wander, and he seems to forget what his original point was. He opens and closes his mouth wordless a few times before what he was trying to say finally comes back to him.

”...then it’s just about putting those two things together. You do the work. You scout your opponent. Then you marry those two things. You bring them together. That gives you a gameplan once the bell rings. I know what I can do. I know what my opponent wants to do. All you gotta do is show up and follow the plan, ya know? Day-after-day, just show up and do what you learned. Show everyone how well practiced you are. Find something witty to say ahead of time that makes your opponent take their eyes off the prize. When you think about it, all of this shit should just kind of snap into place, right? On paper, it feels like real simple shit….”

He laughs, but simultaneously viewers can see that his eyes get incredibly glassy. He squeezes them closed and wipes at them with a hand while shaking his head.

”Life ain’t on paper though, ya know? Everyone likes to put on a brave face and act like this is the absolute only shit that matters and sometimes that ain’t it. Sometimes you try to show up on time, and the world conspires against you. Somedays you want to get up and do the work, and can’t drag yourself out of the house. Sometimes all of the other shit is just a little bit too loud, and you seek out something to turn down the noise. One becomes two. Two becomes ten. Ten becomes something else entirely.”

Jaycee appears to have gotten far off of his original point, but he was on too much of a roll to stop now. He had done everything he could to try and push through it in front of the cameras in the last few months, but now that he was letting the truth out, he couldn’t stop himself.

”....and the noise never gets any quieter, ya know? It just kind of becomes more intense. And then it’s not just the noise, it’s all the lights. It’s all the people. It’s all of the expectations of greatness, and zero excuse for anything perceived as failure. Everything, everywhere, all at once, and you just kind of drown in it no matter what you do. You can’t make it quiet enough to function anymore, so you just don’t function. Sure it might be peaceful at the time, but where does it get you? Where did it get me?”

He looks around the room, and it seems like he sees it for the mess that it is for the first time. For a moment, he actually seems embarrassed to have brought the world into it with him, but he shoves that feeling away with the others.

”You people think I want it to be like this? You think I don’t know how easy it sounds to get it all turned around? I do, and I know that it is on me to fix it. I know that people think that I just need to pick myself up, put one foot in front of the other, and get back on track. Everyone at Jet City has had my back no matter how many reasons I give them to cut me loose. Everyone at Sin City keeps throwing me high-profile opportunity after opportunity and hoping that I summon the strength to reach out and grab one of them. Even the guys in the locker room have tried to do what they can to make sure that I don’t become another wrestling horror story.”

He shrugs his shoulders, truly defeated.

”It always sounds so good. It sounds so fucking easy. I come away from those conversations feeling like I have a real grip on how to move forward with my life and my career, and then I end up back here anyways. It’s not always immediate. It’s not like I make every wrong decision when presented with a fork in the road. I can make the right choices nine times out of ten, but that tenth one always lands me back in the rut. I can string together a handful of good days, but it always collapses back into the reality of life. This shit isn’t paper. Not every problem just goes away because you’re aware of its existence.”

Frustrated with himself, he turns away from the camera. When he can’t shake the rage building up inside of himself, he kicks at the table behind him, which starts a chain reaction. All of the empty bottles on the table topple. Some shatter when they hit the floor, others fall into separate piles and domino through other piles. The symphony of shattered glass around him makes Jaycee raise both of his hands up to cover his ears. He lets out a scream that deafens the sounds around him for a second and then stands from the chair before flipping it into the wall and starting the same problem all over again. Even as the room falls apart around him, he turns his rage on the camera.

”I can’t just turn this shit off because the phone rings and my name is on the card. I can’t just pretend that my life outside of Sin City isn’t falling apart around me. I don’t ask for pity, because I know that all of this is my own doing. I don’t quit because I don’t know what would happen to me if I didn’t have to be at Climax Control on Sundays. I don’t want to give it up, because for as long as I can remember this has been the thing that I wanted most in the world. I wanted to be in the ring. I wanted to be in the spotlights. I wanted to be in front of a screaming audience. I wanted the lights. I wanted the noise. I wanted the surge of adrenaline that people talk about when you step through the curtain and it is time to fight. I got into this business to be that guy. I got trained by people who could mold me into that guy. And I just…”

He lets out a big breath, and his shoulders slump when he exhales.

”....I don’t know what happened. I don’t know where it went wrong. I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t even know if it is something that can be fixed. Life doesn’t play out the way that things say that they should on paper. I can’t just magically be a different guy because I have an opponent to demean during the week, or a fight to survive on the weekend. If I could be that for all of you, I promise that I would be. If I could snap my fingers and make that happen, I would have done it weeks ago. But instead, every time I try to pick myself up, it seems like all I can do is take bigger steps backwards. I don’t blame anyone but myself. I won’t ever make excuses. I know that I am inching closer and closer to the day where Mark and Christian call me and tell me to stop showing up, and I know that I will have been my own undoing.”

He shrugs his shoulders again, but this time it seems like the thought has irritated him.

”Maybe that’s what I need, ya know? No matter how many matches I lose, or how many events I fail to show up at, I still have a job. I go out to the ring and choke on an almost weekly basis, but the checks keep clearing. I dread every single Climax Control like it is a nightmare, but at the end of the day, I am still able to live my dream. This place might be gross and falling apart, but I still have a roof over my head. I might not be able to take any steps forward, but I know exactly what I have been doing to hold myself back. What is that thing that people always say? Knowing the problem is half the battle or some shit? I guess I am halfway to figuring shit out.”

He gives no indication that he actually believes that is the case though. If anything, he was trying to use sarcasm to distance himself from everything he had spewed to the audience. The brief explosion of anger had shaken some of the cobwebs out of his mind, and he started to remember what the camera was actually there for.

”...and I guess that Michael Harris is the only guy that hasn’t been paying attention to the last few months. This guy actually picked me to be J2H’s opponent in this Beat the Clock challenge. Seems awfully fucking counter-productive if you ask me. Seems to me like he is trying to hand J2H the victory in their little proxy battle. Instead of picking someone on a roll, or someone that the biggest dickhead in wrestling might actually be afraid of, he picked me. He picked a guy that everyone has beaten lately. Shouldn’t he want me to keep J2H busy? Shouldn’t he have picked someone that might have had a chance of pulling an upset? For someone that thinks so highly of themselves, he really seems to have fucked this one up.”

”I am sure the bosses had a good laugh about it. I mean, they have no problem booking me in a match that I am supposed to lose. It makes good business sense for them. I am going to be sharing the ring with one of the greatest competitors in company history, and they didn’t set the bar at winning or losing. They set the bar much lower than that. All I have to do is go out and last longer than the other guy. All I have to do is keep J2H busy long enough that he doesn’t get his prize at the end of the night. Mark and Christian get to call their shot. They get to tell everyone in the arena that I am being sent out to slaughter, and the only question is how fast it’ll happen. Nobody is expecting any surprises and nobody goes home disappointed.”

”I want to be able to tell you that they are wrong. I want to tell you that I am insulted by the way they have put together this match, but the truth is, this is more than I deserve. I still get the opportunity to pull myself together, and give the best shot that I can muster up against one of the best to do it. They are honestly doing me a favor by marketing this match as a loss before it has ever begun. It’s going to take a lot of the sting out of J2H telling me what a piece of shit that I am. Come to think about it, it might actually take a lot of sting out of J2H himself. As big of a cock as that guy is, he has too much to do with his time than spend it beating a dead horse, and everyone knows that he has a very different perspective than Ben Jordan.”

”...but I know what is waiting for me down in the ring, I promise. I know that when I make a mistake, J2H is going to make me pay for it. I know that he is going to try and prove a point at my expense. I know that he is going to do everything that he can to take the last little bit of my dream away from me if he doesn’t think that I am worth the money that is being spent on rostering me. See, love him or hate him, the guy feels about this business the same way that you people do. That is why someone that started off as a joke goes off and busts their ass until they make everyone in the world eat their words. He wanted to rise up and prove everyone was wrong about him, and eventually he did it. We all hated him every step of the way, and he mostly cheated in order to make it happen, but the guy is in the Hall of Fame. The guy has sent records.”

”...and he said that this match is going to get real ugly, really fast, if he doesn’t see that same thing in me. Last year I would have said that it was. Hell, even this year when I was gearing up for a return I really thought that this was going to be my year. I don’t really know where it got off track. If I could retrace my path and take a different one, I’d make sure to do things the right way. Unfortunately the path behind me is just as unclear as the one in front of me. I can’t figure my way back to normal any more than I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am firmly planted exactly in this one place, and it almost feels like I am too paralyzed by the thought of moving in either directions that I just stay here.”

”...and maybe that is all that I need to do. I just need to stay planted right here, and keep J2H here with me for as long as possible. I need to make sure that I slow things all the way down. I need to stay out of harm’s way, and dodge his best shots because he isn’t really competing against me. Nor should he be, because right now I am not what anyone would call his ‘competition’ in this business. J2H is coming down to the ring to compete against a clock.”

”All I have to do is make sure that his time runs out before mine does.”

”Real talk.”


7
Climax Control Archives / Limitless: Home Field Advantage
« on: September 15, 2023, 10:20:19 PM »
==========================================================
>
===========================================================



Greatest Challengers
San Diego, California  - Jet City South
12th SEPTEMBER 2023
OFF-Camera

The two of them had been going all day. Kris had broken down Jet City into three teams. Coby was paired with his sister Keisha, Kendall with JD, and Kris teamed up with Court. Whenever there was a pinfall, or a submission, the teams switched. Eiley and Oz stayed in the ring. At the beginning of the day, the champions were pulling away. Several of the early wins had been luck. Keisha and Coby each took a little while to knock the rust off. Kris and Court didn’t function particularly well as a team because of the ego they each brought into it. Kendall and JD were the most evenly matched with the champions in terms of size, strength, height and weight, but the married couple couldn’t keep up with Limitless, at least not at first. As the champions started to wear out, and the other teams got used to one another, the losses started to pile up. Kris and Court started functioning like a well-oiled machine after a few tries, and had been nearly unstoppable every single time that they had stepped up to the plate since. The experience divide was too much to overcome as exhaustion started to set in. Of course, it gave Limitless additional satisfaction that despite the bad run they had been on in the late afternoon they were still currently up two falls on the rest of the teams.

OZ: You six should be ashamed. You get to take breaks.

Despite the fact that he was barely able to push himself off of the canvas and back to his feet, he was still talking shit. He knew that after this much time it didn’t really matter if the other teams were getting a little time to catch their breath in between falls. Everyone was struggling, and running on mostly instinct, which was exactly what Kris had wanted.

EILEY: You couldn’t even catch up to us and you had all day!

Eiley was leaning against the ropes for support, and trying to figure out which of the teams was going to step up next. The order had been random in order to stop the champions from creating any kind of strategy, so any of them could jump into the ring at a moment’s notice.

COBY: You two should be up by way more than just a couple. Nobody but Court has actually competed in over a year.

Keisha looked a little worse for wear, as she had mostly been used in the offices handling all of the various sponsorships that Jet City had. She hadn’t been in a ring since she helped Court get ready for her first Blast from the Past tournament.

JD: In my defense, it has been a lot longer than that for me…

It was a similar story for JD. He had been around Jet City as a trainer for a long time, but his last job inside the ring was as a referee, not a competitor. He shouldn’t have posed a threat to the champions regardless of how tired they were.

OZ: No. Fuck that. I’m calling it. You guys have had all day to catch up and can’t do it. You lose. We win.

Kendall and Coby had been the wildcards on their teams, and honestly would have pulled out a few more victories had they been paired together. However, if Kris had done that then the champions wouldn’t have made it this far. They would have gotten in a hole early that they wouldn’t have been able to climb out of once the exhaustion hit.

KRIS: Sounds like you’re afraid. You’re only trying to call it off because you know that you’re not winning another one for the rest of the day. You can barely get up. Eiley isn’t going to be able to carry you either.

It was obvious that Kris and Court were on a different level than all of the rest of them. Despite the fact that Kris had been shot and was unable to do much of anything for most of the past year, he was still holding his own. Court appeared to be barely winded, which was to be expected by someone that had been working with Oz and Eiley closely for the last few months.

COURT: I say we go one more, winner take all.

The ego that had been an early pitfall for the Bombshell Champion and the Hall of Famer, was running unchecked now that they were on the same page. They knew that they had the champions’ number now, and there was nothing that the rookies could do about it. Oz wasn’t just going to hand them the victory though. He was more than happy to go down swinging, because he was going to have to listen to them run their mouths about it either way.

OZ: Alright! Fine! We’re up two, and you want to take a shortcut. I get it. You’re old and can’t go all day like we can anymore. Step on up.

All three teams gathered themselves in front of the champions, and both Kris and Court hopped up on the apron like they were going to step in. Oz wasn’t going to let them step into the ring cleanly. He stepped up to block their path, but Eiley felt like it was a ruse.

EILEY: Olly you shou--

He cut her off, not giving her a chance to talk him out of standing his ground against the two dictators of Jet City South.

OZ: No! It’s cool. Let’s go!

Kris flinched like he was going to get into the ring which made Oz nearly jump out of his shoes. When the Hall of Famer laughed at him, Oz’s face turned red, but before he could raise a fist, Kris shook his head. His six year old daughter was ascending the turnbuckle from the opposite side of the ring while his son was just waiting for his opportunity to strike.

KRIS: You should keep your eyes on your opponents….

It was what Eiley had been trying to warn him about in the first place. Kris points to the corner over Oz’s shoulder, which causes the champion to spin around to be on his guard. He is confused at first because all six of his opponents for the day had been lined up in front of him. However, when he turned, it was Kris’ six year old daughter on the top rope. She leapt off and planted both of her feet into his chest. KJ slid into the ring from the outside, and got down on all fours behind Oz’s legs. The Mixed Tag Team Champion may have been able to stay on his feet if he had the chance to take a step back and really get planted, but instead Lindsay rode him into the mat like a surfboard, driving all of the air out of his lungs. In a flash, KJ was on his feet, and both he and his sister piled onto the champion. Eiley tried to slide in and push the children off, but Court grabbed her by the foot. Kris slid into the ring and made the world’s fastest count before the children got up to celebrate their latest wins over the champions. The duo scooped up the Mixed Tag Team Championships and took off while Eiley and Oz were both too tired to make a move to go after them.

OZ: One of these days we’re going to see that coming…

Eiley crawled across the ring after Court released her leg, and then flopped herself onto her back next to him. She wanted to laugh, but didn’t have the energy to actually do so.

EILEY: You have to admit, they’re actually getting good.

The two of them probably had a career waiting for them the moment that they were of age to do so, but that wasn’t the point. Struggling to catch his breath, Oz looks over at his partner with his eyes wide.

OZ: ...and where were you?

This time the laughter comes easily. As far as she was concerned, they won the day. The kids were just having fun at their expense, and there was nothing wrong with that. It was the type of childhood that neither of them got to have, and she was happy that she got to be a small part of that. It felt like she was making the world a slightly better place, even if just on the smallest scale. Still, she wasn’t going to be blamed for him falling for it once again. All three times the children had taken advantage of them, they had pinned Oz.

EILEY: Oh, this is my fault now? They’re children! If you can’t kick out of that how are you going to handle Tempest sitting on you?

Instead of looking at that as a negative, Oz actually looked relieved by the thought. It was one of the few positive outcomes that had crossed his mind, with another being the fact that Austin could snap and get himself disqualified at literally any time. Oz knew that, because he had lived through it once already. This time it would be worth it though. Being brutalized but keeping his championship wasn’t the worst way to end the night.

OZ: I’d be good with that. She’d totally get disqualified and we win without having to actually win. It’s almost the best case scenario.

The shock on Eiley’s face more than proved to him that she wasn’t even considering that as an option.

EILEY: I don’t think that any of the fans would see it that way.

And now it was Oz’s turn to be surprised. Since the day that the two of them met they hadn’t really cared about the nameless and faceless people that they didn’t know. Back when they had nothing and were living on the streets of this city, they paid no mind to the people that they would take from. In their adult lives, their schemes had gotten a little more advanced, but the same rule applied. Take whatever you can, from whomever you can, and give nothing back. Their entire friendship had been built on having each other’s back regardless of who got left on the short end of the stick.

OZ: Since when do we care about any of that?

It was something that Eiley had been thinking about since she saw this date announced for Climax Control. There was something about San Diego that always stuck out for her. Sure, Oz had relocated more than half of the world away. She had run far away to Hawaii in an attempt to forget about the things that happened here. However, since being part of Jet City for a short time, she came to see it as a positive; or at least it had the potential to be.

EILEY: Normally? Never. It’s not really something that is on my radar. But, this is home for Jet City. I wouldn’t be surprised if they loved us despite the fact that we don’t care.

As much as the idea had baffled him originally, it didn’t actually sound like a bad idea when she phrased it like that. It’s not like it would be a permanent change for the two of them. It would be somewhat of a surprise for their opponents to have a crowd get firmly behind the champions when they had been booed out of literally every venue. Any kind of change that people aren’t ready for is a disadvantage, especially if it is the crowd. They had a way of making any environment feel inhospitable, and there was no way to block that out when you are in the ring.

OZ: It might be fun to actually care for a week.

Eiley nodded her head. Maybe it was just the fact that they were both exhausted, but the conversation was going much more smoothly than she had anticipated. Oz was usually the one with the big plans, and she simply followed them. He wasn’t one for doing something unless he could take credit for it, but he was actually listening for once.

EILEY: Austin and Tempest are easy for a crowd to hate. It could be a really big advantage for us this week though. Jet City fans could tear the roof off that place and make it really uncomfortable for anyone trying to make us look bad in our own house.

He couldn’t find a fault in her logic, assuming that people would actually show up to support them. Of course, that remained to be seen, but with Kris throwing a huge party at Jet City on Friday, it was certainly possible.

OZ: I like it. Why fight two-on-two when we can go out there and convince 17,000 people to join our team?

She shrugged her shoulders, and made sure to reinforce the idea that it wasn’t something that would work every single week. However, they wouldn’t be facing Tempest and Austin or defending their championship every single week either. It was this week, and this Climax Control where they had this problem, and this was the simplest solution to gain an edge that their opponents may not have planned for.

EILEY: Sounds like it would be hard to maintain week after week, but it could be fun for a one-off, and we probably won’t get a chance like this again for a while.

Oz’s wheels were already turning though. If they were going to do this, they couldn’t just wait for Sunday to roll around and cross their fingers that it was all going to work out. They were going to have to do something big before the weekend if they really wanted to rile up the fan base.

OZ: In that case, I have some ideas. It might be a little bit over the top though.

Eiley’s eyes lit up. It wasn’t just that he was buying into one of her suggestions for once, but the way that he did it. The mere suggestion of putting on the facade for a week had energized him in a way that she took pride in. They needed to ride that wave if they were going to survive and keep their championships.

EILEY: Nonsense! The bigger the better.

Oz sat up, and looked in the direction that the kids ran off to before turning back to his partner with a devilish smirk on his face. He would need time to work out the finer details anyways, but they had a more pressing problem. There was no way that the champions were going to be able to do anything without the Mixed Tag Team Championships. They had goblins to go hunt down.

OZ: Unfortunately we have to beat up some children and get our titles back first.



==========================================================
>Home Field Advantage

==========================================================


The video opens with the sounds of cheers filling the speakers before there is any movement on the screen. As the camera pulls back, we can see a crowd of people with their phones out, ready to snap a picture of the hometown favorites for this week’s Climax Control. The camera continues to pull out, showing the massive crowd that has formed on the outside of the newly redesigned Jet City South. They had taken up all of the space in the parking lot, and even spilled out over into the street, with several holding up signs that would likely make appearances at Climax Control in a few days. The crowd isn’t centered at the front of the building, but at a corner balcony raised only four or five feet off of the ground. It was enough to separate the masses from being able to climb up, but not so high that the people up front couldn’t see what was happening. The double doors leading into the building from the balcony open up, and the camera closes in, cutting more of the crowd out of the frame in the process. Even though they can no longer be seen, the fans can definitely be heard, as they explode with cheers when the Sin City Wrestling Mixed Tag Team Champions step out and hold their titles high in the air.

”Let’s hear it, Jet City!!!”

The already raucous crowd gets even more unyielding as Oz does his best to hype them up. Oz walks all the way to the edge, and reaches out to the nearby fans as Eiley lowers her championship belt down onto her shoulder.

”That’s what I like to hear! You people wouldn’t believe how much hate we get absolutely everywhere else in the world. It’s good to know that the people right here in San Diego know our value. Eiley and I grew up right here. We trained right here. And now we brought the Mixed Tag Team Championships right here where they have always belonged. These championships never should have left Jet City in the first place. They were retired in our honor, and if they were going to be defended in a ring once again, they would be doing so around our waists. These belts belong to this gym, and they belong to each and every one of you that showed up for us!”

He gestures to the passionate flock of fans around him. Most of them are wearing merchandise associated with one of the stars that Jet City produced. However, the orange and turquoise color scheme in the audience is more than enough to prove that the majority of the crowd is probably actually there for an appearance from Kris and Mikah instead of Limitless.

”No King for a Day is going to be able to take these away from us; not here. He’s not going to be able to come down to our city, in front of our people, and weather the storm necessary to walk out with our Mixed Tag Team Championships. I don’t care how dominant his partner thinks that she is. I see a whole fucking sea of faces out here to support Jet City, and I know that the crowd on Sunday isn’t going to look a whole lot different than this one right in front of me. The King can bring his immovable object, because I know that each and every seat in the Viejas Arena will be filled with an unstoppable force that is going to steamroll Austin and Tempest once and for all. We will banish the two of them to the bottom rung of the Mixed Tag Team ladder, and we will continue to cut down every single team this company has until people realize that these championships were created for, and to be carried by, Jet City. Period.”

Almost as if on queue, a replica of the Mixed Tag Team Championship floats up from the crowd, and both of the young stars smile before signing their names on the side plates of the belt. Like magic, the belt disappears back into the crowd.

”...and it’s not necessarily anything personal. I’d be saying this same thing to any of the teams that thought they could step into our backyard and take what is ours. It is just an insane thought that this is the match that Austin wanted. He could have gone after the biggest prize in the division like Zoey did last week. He could have tried his luck for the Roulette division considering he appreciates beating opponents unconscious with a chair when he realizes he is going to lose otherwise. He could have stepped to Calvin Harris if he wanted someone with a similar list of accolades in this company. He didn’t do any of that though. He decided to come after Jet City on their home field. I don’t know if that is because he just doesn’t think that he can hack it alone. I don’t know if he just doesn’t believe in himself as a singles competitor anymore. To me, it seems like the guy feels like he needs Tempest in order to succeed, even though they have never been very successful together either.”

A stagehand comes out onto the stage with a stack of shirts. Oz and Eiley both pull out sharpies and start signing them. As they get done with each one, Eiley tosses it into the crowd, keeping them frenzied even as Oz talks.

”...or maybe it is just the same bullshit that we have been talking about all along. Last week Wolfslair used their fake-ass temporary powers to book themselves against Jet City in a championship match. This week the GO Gym is getting in on the action as well. These people won their big opportunity to finally force themselves into positions to make their dreams come true, and instead they just keep coming after us. The GO Gym even had a graduate try to jump the Bombshell Champion before her defense to give Wolfslair a better chance at winning. The fact that these two gyms are working together to screw Jet City isn’t new, and shouldn’t be surprising.”

He breaks away from signing things, and focuses his attention specifically on the camera behind the crowd. Closes in around Oz, giving the viewers the impression that now he is talking to his opponents watching at home.

”Maybe it is just a coincidence though. Maybe it seems like you people are only singling us out because we are always the ones holding the pretty things that you can’t ever seem to be able to hang onto. Maybe it seems like you are always chasing us, because we are always so much fucking further ahead than all of you. Have you ever thought that we are in the position that we are in because we are the second generation of an in-ring philosophy that has dominated this company for the majority of the time it has been around? Kris was basically unrivaled inside the ring. Mikah was unstoppable at every point in her career. Neither of them ever set a goal in Sin City that they didn’t make good on, and they are the ones steering the new group of us through this business. Nobody should have been surprised when Court and Ruby won Blast from the Past. Nobody can say that their championships are safe when any of us are around. We have always, and will always, be just a bit faster, smarter, or conniving than the people that step up to us, and that is why we will always be on top of this company.”

The crowd erupts into cheers loud enough to cut the young champion off. Eiley motions for the crowd to keep it going, and Oz raises and lowers the microphone several times before he is finally able to speak and be heard.

”On the other hand, maybe it is a little personal. I have forgotten what Austin did to me the first time that we were in the ring together, and I can remember having to save Eiley from injury during the match at Summer XXXtreme. I can remember being told over and over again that we had no chance to walk out with our championships. I can remember Austin and Tempest saying that even though we won, our time in the spotlight was going to be short. I can remember the two of them echoing that being from Jet City didn’t make us Reckless Elite. I heard the negativity. WE heard the negativity. Yet, we’re still here. We’re still the champions!”

