Ken Davison sits in the car, driving North on the I-95 corridor, heading to Philadelphia. He had chosen to leave Kyra at home  Normally, this would be something they would handle together, but with Adina at home and this was no situation for her. It was hardly a situation for him, in his current state of mental health. He was supposed to be celebrating his newly found wedded bliss. In the almost two weeks that had followed, his best friend’s wife, who coincidentally was his wife’s best friend, you may know her as Amber FUCKING Ryan, had been assaulted in a show she was working on almost two weeks ago. As the Sin City audience knew, she had been in the  hospital. Unfortunately,  Ken’s commitments had kept him a couple of thousand miles away. She and Ken had been bitter rivals, many moons ago. This was common knowledge. What most people did not know is that the two of them were in the process of making their peace. Then, the attack happened.

’How could it get any worse?’ Ken had thought to himself. At this point, he should have known better than to challenge the universe. He should have fucking known. It was later that day that he got on Twitter and saw a tweet from @demonofsobriety, his former student, Dorian. Except, it wasn’t Dorain. It was his daughter, Chloe Hawkhurst. It would seem she had taken over the account.

“i dont know howto say it. dad;s gone. he got stabbed trying to stop this guy from beating his wife. we're keeping thigns private. i dont want any of taht im sorry bullshit. this fuckng sux.”

Chloe, barely 19 now, was now an orphan.

“Dorian Michael Hawkhurst passed away on Monday, June 6th, 2022, after injuries incurred while breaking up a domestic dispute. He was 38.”

“Dorian was born on February 29th, 1984, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania…”

That was as far as Ken could get reading the obituary before scrolling down to the bottom to find out where and when the funeral was. That was where he was in the process of driving to now. Chloe did not know he was attending. Ken know about her desire to keep it private, but Dorian and Chloe started training with him when Chloe was only 9. That was ten years. ’Sorry, kiddo. You’re family,’ he thought knowing how she’d probably react to his arrival.

Thankfully, traffic on a Saturday morning was nowhere near as hectic as it would be had the service been held during the week. Ken gets off at the exit and deftly maneuvers his ‘89 Pontiac Grand Am through the streets of Philadelphia. The trees are scattered around perfectly manicured grass. He finally pulls onto Kelly Drive, the pebbles crunching beneath rubber. He pulls to a stop and looks over to his left.

Day after day, almost ritualistically, peoole would flock to the bottom of the stairs below the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Showing up to take a picture with the Rocky statue was a Philadelphia tradition. Originally, the statue had been created and installed for a scene in Rocky III, but now stood as an actual, honest to goodness, real-life document to a film here, a fictional denizen of the City of Brotherly Love, who is accepted as though he was a native son of flesh and blood.

After the obligatory photo op, many of the visitors then partake in the second, less obligatory part of the ritual. They try their hands and hustling up the grand stairway, Most then raise both arms in the air, mimicking the pose of their fictional hero. The beautiful view of the Philadelphia skyline was an added bonus. While running up those stairs was the goal, Ken wanted to neither take a picture of the statue nor did he want to pose at the top, though both of those things were considered a rite of passage. He was here to honor Dorian.

Being a native of Philadelphia, Dorian knew the ins and outs of the streets. He had taught Ken things about the city that he never would have learned on his own. The honor of wrestling in 2300 Arena, formerly known as Viking Hall, was one of the first things. Though known by many names throughout the years, the building in and of itself was hallowed ground among many wrestling fans. Dorian had taught him that you get your cheesesteak at Tony Luke’s and avoid the tourist traps known as Pat’s and Geno’s. Lastly, he taught Ken about how he had trained every morning by running up and down the “Rocky Steps.” Ken had never done so himself, but now was as good a time as ever.

Ken Davison took a moment to lock his car before looking both ways and crossing the street. He strides across the sidewalk and makes his way to the bottom of the stairway. ’You have got to be fucking insane,’ Ken can’t help but think to himself. Maybe he was. He was standing at the bottom of the Rocky steps, in near eighty degree heat, less than two hours from attending a viewing, ready to run up those very stairs.

“Fuck it!” Ken yells as he bolts up the stairs. Underestimating the climb, he starts to become winded about two thirds of the way up the stairs. “Come on!” he grunts as he guts out those last few steps. Getting to the top, he falls to his knees, the adrenaline allowing him to ignore the feeling of concrete forcibly connecting with his kneecaps.

Tears well up in his eyes, eventually streaming down his cheeks as he remembers Dorian; his friend, another one of his adopted brothers - One of the few people Ken truly cared for in this world.  Gone.  Too soon.  Always too soon. 

Ken looks around at the hustle and bustle around him, people going in and out of the museum, others occasionally running up and down the stairs,and he feels invisible. It was a nice moment of reprieve, to be honest. No fans bothering him was actually a bit strange considering all the time he'd spent wrestling in Steelside Wrestling.  He was a bit of a well known commodity in Pennsylvania, at least he liked to think so.

’Steps,’ he ponders silently.

In short order, Ken had taken many steps recently. He got married. He started to make peace with Amber Ryan-Bane before she was attacked, and now… this, the loss of a dear friend. There were so many questions in his head. ‘Will Chloe be okay?’ being the most imposing of all of them. Chloe had just turned 19, but to Ken’s knowledge, didn’t have any kind of contingency plan in place. ’Which reminds me,’ Ken thinks as he pauses to look down at his watch.

13:37

Ken wiped his eyes, he straightened out his shirt and he brought himself back to his feet.  He had a service to attend.  He had a young woman to support.  He needed to be strong for Chloe in her time of need. He knew that's what Dorian would have done for him.


Ken Davison is dressed in a black button down shirt and black pants. The moon hangs in the night sky, the Philadelphia skyline behind him. It is obvious from the Philadelphia Museum in the background that Ken has returned to the Rocky stairs. His face is streaked with the stain of tears, Ken had no concern about them. Sure, he should have washed his face or tried to perhaps do something, anything to cover them up, but in his present state, he didn’t particularly mind or care.

“Sometimes, in our lives, we have to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. We have to recognize where we are in life, but also how we got there. My career, not just my time in this company, I have defined by the steps I have taken.  Successful debut. Internet champion. Subsequent losing streak. Most recently, I have taken out two former World Champions when no one expected me to do so.”

“Believe it or not, Kasey, that actually doesn't matter. That is not what defines me as an athlete, as a wrestler, as a man. It is the steps I have taken outside of the squared circle that make me who I am today.  Losing a championship is nothing, this is nothing when you've lost everything you hold dear in life.  Having to come back from a few losses in no way, shape, or form compares to having to come back from losing your unborn child.”

Ken speaks those words with a tinge of sadness in his voice. The surprise to those who know his tragic history is that he is not sobbing and crying about his loss, rather, he seems to have made peace with it. There is a calm in his voice, not usually found in this situation.

“In my career I have been put through burning tables, one by our very own Mac Bane. I have wrestled in Japanese death matches. I have walked through the hostile crowds of Puerto Rico and lived to tell the tale. Hell, I still bear the scars of being crucified.”

Davison holds up his hands directly in front of the camera, the vaguely circular scarring of his hand goes directly through his palms. He allows them to linger for a couple of moments, letting the severity of the wound sink in.

“When I say that I have seen it all and done it all I can say so with the utmost confidence. That was not always the case. When I started in this business, the fact that I even got signed at a mere 5' 10" tall, was a minor miracle. I made my debut as a character known as Tunzafun. I came to the ring, clad in a set of pajamas, gave a Teddy bear to one of the young fans, you get the idea. Typical early to mid nineties schtick. Still, I recognized that I had to start somewhere. I took that first step.”

“At this point, I am losing almost every match. Back then if you weren't at least 6' 4", or 300 pounds… let's just say you were in for a bad day at the office, bud. I stuck it out. I evolved. I learned to use my size as an advantage instead of a detriment. After all, you can't punch what you can't catch. I evolved. I took another step.”

Ken starts rolling his wrist, making the “this is going on and on and on” motion with his hand.

“Now, I could go on and on and give you the entire rundown of my career and how I learned to adapt. The cliff notes version is that each and every time I faced adversity, I never once took a step backwards. I always moved forward, ever forward.”

“Which brings us to where we are today. I've been in this business for 26 years, almost as long as you've been alive. Think about that, just for a second. You may be too young, too brash, too wet behind the ears to understand how intimidating that should be. To be honest, I prefer it that way. When a whelp tries to prove himself, to show that he belongs, he brings a certain tenacity that I always find entertaining. I’d like to hope I see that fire.”

Ken pauses just a moment, whipping his head back and forth to crack his neck.

“Moving right along, I have been saying since the moment he won the World Championship that I want my shot at Matt Knox. It's not even that I want an opportunity at the World Championship. Mac Bane has that opportunity and Mac Bane deserves that opportunity. When he takes that World Championship, he knows that I've got his back. He knows that I will not pursue that championship. I've said it before and I will say it again. Saviors don't work Saviors.”

“What you're probably asking yourself is what does this have to do with you? You probably think that I'm looking past you as a warm up to whatever opportunity comes my way next. That couldn't be farther from the truth. I know that you're running with the wolves. I know the group you roll with wouldn't keep you amongst their pack if you couldn't pull your own weight. Still, amongst the wolves you are but a cub, a mere… little… cub. However, the phrase ‘hungry like a wolf’ exists for a reason. Much like when I had to prove myself after losing the Internet championship, I was hungry to re-establish myself as a legitimate threat to any athlete in this company, I know you are looking to use me as I used Austin James Mercer. I know that you want to cut in front of me in line for any opportunity, like I did to Mark Cross. They were steps that I had to take. This match is another step that I have to take. I am going to take that step and continue to move forward, ever forward. That means that you need to know your place and take a step back. You… You need to realize that in this pack, you are not the alpha. You are not even an alpha.”

Ken waves his finger back and forth, like Dikembe Mutombo saying “No, no, no,” after a block.

“The thing about wolves, the thing that I think you and the entirety of Wolfslair fails to remember is that being an alpha does not always mean being at the front of the line. When wolves travel, there are also alpha's at the back of the line. The reason for that, the reason I am willing to stand behind Mac Bane and any member of the Saviors is because an alpha that is willing to stay at the back of the line, until the time is right, is an alpha who is watching out for the good of its pack.”

Ken sighs deeply, taking time to de-escalate from the level of intensity he had elevated to.

“I recognize that in my time here I may have sent some mixed signals. I know who I am as a person. That's a phrase that I'm rather fond of using. In fact. I'm sure that you hear every single week. Who I am as a person, what you need to have in the forefront of your mind, is that I am a person that is willing to do whatever needs to be done to handle a situation. If that means beating you in the submission, so be it. If that means giving a spinebuster to a former women's World Champion, so be it. If that means that I am going to leave a trail of victims in my wake while I wait for my opportunity, so be it.”

Ken smiles slyly, making sure the audience at home is hanging on, waiting for his next words.

“If that means that my next step requires you to be under my boot, so…. be… it.”

It had been two hours since Ken Davison had been left alone in the confines of the former St. Anne’s Catholic Church. At the exact moment that Kyra Johnson had left her fiancé, the empty hallways instantly felt emptier. Alone with his thoughts, Davison had made the conscious decision to stay in his office, at least for a few more days. That choice never managed to last a few days. In fact, it had barely lasted a few hours. Around six o’clock, Davison grabs his phone and looks down at the screen. No text messages. No voicemails. No missed calls.

‘She has to be driving. It’s fine. Everything will be fine. It has to be fine.’ Ken thought to himself as he can’t seem to decide what to do. To say he was conflicted was an understatement. ‘If she needs space, I want to give her space. Then again, I know how much it hurt her when Jack Michaels decided to take his sabbatical.’

Jack Michaels was Kyra’s former fiancé. In preparing for a title defense, he disappeared for two months, only showing his face when he came back at the company’s next pay-per-view to face, you guessed it, Amber Ryan… Amber FUCKING Ryan.

It began as a game for Ken. With Jack Michaels gone and Amber Ryan focused on the World Championship, that left the other two members of their stable to fend for themselves, one of them being the aforementioned Kyra Johnson. Ken looked upon Kyra as a pawn. His sole purpose was to try and manipulate her to hurt Amber. The strange thing was, Ken didn’t feed Kyra lies. He told her the truth. He showed her that she was her own woman. In fact, Ken had defeated Kyra in their first encounter, a bloody brawl that Ken was fortunate enough to win. Following that match, Kyra Johnson went on a tear, full of confidence, even defeating Ken in their rematch. Not only did Ken show Kyra her true worth, but he found her worth for himself. She came in and they tore each other’s walls down. Ken had spent literally two and a half decades building those walls, only to see them torn down in a matter of months. And that is the short version. Kyra Johnson was his world. Without her, he was nothing.

Now, Ken sits petrified as her words run through his head.

“Just… let it go.  All of it.”

