Post by Johnny Rebel on May 18, 2012 20:50:43 GMT -4
“I’ve seen you do a number of ridiculous things since joining the APW but I’m going to go on record and say this one takes the cake!” Sarah says challenging Rebel. “This is easily the worst idea that you’ve ever had!”
“What? You can’t be serious!”
The back-and-forth between Sarah and Rebel draw a snicker out of Level-One in the corner of the locker room.
“We have been given the platform of a lifetime here in the APW and we’re going to waste it by sitting around and doing nothing? We have been preaching for months that we’re going to purify the APW and finally eliminate all the trash that is taking up all of our precious in-ring time? I feel like all we have been doing over the past few weeks is preaching about change and it seems like I’m the only one coming up with plans to cash in all of our promises!”
“Rebel,” Level-One chimes in, “Please listen to your girl. We have all seen you do a lot of stupid things over the past few months and they have probably cost you the Undisputed championship along the way. Starting a Sindicate sponsered wrestling school is a terrible idea.”
Rebel refuses to give in to the pressure of the two in the room and shakes his head in disagreement.
“You two are the biggest hypocrites that I have ever seen! You better believe that President Jeff isn’t sitting idly by waiting for the walls of the APW to come crashing down. He’s already dug up the bones of one team from the retirement home to try and make sure that we’re not successful at Mayhem. He’s out recruiting the best talent in the world to try and shut us down. We need to start training the next generation or else we’re going to find ourselves in the precarious situation of being outnumbered.”
“Come on, Johnny!” Sarah retorts.
“You’re getting worked up over nothing. With the Sindicate watching our back, we have this one in the bag.” Level-One assures Rebel. “I have had more run-ins with Jeff than anybody else in the APW and I know exactly how he thinks. He’s already shown his hand by reaching to bring the AKA back from the dead. He doesn’t have anything left -- this was his hail mary.”
“But what if he does have something hidden up his sleeve?” Rebel quizzes.
“You worry about winning the APW Tag-Team Championships at Mayhem and leave President Jeff’s actions to me.” Felipe DeLoren chimes in, entering the locker room with Violet hanging on his arm. “You know that we have several sets of eyes and ears on the ground and following President Jeff’s every move. We’ll always be one step ahead of him in knowing what’s coming next. If he’s courting another team outside of the APW to challenge the two of you than we’ll know about it before even he does.”
“Bologna!” Rebel shouts. “You know it’s only a matter of time before his army of followers will gather and try to shut down the Sindicate once and for all.”
Rebel’s comments bring a brief smile over Felipe’s face.
“You can’t honestly believe that he’s dumb enough to sit behind that desk unmoved while we sift through all of the talent that he’s acquired here in the APW. We have to do something and we have to do it now!”
“The plan will be revealed all in due time, Rebel,” says a flippant Felipe DeLoren.
“No!”
The room draws quiet as the one simple phrase causes all of the action in the room to stop. There was a select group of people who dared to speak up to Felipe and even fewer that lived to tell about it. Sarah steps in between Rebel and the Sindicate leader to stop him from digging an even deeper grave but her efforts are unsuccessful.
“I’m sick and tired of the wait-and-see approach that we seem to live by around here. I have been killing myself trying to advance the mission of the Sindicate and am still treated as if I’m some kind of second-rate megastar here!”
Rebel maintains an intense glare towards Felipe as Level-One slaps the bench next to him in preparation for Mr. DeLoren’s response.
“Finally!” Felipe applauds Rebel’s tirade. “It’s about time that you grew a set and came to life. The only thing I’ve heard from Level-One is how you refuse to be belittled by anyone but that’s all you have done since we brought you in the fold. Take that up and bottle it up for Mayhem!”
Felipe reaches deep in to his pockets to pull out a set of keys. He tosses them towards Rebel as he snatches them out of the air.
“However, I’m afraid that you are proving to be a little slow to catch on to the way that we do things around here. There are reasons why we don’t bring just anybody in to the fold and especially those who are wet behind the ears. We go out and find the best and the brightest to stock the cupboard and we don’t take no for an answer.”