Oz raises his championship into the air once more before lowering it and securing it around his waist. He slaps the centerplate of the belt twice before continuing.

”This is where this belt belongs, and this is exactly where it is going to stay until they have to retire it for a second time because every other team in the division loses hope. Nobody is going to take them from us, and they definitely aren’t capable of doing it in front of our crowd, in our city. Like I said, we grew up here. We were the dirty forgotten street kids that everyone pretended not to see. We were molded by this city. We were emboldened to rise up from nothing so that one day we might have a shot at having everything. Every step of the way through the muck we had to fight and claw for what little we could get. We brought these championships back to Jet City because we haven’t forgotten that it was San Diego that raised us! And we wouldn’t dare let anyone take these championships from you in your house!”

The camera shakes from the ferocity of the cheers from the fans in attendance

”I don’t care that they are bigger. I don’t care that they are stronger. There is nothing that I won’t do to make sure that we walk out with these championships. There’s no rule I won’t break. There’s no risk that I won’t take. You people showing up on Sunday is all the motivation that I need to make sure that we don’t fuck this thing up. It doesn’t even matter that this is the only thing happening on Climax Control that actually matters. Nothing and nobody is going to stop Eiley and I from having our hands raised at the end of the night. It doesn’t matter which one of them that we pin. It doesn’t matter who we make tap out. Eventually that place is going to be so loud that they aren’t going to be able to think, and that is when Eiley and I are going to take their legs right out from under them. By the time that they realize how big of a mistake they made trying to challenge us on home turf, Eiley and I will already be headlining the after party.”

The cheers break as a wave of laughter comes rushing through the crowd.

”From the first moment that I stepped into the ring, I couldn’t wait to do it here in front of all of you. I know that we are hated everywhere else in the world, but you guys made it all worth it by loving us anyways. That’s why we can’t let you down. I don’t care if Eiley has to break one of Tempest’s limbs to keep her on the mat. I don’t care what kind of beating Austin thinks he is going to give me. All I know is that whatever they have to throw at us won’t be enough; not here, not Sunday.”

A loud “LIMITLESS” chant seems to take over over the crowd, and both champions exchange a look showing that it took the two of them by surprise. Hearing the crowd, a smile crosses Oz’s face. It started as a smirk and grew wider as his eyes focused on the crowd. He dropped the microphone from his hand and unstrapped the Mixed Tag Team Championship from around his waist before handing it off to Eiley. He motions for the crowd to get their hands in the air.

”Bring on Wolflair! Bring on the GO Gym! It won’t matter where they're from, because down here it’s not just Eiley and I that they have to worry about! If they want to come to San Diego for a shot at our championships, they’re gonna have to fight the whole fucking crowd! This is Jet City! And we are LIMITLESS!”

The crowd roars, and the camera pulls back again to show the mass of people with their hands in the air. Without any hesitation, Oz takes off running back towards the crowd and leaps from the edge of the balcony. He is caught by the outstretched hands of the cheering crowd, and within moments has drifted into the center where he could barely be seen on camera. Eiley stands center stage laughing at him, before shouldering his half of the Mixed Tag Team Championships. She looks back and forth between the two belts with a smile on her face before picking up the microphone herself.

”You guys can keep him! These both look better on me anyways!”

The crowd cheers, but Oz can be seen pointing back towards the stage. The fans respond to his command, and as quickly as he had drifted out, they propel him back to the stage, where he lands on his feet face-to-face with his partner. After a feigned stand-off between the two of them, motions for her to hold up both of the championships in the air, and as she does, he lifts her up onto his shoulders while the fans cheer the two of them. With a shot of the champions with their titles in the air, the feed cuts out.


8
Climax Control Archives / Quicksand
« on: September 15, 2023, 04:16:57 PM »
==========================================================
===========================================================



Home Invasion
San Diego, California  - Jet City South
15th SEPTEMBER 2023
OFF-Camera

When Jaycee’s eyes open, he couldn’t help but feel like the room around him felt foreign. He sat up in bed, unsure of what time it was, or really even what day it was. If anyone had asked, he wouldn’t have been able to tell them where he was, or how he got there in the first place. It took several moments before he started to recognize the things in the room as his own. He was at home, in his own bed. Yet, he still wasn’t exactly sure how he had gotten there. The pieces of the last day, or more likely the last couple of days, were broken and rearranged in his mind. The headache that had woken him up prevented him from being able to put them in the right order. He decided to just put those questions off for a few hours until he was more awake.

He got out of bed, and once he was headed down the hallway, he noticed the unnatural amount of light coming into the room at the opposite end. His curiosity made him pass up the bathroom, and head to the end of the hallway. Sitting on his couch, with his eyes down at the phone in his lap, was a man that Jaycee had only seen in passing at Jet City. He didn’t think the two of them had ever exchanged words with one another.

JAYCEE: What are you doing in my house JD?

He shrugged, and without moving his eyes from the phone screen, he lifted up a paper from the couch cushion next to where he sat.

JD: Well, according to this, it’s not really yours anymore. They’re kicking you out.

Jaycee felt like he vaguely remembered something about that. It made his head throb to try and pull the rest of that story together. Again, that was a problem for later. The main problem right now was that a man he had never spoken to somehow thought it was okay to invade his space like this.

JAYCEE: How did you…

JD didn’t even let him finish the question.

JD: Your keys were in the door.

JD still hadn’t even bothered to look up. Despite the fact that Jaycee hadn’t even attempted to hide his annoyance, JD hadn’t flinched. The guy didn’t even seem like he was nervous about how Jaycee would react to him being there. He had the demeanor of someone that was exactly where they belonged; carefree.

JAYCEE: So you just thought it was okay to unlock it and head inside?

He shrugged again, this time with a laugh. Jaycee could feel his blood pressure rising. It wasn’t just JD’s presence anymore either, but everything about him. This was a man that had failed as an in-ring performer. He had been thoroughly outclassed by his own wife at Jet City. He had even gone the route of becoming a referee for Kris and Jason’s short-lived PRIDE promotion since he couldn’t make the roster. He was content with his position in life, and that was the thing that made Jaycee the most angry. JD was everything that he didn’t want to become in life, and yet he looked like he was at ease in this place that was totally foreign to him. He looked more at home in this space than Jaycee had ever felt, and wasn’t even threatened enough to look up.

JD: It helped that it was also open.

That explained the light. Jaycee shook his head, and disengaged from the conversation before he lost his cool. He moved around the couch to the previously blind corner of the room and pulled his eyes from the door before finally closing it. The fact that JD had entered and not done either of those things on his way in just piled onto the annoyance.

JAYCEE: I assume that there is a reason that you are here.

Jaycee could tell that JD was way more focused on whatever he was reading off of his phone screen. This whole interaction with him was just secondary.

JD: I’ve been sent to collect you. Probably because Kris thought it would be amusing to get to say both of our names in the same sentence.

He laughed again, even though it was at his own expense. Over the years, the greatest weapon that JD had to use against his boss was his ability to laugh at himself, although Kris had never given up on trying to get under his skin. This task was just another layer of that, and JD could appreciate it for what it was.

JAYCEE: Usually Court is the one that feels sorry for me enough to check in on me. She at least knocks on the door though.

JD brushed off that idea quickly in a line that sounded like it came from Kris word-for-word.

JD: Court is back in Jet City now and has more important things to worry about than babysitting.
 
JD may have spoken the words, but Jaycee definitely heard who actually said them, and he wasn’t about to be told what to do by someone who didn’t have the courage to actually show up himself.

JAYCEE: Then maybe Kris should have been the one on my couch this morning.

JD finally turned off the small screen in his lap, and looked up. Jaycee immediately wished that he hadn’t been wishing for that for the whole conversation because while JD wasn’t irritated with him at all, he did have the eyes of a disappointed parent.

JD: Evening, Jaycee. It’s already six.

Jaycee looked around confused for a moment. He had already stepped on his own toes so many times since coming down the hallway. First the door, and then the time. Apparently he didn’t have the hours that he thought he did to start piecing together the last couple of days. He needed that information now.

JAYCEE: He still should have been here if he had something to say to me.

JD shrugged his shoulders once more, and once again gave a level and logical answer.

JD: If you know anything about him, you know that this isn’t something he can help you with. You’d likely just drag him back down the same path. He doesn’t want to risk that again, so it got delegated to me.

On one hand, it made him feel better that Kris had at least thought of coming himself. It made sense that he would be worried about giving in as well, because he had made a career out of his downward spirals. Those stories had always been worth hearing.

JAYCEE: Well, as you can see, I am fine. I don’t really need his help anyways. You can see yourself out. I’ll see you guys on Friday at the party.

He should have known better, but he was still in the process of waking himself up.

JD: It is Friday, Jaycee. Get yourself cleaned up so that we can go.

He opened his mouth to argue with him, but slammed it closed before anything got out. Everything that he had said since waking up had been wrong. JD was right anyways. Getting cleaned up would give him the time to wake up without having to deal with any of this right now. Plus, it would buy him the opportunity to get himself right without JD staring at him.

JAYCEE: Fine.



==========================================================
>Lost Way
==========================================================


”It’s kind of hard to come to work most weeks, ya know?”

”I guess that isn’t so much different for any other job though, right? We all have the days when we would rather not have to go. We all have the days where we just want to curl up in a ball and forget that a world exists outside of our own little private corner of the universe. We all have days when we don’t want to deal with anyone, no matter how short the interaction.”

”....for me those days have been happening a lot more often than they used to. It seems like everyday is just another one of those where I think that maybe I don’t want to do this anymore. Everyday feels like maybe I wasn’t as good at this as I thought that I was going to be coming out of the Blast from the Past tournament. Most of the time it just feels like a failed experiment. My hot start was more beginner's luck than anything else. Everything else feels like the real me, and if you really add it up, I’m just not cutting it.”

”I look at everyone else that has come out of Jet City and I get sick to my stomach. Kyle Kavanagh sucked and that kid still found a way to be a big part of Underground for a while under that Cyan mask. Aaron Isaacs was a flop in the big picture, but that kid had some amazing moments in the ring. Coby’s stints may have been cut short, but he was always electric when he showed up, and is one of the best Mixed Tag Champions in the history of Sin City regardless of how he got the title.”

”....and now the people that have taken over the spotlight are my friends. I have known Eiley and Oz since I was a kid. They were two of the first few people that I ever met in San Diego, and we have been in-and-out of each other’s lives ever since. It wasn’t all good, and hasn’t been all bad, but I look at them now and it’s painful. These two got into the business after me, and have already started to shine. They are already holding championship belts, and people love to hate the two of them.”

”Courtney Pierce was the one to train me, even though she doesn’t get any of the credit. Kris never wanted me to stay at Jet City, and the day that he got shot, he was in the process of throwing me out when all of that went down. The guy never believed in me, but Court did for some reason. She was the one that got me ready for Blast from the Past last year. She was the one that was constantly pushing me to be better. She was the one that said that anyone can succeed in this business if they really want to, and then she came back and won the Bombshell Championship.”

”Everyone around me is setting the bar so high, and I can’t manage to gain any momentum at all. I go out to the ring and fall on my face time after time, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to get things turned around. The harder I fight, the worse that it gets. Being out in the ring in front of all of you has become my own personal quicksand. I have learned to dread Sunday nights when the cards come out, and breathe a sigh of relief every single time that my name is not listed. Don’t get me wrong, I love being part of Sin City. I have wanted nothing more than to compete inside that ring, but to fail at that so thoroughly has been soul crushing.”

”My dream has become my nightmare, and I am forced to relive that nightmare at every single show.”

”I thought that maybe if I just stopped trying, it wouldn’t hurt as badly. If I could make myself not care, maybe when I fell short it wouldn’t be disappointing because it was expected. I started to blow off training. I stopped showing up at Jet City. I stopped sending out messages ahead of my matches. I showed up and I did the absolute bare minimum to collect a paycheck, but it didn’t make things any easier. It made everything so much worse.”

”There is no winning. I am fucked either way. I considered just packing it up and walking away from it all, but I don’t even have the courage for any of that. It wouldn’t matter anyways. Nobody in this business would even notice that I was gone, and it would leave a huge hole in my life. It would be throwing away everything that I ever wanted while I still had the chance to make something of myself. I can still physically bring myself down to that ring. I can still keep up with whoever is in the ring across from me. Even if it goes wrong, even if it sucks to watch every single one of my peers succeeding without me, I can’t just leave. I can’t stomach the idea of disappearing once again.”

”I wish that there was a better version of myself walking into this match with Ben Jordan. That guy was one of the reasons that I really started to put the work in when I first started training. That guy has picked himself back up and powered through so much negative bullshit, and is beloved in this business because of it. He carries himself like one of the greatest to ever step into an SCW ring, and it doesn’t matter that his list of accomplishments don’t add up to a lot of the others. His presence, his connection to the fans, and his passion for this place make him one of the best to ever compete in the company.”

”He is a guy that I wish I could be more like.”

”I guess I’m just not there yet.”

”#BenDeservesBetter”


9
Climax Control Archives / Fuck Up
« on: August 12, 2023, 12:00:09 AM »
==========================================================
===========================================================



Back In
San Diego, CA -- Jaycee’s Apartment
13 AUGUST 2023
OFF-Camera


In the midst of a dream, Jaycee hears the sounds of applause from the crowd, only something isn’t right. At first it was light, but it continued to build like each and every fan in attendance was up out of their seats and stomping their feet in excitement. When it finally builds to a fever pitch with thousands of fans all perfectly synchronized with one another, Jaycee feeds off of the excitement around him and leaps from the top turnbuckle, only for the mat to appear to move away from him. He falls for what feels like hours, only he doesn’t ever seem to be getting any closer to the mat itself. Instead, he weightlessly hangs in the air confused. When he finally realizes that the forces of gravity are not optional, and something was definitely wrong with the world around him, he slams hard into the mat. Only, it wasn’t as pleasant a landing as he would have had in front of a sold out crowd. The crowd evaporated around him, and his true surroundings appeared in their place. The whole thing was incredibly disorienting, especially because even though the crowd was gone, their enthusiasm remained. Jaycee was on the hardwood floor of the bedroom in his apartment, having rolled and fallen out of bed, but still heard the applause around him. It took a few more moments of trying to get himself oriented before he realized that it wasn’t a crowd, but a heavy banging on the front door of his apartment. He sat up in a panic, and the lingering memories of the dream he was just immersed in slipped away almost in their entirety.

Nobody was supposed to be here today. There was nothing set to be delivered from any the various services he used to never have to leave his apartment. When he got back into town, he had paid rent in full for the entire calendar year, so there was no way that his landlord was looking for him.. He looks around and sees no emergency that would require an angry neighbor to beat down his door. There was no smoke hanging in the air around him. He started taking inventory of the room around him. How long had he been asleep? For that matter, how had he even gotten home. The last thing he remembered was that he had been out for a night of fun with Eiley and Oz to celebrate the fact that at least those two were doing something worthwhile with their lives. Everything went black after that.

JAYCEE: Those two are going to be the death of me….

He mutters under his breath despite the fact that there was no way the would-be intruder at his door could have heard anything he said over the banging sounds coming from the living room.

JAYCEE: STOP IT ALREADY! I’M COMIN’!

He shakes off his fall and pushes himself up off the floor. The moment he steps foot in the living room, he notices that he got into a whole lot more than drinking with the World Mixed Tag Team Champions. He moves to the coffee table and quickly pushes his kit of paraphernalia into one of the drawers before looking around to make sure that there was nothing else laying out in the open. It would have been nice to have just a few seconds to gather his thoughts before having to deal with another living and breathing human, but that wasn’t in the cards today. The beating on his door didn’t stop, even though he was certain that whoever was standing on the other side of it had heard him yell from his room. He couldn’t think of a more hostile way of being woken up in the morning, if that is what it was. He wasn’t even going to attempt to locate his phone in the mess. He needed the thumping to cease though just so that he could think.

JAYCEE: ..I don’t know who you are, but I swear on your life I am going to fu---

Jaycee never completes the thought. He looks around in the mess for a shirt, but doesn’t see one in the immediate vicinity. It wasn’t a big deal. After all, they were here with a free wake up call, the least he could do was treat them to a show. Granted, it should take a second to brush off whoever it was, so it was not like he really needed to be presentable. He puts his shoulder against the frame of the door and pulls the door open just barely far enough to look out.

JAYCEE: What do you wa--

He sees who is standing at the door and it takes the words out of him. Jaycee wasn’t even sure that she knew where he lived, but there she was, the Sin City Bombshell Champion herself was the one with the audacity to beat down his door without so much as a heads up that she was headed his way. She had her fake smile plastered all over her face already, but beneath it Jaycee could tell that she was actually seething, even if he didn’t understand why.

COURT: How are you doing, champ?

She manages to ask the question without the smile fading from her face. It was very clear that Jaycee was meant to take offense to the comment, but he didn’t have the energy for that. With Court, that inner coldness was very thinly veiled under relentless sarcasm, so if he didn’t want to get yelled at, he needed to keep that smile on her face.

COURT: Not going to invite me in?

He sighs heavily and looks back at the mess of empty bottles scattered around the room. He didn’t care so much about them as he did making sure that he had gotten rid of evidence of anything other than the drinking. The last thing that he needed was Court deep up his ass like everyone had been with Kris back in the day. Feeling that as long as he kept her in this room he was probably fine, he pushes the door open and steps away so she can walk past him.

JAYCEE:   Suit yourself. Place is kind of busted. The maid apparently died…

She steps through the door, and he pushes it closed with his heel to cut off the sunlight beaming down on his face. His eyes weren’t yet ready for that intense kind of light, and he knew that there was no way that he could try to pass as having his shit together unless the lighting was considerably lower. Court didn’t react to his attempt at a joke, so he tried yet again to crack her fake smile.

JAYCEE: ...but it didn’t happen here, you’re good.

She passed by him and headed directly towards the center of the room. He took the opportunity to move the opposite direction to the hallway. It was probably smart to get himself covered up quickly. Court wasn’t stupid, by any means and she was already suspicious. He heads towards the bedroom and emerges a moment later, throwing on a hooded Jet City sweatshirt. As he puts his arms through the holes and brings it over his head, he sighs, hoping that he could speed this along.

JAYCEE: What can I do for you?

COURT: Oh, I was just coming to check in on you. I know that things have been a little tough lately. Oz and Eiley are champions. I am the top Bombshell in the company. I figured you might be feeling a big left out. So how are you doing, Jaycee?

He holds his arms out to his sides, motioning to the chaos of the room around him.

JAYCEE: Been having a blast. Look around! I have the place to myself. Nobody is chasing me anymore, and I don’t have anything big to look forward to…. It’s been... fun.

She nods, looking around. He could tell that she wasn’t buying it. Then again, there was probably that inkling in her mind when she decided to make the trip over. She turns her eyes to him, and they narrow. Jaycee averts his gaze knowing that his eyes would provide all the proof she needed about her suspicions..

COURT: Relaxing, huh? You have a party, or was this all you?

She gestures towards the mess of the room, but doesn’t take her eyes off of him.

JAYCEE: Eiley and Oz had a little something to do with it.

Court’s eyes widen. He didn’t know which of his words were surprising to her, but that was the reaction on her face. He made an attempt to question it, but she cut him off before he could.

COURT: They were here, with you?

He nods, and Court spins on her heel, once again surveying the room before bringing her gaze back to him. Jaycee could tell that the thin veil of politeness was starting to get shredded to pieces.

COURT: I flew with Oz and Eiley to Brazil for Climax Control three days ago….

He laughs, blowing her off. There was no way. The three of them were out on the town making fun of how Jet City South still hadn’t recovered from the hurt that Court put on it last week. Nobody had been able to enter the gym to get any work done, and that was the whole reason that they went out and partied so hard. She had to just be poking at him to see what he would do since he wasn’t fully awake. He wasn’t going to play her game though.

JAYCEE: That’s not possible. You popped your top before your match with Keira and wrecked the gym. We went out to celebrate the fact that you finally snapped. To be fair, you should have come with us…

He shrugs his shoulders and laughs. It sounded genuine. For the first time, he was starting to realize that there was a real possibility that he was still intoxicated from the night before. The deep need for him to reconvene the celebration was already starting to scratch at him from under his skin as well. If he were to say that out loud, Court would see it as a red flag. Jaycee just saw it as a problem for later though.

JAYCEE: So they most definitely didn’t leave with you a few days ago. We aren’t supposed to leave until Wednesday. I have promos and shit to record from the giant Jesus statue thing on Thursday.

He walks past her and into the kitchen before swinging open the refrigerator and staring inside.

JAYCEE: So I appreciate you coming to check on me and all that good stuff, but if you came to beat down my door just to yank my chain, you can go. I am clearly on top of shit… 

He grabs two bottles of water from the fridge, and kicks it closed as he moves back into the living room. He hears her sigh, almost like she was starting to realize that he wasn’t going to be budged on the issue.

JAYCEE: Water?

He tosses it to her from across the room, but she sidesteps and lets it sail past her head without even reaching for it. Her eyes were glued to her phone as she scrolled through looking for the evidence to back up her claims. She finds what she is looking for, and turns the screen towards him as he spins the cap off of his bottle and takes a long drink from it. The video shows both Oz and Eiley at a signing down in Reno, with two children holding each of their tag team titles. The giant statue that Jaycee mentioned was in the background behind them as clear as day.

JAYCEE: Cool photoshop… but I’m still not buying.

She scrolls a little bit more on her phone, and this time turns it back around with a headline from SCW about Jaycee having to cancel several of his appearances with no explanation being given for the absence. For the first time, he appears to start to believe some of what she is saying before quickly snatching the phone. He backs out of the screen to look at the date, and then spits his next drink of whatever out across the mess of the floor.

JAYCEE: IT IS FUCKING SATURDAY!?

She walks over and picks up the bottle of water that he had thrown her. She shakes her head, and places it down on the table in front of him as she takes her phone back from him. A few taps later, the two of them can hear his phone ringing from a pile of clothes and bottles. Jaycee moves across the room and shuffles through the items until he finds it. The amount of missed calls and messages are not surprising. Somehow he was missing almost an entire week of his life. His 2% battery was proof enough that he had discarded the phone at least a few days ago.

COURT: You’re honestly lucky that you aren’t fired. You missed your promo space. You have no time to promote this thing. You no showed all your events, and that’s all on top of the mess from last year.

She puts a hand over her mouth, and stops herself from saying anything further. She wasn’t trying to bring up the past that Jaycee had no control over. This was something different. This was a much darker path that he had full control over, and she was trying urge him away from it as gently as possible.

COURT: ...all of this is bad, but we can still salvage things if we leave now.

He kills off the rest of his bottle of water before reaching for hers and starting on it.
He couldn’t explain why he was suddenly so dehydrated, but if he was missing as much time as Court said he was, that question had way too many possible answers to figure it out now.

JAYCEE: I mean what is there to salvage anyways? I’m the only one of us that isn’t doing shit worth talking about….

He shakes his head in a defeated manner and finishes the second bottle of water before getting back to his feet. If they were going to try and make a mad dash back to the show, he couldn’t be wasting anymore time, even if his whole body was screaming at him that heading out now was a terrible idea.

COURT: Look dude, I know that this shit isn’t the dream. I know that being part of Jet City is harder than just showing up ready to work. There is a whole lot of shit that will get in your head and pull you off track. You just can’t let this shit take over. I have seen all of this bef---

He laughs at her, cutting her off.

JAYCEE: Don’t compare this to the shit that Kris used to get away with back in the day…

He turns to her with a condescending look on his face and rolls his eyes.

JAYCEE: You’re probably going to jump to calling that denial, but it ain’t. So I lost a few days… so what? It’s not like I am anywhere close to the level that he was.

She shivers though while he has another laugh. All of this was very familiar to Court; scary familiar and yet she wasn’t removing herself from the situation the way that she kept telling herself that she wished she would have when it was Kris.

JAYCEE: I just had a little bit too much fun is all… or maybe I just wanted to live in the moment for just a second instead of having to be worried about what comes next for me. I mean look at this match. Vaughn is going to be down there. Why would they do that unless they are teeing me up for the Roulette shot they don’t have a contender for?

She sits down on the couch, crossing her legs as she lets out a soft sigh. He was successfully turning the conversation away from whatever problem he may or may not have.

COURT: I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. How is any of that a bad thing? You wanted all of this! There is no way that any of it should be overwhelming now. You’re getting everything you ever wanted finally.

He looks up at the ceiling and lets out another sigh.

JAYCEE: ...and if it all goes wrong it’s my fault now. It used to be a thing that could be snatched away by anyone. Now the only way that it can fail is if I fail, and it looks like I have been doing nothing but falling short lately. I just wanted to forget about that for a while.

On some level, she felt bad for him, but that wasn’t going to help him at the moment.

COURT: Look, we can deal with the feelings behind all of this on the plane. We can talk the whole thing out, but we have to go like…. yesterday.

She stops and seems to think over her choice of words. Trying to push him along felt like a harsh dismissal of what he was going through but she was at a loss for how else to phrase things. Her eyes mirror her brain trying to search for the right word.

