Verses the World: The "GOAT"
Jun 19, 2021 17:14:33 GMT -5
Shadowlove, CJ Phoenix, and 7 more like this
Post by 𝗖𝗢𝗥𝗘𝗬 𝗕𝗟𝗔𝗖𝗞 on Jun 19, 2021 17:14:33 GMT -5
Lightning spreads across the sky like broken glass, taking the path of least resistance. Moments later, thunder booms over the land, sending the small fishing village scurrying to secure their outside items. Cloth covering vendor posts, fishing poles, books and everything else being sold is quickly being put away as the raindrops begin falling. Sporadic at first, but then quickly becoming a full blown storm.
Winds whip the rain against all the homes and buildings down in the village, the waves of the sea swell and crash into the shore. Up the cliff that forms one side of the village, at the top sits the castle which serves as outlook and home for the King.. King of All Wrestlers.
Rain pelts the stone walls and stained glass windows but inside, everything is calm. With a storm raging on around him, Corey Black sits at his dinner table. It's long, seating for more than twenty, but at the head of it he sits. His chair lavish, gold trimmed purple velvet. And yet, his hair floats up just a bit. As if a small breeze has lifted a couple of strands. He looks to his left, one of the windows is cracked. A bit of wind is coming in as well as some water from the accumulating rain on the walls.
He looks at it, the crack in the armor. A now bleeding wound in his stone stronghold. He stands, taking a few steps over and reaches out - closing the window. Sealing up the gap. Content, Black walks back to his chair and sits down. Moments go by but the stained glass window tells a different story. Multiple white flashes, then calm, then a yellow orange glow emanates from the outdoors. Black has hardly moved, hands in front of his face, elbows on the table, fingers outstretched right in front of his face and forming a platform for him to rest his chin on. Deep in thought, reflection, whatever it is, it was a long haul. His eyes bloodshot and his breathing steady.
To his right, through the doorway and into the landing or foyer, the area right behind the front door, a sound is heard. Steps down the stairs, light but still audible. Black turns his head to see the blonde hair turn and go by the door, heading to another part of the castle. He smiles, then finally stands up and stretches his legs. Taylor comes back wearing a light jacket and carrying an umbrella.
"Didn't realize you woke up before I did! Come on, we're gonna be late to the fair!" she says, seemingly super excited.
"Oh, shit, right. Okay," responds Corey, quickly slipping black Chucks on and grabbing a black zip up hoodie on the way out the door. They walk stride for stride down the trail to the village below, everything back out and set up from the storm the night before. Now, though, there's strings of colored triangles spanning roof to roof and performers roaming about. Corey spots a vendor and plunks down some money for a hunk of meat on a stick. People are blowing fire around, doing acrobatics, musicians and everything else in this small little village.
The largest congregation of people is near the stage at village center, where the wise old man is taking seat. he hushes the crowd that has gathered. "On this day, we celebrate Solstice. The midnight sun will burn tonight, and this day marked a bloody one to our Gods.
Thor, a drunken fool, grew bored with battling the usual regimen of frost giants and demons from Muspelheim, unlike the other Aesir. As long as Asgard was safe, the Aesir were content. But not Thor. When he drank, barrels of mead at a time, he would tell stories of great battles beyond to anyone that would listen. Asgardian pubs became Thor's refuge from the other Gods, believing himself the most powerful, even more so than Asgard's Champion - Odin.
Eventually, Thor's word crossed the ears of a Vanir. Also Gods, but much less accepted than the Aesir, the vanir Gullveig overheard Thor's braggadocios ways of speaking, and having already been thrice killed by the Aesir, Gullveig spoke up. She said that the Vanir weren't war Gods, but Gods of love, fertility and wealth. Yet still, when Ragnarok comes, Thor would be killed and the Vanir would remain.
Thor, angered with the seer, swallowed the rest of his mead and grabbed his hammer - to Vanaheim he marched, hundreds of warriors and valkyrie behind him. Upon reaching Vanaheim, Thor led his army to the gates and was stopped. The Vanir, a mystical people, created a gate that would halt anyone coming into their home unless invited. As Thor beat on the invisible barrier with Mjolnir, Gullveig appeared on the other side.
A proposition was afforded. Thor would not cause any bloodshed on Vanaheim, but he would go back to Asgard and prepare for war as the Vanir were blessing him with an early demise.
Thor, ever the proud, laughed loud enough for the Nine Realms to hear. He returned to Asgard, ready to battle new foes. When the Vanir arrived, Thor's might was too much for even those Gods as he took name after name before Odin himself stepped in and put an end to the bloodshed.