“Then what are the keys for?” Rebel asks.
“Let’s see if you have any better luck with running your own gym than Level-One; we all know how that ended.” Felipe comments snickering at Level-One’s expense.
Rebel dropped the keys inside his bag and draped it over his shoulder before tugging at Sarah’s arm to follow behind him.
“This is the place where it’s all going to happen,” Rebel said while turning to Sarah. “The only way that I’m going to prove to the Sindicate that I can carry my own weight is by proving myself here.”
Rebel spins around to take in the empty gym.
“You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, Johnny!” Sarah says placing her hand on Rebel’s shoulder. “You could have walked away years ago from the ring and your place in history wouldn’t change. I hate for you to put all this pressure on yourself for no reason.”
“No reason?” Rebel asks pointedly to Sarah.
“I told you -- you don’t have anything to prove to anyone. You are widely regarded in the wrestling world as one of the most dangerous men to ever step inside the ring.”
Rebel chuckles at Sarah’s comments, unable to accept her compliments. He reaches inside his jacket and pulls out an index card while handing it over to her.
“What’s this?” Sarah asked.
“It’s a list of comments that I’ve received since announcing that I would be partnering with Level-One to go after the tag team championships. The entire world expects me to stand in his shadow and ride his coattails to the belts but I refuse to simple lay down and allow that to happen!”
“I don’t have any doubt that you will carry your own weight for the team. Don’t worry about the rest of the roster; let them believe what they want to believe. They aren’t worth getting worked up over!”
As soon as Sarah finishes her thoughts, the door to the gym swings open and a gaggle of APW trainees come marching towards the ring where Rebel is standing. He leans up against the ropes and scans each and every one of them.
“Welcome to the APW training center.” Rebel says with a smile across his face. “For the next twelve weeks, I’m going to do everything in my power to break your spirit. I have been in this business for over twenty years and I’ve learned what it takes to become the best. Go and get dressed and we’ll see you back here in fifteen minutes.”
Rebel shoos away the group and points them towards the locker room.
“Out of the group of twelve do you think that any of them stand a chance of making out of the beginning stages?” Rebel asks Sarah.
“I guess we’ll find out soon enough!”
Rebel stands in the middle of the ring overlooking the lined up group of students that he’ll be training over the next few weeks. He begins:
“You need to understand that this is a massive undertaking and you’re only going to out of it what you put into it. When I started my training, I was at my school four days a week, two or three hours at a time. I wrestled as many different people as I could to become comfortable with my own skills in the ring and to be able to adapt to the people that I wrestled. Once I started wrestling matches, I tried to work for as many different promoters as I could, against as many different opponents that I could just to get that experience. You’re never going to exceed if you stay within your comfort zone.”
Sarah snickers in the background at Rebel’s opening montage. He turns around and waves her to hush.
“It’s the same thing for any dream whether you want to become an actor, musician, botanist or professional wrestler. If it’s what you want to do than believe in yourself and realize that nothing worth having is easy!”
Rebel scans the lineup and points towards the middle.
“You.”
The trainee looks from right to left until he realizes that Rebel’s speaking at him.
“Yes?” He says timidly.
“What’s your name?” Rebel prods the aspiring megastar.
“My name is Chris Scarlett, Mr. Rebel, and I’m from Miami, Florida.” The young man answered back to Rebel.
“Who’s your favorite APW megastar, Chris? Don’t be ashamed to say Johnny Rebel. I’m not modest!”
“I’m a big fan of the Studmuffins, especially Armando Asante. They really know how to get the ladies!”
Scarlett turns to the trainee next to him and slaps him on the arm trying to elicit a response. The remaining members of the line try to distance themselves to try and avoid the vitriol that is coming from Rebel.
“The Studmuffins? The freakin’ Studmuffins? You have the greatest megastar in the history of the APW standing ten feet in front of you and you choose Asante and Everdeen? What is it about the Stud’s that make you think are worthwhile megastars to model yourself after?”
