Culture Shock!: The arrival in Japan
Do you know how confusing it is to get your passport done for the first time? When you haven’t gone overseas for most of your life going into being an adult? I want you to think back to a time when you’ve had to take care of that, where you have had to contact the relevant government body to get the paperwork done. And how much of a pain that is to do. Now put yourselves in the shoes of. Aiden Reynolds.
Not just Aiden Reynolds. But 21-year-old Aiden Reynolds. With his youthful exuberance and limited intelligence. Now taking all that into account is it looked at as a minor miracle that he was able to organise all of this to go on a working tour of Japan as a professional wrestler?
Keep in mind, this was long before he was the man that you know him as today. The man who is married and is responsible for a young child as well as a former champion in many promotions. No, this was the 21-year-old who had been wrestling for a few years on the independent circuit of Australia who had never stepped foot outside of his own country, and had no idea where he was or what he was about to do.
Yeah, bro was fucked.
He sat in the window seat of his Japan airline flight. Like an excited child, he was unable to sleep for the 12 hours it took him to travel from Brisbane International Airport to Haneda International Airport in Tokyo. As the plane landed Aiden popped up, stepping over the elderly Japanese couple who had been seated next to him before grabbing his bag. He stood there, waiting for them to open the doors and start letting everyone shuffle off. He had never been on a plane before and didn’t realize just how long this was going to take.
Aiden stood bouncing from 1 foot to the other on the balls of his feet before finally hearing the door open and looking up ahead seeing people start to shuffle forward and off the plane. Aiden moved fast, weaving in and out and not letting anyone else out of their seats as he got to the front and almost ran up the ramp out into the arrival gate area. After picking up his luggage and checking his phone to make sure it was going to work, he moved out to the street.
He found a cab and got in trying his best to explain when he needed to go. Pointing at what he thought was the address in Japanese. The cab took off went around the corner and stopped letting him out in the middle of Tokyo. ”Thanks mate, I appreciate it”
The cab driver smiled politely and gave a small nod before pointing at the payment meter ”大丈夫です、800円でお願いします”
Aiden linked a few times not having any idea what he just said, only recognising the number. ”800 yen? Mate that seems like a bit of a rip-off.”
The cab driver looked confused, tilting his head and looking the young Australian up and down. He took a deep breath before speaking in broken English but clear enough for someone with the limited intelligence of Aiden to understand. ”800 yen is about 8 Australian dollars. You chimp…”
”Oh….” he cleared his throat and took a deep breath before fumbling in his wallet and pulling out some money. He handed the cab driver around ¥1000 and smiled in his usual goofy but somehow endearing manner. ”Keep the change mate” The cab driver crumbled and Aiden slipped from the backseat and grabbed his bags. The cab sped off and he blinked a few times realising he had no idea where he was.
Aiden looked down at the piece of paper, the address he was looking for was both written in congee as well as English letters so he could try and sound it out. He walked around looking at the street signs before pulling out his phone and looking on his app. he proceeded to wander around the suburbs just outside of Tokyo for three hours before looking up and noticing the sun was going down. ”Shit…” he moved around the streets before stopping and turning realizing where he was.
He found his sponsor's house reaching up and knocking on the door. After a few moments the door slid open, Aiden smiled politely, bowing his head and pulling out a piece of paper. The older Japanese man raised his eyebrow reading over the piece of paper before nodding and sipping sideways to invite Aiden inside. As Aiden went to step in the man put his hand up and pointed down to Aidens shoes.
He swallowed, looking down and realizing that all of the shoes were sitting at the front door, he moved down and under his laces, kicking them off next to everyone else’s before entering and holding the bag. He was confused as he moved through the small house. But as he went into the kitchen, his eyes widened. There was another Man in the home. He raised an eyebrow and the two locked eyes.
After a few moments, the other man got up and reached his hand out ”Aye bruv…names Steve.Steve Morrison..”
Aiden took his hand firmly and shook it. ”Nice to meet ya Stevo, I’m Aiden….”
”Yeah I figured. Me and Hachi over there were trying to figure out where you were. At least, I think he was, I don’t understand a damn thing that boys been saying. But I take it you got a bit lost eh?”
”Maaaate…I got a bit lost. But I’m here now. So I guess I better find my room.” Steve chuckled, patting him on the shoulder before leading Aiden up a small hallway toward the back where he opened the door into a room. Over one side was Steve’s bed roll and all of his possessions around it on the other side a neatly made one clearly for Aiden.
”Welcome to Japan…roomie” Aiden swallowed hard and ran him through his hair as Steve chuckled and went and sat on the floor. He shrugged before starting to unpack his things. This was his life, this was the culture, and it was time for him to learn he wasn’t in Australia anymore.
Threeway or “how to get two chicks angry at you”
”Aiden?...hey where are you?”
Dickie Watson, Aidens manager (sort of), Tag team partner, best friend, hetero lifemate and brother of our SCW world champion Finn Whelan walks around Aidens living room, his eyebrows raised as he looks around.
”Aiden?...you home man?”
There was silence. He moved through the lounge room stopping as he looked at a chair facing away from him. Slowly the chair spun around. Aiden sat on the chair. Willow the wombat on his lap as he slowly hit her head.
”Welcome Dimitri.”
Dickie mouthed “Dimitri” with a raised eyebrow before shaking his head and clearing his throat.