Odin cursed Thor's hubris, but Thor pointed at the bodies laying in his wake. Glorious battle was had, the Vanir were crippled and Odin had a new wife in the Vanir named Freya."
The old man stands up from the stool on the stage and looks up to the sky. "Our world here is small, beyond our walls lies a vast land that we have never even seen. The unknown. It is attractive, but it is also dangerous. What we have here, in this village, is a simple life. Free from conflict, free from disease and free from tyrants. Thor wanted to test himself against the Vanir, and while he was successful, the door to Asgard was forever open for invaders."
Looking back down at the crowd, specifically Corey Black; the old man finishes. "Beware those whom you provoke."
Corey nods, grabbing Taylor by the hand and pulling her into a twirl and dancing through the dirt streets of the village. They spin and move to the music for a short time until a truck pulls up. Two men get out, confused.
"Yeah, is this the Northern tip of Tromso?" asks one of the men, a few people around nodding. "There's no civilization marked on any map I have," he says, everyone around him shrugging.
"We've been here since time began," the old man says, using his cane to walk up to the man. "And whatever it is you want, you best be turning back and finding it elsewhere."
"We're hunting giant tuna, got a tip there was a big pod up in these parts," the truck driver says, brandishing a knife, "just one could set us up for a year."
The old man looks at the blade and then back up to the driver. "Pitiful."
One swing of the cane into the guy's hand sends the knife flying and every male within earshot rushes in, even Corey. The guys high tail it back to their truck, slamming the doors just in time but Corey dives over the hood and drives his elbow through the windshield, rolling off before the truck starts up and they flee very heavy footed. Everyone nods to each other, some hand shaking, but the old man is angered. He storms off, leaving everyone else to celebrate.
"That's enough excitement for me," says Taylor, grasping Corey's hand and tugging him away from the fair. A few steps in, though, Corey bends down and grabs the foreign knife, concealing it in his waistband. They make the journey back up the cliff to the castle, upon entering Corey heads right back for his chair at the table. He assumes the same position as before, only this time he holds the truck driver's knife in his hand, looking down at it. On the handle, a metalworking of a bird with outstretched wings. Light footsteps up the stairs fade, leaving Corey alone with the blade. He stands up, heading over to the wall where his replica championship belts and awards are. With his elbow, Corey presses on the wall and a small section of it opens, he steps in and closes it behind him, again becoming flush with the rest of the wall.
Inside it is dark, but one by one a dozen television screens come on, lighting the place gently with a low glow. Corey Black can be seen, barely, but the glint of light off the knife is unmistakable. He holds it in his hand, raises it above his hand and slams it blade first through the small table in front of him. It is then when screen after screen turns fades from black to a different photo of James Raven.
"The world, our world, it's a funny place, isn't it? Billions of people, spread out across various landscapes just trying to get from one day to another. Some go to space, some sell food on the street and some walk to a ring to do battle.
We're professional wrestlers, our chosen craft isn't for the faint of heart. Any given night we could be injured, crippled or even killed. Our life is literally on the line night in and night out. Some do it for the fame, some the fortune but the few - the small minority wrestle because without that competition, without the gladiatorial combat inside the sacred squared circle, life just doesn't have much else to offer.
That's the wrestler I am. I don't seek fame, I don't go for the biggest contract offered to me, I don't buck management and I don't make demands.
I let my wrestling do my talking.
It almost seems like a foreign concept in the age we live in now. Getting into the ring almost seems secondary to the number of followers you have on social media. People spend more time on Twitter than they do training for upcoming matches. Companies publicly having bidding wars to get their next main event player.
As soon as I dipped my toe into the ocean, eight sharks were circling. I'm well aware other wrestling outfits exist, but other wrestling outfits aren't aware of The King of All Wrestlers. I get it, everyone has that home field mentality where it doesn't matter how good or bad, where you're at is the best place to be - because you're there.
This isn't about Action Wrestling. My journey to fight wrestlers far and wide has nothing to do with home field, proving AW's superiority over others.
As much as he doesn't want to believe it, this match isn't even about James Raven. For the first time in his life, while he is the collective's center of attention, this story isn't his.
This is about one man and his quest to take the crown on his head and engage in glorious war with the rest of the world. A world that he has shunned and never opened his heart to. But a world that is rife with detractors and deniers."
Corey grabs the knife out of the table and admires the handiwork. but runs his fingers over the metal raven built into the handle. He runs his thumb along the edge, causing just a small amount of blood to form as his skin is split open.