“I thought I’ve already answered this question: they really know how to work the ladies!” Scarlett answers Rebel. “Have you seen their latest edition of ‘Too Hot to Handle’ that aired last week? I’ll confess that before announcing my intentions to become a professional wrestler -- I had a difficult time impressing the ladies. This whole time I’ve been led astray! The key to picking up women is to attack them from every angle and go in with a buddy and then let her pick the one she wants to go home with. It’s foolproof!”
Rebel stares out with a blank expression on his face and undoubtedly with his mouth hung wide open at Chris’ fuzzy math.
“I don’t have any words,” Rebel said.
“That’s a first!” Sarah blurted out before realizing the error of her ways and covering her mouth.
“Let me get this straight…” Rebel comments. “You want to be like the Studmuffin’s because of their innate ability to fail at picking up chicks? You mean to tell me that you would bypass the fact that they haven’t had a challenger worth mentioning to their championship belts since they stole them from Warren Peace way back at Survive and Conquer?”
“You can’t doubt their sex appeal!”
Scarlett’s response draws a series of sighs and rolled eyes from the line of trainees. Rebel simply nods and moves on down the line.
“What about you?”
“My name is Darkness and I’m from parts unknown.”
Rebel mouths the name ‘Darkness’ and tries to hide his amusement at the thought of a wrestler with that specific moniker.
“Let me guess,” Rebel adds, “You’re a huge fan of Shadow and Slade Craven?”
“How’d you know?” He asks.
“What is it with you idiots? You have a two-time APW Overdrive champion standing among you and the man who single-handedly carried Kurt Noble, Blade and C.J. Gates to the match of their lives at the last RassleMania and you are focused on nobodies that the world is going to forget about in about three weeks!”
“You’re getting a little ahead of yourself,” the trainee says, “After all -- the A.K.A. was just inducted in to the APW Hall of Fame.”
“You’re talking about a team that’s enshrined in a hall of fame despite never even winning the tag-team championships! A team that is so boring inside of the ring that Jeff had to come begging the Sindicate to get involved so that he could justify putting the match on a pay-per-view.”
“I don’t think you’re being fair,” the young man strikes back.
“How am I not being fair? The only thing that they had to do was win one single match against the Studmuffins and they would have earned their way in to the tag championship match at Mayhem and they couldn’t even handle that despite several attempts. We don’t even need to go to the last main event on Overdrive when we completely destroyed them! For goodness sakes, Jeff inducted them in to the APW Hall of Fame as a tag-team and they don’t even have a winning record! No championships and a losing record seems rather suspect to me.”
Rebel continues his tirade until another one of the trainees steps forward.
“Well, I’ve come here because I don’t have anywhere else to turn,” the potential megastar announces. “My name is Kidd Riggs.”
Rebel’s taken a back to see his former tag partner stepping through the crowd.
“You’ve got to be kidding!” Rebel pipes up. “Suicidal’ Kidd Riggs! It’s been quite a long time since the two of us have shared the same ring together.”
Rebel wasn’t kidding -- it had probably been fifteen years since the two had competed together on the tag circuit. They had won numerous tag belts across the United States and Japan but were broken up when Riggs decided to hang them up. Rebel always harbored resentment towards him for leaving at the height of their popularity.
“What brings you here?” Rebel asks.
“I’m on the same mission you are. I caught the end of RassleMania and was surprised to see that you had come back to the ring and don’t let your head get any bigger but it inspired me to see if I could still hack it. I heard you were dabbling in tag-team action again and thought maybe you could use a partner.”
Rebel was torn. He was committed to the Sindicate and competing with Level-One as his partner but he had such a unique history with Riggs and the two had shared the journey together for so many years. However, Rebel wasn’t going to play his hand just yet.
“Well, folks… “ Rebel announces. “Let’s see what you got!”
We finally get to reveal the master plan that we have been working on for months. At Mayhem, the pieces will fall together and we’ll reveal the full scope of what the Sindicate has been planning since its inception.
