“Godly” Ken Davison sits in the hallowed halls of St. Anne’s Catholic church, an old abandoned church on the outskirts of Boston, Massachusetts that he had repurposed many years ago to serve as his base of operations. He had not been in the hallowed halls in quite some time, but due to the ongoing care and maintenance he paid for,upkeep was routinely performed. Upon his arrival, Ken was pleased to find the building immaculate.
“Wooooooowwwwww” his soon to be step-daughter Adina says with a sense of amazement. “You have your own church?!”
“Yeah, baby girl. I bought it over twenty years ago.”
All Ken could do at this point was stop and breathe. His travel schedule this month has been hectic. He and his fiancee had defended their UGWC Cooperative Championships for the second time in two weeks. Then, he endured the 12 hours of flight, 7 hours of layover, just to become vilified when Amber Ryan, his beloved (read: hated to the utmost extent of the word), little “Blood Stained Hurricane” decided she had enough of his banter and charged him. Running on instinct, he grabbed her by the legs and drove her into the mat. He was worn down from it all, and Kyra was stressed out, and rightfully so, by all of this drama. Even now, in what should be a moment of peace, he was replaying that spinebuster over and over and over again.
“That’s, like, forever ago.”
“Back then, most of us didn’t have phones in our pockets. Most of us had these things called pagers where people could leave their number and you called them back when you got to a phone.”
“Nah uh.”
“True story. Even the phones were wired into the wall.”
“Hey, baby girl,” Ken says as he spies Kyra walking into the sanctuary out of his periphery. “I’m going to head to my office to talk to your mother. If you head downstairs, there should be a room with a bunch of dolls and other toys. Why don’t you do some exploring?”
Ken stands up, placing his hand on Adina’s shoulder and gently pushing her in the direction of the door. Instead of leaving, Adina rushes at her mother and unsuccessfully tries to tackle her mother. It became more of an attack hug than anything else.
Kyra’s taken by surprise, but she quickly kneels down in front of Adina and wraps her arms around the little girl. “Hey, baby girl. Whatcha doing?”
“Daddy told me to go play, but I–”
“But you didn’t listen, huh?” Kyra interrupted, shaking her head. She might not have been happy with her fiance, and his recent actions - but nevertheless, she wasn’t going to allow her daughter to defy him. “Maybe you should go play.”
Adina sighs and releases her grip on her mother. “Fiiine Mommy.”
As Adina scampers off, Ken looks up at Kyra. There is uncertainty written on his face. The two of them had faced every challenge before this head on. This was the first time they had disagreed this badly.
“Hey,” Ken says sheepishly. “Can we talk about this?”
Ken pauses and is only met with silence.
“Please?” Ken pleads.
Kyra lets out an exasperated sigh as she shrugs her shoulders, unwilling to meet Ken’s eyeline. “Fine. What do you wanna say?”
“What the hell do I say? Amber asked for the match. Not me. Amber is smart enough to know that I was going shit talk her the entire time. Amber is the one who came at me. It’s not like I sat there and continued to beat on her. And then, you go on a Twitter rant and compare me to…” Ken scowls, his voice elevated, but not to the point of yelling. “I don’t even want to say his name. We have fought too long and too hard to get to this point. I’m sorry, but I didn’t ask for any of this.”
Finally, she turns to face him. “What a coincidence, Ken.. Neither did I. You wanna be butthurt over my little comparison.. But from where I’m sitting.. You’re both completely fine with putting me right in the Goddamned middle again, just like I was before. You remember that, don’t you? Oh yeah.. Because you’re the one that told me I was BETTER than the position they put me in.”
Kyra shrugs once more, her scowl equal to Kens at this point.
“Yet here the fuck we are.”
“I never wanted to put you in the middle. I never wanted to be in this position in the first place. After the match, she goes off running her Macpleaser trying to goad me into a match with her in another company that will allow it. Why the fuck would I ever do that? Why would I put us in jeopardy? She has nothing I want. There is no world championship. If I were to take that match, there is nothing to gain and everything to lose. You are more important to me than some throwaway match with Amber. I was half a world away and all I wanted to was to hold you in my arms and tell you that everything would be okay. But, that couldn’t happen. Amber’s picking a fight with me. You started picking a fight with me. Then you two started going at each other and all I could do was sit in a hotel room and cry myself to sleep. All I wanted was you. All I ever want is you.” Kens posture shrinks, the energy in his voice is lowered. “For fucks sake, Kyra. Why was it so hard for you to see that?”
