Post by Sam Kidsgrove on Nov 8, 2020 17:04:30 GMT -5
And the Count is in
By: S Kidsgrove
Written by: S Kidsgrove
FADE IN
INT - KIDSGROVE AND ZOOEY’S HOME IN LA - NIGHT
SUPER - ELECTION NIGHT
ZOOEY DESCHANEL, Hollywood Royalty and quite possibly the cutest woman alive and long time partner SAM KIDSGROVE are on the sofa in their home watching the election day coverage. Zooey has her mobile close to hand, awaiting “the call” from her campaign manager in the counting area.
KIDSGROVE
Nervous?
DESCHANEL
Not really. We ran a great campaign. I’m just glad it’s over. One way or another we can start to have a normal life again.
KIDSGROVE
Have you heard from Emily?
DESCHANEL
Not really, security took her back to the hospital and she’s not interested in speaking to us. She thinks she’s done her damage, the only thing she’ll say to anyone is “I hope the bitch loses and then gets fucked”
KIDSGROVE
Sorry sweetness.
DESCHANEL
It’s gonna take a lot, maybe she should check into the institute.
KIDSGROVE
Maybe. It’s a good place. She’ll do well there if she did.
DESCHANEL
Oh yeah, sorry. I forgot you went there.
Zooey squeezes Kidsgrove’s arm and snuggles closer to him. Apologising because she brought up a sensitive subject.
KIDSGROVE
It’s OK. Contrary to popular belief, I own my past.
DESCHANEL
What do you mean?
KIDSGROVE
Well take Corey Black right?
DESCHANEL
Right.
KIDSGROVE
I know for a fact what sort of nonsense he thinks about me, he’s said it before and he’ll be out there saying it again.
DESCHANEL
I don’t follow…
KIDSGROVE
You missed it, campaigning. He is amongst the large number of people that seems to think because I was a different person years ago that I am not to be trusted, or I’m not genuine, or that I’m somehow lying.
When I stand there and say I represent the people. When I stand there and say that I’m a beacon for the millions of people that need help I mean it. When I stand there and dedicate my match to that little kid who doesn’t have time left, I mean it. When I stand there and tell a kid who’s being bullied that I am going to show him the way to stop it, damn right I mean it.
Yeah, I have done bad things in the past. I was a bad man in the past. But you know, a person can change over time. They can look at themselves and not like what they see, look for help and accept it. They can actually see a beacon themselves and walk that path. Any person can walk the path of redemption and become better. I did. I found you, it helped build me into a better man. You were my beacon and I needed help, so the man I am now is not the man from even six months ago. I am a better man, a more rounded man, a man with a purpose and a passion and want to atone for everything bad I ever did.
Anyone can change over time, anyone can grow.
Except for Corey it seems.
You see Corey, for all his talents and all his great in ring accolades has literally not changed since he turned up in Action Wrestling. Hell he hasn’t changed as far as I can tell, since he was running WCF trying to make sense out of the insanity there.
Every week he stands up and says the same old tired stuff. He goes into the ring saying he’s the king of all wrestlers, he goes into the ring with this attitude that he’s just the best thing to ever grace the wrestling business, week after week, ad nauseum. He’s basically like when Boris Johnson stood up for 6 weeks and the only thing he could say was “Get Brexit Done” like some sort of weird racist groundhog day. Or he’s like Trump who can only say “Make America Great Again” and has no other substance other than being a horrible excuse for a person.
Every week he’s there “I’m the greatest, I’m the best, I’m the king of ALL wrestlers, I am historic, I have it all with the Man Made Gods.” It’s weird, as none of it, and I mean absolutely none of it is true.
For a start, he’s not the King of All Wrestlers. If he was he would have had a title shot years ago, not as an afterthought at Clash 100 when everyone else was busy. If he was King of All Wrestlers he wouldn’t keep going to the Man Made Gods, resurrecting that group every time he finds himself with a loose end instead of retiring like he was promising way back in 2017. If he was the King of All Wrestlers, he would not be the underdog in every damn match he’s in.
DESCHANEL
Underdog?
KIDSGROVE
Yeah, underdog. Have you ever noticed that, despite the fact he’s the self proclaimed King of All wrestlers he’s always the underdog when it comes to big fights? Walter. He was a massive underdog and took him a herculean effort to win that match. Corey Bull? Also a huge underdog and took him a monumental effort to win the match. Hell, when it came to trios, they were the underdogs against the Following. It’s just how it goes with him.
This leads me to one or two conclusions.