‘How the hell do I let it go? I don’t know how to let shit go. Amber is never going to let this go. The bad blood runs too deep. I know that she won’t let this go, so what am I supposed to do? Just let my guard down so she can take me out when I least expect it? Nope. At least if I poke the bear, the bear is in front of me.’ Ken’s entire thought process paused. Though poking the bear usually meant that the bear got sloppy and made mistakes, this time, the bear poked back. His grand plan had backfired and because of one teensy, tiny self-defense spinebuster, he was now public enemy number one. While this was actually good for his career, it was bad for his personal life.

Ken grabs his phone. It might not be the best idea, but he picks up his phone and shoots Kyra a text.

Hey... can we talk? I want to come home…

Ken waits… and waits… and waits… nothing.

I know I said I would give you space... you said this felt familiar, but I'm not Jack. I'm not going to run away from you. I don't care what kind of shit we've got going on. I want to run TO you…

Ken grabs his keys off of his desk. He starts to walk out the door, but stops short of the door.

‘Space… I said I’d give her space. Goddamnit!’

Ken did not know what to do at that moment. ‘Driving. Remember? She has to be driving,’ he reminds himself. At that point, Ken Davison does the only thing he can think of outside of calling Kyra and praying she would talk to him. He dials his brother.

“Brohan!” comes the excited voice from the other end of the phone. Enter Sean Pollux. Sean Pollux has been many things to Ken over the years; future brother-in-law, former tag team partner, adopted brother, and now, amatuer life coach. “What’s crackalackin’?”

“You want the honest truth or a happy lie?” Ken deadpans.

“I know that tone. How bad did you screw the pooch this time, bro?” There is a mixture of disbelief and concern in Sean’s voice.

“Well, I’m at the church and Kyra just took Adina and left me here.”

“The hell you do?”

“Well, it started with a mixed tag match against Amber Ryan…” Sean audibly sighs, cutting off his brother.

“Do I really need to remind you what a dick you became the last time you got involved with that woman? She really brought out the worst in you. Which means that Amber’s pissed at you, not like that’s anything new. Mac’s mad at you. Kyra’s not happy with you, obvi. So exactly how deep did you step in it?”

“Can I just clarify that while I may have stepped in shit, at least this time the shit isn’t mine?” Ken pleads. Sean, to his credit, is having none of it.

“I don’t know, man. It’s not like you have a proven track record in that regard.”

“I’m serious. Amber asked for the match. She rushed me and I gave her a spinebuster. That’s it.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. I swear.”

“Pfft. I call bullshit, bro. I know you. There is no way Amber JUST rushed you and that you JUST reacted.”

“I mean, I was talking shit the whole match. But, Amber’s a hothead. It’s not like that’s some kind of secret.”

“Listen, Ken. I’m gonna shoot you a straight one. You need to talk to Kyra yourself. You need to talk to Mac yourself. You need to take some Kendamned accountability. I love you, bro. But, man, I am not your janitor. Clean up your own mess.”

“Sea…” Ken doesn’t even finish saying his brother’s name before the disconnection beeps in his ear. “Just fucking great,” Ken says to no one in particular.

Here he was, a little more than a month from getting married and Ken wasn’t sure if he was going to have a relationship with Kyra, let alone a marriage.  A few moments later, his phone lit up and let out a short ding.  Immediately, his stomach starts doing somersaults in his gut as he fumbles with the device, hoping it's her. 

I never told you that you couldn’t come home.

The way you left… I don’t know. This is messing with me. You know I suck at life. I don’t know if I am supposed to apologize to Amber to try and make it right. I at least know I have to talk to Mac. But the most important thing here is you. No one else except Adina. I know we’ve got to work this out. When I said I’d give you space you never told me if that was what you wanted. I didn’t know. This whole talking shit out thing is hard. I still don’t know if you want space. I guess if you are telling me I can come home that you don’t, but I don’t know. Like, I don’t care. I want to be with you. I mean, I do care about your feelings. For fucks’ sake… I don’t know what to say.”

The fact that this was Ken’s first relationship in 25 years was showing, but thankfully, no one else but Kyra could see it. Rambling on like a love lost teenager is Ken’s only coping mechanism. His fingers are going even faster than his mouth usually is.

Are you okay? Is Adina okay? Can we fix this? I’ll do whatever I need to do to make this right, I promise. I never meant for you to get involved. You want me to beat Amber’s ass? Done. You want me to let her beat my ass? Done. I’ll try my best to let it go, if that’s what you want. I’m wiling tol do whatever I have to do. I’m not “He Who Shall Not Be Named.” I’m not leaving you. I’m not leaving Adina. I’m not abandoning us. Not for two months, two weeks, two days, two minutes, two seconds. Not for a moment.

For Ken’s sake, it was probably a good thing he wasn’t actually talking. He would have passed the fuck out halfway through it. The sad part is that he wasn’t done.

I love you. You are my everything. I wouldn’t be the man I am today without you. Just tell me what you want. Please.

It isn't very long before the phone dings once more in response.  To Ken it felt like hours had gone by, when in reality, it had only been a few minutes.  He nearly drops the phone, his hands are so slick with sweat. 

We'll talk when you get home.  Just be careful, okay?

Ken falls down into the office chair, emotionally exhausted.

Okay. I’m going to take a quick rest before I go. I don’t want to drive tired. I love you, mi corazon.

Ken sends the text and drops his phone, slumping back in the chair. ‘Get it together, man. What the deuce?’ For all of his various levels of psychosis over the years, this talking to himself was a new one. Slowly but surely, Ken pulls himself upright in the chair. He feels more unsure, and more defeated than he’s felt in a long time. In the back of his mind, he wonders if this has any hope of being fixed.

…Then he hears his phone ping again. Clear. Distinct. Like the luminescence provided by the lamp of a lighthouse, cutting through the fog with a sword of light. This could be a double edge sword, it could save him… or tear him apart. He stares down at it for a few moments, unsure. Eventually, he reaches down and picks it up with a shaky hand. 

I love you too.

Ken breathes a sigh of relief. He is still uncertain, but Kyra still loves him, so at least he’s got that. Ken pushes himself up with a renewed sense of purpose. He still would have to put of this fire, but at least it was under control. He grabbed his keys off the desk, a second time, this time with the certainty of where his destination was.

’Might as well put out one more fire.’ he thinks to himself as he picks up the rest of his belongings. He quickly dials a number into his phone and walks out the door, struggling to keep the phone up to his ear as he locks the door.

His tone is hushed and reserved, something out of character for him.

“Hey, Mac.”


Sometime later, we open to “Godly” Ken Davison sitting in the shade of an old oak tree to his right. His black sleeveless t-shirt is a stark contrast to the cool gray marble immediately behind him. Davison is leaning back, resting his weight on his elbows, blocking the sun with a pair of orange tinted sunglasses. As he has undoubtedly received the director's cue, he sits straight up, taking a moment to brush the grass off of his elbows before smiling warmly at the camera.

“They claim…” Ken says with a slow and very deliberate cadence, allowing each and every syllable to sync in. “That I am some kind of… monster. In some places, I have been blacklisted, despite the fact that I have done nothing wrong. People believe that my views are derelict. It is easier to sever ties than to stand on the right side of history. They would rather hang the activists than change their point of view. With one self-defense spinebuster, a new war started. It may not be a war for each and every one of for you, but it is a war for me. When I lace up my wrestling boots, I am lacing up my combat boots. I understand that people think less of me because of my actions. Those people need to understand that I don’t give two shits about what those people think.”

The tone as Ken releases the word “those” has so much disdain attached to it that it is palpable.

“While this may have started with Amber Ryan, this has absolutely nothing to do with Amber Ryan. Amber could have been anyone on the women’s roster, be it Masque de Luna, Roxxi Johnson or Myra Rivers…” Ken pauses, putting his hand on his chin and smiling wistfully. “Actually, I am fairly certain I owe her an ass whoopin’ from her Lynnwood days.”

“One word I’ve heard being thrown around about me in certain circles is the word “martyr.” Funny little word, martyr is. Coincidentally, it is also a tragically misunderstood word as well. The word, in and of itself, has evolved over the course of history. It has become one of the most emotive words in our vernacular. The word “martyr” has become twisted, distorted and perverted. The very ideology of martyrdom has always been connected to violence, though the reality is that violence has nothing to do with the equation. The original work came from the Greek language and meant “witness.” Its first usage was Biblical, describing the apostles whom had witnessed Christ’s life, death and resurrection. Down the line, it was passed onto those who, when arrested and placed on trial, showed the steadfast devotion to their faith to declare themselves as Christians in the court of the land. As such, it was then used to describe those who were executed for their zealousness.”

Davison pauses long enough to open up a bottle of water and take a gulp, whetting his gullet so that he may continue.

“I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I have that kind of faith in magical sky daddy, but I feel that to have the level of commitment in nothing more than an ideal is…” Another pause for the sake of word choice. “Admirable. We’ll go with that.”

“Now, Socrates! There’s a guy who I could really have gotten behind. In 399 BC, Socrates was put on trial and executed by the court of Athens for “charges of impiety and corrupting the youth.” In the great city of Athens, a city, might I add, known for political and intellectual liberty, Socrates was put to death for asking the children to think. If we were to follow the Bible to the letter, dangerous, I know. But, for the sake of establishing what is going on here, just run with it for a minute, whether you believe it or not. Proverbs 23:7 says “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” That means if you thought about harming another person, which we all know is something we do in our profession, you are impious. If you have ever wanted what someone else has, you have made the effort to steal it. If you have thought about sleeping with a woman, per the letter of Biblical law, you have done it. Who on this Earth would not be considered impious under those circumstances?”

“The real reason that Socrates was persecuted and martyred was not because of impiety or impropriety. The real reason was because of Socrates' constant criticism of the Athenian government, which had been in shambles since an oligarchic coup five years earlier in 404 BC. That is why those who understand me believe I will become a martyr; because I am willing to speak the truths that no other man or woman in this company has the spine to even think about, let alone discuss. Still, I am not a martyr. While I am willing to fall upon the proverbial sword, I do not intend to allow myself to be a victim.”

Davison rises, taking his robes off of the monument behind him. He nonchalantly begins placing his robe over his clothes, continuing his diatribe as though the world around him didn’t even exist.

“There are those who believe in the cause of a martyr. They will celebrate them, revere them, and build monuments for them… Yet, most of those who wish to become martyrs do so by more violent means. They do not deserve the veneration they receive from others. It is the deliberate courting of death that is sinful. The worthy would be gifted martyrdom by God. To try and achieve martyrdom by one’s own efforts is an act of defiance. People such as that did not volunteer for death, they provoked it in the name of their cause. They smashed idols, disrupted pagan rituals and assaulted temple priests knowing they would die in the ensuing violence. The ideology of martyrdom had shifted subtly – for some, martyrs did not simply die for God, now they killed and terrorized in his name.”

“Obviously, I am not going to murder anyone. Regardless, I have no issues with taking extreme measures. Agostino Romano, Ben Jordan, and Austin James Mercer have all encountered me in various states of being. Agostino and Austin James Mercer have seen me at my apex. Ben Jordan caught me on the opposite end of that spectrum, as I have shown, I do not fall back. I do not hide behind my failures. I’ve found that you don’t get anywhere in life without taking risks. Walking into a match against the quality of the opponents in this match is a risk. But risk is nothing new to me. When I chose to start in this business, that was a risk. When I decided to leave school and get my GED at 16, that was a risk. When I decided to forgo college because of my crazy dream, that was a risk. Everyone told me, “Honey, make sure you have something to fall back on.” Those words, they always bothered me. “Make sure you have something to fall back on.” Why in the hell would I do that? The only thing I will ever fall back on is my faith. My stubborn ass wants to fall forward.”

Ken adjusts his collar, today a vibrant tangerine, matching perfectly his glasses. He still has a smug look on his face.

““Reggie Jackson holds the record for the most strikeouts in Major League Baseball history. The man had 2,597 strikeouts. Do you ever hear about that? No. You hear about all of the home runs. You hear about ‘Mr. October.’ You hear about game six of the 1977 World Series when he hit three home runs off of three different pitchers. Why? Because he fell forward.”

“Then you have Thomas Edison. It took him 1,001 tries to create the light bulb. Every time, he took a risk by changing something. Every risk brought him closer to his goal. He fell forward.”

“When Carnage Wrestling closed down, I took a huge risk by coming here to Sin City Wrestling. I left everything that I knew, changed all of my routines because I wanted to come here and become a champion. I walked into this company and busted my ass to get to where I am today. I didn’t get here by succeeding. I got here by failing. Every match I have lost has been fuel for all of the matches I have won. I didn’t get my World Championships by winning. I got them by losing. Back in Carnage, I got my ass whooped by Amber Ryan. Yes, our…” Ken pauses, allowing the sarcasm to escape his lips, despite his best efforts. “beloved Amber Ryan. Later, when I got my Carnage World Championship opportunity against Amber Ryan, I was a man possessed. I remembered what she had done to me and I used that energy to motivate myself. Because of Amber Ryan, I fell forward.”