In this moment, all Kyra can do is laugh. A dry, humorless laugh as she stares Ken down. “Don’t you think I WANT to see that? Christs sake, Ken. I believe you. I know you’re telling me the truth, as you know it - but what you’re missing is how BOTH of you fuckers can’t let your shit go, even if that means hurting me. Even if that means putting Mac.. You’re so-called BROTHER in the same position that I’m in right now. And no, it isn’t just you. It’s both of you and if either of you respected the people you love.. You’d both stop being so Goddamned short-sighted! So stop with the fucking excuses, stop with the finger pointing and figure your shit out Ken Davison because I can’t do it for you.”
“Shit, Kyra. I am trying to. I didn’t pursue this beyond that match. What more do you want? I wasn’t trying to drag you and Mac into this. She was the one trying to make this a couples invite. You know me. You know that if she comes at me, I have to say something. I’m not perfect. I’m just a man. Once I was able to sort out what was actually going on, I told her I didn’t want a match. I disengaged and backed off. I’m trying the best I can. I really, truly am.”
“I know.” She replies softly, shaking her head. “..But it’s not good enough.”
Kyra takes a step forward, her face moving closer to Ken’s.
“You knew that she’d do anything to rile you up. And she knew exactly what she needed to do to get you to play right into her hand. And you fell for it, hook, line and sinker. You just couldn’t resist. And that’s fine. I get it. But don’t expect me to just take this and roll over like I was expected to do with…Jack. You know how I feel about this, and soon enough.. So will she.”
Kyra turns to walk away. Ken puts his hand on her shoulder, stopping her, at least for the moment.
“Jack didn’t put you in the middle of anything. He flat out abandoned you. Amber put you in the middle of it. I never intended for you to get dragged into this bullshit. If you need time, that’s what I will give you, if you want. What I want is to make this right. Tell me what I need to do and it’s done. No questions asked.”
Ken simply looks defeated, realizing that he had unintentionally pointed a finger at Amber. He realized it a moment too late, because he didn’t have time to apologize for it. Letting out another sigh, Kyra slides out of Ken’s grasp.
“Just… let it go. All of it.”
With that, she steps away - heading downstairs where Adina was currently playing. Ken can only sit and watch as Kyra disappears out of sight.
“Austin James Mercer,” Davison says in a slow, deliberate cadence, “You are being given the opportunity to step into the ring with history in the making. You are being given the opportunity to see, first hand, the world as it is evolving. You are the first hands being given the opportunity to mold the legacy of Sin City Wrestling going forward. That legacy is “Godly” Ken Davison.”
Davison strides across the plush ruby carpeting, walking between the two rows of golden embroidery that lines each side of the aisle as he walks towards the front of the Sanctuary.
“In my very first appearance here in Sin City Wrestling, I very clearly stated that I was here to be an avenging angel. At no point in time did I say I was going to spare anyone based on their gender, on their current standing, on whom they're married to… Those words have never and will never come out of my mouth. In fact, the only words that you will ever hear coming out of my mouth are the truth. That is because I am a man of integrity. I am a man of conviction. I am a Paragon of virtue.”
Davison winks knowing only Amber Ryan and Mac Bane will understand the subliminal message in that last statement.
“The fact of the matter is, in this day and age, there is no reason why I should be getting any blowback for what I did in my match with Matt Knox and Amber Ryan. I should not be getting vilified by the very company I work for simply because I acted in self-defense. If the roles had been reversed, if Amber Ryan hit me with a spinebuster, no one would have batted an eye. That’s just who she is as a person. It’s like a built-in “Get out of jail free” card. If you act like a twat, then people expect you to act like a twat. However, when I lay my hands on Amber Ryan, it’s like the end of the world. I keep hearing “What kind of man would hit a woman?” I would, that’s who.”