COURT: We have to go. Now.

10
Climax Control Archives / Time to Shine
« on: July 14, 2023, 09:32:28 PM »
==========================================================
>
===========================================================



Don’t Sweat It
Los Angeles, CA -- Princess Cruise Ship
2 JULY 2023
OFF-Camera


Summer XXXtreme hadn’t gone as I wanted it to. I mean, it was nice being back in the ring again, but I had talked an awful big game just to come up short. It wasn’t the re-debut that I wanted. It hadn’t been the night that I had planned out in my mind all week. At least there was one silver lining: I was back. They couldn’t take that contract away. It was real. This was actually tangible. There was nobody that could show up and tell me that I had to give it up. King and Reg weren’t going to step out of the shadows and try and snatch it all away from me. Those chapters of my life were over, and I could write whatever story I wanted to. All things considered, I couldn’t really be too upset that the first page of that new story was a loss. There was a lot more to write. There were a lot more matches in my future. There were even bigger opportunities coming.

I assumed everyone was going to celebrate their big wins, or drown their sorrows at the bar, so I immediately headed back to the room that Court had won for me earlier in the week. I wasn’t good company after a loss. I had learned that much last year after falling short in Blast from the Past. Levona and I had worked so well together, but I hadn’t spoken to her since my blow up after that loss. Granted, I disappeared shortly after that.

As I walked down the hallway towards the room, I was tapped on the shoulder by someone that had been jogging and winded trying to catch up to me.

COURT: You know, you don’t have to beat yourself up about that. Carter had something to prove out there. Kid has been mad upset about getting left off of the show…

JAYCEE: He wasn’t left off of the show. He failed to get a spot on the show… twice. I was left off of the show.

COURT: ...yet you didn’t let that stop you. Here you are!

JAYCEE: Glad I made you go through all of the effort just to fall on my face out there.

COURT: Oh stop it! You didn’t fall on your face out there. Did you see that Troll guy out there? The guy was good for the fucking laugh of the night. Following that, nobody is going to care about any of the winners and losers of the matches. That guy was a bigger loser than any of us could have hoped to top.

JAYCEE: It is easy to have that outlook when you made the tournament winner tap out…

COURT: Yeah, that was particularly sweet for me. First Roxi, and now Devona. If I keep laying them out like this, they are going to start listing my amongst some of the greats.

JAYCEE: Except that you’re married to a dead weight, and you’re about to have Keira fist deep up your ass about a championship match now that she did you a solid and saved Ruby from getting dismantled.

COURT: I can handle Keira.

JAYCEE: Oh? How do you intend to do that?

COURT: I intend to give her what she actually wants. I’ll bury that shit under a whole lot of feigned mutual respect. I will commend her for what she did for Ruby. I will offer her a shot that she can’t turn down, and then I will burn down the other half of Team Hero.

JAYCEE: Jesus Christ… remind me not to ever get on your bad side.

COURT: It’s not like there’s not something in it for her. They are never going to let her get a shot at me without my say so. I do this for her, and she gives me the moment that I want in exchange.

JAYCEE: ...and that is the freeze frame of you standing over her with your title still in hand?

COURT: ... I taught you so well.

JAYCEE: Apparently not. As good as all of that sounds for you, I still came up short tonight. Maybe I didn’t absorb enough of your lessons.

COURT: ...or maybe there was too much Kris involvement.

JAYCEE: Hey! We have been over this. I don’t want to be in the middle of that shit.

COURT: Sure you do. That is the only position where you can play both sides.

JAYCEE: I am not playing both sides, I am continuing like your little spat with each other doesn’t even register in my mind. Everything is business as usual.

COURT: Sure it is…

She winked at me and patted me on the shoulder as I stopped at my door. I knew that all of this was her way of checking on me to make sure that I wasn’t taking the loss too hard, but she had a way of turning into Kris whether she knew it or not. As I fumbled for my key, she kept her stride, leaving me behind in the process. I opened the door, and went inside to get cleaned up.

JAYCEE: I don’t even know why I bother.



==========================================================
>
===========================================================



Refocused
San Diego, CA -- Jet City South
10 JULY 2023
OFF-Camera


At least now I knew where I was lacking in the ring. Heading into the match with Carter I would have tried to convince anyone and everyone that I was ready. I thought that I had everything polished. I thought that I was still sharp enough. All of that had been exposed as hubris at Summer XXXtreme. Carter picked me apart little by little. He exposed every flaw. It was like he had a blueprint of how to take me apart, and I wasn’t up for the challenge. In a weird way though, I appreciated it. Carter opened my eyes. He showed me what I needed to work on. Instead of sulking about it, the moment that I stepped off of the boat I was back in the gym. I needed to ratchet up my training, and start taking it more seriously.

The person that I really trusted to help that along had been banished from Jet City South. These days we weren’t even allowed to utter the Bombshell World Champion’s name out loud inside the building. Unfortunately, that left me with the one person that I could trust to actually help me. As brilliant as he was in the ring, there was always the chance that he was setting me up for failure as a gag. It was valid for me to be concerned for my safety around him, because several people in the gym had learned that lesson the hard way. He would push people out of their comfort zones. He would goad people into being overly aggressive. He has ended a handful of careers before they ever got a chance to start, and I have never seen him look like he felt bad about it. He saw it as weeding out the weak, and this week he was totally focused on me. Kris and Mikah had been so busy ushering Oz and Eiley along that I had kind of flown under the radar for a while. My loss at Summer XXXtreme changed that. It inspired Kris to take more of a hands on approach to make sure that I wasn’t ever going to fall short like that ever again. The problem with that was, Court’s words about Kris’ influence being the problem kept ringing in my ears.

KRIS: You know you have to get better at all this if you don’t want Jack to rip you apart.

JAYCEE: Yeah? What makes you so fucking sure about that, huh? I have been busting my ass to get ready for this match since it was announced. I have watched everything this guy has done in Sin City. I know what I am stepping into the ring with.

KRIS: Do you though? I mean really. I have been in the ring with him before--

JAYCEE: You mean, you have lost a championship to him before…

KRIS: I lost a championship because sorry ass O’Malley was in the match. Don’t try to skip over the fact that I beat Jack for that championship one-on-one. If anyone knows what you are setting yourself up for, it is me. But I had it easy.

JAYCEE: ...because you’re just so much fucking better than everyone else, right?

KRIS: No. Because when I fought him he was a champion already. Look how that worked out against Calvin. Jack Washington is much better during the chase than he ever was as a champion. I mean, if you watched all of his stuff, you should have picked up on the pattern. He goes on an amazing run, wins a championship, but then kind of fizzles out until he loses it.

JAYCEE: Your point?

KRIS: My point is that I beat him to win the championship. I had the luxury of doing so while he was running out of steam. However, I took his meal ticket away from him. Look what happened. He came storming back, won the championship again, and the cycle repeated itself all over again.

JAYCEE: Well back then it was all about the SCW World Heavyweight Championship. This was the Internet Championship. Clearly the guy has taken a step down in the world since you two were locking up in the middle of the ring. If after a couple of years, he is already on the backslide, maybe you are giving him a little too much credit.

KRIS: ...you realize I won the Mixed Tag Team Championships last right? I was already a Triple Crown Champion. I had already broken records. I was already well on my way to the Hall of Fame. A championship is a championship though.

JAYCEE: No it’s not. Everyone knows that there is only one prize. Everyone in this business is competing to be the top guy.

KRIS: False. Some people, like Jack Washington, are just competing for the gold. All he gives a shit about is the money. That money comes regardless of which belt is on his shoulder. The only thing that matters is that he has his hands on at least one of them, and now you are standing between him and the shortest route to getting one of those championships back.

JAYCEE: ...after he rediscovered his hunger, no less.

KRIS: ...and now you see why I said that I had it a little easier than you did. Think back to when you were in Blast from the Past last year. You wanted so badly for the world to recognize you. That is what made you and Levana so deadly to all of those other teams. Jack has that kind of motivation now. If you are going to beat him, you are going to need to find the same kind of thing. Just being on top of your game isn’t going to be enough.

JAYCEE: I need to want it more than a man that is obsessed with it.

KRIS: Now you’re getting it.

JAYCEE: That sounds impossible.

KRIS: Now you know why I said you needed to get to work. You’re running out of days, kid.

JAYCEE: ...at least I know what I am actually up against now…

He gave me the little push that I needed. Despite their issues, he and Court were really the perfect duo for this. Court had given me the boost that I needed after the loss at Summer XXXtreme, and Kris made sure that I was focused on what was really important at Climax Control. They might think that the other’s influence over me is negative, but their combined efforts have always been what made me a better competitor. The longer than I can remain neutral in their war, the better it would be for me.



==========================================================
>Time to Shine

==========================================================


”Jack Washington…”

”It’s hard to get angry with the guy. It’s hard to find something to nitpick about him.”

”I mean, it’s not that I like the guy. Like everyone else, I find him kind of abrasive. The guy doesn’t know how to hold his tongue, and has never sugar-coated a single thought that has come out of his mouth. He’s harsh. He is hard to throw any kind of support behind. The guy just had a match with Calvin Harris, and people honestly couldn’t decide which one of them they hated more. That says something…”

”...but it is not like the guy lies. He doesn’t even really bend or try to reshape the truth. The guy comes out and speaks his mind, which is kind of hard to find any fault with. Isn’t that the same thing that all of us do in this business? Isn’t that all just part of the job?”

”...and that is what really matters for Jack. He isn’t in it for the admiration. He isn't in it for the love of the game. The guy has been open and honest about the fact that he does this for the paycheck. He wants to rise to the top of the roster, because the bonuses are better when your name is the one on the marquee. That attitude made him a Sin City Wrestling Internet Champion… twice.  For that matter, it made him the World Heavyweight Champion… also twice.”

”...and sure, people are quick to point out that no matter which championship Jack earns, he loses it just a couple months later, but that isn’t the point. He might relax a little, or party a little harder, when times are going great, but after Summer XXXtreme, things aren’t going so great. Jack Washington is not going to walk into Climax Control as the beatable complacent champion that we see a couple of months into each and every one of his reigns. He isn’t going to be the guy that is just going through the motions because he is already carrying around his golden prize.”

”Nah, come time for Climax Control, Jack is going to be at the bottom of the ladder and looking up. He is going to be back on the chase. He is going to be the man that is damned near impossible to keep from ascending the ranks of Sin City. The winner of this match punched their ticket to the King for a Day match, and if they win that, they can book themselves in any championship match that they want to…”

”That is what I am up against. I am standing in between one of the most capable men on the Sin City roster, and his opportunity to regain championship gold in this company. That makes beating Jack Washington on Climax Control a much taller task than it was for Calvin Harris to end his championship reign at Summer XXXtreme. Jack will have found that hunger inside himself before he arrives at The Coliseum. He will have moved on from that traumatic loss at the hands of someone more hated by the fans than he is. He will have already set his sights on the next big paycheck, and that makes me the obstacle that he is going to try and dismantle.”

”...and I am willing to bet that Jack feels inspired by those facts. I bet that when he saw my name opposite his on this card, it hit him like a warm hug. I would be willing to put money on the fact that this match-up brought a smile to Jack’s face, because it should have. I am the guy that couldn’t buy his way into a match on Climax Control for the last two months. I am the guy that was a last-second addition to Summer XXXtreme. I am the guy that the boat left without, and once I caught up to it, I went out in front of the crowd and lost anyway. I could blame the rushed nature of the match. I could blame the ring rust. I could blame the shock of being out in front of a crowd without having to look over my shoulder for the first time in my life. There were numerous obstacles, and distractions, surrounding my match with Carter at Summer XXXtreme, and I could point to any or all of them as an excuse for falling short.”

”...but I am not going to do that, and I haven’t done that. I said that Carter was the better man on social media. I owned up to the fact that maybe I rushed into things without thinking them through. I was desperate to be on the show in any way, shape, or form. I didn’t have my head on straight. I didn’t care who I got as an opponent, because I just wanted to be involved. I just wanted to say that I was officially back. I wanted to cement my place on the roster…”

”None of those reasons are good enough to step inside the ring.”

”I wasn’t focused on the right things, and that is my fault. But that problem has already solved itself....”

”All of those nerves and jitters got sorted out on the Princess Cruise ship. I sat down with Mark and Christian and got all the t’s crossed, and the i’s dotted on my contract. I stepped out into that ring and competed to the best of my ability. Sure, I came up short, but I learned what I needed to work on. I could feel the holes in my game. I could sense that I wasn’t quite as polished as I was last year. That is not something that you can find in a gym. You can do all of the same routines that you did before stepping into the ring before, but there is no substitution for actually competing, and it takes a little time to get the timing back. Like the old saying though, it is like riding a bike. It all started flooding back during my match with Carter, and I am more than ready to give things another shot.”

”You could say that Jack and I are perfect opponents for each other this week. We both just suffered a setback. We are both anxious to get back to the way things are supposed to be, and we could both get much closer to those goals if we are able to enter and win King for a Day.”

”...I have a feeling that this one is going to get bloody before things are said and done, because there is no way that either of us let this opportunity slip through our fingers without having to be carried out of the ring afterwards.”

”...and I wouldn’t want it any other way.”


11
Supercard Archives / JAYCEE MACDONALD v HELLUVA BOTTOM CARTER
« on: June 29, 2023, 04:22:44 PM »
Please post all roleplays here! Have fun and good luck!  8)

12
Climax Control Archives / The Most Unlikely Team Pt.2
« on: June 02, 2023, 07:49:05 PM »
(*This is the second part of the team’s story for this show. It would make more sense if you read  Eiley’s half first.*)

==========================================================
>
===========================================================



Locked In
Kaneohe, Hawaii
1 June 2023
OFF-Camera

The two of us haven’t talked since the argument. That’s not to say that we haven’t been in the same place at the same time. I think we both know that there is too much at stake to keep the stalemate going on too much longer, but there is no way either of us want to be the one to make the first move. We were both content to make that everyone else’s problem everywhere we went. There weren’t a whole lot of places where we could get away from one another on this tiny ass island. Before Sin City, we both spent significant time in Hawaii. We knew the same hangouts. We liked the same places. We were both training at Mikah’s gym. To their credit, Kris and Mikah seemed determined to get us back on the right page, even though they had both laughed off the idea of us teaming with each other a couple of weeks ago on Climax Control.

Since returning from the dead, Kris was all-in on making sure those of us using his or his wife’s name to promote ourselves needed to start pushing ourselves a little bit harder. I’m sure that some of it had to be because Court immediately won the Bombshell Championship after publicly shitting all over him and his gym. We were the easy punching bags. Eiley and I were the next two possible bright spots for the gym, so the fact that we had been booked as partners gave Mikah and Kris something to be invested in. That made Eiley and I the first two in the gym, and usually some of the last out, despite the fact that we never came within ten feet of one another.

Today I was lucky enough to be the one a few steps ahead. I decided not to change clothes. I just collected my things and made my way to the door. Most of the lights in the place were already switched off from the lack of activity to trip the motion sensors. A small section near the door was still lit up, with Kris standing just on the outside. He was probably still waiting on Mikah and Eiley to wrap up. I wasn’t going to hang out and find out. However, when I got to the door, it wouldn’t open. I looked out through the window just to the left of the door to see Kris still standing there. I tapped twice to get his attention before pointing to the door.

OZ: Yo, the door’s locked, ya know? It won’t open.

He looked back and forth between me and the door, and then tried to pull it open from his side. It was of no use. The thing didn’t even budge. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of trying to force it open from my side. He started silently mouthing words at me through the window like it wasn’t just normal glass.

KRIS: (What? I can’t hear you through the door!) 

I pointed at the door again, unamused. He mouthed a few more words that I didn’t quite catch. I didn’t have time for the game though.

OZ: Don’t fuck with me Kris. Open the door.

He pointed at his side of the door once more as Mikah came around to the front side of the building. He looked back at her with a smile, and I could hear them talking to one another. When he turned back to me he was back to miming the words to me.

KRIS: (It’s locked! It looks like someone put a big ass lock on it! That’s crazy!) 

I saw Mikah say something about it not just being this door either, but somehow all the doors. I don’t know what kind of game the two of them were playing, but I hadn’t signed up for it.

OZ: Not funny. I know you can hear me! Let me out of here!

Mikah joined him at his side, and frowned at me before shaking her head. She started to lead Kris away towards there car, and all he could do was shrug at me.

KRIS: (We’ll send help! Probably tomorrow! Don’t break anything!) 

I balled up my fist like I was going to put it through the window, but I knew exactly how bad of an idea that would be. On one hand, I would definitely end up paying for the thing. On the other, I had heard stories that he had done something similar to Court and she ended up breaking her hand as part of some lesson.

OZ: Don’t! God dammit Kris! You better come open this door!

He didn’t stop or even look back at the door though. The two of them got into Mikah’s jeep and took off out of the parking lot. I didn’t even need to check the other doors to know that Mikah had gone around the outside and gotten them all. For some reason they wanted me stuck here. I didn’t realize why until the ceiling lights started illuminating their way towards me from across the gym.

EILEY: Did Mikah already come through here? 

Suddenly it all made a lot more sense.

OZ: I’m going to seriously hurt that guy…

I didn’t say anything else before storming off. This had been their plan all along. If Eiley and I weren’t going to talk of our own free will, apparently they were willing to imprison us to get what they wanted. It wouldn’t take Eiley very long to figure out the situation that we were stuck in. She would probably even check all the doors for me. That was one less thing to worry about.



==========================================================
>
===========================================================



Not Much of a Team
Kaneohe, Hawaii
1 June 2023
OFF-Camera

I was thinking that in the best case scenario, I wouldn’t see Eiley for a few hours and that would mean that she found a way out. Then all I would have to do was find what she found and go home. That didn’t happen though. I’m sure she probably looked around for a while, but I took the time to get myself cleaned up and changed into fresh clothes. It didn’t take long to open up the vending machines in the place so that we could have free run of them. If Kris and Mikah had the audacity to lock us in, they were going to foot the bill for it. They did have a point though. If Eiley and I were going to figure out a way to work as a team, we were going to have to work together. Despite the fact that the two of us had gotten compliments on our Blast from the Past performances, we hadn’t even made it to the finals. Part of that was because we both largely ignored our partners and somehow expected that to work. If we wanted a different outcome this time around, someone was going to have to take the first step. Luckily I managed to convince myself that meant I could take all of the credit for it later.

OZ: Since we’re stuck here I cracked open the vending machines. We can just pretend to be teenagers again. Maybe try to act like we don’t hate each other.

She could have been anywhere, but had settled in the center of Mikah’s six-sided ring, using her bag as a pillow behind her head. Maybe I gave her more credit than she deserved. She didn’t look like she had even considered trying to find her way out of the gym. I expected my words to startle her, but she didn’t even flinch.

EILEY: You do whatever you want. 

It was as much of a non-answer as she could possibly give. Apparently the fact that we were going to be stuck here together hadn’t changed her mind about not talking to me. I should have expected as much. She had been pretty good at holding a grudge as a teenager. I should have assumed by now that she would have perfected that into an art form.

OZ: I want to leave, but I don’t think that is going to happen. I will settle for figuring out whatever it is we need to do to make this work. We have been partners in other ventures. We should get back to that.

She rolled her eyes, and I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t even believe the words coming out of my mouth. They sounded foreign, and disingenuous. Maybe that kind of thing worked with strangers, but she knows me too well, and for too long. I needed to adjust my approach.

OZ: Fine. This was all good last week when this team wasn’t a real thing. We still could have pulled out as a team. We’re kind of past that point now. So I don’t care how mad you are at me anymore.  I don’t think the cold shoulder shit is going to improve our chances of winning.

I was hoping to shift her focus off of personal feelings for me, and onto the match we were tasked with winning. She didn’t look swayed in any way though.

EILEY: You were the one that came up to me about the team, not the other way around. And as for figuring things out… 

For the first time, it seems like she at least considers the idea, but it doesn’t last long. It looks like she shakes the thought away. I haven’t ever given her any reason to trust me, and expecting that to change overnight was asking a whole lot.

EILEY: We either will or we won’t. 

Another non-answer. Maybe she knew that her ambivalence annoyed me, and this was all just to punish me. Maybe she actually thought that she could win the whole thing alone if she really had to. I was hoping it was one of the two, because the only other option was that she really didn’t care. If that was the case, this whole thing was going to blow up in my face sooner or later. I wasn’t about to let that happen.

OZ: That’s not going to work for me.

I slid into the ring and rolled over to her before getting up to my feet. If she just wanted to lay there and look up at the ceiling, fine. I would go put  myself into her field of vision. Looking down into her eyes, I made a final pitch.

OZ: Like you said, people already think I am just a punching bag. We can both put in all the work we want, but if we don’t get on the same page it’s not going to work. If it doesn’t work, it makes me look worse than everything else already has. I’m not willing to risk that.

There wasn’t an apology anywhere in there. Every part of it was carefully worded because I had rehearsed it as a last ditch effort over the last week. I thought maybe she would get up and walk away, or at least turn her head to avoid me. Either of those would have shown some kind of effort. Instead, she simply closed her eyes to avoid me with a shrug.

EILEY: I didn’t realize that you can’t compartmentalize. I can separate business from personal shit; I’ve been doing it for almost a month now. The only “same page”  that we need to be on, is that we want to win. That worked for Mikah and Kris three-ish years ago. 

I know she didn’t actually believe that. She was usually much more perceptive than that. That was why we had worked so well together in the past. It was the reason that we got along during the times that we did. She had an innate ability to size people up almost instantly, so there was no way that was what she saw when she looked at those two idiots.

OZ: You see the way that the two of them are now? I have a hard time believing that they weren’t always like that, even if not everyone got to see it. It couldn’t have all been just about winning. If it was they wouldn’t still be teaming up to lock us up in here.

Granted, the two of them made our past hook-ups look trivial in comparison. That wasn’t the point though. People didn’t need to be married to be a functional team. In fact, some of the worst teams in tag wrestling were married couples. The personal bleeds over into the professional and they never go anywhere. I didn’t understand how she didn’t see that was the problem I was trying to avoid. I was out of options.

OZ: I was wrong to unload on you like that last week. I can blame it on alcohol, a head injury, or just getting my ass kicked in front of the world but I still did it. You were an easy target to vent at.

There was a chance that she still wouldn’t believe me. I wasn’t the apologizing type. She opened her mouth like she was going to say something, but didn’t. However, she did open her eyes and look up at me for the first time.

EILEY: I...okay--. 

It looked like it was a serious internal struggle for her to give it up and actually hear me out. I took it as a personal win, even if I could tell that she was immediately about to start walking it back.

EILEY: Fine. But you’re not forgiven. You’re still an ass, and I know that you are really just out for yourself. If you didn’t have anything to gain here, you wouldn’t be apologizing. You’re only doing it because you don’t have any other options. 

She brought her knees up to her chest and rocked herself forward so that she could sit up. I offered my hand to help her up, but she slapped it away. It was another simple way of making sure that I knew that she didn’t need me. Once she was up on her feet, she turned so that we were face-to-face.

EILEY: Does that work? 

It wasn’t the best case scenario, but it was about as good as I could have hoped for. Realistically, I thought there was a chance that she would keep ignoring me until the place opened up in the morning. I certainly wouldn’t have been surprised. Not that I could let that show.

OZ: I mean, not really. It’s a start. Ideally we need to be able to trust each other on Sunday. I don’t want you standing on the apron enjoying the fact that I am getting my ass handed to me. I don’t want you to ignore a tag at a shitty moment just because you are pissed at me. If you just want to set all that aside for now, cool. But eventually that’s going to be something we actually have to work out.

She didn’t seem overly eager to tackle our bigger issues. I have a feeling that won’t change for a while either. It was possible that a little bit of success as a team could speed up that process, but I wouldn’t have bet on it.

EILEY: If we have all night, I’m sure we can figure something out…what that is? I’m not sure. I can at least point out all of the little things that you are still doing wrong since you refuse to listen to anyone.

On one hand it was insulting. On the other, it meant that she had been paying attention to my workouts during all that time she was pretending to ignore me. That was a good sign. I had to admit, I was curious about what she could have caught that was wrong.

OZ: Like what?

Confidently, she closed the distance between the two of us with her fist raised. I took a step towards her to get into a position to defend myself, but it brought a smile to her face. She flinched like she was going to throw a right hand and when I moved to defend it she kicked my right foot out from under me. I stumbled back, and caught my left foot on the bag she had been resting on before toppling backwards to the canvas.

EILEY: When you square up with someone, you’re not balanced. 

As I laid there on my back, staring up at the same ceiling she had been so captivated by for most of our conversation, I started to realize that the night was probably going to be a lot longer than I thought it would be.