However, I’ll confess that I’m a little offended that I even have to compete against two teams that simply don’t deserve to even be mentioned in the same breath as names like Johnny Rebel and Level-One. Jeff came and begged us to be a part of the tag championship scene because he was having a hard time even giving tickets away to the clusterfrack that was The Studmuffins vs. Shadow and Slade Craven. He knew that without the Sindicate that the match wouldn’t be worth watching and quickly begged us to come in and save the day… again.
So, now we’re matched up against two teams that have done absolutely nothing their entire stay on the APW roster.
The tag division has been an absolute mess ever since the Studmuffin’s stepped on the scene and took advantage of Warren Peace when his partner was nowhere to be found. Seriously? It took both of you to beat one man for the belts, after he had successfully defended them on his own for the previous few weeks. He didn’t take the easy way out like Organized Violence did when Shane Borderland couldn’t be bothered to show up for a match and Kash had to bring Mr. Dangerous in to action. It’s exactly why the Sindicate has been on the mission to find the best and the brightest because of pathetic excuses like the two of you that have been carrying around championships! It’s absurd and a black eye on a once proud organization like the APW. I once made it my goal to eliminate people like the two of you in the APW and once again I’ll step up to the plate to deliver on the promises I made almost a year ago.
The team would almost be deemed a worthy opponent if it wasn’t for someone like Biggs standing on the outside. Biggs has these two buying in to his delusional little plan that he’s going to make them the next big thing in the tag world and he’s quickly realizing that this was a tougher task than he was willing to admit. But what the Stud’s don’t understand is that Biggs is the obvious choice to be their manager - because he understands exactly what it’s like to watch everything around him come crashing down when he fails at keeping his championships around his waist! He couldn’t handle it when Gates stole that belt and rather than actually trying to regain what was rightfully he is, he tucked his tail between his legs and went running to whatever bush he could find safety in! It was the perfect ending to what was otherwise a fairy-tale story of a little jumping bean that somehow made it to the top of the ladder without getting squished like the bug that he is. He’ll be the perfect choice for the shoulder to cry on when we embarrass the Stud’s in their one and only defense of those belts on a pay-per-view.
And I’m sure Biggs will feed them lies that the two of us, Rebel and Level-One, are officially over the hill and since we can’t compete on the grand stage by ourselves that we have to do so together in a team to keep-up. Here’s a newsflash: the Studs collectively have been even been considered worthy of a title shot outside of their phony reign as tag champions! The reality is that if there were more than one team running around here than the two of you wouldn’t have even sniffed the belts! You were the only team sitting in the locker room and when Jeff got tired of the two of you sniffing around at one another’s underwear, he decided to throw you a bone. Congrats - you took advantage of a one-man-show and haven’t been challenged since. I hate to break the news to either one of the teams competing: it doesn’t matter.
Even if I was eighty-five years old and wheelchair bound, I’d still have Level-One push me down to the ring and teeth or no teeth, I’d bash yours in! It doesn’t matter if I have ot hop to the ring on one leg with a cane being the only thing that gets me there ala Kurt Noble, I’d still run circles around any of the four of you!
Then there is Shadow and Slade Craven.
If we’re being honest, I could think of about three hundred thousand things I’d rather do then step in the ring with either one of you, and believe me when I tell you that it isn’t because of anything you could actually do in the ring! It’s because there are literally going to be thousands of people that are sitting in the crowd this weekend that will probably spend the majority of their time on Sunday eating their own boogers that would be more deserving than you! You have fallen in to the opportunity of a lifetime and if we’re being real, I couldn’t give a rip.
If you think I’m kidding, I thought I’d come up with a few things that I’d rather be doing than bashing your head in on Sunday:
- I’d rather be Kurt Noble’s bridge partner down at the senior citizen center.
- I’d rather vote for Callahan to be president of the APW.
- I’d rather listen to a Pence Weatherlight promo.
- Finally, I’d rather watch President Jeff’s private pole dance for C.J. Gates in the APW offices.