“You see, I stand for women. I believe that Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and other leaders of the Suffrage Movement would be proud of me. While I will be the first to tell you that Amber Ryan ranks just above Matt Knox, who is the human personification of venereal disease, on my list of people I can tolerate, I still respect the things that she is capable of in the ring. I believe that even she would be the first to tell you that my self-defense spinebuster was only meant to prevent her from attacking myself or Kat Jones. I put her down on the mat, gentle as a baby. She knows what intent feels like. She knows what it feels like when the GKD, “Godly” Ken Davison intends to hurt you. A mere spinebuster? Amber Ryan can handle it. Amber Ryan can handle much, much worse. Striking Amber Ryan showed the world that I do not think less of Amber Ryan. I view her as a peer, an equal. Anyone who believes that I am a horrible person for treating Amber Ryan like a
professional wrestler and not a diva, knockout, or bombshell; a
professional… wrestler, simply does not understand the meaning of equal rights. I should be hailed as a hero, not treated as the pariah I will undoubtedly become.”
“It is no secret that I’ve been struggling as of late, but that does change or undermine what I am capable of. That is a fact that you would be wise to remember, Mercer. What happened in that mixed tag team match a couple of weeks ago, at least within the ring, was exactly what I had planned. From the moment I found out that Amber Ryan had foolishly requested the match, I knew exactly what I was going to do. If Amber Ryan could be summed up in one song, it would be
’Baby’s Got a Temper’ by The Prodigy. As I have said, Amber Ryan is one of the best wrestlers to ever lace up a pair of boots, not in this company, not in this industry, but in the entire history of the sport. If she honestly thought that I wasn’t going to try and gain any advantage I could find, then that was her mistake.”
A sly smile crosses Davison’s face.
“Then, in the aftermath, when she completely lost her shit on Twitter, I knew that while she had won the match, I had won the war. Until Supreme Machine showed up, distracting her like a new shiny object, I’m all she could talk about. I was living in her head rent free.”
“Now Mercer, onto you. I don’t know you, but I know your resume. Like I said earlier, I’ve been in a bit of a slump lately. Setbacks are temporary. Matt Knox could not beat me, but he still showed why most people compare him to a cockroach. The man will not die. I may not be happy about the fact that I lost the Internet Championship to Jack Washington, but I can at least hold my head up knowing full well that I fought until the bitter end.”
Davison lowers his guard, if only for a moment.
“I’m going to be real with you Mercer. This entire situation with Amber has caused a plethora of problems that I didn’t see coming. I am dealing with the consequences of her actions, as well as my own. I don’t want this match with you. I
need this match with you. I need to prove that coming to Sin City Wrestling, pulling myself away from my fiance and my kid is worth the time I could be spending with them. This match might be some kind of throwaway match for you, but it means the world to me. My fiance barely talks to me. Mac Bane, my best friend in the entire Kendamned world, isn’t talking to me. Kat Jones hasn’t said a word to me since the match.”
“I am walking into this match with a purpose. At this point, it truly doesn’t matter if I am facing you, Matt Knox, Jack Washington or anyone else in this company. Austin James Mercer, your name doesn’t worry me. Your resume doesn’t matter to me because I can match you accomplishment for accomplishment and easily outpace you. What does matter is what I have done here. It has been two months, two long months, since I have tasted victory in Sin City Wrestling. If I can’t win this match, if I can’t defeat you, then I have no business being here in Sin City Wrestling. I would be lying if I tried to pretend that I wasn’t doubting myself. Regardless, I know what I am capable of. I know who I am as a person. Maybe I forgot who I really, truly was. Being in the ring with Amber Ryan reminded me of the man I am. She reminded me that there was a time when “Godly” Ken Davison was one of the most feared competitors in this business. Mercer, I don’t know if you are a religious man. If you are not, I highly recommend you get on your knees and pray to God, Allah, Jobu or whoever you think will listen to you. I know that there are things worth fighting for. There are things that are bigger than my career. That is what I am fighting for, not championships, not pride. So, again, I ask you to pray. Pray for mercy. Pray for forgiveness. Pray for victory. Pray for all of those things, but realize that sometimes God is too busy to answer your prayers. Then, as the bell rings and you find yourself on the flat of your back, you can at least thank whomever heard your prayers that I at least spared your dignity.”
Davison smirks as the camera fades to black.