==========================================================
>Holding It Together

==========================================================


As the scene opens, the camera is racing along a two lane road. The sun is already starting to fade over the hills on the horizon, leaving pockets of shadows cast over parts of the forest. Up ahead, the road veers right, but the camera continues straight, going right over top of Coronado National Forest sign. As the shrubbery thickens and eventually gives way to the frontline of the forest, the camera rises higher into the air. The camera ascends with the trees up onto the hills that appear far off on the horizon originally. Near the top of one of the taller hills, we can see a small, relatively flat, clearing with a single dark spot at the center. As we close in, the spot becomes a little more defined. There is a blanket laid out on the ground, on top of which sits a single bar stool. Sitting on the stool, looking out at all the ground that the camera covered on the way here is Jet City’s Miracle, Oz. The camera circles him once, and then hovers just over his right shoulder so that we can see the same view as he does from where he sits.

”I’ve done a lot of traveling my whole life, but this is my kind of place. It’s quiet. There’s a stillness in the air that you can’t find almost anywhere else.”

It was easy to see why that kind of thing might appeal to Oz. From the moment he had burst onto the scene in Sin City, things had been unbelievably loud.

”Joining Sin City for the Unsolved Mysteries tour was a lot like being thrown into the deep end of the pool as a child. The venues were bigger. The crowds were a little more wild. I didn’t even realize how big of a shock it was until I finally got to compete at the Gold Coast Casino. That place is a lot more intimate, and the people there are so used to having SCW around, that it doesn’t create the same kind of atmosphere as being overseas did. It was a nice breath of fresh air to get me out of my head.”

He looks over at the camera for just a moment with a smirk on his face before returning his attention to the view in front of him.

”...and trust me, being inside my head hasn’t been all that great. Aside from the whirlwind of Blast from the Past, and having to step into the ring with one of the greatest competitors of all time, I have had my brains scrambled a few times. Kris Ryans took it upon himself to try to flatten and embarrass me in front of a crowd. Austin James Mercer decided to go full on crazy and attempt to give me brain damage with a chair.”

It would have been understandable if he were bitter about the way he won his last match, but it didn’t sound like he actually bothered him. To Oz, the result was all that mattered. People would eventually forget the way that the match ended, but the history books would always have him picking up the win.

”As always, I have been able to adapt and overcome. I got eliminated from the tournament, but managed to get myself a contract anyways. I got laid out by Kris, but I still showed up when it was time to square up against Austin. And Austin may have laid me out in order to make some kind of point, but I was the one that won that match. ME. AJM is a guy considered to be good enough to take on the top champion in this company, but lost his cool when he couldn’t put me down easily. I’ll take that as a compliment along with my victory.”

He raises his hand to his head and trails his fingers along the newly formed scar courtesy of Austin James Mercer. The wound had long since closed, and the stitches were removed earlier in the week. By the time Climax Control came around, it would be little more than a bad memory; albeit, a memory that would stick with him for quite some time.

”...a handful of stitches, a concussion, and two weeks to think about it feels like a small price to pay in comparison. The only conclusion that I can come to, is that Austin didn’t want to lose straight up. He saw the match getting away from him. He knew that I was going to be able to pull it out. The only way for him to save any face was to snap on me. From that standpoint, I can almost respect the hustle. In this business, it is all about making ourselves look better than the competition. He couldn’t get that done legit, and had to resort to getting himself disqualified. I would have done the same thing in his shoes, but I haven’t had to. Doesn’t that say more about what I am capable of inside that ring than anything he did with that chair? ”

He said it with a smugness in his voice that made it hard for the fans to agree with, even if he was technically the victim in the situation. It was a positive sign that he wasn’t going to wallow in self-pity over the fact that things hadn’t gone exactly according to plan in his first singles match.

”...and yeah, all of that is in the past now, but that doesn’t make it irrelevant. In just a couple of days I will be walking down to the ring where yet another member of Wolfslair will be in the ring waiting for me. And before that, I will probably get to hear all about how training with Wolfslair in New York gives everyone such a huge advantage. I might even hear about how big of a joke Jet City is by comparison. At this point, I expect as much. That has been the song each and every one of my opponents has been singing leading up to our matches.”

Oz’s most favorite part of the job so far has been keeping receipts of the things people said about him. It was satisfying when he could flip those words against the people with the audacity to speak them into existence. So far, each and every one of them has gotten it wrong.

”The problem is, none of their words have mattered so far. Teddy told me that there was no way that I was ready to step up to this level of competition. I made sure that his  team didn’t even make it out of the first round of Blast from the Past.  J2H said that Jet City hasn’t been the same since Kris went off the grid. In the time we spent in the ring with one another, I proved him wrong. He couldn’t beat me, and needed his partner to advance to the next round. Since then, I have beaten a literal ghost, and survived a  temper tantrum from Wolfslair’s most overrated star. Every single time people tried to tell me that I wasn’t good enough to get the job done. Every single time I rose to the occasion to prove them wrong.”

He shoots another look at the camera with a devilish look in his eyes.

”I guess that makes me the anti-Miles Kasey. He has a much longer history than I do of being told that he isn’t quite good enough, or isn’t quite ready, but unlike me, he fails to cash in any of those opportunities when they present themselves. I mean, Mark and Christian had to go and add Mercer to the World Heavyweight Championship match, because nobody was going to pay attention to Miles vs Michael Harris. It was a massacre waiting to happen. They needed to stack the deck for Wolfslair to even give them a chance, and they still managed to come up short. The reign of awful continues. Wolfslair couldn’t get the job done, as per usual. I mean be honest, have any of them other than Alicia ever actually lived up to all of the hype?”

”...but I guess that is unfair, because he is not like a really real member of Wolfslair. They guy is a product of the Russow’s. I am sure they are a big deal somewhere in the world, but I have asked around Sin City, and most people don’t even know who the fuck they are. Apparently only one of them ever made any noise around here, and that didn’t last long. And if that isn’t a perfect summary of Miles potential, I don’t know what is. The guy showed up a couple of years ago with a chip on his shoulder that has only gotten bigger since. He gets opportunity after opportunity just to prove over-and-over again that he doesn’t have what it takes. It doesn’t matter what gym he trains in. It doesn’t matter what championship he is chasing. It doesn’t matter what opponent he finds himself standing across the ring from. All the guy does is fall short, albeit in an impressive manner.”

”So what does the guy do next? He goes out and gets himself a subpar partner in the hopes of making a run at the Mixed Tag Team Championships. Another opportunity. Another championship to chase. However, he probably couldn’t have picked any worse than he did. I get that maybe these two run in the same circles, and train with all of the same people, but this team doesn’t strike me as one that the oddsmakers will be putting money on. I’m not even sure that Alexandra Calaway has won a match in this company and if it wasn’t for that impressive resume that she was hyping up on her way into the company, I assume that Sin City would have already sent her packing. I mean, she boasts about being something like a 30 time champion across various promotions and divisions, but can’t seem to beat the likes of Bea Barnhart. Then again, maybe that makes her the perfect teammate for Miles, because he knows exactly what it is like to get beaten by an embarrassment with that last name. ”

”Yet Eiley and I are supposed to be intimidated? The two of us were the rookie highlights of the Blast from the Past tournament. The only team capable of eliminating the two of us went on to win the whole damn thing, and complimented us for the fight we put up on their way to the top. I think it is obvious to everyone, including the people that book the matches, that the only problems that Eiley and I could possibly have are self-created. We are both selfish. We are both inexperienced. We were both trained by narcissistic sociopaths that never learned how to play well with anyone other than themselves. We haven’t been around long enough to prove our worth to anyone individually, and have never worked together as a team inside the ring.”

Where some people found faults in the characteristics he was listing, Oz didn’t see it that way at all.

”...and I see all of those things as an advantage. Kris and Mikah may not have the greatest track record with students, but the two of them were absolutely dominant in the Mixed Tag Team division. Nobody could hold a candle to them, and their dominance literally killed the division the last time around. Laugh all you want at the gyms that Eiley and I come out of, but there is no denying their track record in matches like these. Add to that the fact that the two of us have known each other for most of our lives, and worked with one another on several different occasions, and you have the makings of a contending team.”

There was one small caveat that even the person that put the card together managed to call out.

”...assuming that we can hold it together.”

Although, the way that the words came out made it sound like he was plenty confident that the two could get the job done.

”...and I assume we will. It’s what we do. It’s what we’ve always done. The only people that are really standing in the way of Eiley and I taking home those Mixed Tag Team Championships at Summer XXXtreme, are ourselves. More than any other team that has thrown their names in the mix, we control our own destiny. If we can figure out a way to keep things together, I don’t think any other team in this division can hold a candle to us. But if the wheels come off, it won’t be because of anything Miles or Alexandra did. Eiley and I are always going to be our own worst enemies, and that is what makes us the most unlikely team. ”

”I believe in us though. All of you should too.”


13
Climax Control Archives / Almost Got Me
« on: May 19, 2023, 11:19:33 PM »
==========================================================
>
===========================================================




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.



==========================================================
>Here We Go

==========================================================


”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.”


14
Climax Control Archives / The Best in the World
« on: April 14, 2023, 11:11:36 PM »
==========================================================
==========================================================

>So yeah…

I cleared the first round. Mission accomplished, right?

Nah.

It doesn’t feel right. Me and Ariana picked up the win, but being in this tournament still doesn’t feel real. I mean, I didn’t really get a chance to do much. My biggest contribution by far was being in the right place at the right time to make sure that Ariana got a second chance to get things done. That’s not much to write home about, ya know?

Sure, I held my own in the ring with Teddy, but what is that even worth in this company? The guy talks like he wants to be taken seriously but doesn’t seem to be able to back it up. It feels like we only got a few seconds together in that ring, and he couldn’t maintain any kind of pressure on me. He couldn’t hold me down. He could barely even get the advantage, let alone keep it. It was clear the only way he was advancing is if his partner got the job done for him, so how can I count that as an accomplishment? How can I enjoy that kind of victory?

I can’t, so I’m not gonna even try.

As far as I am concerned, I haven’t even really gotten started in this tournament yet. I’mma chop the first round up to a bye, even though my partner definitely got to show everyone left in this tournament that she isn’t going to be put down easily. During the first round, Ariana sent her message to the locker room.

Round two is my turn.

The first is already forgotten.




==========================================================
===========================================================




One of Us
Grant Arms Hotel - Grantown-on-Spey, Scottish Highlands
11 APRIL 2023
OFF-Camera

I had gotten used to the privileges that came with being signed to Sin City. Sure, Jet City was an entirely separate entity, but the moment that I was signed up to the Blast from the Past tournament, the perks suddenly got much better. It wasn’t just for me either. They took care of everything for all three of us in the tournament. They didn’t want us thinking about anything but advancing to the next round. All the travel, all of the accommodations, and anything else we needed was just an ask away. It was the kind of lifestyle that I could get used to. Especially because, outside the gym, there hadn’t been a whole lot of actual work. It was almost as easy as stealing money.

The only problem was, it made both Eiley and Court unavoidable. We were always on the same flights. We were staying at the same hotels. If I went out, at least one of the two of them were there. If I stayed in, there was no way we weren’t passing each other in the hallways. It seemed like there was always one of the two of them looking over my shoulder. Eiley I didn’t mind as much. I was used to it. Even if I wasn’t, I am not sure that it would bother me. I always had a soft spot for that one. Unfortunately, that wasn’t a topic that I had time to unpack right now.

Court was an entirely different story, and one I couldn’t explain. As far as I knew, she didn’t even want to be in the tournament, or on the tour. That didn’t stop her from basically being my shadow from the moment that we left for the first stop. At first I thought that maybe she was taking her job way too seriously. Then I moved onto thinking she was just trying to get in my head in case we ended up facing off in the finals. Now I wasn’t sure what to think, unless she was thinking about leaving Ruby and straightening out, but I wanted no part of that. The more that I could fly under the radar, the better. Even having that thought had to be some kind of jinx.

EILEY: It was Jaycee wasn’t it?!?!

I jumped. One second I was turning a corner and patting my pockets for the key to my door, and the next she was just there. I could tell from the tone of her voice that she had been standing there fuming for more than a few minutes. Before I even knew what was happening she closed the distance between us and threw a punch that nearly took my breath away.

EILEY: Court was blabbing on-and-on about Mikah, but then she said a name that cleared things right up. You kept talking about making money off some information. Vague shit. That information was Jaycee. You gave him up.

I took a step back and caught the next punch as she threw it and quickly wrapped my arms around her. If I had it my way, I would’ve been long gone from Sin City by the time she figured it out. That didn’t change the fact that I didn’t need her standing in the middle of the hallway screaming about it to anyone close enough to hear it. She didn’t even immediately try to fight her way out of my arms, almost like she was willing to hear what I had to say.

OZ: If you want to talk about it, we can. Just not right here, and not loud enough for the whole world to hear.

That was where I was wrong. She had just been collecting her strength for the right moment, and as soon as my grip loosened even a little she shoved me back with all of the force she could muster, sending me backwards into the wall.

EILEY: He was one of us, and the fact that you aren’t denying it means it’s true. Is that why you’re still here?

I watched as the anger faded off of her face only to be rapidly replaced by disappointment. As much as I didn’t think it was the appropriate venue for the conversation, I couldn’t just leave her hanging.

OZ: It’s a whole lon---

Her eyes rolled before I even got the whole sentence out. I reached out to stop her from turning and walking away, but she shoved me back a second time. The glare that I got in return let me know not to push my luck a third time.

EILEY: Oh fuck off…

She stormed away, and I wasn’t dumb enough to follow. I didn’t necessarily owe her an explanation, but if she wanted to know the whole story I would give it to her once she cooled off.

OZ: ....bitches.

I said it under my breath, hoping that Court wasn’t going to come around another corner and beat me down for some other imagined sleight. Not that it mattered, because the door to my suite was slammed closed behind me an instant later. I could finally take a breath.



==========================================================
===========================================================



Comeuppance
Grant Arms Hotel - Grantown-on-Spey, Scottish Highlands
12 APRIL 2023
OFF-Camera


People backstage probably think I am boring. While others in the locker room were out investigating this week’s Unsolved Mystery. Others were just like any other tourists. I heard chatter about what I was missing out on, but I wasn’t really interested. I stayed to myself, and kept close by the hotel. Instead of wasting my time with the local shit, I intended to put whatever amenities that the swanky hotel Jet City was paying for had to offer. There were four more days before Climax Control. I had more than enough time to enjoy myself, even if Eiley was going to be a bummer. I had successfully ducked both Eiley and Court for most of the day which I was considering a major success. Finally getting back to my room, I engaged all three locks on the door to the room and went to settle in for the night when I was blindsided. The lights dimmed. A white flash of heat came across my face, and in an instant, I was falling. I hit the ground before the left side of my face started to throb, and the pain actually started to register.

JAYCEE: I owed you that one….

To my surprise, the voice didn’t sound angry. Although, that could have just been because it was mostly deafened due to the ringing in my ears. I tried to get my bearings, but a quick kick to my ribs sent me rolling across the hardwood floor. My assailant was on top of me, and rifling through my pockets in an instant before finding what he was looking for. He backed off once my phone was in his hand, and then dropped it on the floor next to me before stepping on it. The screen cracked under his shoe, less than a foot from my face.

OZ: Come on… you didn’t have to do all that….

I couldn’t find it in myself to even be angry. I knew that this was coming. This was the job. I had been placed in Jet City to be a big billboard for Jaycee to see. It only made sense that he would put together that I had sold him out and come after me to extract his pound of flesh. Apparently he knew that too. That was likely the whole reason that he made short work of my phone the way that he did. He didn’t want me calling for any help.

JAYCEE: Fuck you man! I owe you that much and so much more! How could you be this stupid? Really!?

I tried to get up, only for a second kick to the ribs to knock me back onto my side. I wasn’t dumb enough to try a third time, and instead forced a laugh.

OZ: You give me too much credit. All I did was mention Blast from the Past last year. You did the rest.

Was it smart to poke at him? Probably not. This time he meant it, foregoing the open shot at my midsection to imprint the bottom of his shoe across my cheekbone. My head bounced off of the floor, which may have hurt more than the first impact. It was hard to tell anymore. Before I could even process the first one, there was a second. The floor was just as unforgiving the second time, and the warm-wet feeling on my cheek let me know that I had been cut. Apparently that was where Jaycee felt I was in a position to actually listen to him. He sat down on the edge of the bed in the suite and stared at me down on the floor.

JAYCEE: Did you even think about what they were going to do to me? Or did you just not care?

I held my hands up. There was no way that I could look any less threatening while laying on the ground bleeding, but I wasn’t trying to give him any excuse to pick up the beating where he left off.

OZ: Look, that’s between you and them. I had my own problems to deal with, ya know?

I knew that it probably didn’t matter whether or not it was personal. I also knew that he wasn’t going to feel bad about any problems that I had gotten myself into. What I was hoping he would realize is that if he didn’t care about my problems, it was hypocritical to be mad at me about doing the same.

JAYCEE: Forget what you did to me. Your problems got a guy shot, and you don’t care. I mean look at you! You stayed at his gym. You sat around watching it play out without ever saying a word.

That was more self-preservation than anything else. Once Kris got tangled up in it, I was screwed. If I had bailed, they would have immediately pointed the finger at the guy that disappeared as suddenly as he had showed up before everything went to shit. The only thing that I could do is stay, and the only way I could make things worse was to talk. These people came after Jaycee out of fear of what he might say to the wrong people. I was lucky they didn’t consider me a threat. Or at least that they still had a use for me. He didn’t want to hear any of that though. Jaycee didn’t come to hear an explanation, so I gave him what he wanted to hear.

OZ: I didn’t know the guy. Plus, I didn’t put him in that situation. You did.

If he wanted me to be the villain, I could do that. He exploded off of the end of the bed, and everything kind of became a blur after the first couple of right hands landed. I managed to somewhat cover up, but I had zero thought about fighting back.

JAYCEE: YOU SENT THEM AFTER ME!

The flurry subsided, and he pushed himself back up to his feet. He was out of breath. I had to respect the fact that he stopped himself before he tired himself out and started swinging half-heartedly. He wanted each shot to hurt like the first one. Unfortunately, everything had dulled into one throbbing ache from head-to-toe. He could have kept the attack up for hours; I wouldn’t have to deal with it until the next day. I knew that he wasn’t really in it to maim me. If I wasn’t able to show up for Climax Control, it wouldn’t matter if he smashed the phone. That really limited what else he could do to punish me for everything he had to endure in the last year. It also emboldened me to say whatever the fuck that I wanted.

OZ: ....and you ran. You be pissed at me all you want about turning you in, but I didn’t make you go to Jet City. I didn’t put the guy between you and them. You could have just gone quietly.

I could see his anger waver a little when he looked down at me.

JAYCEE: I tried to go quietly. They shot him anyways.

I shrugged. If he wanted me to feel bad about it, he didn’t really know me at all. The world was never fair to either of us; why care about someone else that got the short straw?

OZ: Wrong place. Wrong time. Probably happens a few thousand times a day. Why should I feel bad?

He must have seen the smile starting to form in the corner of my mouth, because he sent another hard kick to my ribs just to keep me humble.

JAYCEE: Why are you still here?

Maybe he wasn’t as smart as I gave him credit for. I always thought the plan was kind of dumb. I didn’t think there was any way that he would see my stupid face in a wrestling ring and show up just to lay down a beating. It was yet another small win, despite my position.

OZ: I put all of the work in, I might as well pay it off.

He was already shaking his head before I even finished the sentence.

JAYCEE: I’m not buying it.

Even if I knew I couldn’t convince him, I wasn’t just going to give it up. We learned from a young age that you have to die with a lie no matter what. As soon as it was spoken, it was fact. Whatever reality existed before then was forgotten. There was only the new truth. No backpedaling; not ever.

OZ: Doesn’t matter what you’re buying or not buying. I had to bust my ass to even get into this Blast from the Past shit. I’mma ride it out until I get eliminated.

He still wasn’t satisfied with my answer.

JAYCEE: Nah. That’s not you. You’re not that guy. You don’t care about your obligation to the tournament. You don’t care about anyone but yourself, and I know it ain’t about Eiley. So why are you here?

He could ask the question as many different ways as he wanted, but he was always going to get the same answer.

OZ: I ---

Before I could get it out he was back on top of me in a flash. He forced his forearm against my throat, cutting the lie off before it could come out again.

JAYCEE: ---you… are here to let them know when I show up, right?

I shook my head, and he eased off just a little bit so that I could force out just a few words in response.

OZ: Can’t do it. Lost… my… phone.

It wasn’t as eloquent as I usually prided myself on being, but it did bring the start of a smile to his face before he turned away and stood back up.

JAYCEE: You know what? I don’t even need you do admit that you fucked up. I don’t need you to even take responsibility. I should have expected you to pull some shit like this. It’s who you are. You got a choice now though. You can keep being a little bitch, or you can help me clean this shit up the right way.

I hoped that he wasn’t going to stand over me and wait for an answer, because I had no intention of telling him what he wanted to hear. I don’t think he expected anything else though, because he made his way to the door before looking back over his shoulder.

JAYCEE: Don’t make that phone call, Oz….

I didn’t even try to get up and follow him. As soon as the door shut, I closed my eyes. There were only a few more brief moments before the adrenaline was going to wear off and I was going to start feeling every shot he threw at me. I was going to enjoy them.



==========================================================
>
==========================================================



So it’s only round two, and yet I have arrived at the top of the mountain…

Or at least that is what it feels like. I mean, this week I get to step into the ring with that guy that nobody will shut up about. From the moment that J2H signed up for Blast from the Past, people called him the favorite. From the moment Devona was announced as his partner the two of them were declared unbeatable. The two of them have been the crowned champions of this tournament before the brackets were even announced. Every other team was already just a speed bump on their way to the finals.

Some people might think that is an awful position for me to be in, but I couldn’t disagree more. Nobody expects Ariana or myself to defy the odds. Nobody expects us to even be able to hold a candle to these two. To be fair, some are going to congratulate us simply for making it out of the first round considering the accomplishments of some of the teams already watching the rest of the tournament from the back. If I step into that ring and J2H rips me to shreds, nobody would be surprised. The world would keep on turning just like it always has. My career in this company wouldn’t be derailed. People wouldn’t think less of me. If J2H and Devona walk out of Climax Control with an easy win, it will have been business as normal. So I either get to piss off all the odds-makers and guarantee that I go down in the Sin City history books, or things play out exactly as they were intended to play out.

Either way, I can’t lose.

I mean of course I could literally lose. That could happen, but how big would that win need to be for anyone to find it impressive? I mean, if J2H and Devona come out and barely scrape by, how bad would that make them look headed into the next round. Even better, if J2H has to cheat again just to survive this match, how does that make him look? I know that nothing I say, and nothing anyone thinks is going to change that guy’s opinion of himself, but it’s worth putting some thought into, right?

If he has to cheat his way all the way through the tournament, what’s the point? What is he actually proving to anyone? Look at the first round for example. I don’t do anything worthy of getting disqualified for, yet Christian makes sure to send some half-shaming tweet my way. The biggest name in his company blatantly cheats his way out of the first round, and there isn’t a peep. He’s already got everyone up in the offices looking the other way. And why? Because he has earned it?

Answer me this, because admittedly I am not up on all of my history, when has J2H ever been any different? From what I have heard he has always been an underhanded cock, he just used to be significantly less successful. Sure, he went on an awesome record-setting run that probably won’t ever get touched, but was any of it ever legit? Was it all just one screwjob after another? Is that all it takes in order to end up in the hall of fame? If so, sign me up. It’ll take a whole lot less effort to get there than I thought it would.

On the other hand, I guess he could just sit back and let his partner do all the heavy lifting. Devona is probably one of the few people in the tournament that could have been successful regardless of who got named her partner. Don’t get me wrong, I fully expect that Ariana will be able to hold her own, but I am not going to lie and say that she isn’t impressive. Because of that, I can’t exactly take the low-road and keep myself on the apron in order to keep J2H out of the match all together. That kind of strategy might buy me some time, but I’m not willing to bet that it will give us the win. J2H might be content to stand on the apron, but I won’t be. The good thing is, I can bring him into the match any time that I want to.

…and I might as well make him work for it., because even if we were to take them out, Ariana and I wouldn’t just start jumping up the boards as the favorite to win the whole thing. If we win, it will undoubtedly be called a fluke, and if we lose, nobody will care. That puts us in a position to go out in front of that crowd and just do our thing. The pressure is off of the two of us, because it is all on the other side of the ring. They are the ones that have to live up to their hype. They are the ones that have to put on a dominating performance. They are the ones that have the burden of proving that we aren’t ready to take on this kind of challenge. Devona and J2H have the tall task of trying to put Ariana and I “in our place” and I know the two of us aren’t going to be going quietly.

So like I said, it feels like this is the top of the mountain, even though it is just the second round. There is no greater possible matchup for me than this one. There isn’t anyone that I could beat and have it have the impact that winning that this one would, and I know that Ariana is going to be looking across that ring and thinking the same exact thing. See, people think that the opportunity of a tournament like this lies simply in the ultimate prize at the end. It doesn’t. There is no way that this company would have ever put me in the ring with their measuring stick this early on. There is no way that I could have taunted J2H into showing up to step into the ring with me under any other circumstance. Blast from the Past is the one place that I get to step into a six-sided ring with the best to ever do it, and just see where it is that I stack up. Will I lose? Maybe. But could I win? You better fucking believe it.

