Post by Sam Kidsgrove on Dec 31, 2021 21:58:36 GMT -5
“Zo?” Sam calls as he walks into the mansion, holding a huge bouquet of flowers and some chocolates. “You home?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there in a sec” Comes the reply from the office. Kidsgrove smiles as he makes his way into the kitchen, he places the items on the island counter and makes his way to the fridge. Zooey bounds her way into the kitchen.
“Oh you got flowers? Who for?”
“You, ya dork.” He pours himself some filtered water and takes a swig as Zooey picks up the flowers.
“Daisies. My favourite! And chocolate too! It isn’t my birthday!”
“It’s Cadbury too, none of this Hershey’s bullshit.”
“Thank you sweetness, these are beautiful.”
“Any time. How’s Kat?”
“Hanging in there, poor girl. I hope Kate is going to be OK.”
“Yeah. Sent some flowers to Kat’s family too.”
“Good boy, I’m finally teaching you right?”
“Somethin’ like that”
Zooey beams like a ray of sunshine as Kidsgrove continues.
“We’re back in the game by the way.”
“Yeah? Tort isn’t just putting us on the shelf because Kat is out?”
“Nope. Gotta stay sharp so Kat has something great to come back to apparently.”
“OK, that's good! Well, who’ve we got?!”
“You’ll be disappointed”
“Why? I’m ready for anyone, we can do anything together you know this. I mean I don’t expect us to take on Vanguard immediately but you know, we’re a good team.”
“I’m in a 5 way match.”
“Oh”
“Told you that you’d be disappointed.”
“I am! I was thinking I’d get in the action again! Who you got?”
“Some new guys and Price.”
“Price? As in Jayson Price?”
“Yup”
“Isn’t he in rehab or something?”
“Last I heard he was getting clean, according to Mason at least. Who knows with that guy? I mean if he is sober then that’s great news for him. I know that mountain and it ain’t an easy one to climb, so more power to him I say.
I’m in awe of him. His accomplishments alone reads amongst the who’s who of wrestling. He’s been there, done it all and, most importantly, lasted the test of time. He climbed that ladder and did everything a man in this industry will ever do. When I retire I’d be honoured to have half the success he had in WCF.
However, that’s where the problem lies. He did all of that in WCF. What he did there was phenomenal. Since he got here though? Well that’s a different story. AW is the house that Roy Speede built. It’s the house that Deruty, Lockhart, Dandy and myself built. It’s the place where the best of the best come to prove themselves, where if you have a weakness it’ll be brutally exploited. It’s not a place where you can go win a title and snort coke off it while feeding dollar bills to some college chick in a tittie bar then defend it the next night and win.
It takes dedication, guts, determination and desire to do things in AW. Which is probably why Price’s biggest contribution to AW is being proposed to by Mason Jones and subsequently lapsing into a coma because of his issues. Which thank God Mason is helping him with.”
“And the new guys? Know who they are?”
“I got some names, but I don’t know them.” Kidsgrove muses. Zooey walks over to the laptop on the kitchen island and looks at him.
“OK, who’s the first?” She asks
“Erm, Shooter Landell.” He replies, swigging his water and sauntering over to Zooey as she googles.
“Not Shooter McGavin, no, that’s Happy Gilmore, although by the looks of it, you’d probably have more issues with him.” She informs him.
“Why?”
“Dude’s only back in the game because his wife took all his retirement money, poor guy. Spent all that time in Japan, saved up every one of his $150 appearance fees so he could retire. Then his wife just ran off with their dentist and took all his money. He’s checked out, he’s only doing this so he can retire again.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah I know, no wonder he’s bitter.”
“I can imagine. However, this helps us. He isn’t going to be in the best frame of mind to go out there and put his body on the line to go and win the big one. He isn’t gonna go out there and use every ounce of energy to keep going. Quite frankly he’s an empty pair of boots at this point. He’d probably be better off retired, working part time in a Walmart as a greeter than getting into the ring with some of AW’s finest.
Then again, you don’t do this job since you were 19 until retirement without having at least something about you, so despite the fact he’s not wanting to be here and his heart isn’t in it he could still be dangerous. You never know, he could be channeling that bitterness to fuel his old man's strength.”
Zooey, who’s already taken the card from Sam so she can look up the people herself, continues. “Then we have the Frumious Benderstretch, we know a little more about this guy. He had a solid win against John Blade”
“Impressive”
“And then losing to Cassidy Adler”
“Not as impressive.”
“He’s strong as all hell, he outbenched John in his gym, which is no mean feat. He has a wiley tactician in his corner and he’s dangerous on a bad day, monsterous on a good one. So you need to show him a little respect at least. Fact is this guy is hungry, he can hurt you and Adler got lucky.”
“OK, so we don’t underestimate this team. Key to beating him isn’t trying to match his power like Blade, it isn’t trying to match his intensity. It’s being unpredictable, outsmarting him, making him think on his feet and keeping Carillo from masterminding the match, after all the brains behind the operation is clearly Carrillo and this guy is just the muscle.
He made Cassidy look like a child in that match and was just beaten by a man who used every trick he could to get the win. This is what happens when you’re green and you don’t have the ring awareness. It’s what happens when all your decisions are made at ringside and you can’t think for yourself.
One day he’ll engage his brain in the ring and know what to do when he’s being outsmarted. When that happens God help the roster.
Until then though, he’s just a kid that has to go through me.
I faced down Dandy and put him in a damn hospital, I faced down Nightingale and was in a damn coma at the end of it. I’ve faced some of the best fighters in this damn Federation and taken some absolutely brutal beatings, but I’m still here, still standing and it’ll take much more than a knockoff Corey Bull tribute act to take me out.”
“A Corey Bull tribute act?”
“No, a knockoff Corey Bull tribute act. Like a tribute act to a fake Corey Bull, if someone basically went to an indie fed called Borey Cull. This guy is a tribute to that guy. Corey is a legend.”
“Finally, we have the Queen of Insanity herself, Ruka Yamashita.”
“What’s her deal”
“Well, apparently she’s big in Japan as a death match specialist.”
Kidsgrove shudders.
“First of all, why is everyone big in Japan? Are we big in Japan?”
“I think so, you sold out the Tokyo Dome that one time. Why did you shudder anyway?”
“Every time I hear death match specialist, alarms go off in my head.
There’s two reasons for this.
1: If you love to be in death matches, you’re absolutely insane.
2: Nightingale loved that shit.
It’s a huge red flag if you basically see a death match and a month later you’re like “Yeah let’s do one” Even more so if you turn that into a career and do it for 2 years. That’s absolute batshit crazy nonsense. It literally puts you in the same category of Nightingale, which quite frankly is the reddest of red flags. If you put that flag up in a bull ring that bull would go crazy enough to join a goddamn deathmatch itself.
I mean I get it, you want to go out there and put your body on the line, damn I do it every single time I go out there. But damn, death matches? This woman knows how to survive, probably better than I can.
So in this match we have a living legend, a wiley vet, a guy who can outfight pretty much anyone and a woman who never gives up..
I can outfight, outheart and outsmart the best of them. I have everything all four of these competitors have in one package, but you know what I have that they don’t, the reason why I’m winning this match?
I have Fortitude.
Tell Kat, this win is for Kate.