Simply put, I don’t know how many other ways I can put it -- you don’t belong here and you certainly don’t deserve a match for the championship belts.
The ironic part of the whole ordeal is that we’re matched up with a guy named Shadow who is afraid of his own! You have tried desperately to get under my skin with your backhanded antics over the course of the last few Overdrive events but you have failed miserably. It’s going to take more than doing a little damage to the locker room or leaving a love letter stapled to the front door of my locker to make an impact here.
We have all been subjected to your temper tantrums and whine-fits for the chance to even be mentioned among the best teams in the APW. You’re nothing more than the annoying little brother that comes to the ball fields with your glove in hand and your hat turned backwards hoping that because you know a few of the kids playing that you’ll get a chance to actually get in the game. You know who I’m talking about? That kid is normally the morbidly obese one that sits in the corner and brings the peanuts to the cage to kick around when he’s forced to ride the pine. You almost feel sorry for that kid when you see him crying to his mother after the game is over that he didn’t get a chance to play. That’s exactly the way you weaseled your way in to this match! You knew that as soon as Rebel and Level-One were paired together that you weren’t ever going to get a chance to get in the game and cried until Jeff decided to take pity on you and throw you a bone!
You both need to face the facts and accept them for what they are. Both Level-One and I are committed to our mission and will do anything possible to win those belts. Meanwhile, the two of you are comfortable with simply participating in the match and hoping to pad your resume so people will quit complaining that your Hall of Fame induction wasn’t as empty as it really was. While you’re simply happy with just being apart of the match, we have something greater in mind that will ultimately last long after Level-One and Johnny Rebel have walked away from the APW.
Winning at all costs means throwing the rulebook out of the window and not thinking twice about it. Winning means pulling the tights when the referee isn’t looking, using the ropes for additional leverage or even throwing in a low blow when you have the chance. All of you can sit back and think about winning the right way or winning without having to cheat but that’s the difference between every other team and the Sindicate! We don’t care how we win -- just as long as we win! It’s one thing to claim that you’re going to win and it’s another thing to actually follow through with all those claims! We have been doing it for years and have the record to prove it… do you?
#SIMPLY
#F’N
#PUT!
“What? You can’t be serious!”
The back-and-forth between Sarah and Rebel draw a snicker out of Level-One in the corner of the locker room.
“We have been given the platform of a lifetime here in the APW and we’re going to waste it by sitting around and doing nothing? We have been preaching for months that we’re going to purify the APW and finally eliminate all the trash that is taking up all of our precious in-ring time? I feel like all we have been doing over the past few weeks is preaching about change and it seems like I’m the only one coming up with plans to cash in all of our promises!”
“Rebel,” Level-One chimes in, “Please listen to your girl. We have all seen you do a lot of stupid things over the past few months and they have probably cost you the Undisputed championship along the way. Starting a Sindicate sponsered wrestling school is a terrible idea.”
Rebel refuses to give in to the pressure of the two in the room and shakes his head in disagreement.
“You two are the biggest hypocrites that I have ever seen! You better believe that President Jeff isn’t sitting idly by waiting for the walls of the APW to come crashing down. He’s already dug up the bones of one team from the retirement home to try and make sure that we’re not successful at Mayhem. He’s out recruiting the best talent in the world to try and shut us down. We need to start training the next generation or else we’re going to find ourselves in the precarious situation of being outnumbered.”
“Come on, Johnny!” Sarah retorts.
“You’re getting worked up over nothing. With the Sindicate watching our back, we have this one in the bag.” Level-One assures Rebel. “I have had more run-ins with Jeff than anybody else in the APW and I know exactly how he thinks. He’s already shown his hand by reaching to bring the AKA back from the dead. He doesn’t have anything left -- this was his hail mary.”
“But what if he does have something hidden up his sleeve?” Rebel quizzes.