"James Raven is one of those men. Beyond the pearly white smile and clever quips lies a soul unfulfilled. How; you ask, with all these accomplishments and all this - status. He owns a lingerie football team, a gym, a production company, has a beautiful, loving girlfriend and a son to carry on the name - more Hall of Fame inductions than most people have championship wins and enough of that very championship gold to fill three castles. He's ran wrestling companies, he's general managed for companies but the one thing James Raven doesn't have that I do?
A home.
A place to do what I love to do. James Raven doesn't love wrestling, he loves the truckload of money Action Wrestling dropped off at his desk to come fight me. He loves the companies that will drop everything to have him in their main events. I'm not saying he's not worth the investment, I'm saying if it mattered enough he'd have done it for the duffel bag I'll get.
That's not spite, that's reality. See, at the end of this I won't have to worry about what is next for me. James won't either, he has every wrestling promotion in the land - well, ones he hasn't already hit eject on - reaching for his member and all he has to do is shoot a glance their way to open their checkbooks.
None are a home, James is a nomad. A journeyman traveler, not an impossible one, but a guy with a list of names longer than Lissie Hope. I've been here, in this lineage of companies since before Raven's balls dropped and his voice sounded like Elmo. By his debut in 2007, I was already the greatest to ever grace the ring. While he was on the basketball court, I was creating a court in my Kingdom."
The televisions fade to six shots of James Raven playing high school basketball, and six photos of Corey Black in 2007 - holding titles, Burning Hammer on various men. They then slow fade back to the same photo of James, smiling twelve times over, each screen a different size but displaying the same image.
"So why would a man that has a home, has an established base want to branch out and fight people from outside? Why bring in other names when there's names within Action Wrestling that still need crossed off? Iron sharpens iron, simply put. I don't need the extra attention from the greatest wrestling community put on me, I don't crave it like others do. The eyes on this match watching James Raven does nothing for me. He's the only person I care about in this. The People's GOAT, greatest of all time. Self proclaimed or otherwise, he's lived up to the moniker for a long time now, even when he left for five years to become a worldwide celebrity and businessman. Since coming back to the ring, and before leaving, everywhere he goes, he racks up winning streaks and an impressive win - loss records to prove it.
Two years ago I destroyed a man that claimed the very same things. Jaice Wilds ran his mouth endlessly about how nobody was better, nobody could beat him and I broke that man into a million pieces. He still hasn't recovered. I did it because it was a prideful venture. I decided to stay, and I stayed from the bottom. James Raven wouldn't come into a place and wrestle someone like L Verez three times without even a contract. He wouldn't put two men on his back and help them to achieve the greatness they were destined for. He wouldn't boost the stock of men like James Nightingale, Downfall, Graham Baker or Carter Shaw because to him, they're below him. They're no named wrestlers in a company he has never been in, and as such, they're not worth his time.
I am that man. I've carried this lineage for twenty years. Never once having to 'start over' and be the brand new toy. On my ONE excursion, I started at the bottom. My name proceeded me but I didn't let that be my defining trait. I earned every title I won. Every battle with the unknown was exhilarating, win or lose. It's been nearly five years since my name was associated with anyone but WCF, APW and Action Wrestling.
In that time, James Raven has racked up so many contracts. This guy is out here getting newcomer of the month awards and still calling himself a legend. A man who, in his eyes, has taken on the best and beat them all. That's why it had to be him. I could spit off about how there's a dime a dozen James Ravens out there, countless wrestlers that lie through their face saying they've defeated the top echelon this sport has to offer. Nobody ever believes them, because in the eyes of the world, only one man can say that. Anyone else is a poser, a liar, a fraud.
When James Raven says he is the greatest of all time, everyone believes him.
And that's why he has to be the first."
Eleven of the screens fade to black, just leaving the one with Raven's face on it. Corey turns and plunges the blade deep into the television, sending sparks flying and cutting a wide hole. Corey lets out an exasperated breath, sucking in as much oxygen through his nose as he can and exhaling all at once through his mouth. His eyes almost rolling into the back of his head, he regains composure and the eleven remaining screens fade from black back to various shots of James Raven.
"You've come across plenty of kings in your time. King of Las Vegas, the King of Project Honor, the Suicide Kings.. but James, ask yourself one thing. Ask those you love most one simple thing. Gather Betsy, Tyler, Shawn.. hell even get Mia on the line and consult them when you ask; 'what happens when Corey Black takes my head off?' Look them all in the eye and tell them it was worth it. You can buy an entire neighborhood with what you were paid but you aren't going to be able to enjoy it. You're going to leave Evolution a broken man. Whether you walk out on your own power or not, your ego - your entire being - will be fractured when I, a man you and your circle haven't even heard of - demolishes the internet's favorite wrestler.