1: He’s disingenuous and full of shit.
2: He’s not as good as he thinks he is.
Let’s deal with 1 first. He’s disingenuous and full of shit.
The evidence is there. He claims to be the King of All Wrestlers. He can back it up with an impressive win against Walter. He’s the World Champion. Right now that means that yeah, he’s the King of All Wrestlers, surely? So whenever he goes into a match being the underdog, being outfought and winning purely on surviving the other guy long enough for the three count he’s deliberately making himself an underdog. Backing up his talent in reality but making it look like he’s gonna lose at any point. This makes him disingenuous, it makes him full of shit. It makes him a phoney really. I am of the firm belief that if you say you are the best at something, you show you’re the best at something, not let yourself be ragdolled around and then elbow someone in the face with your bionic metal arm and say “Well I’m the best now”
2: He’s not as good as he thinks he is.
If he’s not a disingenuous piece of shit then he’s just not as good as he thinks he is, for much the same reason. No one who’s King of All Wrestlers goes into a match being outmatched for most of it on a regular basis. No one who’s King of All Wrestlers goes into a match as an underdog. You’re either the best or you aren’t and I don’t think he is. Yeah he had a historic Hardcore title reign. Yeah he beat Corey Bull for that and stopped him in his tracks. Yeah he is the World Champion right now and again, he beat Walter for that and stopped an epic reign, beat the beast who couldn’t be stopped. That is a fantastic achievement, I’ll give you that. But y'know. He's not the only one who’s good at ending great streaks and title reigns.
He just needs to ask his boy Baker.
Besides, his “historic” hardcore title reign? Man. Anyone could have had a reign like that. He defended the title 12 times and lost it on his 13th attempt. A great achievement! You drill down and look at the matches though? My god, some of those people he faced were the dirge of the Action Wrestling roster. You got the likes of Beau, LA Johnny Stylez, Jaice, Hot Shot Wayne Austin and Campbell Chase and Papa John’s Pizza Man.
Wow, such great names there. Such great stand up and be counted guys that lasted the test of time in Action Wrestling. Such legendary superstars he had to face. Even in the matches he did actually have some competition like Jimmy Nights, well they were perfectly well timed when I was softening him up for him on a regular basis. Literally when he came up against someone decent like QDT, who I helped retire by the way, he was undone.
That record doesn’t scream “King of All Wrestlers” to me. That screams someone who had his reign artificially padded because he was in a division where he could be King as there were really no challengers. Imagine if he was facing the likes of Howard Black on a weekly basis rather than Johnny Stylez. Would his record breaking reign be remotely on the cards? I don’t think so.
But you get your own luck in this business. I have to face legendary hall of fame wrestlers to defend my titles. He gets to face guys who turn up for a few weeks and bounce out. It’s how it goes. I’m not complaining, he’s done well to beat Walter and at the end of it all you can only beat who you face. But ya know, there are degrees to these things. I’d imagine this is why Walter ignored him for so long, at least until he whined his way into a title match at Clash 100.
I mean it had to be a lot of whining, the company took ages to give him a title shot. For the simple reason he’s nowhere near as good as he thinks he is and a padded Hardcore title reign against guys that were here for a split second was the only thing he could be proud of until now.
DESCHANEL
Wasn’t he the tag team champion as well?
KIDSGROVE
Yeah, standing on the shoulder of those he considers his brothers. I’ve been there. I know the allure of it, you ride or die together right? You face the world together, you make yourselves impenetrable and ensure you’re the big guys. It’s admirable in a way that he always has to have his little crew with him. One guy leaves and he just replaces him, it’s almost like he has to have people with him to bail him out. It’s almost like he has to have people with him so he can stand on their shoulders and make him seem much more a big deal than he actually is. It’s fine if you wanna do that but when everything is all said and done you need to make your own path in this world sometimes. You have to make your own way. You have to shine your own light at one point, not go down the same path every time something happens and just add new people. It’s not how life is.
I created my own destiny after my brothers retired. I created my own light. I created a beacon that could be seen around the globe so people could look at me and be inspired. I did all this without my brothers by my side because I believe in myself. I believe in everything I do but most of all I did this by being humble.