“You all have seen how this comeback has gone for me. I went from top of the mountain to struggling to get where I am. The thing is when I stand in that ring, with this level of determination. I am unstoppable. What that means for you five asshats is that I am the better man. You have no chance to beat me. Zilch. Zero. Nada. Nothing. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. The fact of the matter is that I have spent my  entire career making the people who doubt me look like fools. You gentlemen think that you can take me down?”

Davison practically snorts in disgust.

“Just fucking try.”

“I’M FINE!…” the words echo throughout the backstage area of the arena. I didn’t need these doctor’s trying to look me over with their tools. It wasn’t as if I didn’t know myself. I felt the agony that my back and ribs were shouting out. It felt as if someone was poking a knife all over me. Sitting down in a chair next to the table, leaning back against the wall for a little support, one of the doctor’s came over next me. He had a worried look on his face as I pressed him away before falling out of the chair. Both came running over, grabbing me by my arms as they tried to pull me back up on the chair.

“GET AWAY! AWWWW!”

Pressing them away from my sight I tried to press up off the ground but all I felt was my body fighting me. I was just involved in a ladder match. Like, duh. Of course I was hurting.

“Mr. Davison, we need to look you over and see how badly injured you are.”

“You think I feel bad? I was just beaten repeatedly with a steel fucking ladder. You think I want this? What I want is to see my fucking fiancee. NOW!!!”

While I couldn’t see Kyra. I could hear her. She was dropping f bombs like they were going out of style. After a few moments of resting on the floor, I pressed upward to a standing position with my hand on the wall. Any normal man would want revenge for this, but I remembered that we had hurt them just as badly. We had done the same thing to our opponents. I suppose that’s why a smile was crossing my face? A sudden sharp point of pain rushed through my back as I grabbed my hoodie. You would think after 44 years that I would be more careful. Today is not that day. Tomorrow doesn’t look good either. I fall a little bit. Thankfully, I was able to catch myself a little against the wall before I fell. They started my way again and if looks could kill, the medical staff would be chalk outlines.

“I need everyone to leave.”

“But…”

“But nothing. I will sign whatever fucking waiver I have to. Leave… NOW!”

I don’t know if it was the tone of my voice or if it was the fear of having a man with this much anger screaming at them that scared them away but it was no more than a few seconds as I heard the door slam. I was alone, finally. I couldn’t help but hold on to my wounds even though I knew I couldn’t chase the pain away. It takes some time, but I slowly am able to pull myself up off the floor. The pain will be temporary. It always is, I remind myself. Except for that pain in my back, the pain from the scars in my hands, the jaw I broke back in 1997… okay, most of my pain is temporary.

I hear Kyra scream again from down the hall. My eyes light up a little, looking down and seeing the bright gold of the UGWC Cooperative Championship as it laid there on top of my bag. Leaning down and grasping it with my left hand while my right hand still hung on to the side of my body. The pain was gone for the most part, but the feeling of life that had been taken from me was still there. Still, every time that I looked down at that championship, it was a hit of dopamine. The pain wasn’t as bad. The struggle wasn’t as hard. Those titles were the reason Kyra and I did this. From down the hall, she begins cursing again. I can tell I am getting closer because instead of hearing inaudible screams, I could hear the most liberal use of the word ‘fuck’ that I had heard in a long time. That means that I have to get down the hall. I had to get to Kyra. Finally, I fall through the curtain separating the trainer’s area from the hallway.

“Hey, mama.”

“Where the fuck have you been?”

I can’t help but smile.

“Scaring medical professionals.”

“Sounds about right. I’m almost done. I just need to sign the fucking waiver. You would think by now that would just have a stamp made of our signatures to save time.”

“You’d think.”

We use our banter to hide our pain. Our pain was our future. Each and every match, we grow closer. We save more money to provide for our family. We make a life together the only way we know how. As much as it hurts us, we know that the wrestling ring is our home.


In the early morning, the former Yawkey Way was relatively quiet. Nothing about the plain brick building that “Godly” Ken Davison is walking past particularly seems to stand out. Dressed in blue jeans and a black leather jacket, Ken doesn’t particularly seem to stand out, either.

“I remember the day although it was yesterday. May 30th, 2021. It was 9 o’clock in the morning and I was nervous. I was scared. I didn’t sleep the night before, tossing and turning. As I’m driving through the streets of Baltimore, I think about where my life had gone in the previous year. I had gone from World Championship contender to World Champion. I had gone from walking through the proverbial ‘Valley of Death’ on my own, to walking beside the woman who had become, and still is, the love of my life. I uprooted my life, leaving everything behind; my family, my home, the ghost of the woman who was, up until that point, my first and only love. I changed everything about myself. I became a family man.”

“Still…” Ken says, allowing his voice to trail off while he reflects on everything. “Still, all I could think about was how I could still turn around, still go home, that I didn’t really have to do what I had planned. Two hours can drag on forever, but in my case, it flew by while I sit in the parking lot going back and forth on what I was about to do. ’You can still go home.’ I remind myself. What if she says ‘no?’ What if the final image the fans see of Carnage Wrestling are of me being left in the middle of the ring after my planned proposal? I felt as though I was going to be jumping out of a plane with two other people and I am scared shitless of heights. My heart is beating out of my chest. I’m feeling a pain and worry I hadn’t felt since my heart attack. My thoughts went from those of doubt to giving myself a pep talk. I can do this. I want to do this.”

“Walking out to the ring that night, I was ready for my match. That evening, the match itself was the easy part. Since the reigning tag team champions declined to appear for the final show, the company’s Tag Team championships were given to my partner Kyra and I. If you were to ask Amber Ryan and Matt Knox one thing that you would be certain that they would agree on, it’s that my lady and I are fighters. It’s one of our best and worst qualities, depending on the situation. That night, we challenged another team for those Tag Team Championships and came up short. Regardless, we were able to stand with our heads held high knowing that we left everything we had in the ring that night.”

“At the end of the night, Kyra was asked to announce to the crowd the final class of Carnage Wrestling Hall of Fame inductees. Of everyone else there, she had been there the longest, so it made sense to have her make that announcement and I was able to stand in the ring with her as she did it. That was supposed to be where it ended, but I had other plans. Now, I am standing there, not even talking, and I am sweating like a turkey the day before Thanksgiving. My body felt like it did when I was 10,000 feet in the air. Like the instructor, Kyra is talking but the words simply aren’t registering. When I tried going skydiving, I knew that I could just ride back down with the pilot, claiming that I had jumped and no one would be any wiser. I could have let Kyra make her announcement and walked to the back and no one would no that I had failed to do what I had planned.”

Ken stops pacing and looks up with perhaps the most sincere look that has ever crossed his face during his entire tenure in Sin City Wrestling.

“Now this is the part of the story that ties into what I am trying to teach you. When I was in the back of that airplane, 10,000 feet in the air…” Ken pauses for just a moment. “I know I said that already, but you have to understand that was a big deal to me. I was there to confront my fear. I could be at home, recovering for a wild Friday night out and just relaxing. That wasn’t what I wanted. What I wanted was to prove to myself that I could face what I thought was my greatest fear. I have a tradition where at least once a year I go out and find one thing that I am afraid of and try to confront it because as much as I had been afraid of things like public speaking, heights, a ring full of light tubes, explosives and thumbtacks, I am more afraid of failure. Being able to confront my fears helps me to overcome my fear of failure. The fear of failing holds a lot of us back. The fear of failing can be paralyzing. However, there are only two results. ‘Do or do not. There is no try,” as Yoda famously said. There have been times I have succeeded and times that I have failed. Still, as scared as I was jumping out of the plane and watching as the dots below very quickly grew larger and more detailed, standing next to Kyra Johnson at 10:47 PM on May 30th, 2021 was by far the scariest moment of my life. Like all of the challenges I have put in front of myself, it was up to me to try. What made this moment so frightening is that it’s success or failure were not in my hands. It was in someone else’s hands. My success or failure relied solely on Kyra. To this day, I am proud to say that I selfishly asked for the opportunity to leave the last image Carnage Wrestling fans were left with was that ofKyra and I kissing in the middle of the ring. That moment would never have happened if I was afraid of failure.”

Ken stops and leans against the brick building, taking a sip of his Dunkin’ Donuts coffee before continuing to speak.

“In every aspect of my career, between both companies I work for, I am here because I failed. In Carnage Wrestling, Kyra and I failed to win Tag Team Championships. We never want to be given the titles by forfeit. What did we do? We marched our asses into the UGWC and we had to scratch, he had to claw, we had to fight, not just in our matches, but at times to even get our matches, so that we could hold the Cooperative Championship together. Now, we are the team to beat in the company.”

“I realize that I failed to defeat Matt Knox, not once, but twice. I know that I failed to retain the Sin City Internet Championship. Jack Washington was the better man that night. I can give credit where credit is due. But why the fuck does it always have to be a Jack from Las Vegas?”

Ken takes a moment to clear his throat.

“Apologies. I digress.” Ken takes another gulp of his coffee to whet his throat. “The reason that I do not fear failure is because I have stared death in the face more times than I can count. It began on my nineteenth birthday. To this day, it was literally the lowest point in my life. I was done. I was ready to check out. Game over, man. I was in a dark place. Not just a dark place, but a place so dark I dare not speak of it except to the most trusted of confidants. I was afraid of failing, not because I didn’t want to fail, but because I wanted to fail to exist. Yeah, it was that bad. Because of those events, I didn’t want the American Dream. I didn’t want the house. I didn’t want the white picket fence. I didn’t want the car, the wife, the 2.43 children. What I wanted was to see people hurt. I wanted to make people hurt as much as I did. We’ve had movies aimed at kids, like ‘An American Tale.’ We’ve had more adult centered movies such as ’The Pursuit of Happiness’ and ‘The Great Gatsby.’ The common thing is that these are movies that have celebrated the American Dream. I couldn’t relate to little Fievel. Looking back at the person I was, I can honestly say that I can not only understand, but empathize, with the character of Clyde Shelton in ’Law Abiding Citizen.’ So, when you lose everything, losing a match or a title here and there is no big deal.”

“I spent twenty five years, a lifetime for some people, amassing money, fame, accolades, not because it was my American Dream. I was doing it so I could run from my fears. Because I was running from my fears, over time, all of the companies I worked for seemed to fall apart. I don’t know if that was because of me or if that is just the nature of the beast. Be that as it may, I felt like I was responsible. I started looking forward to 10, 20, 30, even 40 years and I pictured myself at my funeral and I realized something. No one was going to be there. It wasn’t until I recognized that I was chasing everyone who ever loved me. I screwed over all my friends. No one would ever trust me. All of those things made me a failure. So, at that moment, I made the decision to end it all. So, I got out a piece of paper and started writing my goodbye letter. The thing was, I was too scared to send it to my stepfather. Surprisingly, that letter ended up being one of the things that changed my life. I ended up sending that letter to an old friend of mine. This friend has always made it a point to hold me accountable for my actions, good or bad. He forced me to drag my ass all the way out to Texas. I am sure that those of you who can do simple math can figure out that friend was Mac Bane.”

Ken wipes his eyes, making an effort to get ahead of himself as they begin watering up.

“And in that unique Mac Bane way of handling things, the man gets right in my face and asks “How can you do anything so selfish?’ How can you do this? How can you do this to your parents, to your brother, to your friends.” He never made it about himself, that’s not his style. He was right, of course. He usually is.”

“So, this is the point in time where I have to tie this all in with the match in front of me. Both Amber Ryan and Matt Knox are creatures of habit, even more than myself. They know how much I hate to lose. But losing is not failure. Failure is not learning from your mistakes.”

Ken uses his shoulders to lift himself off the wall, taking another sip of his coffee and shaking his cup, a slight frown crosses his face as he tosses the empty cup into a garbage can.

“Amber, I want you to think back to August of 2020. We were preparing for our match against one another at We Are Relentless. I was getting nasty voicemails from your future husband. My stepbrother was hanging up on me because of the way I had treated you. Most importantly, Everyone out there, from the fans, to the locker room, to the office was doubting what I am truly capable of, just as they are now. Did you learn anything, Amber? You had beaten me once already, what happened next? What happened when you doubted me? Ask yourself if you remember? Shit, ask Knox if he remembers? I overcame the odds and went on a glorious three month run where I was able to take your World Championship, take your father’s dignity, and beat up my future sister-in-law’s ex.”

“As much fun as it would be to sit here and antagonize you, Amber, my focus needs to be on your partner, Matt Knox. The fact you walk around here, Knox, strutting around like a peacock, plumage on full display, because someone saw fit to grant you a shot at Mac Bane and the Sin City World Championship, is sickening. You did absolutely nothing to actually earn this opportunity. The numbers don’t lie. The facts don’t lie. The only thing here that lies is your mouth. Let’s do ourselves a favor and look at the actual facts, shall we?”

Ken reaches into his pocket and pulls out his cell phone, taking a moment to look at the information he has queued up on the screen.