It is not even without precedent. Look at all of the greats that Fenris, Court Pierce or Ruby Steele had to run through on their way to improbable rookie runs. The history of this tournament is littered with people that came to it the same way that Ariana and I are coming to it, and they managed to make it all the way through to the end. Each and every time they stepped into the ring they were supposed to lose Yet somehow, some way, it is their names etched into the history books. It doesn’t mean that they were destined to go bigger and better places than the teams that they went through. It didn’t even mean that they were the best team in the tournament. All it means is that when they needed to step up, they did. When it was time to fight, they were ready. When people tried to talk them out of it, they ignored it. They pushed through when nobody gave them a chance, and enough things went their way. It can happen. It has happened. That means it can happen again.

If anyone expects us to walk into this match intimidated, they are going to be sorely disappointed when they see Ariana and I walking down that aisle. We have absolutely nothing to lose, and everything in the world to gain. It doesn’t matter to either of us who people are putting their money on in this round, or any other. If we listened to all the chatter, we probably wouldn’t have even made it out of the first round. On Sunday, I am going to step into the ring and throw everything that I have at The Best in the World and if he doesn’t plan on doing the exact same thing to me, it is going to cost his team the crown that everyone is already begging to give them. There are no free rides to the final four. If J2H and Devona want that spot, they are going to have to take it from us, because we aren’t going to lay down and hand it to them. 

First the final four. Then the finals. Then the whole damn thing. That was what the two of us signed up for, and that goal hasn’t changed. We knew that we would have to be willing to fight our way through every single person that grabbed a spot in this tournament. None of this was a surprise. None of this is biting off more than we can chew. This is exactly the kind of match that Ariana and I wanted, because the opportunities waiting for us at the end of the tournament are worth it.

Our obstacle this week is a whole lot bigger than the first, but so what?

I’ve never been one to be threatened by a challenge.

I’ve never enjoyed succeeding more than when everyone told me it couldn’t be done.

That makes this match my best case scenario.

That’ll make this win all that much sweeter.

I have nothing to be afraid of, and everything to look forward to.

See you Sunday.


15
Climax Control Archives / The Start of Something... "Miraculous"
« on: March 31, 2023, 11:52:39 PM »
==========================================================
>
==========================================================


Old Friends
Jet City South - SAN DIEGO
20 JANUARY 2022
OFF-Camera



My path to Sin City Wrestling was a long one. One that I never really planned on making either. It kind of all fell into my lap. One thing led to another, led to another, and then another, so forth and so on. Before I ended up competing in Blast from the Past, it was me showing up on the doorstep of Jet City. Before that, things were actually a lot more fun. I got to go where I wanted. I mean, the first leg of this tour was in Canada of all fucking places. I prefer somewhere warm. Somewhere with beaches, sand, and people trying to show off the vacation bodies they worked hard to sculpt. That’s where I belong. Technically, that’s where the long and winding road to Sin City actually started.

Hawaii was a fun time, I can’t lie. It’s full of opportunities for anyone smart enough to reach out and grab them. I mean, there’s people falling asleep on beaches. There’s people wandering around lost. There’s huge celebrations that draw massive crowds of tourists. Everything that someone like me needed to fit in, and all made possible by the smartest money that I had ever made. I was riding pretty high at the time, but that wasn’t why that particular night stands out in my memory. I had charmed my way through a couple of pockets at bars earlier in the night. When I turned into that alley, the three guys I was with were pretty much tapped out. More of their money was in my pocket than any of theirs, and they weren’t handling the alcohol near as well as I was. I was already looking for a way to ditch them when they spotted the bartender just trying to take a break in silence. Drunkenly, they redirected towards her, already starting with the catcalls. That wasn’t going to be good for me, or my night.

Oz: "Nah guys don't be building that one up. Whistling at a soft 6  like that is going to make her feel like a hard 8 or something."

Now I strongly believe that there are three kinds of people in the world. There are the people that are going to soften up, tuck tail, and run back inside. There are those that are going to just take it, or maybe even try to shame guys for the attempt. Then there were people that were just ready to square up on sight. I could only read the girl’s body language through the dim light, but she definitely fell in that third group. After a whole night dealing with drunks behind the bar where she couldn’t say anything off-color, she seemed ready to swing at any asshole with the audacity. The problem was, from the moment our eyes locked on one another, we knew something the other three didn’t.

Oz: "Oh shit! Fuck a soft six… This one ain’t nothing but a straight 4. Street folk don't get to climb the ladder just because they fill out nicely and end up in Hawaii…. isn’t that right, E?"

The other three may well have been invisible from that point on. She walked right past them like they weren’t the original intended victims of whatever hatred she was about to open her mouth and spew at me. They wouldn’t have been equipped to deal with it either. They wouldn’t have known what they had gotten themselves into until she had finished laying them out in the middle of the street. I knew it, because I had seen it before. Lived it.

Oz: "How does a soup kitchen kid like you end up in a place like this anyway? Finally work your way off the corner and down to a more tropical climate?"

The three bums did exactly what I expected them to do: kept it moving. See, they were part of that first category of people I mentioned, the ones that flee the scene. Suddenly, they weren’t so worried about where the rest of my night was going to take me. They weren’t worried about winning any of their money back, or finding the missing watch that was definitely in my back pocket. They saw this chick about to flip her lid, and bailed like the cowards that they were.

Oz: "Aight chumps. I see how it is… you gonna let a girl scare you off? Don't nobody be trying to get on my tab later!"

I watched as she balled up her fists on her way towards me. Her mouth fell open a few times and slammed shut wordlessly. By the time she got to me, her jaw was clenched, and I could tell she was trying not to let me back under her skin like I had been when we were kids. She wasn’t going to give me the satisfaction of blowing up. I wasn’t a stranger.

Eiley: “I doubt I scared them off…”

Her voice is devoid of any emotion, and I knew what a struggle that had to be. There didn’t even sound like anything brewing under the surface, even though rage was all over her face. She didn’t have that kind of control the last time that I had seen her. Although, it had been a couple of years at that point. In the past she would have swung at me then and there. She had even chased me through alleys in San Diego for the same reason on more than one occasion. This time, it was like she was determined to not let me win. I had to commend her for the attempt.

Eiley: “I see that you haven’t changed in the least. Still hanging out with the worst of the worst as long as they have an open tab?”

I could see the anger fade from her face as she spoke. The control she had was pretty impressive. Instead of exploding at me, she tried to play my game for once. I could have sworn that her eyes seemed to say they were enjoying it too.

Eiley: “I’m surprised they let scum like you on this island. I’m sure you’re not even making your own money to stay here but swiping it off of others.”

She had me pegged from the start, but to be fair, she had the advantage. We had been part of the same circle of friends for a long time. We all kind of aged out of the system, and came up together. Several of us learned handy little survival trades that worked no matter where we found ourselves. It was almost comical to hear her sound so above it all though.

Eiley: “Why don’t you go back to kicking over trash cans or harassing the homeless? Or whatever it is you do. I have to get back to my job.”

She turned, but I wasn’t going down like that. Even if her best shot had been weak, I wasn’t going to let her just walk off feeling like she had done something to be proud of. Sure, she hadn’t completely lost her cool, but since when is that worth giving someone a medal for? She had her chance, just like I had to return fire.

Oz: "Ha!  …a fucking job… that does suck."

Not that I was surprised. She was always the one of us that was most likely to try and play society’s game the way that it was supposed to be played. She wasn’t going to be afraid of the back-breaking labor in a going-nowhere job. She had always been determined to rise above by only bending the rules that most of us pretended weren’t there at all. That didn’t mean that she wasn’t still wrong about me though.

Oz: "...and I'll have you know, little-miss-full-of-herself, I am here on my own dime. Paid for a ticket and everything….. but…. since touching down have I seen some people get loose with their billfolds and maybe lose some here and there? Maybe. Can I be blamed for what they misplaced though?"

I paused, but only long enough to get her to spin around back towards me. The goal was to keep her from escaping back inside thinking that she had won, and I had succeeded. However, as soon as she tried to answer, I cut her off.

Oz: "Nah. Don't answer that. I know what you'll say. As much as you're one of us, you also have that holier than thou shit going. But… look at the two of us! All this time passed and here we are. Someone still in the same place, at the same time. Only you're working, and I'm out partying."

I could see that anger starting to boil back up even though she didn’t want to show it. She gritted her teeth, and tried to choke it back.

Eiley: “At least I don’t have to lie and steal to make money. Everything I have, I earned. I didn’t have to prey on a flock of hapless drunks every night just to be able to skate by on the bare minimum. You think you’re some kind of success story because you’re here? We see trash wash up all the time.”

It was good. Better than I would have given her credit for before tonight. If I would have gotten to put money down on the argument, I would have put it on her blowing up before managing a single word that was able to cut me more than superficially. Unfortunately, she was a couple of weeks behind the times.

Oz: “Nah, see it’s not like that anymore. If you find the right people you don’t have those kinds of problems anymore.”

Her eyes rolled hard. I knew there was no way that she was going to believe that I wasn’t in the exact same position I was in the last time our paths crossed. Me being better off meant that all of her work was for nothing. She was convinced that the only way out was real work. I was about to shatter that world view.

Eiley: “That’s all pretty pointlessly vague.”

It was intentional. I wanted her to ask, because if she didn’t, then she really wasn’t interested. It would have shown me that she really wasn’t second-guessing the path that she took. Questions meant curiosity. Curiosity meant uncertainty, and that meant that no matter how hard she tried, I would win.

Oz: “Some people are going to pay me to go work out. You know, really bust my ass and go through some kind of combat school. But see, they don’t even care if I am any good. They don’t even care if I ever even actually fight. All I gotta do is keep my eyes peeled for the right guy to walk in the door, and let them know when or if he does. Nothing more. Nothing less. All expenses paid, for as long as it takes.”

She gritted her teeth, and tried to turn away, but I was ready for it. I beat her to the door and put my back to it, bringing the two of us face-to-face.

Oz: "What’s the matter? Upset that you have fought so hard, just to fail to reach the middle all while someone as terrible as me skipped right over you with a smile on my face?"

She reached for the handle of the door, and yanked back. To my surprise, she actually managed to pull me off balance a little, but it wasn’t enough to get me out of the way.

Eiley: "You’re a shit person. You’ve always been a shit person. You’ll likely always be a shit person. You know what the sad thing is though? Nobody has ever expected anything better from you. Sure, you may have started at the bottom and the occasional score might catapult you up a few steps, but make no mistake, you’ll end up right where you belong."

She was probably right, but that seemed like a problem for a future version of me to deal with. I was too busy making sure that I got there without any regrets.

Oz: "I couldn’t help being born in the gutter, but I am only interested in moving upward and onward. If you're too stuck in the past to see that, maybe a job is what you really needed."

She yanked back on the door again, but my foot was firmly planted against it, so there was no movement like there was on the first attempt. Unable to flee, her face twisted up and she made no attempt to hide her anger anymore.

Eiley: “I believe it is you that is stuck in the past. You’re the one that is still doing the same stupid shit that I was doing six or seven years ago but I’ve moved on from that. I don’t need to resort to the shortcuts that you do. I think it gets to you that I grew up. You should think about doing the same.”

She went to pull the door again, and this time I moved so that it swung open. It crashed against the bricks of the back wall of the building hard enough to be heard overtop of the music inside. I knew that it was only a matter of seconds before someone was going to come check that everything was okay, but that display of anger was all I needed to chalk up yet another victory.

Eiley: “Go home Olly. Wherever it is that home is these days…”

She sounded defeated, although she could have just been trying to shoo me along before anybody with the power to fire her came along.

Eiley: “I have to go back to work. Real work.”

I didn’t stop her. I probably could have. I could have made a scene and I definitely could have convinced someone that she accosted me in the alley and deserved to be fired. To be honest though, that wasn’t something that I wanted. I just wanted to get that rise out of her. From the moment that I realized it was her, I just wanted to play the game, because we always had. Getting under her skin started out as a way to pass the time. Years later, it was a way to deal with other feelings. Then in Hawaii, I am not even sure if I knew why I was doing it. I don’t even know why I gave her all of the information that I did. I just know that conversation eventually led us both to the place we ended up: Sin City.



==========================================================
>
==========================================================



I am sure that people are wondering exactly who I am…

That’s kind of the million dollar question of the first round, isn’t it? I mean, all of these fresh new faces come in for the Blast from the Past tournament because the prize is something that nobody can pass up. Anybody can go from a basic nobody to the face of the whole company if they get a good partner and can go the distance. It’s an offer that is too good to refuse.

...but there is a limit. I mean, of all of the competitors in the world, only sixteen men and sixteen women get to enter. There are more people than that on the roster in this company, and yet the tournament is open to the world. Sometimes you have to know the right people to get a foot in the door. Sometimes, you just need to be positioned in the right gym, for when they get the call. I mean, that is how I ended up here. I’ll be honest with you guys, I had never even heard of this place a year ago. I was just looking for a place to stay in beach shape. How was I supposed to know that Jet City South would eventually funnel me here? How could I have guessed that I would be handed one of these spots and told to go run with the opportunity?

The short answer is that I couldn’t have guessed that any of this would happen. I am one of a handful of people in the tournament representing Jet City, and all of you saw what Court Pierce did in the opener last week. I walked into that gym last year, and I have taken on the best that they have had to offer every single day since. I have pushed people that have been doing this a lot longer than me to their limit and then some. I have risen above people that have been around for years. I have ascended the ranks of a gym that produced what I hear is one of the best this company has ever seen. Yet, they pointed the finger at me when it came to signing up for this tournament. They wanted me to be the one coming down the aisle to represent them. They trusted me to do that, all while having a legacy of a gym that typically does really well in Blast from the Past. They have trained a winner, and several others that got very close.

Who can really say who belongs and who doesn’t before they ever actually step inside the six sides of the Sin City ring?

...but that is what a lot of people in this tournament are going to say. People were already doing it this week, and I am sure that this Sunday’s Climax Control will be no different. People are going to say that rookies don’t stand a chance. People are going to say that a lot of the new faces don’t realize what they are getting themselves into. Everyone is expecting the newbies to be tossed out in the first round, because they aren’t ready. So let me ask this, who ever is? Nobody is ever the very best that they will ever be from the first day on the job.

I mean look at the legends of this company. Everyone lost their shit when J2H signed up for Blast from the Past, but from what I hear, that dude was a joke for a long time before becoming the superstar he is now. If he had listened to any of the detractors early on, you people would have never seen what he was capable of growing into. Now it is all you people talk about. It is all that I have heard since the very moment that I signed up. You know what that tells me? It tells me that you people don’t have a fucking clue what will work, and what won’t. You can’t see the future stars coming before they slap you in the mouth. You don’t believe, until you see it for yourselves.

Everyone is quick to write-off the people that haven’t done anything yet, and equally as fast to jump on the bandwagon after new superstars start to take off. And that isn’t just the fans. After being at the show last week, I can tell you that the same conversations are happening in the back, and they are damn sure happening in the gyms. People started picking the winners of this tournament before the teams were even announced. That really helped open my eyes to how all of this actually worked.

Coming out of Jet City South was already bad enough. I mean, the shadow of Kris Ryans is going to be a rough one to break out of. Being around that place, the stories are unavoidable. Nobody took Coby seriously because as good as he was, he wasn’t the ‘The Miracle’. Court heard the same thing, and is still dealing with that to this day. It basically crippled her. Ruby showed up, and people literally hated her from the jump. Kate has been successful, but people don’t even relate her to Jet City the way that all of us students do. Even the kid that showed up in the tournament last year apparently heard the chatter. He flamed out so spectacularly that nobody ever saw the dude again. And I had to deal with all of that every time I stepped into that building. I had to deal with the naysayers and the ones that already believed that the bar had been raised as high as it ever could.

...and that is exactly why I passed them all up. That is why it is me standing here, and not them. That is why I am in this tournament while everyone else with a more important resume couldn’t be bothered. Too many people are paralyzed by the fear of coming out and falling short. Too many people don’t try, because they don’t feel like they could get to the top. Too many of them don’t want to waste their effort on something everyone knows they are going to fail at.

Not me. Why? Because like I said, you people don’t know shit. Nobody in that locker room has seen me actually step foot in the ring. The majority of the people in the arena aren’t going to give me a chance all because they don’t recognize my name. The people in this tournament are going to tell me that I don’t know what it takes, and that I have no idea what someone can put me through in that ring. They’ll say I haven’t learned enough.

...and nobody actually knows a damn thing at all.

I mean fuck, the guy that the majority of you hold up as the guy with the best shot of winning this tournament is a guy that all of you have wrote off as a punchline before you gave him a chance. Even worse, everyone is on Kris’ bandwagon now that he is dead and gone, but that dude’s rise to the top was literally called miraculous around this company. They dubbed him “The Miracle” like he was doing anything as a champion that he hadn’t done the first night on the job. I am new around here, but it seems like there is a trend starting there. Seems like everyone makes up their mind about what newcomers can do before everyone lays an eye on them. That doesn’t sound like there’s a glass ceiling anymore. It sounds awful fucking concrete to me.

So I can’t care about what any of you think. I can’t care about what my opponents are going to say about me. I can’t care what the people in the locker room think of me. If I do, I already lost because they don’t think I can do what I am setting out to do in the Blast from the Past tournament. Nobody thinks I can win. Nobody thinks that I stand a chance. Nobody outside of Jet City thinks that I even deserve to be here. So I say fuck’em. I say, I’mma just do my own thing. I say, me and my partner shut out all the white noise and just go out there to do what we thought we could from the moment we signed up for this thing. Before the teams were picked, before even all the names were announced, we signed up for this thing because we thought there was a chance we could win it. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t feel that way. This would be a waste of time otherwise. I say let’s cling to that, and you people can keep the rest, because at the end of the day, none of you are going to be in that ring with me.

...I only need one person in my corner, and that’s Ariana Angelos. She probably understands better than most people in this tournament what it is like to be counted out, and rise above it anyways. I mean, she came into this year as the Bombshell Roulette Champion. Who thought that was possible before she did it? Who thought that her jump from the Underground to SCW would crash and burn? She is yet another in a long line of people exceeding the expectations placed on them, but she doesn’t seem bitter about it at all. I doubt she would disagree with anything I’ve said, even if she wouldn’t have said it herself. She graduated out of the Go Gym, and has carried a championship in Sin City, and even she can’t get the recognition that she deserves. What makes her any different than any of the other greats that came out of that gym? What makes her less than any other former champion in Sin City? Not a damn thing. I don’t think I could have gotten paired with anyone better. I got a partner that can understand where I am coming from, and what I want to get done in that ring. That’s not a bad foundation for two strangers to start from.

However, I will say that the one thing that bothers me the most about her is the one thing that bothers me the most about our first round opponents. It’s the fact that in the face of all of the negativity, she is still cherry, and gives a shit what people think about her. Granted, she isn’t as bad about the nauseatingly sweet Sam Marlowe, or the human punchline Teddy Warren.

...and I get it. Not only has Sam made it to the finals of this tournament before, but there apparently used to be a whole mixed tag division inspired by this tournament, and she won that championship as well. And it’s hard to hype up Ariana holding that Bombshell Roulette Championship when Sam has had that thing on several occasions. My problem is, there isn’t a single person that has a negative thing to say about her. I’ve asked. Every time her name is brought up, it seems to light up whomever I am talking to. People rave about her, despite the fact that in all her years she has never managed to rise up past the middle. No matter how many chances she has been handed and failed to cash in on, people love her. People love watching her compete. People are always cheering her on. It’s the exact opposite treatment that most of the rest of us get, and for the worst possible reason. She isn’t respected as one of the best to ever come through this company. She isn’t elite in the ring, or even in a promo. Everything is cookie-cutter safe when it comes to Sam. Everyone shrugs off her mediocrity because the only thing she is really good at is kissing ass. She is the queen of pandering. I have watched countless clips online trying to figure out why I should feel threatened by her being across the ring from me, and every one of them made me sick to my stomach. She lets people walk all over her with a smile on her face and everyone loves a good doormat.

...the problem with being a doormat though, is that they don’t end up winning a whole lot of wrestling matches. When you smile in the face of someone pointing out your shortcomings, it means those shortcomings don’t bother you. That come-whatever-may attitude means that there is no fire burning inside of her to actually reach out and do something worth remembering. She would rather be everyone’s friend than the face of the Bombshell division, and that’s fine. That’s clearly worked for her. She has been collecting a paycheck for a long while without having to ever actually work on her craft. That’s as far as the dream goes for some people. They are just happy to be included.

And that goes double for her partner and the “man” that I have to actually lock up with on Climax Control, Teddy Warren. I couldn’t find a whole lot about the guy, because apparently there is not a whole lot about him worth knowing. He also apparently got his hands on that mixed tag championship that doesn’t exist anymore, but from what I can tell, not even he thought that he deserved it. Apparently the only thing that he is actually good for, is getting J2H to show up and make fun of him. What’s even more sad is that back when he signed up for this tournament he was talking about how he hadn’t been competing full time in nearly two years because of a gnarly divorce. So I am stepping into the ring against a guy who hasn’t even really been thinking about competing, let alone stepping inside a ring for two years; a guy that wasn’t even all that great back when he was working on his craft day-after-day. And I could sit here and point out all the same shortcomings in his game that everyone else did years before I was paying attention, but what’s the point? We have seen his best, and it doesn’t even rise to the mediocrity of his partner.

Yet these are the two individuals that people have given the edge to send Ariana and I home in the first round. These are the two that the fans are undoubtedly going to be behind when the bell rings. They are the favorites, and Ari and I are the incapable ones. Is anyone still wondering why I can’t take any of you seriously? Every single person in the crowd, and the locker room are hypocrites. When given the choice between young talent or proven failures apparently the only thing that matters is how long someone has been around. It’s not right. And now it is my mission to show every single person in that arena how very, very wong they all are.

...and afterwards they’ll probably call it something stupid like “miraculous” even though it was all so fucking clear from the start.


16
Climax Control Archives / Our Moment
« on: March 04, 2022, 10:57:52 PM »
==========================================================
===========================================================



Almost Human
Jet City South - SAN DIEGO
1 March 2022
OFF-Camera


Willie Mac’s visit spooked me. I hadn’t been willing to let him see that in the moment but it had stuck with me afterwards. I couldn’t see a way out. Somehow I pulled myself together enough to get the job done in the second round of Blast from the Past. The assist we got wasn’t exactly needed, but I am not going to complain about it.  The entire night I was haunted by how I was supposed to be wrapping this up, but I couldn’t just hang Levana out to dry like that. I wasn’t just going to stand on the apron even though I knew that was probably the smartest play. There was no part of me that was going to be able to stomach that. But, I felt just as sick when we won as I would have felt if we lost. By advancing, I was risking my own ass, and apparently dragging down Willie with me. It felt selfish, but somehow I knew that feeling wouldn’t be as bad as the regret I would have looking back at it years from now. Keeping my head down and staying out of sight is no way to live a life. Being in the ring was the exact opposite of that. I couldn’t give that up yet. I wasn’t ready to go back. My only real option was to split the difference. As soon as I saw that I wasn’t booked for the last Climax Control, I took off. I let Levana know that I was taking some time, and bolted. If there were questions that the media needed answered about our team, she could do that. If there were social media scuffles, she could handle that. Being in the spotlight was part of the allure of it all for her. That made her the perfect partner, even though if I said that to her face she would likely be offended.

For the first week, that went as well as it could have. Coby had gotten the word out that everyone needed to stay out of my way. I wasn’t interested in talking about the tournament, promoting the gym, or making friends. I was there to work. Success, even as limited as it has been, apparently has its perks.I thought today was going to be another one of those days. I got up early. I beat my time on my morning run to the gym. Things were shaping up to be perfect. I should have known that was too good to be true. The front doors didn’t automatically separate as I approached. I checked my phone to make sure I wasn’t too early before deciding that nobody had made it to the front door yet. All the familiar cars for the trainers were in their respective parking spaces, so I didn’t think anything was out of the ordinary. I darted through the alley, and tried the back door nearest to the locker rooms, and it pulled open without problems. However, as I stepped through, I was greeted by the least friendly face at Jet City South.

Kris: Oh, check it out. This year’s tournament rookie.

I really can’t understand why more people don’t hate this guy. It is like he goes out of his way to be unpleasant just for the fun of it. Mark and Christian may think that makes him bold, but in my eyes, it really just makes him an asshole.

Jaycee: Oh look, SCW’s absentee tag team champion….

I knew that I shouldn’t let him get to me, because it was exactly what he wanted. He was just chomping at the bit to compare me to Courtney Pierce. Everyone that found out where I trained made that comparison, and I didn’t find it flattering. Nobody wants to be compared to a spectacular flame out while they are still on the rise. With everything else going on, I wasn’t trying to dwell on becoming a failure.

Kris: Easy there buddy, I wasn’t trying to rile you up. You’ve done well for yourself, even though you aren’t willing to give us any credit for that.