I’m not here stating I’m a king. I’m not here stating I’m the best in the world. I’m here saying I’m the kind of guy who just will not give up. With my light you are not just facing me, you’re facing millions of people just like me. With my platform we give little Thaddy a chance to be his dream. We give a girl in Germany a chance to stand up to her abuser and fight back. You and I Zo, we do this for a reason, we do this so we can help people fight back against the oppression in the world. To help them depose evil despot dictators that refuse to accept election results. We do this to help remove Kings and Queens who subjugate their subjects with terror. We do this to help people to rid themselves of bullies and hate. It’s not because we are virtue signalling. It’s not because we’re hiding a nefarious past or trying to atone for what we did back then. It’s because we want to make this world a better place for everyone who lives here. Anyone who says anything different? Well we’re going to have a bit of a problem.
Enough so that I’m going to climb into a ring with him and repeatedly hit him in the face because of it. Enough that I’m going to climb into the ring and say “Fuck your reputation, I’m going to beat you” to him. I don’t care who you are, what your title is or whether or not you have declared yourself the King or if you have backup. If you decide to try to undermine my destiny, if you try to degenerate the work that I do for the people of this world, then I’m afraid I can’t let that stand.
Zooey’s phone buzzes. It’s her campaign manager. She looks at Kidsgrove in hope, he smiles to be encouraging and she answers, pausing for his responses
DESCHANEL
Hi!
Good news? Great!
Aha.
Yeah.
We avoided a run off? Great news!
Oh, OK. Courts? How long will that?
OK, keep me posted. Thanks Mike!
She turns to look at Kidsgrove, sighing and resigned to a long, drawn out process.
DESCHANEL
Turns out we won, by a big margin. But the other guys are trying to overturn it in courts so now they gotta go through that whole bunch of bullshit.
KIDSGROVE
How does that even work?
DESCHANEL
Claiming fraud, claiming lack of oversight, claiming the weather isn’t right. Apparently it’s just a tactic they have now and none of that will work but we gotta go through the process right?
Do you guys have any of that over there?
KIDSGROVE
Nope. Even when we have an election that breaks all the rules of elections our Government just shrugs it off and goes with it. Even if it’s the most corrupt election in history they just shrug and say “oh well, that’s the will of the people” This is something we’ll change one day.
DESCHANEL
No court or anything?
KIDSGROVE
Oh a private citizen went to court, she and the court were vilified as enemies of the people though.
DESCHANEL
That’s terrible!
KIDSGROVE
Yeah and the Government, even though there was clear evidence of corruption and Russian interference just didn’t do anything. They carried on as if nothing happened. It’s all a bit farcical really.
In your case though, it’s the opposite. There’s no evidence of it right?
DESCHANEL
Right.
KIDSGROVE
And you didn’t do anything that I should know to rig an election right?
DESCHANEL
Right.
KIDSGROVE
So it’s simply a bunch of chancers being chancers then, let the courts sort it. It’ll be fine.
DESCHANEL
This is why I prefer your world sometimes. In wrestling it’s just so much easier. You have a dispute, you punch each other in the face. You wanna know who the best is? You have a tournament. Far more simple than this!
KIDSGROVE
Somewhat, yeah. It’s a lot easier to navigate around this business than politics. For a start, you know what you’re up against. It’s not exactly going to take you by surprise when someone like Corey Black rocks up in your ring. You know what he’s going to do, when he’s going to do it and exactly what sort of angle he’s gonna come in at. You know he’s gonna start off with some psychological warfare, then in the ring try to wear you down and grind the life out of you before he goes and hits you with that fuckin’ Solid Snake metal arm of his.
At least that’s what he says he’ll do. He talks a big game, does Mr Black. He says he’ll eviscerate you, he says he’ll tear you apart and beat you within an inch of his life before he uses the one move that works. He says he’s gonna hurt you and all that alpha male bravado bullshit that he really doesn’t believe.
What he’s actually going to do is spend 20 minutes flopping around the floor like a Ken Doll, doing his dramatic escapes with “huge heart and intestinal fortitude”, barely surviving before he hits you over the head with a fucking metal pipe. Because somehow we’re in 2020 and, just like refusing to accept you lost an election, that’s legal now.
I honestly have no idea how he can continually be able to hit someone with a metal fucking arm and the referees go “Yeah that’s fine” it makes no sense.
It’d be like me coming to the ring with an academy award and smashing someone over the head with it. If I did that, I’d be rightly disqualified.
I don’t do that though, why? Because I need to set a good example to everyone. I need to take the high road, to show the world there is another way, to show everyone that you can win and give everyone hope by being a decent human being. Not by constantly hitting people with an illegal object, not by smashing people’s skulls with a metal pipe and saying “Oh it’s fine, it’s part of my arm”
In order to do that, I need to be in there, willing to take a metal pipe to the head, willing to take the hit and get back up and win. Because that’s the key to life, that’s the key to how we do everything here. You knock us down and you better be ready for us to get back up again. Because we will, and we’ll be stronger, more united and more determined than ever to go on and win as eventually the light always defeats the darkness. That’s the way of the universe. Shadows always recede under the brightness of the lights. Darkness always goes away when the light flickers into life. No matter how thick the darkness is and how small the light is, it always, always pierces the darkness.