“First of all, you do not deserve this shot. You earned a shot at the Internet Championship. What did you do with that opportunity? You couldn’t beat me. You managed to eek out a draw but still ran your potato trap like you actually won the match. You didn’t win shit. Then, I gifted you another opportunity to prove your worth. I gave you the opportunity to show that you were a man of integrity, and instead, you proved you’re not a man at all. As Jack Washington locked in the submission, you could have broken it up. You could have made an effort to compete. Instead, you made the decision that proved you are not a competitor, not a man, not worthy of a title opportunity for any championship in any company by simply standing there and failing to act. You sat there and watched. You made the decision to prove that you knew you couldn’t win the match and simply allowed Jack Washington to do the one thing you haven’t been able to do, and that is the defeat the GKD, “Godly” Ken Davison.

“Think about this, when you were granted the match against Bane, you had only won one match here in Sin City. I won more matches in my first two months. You were given this match not because you were worthy. You were given this match because they wanted to build Mac Bane up even more. You were given this match because you will constantly run your mouth. You were given this match because people will pay to see you get your ass kicked. Most importantly, you got this match because the Saviors don’t work the Saviors.”

“Knox, to say that I’ve got a lot of pent up aggression towards you would be an understatement. I don’t care that I lost to Jack Washington. I care about how I lost. I’m not saying that I would have won, but you are most certainly the reason that I lost. I don’t know how that feeble mind of yours works, but I do know this much. If I have my way, you’re not going to make it to Mac Bane. I come into this match knowing that you can’t beat me. I come into this match knowing that I have a woman in my corner who is just as much of a bad ass bitch as Amber Ryan is. While Amber Ryan and Kat Jones are bad ass bitches, you are nothing more than a little bitch and Blaze for Glory proved that.”

Ken motions to the camera crew to cut the feed, turning the corner to make his way over to the box office of Fenway Park.

”Come on, get up, buddy.”

Ken Davison opens his eyes to see a TSA Agent looking down at him. On the floor of Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, Davison was waiting for a flight to Los Angeles. He is dressed in a nice orange button down shirt and black dress pants.

”Is there a problem?”

”You can't sleep here. Now go find yourself somewhere to go.”

”I'll tell you what, Officer Bitchcakes. Tell Continental that when they cancel the red eye that they need to make accommodations for their passengers. Not all of us can afford hotels you know.”

The truth of the matter is, Ken Davison could more than afford to go to a hotel. Hell, he could have driven home. But the floor of the airport was just as comfortable to him. He hadn't had a good night's sleep in months.  Originally, he was supposed to leave at 7:16 last night and his flight was delayed. Then, it was delayed a second time. The third time, it was canceled. Ken simply decided that he would wait at the airport and fix it in the morning. The TSA agent walks away, now ignoring Davison.

”Hey, homeboy, come back here. Can't I get one of those enhanced pat downs? I haven't had that kind of action in months!”

Ken gets up and grabs his suitcase and jacket off of the floor, wiping the dust off of them. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his cell phone. It's just after five in the morning. Davison groans audibly, trying to stretch out the muscle in his back. Davison makes his way over to the JetBlue terminal, surprised to see agents there already. He gets his travel issues sorted out and walks to the food court. Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and a Boston Cream Donut in hand, he parks it at the nearest table and pulls his cell phone out and sets it on the table. He goes to call his fiancee, but on the off chance Kyra is actually sleeping, he decides not to call her.

As if she can read his mind, Ken’s phone starts ringing

“Hey, mama…” Ken’s voice sounds tired and weary. “You sleep okay?”

Kyra couldn’t help but chuckle, albeit humorlessly.  “I’ll give you one guess where I am right now.”

“I would guess either the couch or on the shitter.”

“Good guesses, but no.  Adina took over our bed so I took hers.  Got tired of getting my ass kicked.”  She replied, stifling a yawn.  “We really should look into getting her a new bed though.  God damn this thing sucks.”

“Kicked?” Ken forces out through his stifled laughs. “Last week when you were on the couch I ended up with three of her toes in my mouth! Do you know where those things have been?”

“Other than in your mouth?  I don’t even wanna know, but whatever it was… I’m sure it tasted horrible.”  Kyra laughed.  “She’s a menace and she needs to be stopped.”

“Remember that time she tried to make ramen in the microwave and didn’t add water? It tasted as bad as that smelled.” Ken smiles in spite of himself. “So, yeah… I’m guessing you saw I’m still here.”

Kyra doesn’t respond right away, but eventually she sighs. “Yeah.. I only checked to see if you made it over yonder.. But what’s going on?  Everything okay?”

“Yeah. There were a couple of delays and then they canceled. I slept on the floor and just got the flight rebooked as early as possible. I’ve got a stop over in Las Vegas, so probably going to head over and see Mac. I need to get my head on straight.”

Letting out another sigh, Kyra sits up in the bed.  “That’s not a bad idea.. But what’s wrong?  Can I help?”

“Honesty, I’m just… I don’t know… lost, is maybe the word.

“I don’t like the sound of that.”  Kyra replies, her voice quieting. 

“I just feel like we scratched and clawed and fought to win the UGWC Co-op titles and now that we have, it’s like, what now? With the rotating door of cooperative champions, I’d like to try and hold onto these things for a while. But, the motivation is just… it’s like the adrenaline has worn off. You know?”

Kyra nods her head, even though she knows no one can see her.  “No, no.. I get it.  I completely understand, but I also know that the moment we go back and we see these fuckers doing the same shit we were doing to get to those belts… it’ll come back.  And hell, it might even come back with a vengeance because we don’t wanna lose em as quickly as we got em.”

“I understand that. We’ve gone from the hunters to the prey. I’m not going to lie, Ragdoll and Cervantes AGAIN! At least the Piercing Media Empire will be a new challenge. What I really wanted was one more match against Incendium so we could see once and for all who the better team was. Then Gabe retired and that was the end of that.”

“I don’t know, hun.  I feel like we could face them and beat them a hundred times more and there’d still be a debate.  But I guess we’re just gonna have to settle for agreeing to disagree on that particular topic.”  She grins.  “But we’re still here and regardless of what anyone says.. No one can deny that we’re the best team in the UGWC at the moment.  I mean they’ll deny the shit out of it but fuck em.”

“So, where do we go? Do we just wait to see what the world throws at us or do we just start leaving a trail of bodies?”

“You know me.. I’m all for bodying these fuckers.  And honestly, that seems to be the only thing they understand.  But.. And I can’t believe I’m saying this…”  She pulls in a deep breath.  “..It doesn’t hurt to sit back and see what ends up coming our way either.”

“You know, you’re saying ‘fuck’ an awful lot today. Feeling a little spicy?” Ken laughs. He desperately wanted to be home with Kyra, but he was sitting alone, in an airport, by himself. At least the coffee was fresh. “You think we’ll be okay? Or you think we need to get slapped around a little bit to regain our edge?”

Silence settles between them while Kyra thinks about Ken’s question.  She pulls one of Adina’s stuffed animals into her lap and stares at it - It was an adorably ugly little thing that Ken had bought for her.   She smiles at the toy and clears her throat.

“You know, I think we’re perfect Ken.  We’re in the business of getting slapped around, so that’s gonna happen regardless.  As for our edge, we ain’t lost it.  Not one bit.  This isn’t gonna last forever but at least we get to say we were champions twice… together.  Maybe I’m getting soft in my old age… I dunno, but I got you, and I got that little shithead that’s sleeping with my belt in our bed.. What more could I ask for?”

“I don’t know about you, but I could ask you to stop talking about old age. My body gives me enough reminders of that on the daily. One day, I will be too old for this.”

“I mean, you can ask.. But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna listen.”  Kyra replies with an ornery smirk.  “One day we’ll both be too old for this, but until then.. Let’s just keep doing what we’re doing.”

“Sounds like a plan. I just need to make sure you’re healthy enough that we can get in trouble for grabbing each other’s asses when we finally get to the old folks home.”

Kyra chuckles.  “I don’t think you have anything to worry about.  I always find a way to get into trouble.”

“Alright.I’ll be home in a couple of days. I promise.”

“Oh I know you will be, we both know you can’t leave me for too long.  Just take care of yourself and let Mac finish kicking your ass back into shape.  I love you.”

“I love you, too, mama.”

It was never easy to talk about Sin City with Kyra, even though Ken had been actively trying to recruit his beloved to the company since before he had even signed his own contract. With the kiddo at home, though, it was hard. He understood that. But the way he felt about those UGWC Cooperative Championships was exactly how he felt about the Sin City Internet Championship.There were parallels that even Stevie Wonder could see.

‘I lost to the ‘Cockney King’ then had a draw against Knox. This is not acceptable.’ Ken thinks to himself as he finishes his donut and grabs his coffee. ‘Well, asshole, I guess it’s time to get your head on right.


“Here I am, preparing for my match at Blaze of Glory, and I keep replaying Mark Ward’s words replaying in my head.”

Through the magic of audio engineering and clever editing, Hot Stuff’s voice plays.

“You, my friend, must have balls of steel, because no one in their right mind would do that, no one with any common sense would add Matt Knox to this one by choice. It's like the christians in the Colosseum raising their hands and saying there's not enough lions here, throw in another.”

Then, the key words echo over and over, each time getting  louder.


“The problem here is that I am of my right mind. I know what I am capable of. Matt Knox knows what I am capable of. Jack Washington is about to find out what I am capable of. If you see other than a clear cut understanding of my actions, then you are either ignorant or you are not of your own right mind. The things I have seen… the things I have done... you would have to kill me to try and stop me. Three years ago, I had a widowmaker heart attack. Yet, here I am, alive and kicking. God Himself could not defeat me. What makes the two of you think that you have any chance of doing so?”

“Regardless, I understand that the last month has been something of, I don't know, an awakening. Since I won the Sin City wrestling Internet championship I have become a hypocrite. I have become exactly what I accused Agostino Romano of being.  I became complacent. I became comfortable. That is unacceptable.”

“Where is that fire I showed when I confronted Agostino? Where is that drive that I should have had when facing “The Cockney King”? Where was that fire when I sullied my hands with Matt Knox? The problem is, figuratively speaking, that I got fat and lazy.  I had a match in another company, for a title I had been chasing since June of last year, I managed to win that title. Here, in Sin City Wrestling, I was given that opportunity for the Internet Championship, and I was happy to take that championship. I was on top of the world. Rightfully so, might I add. After all of the blood, sweat and tears, it was like. “Now what? Where do I go from here?”

“Having those goals gave me a sense of direction. It gave me power. It's the old adage about how it's not the kill but the thrill of the hunt. It's like a video game where you strive but you strive to get better and better until you can get to that next level. But this isn't a video game. There is always a next level. I lost sight of that and that's on me. My goal in this company is to become the SCW World Champion.  I don't care that Mac bean currently holds that championship. The way the Saviors work is that we bring out the best in each other just as much as we enjoy smacking other people down. I don't care that Mac bean currently holds that championship. The way the savior's work is that we bring out the best in each other just as much as we enjoy smacking other people down.”

“When those objectives come on those goals, that I worked so long and hard for, that I bled for, We're no longer goals, but achievements but achievements, I lost sight of what I should be doing. I am a condemned champion.I am one of the faces of Sin City Wrestling by that fact alone.  The issue is that I was happy to be the Sin City Wrestling Internet Champion. Let me say that again, the problem is that I was happy.”

Ken folds his hands in front of him and sighs deeply.

“You know, Agostino Romano was happy. But, Agostino Romano is a pure soul. Agostino Romano deserves to be happy. I was once young and innocent. I actually miss the days when that was enough. My advice to you, Romano? “Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold.”

“There's a science to why the chase is more enjoyable.I'm not going to bore you with all the details but the gist of it is that each step you take towards achieving that goal bowl gives you a little head of dopamine.I'm not going to bore you with all the details but the gist of it is that each step you take towards achieving that goal bowl gives you a little head of dopamine. It's like getting a little bit of a high every time you get a little bit closer. Sometimes, you don't even have to get closer to your goal. It's just the anticipation of it that makes you happy. This leads to people jumping from goal to goal to goal to goal to goal and an effort to chase that high. Shit, that's the entire reason why Matt Knox had his grubby little paws pause in so many different companies. He's not satisfied at home, obviously. He's not content to climb the ladder. What he wants is to have as many matches as he can to chase that high.  He is nothing more than an adrenaline junkie. He needs his fix. At Blaze of Glory, he will not be getting that fix.”

“Don't get me wrong, That's actually not meant as an insult to Matt Knox.  In this case, the man has cracked the code. By working here, there,  and everywhere he doesn't have to worry about being let down. When I crush him at Blaze of Glory, he'll just go to another company and beat someone beneath his level. The problem with spreading yourself so thin is that you can't keep up that kind of pace forever. What our last match proved to me is that even on my worst day, he could not beat me.”

“It honestly took a close friend of mine to tell me to pull my head out of my ass for me to realize what my problem was. I set a short term goal and I didn't think beyond that moment. I have been doing this long enough that I know that the Internet championship is not the pinnacle. However, in my time as the Internet Champion my goal should be to go down in history as the best Internet champion this company has ever seen. My goal should be to put myself in the best position I can for my future opportunities. To do that, I have to defeat Matt Knox. I have to defeat Jack Washington. It is not enough to simply hold on to my championship.”

