Post by Action Reel on May 27, 2024 15:40:26 GMT -5
~Behind the Scenes ~
The backstage area of the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, Arizona. The sounds of a sporting event can be heard coming from the main event floor and the stands around it.
A woman drives into the back, and parks in the registered “staff and talent” designated area. The car, a 2022 Nissan Rogue SL in Gun Metallic, notably has Arizona plates. Normal Arizona plates, not those for a rental car.
Specifically this one has a personal plate done on the AZ Seguro Desert design that reads as “AKAMEMC”
It also has a UCLA Law School bumper sticker mixed in with a bunch of Star Wars maybe 2 year old gaming nerd meme stickers on the back.
The woman is Akame Lynn McClancy. Her father, Blaise McClancy was a wrestler. Her mother, Yukio Kushinaga-McClancy was also a wrestler. As you can tell, the one time tag team partners ended up becoming partners in other ways and… parents to Akame and her brother.
Both also now work for… another federation.
Her father is the commissioner, and her mother is the head of security.
Akame, a 3rd year law student at UCLA, is also currently doing an internship for that wrestling federation. She works with the Talent Relations person reviewing contracts, a job a legal student can do without requiring to be an actual lawyer.
But secretly, or at least until recently it was a secret to them… she’s also been wrestling. Not in the federation they run. That would have given them access to her personnel records, and they could have figured out who was wearing the Tetsuo Oni IV garb now.
Her father had been the second Tetsuo Oni, and his good friend and trainer was the first. The third? He still wrestles in that other federation, but recently ‘graduated’ and took his mask off, which put it up for grabs.
So Akame grabbed it.
She had technically stolen the mantle, and stolen the gear that she had turned into her own with a sewing matching and shears. She’d stolen her father’s old gear.
Now, the man who was the first Tetsuo Oni, who still ran the school the mantle was connected to, had officially sanctioned her as the fourth to bear the name and mantle. And just a couple of weeks ago, her father had told her that he knew it was her, and he was proud of her.
But, the federation she had been in had recently had some troubles, and a bunch of people as well as her, and her stablemates in the Upstarts had been released due to those problems.
Two pay per views scrapped, never to be aired including her winning their ‘jr. heavyweight' title in an Ultimate X match, as well as her and her stablemates winning the trios titles. She and her female stablemate were also the finalists in a new title for their women’s division.
But then it was all gone in the snap of someone’s fingers.
So she was out scouting and looking for a new territory to compete in.
And she’d heard about the Action Wrestling Havoc Rumble coming up.
She could try to compete in the Rumble, earn that world title shot and prove herself again.
That’s what it was in today’s world, constantly trying to prove herself.
She immediately gets out of her car and makes sure she had the badge they had provided her. It was a common occurrence for other wrestlers or federation staff to occasionally visit a federation in town.
And for this show, Action Wrestling had come to her actual honest hometown.
She made sure she had her badge and lanyard, and slipped her Bluetooth headphones in. She wasn’t actually listening to anything, but they could be used as an excuse.
Then she walks up to where an arena security person is watching. She flashes that visitor badge at him and he nods, letting her enter into the part of the arena that housed the locker room and production areas for tonight’s show.
Time to scout the competition…
~ The Promo ~
A room, empty except for a black steel folding chair in the middle of your view. It looks like someone has started up a fog machine and set it on low, and turned on a black light.
A voiceover starts. The accent is undeniably American, maybe from the American Southwest.
“Action Wrestling.
The Havoc Rumble.
Just like just about any other Rumble, start with 2. Others enter at a timed interval. Eliminate your opponents, and be the last one in the ring to win the big prize. Two people have ‘earned’ either first entrant or final entrant. Jonny Cedrone and Doc Holiday respectively for those spots.“
A woman steps into the scene. The blacklight causes her motley costume to show in colors it’s not normally in. It is covered in purples, gray, dark blue, and black. Some of the black along the legs is sheer. Her midsection and upper arms are bare. The blacklight of course causes these to glow with hues that are not actually there.
A mask, matching the rest of it, adorns her head; the mouth and lower jawline bare. Her lipstick is matching the glow for the darker purple parts of her tights.
The mask had two silver horns on it. The eyes of the mask are bare, showing her eyes underneath. They’re normal, with one exception… The irises are a ruby red color.
Overall the costume looks something like if the 80’s Daredevil somehow got mixed up with the typical aesthetic of something from a Nightmare Before Christmas.
What can be seen of her skin, mostly the color, and the shape of her eyes show she has Asian blood in her.
Her hair coming out of the back of the mask and tied into a ponytail, is black, with blue and purple streaks in it.
She grabs the chair, spins it around and sits down in it so she can lean forward against the chair’s back.
She starts to speak, showing the voice from before was hers.
“That big prize? A shot at Action Wrestling’s World Championship at their biggest show of the year, Evolution. Evolution VI I believe.”
She adjusts her seat, and a grin forms on her face.
“And I see that some of AW’s finest have decided to toss their names into the hat. And I must stay, I’m intrigued. Are they as much of a challenge as they say they are? Are they… worthy? I do hope so.
But they all know each other. They’ve faced each other before. They see each other in the locker room. Some of them maybe party together, some of them hate each other. Some of them are friends or lovers.
They know what to expect from each other. When that happens you see a pattern form. Predicted by mathematical equations.
Don’t get me wrong, those that know me know I come from a school that teaches that everyone can beat anyone on any given night… if the conditions warrant.