“You worry about winning the APW Tag-Team Championships at Mayhem and leave President Jeff’s actions to me.” Felipe DeLoren chimes in, entering the locker room with Violet hanging on his arm. “You know that we have several sets of eyes and ears on the ground and following President Jeff’s every move. We’ll always be one step ahead of him in knowing what’s coming next. If he’s courting another team outside of the APW to challenge the two of you than we’ll know about it before even he does.”
“Bologna!” Rebel shouts. “You know it’s only a matter of time before his army of followers will gather and try to shut down the Sindicate once and for all.”
Rebel’s comments bring a brief smile over Felipe’s face.
“You can’t honestly believe that he’s dumb enough to sit behind that desk unmoved while we sift through all of the talent that he’s acquired here in the APW. We have to do something and we have to do it now!”
“The plan will be revealed all in due time, Rebel,” says a flippant Felipe DeLoren.
“No!”
The room draws quiet as the one simple phrase causes all of the action in the room to stop. There was a select group of people who dared to speak up to Felipe and even fewer that lived to tell about it. Sarah steps in between Rebel and the Sindicate leader to stop him from digging an even deeper grave but her efforts are unsuccessful.
“I’m sick and tired of the wait-and-see approach that we seem to live by around here. I have been killing myself trying to advance the mission of the Sindicate and am still treated as if I’m some kind of second-rate megastar here!”
Rebel maintains an intense glare towards Felipe as Level-One slaps the bench next to him in preparation for Mr. DeLoren’s response.
“Finally!” Felipe applauds Rebel’s tirade. “It’s about time that you grew a set and came to life. The only thing I’ve heard from Level-One is how you refuse to be belittled by anyone but that’s all you have done since we brought you in the fold. Take that up and bottle it up for Mayhem!”
Felipe reaches deep in to his pockets to pull out a set of keys. He tosses them towards Rebel as he snatches them out of the air.
“However, I’m afraid that you are proving to be a little slow to catch on to the way that we do things around here. There are reasons why we don’t bring just anybody in to the fold and especially those who are wet behind the ears. We go out and find the best and the brightest to stock the cupboard and we don’t take no for an answer.”
“Then what are the keys for?” Rebel asks.
“Let’s see if you have any better luck with running your own gym than Level-One; we all know how that ended.” Felipe comments snickering at Level-One’s expense.
Rebel dropped the keys inside his bag and draped it over his shoulder before tugging at Sarah’s arm to follow behind him.
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“This is the place where it’s all going to happen,” Rebel said while turning to Sarah. “The only way that I’m going to prove to the Sindicate that I can carry my own weight is by proving myself here.”
Rebel spins around to take in the empty gym.
“You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, Johnny!” Sarah says placing her hand on Rebel’s shoulder. “You could have walked away years ago from the ring and your place in history wouldn’t change. I hate for you to put all this pressure on yourself for no reason.”
“No reason?” Rebel asks pointedly to Sarah.
“I told you -- you don’t have anything to prove to anyone. You are widely regarded in the wrestling world as one of the most dangerous men to ever step inside the ring.”
Rebel chuckles at Sarah’s comments, unable to accept her compliments. He reaches inside his jacket and pulls out an index card while handing it over to her.
“What’s this?” Sarah asked.
“It’s a list of comments that I’ve received since announcing that I would be partnering with Level-One to go after the tag team championships. The entire world expects me to stand in his shadow and ride his coattails to the belts but I refuse to simple lay down and allow that to happen!”
“I don’t have any doubt that you will carry your own weight for the team. Don’t worry about the rest of the roster; let them believe what they want to believe. They aren’t worth getting worked up over!”
As soon as Sarah finishes her thoughts, the door to the gym swings open and a gaggle of APW trainees come marching towards the ring where Rebel is standing. He leans up against the ropes and scans each and every one of them.
“Welcome to the APW training center.” Rebel says with a smile across his face. “For the next twelve weeks, I’m going to do everything in my power to break your spirit. I have been in this business for over twenty years and I’ve learned what it takes to become the best. Go and get dressed and we’ll see you back here in fifteen minutes.”
Rebel shoos away the group and points them towards the locker room.