What credit did any of them deserve? Sure I had hit up a few of their structured classes. I had audited a whole lot more while doing my own thing and just keeping an eye on what they were working through. For the most part, I developed my own style. I didn’t come out of one of their molds. I wasn’t going to let anyone else take credit for my gifts.

Jaycee: I give you what you’re owed. I just don’t want to be saddled with your name. You can understand that, I’m sure.

Strangely, it didn’t feel like he wanted to argue like we had a few months back. Going off of that interaction, and everything that I had seen on social media and Sin City programming, it caught me off guard. Everything about his body language seemed chill. His hands were up, and he took a step back from me which was typical deescalation.

Kris: Nah, I get it. My name is shit everywhere but Sin City, and they think I am some kind of God most of the time. I don’t always understand it. In a lot of ways, I am just along for the ride. You’re only a couple matches in, but if you stick to it you’ll get it eventually.

Little did he know I was already feeling the pull of that. Despite the fact that it would have been in my best interest to throw the last match, I couldn’t. No matter how many times I talked myself out of giving it my all, I had to. I wanted to give up, but my body wouldn’t let me. It drove me to keep competing until it went our way. Looking back, it felt almost like an out-of-body experience.

Jaycee: The ring brings the best out of people…

I could be wrong, but I felt like I earned a little bit of respect with those words.

Kris: It just allows people to show you who they really are. People don’t hold back when they are out there. The moment won’t let you. You get all those people screaming around you, and things just happen. You’re moving on instinct. When you’re down in the ring you can almost feel the way that things are going to go before they happen. I have met some truly terrible people in that six sided ring, but I got through it because I could feel it was my night.

I shouldn’t have expected anything less from him. Kris was a notorious under-preparer. He didn’t have any real technique to speak of. The fact that he owned a gym was laughable, because there was nothing about what he does that he could really teach people. The guy was a wrecking ball that goads people into playing his game. If we ever came across each other in the ring, I would take him out one limb at a time. His chaotic style relied on who had the momentum in the match, whereas for me everything was more textbook.

Jaycee: If you’re paying attention, it can always be your night.

That was where I lost him. Just when we were starting to get on the same page too…

Kris: No. Sometimes it’s just not. Sometimes there is nothing you can do. It’s a lot like drowning actually.

His eyes trailed away like he was remembering something, but I didn’t have time to take that stroll down memory lane with him. This conversation had already erased my excellent time getting here. Somehow even though I got here earlier than ever, I was still going to end up starting late.

Jaycee: I’ll keep my eye out for it.

The words were just meant to appease him. It was the most courteous brush off that I could come up with at the moment. I tried to push my way past him, but he took a step backwards at an angle to stay in front of me.

Kris: I’m not sure that it works like that. It’s one of those things that you’ll just know as soon as the bell rings.

I could tell that he was studying my reaction to see if I was allowing any of his words to get into my head. The whole charming and disarming act was really just a work around to rope me into another one of his word games.

Jaycee: Look man, I’m not going to dwell on any of the negatives. Why would I? If I really wanted to pick things apart, I could…. but why? It’s a waste of my energy. I’d rather bust my ass to make sure that I did everything that I could to make it happen. Focusing on the white noise is just readying an excuse for when it goes bad. I don’t prepare for what I’m gonna do after losing, because I don’t intend to lose. None of the little things matter if you win, so why put any thought into them…. ever?

I thought that some of it would take him by surprise, but he took every word in stride. He even cracked a smile at me like I had passed his test.

Kris: Maybe the moment won’t be too big for you.

I couldn’t help but take a shot at him since this whole thing had been a game at my expense.

Jaycee: You mean like it was too big for you when you tried to win it? You weren’t even a rookie like me…

I thought that I would at least provoke him into being more direct about what the point of all of this was, but the words didn’t register much of a response at first. After a second, he turned away from me and motioned for me to follow him down the hallway towards the main space of the gym.

Kris: That doesn’t mean that we don’t have things in common…

As we came to the end of the hallway, he stopped and nodded out in the direction of a group of people. It took me a few seconds of scanning faces to see that not only was it all of the trainers, but people that I had never seen before. Two children. A boy that couldn’t be ten yet, and a girl that looked roughly half that. A few current and former Sin City faces whether they were trainers or recent students. Ruby and Court were in the ring squaring up with the children like they were actually going to spar.

Jaycee: Did I interrupt some kind of party or something?

He nodded, but I didn’t get the feeling that he was offended that I had stumbled across their gathering.

Kris: We all travel a lot, so there is never a good time for all of us to get together all in the same place. Those are both of my kids. KJ… that kid is going to be a monster in the ring in another ten years. It’s all he talks about. And then Lindsay. It’s her birthday, and she wanted to see everyone so we shut it down just for her.

It was starting to make sense why they wouldn’t just rip Kris’ face off of all the walls around here. I had always thought of the gym as a business that he was failing to manage. In reality, they were all more of an extended family. I am sure the connections between them would be interesting to learn if I had the time, or gave more of a shit. It was nice and all, but I didn’t see how it related to me.

Jaycee: I don’t get it…

He laughed. I was starting to get the idea that it was his favorite part of these little condescending lessons. The more time I spent with him, the more I could understand why his students lacked confidence in themselves and always fell apart.

Kris: I had some success early on, just like you are. But I was always destined to take a whole lot of steps backwards. If you don’t know the history, go watch it. I used to suck. So when you mention that I did poorly in the tournament, it doesn’t matter. I hadn’t learned anything yet.

He was watching the group more than he was paying attention to me, but he had my attention.

Kris: At first I was using Sin City as a way to run away from life. I was there just to have something to do, and because of that I kept falling on my face. It didn’t matter how much I wanted things to go right, I just couldn’t get to where I wanted to go. It never really clicked or felt right.

Clearly that changed, because the guy was just inducted into the Hall of Fame, so I assumed he was approaching something that resembled a point to all of this.

Kris: Those two changed that for me. Instead of running away, I was running to build everything that I could for them. I wanted to be the best, so that they would want that for themselves. I found the motivation that I needed. I stopped working against myself, and leaned into it. I made the decision that being inside that ring was the way to fix things for myself, and didn’t take no for an answer.

I couldn’t see what he was trying to get at and attempted to cut him off.

Jaycee: That’s motivat---

He turned back to me and suddenly got serious.

Kris: Sooner or later people are going to find out that you have spent years here training in my gym. You are part of my legacy whether you want to be or not. That means that I have to take somewhat of an interest in you, even though I think you’re probably just another hack that doesn’t have a chance.

The way that his tone and body language turned on a dime was unnerving. If I didn’t know better, I would have assumed I was talking to an entirely different person.

Jaycee: Thanks for the vote of confidence…

He didn’t even acknowledge the attempt to cut the tension.

Kris: You were hesitating in that last match. I could tell. If you didn’t know whether or not you wanted to be a competitor, you shouldn’t have signed up. If your heart isn’t in it, you should let your partner know before you get her hurt. Either way, if you go out in this next round and pull that same shit, I will go out in front of that crowd and embarrass you so badly that you won’t ever want to come back, got it?

The way that the threat rolled off his tongue so effortlessly let me know that he had absolutely no second thoughts about it, and absolute confidence in his ability to bring it to fruition. This wasn’t how I saw today going. Everyone was talking about how impressive we were. How did he even catch that my mind was elsewhere?

Jaycee: There are just som--

I wasn’t even sure where the sentence was going. There was no way that I could let him in on everything, but that might have been what my mouth was prepared to do before my brain caught up to it. Luckily, he had already cut me off.

Kris: There’s always ‘something’, and I know your ‘something’ means a whole lot to you. I don’t care though. What I care about is what happens down there in the ring. You don’t have time to be running away from whatever outside shit you have going on while you are in that moment, or it will swallow you. You’re either all the way in, or don’t even bother showing up…

I finally gave up trying to cut him off and just dropped my shoulders. Once he was done, he stormed off, but before he had hit his group of family and friends, he had managed to erase all of the hostility from his body language. At least he hadn’t thrown me out. I could still get to work, and he had given me plenty to think about.

Jaycee: Good talk…


==========================================================
==========================================================


>I tried to tell all of you that this was going to happen.

Here we are, one match away from the finals, and everyone is still trying to figure out exactly how Levana and I are still hanging around while all these so-called favorites keep dropping like flies. The Hall of Famer Amy Santino was supposed to do us in, but that never really materialized. Then Amber Ryans was supposed to send up packing because she was allegedly unbeatable. I told all of you about the Mixed Tag loophole, and then everyone watched it happen like a self-fulfilling prophecy. At the end of each unwinnable slaughter, it was the rookies getting our hands raised in victory. Not Amy. Not Amber. Not their lackluster partners. We went through two of the hardest matches in the opening rounds, and we are still standing. The last one wasn’t without controversies, but I’m not going to concern myself with the particulars. Simply put: It was our night. We seized the moment when it was required of us. Nothing more. Nothing less. Levana and I know that the only thing that matters is getting to the next round.

...and so we advance to the semi-finals of Blast from the Past just two matches into our Sin City Wrestling careers. While that isn’t something that hasn’t happened before, it’s certainly been the most unlikely path through the tournament historically. Two strangers working together is going to be combustible by itself and inexperience rarely helps. You have to be in sync with one another to overcome that, and Levana and I have been able to do that since the first round. For some reason, we mesh well. We both have the same goal, and we are willing to put aside anything that is going to get in the way of achieving it. Some teams try to fake or force chemistry, but as it plays out, we see the cracks. We see through the lie. We watch teams fall apart as the pressure ratchets up in this tournament. Far too often, we see the favorites get stopped in their tracks by that pressure. This round is going to be no different.

...because this week the man standing across the ring from me is Max Burke. Undoubtedly, this tournament has gone as well as he could have hoped for until now. He managed to draw the two softest teams that signed up, and his wins actually made him look like a contender for the first time in years. I get that this tournament is supposed to bring back faces from the past, but this guy’s claim to fame is a Roulette Championship reign from a decade ago. He had the audacity to refer to his reign as a blood war, but it was hardly long enough to be called a skirmish. And he’s going to do the same thing when he tries to hype his victories in the first two rounds as if they are something to be proud of. Any team could have made it here if their path had included two Russows, Miles Kasey, and Todd Williams. Two of those people are cursed to never win anything worthwhile in this company, Todd is a joke, and Milo oozes mediocrity. Mark and Christian basically handed Myra and Max a pass through the first two rounds while the rest of us had to battle our way through. Myra herself admitted as much during the second round.

...and as if Max Burke being a ghost from Sin City’s past wasn’t bad enough, the guy is a big enough fool to go out in front of a camera and paint a target on himself. The guy got eliminated from last year’s tournament, hobbled around for a little bit, but then got shelved because he had a bum knee. It was so bad that it took six months from him last year alone. Now he is trying to work it back into ring shape while competing in the tournament? I guess I should thank him for making my job a little easier. Usually I have to watch a lot more tape on people in order to come up with a strategy to break them down. Max was dumb enough to do all the work for anyone that was able to stay awake long enough for him to get to his point.

Myra shouldn’t be surprised that her partner was small-minded enough to give up the game either. Myra got a perfect view of that from ringside as Mac took him apart last year. Sure, he managed to carry her through the first couple of rounds this year, but that was against some of the easiest competition that signed up. What is going to happen when he steps into the ring with someone that knows how to take him apart? What is going to happen when he steps into the ring with someone much more focused than he experienced in either of the first two rounds? I am not Todd Williams. I am not Milo Kasey. I am Jaycee MacDonald, and the only reason I walk down to that ring is to have my hand raised at the end of matches. Nothing more. Nothing less. There is nothing that matters more to me than that, and the skills that I employ to reach those goals are the types of things that should scare Max. I don’t jump around. I’m not going to try and hit-and-run. I’m coming right after him, and I will break him down piece-by-fucking-piece while Myra watches from the apron. Why? Because Max Burke is in the way, and I have to remove him. It’s that simple.

...but don’t think that I don’t realize that Myra will undoubtedly get her opportunity to shine in this match. No matter what I do, there is no way that I can keep her isolated on the apron the entire time. If anything, that would only cause a rift between Levana and I. The Bombshells are going to get to participate, but it’s not going to matter. I have faith that no matter which of us puts our opponent down for the actual count, we are walking out of this match with a win.

”But Myra Rivers is unbeatable!”

Is she? I mean, is she really? It might look like that on the surface, but I see the dark truth lurking underneath. I see the long history of not being quite good enough. I see a pattern of always being the runner-up. She’s never been good enough to stand on top of the mountain, but isn’t that supposed to be the endgame for all of us? Isn’t that supposed to be the place that we are all trying to get? Time after time Myra Rivers failed to take that top spot despite all of the opportunities she has had to get there. She always falls flat in the big moments. The first round? That’s a cakewalk. The second? Even easier. The semi-finals? That is where the pressure is really on. This is where we always see Myra start to crumble.

”...but her win streak!”

Yeah. I’ve seen her go on much longer rolls than she is on now, and still manage to fall short of her lofty aspirations. Momentum exists in this business, but any team that has made it this far has built up a little. Did a win streak help her out either of the times that Amber Ryan embarrassed her in front of the world? No. Yet Levana was able to step into the ring with Amber during the second round of this tournament and she never flinched, not even once. She even stopped Amber from being able to save the match for her team. That’s arguably just as important as me being the one putting Hitamashii’s shoulders to the mat for the three count. What has Myra done in the first two rounds other than let Max handle business against teams without a real chance of making it to the end?

...and that is exactly her problem. That is why Myra always fails when the going gets tough. Amber’s hubris turned into complacency, and Levana was able to capitalize on that. Myra is the flipside of that. Her wins over lackluster competition has inflated her self-worth. The easy wins she is able to chain together make her feel like she can compete at the top level with the best bombshells. The fact is, she can’t. She’s proven that countless times. That is why Mac Bane called Mikah an upgrade over Myra as a partner. That is why, even though Myra says it doesn’t bother her, she has brought it up in her promo work in both of the previous rounds. Mac’s words really stuck in her mind, and the only way that happens is if, deep down, Myra knows that they are true. People hate the truth. Especially when it shatters the delusions that they have about themselves.

What Myra should be thinking about right now is last year…

Last year she was in the same position she is in right now. She had a partner that was kicking ass. She had a rookie standing in the ring across from her and a date with destiny. She had the opportunity in the palm of her hand, and all that she had to do was rise up and take it…but she didn’t. She couldn’t. Not last year against Ruby, and not this year against Levana. History is going to repeat itself, this time on Climax Control, and Myra is helpless to stop it at this point. By Myra’s own words, the moment was too big for her. I have never once gotten the vibe that anything that Sin City has to offer is too big for Levana. That chick is 100% motivated, and I don’t know if anyone in this company has the ability to get into her head. All she wants to do is win, and anything less than having her hand raised in victory is unacceptable. Even if that hand is mine….

I honestly couldn’t have created a partner better for me than the one that got drawn out of a hat randomly.

Levana wants the spotlight to be on her? Awesome. I never had much use for it anyways. I like letting my actions do the talking for me, and that has gotten me this far. There’s no reason to switch that up now. It doesn’t matter to me how it happens, or who gets the win, as long as we advance to the tournament finals. Like I said back in the first round, this tournament is my one shot to make a first impression in this company. There would be nothing quite like stepping into the company and then immediately going on to win the biggest tournament of the year. That is the ending to the first chapter of my career that I have been planning since before I even signed my name on a contract. I have come this far. I won’t be denied at this point.

As far as Max Burke goes, he should be glad that he got to play in the tournament for this long this year. He could have been out a couple of rounds ago if he had to square up with anyone legit. Maybe after this he will stick to keeping himself to the junior leagues with Underground and GRIME. After all, he can be the top champion there, despite never being good enough to do it in Sin City Wrestling. But Myra I almost feel bad for. She’s like a less nauseatingly nice Sam Marlowe. She doesn’t deserve the fight that we are going to bring her. Honestly, I am sorry that this couldn’t be in the finals. I am sorry that her quest has to come to a close a full round short of the finish line, but such is life. I am sure there will be other opportunities in her future. After all, Mercedes is still getting shots despite failing in the clutch so many times before. Myra could make a Hall of Fame career out of following that path apparently. That will have to be good enough for her, because Blast from the Past 2022 Champion will not be an accomplishment on her resume, and she will have to wait for her next big opportunity to lose to Amber, because the prize for this tournament is not hers to claim.

For Levana and I, this is our time. Our rise. Our moment to seize.

The rest of you should be thrilled that you get to watch it happen.


17
Climax Control Archives / Chin Check
« on: February 18, 2022, 11:29:29 PM »
==========================================================
===========================================================



Chin Check
Jaycee’s Apartment - SAN DIEGO
14 February 2022
OFF-Camera


Being awoken by the sounds of someone beating down the door isn't how I like to start my day. It's literally the reason that I don't fuck with people. I keep my head down and stick to my routine in order to avoid this situation entirely. Even from the back room though, I knew this wasn't going to be a spurned lover thing. The hand that was hitting the door sounds like it is attached to a boxer that is swinging angry. The shouting that I can't even really make out over the thuds definitely sounds like it's carrying a lot more bass than a female could muster, or at least any female with reason to be angry with me.

Will: You better open this damn door!

I freeze. The irritation leaves and is immediately replaced by panic. I know that voice. That voice is the reason that I am stuck in this place with the windows shuttered. That voice put me here to wait out a storm that might not ever actually come. It also tells me everything I need to know about the hostility in his voice.

Jaycee: Why are you so loud all the time?

I say the word as I open the door, trying my best not to sound shaken by his surprise visit. William MacDonald is not the type to be kept waiting, or inconvenienced in any way.

Will: It’s your fault. Can’t believe you! Can’t follow simple directions. Can’t even open a door in a timely manner. I don’t know where we went wrong…

He pushes past me and scans the room to make sure there are not any strange guests listening in. Once he is satisfied that he caught me alone, he turns back to me. I cannot let him or his irritation gain any momentum at this moment. I have to look like I have it all handled or who knows where he will send me this time.

Jaycee: I have a few suggestions if you really want to dig into it.

I knew that they were the wrong choice of words before they came out, but there is no changing that now.

Will: Shut it. I didn’t come all the way down here to listen to you run your mouth.

He's the same old Willie Mac that wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise as a kid. I should not have expected that to change. Likewise, I should know not to let it rile me up, but instead I take the bait just like I always do.

Jaycee: Then why have you decided to grace me with your presence?

Why can't I ever keep my mouth closed when it actually matters?

Will: Sarcasm is a coward’s tool. Why don’t you say what you really mean?

He knows what buttons to push to make me sound like an asshole. Despite this whole unannounced visit, it is always going to be my fault. Fighting it out with words isn't going to work.

Jaycee: What do you want?

He at least looks like the directness of my words were appreciated.

Will: I want to know what part of our deal wasn’t clear? You’re supposed to be down here, keeping your head down. What happened to getting a normal job?

I did not need to ask any more questions to figure out what brought him to my doorstep. The whole thing had been a gamble. I can't lie though, I was hoping that I would be able to slip under his radar until the end of the tournament. He always taught me it was better to apologize after the fact than ask for permission when you know what the answer was going to be. He should feel some pride that I finally listened to something he said.

Jaycee: I have one. That’s why I haven’t been taking any of your money anymore, not sure if you’ve noticed that.

I know he doesn't check. If he did, I would have gotten a wellness call. That was the first hint that maybe I could get away with Blast from the Past. I was apparently wrong.

Will: Ah, so it’s this new independence that has you acting reckless and dragging me down with you? You finally get on your feet, so you decide it’s time to change the rules?

I may be destroying myself, but I didn't see how that involved him.

Jaycee: I’m not dragging anyone down anywhere.

He doesn't seem swayed, no matter how confidently the words sounded coming out.

Will: So that wasn’t my last name you’re using to promote yourself on some wrestling show?

Dammit. Maybe I hadn't thought that one all the way through. It seemed like the best option at the time. Definitely better than the alternative.

Jaycee: I felt like it was probably a better idea than using my own. I am not supposed to be a person, remember? They had to call me something while I was walking out.

I shrug, but that was the trigger that causes him to lose his temper.

Will: ...so you decided to give the whole world the biggest fucking hint that you could!? I knew that you weren’t the brightest Jalen, bu---

My chest felt like it caved in on itself hearing that name. I can't let that hang in the air.

Jaycee: Nah. You don’t get to call me that. You took that name away from me. You took that life away from me.

I may as well have punched him in the mouth, but the words came out in freeflow. I guess bottling something up for so long will do that to you.

Will: I didn’t take shit away from you. I’m the reason that you still have a life to live and don’t you forget that.

He is not wrong either, and the two of us arguing that right now was going to do damage that neither of us want to clean up.

Jaycee: Look, I have worked really hard to build something out of nothing here. I have spent enough time hiding out and keeping my head down. It was either this, or drive a car off a bridge. You get that right? I can’t sit around waiting forever. I was smart about it.

It is as honest as I can be with him. I know it is still not the answer that he wants to hear.

Will: Putting your face in front of a camera is not smart, kid. You made a first name out of your initials and slapped my last name on it. You think that is going to fool anybody that catches a passing glance at you?

Anybody still looking for me was a persistent fuck, or at least that was what I convinced myself of before contacting Sin City about the tournament.

Jaycee: I would hope after the last ten years that people would have stopped looking, or giving a damn. Plus, it’s not like I haven’t grown up a lot. Filled out.

He looks me up and down, unimpressed.

Will: So in addition to being stupid, you’re also naive. Stuff like this doesn’t go away. This is life. It always will be. That was the deal when I set you up here. It was always supposed to suck, but at least you weren’t going to have to be looking over your shoulder anymore.

As a fifteen year old kid, that had been my safety net. I did not feel like I needed it anymore though. That was the point of all this. It was time to break out of the shadows.

Jaycee: Maybe looking over my shoulder all the time doesn’t seem so scary anymore! I am more than capable of taking care of myself. I shouldn’t have to piss my life away when I never did anything wrong.

It was more of the truth that he did not want to hear. He never did. He wasn't built that way. Although, I am not sure that I could demean his fierce loyalty. It might be the only reason I am still breathing.

Will: It doesn’t matter. It never mattered. What matters now, is that you ran. You disappeared. That doesn’t look good. It makes you look guilty regardless of what you may or may not have seen.

That was not something I could let fly. He knew my side. Shit, he knew all the sides.

Jaycee: Oh, fuck off. Don’t lawyer-speak at me.

I wish I could master the art of shutting my mouth in these situations. It would save me a lot of trouble.

Will: You need to kill this Sin City thing. Today.

That is a step in the wrong direction. I am not willing to do that, but I don't think that is an answer he will accept.

Jaycee: No. I’m not gonna do that.

Again, it was another slap in the face. I was not going to get away with many more of those. I can see his blood boiling.

Will: What did you say? I don’t remember asking you a question. It wasn’t optional. I didn’t mean to make you think it was up for debate.

I need to convince him that I am not some scared kid anymore. I am not sure I have the right words though.

Jaycee: I’m not walking away. I can’t do it. I have done nothing but sit around for a decade at this point. I have been worried that the worst was going to happen at any minute. This is something that I have had my mind set on as a goal for making it this far. This is my opportunity to see if I am good enough to compete. It’s like six weeks worth of fighting. Less if I lose out early. What harm am I really doing to anyone?

I know that I am asking him to go out on a limb for me once again, but this seems much lower risk than the last time.

Will: You’re doing yourself a lot of harm if you get noticed, and that harm is always going to lead back to me.

I could not argue that. There is a chance he is right, but it was still worth it to me, and this might be my only chance. He needs to understand that.

Jaycee: I’m not drawing any attention. My partner is more than happy to stand in the spotlight apparently, and I am not going to fight her for it. Did you watch that last show? That was just my first time out, and I had a guy begging for me to let him go. I might be able to make a run for this, and I am keeping my mouth closed.

He shakes his head, still not caving.

Will: I don’t like it. I think it’s an unnecessary risk.

It would not be our first though. I got him to stick his neck out for me once before and have followed his every word since. I have earned this little bit of rope.

Jaycee: Was it not an unnecessary risk to stash me here? Or moving me up to Seattle for a while on a whim? I don’t want you to think that I haven’t put thought into this. There’s no guarantee that this pushes on past this week. Why burn a bridge that is already falling down on its own?

It feels reasonably split down the middle between what we both want.

Will: What happens if you put this team down? And the next? And the one after that? What if you actually go on to win this thing, claim the prize, and your face ends up everywhere?

The thought had crossed my mind but there was no guarantee that would happen. Some of the best of the best were still hanging around in round two.

Jaycee: That’s a lot of faith in someone that you have called stupid from the moment you nearly beat down my door.

It feels good that he had the confidence that I could win this thing. Even more, there is a significant enough chance that it forced him to come down the coast to confront me.

Will: Your ass is lucky that I stopped with the door.

I can tell that his heart isn't really in being hateful anymore. Something I said made sense even though he was never going to admit it.

Jaycee: We both know you’re too old to square up anymore.

He laughs. That is another good sign.

Will: You’d be surprised.