”So, I thought I’d drop by and see if you’d like my help with a promo against Daniel and Connor”
Aiden took a deep breath and he lowered Willow down before getting to his feet.
”I mean…if you want to…I could use a little back and forth, a little help. Ya know. I miss bouncin ideas off you. Could have used that against your brother, to be honest”
”You know why I couldn’t”
Aiden puts his hand up and smirks.
”I know mate, I’m just screwing with you…grab a beer…”
Dickie grabs a beer, turns, and sits down near Aiden who clears his throat and looks at the camera in the side of the room.
”So, as much as I want to sit here and tell you all that I beat the current world champion. I didn’t. I got in the ring with Finn Whelan and I lost. And hey, there’s no shame in that. He’s been the world champion for over three hundred days, beaten the best of the best and I got in there and did the best I could. But, the best doesn’t mean as much as you think. You can all watch that match and come up with positives. Talk about how I took the fight to him, but at the end of the day I ended up lookin up at the lights…and Finn had his hand raised.”
”You’re selling yourself short….you did better than most.”
”Aye mate, I know. And I will be completely honest, a loss at this stage of my career to someone like him is more of a learning experience than a wind would’ve been. Sometimes I don’t think people understand that you can learn so much from a loss to someone who is better than you. And trust me when I say this, Finn is better than Me. He’s a better, he’s seen it all and done it all and he’s someone who knows the business inside and out. I would be considered a veteran as well but at the same time if you don’t learn anything from your losses then you are either the perfect wrestler who somehow had an off night or, you’re an arrogant idiot who doesn’t realize that you learn so much from just examining your losses”
”Very mature way to look at it. Are you feeling alright”
”Fuck off”
Aiden chuckled and shook his head before taking a deep breath and refocusing on the match at hand.
”Now that my match with Finn is done. It’s time for me to look forward to defending my roulette championship. And this is something where I need to put my foot down and show my dominance. Because as the champion, in my first run and the second one I haven’t had that moment where people take me seriously. Beating Alexander Raven for this championship was swept under the rock because he left the company on a break soon after. And beating Eddie Lyons, people thought that should’ve happened anyway because for some reason people automatically thought I was better than Eddie. I think his match with Finn showed he and I are closer to the same level”
“The thing is I was looking forward to this match for a few different reasons. One of those reasons was getting in the ring with Connor Murphy. I’ve heard a lot about Connor and one of the biggest comments that keeps popping up as people mention him is his potential. Everyone talks about Connor and his potential to be a great star in this company. He’s never been able to realize it and break out of that box that they’ve put him in. but I looked forward to getting in the ring with him. I looked forward to it because I believed the hype. I believed it when people told me how good he was, I believed it. When people said Connor Murphy was going to put up a fight in the roulette championship match and he was going to make sure he could snatch that title off of Me in seconds”
“And then….he lost to Bill Barnhart.”
“He got in the ring, with an overweight, old, racist, moronic, spud of a human being. And lost. Connor, how can I take you seriously now? How can I look at you across the ring from Me and believe that you could take my championship with anything more than a fluke? I understand that might be harsh but at the same time, you have to understand where I’m coming from. I heard all about your potential on how good you could’ve been, I heard how everyone was excited for your return and then you get in the ring with that absolute potato of a man and you lose. What the fuck Connor? Why? Why couldn’t you beat him and come into this match with some momentum? Because now it just looks like you exist and the real matches between myself and Daniel Morgan.”
”That’s a bit harsh…”
”But am I wrong ?”
”Well…I mean…no… but you still need to stop spending so much time around Kayla. You’re kind of turning into a bit of a dick.”
Aiden simply shrugs and gives a small knot before continuing.
”Hey, all I want are legitimate contenders for the roulette championship. This title gets passed around way too much. Eddie and Alexander both made this championship means something and I’ll be damned if I just look at it as a title that was taken from me and I get pigeonholed as a transitional champion. Fuck that shit shit. So, Connor Murphy is a bit of a bust but the third man in this match is Daniel Morgan. And that dude is definitely impressive. He has the type of pedigree that points to him being a single star who never really got the opportunity. But now he has the opportunity.”
“Daniel, I won’t mince words mate. I’m glad you are in this match. You are someone who has a history in this company but you never really got to that point where people believed you could be a single star. But now you have that chance, and unlike Connor, you really seem to be taking it seriously. I don’t see you losing to someone like Bill big tits Barnhart, I don’t see you turning yourself into a joke. I see you coming at me and trying to win this championship with all of the heart and effort that the title deserves.”
“But, I will be honest mate, I’m not going to make it easy on you. I don’t know what match is going to end up spinning itself onto that roulette wheel. I don’t know the stipulation. I don’t know what we are going to do, all I know is that I need to keep this championship and I need to win. I need to start defending the title and I need to step up and beat some names like you.”
“I have been very average, middle of the road, or simply mid as the kids say. And I’m sick of being looked at that way. This triple crown idea is looked at as stacking the deck against me. But it gives me an opportunity to beat two men at once even if one of those men completely dropped the ball. But, I want you to bring your best Daniel, hell I want you to bring your best as well, Connor, and I hope it’s better than what you did against Bill. Because you’re both going to need it. I plan on walking out as the roulette champion, and you guys are going to have to pry this title from my dead hands.”