“I had to step back. I had to look at things through a different lens to realize that. What Jack Washington and Matt Knox need to realize is that is what makes me so dangerous.  I have the presence of mind that Jack Washington does not. By his own words he made the mistake of trying to work with someone, in this case Krystal Wolfe, and it blew up in his face.  Did he do anything differently? No. Same old story, same old song-and-dance.”

“However, that is not who I am as a person. Go ask Amber Ryan.The first time she and I met in the ring, she came out victorious. In fact, the second time we met in the ring, she came out victorious again.  So I did what I needed to do. I looked at what I was doing and I recognized the things I needed to change. Obviously, since I've won the Sin City Internet Championship, I have not done that. Things needed to change. It won't be until we reach Blaze of Glory that those changes will be revealed.”

“Enough about myself, at least for the time being. At this point I need to shift the focus to my opposition.”

“Matt Knox, I would like to thank you for a couple of things. First, I'd like to thank you for proving me correct. You showed the entire world that you are exactly the person I said you were. You sat there and ran your mouth because you didn't lose. You ran your mouth and made it sound like you were better than me when you still have yet to prove it. That just shows who you are as a person.  You weren't even content with the fact that you didn't win. You celebrated the fact that you didn't win. I suppose it was more a celebration of the fact that you didn't lose, but the point still remains.”

“The other thing I feel I should thank you for helping me to realize that I cannot be you. I couldn't walk into Blaze of Glory against Jack Washington and feel as though I deserve to be the champion if I did not definitively defeat you. What you did, Knox, is light a fire under my ass. I realized that if I can't beat you, what business do I have in the ring with Jack Washington?”

Davison smirks, knowing where this is going.

“The better question here is what business does he have being in the ring with me?”

Davison puts his hand over his heart and audibly gasps with so much fake shock that you would think he was an actress on a telenovela.

“Did he really really just say that? You're Kendamned right, I said it. I understand that he's a two time World Champion here. If we're being honest, I've never heard of Jack Washington. So, I did what anyone searching for the answers to life, the universe, and everything would do. I Googled him. Guess what! Google  didn't seem to have heard of you, either. Let's see here…”

Ken reaches inside of his vestments and pulls out a cell phone.

“Jack Washington, American saxophone player, died in 1964.  Karr girls basketball coach Jack Washington dies after sickness, February 2021. Longtime Trenton teacher, historian Jack Washington dies, April 2017. Literally the only thing I've gotten out of trying to find you is that anyone with your name is probably dead already. So, what do we know about you? Former World Champ. The internet doesn’t know who you are. Talked shit about the title you’re fighting for. Oh, and my favorite, blaming Krystal Wolfe for the fact that you couldn’t get out of the first round of Blast From the Past. Now, I’ve got this all figured out. You are whiny, selfish, cry and bitch when you don’t get your way. You are a five year old little girl. I know because I’ve got a little one at home.“

“So, what I would like to do now is come down to your level. As a parent, you are supposed to model your behavior in a way you would want your child to emulate. So, instead of me going through the same old rigamarole, why doesn’t wittle Jacky Wacky go back and watch this from the beginning. Pay special attention to the part where I don’t blame anyone but myself for my record lately. Maybe you should take a few notes on that.”

“Another pro-tip is that you should use appropriate responses. When you ran down Krystal, the way you use the word ‘bitch’ like it’s the only insult you know, when you called me “bum ass Ken” Ken puts his hands over his heart. “That hurt. I’m wounded. So wounded. Be that as it may, you show all the intellectual prowess of Matt Knox. I wouldn’t be especially proud of that.”

“What I’ve tried to do is help you to see things from another perspective. I want to face Jack Washington the man. I want to face Jack Washington who won the World Championship twice. I want to face a version of Jack Washington who is worthy and a man who feels that any title is beneath him doesn’t deserve to carry it. The one thing I will say is that at least Matt Knox would carry this belt with some Kendamned pride. You, Washington, are disgrace to this company and to this entire industry.”

“Maybe you remember when I showed up here, I didn’t come here to be Mac Bane’s buddy. Kendamn that shit’s been overused. When I came here, I said my goal was to rid Sin City Wrestling of all of the derelict souls, the smarmy vagrants, all of the overinflated egos. I didn’t come here to win championships, although I am proud to carry the Sin City Wrestling Internet Championship, that will not stand in the way of what I have to do.”

“I never thought I’d meet someone that annoys me more than Matt Knox. Holy hell. The fact is that I am a man who doesn’t settle. I am a man who has made a career of proving myself time and time again. The things I do, I do for the betterment of this company. You are two of the best, but you are not THE best. The two of you are both problems, well, chuckleheads,  I am the solution. I am the path you follow. I prove it each time I get in the ring, every time I speak to you, and every time I merely grace you with my presence. I want you to bring your best. I want you to bring all your vitriol, all your anger, and all your rage. I want to watch the life drain out of your eyes as you realize that I am everything I say I am and more. I can make matches. I can do whatever I want, or need, when I am in that ring because I am God and when you’re God, you don’t have to break the rules. You make them!”

Ken Davison’s eyes shoot open. He looks around the darkness of his bedroom, trying to get his bearings. He glances over and the faint red glow of the numbers on his alarm clock: 3:37. He rolls over to find the other half of the bed not only unoccupied, but cold. This means Kyra has been out of bed for quite some time… again. His beloved has not been sleeping right for months and Ken just goes along with it, figuring that Kyra will open up about it when the time is right.

’That time had better be soon,’ he thinks to himself as he turns his body. His eyes shoot open as they hit the cold floor, missing his slippers. He grabs his robe off the bedpost and stands up, tying it around the waist and walking downstairs, forgoing his slippers.

Down in the living room, Kyra sits by herself on the sofa - her eyes heavy with exhaustion. She wanted so badly to go back upstairs and lay down, but she just couldn’t do it. So she relegated herself to simply sitting on the couch, staring off into space until she heard Adina get up in a few hours. Then she’d have a distraction to keep her mind off of the thought of sleep.

Ken nears the bottom of the staircase, the creek of the bottom step catching Kyra’s attention. He looks over at Kyra with an exasperated look on his face. He’s not angry with her, quite the opposite. He’s been worried. Ken makes his way over to the couch and gently sits down next to Kyra.

“What’s going on? This has been going on for, what, a month and a half? I’ve sat here, waiting for you to open up, but I don’t know if I can take this much longer. I hate seeing you hurt.”

Ken sits there watching as Kyra stares off into space.

“HELLOOOOOOOO!!!” he says while snapping his fingers. “Earth to planet KJ, This is your captain speaking.”

Nothing. Defeated, Ken puts his arm around Kyra and pulls her in. She nuzzles up against his chest, showing that she’s not totally despondent. Ken strokes her hair to try to comfort her, not knowing what else to do.

“I’m sorry.” Kyra finally said into his chest, sighing deeply.

In the moments where she could think clearly, Kyra knew she had to come clean about what had made her so out of sorts, if not for her sake, but for Ken’s. The patience he had with her was beyond amazing, and she knew she was a lucky woman. But how long would that last? Her sleepless nights wore on him just as much as it did herself. She had told Lucy she would tell Ken. Kyra just wasn’t used to feeling this out of control. And part of her worried what Ken would think of her when she finally told him what had been ailing her.

“You know that no matter what it is, I’m not going anywhere,” Ken said, as reassuring as he could muster. “After all we’ve been through, I cannot picture my life any other way. You are my world. I would do anything for you. I mean, do you known anyone else who’s significant other has tried to murder their ex-boyfriend live on pay-per-view?”

Ken was always especially proud of that match. Back in the Carnage days, he had faced Jack Michaels, Kyra’s ex, in a match where the only way to win was for their second to throw in the towel. Ken won by continually jabbing a screwdriver into his adversary’s arm. That wasn’t what made him proud. The source of his pride was the fact he wanted to win that match, not for himself, but for Kyra. No one had ever made Ken feel so selfless.

“All kidding aside, mama, I’m worried about you. I’m worried about us.” Ken was making sure to choose his words very carefully. “I don’t want this to be something that you hold in and cause things… I don’t know. I just know when I hold shit in, it never ends well.”

“I know.” Kyra said, pulling away from Ken so that she could look him in the eyes. “And I’ve got a real bad habit of doing just that. But it’s not because I don’t trust you, or anything like that.”

Her chest tightened as she felt the corners of her eyes stinging with tears. The lack of sleep was making it harder and harder for Kyra to keep her emotions in check. Ken sees this and grabs a tissue so he can wipe the tears from her eyes before they fall. Kyra hates crying.

“It’s because we don’t trust ourselves. We both put up our walls because of… reasons. We don’t need to talk about them. It’s hard to let those walls down. I get that. Just…” Ken hesitates. Sometimes he struggles to find the right words. “When shit hits the fan, it comes down to the two of us. I know things with Lucy haven’t always been the best. I’d like to think she’d be there, too. But, honestly, I don’t really know her that well, so I’m not going to count on her. It's you and I against the world. I’m not sure what else I can really say.”

Ken can see Kyra is holding something back. He doesn’t know what or why, just that it is happening.

“You know when Carnage shut down, I was done. I never told you that, but I was ready to retire. I had my moment in the sun and I was ready to ride off into the sunset. Hell, I was done the moment that I beat Amber for the World Title. After my heart attack, I wanted to prove to myself that I still had it. All I wanted was one more World Championship, then I found something better, more valuable, than any championship. I found you, which led to finding US, which led to everything I hold dear. So, whatever it is that's troubling you, lay it on me, mama. I can handle it.”

Kyra nods her head, and takes a deep breath. Before she can say anything, Ken starts talking again.

“Wait, there’s something else. After Carnage closed, I didn’t know if we would survive as a couple. Carnage was so much of who we were at the time. I worried that without having that to connect us… yeah. I was scared shitless. I probably shouldn’t be sitting here pressuring you to tell me what’s going on when I hid that. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay..” Kyra said, laying her head on Ken’s shoulder. “Besides, you haven’t been pressuring me. You’re just worried. Hell, I’ve been worried too. I just don’t know how to express it.”

Kyra stopped and sighed again, wrapping her arms around his arm and squeezing it tight.

“Everytime I go to sleep… I relive what I did to Lucy. Except she didn’t get as lucky as she did that night.” She closes her eyes and pauses for a moment, trying to keep her composure. “What kind of person does what I did? I’m terrible.”

What she did was almost kill her sister. There was a match. It was bad. That was literally all Ken knew of the situation. It was all that he wanted to know. He was sure he could find the match online if he wanted. He didn't.

“I don’t know exactly what you did, to be honest, I don’t want to know. You and Lucy seem to be on speaking terms now. I mean, if you weren’t, why would she and Rogan randomly show up. I know I sure as hell didn’t give her my address. Have you talked to her about how you’re feeling?”

“I almost killed her, Ken.” Kyra said, her voice strained. “I’m the reason she’s got that scar on her neck. I put her in the hospital for… God only knows how long. But that’s why they showed up the other day… I needed to make sure we were okay. I was hoping it would help the dreams…” Tears begin streaming down her cheeks. “But it didn’t.”

“Well, when we had that match where she was on our team, she didn’t try to stab either of us in the back, figuratively or literally. I mean, I knew things were strained, but she talked to us before Incursion and then she came over here. So, how bad is it really? You know what, fuck that. It’s bad enough that you’re losing sleep over it. That’s all I need to know. What can I do to help? If we’re going to make this whole tag team partners in life thing work, then your problems are my problems. How can we make this better?”

Ken does his best to dry Kyra’s eyes, but like playing tennis against a brick wall, you just can’t win. He gently pulls her a little closer, trying his damnedest to let her know she doesn’t have to face this alone.

“I don’t know…” Kyra replies, wrapping her arms around him. She wished she had a solution, but the only thing she could manage to think was that she just wanted it to stop. “I just don’t know, Ken."

“You’re going to make me sound like a fortune cookie or something. ‘We are not what happened to us, we are what we wish to become.’ That’s a quote by Carl Jung. We don’t have to fix this now, but we need to work on it. I’m tired of waking up and being too hot because you didn’t steal the blankets.”

Kyra simply nodded. “Okay.”

What more could she say? She felt like the luckiest woman in the world, even if she was a tired, sobbing mess in this man's arms. She couldn’t ask for anyone better than her ‘partner for life’, and that was a fact.

“Why don't we try to get some sleep? Right here, we don't have to move.”

Ken doesn't wait for her to answer. He kisses her softly on the forehead and continues caressing her hoping that she would eventually get some sleep. It didn’t take long for Kyra to relent to her heavy eyes, and she fell asleep on Ken’s shoulder.


’I don’t know.’ Kyra’s words echoed in his head, even the next morning when he woke up with her passed out in his arms. It was surprising, to say the least. Between her recent nightmares and the five year old hurricane known as her daughter Adina, she was having trouble sleeping, at all, let alone at night. Speaking of which…

“MAMA!! KENKEN!!” her voice booming as she bounds down the stairs. “Where are you?”