I push my luck, hoping that I have built up enough good will that the worst of this is past us.

Jaycee: You’d be hospitalized.

I was right. He claps one hand on my shoulder and smiles.

Will: You’d do no such thing. There’d be no way that you could live with yourself.

It was the moments like these that showed me exactly why he was always on my side in the end.

Jaycee: That’s a problem I have been dealing with for the last few years anyways. That’s why I want to take this chance. What are the odds that I can go pull this thing off anyways? Some of the best of the best are already in this tournament, and my partner is a rookie like me. It’s only a matter of time before this ride is over. When it’s done, I won’t re-sign.

Hopefully that was a big enough peace offering to kill off all this fear in the air.

Will: If you get too far--

I cut him off. I know what he wants to hear.

Jaycee: I’ll shut it down. I wouldn’t leave you hanging like that.

Apparently those terms were acceptable, because he heads back towards the door.

Will: Good. Maybe I will make a little side money betting against you then.

I would not have expected anything less./i]

Jaycee: Anything to get ahead, right?

==========================================================
==========================================================

>That was a hell of a first impression, am I right?

Last week two rookies squared off in the ring with someone who was an alleged “proven commodity” and a Sin City Hall of Famer. Yet, Levana and I were able to not only hold our own, but knock Amy and Knox out of Blast from the Past, at least for the moment. We have seen people lose only to somehow slip in the back door later and go on to win the thing. Do I think that will happen this time? No. Amy is a representative of the Hall of Fame, and has done great things in the Underground, but she was taken to her limit by an unknown. Last week I said that if Levana was able to hold up her end against Amy, that there was no way that I didn’t come through for her when our team needed it most. I took one of Sin City’s commodities and had him tapping out in the middle of that six sided ring.

Levana and I left our mark on the first round of this tournament. We made a first impression that will not soon be forgotten. We defied the expectations of everyone watching last week. If we didn’t take any more steps forward in this tournament, this little experiment will have already been a roaring success. Part of me feels relieved by that. Other parts feel like maybe it was a little too easy. Part of me wishes that those two were able to put up more of a fight than they did. I mean, I expected the competition in this company to be the best of the best. I shouldn’t be able to walk through them as a guy coming off the street. Did you hear the fans? From the moment that all four of us were introduced, it was easy to tell who they had their money on. How many people were disappointed to see two unknowns walk away victorious for that reason alone?

How many of those people are going to be watching and waiting for us to finally fail this time around? How many people are going to make the mistake of doubling down on the fact that there is no way that two rookies could pull this off? I can’t say that I blame them really. Just look around at the competition that is left in this tournament. There are champions on both sides of the roster still hanging around. The history books are littered with the names of people that cleared the first round. Yet, the rookies prevailed.

Is this the week that the wheels come off? Fresh off our outing with the first Grand Slam Champion in company history, Levana has to throw hands with a woman that is very nearly unbeatable. How many people have tried to dethrone Amber in this company? How many have tried to ascend to challenge her only to crash back down to the bottom of the rankings? On paper, if the last match-up was an unlikely win, this one looks straight up impossible. It doesn’t even discount what Levana can do in the ring to say so. Amber Ryan has only lost a handful of matches in this company. She is closing in on a year as Bombshell Champion, and has defended that championship on ten different occasions against every Bombshell that the owners could throw at her. On paper, this match is a slaughter. Let’s just be honest about it.

That doesn’t make it a sure thing though.

Nothing in this business ever is. Anything can happen on any night. Look what happened to Amy Santino last week. That was one of the best of the best, and Levana was able to hang on just long enough for me to take out the weak link on the team. That is all that we are going to have to do to advance in the second round as well. We have the formula, and we know that it works. How? Well, despite the fact that Amber is both in the midst of her second Blast from the Past, AND nearly unbeatable, she didn’t win this tournament last time around. Despite challenging the mixed tag team champions back when Mac was first getting started around here, she couldn’t pull that off. In fact, it seems like Amber has fallen short much more often in a team setting than she has by herself. Why? Because of how these matches work.

Levana and I were successful last week, because we have a common goal. We don’t just trust one another because we have to, we trust one another because we are working towards the same thing. And people might look at the end of our match last week, and that little spotlight grab as a sign of dissension in the ranks, but it’s not. At the end of the day, we got the job done. I can’t blame her for wanting to celebrate that, and I don’t care that much about recognition to care about getting shoved out of the way. As long as we are winning, nothing else matters, because they aren’t handing out championship matches to the team that becomes the best of friends over the next month or so. We have proven the ability to work as a team inside that ring. If you listen to the two of us talk, we speak on a lot of the same things. These teams may have been random, but I don’t think that I could have formed as solid of a team with any other female name drawn out of that hat, and that’s the truth.

Are there more impressive bombshells in this tournament? Maybe at least for now. Who knows what any of us are going to go on to prove to all of you over the next few years though. For some of us, this is just the beginning of something great. For others it could be the end of their relevance. I look at it as a positive that I got paired with someone on the same trajectory that I am. I got lucky to be paired with someone that really wants to win this damn thing. There are teams that have had a hard time even making it in the door, and I got paired with the Bombshell that I think is the most likely to surprise everyone in this tournament.

How do you beat Amber Ryan? You put her in a Mixed Tag Team match, where she loses almost as often as she wins. And if all else fails, you keep her on the apron, and beat the hell out of her partner.

...and when it comes to her partner, I am a whole lot less impressed. Sure, the guy is the champion of Underground, but wasn’t Amy Santino really successful down there in the minor leagues as well? Everyone saw how well that worked out for her last week. The main show is a whole different environment than what they are doing at Underground. I should know. I briefly considered going to work over there before realizing that nobody would really take me seriously until I made something of myself here. Why go to the Underground and waste time? The way to make a name for yourself is on Climax Control. Everyone knows that.

A couple of years ago, Hitamashii was in this tournament and got eliminated by Fenris’ brother. That guy wasn’t even a real competitor. Last year the guy went out in the first round for the second time in a row. And for some reason, I am expected to shiver in fear now that this guy has gotten over his case of mistaken identity and won the Underground Championship once and for all? Miss me with that.

This guy cannot cut it on this level. He proves that year after year. Does he step up to Sin City during the year? Does he come out of the Underground and take on challengers at Climax Control? Has the guy even really tried to make a run of it under the brightest lights on the bigger stages? No. He enters this tournament, usually doesn’t make it out of the first round, and then buries his head in the sand until next year. That’s a loser’s mentality. I can’t get behind that kind of thinking. I am here to make something of myself. Repeated failure like Hitamashii’s would be a waste of my time. I wouldn’t be entering into this tournament, and filling a spot that a more worthy competitor could have filled, just to phone it in. I wouldn’t be constantly signing up if I wasn’t working on my craft inside Sin CIty’s ring on a regular basis. This is a guy that has tried this approach, and failed. He has a history of letting his partner down, and the only reason he made it out of the first round is because people see Amber Ryan’s name next to his and think the game is over before the opening bell even rings.

That isn’t going to be the way that Levana and I are looking at this match though. Like I said, pulling the upset that we did in the first round makes this tournament a success no matter what we do and if we lose to SCW’s unbeatable Bombshell Champion, that is just business as usual. Nobody is going to lose any sleep if Levana and I are out of this tournament come Sunday night. Nobody is going to be surprised. However, two rookies have the ability to flip this entire tournament upside down by taking out one of the teams with arguably the best odds, just because of Amber’s singles reputation.

There is nothing but upside for my team in this match. There is no pressure. There is no intimidation. This can only go as expected, or as an upset, possibly even one of the biggest upsets that this tournament will see. But it is definitely an upset that is possible. It is attainable. When this match starts, it might even be an upset that is inevitable. Not because Amber isn’t a generationally great talent, but because this tournament has forced her to put her trust in someone who is going to let her down.

Like Hitamashii, I am used to being the smaller guy in the match-up. I am used to having to think on my feet and pick my spots. I know how to use my momentum against my opponent to overcome a size difference, and I have learned how to protect myself in a fight. However, I walk into this match as the bigger guy. I come into this match standing against a guy that can’t throw hands with me and live to tell the tale. I come into this match with the ability to dominate and dissect my opponent at every turn. Every single one of his strengths pair with mine, but the moment that this guy leaves his feet I am going to drive him into the mat and rip one of his limbs off, and you can bank on that. Amber better not let him start the match, or she is going to get the best seat in the house for how this tournament isn’t going to go her way. She better hope to kick things off for her team, and end it quickly, because the moment that I get in there I’m not going to be giving up control easily. My path to winning is going to be breaking down an opponent that I am more than capable of crippling. I am convinced that the only way that my hand is going to be raised in victory is going to be by taking out the weak link. As long as Levana can keep her shoulders off the mat, this is going to be smooth sailing, and anyone that is thinking about this critically should be able to see that. My team has the potential to go all the way to the end of this thing with people underestimating us and writing us off early. My opponents? Their only destiny is to be eliminated.

You can even take Levana and I out of the mix. Let’s say hypothetically that we do lose. Do any of you see Amber and Hitamashii taking down Mikah and Mac? I don’t. You shouldn’t either. They’ll crash and burn, and I don’t think that, I know it. That’s why I am going to stop it from even becoming a possibility for the finals. What this company needs is something new. What we need to see in this tournament are fresh new faces. That is the reason that entry is open to basically the whole world, right? The company wants to bring in outside help to put those that have become spoiled or entitled back in their proper place. Last week, Amy had to learn that lesson from us. This week, these two are stepping up to the plate.

...but it doesn’t matter what resumes our opponents are bringing with them to the ring, Levana and I are ready to fight our way through to the end and we have already shown that we aren’t going to crack under the pressure. It doesn’t matter what our opponents have done before this Sunday, because this war is going to be fought in one ring, on one night, between two sets of bells. I firmly believe that anything can happen in that six sided ring on any given night, and the first round of this tournament seems to back me up on that.

This Sunday won’t be any less spectacular. It might come off as arrogant, but I’m about ready to start setting up the celebration already.

Amber…. Hitamashii…. I hope you really savored that first round win. Enjoy the first half of your weekend. The back half is going to get hard for you two to handle.







18
Climax Control Archives / My First Impression
« on: February 11, 2022, 11:58:46 PM »
==========================================================
===========================================================



This Is My Story
Jet City South - SAN DIEGO
5 FEBRUARY 2022
OFF-Camera



I knew from the moment that my name got pulled out of the hat for Blast from the Past that I was going to start getting more attention around Jet City South. The problem was, that wasn't something I was interested in. I have seen countless people pay the price of being associated with this controlled chaos, and none of it seemed appealing. I am more the type to keep my head down, put the work in, and keep to myself. People only create distractions. Distractions keep you from your goals. Skipping out on goals is the shortest route to stagnation, and I can't stomach sitting still. Moving forward, and not looking back, has been the theme of my adult life and I am not changing that for these people no matter what. Once you start trading on your principles, you roll down the slippery slope to becoming a "never was" and that isn't going to be my story. It doesn't matter who is offended. Nobody has the right to my time or attention and I don't need any help I don't ask for. Somehow, I knew that wasn't going to be what the people around here want to hear though.

Coby: Hey, it’s Jaycee right…?

Shit kind of felt like it was on cue or something. He played his approach right though. If you're cornered on a leg press machine, and holding up twice your bodyweight, you don't really have anywhere to go. There is one way out and Coby is occupying that space. I am his conversational hostage, but it's not like I have to participate willingly.

Jaycee: Wow. I’m actually impressed. That’s four more words than you’ve ever spoken to me directly, and you actually know my name.

I bet he wasn't expecting that. He doesn't seem like the type to blow up about it either though. My only hope is to convince him that it's not worth his effort to try.

Coby: That can’t be true. I’m sure that we’ve talked before. I try to talk to all the students at Jet City.

I am not the type to forget a conversation, so I know I am right, but I get it. The guy is trying to build a friendly bridge no matter how troubled the waters are underneath, but that doesn't change history.

Jaycee: Yeah…. Not me. In classes? Sure. But that’s you talking to a group. Not that I take it personally. I don’t want to give you that idea at all. I’m not that petty. Also, I kind of like being on my own. It’s a win-win.

For some reason, me pushing back didn't ward him off at all. He actually looks emboldened to try harder.

Coby: You’ve been here for years. I know. I looked. You were here before Jason closed it down and moved everything up to Seattle. You were registered and showed up to classes all the way up there, and then when Kris opened this one you came back here. We have to have crossed paths before now.

The guy had done a little homework on me apparently. I imagine that is the kind of attention that his sociopath boss gets off on. I don't have any use for it. It makes him a fan. The first of many. None of which will ever deserve my focus during a workout. Time to take off the kid gloves.

Jaycee: It’s not at all weird that you use company records to stalk people you don’t know.

He still doesn't seemed dissuaded by my overt lack of interest in the conversation.

Coby: It’s only because I saw your name pop up in--

Time to take a shortcut.

Jaycee: Yeah. I figured. There were really only two reasons that you would be standing here right now after casually ignoring me for years. And again… not bitter about it. But the way I see it, either the Jet City Ghost sent you, or you saw that I entered Blast from the Past. Either way, I’m not really interested.

Some people need rejection spoonfed to them. They are among the group of people I dislike most in the world. As an adult you should be able to read "fuck off" plastered all over someone's body language. The people that needed it spelled out were spectacular at being a waste of my time. Blunt force is my only way out of this conversation.

Coby: What do you mean not interested?

Somehow I need to be more clear? Alright.

Jaycee: In your pitch... The reason that I didn’t bring up Jet City to Sin City, and the reason why I didn’t ask any of you to help get my foot in the door is that I don’t need it. Don’t take it personally, but I don’t exactly come here for the leadership and guidance. I come here to do my own thing, and get out. Every other gym I’ve ever been in was more hands-on. Just lots of trainers molding students into what they think is best. I don’t want that. I came here to be ignored. You have succeeded for a handful of years. Don’t falter now.

I drop the weight and sit up a little because clearly no real work will be getting done right now. This man was determined to go down swinging.

Coby: I wasn’t trying to come over and---

No backing out now Golden Boy. You want the truth, so I will give it to you straight. At the very least, it will save me another one of these conversations in the future.

Jaycee: Nah, but you were. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but it will happen eventually. Now that I am in the door, I am someone that can help get the name out. The problem with that is, there are names that I’d rather not be associated with, even if it will help me in some places.

Without even looking I point to the giant portrait of Ryans on the wall. It is difficult enough to get centered with that smirking idiot looking down at you. I didnt need to be associated with him any closer than that. Our last/first meeting was proof enough of that.

Coby: Well as I am sure you’ve noticed, he doesn’t take a real active role around here. I am trying to go in a new direction.

That is the first intelligent thing he has said all day.

Jaycee: ...and I fully support that, as long as that direction also leads away from me. I wasn’t exactly looking to have a board meeting right now, you know? Trying to focus on what I need to do to be ready for this match. You only get to make one first impression.

Of course, he rode Kris' coattails into Sin City, so he probably wouldn't know anything about trying to impress others based on your talent. For some it was enough just to know people, I guess.

Coby: Arguably there is no better first impression than winning a championship your first night on the job, and that is something that I did in Sin City. At the very least, I can give you advice. Let you know what you’re walking into….

I wonder if that version of the truth actually worked on people. It didn't fly with me.

Jaycee: Imma pass. For real though, it’s not you. It’s me.

To be honest, it was them, but that was not going to end my hostage crisis.

Coby: You know, for someone that would rather not be associated with Kris, you are nearly exactly as dismissive of others as he is.

Maybe we did have something in common after all.

Jaycee: That’s literally the only quality of his that I like. And since you are determined to do this, let’s…

He backs up when I move to stand up from the machine. It was a good move. At least he isn't bold enough to think he can physically bully me into accepting his help.

Jaycee: You didn’t win a championship on your first night, you got handed one. That guy…

This time just a head tilt that direction.

Jaycee: ...is basically everything that I don’t want to be in this business. Is he good? Sure. But it’s more luck than skill. That’s not my game. I’m not some wrecking ball that is going to stand in a ring and make fun of myself and others.

Hopefully some part of that computes for him. I don't think I can be more clear.

Coby: ...he is kind of an asshole.

Progress.

Jaycee: And so are you. All of you. How long have all of you enabled this asshat to do whatever he wants without any kind of repercussions? How many students has he ruined by not being able to actually teach anyone without it being some sick backhanded trick? And you want me to invite that into my life? Again, pass.

He is retreating now. I can read it all over him before he even opens his mouth.

Coby: I can’t say that I blame you for feeling that way. All I am saying is that there are others here that could legitimately help you work towards the goals you set for yourself. You want to earn your way through the ranks at SCW? Several people here have already done that. You could hear them out.

I could waste my time a lot of ways, but that doesn't sound like a particularly pleasant one.

Jaycee: Except, I’m not really interested in the things others have done, or the paths that they took to the top. I want to do it my way, and that doesn’t really involve anything other than the equipment you guys have in this building and the amount of air space I am given to do my thing. If that’s not on the table anymore, I can find another place to go. It’s not that big of a deal to me.

It is a bluff. I like this place. You cannot put a price on a comfort level. Hopefully the threat is enough to get him to back off though.

Coby: Don’t be ridiculous. I have asked around. People like you. You’re quiet, but you’re also the only person that nobody around here seems to hate. Plus, you’ve followed Jet City around. I would hate to lose you.

Flattery won't work either, and feels disingenuous.

Jaycee: That’s funny, a couple of days ago, you wouldn’t have noticed. I was just a face and a monthly fee. Today you know my name and care about my goals. Yet you can’t see how I would view that as you finally seeing someone worth capitalizing on.

Maybe spelling out my perspective could help him see it, but it looks more and more like my words are falling of deaf ears.

Coby: I am just offering help.

Broken record much?

Jaycee: I got all the help that I’m gonna need randomly drawn out of a hat. In the few minutes that I have spent talking to her, she’s already way easier to stomach than dealing with any of the baggage that this place carries.

it is almost like I led him to some other sales pitch though.

Coby: Two rookies leaping into a tournament isn’t as easy as this gym made it look at few years ago….

I wasn't going to dignify that with consideration.

Jaycee: Yeah, and remind me what Courtney Pierce has been up to lately…

It only took a second to scan the gym, find her, and point her out in all of her mediocrity.

Jaycee: Right… being here. The same place that I already am. I’m not exactly looking to be back at square one five years from now. Also, not the best pitch either. You never want to lean on someone that has flamed out so spectacularly.

I would say it to her face, and had in class before so I had no shame about it here.

Coby: Everyone’s path is a little different.

No shit. Let me make mine!

Jaycee: I couldn’t agree more. That is why I keep shooting down the pre-walked ones that you keep tossing at me. I don’t mind making my own path. Really. Focusing on the work is what I do best. Everything else is an unnecessary distraction.

He was a shining example of that right now.

Coby: Kind of a harsh way to look at life. Isolation isn’t good for anyone, let alone someone trying to accomplish something like winning Blast from the Past.

I doubt it.

Jaycee: Yeah well… Only time will tell. You might be right. That doesn’t mean that I am wrong. It just means that I’m not going to take your word for it. I’ve seen where that leads.

Can we not just agree to disagree?

Coby: Pride often comes before a fall.

It was almost too cheesy to believe it came out of his mouth. I laugh in his face without hesitation.

Jaycee: ...either that or you're tripping.

It was clear he wasn't going to stand down. My only play here was to flee and try to make up the time later. The more I spent here now, the more I was wasting. I didn't have any more to lose if I was going to clear the first round of Blast from the Past.


==========================================================
==========================================================


>Being the new guy isn’t exactly easy….

I mean we are battling the learning curve. Nobody in the crowd is going to cheer or boo some newcomer right off the bat. You have to earn that. You can’t earn that until people see what you are made of. That’s the problem with building up moments like this in your head though. You make it bigger than it is ever going to actually be. Is walking down to that six-sided ring for the first time going to be great? Of course. Is it going to be everything that my dreams have built it up to be? No, of course not. I am walking in as an unknown. Those movie scenes of the newbie underdog walking into a big fight to massive ovations aren’t real. Nobody that buys a ticket for this show knows what to expect from me in this ring. To be honest, I doubt anyone even expects me to impress.

That’s a lot to be floating around in a guy’s head when he’s trying to prepare for the first match of what he hopes to be a career in this company, and it doesn’t even take my competition into consideration.

Amy Santino has been in the Hall of Fame of this company for longer than I’ve known that this company existed. Just think about that. If there is something to be done in that ring, she’s done it. If there was something to win, she won it. Not even that, she was the first to ever do it. Think about that legacy. She comes and goes now, but her place is forever held in this company. Come to think of it, it kind of seems like she is a mainstay in this tournament as well. I can’t remember her winning it though…

Is it better to have a history of failure with a task, or no history at all?

I guess we will find out. I won’t actually be in the ring with her if I understand the rules of this thing right. Levana Cade will have to prove if she can stand toe-to-toe with one of the best in the history of this company. That’s a tall order for a newcomer in their first match, but the chick doesn’t seem to lack confidence. I don’t know much more about her than any of you, and am awaiting whatever promotional material that she puts out just as the rest of you are, but I have faith. I have to. We are bound together for as long as we can keep ourselves in this tournament. If that works out, who knows? Word is that there is a whole division dedicated to this style without a lot of competition.

...but I’d say that’s probably a longshot no matter how well this goes. Blast from the Past was the perfect opportunity for me to shoot my shot, but I’m not exactly looking forward to a future full of team-ups. The goal is to win this whole damn thing, and then run the steps to the very top of the mountain in a way that nobody has really been able to pull off in the past. Imagine the two of us rookies running through this tournament and then going on to claim the biggest prizes just a few short weeks after. Hypothetically we could go on to break records, set new standards, and raise a bar that a lot of people don’t think can be raised. I mean, that’s what we all sign up for the tournament hoping for, right? Those that don’t think that they have a real shot to get there shouldn’t have bothered signing up at all. I didn’t join this thing for the experience. I joined to win it all.

If I wasn’t willing to bet on myself, then I could have tried to get my foot in the door at any other time than now. I could have showed up on a regular show. I could have gone to Underground. I could have joined quietly, and built myself up for the type of spotlight this tournament shines on people, but I didn’t. I didn’t even consider it. Right around this time last year, I made the promise to myself that 2022 was going to be the year that I finally took my big step forward. I couldn’t do that without a big stage to step up onto. Blast from the Past is that stage. That time I was waiting for, is now. This is the moment that I have been manifesting on my whiteboard, and I am ready for everything that this challenge entails, because I have to be.

In this tournament, tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. If you go out and have an off night, you’re done. Even worse for someone like me, my spot isn’t exactly set in stone if I don’t impress early and often. It’s not like I am some homegrown talent that they are just showing off. It’s not like I have an established name here. I am an outsider that is just coming in to try and make my case. If I fail, I could end up back on the couch at home. I don’t have the job security of someone that has shown themselves to be a… what did they call it… “proven commodity”.

Matthew Know was right about one thing, three consecutive wins to start your tenure in a new company certainly is… something. Obviously the higher-ups have taken notice, as evidenced by the “proven commodity” line in the build-up for this match. So what if one of those wins came at the expense of someone who has never known what winning in this company feels like. So what if another one of those was a gimmicky Christmas-themed joke. The guy has proven that he can post a few cryptic words, show up, and beat all expectations put on him. Then again, he has also proven that what he really cares about is getting his hands on Mac Bane, and this tournament is just the first step on the path that gets him to that goal. Assuming of course that Knox goes all the way and Mac is able to hang onto his championship for long enough for that plan to come to fruition, it isn’t a bad one. Sometimes you can’t get the match you want unless you put the work in. For his last three matches, Knox has definitely put the work in, even if it wasn’t serious work or against capable opponents. I can’t take away from the wins that the guy has in this company, because I am sitting on zero.

...but maybe I’m not totally off base here. The guy talks a big game, but literally chased opposition to this company. He begs for the attention of Amber and Mac on a near weekly basis, all while talking about how big of a piece of shit he has been both professionally and otherwise in other companies. Sure, maybe he was successful, but he sounds like a headache. More importantly, he sounds like a guy with tunnel-vision. He is so hyper focused on the prize that may await at the end of this tournament and the people that he actually wants to get his hands on, that he is going to miss seeing the forest for the trees. He is so worried about the fight that could be months in front of him that he isn’t going to see the mauling coming for him this weekend. Knox’s focus has been split since he first arrived on the scene here, but the competition has been so lackluster that it hasn’t mattered. He’s spent more time pining over the fight he can’t have than he has paying attention to the ones that he does. That hasn’t bitten him in the ass yet, but come Climax Control it is going to. Big time.

...because that is what happens in this business when you lack focus. That is what happens when you aren’t using your energy for the fight in front of you, but preserving it for the one you might not ever get. Every moment of success in that ring might feel like one step closer to his ultimate goal, but keeping Mac at the forefront of his mind is only going to blind him to the person standing right in front of him. This week, across that six-sided ring, it is going to be me, and unfortunately, I have something to prove to every single person in attendance. I have thousands of people to impress in the stands, and an entire roster that I need to put on notice. Like I said, everyone only gets one chance to make a first impression, and I’m not going to fall flat for mine. Especially not to someone like Matthew Knox. He is everything that I’m not, which seems to be a trend in this company.