“Out of the group of twelve do you think that any of them stand a chance of making out of the beginning stages?” Rebel asks Sarah.
“I guess we’ll find out soon enough!”
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Rebel stands in the middle of the ring overlooking the lined up group of students that he’ll be training over the next few weeks. He begins:
“You need to understand that this is a massive undertaking and you’re only going to out of it what you put into it. When I started my training, I was at my school four days a week, two or three hours at a time. I wrestled as many different people as I could to become comfortable with my own skills in the ring and to be able to adapt to the people that I wrestled. Once I started wrestling matches, I tried to work for as many different promoters as I could, against as many different opponents that I could just to get that experience. You’re never going to exceed if you stay within your comfort zone.”
Sarah snickers in the background at Rebel’s opening montage. He turns around and waves her to hush.
“It’s the same thing for any dream whether you want to become an actor, musician, botanist or professional wrestler. If it’s what you want to do than believe in yourself and realize that nothing worth having is easy!”
Rebel scans the lineup and points towards the middle.
“You.”
The trainee looks from right to left until he realizes that Rebel’s speaking at him.
“Yes?” He says timidly.
“What’s your name?” Rebel prods the aspiring megastar.
“My name is Chris Scarlett, Mr. Rebel, and I’m from Miami, Florida.” The young man answered back to Rebel.
“Who’s your favorite APW megastar, Chris? Don’t be ashamed to say Johnny Rebel. I’m not modest!”
“I’m a big fan of the Studmuffins, especially Armando Asante. They really know how to get the ladies!”
Scarlett turns to the trainee next to him and slaps him on the arm trying to elicit a response. The remaining members of the line try to distance themselves to try and avoid the vitriol that is coming from Rebel.
“The Studmuffins? The freakin’ Studmuffins? You have the greatest megastar in the history of the APW standing ten feet in front of you and you choose Asante and Everdeen? What is it about the Stud’s that make you think are worthwhile megastars to model yourself after?”
“I thought I’ve already answered this question: they really know how to work the ladies!” Scarlett answers Rebel. “Have you seen their latest edition of ‘Too Hot to Handle’ that aired last week? I’ll confess that before announcing my intentions to become a professional wrestler -- I had a difficult time impressing the ladies. This whole time I’ve been led astray! The key to picking up women is to attack them from every angle and go in with a buddy and then let her pick the one she wants to go home with. It’s foolproof!”
Rebel stares out with a blank expression on his face and undoubtedly with his mouth hung wide open at Chris’ fuzzy math.
“I don’t have any words,” Rebel said.
“That’s a first!” Sarah blurted out before realizing the error of her ways and covering her mouth.
“Let me get this straight…” Rebel comments. “You want to be like the Studmuffin’s because of their innate ability to fail at picking up chicks? You mean to tell me that you would bypass the fact that they haven’t had a challenger worth mentioning to their championship belts since they stole them from Warren Peace way back at Survive and Conquer?”
“You can’t doubt their sex appeal!”
Scarlett’s response draws a series of sighs and rolled eyes from the line of trainees. Rebel simply nods and moves on down the line.
“What about you?”
“My name is Darkness and I’m from parts unknown.”
Rebel mouths the name ‘Darkness’ and tries to hide his amusement at the thought of a wrestler with that specific moniker.
“Let me guess,” Rebel adds, “You’re a huge fan of Shadow and Slade Craven?”
“How’d you know?” He asks.
“What is it with you idiots? You have a two-time APW Overdrive champion standing among you and the man who single-handedly carried Kurt Noble, Blade and C.J. Gates to the match of their lives at the last RassleMania and you are focused on nobodies that the world is going to forget about in about three weeks!”
“You’re getting a little ahead of yourself,” the trainee says, “After all -- the A.K.A. was just inducted in to the APW Hall of Fame.”
“You’re talking about a team that’s enshrined in a hall of fame despite never even winning the tag-team championships! A team that is so boring inside of the ring that Jeff had to come begging the Sindicate to get involved so that he could justify putting the match on a pay-per-view.”