…And just like that, Adina had arrived. Ken puts his finger to his lips as Adina makes her way into the living room. She nods and overdramatically tips toes as only a child can. She climbs up onto the couch, on the other side of Ken, sitting as carefully as she can.

“Kenken,” Adina says matter of factly. “I’m tired.”

“You just got up. How in the bluest of blue hells can you be tired?”

“Because I woke up last night to pee and couldn’t get back to sleep.”

“Okay,” Ken’s voice trails off as he tries to figure out what’s coming next. “So, what was it that kept you awake?”

“Well, I kept hearing all this banging noise. I thought it was the monster under my bed.”

The truth of the matter was that it was her mother making all that noise in what felt like a nightly ritual. When she really couldn’t handle things, she met up with her old friend Jack Daniels in an effort to self medicate.

“Baby girl, we both know there isn’t a monster under your bed. Not unless you call the pile of toys you slid under there a monster. Don’t think I didn’t notice that you didn’t really clean up your room. There is no room for a monster.”

“But, I didn’t know what it was. I was scared.

”I don’t know.’ and ’I didn’t know’ seemed to be a common theme around these parts.

“Listen, honey. Go upstairs and look under your bed and tell me if there’s room for a monster. Seriously. There is nothing more I can tell you right now.

“Okay.” Adina says as she bounces off the couch. ‘That was easy’ Ken thought to himself. ’A little too easy.’ Sure enough, he was going to have to deal with this later.
“Godly” Ken Davison stands in front the Atlantic off of costal Maryland. He is in full regalia, opting for a seafoam green collar and tuned glasses to match.

“You know, there is an extreme form of fear they call xenophobia. Xenophobia is when people have irrational thoughts and beliefs about things they perceive to be strange or foreign. What it is, effectively speaking, is a hyper focused fear of the unknown. It is a fear of anything that is out of one's comfort zone. Many people may not show this fear, at least not on the surface. However, most people do show a fear of the unknown to a lesser extent. It does not rule our lives, but it will rear its ugly head when we are forced to step outside of our comfort zone.”

“I am not such a man. I am the anomaly. I have faced nothing but the unknown since the moment I arrived in Sin City Wrestling.  Before arriving here I did not know Agostino Romano. I didn't know those 3 jackasses that I defeated to gain my opportunity at the Internet Championship. I had never heard of Levi what's his name or his father.  Is the fact of the matter is that I walked in to those matches and I proved my superiority. I have not backed down from a single man, woman, or child, in my entire career. That is the man I am.”

Davison kneels down for a moment, placing his hand in the sand and letting the sensation of it penetrate his nerves. A small smile crosses his face and he stands up.

“Fear is not a unique feeling. Everyone experiences a fear of something. It's built into our DNA. It's not unusual for you to be afraid when you're stepping out into the unknown. Our brain is hardwired to prefer negative consequences to uncertain outcomes.  For most people, their fear of the unknown isn't even based in reality.  People's fear of the unknown is just one big heaping pile of self limiting beliefs based on what we think may happen and not on what the reality is. The short version is that fear of the unknown is simply a form of doubt.”

“I'm not normally this guy. But, I would actually like to help you, Ben Jordan. What I'd like to do for you is make you not only a better wrestler, but a better man. I recognize that you're just coming back after whatever amount of time you took off. I had a heart attack almost 3 years ago. I remember when I came back to the ring that I was worried that I may have lost a step. I was worried that my body could not handle being a wrestler anymore. Let me tell you, boy, staring death in the face is one of the few things that will cause me to doubt myself.”

Ken takes a moment to regain his composure.

“Even now, the thought of it irks me. But, I digress. That's not the lesson here. I know that there is doubt in your mind. Making your comeback against a man with my resume, against a man who is the Sin City Wrestling Internet Champion, who is still undefeated here in Sin City wrestling, must be a daunting task. I want you to ask yourself if this is why you are afraid. Is it your opposition that is causing you to doubt yourself or is it your actual skills?”

“I know that when you hear this, especially if you have a camera in your face, you will fly out tonight is that you are doubting yourself or that you're afraid of this match.That's what we're supposed to do. Isn't it?   But, acknowledging your fear, more importantly instantly, finding the cause of your fear, will make you better equipped to deal with that fear.”

Davison takes a moment to wipe his scalp with his sleeve, apparently having gotten some ocean mist on him.

“Ben, you need to realize that not only is failure an option, it's a probability. In my lifetime I have lost literally everything I held dear. Anything in my life that had value was snatched away from me on my nineteenth birthday. I learned the most difficult lesson a person could learn on that day. Is fear of the unknown? Every aspect of my life was an unknown. That day, I, I was no longer a man. That was the day that I became a God.”

Davison stammers a little bit but manages to hold his composure.

“From that day forward, I dedicated myself to becoming the best professional wrestler that I could be. What was not taken away from me was then sacrificed by my own hand. I stopped letting emotion get in my way. I let go of everything, care for my own well being, concern for the rules, most importantly, fear. When I step inside of those ropes,The only thing that matters to me is victory. You would be best served by taking note of the fact that I will do so by any means necessary. I let go of so much that when I finally found it again, I recognized how important it was. Admittedly, you've done nothing wrong. Defeating you in your grand return to Sin City Wrestling isn't personal. It is simply a business transaction. Defeating you means I get the winner's share of the purse. In turn, that means that I can provide for my family. Family is the most important thing in my life. To serve them, I can, and more importantly will do unspeakable things if I have to.”

“Now, do yourself a favor and understand where I come from.. Do yourself a favor and prepare for the ferocity that I bring when I step inside a wrestling ring. Do yourself a favor and recognize that this might not be your day. There is no shame in losing to the GKD, “Godly” Ken Davison. I want you to do those things because I am doing those things myself. I want you to elevate yourself to bring your best version of yourself into this match.”

Davison holds his fist out direct is directly in front of the Cameron's.

“I ask you this because so far, none of my opponents have managed to elevate their game to my level. Right now, there is someone at the racetrack asking Agostino Romano if his barbecue was canceled because I fucked his grill up. My goal in this company is to stand as the standard bearer of what all of the rest of you should be. I am not going to let the “King of Cock” stand in the way of that. You may be a king, but I am a motherfukcing ace. I have been making an entire career out of doing things that no one said I was capable of.”

“Now, I am gonna say this very slowly so you can follow along.”

Davison loosens his grip and sand begins falling out of his hand.

“I. AM. GOD. You are not my equal. You would have to take an elevator to get to my level. I am going to decimate you and solidify my place within this company. You… Well, your time is running out.”

Davison opens his hand and blows the rest of the sand into the lens of the camera holding it there as the camera fades to black.

“Make sure you get all of this. This dude makes me nervous,” says the voice of whoever is in charge of the Sin City camera crew. They were making their way down the driveway on the way to their destination. To some, the property may seem isolated, inconveniently far from a 7-Eleven or a multiplex cinema. But for Ken Davison, whose pleasures would never be understood by most neighbors, relative isolation is the fundamental requirement when he is shopping for secondary real estate. His primary residence, back in Baltimore, was selected for the proximity to more modern amenities, designed for functionality as it pertained to his mostly public life. This property, however, was for some other purpose.

On a summer afternoon or evening, however, Davison could see himself sitting in a bentwood rocker on the front porch, gazing out at the deep yard and the acres of wildflowers in the fields cleared by the logger and his sons, or staring at the great spread of stars, even the meekest and citified man would agree that isolation has its appeal. In good weather, Ken Davison would have liked to take his dinner and a couple of beers on the porch. If the silences were to become boring, he could always allow himself to hear the voices of those who are buried in the field: their groveling and lamentations, the music that he prefers to any on the radio.

However, this was not the summer. This was winter and the cold air prevented any such activity. The vehicle carrying the camera crew rolls up the driveway, it audibly kicks up rocks underneath the tires as they slowly travel up the gravel. As they close in on the residence, they can see that in addition to the house, there is a small barn. It is not there because the original owner of the property farmed any of the lands that he cleared of trees but because he kept horses. This second building is of traditional wood-frame construction on a concrete footing and fieldstone stem wall; wind, rain, and sun long ago laid down a silver patina on the durable cedar siding, which Davison finds lovely. Since he owns no horses, he uses the barn as a garage. Now, however, the crew pulls to a stop beside the house, rather than continuing to the barn.

Switching off the engine but not the windshield wipers, the crew waits. The early-December morning is animate with slanting rain and wind-shaken things, but nothing moves of its own deliberation. Unbeknownst to the camera crew, four Dobermans are awaiting any intruders. They have been trained not to charge willy-nilly at approaching vehicles and even to bide their time with intruders who are on foot, the better to lure them into a zone from which escape is impossible. These guards know that stealth is as important as savage fury, that the most successful assaults are preceded by calculated stillnesses to lull the quarry into false confidence. They had been trained in the same ways as their master. The locker room, catering, the hallways backstage… no one in Sin City Wrestling was TRULY safe.

The first black head appears, bullet sleek but for its pricked ears, low to the ground at the rear corner of the house. The dog hesitates to reveal more of himself, surveying the scene to make sure that he understands what is happening, just as Davison himself would do. At the nearest comer of the barn, between the cedar siding and the trunk of a winter-bare maple, another dog appears. It is little more than a shadow of a shadow in the rain. Davison himself wouldn't have noticed these silent sentinels if he didn't know to look for them. As the camera crew began to unload their equipment, the dogs remained, still and silent. Their self-control is remarkable, a testament to Davison’s abilities as a trainer.

Two more dogs lurk somewhere, perhaps behind the barn or belly crawling through shrubbery where they can't be seen. They are all Dobermans, five and six years old, in their prime. Davison would not crop their ears or bob their tails, as is usually done with Dobermans, for he has an affinity for nature's predators. He is able to perceive the world to a degree as he believes that animals perceive it-the elemental nature of their view, their needs, the importance of raw sensation. They have a kinship. They are one and the same, the lone exception being that he is the Alpha.

The dog by the corner of the house slinks into the open, and the dog at the barn emerges from beneath the black-limbed maple. A third Doberman rises from behind the massive and half-petrified stump of a long-vanquished cedar in the side yard, around which has grown a tangled mass of holly.

“Achtung!” Davison’s voice booms out of a speaker nearby. The dogs’ ears perk up. The crew looks up. There is some kind of speaker attached to the porch directly underneath a surveillance camera. The Dobermans hear the voice of their master, however, they don't wag their tails or in any way exhibit pleasure, because they are still on duty. The fourth dog remains hidden, but these three drift warily around the crew through the rain and the mist. Their heads are lifted, pointy cars flicked up and forward. In their disciplined silence and indifference to the storm, they remind him of a herd of elk in a redwood grove. The big difference, of course, is that these creatures, if confronted by anyone other than their beloved master, would not respond with the timidity of elk but would tear the throat out of that luckless person.

The fourth comes out from behind their vehicle as the camera crew, still recording with their singular camera, remains motionless. The four dogs are all quivering with excitement still holding themselves in check, not wanting to be thought derelict in their duty. Davison could have the canines attack by speaking the name ‘Suess,’ at which point they would kill anyone else who walks onto the property. The irony of the command is that it is the name of the famous children’s author, This always amused him. They will remain primed to kill anyone who walks onto the property until he speaks a different name. “Rommel” comes Davison’s voice again. Upon hearing the name of the famous German war strategist, it is as though a light switch is flipped, the vicious guard dogs become as affable as any other group of sociable mutts-except, of course, if anyone unwisely threatens their master. “Box,” Davison further instructs them.  “Come inside. I am ready for you,” Davison commands the camera crew as the dogs scurry away to the back of the barn, leaving the camera crew alone in the rain. Still, they do not bark, for he has schooled them in silence.

The crew gathers the rest of their equipment and walks through the soggy grass to the old log house and climbs a set of fieldstone steps to the front porch. A mobile hangs at one corner of the porch, from the fascia board at the edge of the shake-shingle roof. It is made of twenty-eight white seashells, all quite small, some with lovely pink interiors; most are spiral in form, and all are relatively exotic. The bentwood rocker that Davison was dreaming about has been stored away until spring. The rustic aesthetic is otherwise intact.

The front room on the ground floor ran the entire width of the small house. It was illuminated only by the gray light from the window. There were hunter-green leather armchairs with footstools, a tartan plaid sofa on large ball feet, rustic oak end tables, and a section of bookshelves that held perhaps three hundred volumes. On the hearth of the big river-rock fireplace were gleaming brass and irons, and on the mantel was an old clock with two bronze stags rearing up on their hind legs. The decor was thoroughly but not aggressively masculine. No glassily staring deer or bear heads on the walls, no hunting prints, no rifles on display, just cozy and comfortable. For a man who proclaimed he wanted the best of everything, his second residence was surprisingly underwhelming.