Much like when he finally managed to eradicate creeping death. He managed to send that darkness back into Nikki to keep it there. Why was that? Well it was because he used the light within him, the hope he found within him to extract that darkness from him. He finally found something good and pure to hold onto and give him the hope he needed to eliminate it.
The fact that was the hope of winning the world title from Walter is somewhat disturbing.
Here you have a man who’s just been a pawn in some dark force’s game. Been completely enveloped by shadow and darkness. Here you have a man who finally saw some light and hope, only for that to be a gold belt?
You are telling me that this man can fight the forces of darkness and eliminate them from his life over a trinket? I mean come on. There’s walking a path for the right reason and there’s walking one for the wrong reason. He’s going after fool’s gold there. He eliminated the darkness within him purely for the hope of obtaining glory. He exorcised the demon purely in the hope he’ll have a shiny gold belt around his waist, safe in the knowledge I guess that if he didn’t beat Walter fairly his buddies would find a way to overcome the odds. Safe in the knowledge that even beasts can go down when you have a metal pipe at their throats.
Yeah there’s something insidious about someone who finds enough hope within them due to winning personal glory. There’s something disturbing about someone who lets a thing of pure evil and darkness run their lives, only for them to suddenly get rid of it for titles. Anyone I ever inspire, anyone I have ever spoken to that expelled their own demons did it for better reasons. To make themselves better, for love, for hope of a better future, to stop their oppressors or for someone else. None of them ever followed the path for personal glory.
To only see hope when you have a trinket in front of you is heading down a dangerous path. What happens when you lose that trinket? What happens when someone like me comes along and takes it off you? What happens when Carter Shaw cashes in? Does he go back to Nikki and ask for the darkness to return? Does he follow a new path? Does he get swallowed by a new darkness? That hope, to a physical object of desire is always a tenuous one to hold. I should know, I was too invested in trinkets and gold at one point in my life and it didn’t help me achieve balance in any way. Only love did. Sure, I aim for glory now, I aim to win the Wrestler of the Year Tournament. I aim to recapture the United States title. But the glory I seek is not for me. I don’t rest all of my hope on them. I’m playing for much higher stakes than just myself. I’m the hope of millions, I am looking to win this tournament and reclaim the US title for them. I want to use those platforms for good, to show people just what they can do if they have hope. I am going to use those titles once again as a beacon for all mankind to show everyone what we’re capable of if we work together and pull in the same direction, rather than let people divide us and disrupt our lives. This Wrestler of the Year tournament for me didn’t start with Teo. It didn’t start with winning the United States title. No. This Wrestler of the Year tournament started with the kids looking to me for guidance. This tournament started when I was in the hospital and I saw the terminally ill kid at 5 years old just wanting a little hope. It started for me when I decided to give a shit.
If I’m gonna win this tournament, I’ve always known it was going to be tough. I knew that at one point I’ll have to go through Black or Walter, hell I knew I’d have to go through both truth be told. This is my first massive test. Sure Teo was a test, a worthy competitor and, with everything I put in motion for him, can find himself again. But with all due respect to Teo, despite the fact that Black isn’t as good as he thinks he is and has to cheat with a metal pipe to win, he’s still the current World Heavyweight Champion.
That, even though I don’t believe he’s the King of all Wrestlers, even though I think he’s fooling himself and standing on the shoulders of his buddies to overreach, deserves recognition and some respect. Whether or not he cheated to win it, well that’s another story. He’s our current champion and that deserves some respect. After all, even if you don’t respect the man, you respect the title.
I just hope when we dump him out of the Wrestler of the Year, he doesn’t scream shenanigans like your guy is doing. I just hope he takes the loss with decorum and moves on, rather than dragging out the whole sorry affair and making a mockery out of being a champion, that represents the people and lives a rather privileged lifestyle because of that. He should be grateful with what he has, because this could easily have been for his title.
It could easily have been for his essence, his reason for being. It could have been for his hope.
And then he’d have been in real trouble. Because I’m Sam Kidsgrove. I end title reigns for fun.
Don’t believe me? Again, just look at his boy Baker.
FADE OUT
END