And it's all because you're a professional vagabond with a chip on your banged up shoulder. Wandering the plane getting your dick sucked by company after company and discarding them the second you feel even a little bit of complacency. To the mass, you're a hero. Gracing them with your presence and feigning comradery.
To me, you're nothing but a whore. You sell yourself time and time again for instant gratification and monetary gain. A year here, a year there, the shine wears off and it's off to greener pastures. Get your rocks off and get out of dodge, there's always another john, always another company.
A whore could never be the greatest. You're a bottom feeder, collecting seed and using it to boost your celebrity. Behind out outward appearance, your confidence and your North American Dream existence on the screens lies a disheveled, cowering little bitch who has never in his 'picture perfect' life ever been challenged the way I will challenge you at Evolution.
You don't know what you're getting into, and that - James - is the most telling aspect. Before you said yes to the down payment, Action Wrestling was just another in a long line of places that wanted James Raven on their card. They knew it had to be you and I, one on one, I demanded it. All the homework you can do will never prepare you for what I am going to do to you, James. Use your payday to ask around and solicit advice, everyone here will tell you the same thing.. you're walking into a match with a man that has no weaknesses. No lingering injuries, my eye is healed, my elbow is fine but the right side of your body, James.. how are your knee and elbow doing? Hopefully your shoulder isn't giving you problems either. It would be a shame if someone with such surgical accuracy knew about those weak points in your stature. A guy that has trained in even more combat styles than you, with your jiu-jitsu and submissions.. nothing you can do will save you. You can't out pace me, you can't out wrestle me, you cannot withstand the punishment I can dish out.
Since debuting in Action Wrestling, the actual top of the game, I've been pinned by three people. Three. I don't say it to brag, I say it to make you sit down, James. I've done exactly what you have done at the higher level, with the better talent, on the bigger stage, for longer. Put a shirt on and open your baby blue eyes. Look around you, where you're at now and where you'll be in a week's time. The difference is going to shake you to your core. You're going to find out what everyone here has known for twenty whole years. Two whole decades, James.
Corey Black IS the King of All Wrestlers.
Every single wrestler. Inside Action Wrestling, outside Action Wrestling, across the entire galaxy.
You're the first head on my pike. A warning shot fired. I'll take your Legacy as a trophy and display it at the gates of my castle to ward off any others out there thinking about coming for my crown.
When it's me verses the World, I expect the best. I DEMAND the best.
The World told me it was you.
Right now James, you feel the weight of a martyr. You can come into my kingdom and sacrifice me at my own altar, on the biggest show we've ever had. A midnight sun burning through the night, you standing there reaching the flame.. but it will be I who stands in the light.
Win and you get to take the money and run. Lose.. lose, James, and you'll have hopefully given me the fight I have been dying to have. That's it. I won't take this to Twitter and run your name through the mud, calling you a fraud and a fake. I've done that enough here, whomever watches this will take notice - but those who care to see the result will only see that.
Because I don't need the stupid clout, James. Your secret will be safe with me. Unfortunately, I can't control how many people see this. If it were up to me, we'd do it right here, no eyes, no money, just two men that say they're the best and finding out who it really is.
All I need is a good fight.
So stand next to me in paradise. Inside the ring I built, with tens of thousands around us because otherwise, it's a useless venture for you, watching with baited breath to see who truly is the best of us. That's why you do it.
That's why I am going to beat you. Because the reason why I wanted this is written in every edda from now all the way back to when the tree Yggdrasil was just sprouting roots.
Dying in battle will grant me passage to Valhalla on the wings of a beautiful Valkyrie. I will sit at Odin's table and feast until Ragnarok.
There isn't a soul in Action Wrestling that will be able to grant me this, James.
That is why the World is coming to me. The World is filled with people that would love to get paid to show up once and fight this guy that claims he's the best, they'd love to come into a man's home and tip his table over. Step on his crown and go right back to Twitter to tell their buddies how cool they are.
James, you're here to fight a true legend. Nothing more, nothing less. To challenge me and at the end of this match, when you're broken and bloody, I just want one thing from you."
Corey grabs the knife from the broken and stabbed screen, placing it on the table.
"Shout from your rooftop, tell the world I am the KING of ALL WRESTLERS - SAY MY FUCKING NAME."