The house was redolent of lemon-oil furniture polish and a subtle pine-scented air freshener, as well as the faint and pleasant smell of char from the fireplace. The camera crew, still nervous, hurriedly crosses the front room to a half-open door. They opened it and went through and found a kitchen. Canary-yellow ceramic tile with knotty-pine cabinets. On the floor, gray vinyl tile speckled with yellow and green and red. Well scrubbed. Everything in its place. Quite rustic. Taped to the side of the refrigerator was a calendar already turned forward to April, with a color photograph that showed one white and one black kitten-both with dazzling green eyes-peering out from a huge spray of lilies. Based on his recent behavior, the normalcy of the house was terrifying. The gleaming surfaces, the tidiness, the homey touches, It was too perfect. You could easily picture Rose, Blanche, Dorothy, and Sophia sitting down for a slice of cheesecake.

“Anyone else think this is weird?” one of the crew members blurts out. There is a collective murmur amongst the rest of the crew as they make their way through the kitchen. The ambiance was very much a physical representation of Davison’s skewed mentality. The house serves its purpose much the same way each and every person in his life and has their purpose.

Through the four glass panes in the upper half, they see a back porch, a green yard, a couple of big trees, and the barn. They make their way past the rear door, pausing only momentarily to see if anyone was on the other side of it. Without any partition, the kitchen opened into the dining area, and the combined space was probably two-thirds the width of the house. The round dinette table was dark pine, supported by a thick central drum rather than legs; the four heavy pine captain's chairs featured tie-on back and seat cushions.

The noise of a running shower was apparent in the kitchen because the pipes were routed through the rear wall of the old house. Water being drawn upward to the bathroom made an urgent, hollow rushing sound through copper. Furthermore, the pipe wasn't tied down and insulated as well as it ought to have been, and at some point along its course, it vibrated against a wall stud: rapid knocking behind the plasterboard, tatta-tatta-tatta-tatta-tatta. The noise could be construed as either comforting, as there theoretically should be someone else in the home, or rather disconcerting, as the vibrations make you feel as though everything is moving, even though all except the pipes are perfectly still.

At the north end of the dining area was another door. Adorning the door is a hand-painted sign, the color of blood, are the words “This way.” The leader of the camera crew, one would assume the producer, turns the knob as quietly as she could, hand visibly shaking. She crosses the threshold with caution, motioning for the rest of the crew to follow her. Beyond lay a combination of laundry and storage room. A washer. An electric dryer. Boxes and bottles of laundry supplies were stored in an orderly fashion on two open shelves, and the air smells like detergent and bleach. The rush of water and the knocking pipe was even louder here than they had been in the kitchen. To the left, past the washer and dryer, was another door-rough pine, painted lime green. She opens it and sees stairs leading down to a black cellar. Her heart begins to beat faster.

Black. Pitch black.

There are absolutely no windows at all below. Not even a turbid leak of gray storm light seeping through narrow casements or screened ventilation cutouts. Dungeon dark. It’s the sort of thing where you would expect to turn on a light and find someone locked up. But if Davison were that demented and was keeping a captive down there, how odd that he wouldn't have added a lock to this upper door. It offered only the spring latch that retracted with a twist of the knob, not a real lock of any kind.

But that’s part of the game for Davison. Even without his presence, he is deep in the collective minds of the camera crew. The hopefully hypothetical captive might be sealed in a windowless room deep below, of course, or even manacled. They would have no hope of reaching these stairs and this upper door, even if left alone for days to worry at her restraints, which would explain why Davison would be confident that one more barrier to their flight wasn't necessary even when he was away from home.

The producer is snapped back into reality by the lights that came on behind her. In this day and age, everyone had a flashlight on their phones. Her shadow cast against the wall, she is leaning through the doorway, feeling along the stairwell wall for the switch, and snapped it up. Lights came on both at the upper landing and in the basement. ‘How in the hell can they aim a camera but not a flashlight?’ she thinks to herself. The bare concrete steps-a single flight-were steep. They appeared to be much newer than the house itself, perhaps even a relatively recent addition. “Be careful of the stairs, everyone. We don’t need anyone busting their ass.”

Halfway down the stairs, she glanced back and up. At the end of a trail of her wet shoe prints, the landing seemed a quarter of a mile above her, as far away as the top of the knoll had seemed from the front porch of the house. Alice down the rabbit hole into madness without a tea party.

“Do we really have to do this? It seems a little outside of our pay grade,” one of the crew members questions.

“Unfortunately,” the producer responds. She had a feeling of uneasiness. To her, this feels like one of those haunted houses that you go to on Halloween. At the open doorway between the in-kitchen dining area and the laundry room, Davison hears the mystery woman call out, hoping to hear his voice. She and the rest of the crew are only a few feet away from him, around the comer, past the washer and the dryer. He stands blinking but otherwise motionless in the fragrance of laundry detergent and in the wall-muffled rattle of copper pipes. ‘This is going to be fun,’ Davison muses.

“Davison? Ken? We know you’re here… somewhere.”

The cellar door stands open. The stairwell light is on. The crew is not in sight. On those infrequent occasions when he has guests to the house for dinner or a business meeting, he always leaves a Doberman in the laundry room. The dog lies in here, silent and dozing. But if anyone other than Davison were to enter, the dog would bark and snarl and drive them backward. Völsung was his go-to for such things. As the runt of the litter, he vaguely reminded Davison of.himself Undersized when compared to most others of his breed, but still capable of putting a callous contravention upon a calamitous casualty. When the master is away, Dobermans vigilantly patrol the entire property, and no one has a hope of getting into the house itself, let alone into the cellar.

Truth be told, Davison has never put a lock on the door to the cellar steps because he is concerned that it might accidentally trip, imprisoning him down there when he is at play and unaware. With a key-operated deadbolt, of course, this catastrophe could never happen. He, himself, is incapable of imagining how any such mechanism could malfunction and trap him; nevertheless, he's too concerned about the prospect to take the risk. Just as he does inside of the ring, he considers every possibility outside of it.

After a hesitation, he leans through the open door and looks down the cellar stairs. The last member of the camera crew, a towheaded young man, short and slender, is only a few steps from the bottom. He's got one hand on the railing. His full attention is aimed in front of him, following the direction of the producer. as though she were the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Regardless, even if she were the piper, he was the puppetmaster pulling her strings. He could have just as easily met the crew somewhere else, but he enjoyed this feeling of control.

He eases through the doorway onto the upper landing. As close as they are, they do not hear him because all is concrete, nothing to creak. He aims his hand as though it were a pistol, pointing at the center of the blonde gentleman's back. The first shot would catapult him off his feet, send him flying with arms spread like an eagle. Instead of taking flight, the body would fall toward the basement below. The second shot would take him as he is in flight. Davison would then race down the stairs, firing the third and fourth rounds, hitting other members of the camera crew in the legs if possible. He would then tackle the producer from behind while she took in the carnage. He would drop on top of her, press the muzzle into the back of her head, and then, then, when he's totally in control of her, dominant, he can decide what to do with her. Just as the minds of the camera crew had wandered, so had Davison’s. This, however, was not that kind of hunt. For as much as the idea intrigued him, he was no killer.

The outer wall of mortared stone was to their right. There was nowhere to go in that direction. To her left was a chamber about ten feet from front to back, and as wide as the house. The crew moved away from the foot of the stairs, into this new space. At one end stood an oil-fired furnace and a large electric water heater. At the other end were tall metal storage cabinets with vent slits in the doors, a workbench, and a tool chest on wheels. Nothing that would seem out of the ordinary, with a lone exception. Directly ahead, in a concrete-block wall, a strange door waited. Click-whoosh. The sound of the furnace startles the crew, revealing exactly how on edge they are. Over the sound of the furnace, they could still hear the vibrating pipe. Tatta-tatta-tatta. It was faint here, but still audible.

The door in the back wall was padded like a theater door, in leather grain maroon vinyl divided into quilt-like squares by eight upholstery nails with large round heads covered in matching vinyl. The frame was upholstered in the same material. No lock, not even a spring latch, prevented her from proceeding. Putting her hand on the vinyl, the producer discovers that the padding was even plusher than it appeared to be. As much as two inches of foam covered the underlying wood. She gripped the long stainless-steel, U-shaped handle. When she pulled, the vinyl-encased door softly scraped and squeaked across the upholstery on the jamb. The fit was snug: When the door swung all the way free of the jamb and the seal was broken, there was a faint sound similar to that made when one opened a jar of vacuum-packed peanuts. The door was upholstered on the inside as well. The overall thickness was in excess of five inches. Beyond this new threshold lay a six-foot-square chamber with a low ceiling, which reminded her of an elevator, except that every surface other than the floor was upholstered. The floor was covered with a rubber mat of the kind used in many restaurant kitchens for the comfort of cooks who worked on their feet for hours at a time. In the dim light from the recessed overhead bulb, she saw that the fabric here wasn't vinyl but gray cotton with a nubbly texture.

Directly opposite the door that the producer held open was one more door. It was also padded and set in an upholstered frame. Finally, there were locks. The gray upholstery plumped around two heavy-duty brass lock cylinders. She and the rest of the crew couldn't proceed without keys. Then she noticed a small padded panel overlying the door itself at eye level, perhaps six by ten inches with a knob attached. It was like the sliding panel over the viewport in the solid door of a maximum-security prison cell. Tatta-tatta-tatta… whoever was in the shower seemed to be taking an unusually long shower. On the other hand, they hadn't been in the house more than three or four minutes; it just seemed longer. If he was having a leisurely scrub, he might not be half done.

Tatta-tatta-tatta. Beyond was rose-colored light. The port was fitted with a sturdy screen to protect the viewer from assault by whoever or whatever was within. The producer puts her face to the port and saw a large chamber nearly the size of the living room under which it was situated. In portions of the space, shadows were pooled deep, and the only light came from three lamps with fringed fabric shades and pink bulbs that were each putting out about forty watts. At two places along the back wall were panels of red and gold brocade that hung from brass rods as if covering windows, but there could be no windows underground; the brocade was just set dressing to make the room more comfortable… or maybe it was designed to make the room more uncomfortable. It was hard to say. On the wall to the left, barely touched by light, was a large tattered tapestry: a scene of women in long dresses and cloche hats riding horses side-saddle through spring grass and flowers, past a verdant forest.

The furnishings included a plump armchair with antimacassars, a double bed with a white headboard painted with a scene not quite discernible in the rose light, bookcases with acanthus-leaf molding, cabinets with mullioned doors, a small dining table with a heavily carved apron, two Directoire chairs with flower-pattern upholstery flanking the table, and a refrigerator. An immense dark-stained armoire, featuring crackle-glazed flower appliques on all the door panels, was old but probably not a genuine antique, battered but handsome. A padded vanity bench sat before a makeup table with a triptych mirror in a gilded, fluted frame. In a far comer were a toilet and a sink. As weird as this subterranean room was, like a storage vault for the stage furniture from a production of Arsenic and Old Lace, it housed terrifying horror and Halloween-based decorations.

On the side table next to one of the Directoire chairs is a severed pig’s head, covered in a rather convincing version of fake blood. Bookshelves are lined with several iconic weapons, a replica of Freddy Krueger’s bladed gauntlet, Jason Vorheese’s machete, as well as the pride of Davison’s collection, and a handmade version of Lucille from ‘The Walking Dead.’. Perhaps, the most disturbing of all the decor is a tree, carefully positioned in one of the darker corners of the room. The branches are adorned with several bloody body parts. From the size of them, one could assume that they belonged to a small child.

“What’s red and hangs around trees?” The entire production team jumps, startled by their host appearing suddenly behind them. “A baby hit by a snowblower.” The room was overrun with these kinds of things. The entire production team jumps, startled by their host appearing suddenly behind them. “What’s green and hangs around trees? Same baby three weeks later.”[/color]

Davison was obviously going for shock value, not that he needed it. His memorabilia was shocking enough. They filled the bookshelves, peered out through the glass doors of some of the cabinets, perched on the armoire, sat atop the refrigerator, stood and sat on the floor along the walls. Others were piled atop one another in a different corner and even some at the foot of the bed, legs and arms jutting at odd stiff angles, heads cocked as on broken necks, like stacks of gaily attired corpses awaiting transport to a crematorium. Two, maybe three hundred or so small faces either glowed in the gentle light or were ghost pale in the shadows.

“Get setup. Now. There is no time to waste.” Davison commands. The truth is that Davison has all the time in the world, he is simply done with his game The crew scurries to finish setting up while Davison walks over to a panel of some sort, flipping the switches so the ambiance changes from the gentle rose color to the harshness of a deep crimson. He takes his place in the chair next to the bloody pig’s head and sits down as though it isn’t even there.

“You know, despite my general hatred of people, I love my dogs. They live in an enormous kennel against the back of the barn, which they can enter and leave at will. It is electrically heated during cold weather to ensure their comfort and their continued good health. I have rigged electrically operated dispensers inside the kennel. The system clock has a backup battery to continue timing meals even during a power failure of short duration. If there is a long-term loss of power, the dogs can always resort to hunting for their food. The surrounding meadows are full of field mice and rabbits and squirrels, and the Dobermans are fierce predators. The water trough is fed by a drip line, but if it should ever stop working, they can find their way to the spring that runs through the property.”