But stars are not always made, and they’re not always a flash in the pan. And you can see that some of them think they’re either destined or guaranteed a win.
They can do the math.”
She stops and then the grin turns into a smirk, and her head cocks a bit to the side.
“Now, let's just see what happens when they have an unknown variable to their little equation, huh?
A variable named Tetsuo Oni IV.
Now, I know what I’m going to have to do. As this is an introduction. The rest of you when you see me are going to go… well masked joshi wrestler. She’s half Japanese, and she’s small.
Those that know of me, know that I’ve been wrestling professionally for under a year. They know that I’ve already seen success, though.
I’m the catalyst to something different. Something… new. “
The camera shifts, showing the same woman in the ring. She runs at a turnbuckle, and walks her way up, alternating ropes on each step till she hits the top and comes off with a springboard hurricanrana onto some opponent.
The voice over continues.
“I’m the daughter of two wrestling stars from decades ago. My father was a multiple time world champion. My mother held single titles. Together they held tag team titles.
I like to call that being a second generation wrestler, squared.
But that also means I have the talent others can’t seem to pull from, right in my veins.”
The video cuts to her coming off the top turnbuckle in a sky twister press onto another opponent, and hooking a leg for a pinfall victory.
It cuts back to the woman seated in the backwards chair.
“I know what to expect. My three predecessors had it happen, and well… I have as well.
You all will mock the mask. Claim I wear the mask because I’m ugly or something.”
She shrugs.
“Whatever. My boyfriend likes how I look is all I have to say to that. Because it doesn’t matter. I could be the ugliest girl in the world, and I’d still be able to kick all the ass.
Of course I don’t expect any uncultured swine like most people in this business to really understand.
Those? They don’t understand what type of honor it is that I was asked to be the fourth Tetsuo Oni. They don’t realize that being the first woman to bear the mantle and mask is such an achievement.
They’ll claim I’m trying to hide things. The only thing I’m trying to hide is who I am. I can walk around in the outside world without being bothered… for all you know, I’ve been watching all of you for a while now.”
That gets a slightly devilish grin.
“And of course you’ll try to claim that I’ve got no talent, or abilities.”
The video cuts to her, with two others: A young woman, taller and more muscled than her, and a very, very large man holding up matching title belts together, trios titles.
Then it cuts to Tetsuo Oni climbing up to the top of Ultimate X like structure, and then tight rope walking across the suspended cable, to the center. When she gets there, she flips over into a handstand, and double foot thrust through the cables to someone who was trying to work a title belt that was hanging there loose.
Tetsuo Oni then sits on top of the central cable structure, reaching underneath and claims that title belt, to then hold it up high.
“Years ago, I qualified to go to Tokyo to represent the states in Judo… but ended up having to pull off the team due to the pandemic.
Since then, I’ve come into this sport, the sport my parents owned until I came along.
I’ve tasted gold, but then had it stripped from me… not by losing it. But by politics and people behind the scenes doing things they weren’t supposed to do and causing places to… close.
In my short career, I’ve only lost… once.
And now, I'm coming to Action Wrestling… To enter your Havoc Rumble.
A fast track to glory and prestige. All I have to do is be the last person in the ring and then that title shot is mine. I only have to survive. I’m not the biggest by far. But I am one of the most tenacious and talented people coming into this ring.
I’m not going to be easy to eliminate. I’m not going to make it easy for you at all.
I want that shot. I ultimately want that title. I’m done standing around… anywhere… while people who are less than half of my level get chance after chance after chance to dethrone people like your current world champion, Gerard Angelo.
He’s ready for you all. He’s watched you. He’s learned what you can do.
HE KNOWS YOU.
He doesn’t know me.
Yes, he might be bigger. Might be physically stronger. But it’s not the size of the competitor but the size of the fight in the competitor.
And I’ve got more fight than, really, any of the others in your little federation. I’m hungry, and I want it.
You all, however many end up in this rumble, you all just have to show that you want it more than I do.
On that, all I can say is: Good freaking luck.”
She stands up, and moves around the chair, heading to the camera.
The open bars to Icon for Hire’s “Ready for Combat” starts in the background.
“Action Wrestling, I am THE Tetsuo Oni. I am the Iron Demon. Yes, some call me the Princess Demon, or Chibi Demon. All good. Doesn’t change the fact that I’m a demon in that ring.
I’m claiming my time.
You have to stop me… if you can.”
She stops for a moment as it then cuts to another clip. One of her hitting a La Mistica. For those who don’t know that’s a tilt-a-whirl headscissors off a run, and turning that into a side mounted face slam. On the hard landing, she slips that opponent into a Fujiwara armbar. That opponent then taps out.
It face, into a multitude of shots of her. All sailing off the top turnbuckle or slingshoting into the ring off the top rope into various flying moves: A double knee strike… a “Spanish Fly” moonsault side slam, a springboard tornado DDT, and then slips into corkscrew planchas and various suicide dives into and out of the ring.
Her voice over comes back.
“I’m ready for combat. Are you?”
It now brings up a supercut of her using various martial arts strikes on people, including hard cutting kicks to their thighs if standing, or their chest on their knees. Then to a huge spinning backfist, which shows about 3 different people getting hit by it and dropping down to the mat like they’d been hit with a tire iron to the jaw.
A few of them have been much bigger than her.
“I sure hope so…”
And a fade out, with the heavy metal graphic logo for Tetsuo Oni coming up onto the screen.
{End}