...but this is the way it has to be. This was the luck of the draw. None of the teams are perfectly balanced. None of these matches are going to look totally even on both sides. Somebody is going to be favored in every fight, and one team has to lose. On paper, Amy looks like a sure thing. In reality, if she is able to hold her own against a legend of this company, I should at least be able to hold off someone roughly in the same boat that I am. I can’t be the one to let this team down, especially when my partner is going to be faced with a much more difficult task.

Although, I could be wrong. This match could go any of a thousand different ways. There is a world where neither team comes out of this unscathed, and the fans of this company would be the first to say that stranger things have happened before. I think I heard that the guy that won it last year also lost it last year. I don’t exactly know how that works, but it just goes to show that anything that can happen almost certainly will happen in a tournament this big with this many eyes on it. The only thing that I can do is be ready for when I am tagged into this contest. I have to be ready to go whenever my number is called, and I wouldn’t have thrown my name into the mix if I didn’t think that I was ready to step up to that challenge. I am confident, but who wouldn’t be in my shoes?

I wish that I could say that two relative unknowns coming out of nowhere to win this tournament would be mind-blowing, but I have been assured that it has happened here before. Part of me was let down when I heard that. There would be nothing better than doing something that nobody thought was possible. However, the vast majority of me was empowered by the thought that this is actually attainable. It has been done before. Rookies have defied the odds, worked together, and steamrolled through all the people that the experts picked to make it to the end. There is no reason that Levana and I can’t be that team. We may not know each other, and for all I know we may not end up even being able to tolerate each other, but I get the distinct feeling that we can make this work in order to get to the end of this thing. We have a similar goal, and neither of us seem like the type to throw away an opportunity like this.

A lot of people would probably be turned off by having to open up the show, but I couldn’t be happier about it. I haven’t earned my way up the card yet, and when I get there I don’t want it to feel like anything was handed to me. I’m also not the most patient guy in the world, so showing up to Climax Control just to sit around for a couple hours stewing sounded like a nightmare. I get to show up, see the show get started, and then attempt to go out and set the bar so high that the first match of the night is the only one worth remembering tomorrow. Is that likely? Nah. Could it happen? Absolutely! And I don’t mind being the guy reaching for the things that people tell me are impossible. In fact, it only makes me want to reach that much further.

I’m the type of person that is going to thrive in this company if I’m underestimated, and I’m going to prove that to every set of eyes on this company starting Sunday.

I dare Amy Santino, Matthew Knox, and anyone else in this tournament to try and stop me.


19
Climax Control Archives / #ThatsWhatsUp
« on: April 16, 2021, 11:59:21 PM »
==========================================================

>I’m not sure what I have to do to convince people that I have earned the championship that I carry….

The Mixed Tag Team Champion’s’ voice can be heard even before the video feed actually kicks on. He isn’t looking right at the camera. He is standing behind his desk at Jet City South, and staring out the window that looks out over the entire training facility. Coby doesn’t seem as jovial as normal. The camera closes in on him so that the fans are able to see out the window. Kate, the Gemstones, and several other recognizable faces are in various stages of their routines below. The champion seems almost saddened at the fact that he has to step into the ring with someone from his own gym once more. Either that, or the constant negativity that has come with his being champion was finally starting to get to him.

At this point, I have held this belt for as long as Kris did. I have already successfully defended it more times than he did. Even more, I have actually picked up the wins for The Black Sheep along the way, whereas Mikah was the one that won the titles for the team, and defended them the first time around.

It had to feel unfair to the champion. Coby had done nothing but succeed in defense of his championship, yet every time he opened his mouth he was reminded that it wasn’t actually his. It was Kris’ championship and always would be. If he was a lesser competitor, he would throw a match and be done with the thing, but he didn’t have it in himself to do that to the fans. People paid to see him do his absolute best. Giving anything less than that would feel like robbing them of something. Then again, he wasn’t exactly feeling like his best was good enough.

Still though, months later… I am still having to defend myself against these “well you were handed a championship” comments. It doesn’t matter that MIkah and I are the longest reigning Mixed Tag Team Champions of all time. It doesn’t matter that there isn’t anyone around other than Kate and Todd that even wants to challenge The Black Sheep. We beat every team in the division, beat teams that were thrown into the division, and now everyone is too intimidated to even step up. Yet, the fact that Kris stepped away from the Mixed Tag division and handed me the title to defend is the only thing that anyone wants to talk about. They don’t want to talk about how dominant we have been. They don’t want to talk about the fact that I have more than earned the right to carry this championship on my shoulder. Everyone seems to take the one thing that was out of my control and try and use it against me.

He moves away from the window, looking at the camera almost like he is talking directly to the people that doubt him.

I don’t think anyone realizes how bad that makes them look. Because I would agree with them under certain circumstances. Back when I was first given the opportunity to step up, I agreed that I needed to earn the right to call myself a champion. I have done nothing but be successful since then, so that argument is out the window. But I wasn’t the one to actually win the championship. So what? If the last few months have shown everyone anything, it’s that there isn’t a team capable of taking it from me.

So far, a few teams had tried, and all of them had failed. The rest of the teams in the division suddenly had sights elsewhere or were taking time away. He couldn’t help but see that as all of the other teams waving a white flag.

...and I understand that it’s probably pretty frustrating for the rest of the roster. So many of them don’t get the opportunities that I have gotten. Even worse, some of them get the opportunities constantly and fail to capitalize in the way that I have. A guy like me comes in, gets handed a championship, and hits the ground running. I was a champion on my first night in this company, and have been every single day since. I have one loss in this company, and it was part of Blast from the Past. Nearly everyone that has ever entered that tournament has a story like that. Mikah and I haven’t lost as a team, but both found ourselves out of the tournament. Mikah and Kris both failed to win it a few years back on different teams. Yet somehow I am the only one that gets attacked like I don’t deserve to be here.

My problem with that is, I DO deserve to be here. I have proven that. I am willing to prove that to anyone that still doesn’t see it. I’m not a hard guy to find. I am not someone that runs from challenges or opportunities. There’s always a lot of chatter about me, but nobody wants to actually step up. At least, aside from Kate and Todd. And you know what, had Kate gotten to stay in the match back at Blaze of Glory, she may have been able to pull it out. She was focused on the match. She wasn’t getting lost in the showboating. She was bringing the fight to Mikah, and before that last tag, she was on a roll. We work together at Jet City South, so I know not to underestimate her. WIthout Todd messing it up for her, maybe I wouldn’t be champion right now. I know that Mikah won’t like me saying that, but the fact is that we will never know what would have happened in that match. Maybe Mikah would have turned it around. Maybe Kate would have been able to steal the titles away from us. Either is equally possible. She’s beaten Mikah before but Mikah has beaten her more recently.

He put the odds at 50/50, and had even told Kate as much. It wasn’t her effort that caused the match to not go her way. Coby wasn’t dumb enough to guarantee that Mikah would have been able to pull it out either. That would be an insult to a trainer that worked in the same gym as him.

....I know I don’t have to worry about how Mikah is going to perform. Whether we have time to train together in the gym or not, we are always on the same page. We talk before matches, and we are both very familiar with these two, especially Kate. The only thing that I have to do is hold up my end of the deal. I have to find a way to out-wrestle Teddy… or Todd. Whatever...

He gave saying it without sarcasm his best shot. He wasn’t convinced that he had stuck the landing.

...and I don’t want to sound like all of these people that come out and call this guy talentless. That’s never been my style. I don’t want to be one of those people that dismisses someone as a threat without giving them their due. But that being said, I don’t think that he has what it takes to beat me. I don’t think that he takes this as seriously as I do. I don’t think that his head is actually in the game.

Maybe that is a bad choice of words…. Maybe the actual problem is that Todd treats this too much like a game. I mean, the guy has the talent. He has the training. He has the ability. The problem is that he can stay focused on that in the ring. He gets lost in playing to the crowd. He tries to get under the skin of his opponent by making an ass of himself. Just look back at our last match if you need any proof. There were times that he legitimately turned the tables on me and took control of the match. The problem was, he would kill his own momentum with something stupid when he should have kept on the attack. He gave me too many openings to fight my way out of trouble. Even worse, he tagged himself back into a match that his partner had control of. All in all, he made retaining the titles Quik n Easy… pun intended.

...and I love Kate to death, but that showing didn’t warrant this return match at all. She held her own against a Hall of Fame talent in an undefeated tag team. That’s no small feat. You can’t make up for a partner that isn’t focused on the task at hand though, and I think that is why Todd always gets all of this hate. The guy will blow a match for his team on one night, and then run to social media and ponder which company he should pick to make a run at a World Championship. Does that actually make sense to anyone? The guy would be a champion right now if he could stay out of his own way. He and his wife could have dethroned The Black Sheep. He could have ended our streak… but he stepped on his own toes. Maybe it used to be kind of funny but now he’s not just bringing himself down. He’s taking Kate down with him, and that’s rough for me to have to watch happen.

I had a choice heading into this rematch. I could have bit my tongue. I could have let it all slide and tried to put on a happy face. I chose to go the opposite way because I’m hoping that maybe something that I say will sink into his head. Hopefully when the bell rings and we start this match this weekend he is actually ready to go. It would be nice for the guy to actually challenge me. It would be refreshing if he could keep the pressure on. I want to be challenged inside that ring. That was the reason that I came to Sin City. I don’t want someone to go out there and make it easy for me. If I wanted to do that I could have signed with any number of other companies. I didn’t. I came here, because this is where the best of the best are supposed to be. I wanted to prove that I could make it here, because if I could do that, then I would know that I could do it anywhere in the world.

I have held up my end. I have given it my all every time that I have stepped into the ring. Every championship defense has ended with me picking up the victory for my team. I can’t do anything to prove my worth that I’m not already doing. Maybe the naysayers are just something that I’m going to have to deal with until after my time in the Mixed Tag division is over. Maybe once this championship is no longer on my shoulder, people will start to see the man under for the talent that I have. Maybe that’s me giving everyone way more credit than they deserve again.

I guess only time will tell.

Kate… Todd… It’s not personal, but I don’t think that the two of you have what it takes as a team to take these championships from Mikah and I. Don’t take offense though. I honestly don’t think that there is any team on the roster that can. Certainly there are combinations of stars that could rise up and give us a real run for our money. So far, none of them have had the confidence in themselves to try.

...and #ThatsWhatsUp

==========================================================


20
Climax Control Archives / Round One: Fight.
« on: February 19, 2021, 11:59:42 PM »
Same Page
Jet City South - San Diego
19 FEBRUARY 2021
OFF-Camera



Coby had been trying to give his friend some space. The last few weeks had been a wild ride for everyone at Jet City South. Kris had come back from Seattle determined to beat it into everyone’s head that they were all part of the same team. For the students, that meant the ones that couldn’t get along, or avoided each other, got paired together and teamed against Coby and Mikah. It was bad enough having to face off with the Mixed Tag Team Champions. It was another to do it with someone that you couldn’t work with. The idea that Kris had was that either the students were going to break each other, and the weak would weed themselves out, or learn to rise above themselves. Either way it was going to be a win for the gym. Coby thought it was a little harsh, but got outvoted. Unfortunately for people like Ruby and Court, it meant that they were paired together. On top of that, Kate decided to force the two of them to live under the same roof. By comparison, maybe Coby had it easy. That was why, despite his nagging questions for her, he had mostly left her alone. They saw each other during Jet City South day-to-day operations, but that was it. He hadn’t wanted to pry, and thought that maybe she would approach him with her side of things when she was ready. However, the more days passed, the more he felt like she was never going to be the one that took the first step. If he wanted to know if she was involved in the Cyan attack, he was going to have to be the one to bring up the subject. Not that he could do so in front of everyone else without alienating her. His only option was to try and catch her on the way out of Jet City...

Court: So you’re finally making your big move, eh?

Coby had been facing the opposite direction when she slipped into the hallway behind him. He would have literally jumped out of his shoes if they hadn’t been tied, and turns to face her. At least she was smiling. That was already a better sign than he had gotten from their first couple of conversations after she returned.

Coby: I don’t know what you’re talking about...

He tried to look innocent, but knew that there was no way that she was going to buy it, and she didn’t. She poked him in the end of the nose with her index finger and shook her head at him.

Court: Don’t lie. I saw you practicing this.

Coby’s mouth falls open and he desperately reaches for a way to explain himself, but there was absolutely no way she was going to believe anything but the truth. It was the downside of not being someone like Kris. People saw right through him.

Coby: I may have had a couple of questions…. But… I… I realize things kind of suck for you right now so I didn’t want to like… pile on…. yeah.

The delivery wasn’t the best, but he felt as if it landed well. He didn’t want to seem like he was trying to interrogate her, especially given that her life had become about as high stress as possible. At the same time, he needed to make sure that he wasn’t going to get beaten down again. He had a feeling about what Court was going to say, but he couldn’t trust a feeling. He needed to hear the words for himself.

Court: You mean all this shit with Ruby? It’s okay. She can be annoying…. Okay like really really fucking nails-on-a-chalkboard annoying, but I think she means well…

She shrugs. It didn’t feel like she knew if she even meant what she was saying, or just lying to herself. Either way she was going to keep repeating it until it sounded more convincing. The alternative would most likely just lead to worse consequences. That wasn’t something that Court was willing to sign up for. At least not yet.

Court: Fuck… I mean I hope she means well. I was pissed after last week and the whole messing up my match thing, but I don’t think it was intentional...

Coby could see the thoughts running through her mind about a thousand miles per hour. By comparison, his problems were minimal. He was a champion in a company that he was just one match into a contract with. He was a mainstay on Underground. Two other companies had been competing to get him to show up. Things were going well, and Cyan was just a small part of Coby’s current plate. Court was knee deep in problems that there was zero escape from. They literally followed her to work, and then all the way back home.

Coby: Ruby might be a lot to handle, but I don’t think she’s malicious. I don’t think she hates everyone else. I think it’s more that she just loves herself all that much more and sees people as obstacles to get around. You know… not unlike this other Jet City rookie that won Blast from the Past a couple years back...

Coby gives her a pat on the shoulder with a smile. Court wasn’t taking it as a compliment though.

Court: Well hopefully she amounts to more than I have if she goes on to win the damn thing. Two years later and I am losing all my matches. Fuck, Jessie Salco is celebrating her win like she had anything to do with it. I really felt like I was going to turn things around this time.

Coby hadn’t had the cleanest record since returning either. Before joining SCU he could count his career losses on one hand. Since then things had balanced out a little more. He would probably be feeling a lot more like her if not for the Mixed Tag Team Championship that Kris had basically gifted to him. He was still earning the right to carry it around, but at the very least it had boosted his confidence. Maybe that was all that Court needed to pull her out of her rut as well.

Coby: The cool thing about this business is that you’ll have unlimited chances to go out there and get it right. You’re talented. You’ve proven that. It’s been a long time since you had actually been in the ring, and you were really just starting out back then. You were still learning. Now you are a lot sharper mentally, but you in-ring game hasn’t quite caught back up yet. I thought you had Jessie beat. In another timeline, that match went the other way. It tells me that you still have that talent though. It just takes a minute to get back into a rhythm. You’ll get it.

At the very least, he was hoping that it bought him enough good will for Court to refrain from biting his head off in a few minutes.

Court: Let’s hope I don’t run out of chances in Sin City before that happens. I really don’t want to have to find a new place to work.

Coby shakes his head confidently.

Coby: Nah, Kris would campaign for you to stay no matter what, and they love him for some reason. I think you’ll have plenty of time to right the ship. Plus, you’re the only one in The Black Sheep without a championship. We have to get you winning so that you can turn that around.

Knowing that Coby was just buying time in order to work up the courage to get to the point, Court cuts through the pleasantries.

Court: Technically all of the former Jet City students that are wrestling have one championship or another. I’m the only exception… Although, Cyan seems to have misplaced his lately...

Her tone changed as she mentioned Kyle’s masked persona. Coby could tell that there weren’t many friendly feelings between the two of them. They had been in the same class at Jet City, but Court was a lot closer to the rest of the class. Kyle had always been more of a solo act.

Coby: On one hand I feel like I should just tell everyone who he is and take away that stupid mask of his. On the other, Gold is kind of making him look like an idiot anyways, so maybe keeping my mouth shut will keep me off his radar for now.

Court lets out a heavy sigh. She didn’t think that was going to be the case at all.

Court: He’s an idiot with a grudge. They usually have a hard time letting those go.

That was why Kyle had always been on his own. Even inside the gym he rarely had people that would step up and defend him. He would rather get things done himself than rely on others. It was the thing that had impressed Kris enough to let him train in Jet City. Coby had never agreed. He thought it made Kyle dangerous. Maybe they were both right.

Coby: I think I already know but...

She cuts him off. She wasn’t even going to let him finish the question, suddenly feeling bad for avoiding him for the last couple of weeks.

Court: I didn’t have anything to do with that. I don’t know how they got in. He wouldn’t tell me. He just wanted to make it look like I was helping him so that maybe you guys would kick me out...

Coby carries that train of thought just one step further.

Coby: ...and then you would be in a desperate enough position to maybe consider helping him… Recruitment through a frame job. That’s ballsy even for Kyle.

It scared Coby just how alike Kyle and Kris were at their most devious. He was thankful that Kris was actually starting to see the error of those ways. From the sound of it, maybe Court was too. Coby was willing to take that as a personal win.

Court: Well it didn’t work. I moved in with the Gems. I’m keeping myself in line. I’m focused on fixing my own shit. I don’t have any interest in helping him with his. Especially not if it comes at your expense. You’ve never been anything short of nice to me. You’re the reason that everyone keeps showing up here.

It was the nicest thing that any of the students had ever said to him. Coby tried as hard as he could to not let it look like it meant as much to him as it did. It almost made him feel guilty for having suspected her in the first place.

Coby: I’m sorry that I even had to ask...

Court shakes her head.

Court: ...but you didn’t have to ask. I’m sorry I waited so long to say something. I just wanted to give you time to heal up and cool off about the whole thing. I didn’t want to get defensive and say something I would regret if you were still angry about the whole thing.

And Coby thought that he had been alone in giving his friend some space to deal with bigger issues. Maybe he hadn’t been giving Court enough credit all these years.

Coby: It is what it is. I try not to let it get to me. Being angry just takes me down to his level. If I’m going to beat him when it comes down to it, I’m going to do it my way, not his. I’m just happy that you’re not lowering yourself down to his level.

Court opens her mouth to say something, but the theme song to the movie Psycho starts playing loudly from her back pocket, cutting her off. Her eyes widen and the cheeriness fades off of her face. She had only been separated from the group for a few minutes, and already they were trying to drag her back in.

Court: I am being summoned...

Coby shakes his head.

Coby: That’s pretty harsh though. You should change that….

As she pulls the phone from her pocket she mouths the words “not a chance” before spinning around away from him and answering the call. He doesn’t even attempt to eavesdrop on the conversation. He already had to spend too much time with the both of them to listen to them voluntarily. At least while working as a trainer he was getting paid. He made his way out of the gym, feeling a little better than he had in a couple weeks. Court had lifted a weight off of his shoulders. Now he could focus on Blast from the Past.


==========================================================


>I can’t believe that so many people complain about this tournament on a yearly basis….

I mean, what is there to be disappointed about? Excitement is in the air! Can you feel it? Everything about this tournament screams Sin City. Nobody knows who is going to sign up. There are so many surprises every single year. The teams are random. The match-ups are randomized each and every round. Sometimes teams even break up and form new teams as the tournament goes on. Literally anything can happen in this tournament, and the prize at the end of it is the only things that every single person in this company wants. The ladies get a shot at the Bombshell Championship. The guy that wins challenges the World Heavyweight Championship. This is the type of opportunity that rarely gets offered to rookies, or newcomers in other companies. Yet, SCW pulls it off once a year. It’s amazing.

...but I get it. Some people are just determined to be angry all the time. People like the way that outrage makes them feel. They want to ride that adrenaline rush that being angry gives them. So whether they blame the tournament itself, or past partners, they just sit around hostile and snarky from the sidelines. I feel bad for those people. That is no way to go through life. That is no way to look at the opportunity laying itself out in front of all of the teams that were brave enough to sign up. Like I said, this is everything that all of us want. Who cares if we have to jump through a series of random hoops in order to get there? Look at it like this: Who was Fenris before he signed up for this tournament a couple of years ago?

Who is he now?

That’s the story that people should be focusing on. This tournament has the ability to launch you up to the main event. There are legends of this company competing against each other in every round, and rookies can toss their name in just as easily. A few wins later, that rookie could be main eventing the biggest shows this company puts together. A few months after that they could be known as one of the best champions that Sin City has ever seen. It happens so fast it feels like the snap of a finger. Some of us have been competing in this business for years, some even decades, and never made it to the top. Yet, SCW offers a short track to greatness for anyone that rolls the dice and wants to make it happen. Somebody is going to win it, and the playing field couldn’t be more level.

Look at the match-up that I drew for the first round. Things couldn’t be more even. Candy and Agostino have experience being randomly paired with someone for tag matches. They ended up challenging for the Mixed Tag Team Championships against The Black Sheep as a Lethal Lottery team not that long ago. Mercedes and Kain did big things as a team randomly put together as well. Everyone knows that I have only had one match in this company so far, and it was to take over as champion of the Mixed Tag Division, which I never expected to happen. Mikah and I made it work as a team that came together so quickly. I have proven that I have what it takes to compete at a championship level and I’m only one match in.

What I’m saying is that all four of us knew what we were getting into in this tournament, and we all have at least a little bit of experience on our side. There isn’t much for any of us to be complaining about like a lot of the others either. I mean, I couldn’t think of someone better to be around than Candy. So many people around here take themselves too seriously, or are horrible people just for the sake of being horrible. Some are demanding and demeaning all at the same time. I could have gotten paired with any number of people that would have had me off balance for as long as we remained in the tournament. Instead I got paired with someone with a similar outlook to the one that I have. I know that no matter what, Candy is going out there to bust ass and put on a show. I know she’s not going to show up biting people’s heads off backstage. I know that she’s not going to let me down before the match even gets underway. There is a kind of peace that comes with that type of partner. All we have to worry about is what happens inside that ring and between the start and end bells. There isn’t any distraction. There isn’t any undue anger. We are going to show up to win, and have a blast doing that. Isn’t that what this thing is all about?

On the other side of the ring, Mercedes and Agostino have to like what they are seeing in each other. Mercedes is a Grand Slam Champion, as everyone knows. She likes to remind us about it just as often as our World Heavyweight Champion likes to point it out about himself. She’s much more than that though. She is like the second longest lasting Bombshell on this roster, and she has stepped inside the ring with every single name-droppable female that has ever walked down to the six-sided ring. Everyone accepts that Mercedes knows more about this company and the people in it than anyone else that has ever been under contract here. She is the perfect partner for this tournament. Agostino has to know that. On the other hand, Mercedes has to see how Agostino has really stepped up and made a name for himself in his short time here. The guy worked his way up into the World Heavyweight Championship conversation after a couple of big wins. He was given a shot at the championship that I now hold a couple months into joining the company. Other than Jack Washington, Agostino really was the only newcomer to break out last year, and now he is carrying the Internet Championship.

I know that a lot of people are talking about Vinnie and Alicia, or Despayre and Amber Ryan, but people have been overlooking and underestimating Mercedes and Agostino since the day of the drawing. Imma do my best to make sure that nobody has to pay for that error, and thank my lucky stars that I wasn’t one of the ones that wrote these two off from the jump. Luckily, I saw them as an underdog team with some real potential if they can figure out how to work together. I planned for possibly seeing them in a later round if Candy and I were successful in the first couple. Then we got paired up in the first round.

...and I can’t sit here and say that Candy and I are definitely going to get past these two. I’d like to believe that. I’d like to be able to say that to all of you confidently. I think that I proved a lot when I got the win for the Black Sheep at Inception and helped our team retain the Mixed Tag Team Championships, but I also know that one match doesn’t buy you much when you’re a newcomer. Mercedes and Agostino are going to be a tough challenge as individuals, and even more so if they can figure out how to gel as a team. That’s the question mark though.

How will they work as a team? Mercedes isn’t the easiest to get along with, even if there is something that she really wants on the line. She has always been a mean girl at heart, and Agostino isn’t exactly the type of person that she would be pleasant to under any other circumstance.

...but Candy and I don’t have to ask those kinds of questions. What you see is what you get with the two of us. We both want to go out and entertain. We both want to prove all of the doubters wrong. We are both much better than anyone in this company is going to give us credit for. I think that the two of us can do big things in this tournament, and there is no doubt we are going to be on the same page as partners. We can’t do this without one another, and that’s fine with me. I’d rather team with someone that I know isn’t going to put a knife in my back instead of someone with a long list of past accomplishments.

#ThatsWhatsUp



 



===============================
===========================


Pages: [1] 2