“They constitute quite the efficient and reliable security system: never a short in any circuit, never a failed motion detector, never a corroded magnetic contact-and never a false alarm. Oh, and how they love me, how unreservedly and loyally, as no memory chips and wires and cameras and infrared heat sensors ever could. They have been taught to kill not merely in self-defense, not just for food; with a degree of iron self-control, they have been taught to kill for the sheer savage pleasure of it. They understand that I, their master, can and will match their savagery.” Davison raises an eyebrow. “Unlike them, I never needed to be taught.”

Davison smiles slyly. His mood certainly did not miss the macabre tone of his surroundings.

“I come into this match having the advantage of being a relative unknown, aside from reputation. However, I happen to have the good fortune to have first hand knowledge of Brandon Hendrix…”

Davison leans forward in his chair, hands folded. He turns his hands towards the camera, to make certain that he is the center of attention.

“...I think.”

“You see, I find it highly unusual that the company would simply give you a match without any kind of fanfare. You’re not even listed on the company’s roster page on the website. Yet, on your very own Twitter, your pinned tweet from October 6th is you proudly proclaiming your victory for the SCW Heavy Metal Championship. Bravo, Brand-o. Bravo, indeed. The problem here is THIS SCW doesn’t have that title. So, I don’t even know if that was the same guy or if there is a second, probably more talented wrestler, running around with the same name.”

“Brandon Hendrix, your only purpose, prior to offering yourself to me like Marvel and Glimmer, volunteer tributes from District 1, was to run around and take up space. You just happen to be enough of a name in this business to be somewhat recognizable, in that “I know him from somewhere but I can’t remember” sort of way. Despite how I am going to persecute you, you are not someone to root for. You’re just along for the ride. You do not belong in a match vying for a championship opportunity. You are not worthy of your position.”

Davison sits back and crosses his legs, giving a vibe of total relaxation.

“You remind me of the famous, or more appropriately infamous, document from the Mormon faith called “The Salamander Letter.” People initially believed the document to be a legitimate piece of history from within the Latter Day Saint history. The document was so convincing that it was accepted as legitimate, people believed that the document was authentic. In the end, it was proven to be a forgery, painstakingly crafted to make people believe that it was exactly what it appeared to be at face value. I would like to think that is what you are. I would like to think that you have crafted your persona in such a way that people would look at you and dismiss you as a joke. I have a hard time believing that any human being could possibly be as ignorant as you appear to be. You act like you belong in the ring with a wrestler of the caliber of the GKD, “Godly” Ken Davison.But, alas, you do not.”

“For all of my faults, there is one thing that I cannot be accused of. I am exactly the person I present myself to be. I have shown my intellect. I have shown my skill and physical prowess in the ring. When I say that I am going to knock you out for a ten count, it is believable. When I say that I will put you down for the three, you can take that to the bank. When I tell someone that I will shove my hand down their throat and make them squirm until they can’t move anymore, you can take that to the bank. I’d like to say that it will be easy, but that would be a lie. Whether or not you are authentic or not, one thing that I can say is irrevocably true about you is that if you are the Brandon Hendrix I know, you are a scrapper. You are the type of competitor that can hang around far longer than you have any business doing. That can be dangerous if that characteristic is downplayed or ignored. While I know that you should not hope to beat me, we both know that you do hope to beat me. We both know that you will not back down. So, I shall take my payment from you in a pound as though I was a loan shark. You may not be taking my money, but you are taking MY time, MY energy and MY focus that I should be using to prepare for an Internet Championship match. ”

Davison turns his wrist, giving a visible representation of dismissing Brandon to the audience at home.

“ Now, we have Austin James Mercer and Jack Washington. Is the 2 of you are former world champions peris champions. The 2 of you are exactly what I've been asking for since the moment I arrived.  Mercer, you in particular are like mana from heaven, the gift from God that I have desired. I didn't ask for just the best. What I asked for was those who have sinned.  I have asked for opponents that were not only amongst the elite, but those who deserve their own personal reckoning.”

“I want you to realize that people like you are the reason that I exist in this current incarnation. People like you need to understand that I will not only stoop to your level, I will go lower.  People like you need to realize that I will not only find your weakness, I will exploit that weakness, and I will enjoy your suffering.”

Davison sits up straight, no longer relaxed, but completely serious.

“Mercer, you, Washington, and myself all have resumes that speak for themselves.  What separates me from the 2 of you is that I am not a cliche.  Mercer, you walk around acting like you are something special.  When I started in this business, I was the anomaly. Everyone else was six and a half feet tall and almost 300 pounds. You claim that you're some kind of all around great athlete. You're like a Mary Sue with a penis.”

“None of your natural talents will mean anything once we meet in the ring.. I have got 25 years of experience in this business.. Just like your height, experience cannot be taught. Dare I say that my experience advantage makes me far more dangerous than any of your physical gifts. I am going to make it my mission to single you out. I am going to make sure that you suffer. However, I am a kind and benevolent God. I won't completely destroy you. I'll make sure there's at least a couple of scraps to send home to Lisa and Marcus.”

Davison smirks, knowing full well he was beginning the assault on Mercer’s weakness ahead of the match.

“Jack Washington, you are special in a different way. I see a lot of myself and you. Like yourself, I too only deal in facts. The fact is that that I am cut of the same cloth as Alex Jones. Is in fact Kala I was recently reminded that he and I were attacked him for a short while. Unfortunately, my personal life went to shit and I had to leave the company before we could both see the mutual benefits of that partnership. Is that having been said, you dropped the ball. By your own admission, you lost focus and you lost the match. I may not understand the way things work around here, at least not yet. What I do understand is that both you and Mercer are in this match, being given this opportunity, for no reason other than your resumes.”

“You used to be World Champion. Fact. You lost at High Stakes. Fact. You do not deserve an opportunity at the Internet Championship, nor any other championship. Fact. You have fallen from grace and will continue to fall. Fact. You lack both the warmth and the depth to be a cunt. Fact/ Everyone who's ever loved you was wrong. Fact. You state the obvious with a sense of childlike discovery. Fact. You aren't pretty enough to be the stupid. Fact. I am not insulting you. I am describing you. Fact. ”

“I could go on, but I think you get the point. While you may have bested Mac, I am not Bane. I was the one who first referred to Bane as the “Gentleman Wolf.” However, I do not have the reservations he has. I have the physical and intellectual prowess to end your career, but lack the conscience and remorse to prevent me from doing so. You think what I did to you back in Stanford was fun? That was just an introduction.”

Davison stands up, petting the pig’s head while looking directly at the camera.

“This match is a warning. It is a warning to Agostino Romero. It is a warning to Bill Barnhart. This is a warning to each and every man, woman, and child that would dare to stand in the path of the Saviors. Mercer… Hendrix… Washington…you are the sacrificial lambs. I am the slaughter.”

Davison pauses long enough to smirk into the camera.

“Fact."

Davison stands confidently as the camera fades to black.

People hustle and bustle around Grand Central Station, conveniently located underneath Madison Square Garden. The common rabble scurry about while going about their day, trying to catch their bus, their cab, or their train. The speed of playback causes everything to be a blur, or at least almost everything. Standing in the center of the shot, atop a garbage can, stands “Godly” Ken Davison. On this day, he has chosen a blue collar and red tinted glasses that match the jerseys worn by the New York Rangers hockey team. His choice of perch would seem peculiar, however, those who know Davison know that being able to look down upon others is one of his strong suits.

The speed of the film goes slower and eventually, as the camera is about 10 feet away from Davison, begins playing at a normal speed. Seated around him are a small group of people, vagrants, travelers, people just resting their tired feet. In any normal place, this would probably seem unusual. However, this is the concrete jungle known as New York City. This won’t even be the strangest thing you see before leaving Grand Central.

“In just two short days, the wrestling world will be reintroduced to “Godly” Ken Davison.“ Sin City Wrestling is going to see a man, nay, A GOD that has been forgotten in the pages of history. I have been known as many things in my day… cold… calculating… vicious… in fact, I have been referred to as the world’s only living heart donor. One thing that I have never been known as, in any incarnation, is a coward.”

“You see, a coward is a man or a woman who fears the truth. Much as Levi Russow fears the truth, I will speak it plainly. For he is going to find out that he can hide from the truth, but he cannot [i[outrun[/i] the truth. Levi Russow is not just dishonest, he knows that his true character isn’t worth a damn to others, so he lies and creates a false image for himself. However, Levi’s truth is that he will never escape the shadow of his father and he will most certainly do so at my expense. The fact of the matter is that he did not accept my open contract, he was forced to take this match.”

Davison motions to the small congregation.

“Is that the kind of person that you want to emulate? Is that the kind of man that you would want your sons and daughters to idolize, or worse, grow up and become? Of course not.“

“Another issue is that Levi Russow will never grow out of his father’s shadow because his cowardice causes him to avoid strong people. He has an inferiority complex toward good and honest people, such as myself. He avoids those who are his better, physically, intellectually, spiritually. In fact, I am certain that he avoids those who are his better in any aspect of his life. The irony here is that he secretly admires and looks up to strong people, but he ends up trying and failing to measure up and going in the wrong direction.”

“It is indisputable that I do not share his philosophy, for I came forth and instead of going up to the biggest dog in the yard and punching him in the face, offered him a chance to beat me at their own game. I do not shy away from any challenge, for I know that if I am to lord over this industry, I must do so by facing and felling, the best in this company.”

Davison sighs and all of his features drop.

“Alas, I asked this locker room to give me their best. The office gave me Levi Russow.”

Davison’s face changes from one of disappointment to a sly smile.

“Bravery, Levi, has to be cultivated. Your father is to blame for this because we, as a society, are not cultivating that quality in our progeny. In fact, parents like your father are undermining the impulses that cause us to experience the world. Instead, they spend their time ‘protecting’ their children. I suppose to some degree, that is because people would rather deal with a population of docile, controllable people. Myself, I admire that kind of parenting because it makes facing mere children like yourself that much easier.”

“Here’s the kicker, Levi. The reason that big, bad Daddy Russow allowed that to happen is because he is afraid. It’s because he’s bitter. He is satisfied with how your life turned out and that is what is costing you. You see, being afraid of someone doesn't make you a coward. I can understand the fear in your heart at the prospect of facing the GKD, “Godly” Ken Davison. However, when you let that fear control your decisions to the detriment of yourself or others, you're a coward.”

Davison puts his hands out, seeming to be pleading with Russow.

“I am a man of my word. At High Stakes, Levi, I cannot and will not  allow you to win the match. I have made promises that must be upheld. As such, I feel that it is appropriate that I make certain promises to you. Five promises, to be precise.”

Davison holds his hand out, extending each of his fingers.

“In Season 10, Episode 6 of American Horror Story, Ursula Khan says “If you want the brass ring, you better be wearing brass knuckles. Greatness comes with a price. And you just have to ask yourself, how much do you want it? Are you ready to bleed? Are you?” That is the first promise I have for you, Levi. I promise you, I am greatness personified because I have paid the price of admission in blood. Time and time again, I have paid the ferryman his due. At High Stakes, I will be your ferryman and you will pay me MY due.”

Davison lowers his thumb, leaving his other four fingers in the air.

“I remember my first time, I had no choice, it was either him or my own damnation. My hands were quivering with fear, sweat was dripping from my forehead as I made the decision. The issue was that it wasn’t actually sweat dripping from my forehead. It was blood. The man that sat across from me had death on his mind, the devil was at work in this man. This is my second promise. I promise you that I won’t put you in the kind of situation where you do not have a choice. For you, Levi Russow, are a good boy. You are a clueless sheep that should have been led to the slaughter. Instead, you shall be spared, for I am a fair, benevolent god.”

Davison then lowers his pinky, turning back and forth for his audience to see.

“I also promise you that while I am fair, I will not hesitate to put you down. I am not here to cause suffering upon those who do not deserve it. I am also not here to show mercy because I must make an example of you. You will experience loss. I am going to send you to a deep, dark place and I am going to have fun doing it!”

Davison lowers his ring finger, leaving only two fingers left standing.

“While we are in the ring, you and I shall engage in a struggle of wills that will force you to question why you even entered this business. I promise you, that when this is all over, the dust has settled, and you are given the chance to look back on this, you will remember this as a moment that, though demoralizing in the moment, will be a moment that defines your career. Every punch, every hold, every muscle tear and every ounce of energy you spend in this matter is for your betterment. That’s right. You heard me correctly. You will come out of this not only a better wrestler, but also a better man. 3 Nephi 15:9 in the Book of Mormon states: “Behold, I am the law, and the light. Look unto me, and endure to the end, and ye shall live; for unto him that endureth to the end will I give eternal life.” I will not promise you eternal life, however, I assure you that if you can learn the hard lesson that I am about to teach, your legacy will be told through the tomes of eternity.”

“Which leads me to my final promise…”

Davison lowers his pointer finger, leaving only his middle finger extended.

“I WILL fuck you up.”

“Godly” Ken Davison extends his arms, making the sign of the cross as the camera fades to black.