History is a flat circle
”Move, now. Get up, hit the ropes and drop down. No Slackers.”
Alex stands on the ring apron, his arms folded over his chest. A black and red wolfslair shirt on and a pair of training shorts. Inside the ring some of the newer trainees where rotating with each other, hitting the ropes, dropping down and leapfrogging and switching.it up. Since his loss to Mac Bane he had been a domineering and almost dictator like personality. Working his trainees and team mates to the bone.
He sneers and shakes his head jumping down from the apron. Charlie Jones, his younger sister, manager of Wolfslair Orlando and now the General Manager of upstart promotion Pro Wrestling Excellence steps next to him as Alex looks over at Johanna Krieger and Aiden Reynolds, two international stars signed to PWS Apex and SCW respectively. ”Get in and show them.” Johanna and Aiden look at each other and get up and they start to roll with the trainees who are out of their depth, one by one Johanna takes their back sinking in a choke and Aiden locks in a variety of limb locks. Cries of pain ring out and Alex shakes his head.
”Going a little hard on them aren’t we?” Alex raises an eyebrow as Charlie turns her back and leans on the ring apron. Alex scoffs and lays his hands flat on the mat, his eyes tracing back and forth as Johanna and Aiden step down from the ring and go back to working out with Austin and Alicia. ”They aren’t going to get any better just being beaten down and then beaten up by your more..elite names.Alex groans and rolls his eyes pushing off the ring
”That’s it for the day, hit the showers. Use some ice” The trainees all groan in pain and gingerly move from the ring as Alex lets out a sigh looking at his sister. ”Steel sharpens steel Charlie. I need to get these kids ready, they need to know that they aren’t going to break like glass” He moves away leaning down grabbing some of the workout gear packing it up as various other workout sessions go on without him, Alicia and Johanna rolling on the mats trading submissions, Austin and Aiden having a contest involving cardio.
Numerous others, names we have not seen or know who work in the independants also train and seem to be working hard. Alex smiles slowly as Charlie’s next words ring out in his ears. ”But they aren’t steel yet, you can break them and not in the good way.”
Dallas Texas, 12 Years Ago
22 year old Alex Jones stood in the ring, there were other young men around him, Alex had two years of training and in ring experience behind him, he wasn’t sure about the others. Outside the ring, an aging Texan legend “Wild” Bill Harrison stood with his arms crossed. His long black hair that used to be a thick mane connecting with his handlebar mustache was now thinning on top and tied back.
Even in his 60’s he was a commanding presence. A mountain of a man at six foot five and still in the high two hundred pounds. He let out a grunt, one that seemed to be annoyed and angry.
”Pathetic.”
With that one word the other trainees all seemed to look defeated, all but Alex who raised an eyebrow and pushed his chest forward. Bill circled the ring, his footsteps very heavy. ”You all have no heart at all. I don’t even know why you’re in my ring. Some of you have experience in companies but it just shows how soft your generation is.” The air was thick with tension, Alex breathed deep as Bill growled locking eyes with the young grappler. ”Indian squats….go till you can’t stand...you pussies.” Bill blew his whistle. Alex sneered and started doing squats, the others growl and already look defeated. But Alex didn’t care, he was driven and ready…
Pain was only temporary….
”Alex?....are you fucking listening to me?”
He snapped out of it, turning back to Charlie who raised her eyebrows, her long black hair was tied back away from her face, her eyes raising as she tilted her head waiting for her older brother to acknowledge her. Alex just slowly smiled and gave her a nod. ”I hear you….Charlie, you remember what we went through…” He stared right into her eyes, he could see a switch get flipped, her eyes darted to the side, the memories seemed painful for her.
He stepped forward putting his hand on her shoulder, Charlie flinched and pulled away. ”Yeah, I remember. I also remember it was hard on Dylan, I remember I quit wrestling for six years because of it…” Her voice trailed off, this was one of the first times she had brought up Dylan, one of the first times his name had been uttered inside the halls of Wolfslair New York. ”Dylan didn’t….he didn’t do what he did because of the training, it was because of things outside wrestling, outside the life…you know that…”
There was an awkward silence, Charlie swallowed and snapped out of it looking over at all the trainees, laughing and mingling. Alex wasn’t yelling at them, cursing at them or trying to belittle them, he just smiled. That was the difference. Context. He knew when to be hard on everyone, when to be soft, when to listen and when to talk. Charlie gave a small nod and looked over at them to. ”Yeah, I guess you’re right, besides you’re not like the guy who trained us. You actually care….I wish Dylan was alive to see it”
Alex swallowed, he tried to hide it all, the emotional impact of thinking about their deceased younger brother. The feeling of coming home to find him on the floor, Charlie kneeling next to him, cradling his head in her lap, tears streaming down her face and screaming for help. A chill went up his spine, but he shook his head before offering a smile to his sister. ”I think he…would have loved it here…” Charlie let out a sigh and folded her arms over her chest, silence was all that was between them now. But, they both knew….Alex was right.
Deja Vu
”I could have sworn I have done this song and dance before. Recently in fact…”
Alex Jones, the (now) former SCW Heavyweight champion, sits in front of a chessboard. Not a traditional one, no. The pieces are modeled after various figures in greek mythology, his left hand moving over to the knight, modeled to look like Area, the god of war. He slides it up and to the side, in the L motion, dropping it in the middle of the board.
”This is the first match of the new year. New year new me right? That’s how the saying goes. New year's resolutions and all that jazz?. The truth is, I don’t need to change. I’m fucking incredible the way I am. I am now a two time SCW World champion. An eleven time world champion. And I get it, I do, So many of you can claim to be a forty seven time world champion in a whole host of different companies that no one gives a shit about and haven’t been active in decades. I’m looking at you Matt Knox. But me? Look at my history. Look at the companies that I have been the champion of, that I have risen to the goddamn top of. Aside from SCW…”
“There’s Honor wrestling, twice I became the champion there. I was the first Honor wrestling champion, the first one to hold that belt high in the air. Oh, by the way, completely unrelated but, welcome Finn Whelan to SCW everyone….”
Alex winks and moves a pawn forward before clearing his throat.
”The fact remains I held that title twice, once as it’s first champion and then again as the most important to bring that company back from the brink oif death, buying it some extra time to get the SCW merger done. But, then there’s WWH. Everyone knows that company, for better or worse. Myself, Austin, Kat Jones, Mercedes Vargas, Alicie, Sierra, Finn, we have all been in that company over the years. And in my case, in Kats case, in Finns case, we all held the WWH world title. There is IWF, the company everyone sees finally popping up all over twitter? Yeah I was the Imperial champion there too, not that anyone would knows….”
“Record deletion is kinda lame…”
“But I was at the top there, and the XHF network? That giant conglomerate of companies? Guess what? The original XHF? I was the world champion there to. That is just a small sample of the world titles that I have held, the companies I have represented and been at the top of. This is what I have done my entire career. And while some of you are so narrow minded you don’t see the scope of the wrestling world and are happily sitting there thinking SCW is the only wrestling company that matters, people like myself have been on top everywhere we have gone..”
“So, while some of you want to act like the new year is some kind of magical reset button, I’m here to tell you that it’s bullshuit and you’re just as untalented as you were last year…”
He smirks and shakes his head, moving another Ares knight before turning and getting up from the table, a walk off checkmate that he didn’t even need to exclaim as we hear a groan from the other side of the table, a decidedly feminine one as a few choice German expletives are heard moments later.
”And I have to be honest, most of you have to know by now that Mac Bane is counting his lucky stars, he’s keeping four leaf clovers, he’s looking for Rabbits to steal their feet, cause he knows how lucky he is to not only get out of that fourway with the title but to also have not only won it off me but also do it in a match where I don’t even get my rematch. I want you all to think about that for a moment. I beat Mac Bane, I beat him a second time in a rematch that HE wanted. Then, when he is able to get handed another opportunity this match conveniently has a stipulation that stops me from getting another shot…”
“How is that fair? How is that right?”
“It isn’t”
“See, I carried this company on my back and I defended it against Mac and his cronies yet Mark and Christian seem to be blowing Mac Bane. Wolfslair has been successful as a unit but we have never EVER talking about SCW like it has needed saving. So, I’m locked out. Truth is, that little stipulation would have been fine if it was just on Mac, since he had opportunity after opportunity but in the end it screwed ME over. It made ME get shoved down to the bottom of the ladder. And I have never left the company or taken a break after losing a title.,..I have never walked off like a child…”
He smirks and sneers shaking his head.
”Which brings me to Jack Washington. I have so much history with Jack, I have seen his face across the ring from me just as much as I have Mac. See, I beat Griffin Hawkins for that title, I faced Jack and he was able to beat me. I didn’t take the rematch against Jack for a few reasons. One was that I didn’t believe I deserved it. I held the title for two weeks, The other was, at the time I wanted to see sopme new blood as a world champion, that was you Jackie boy. You deserved that time in the sun and I sat back and watched, I went back to the bottom of the ladder and prepared to work my way up expecting you to be there when I worked and earned my way back to you…”
“Unfortunately it didn;’t work out that way. You traded that title back and forth between yourself and Kris Ryans before losing it to Mark Cross. You and I never got to face each other while you were the champion. However, we did face while I was the champion. You got your shot against me, you got a chance to prove the first time wasn’t a fluke and we went at it and as expected you were a goddamn challenge Jack, I will never sit here and say you weren’t a challenge or you’re not a threat Cause I know damn well you are. But while I have always acknowledged you as part of the main event scene of SCW you have never afforded me the respect I deserve.”
“That’s why you’ll never reach my heights Jack.”
“That’s why you will never be a respected part of the company. You make excuses, you make childish comments that make zero sense. Shit, I watched and listened to you against Supreme Machine. You sat there and rattled on about the guys name. His name Jack. The guy could have been named “Fluffy McNuggets” and it wouldn’t have mattered. What mattered was that you were teamed with Krystal Wolfe who has been one of the most dominant bombshells over the last few months and you weren’t able to get the job done. You had a shot to go through and win the blast from the past, to get a match against Mac Bane and end his reign of terror. Something I can’t do..something I’m not allowed to do…”
“But, you failed, you failed and now for some reason, my first match back, from time off that I never asked for….is against you…”
“And I have a need to prove myself again Jack, a need to get in the ring and get back on that horse. And the only way I can make sure Christian and Mark wake up and see what they’re doing and where they went wrong is to make sure they know I am un-fucking-deniable. So get in the ring with me Jack, get in the ring and lets burn the goddamn house down again, and lets show Mac and his cronies that SCW doesn’t need saving…”