“I don’t think you’re being fair,” the young man strikes back.
“How am I not being fair? The only thing that they had to do was win one single match against the Studmuffins and they would have earned their way in to the tag championship match at Mayhem and they couldn’t even handle that despite several attempts. We don’t even need to go to the last main event on Overdrive when we completely destroyed them! For goodness sakes, Jeff inducted them in to the APW Hall of Fame as a tag-team and they don’t even have a winning record! No championships and a losing record seems rather suspect to me.”
Rebel continues his tirade until another one of the trainees steps forward.
“Well, I’ve come here because I don’t have anywhere else to turn,” the potential megastar announces. “My name is Kidd Riggs.”
Rebel’s taken a back to see his former tag partner stepping through the crowd.
“You’ve got to be kidding!” Rebel pipes up. “Suicidal’ Kidd Riggs! It’s been quite a long time since the two of us have shared the same ring together.”
Rebel wasn’t kidding -- it had probably been fifteen years since the two had competed together on the tag circuit. They had won numerous tag belts across the United States and Japan but were broken up when Riggs decided to hang them up. Rebel always harbored resentment towards him for leaving at the height of their popularity.
“What brings you here?” Rebel asks.
“I’m on the same mission you are. I caught the end of RassleMania and was surprised to see that you had come back to the ring and don’t let your head get any bigger but it inspired me to see if I could still hack it. I heard you were dabbling in tag-team action again and thought maybe you could use a partner.”
Rebel was torn. He was committed to the Sindicate and competing with Level-One as his partner but he had such a unique history with Riggs and the two had shared the journey together for so many years. However, Rebel wasn’t going to play his hand just yet.
“Well, folks… “ Rebel announces. “Let’s see what you got!”
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We finally get to reveal the master plan that we have been working on for months. At Mayhem, the pieces will fall together and we’ll reveal the full scope of what the Sindicate has been planning since its inception.
However, I’ll confess that I’m a little offended that I even have to compete against two teams that simply don’t deserve to even be mentioned in the same breath as names like Johnny Rebel and Level-One. Jeff came and begged us to be a part of the tag championship scene because he was having a hard time even giving tickets away to the clusterfrack that was The Studmuffins vs. Shadow and Slade Craven. He knew that without the Sindicate that the match wouldn’t be worth watching and quickly begged us to come in and save the day… again.
So, now we’re matched up against two teams that have done absolutely nothing their entire stay on the APW roster.
The tag division has been an absolute mess ever since the Studmuffin’s stepped on the scene and took advantage of Warren Peace when his partner was nowhere to be found. Seriously? It took both of you to beat one man for the belts, after he had successfully defended them on his own for the previous few weeks. He didn’t take the easy way out like Organized Violence did when Shane Borderland couldn’t be bothered to show up for a match and Kash had to bring Mr. Dangerous in to action. It’s exactly why the Sindicate has been on the mission to find the best and the brightest because of pathetic excuses like the two of you that have been carrying around championships! It’s absurd and a black eye on a once proud organization like the APW. I once made it my goal to eliminate people like the two of you in the APW and once again I’ll step up to the plate to deliver on the promises I made almost a year ago.
The team would almost be deemed a worthy opponent if it wasn’t for someone like Biggs standing on the outside. Biggs has these two buying in to his delusional little plan that he’s going to make them the next big thing in the tag world and he’s quickly realizing that this was a tougher task than he was willing to admit. But what the Stud’s don’t understand is that Biggs is the obvious choice to be their manager - because he understands exactly what it’s like to watch everything around him come crashing down when he fails at keeping his championships around his waist! He couldn’t handle it when Gates stole that belt and rather than actually trying to regain what was rightfully he is, he tucked his tail between his legs and went running to whatever bush he could find safety in! It was the perfect ending to what was otherwise a fairy-tale story of a little jumping bean that somehow made it to the top of the ladder without getting squished like the bug that he is. He’ll be the perfect choice for the shoulder to cry on when we embarrass the Stud’s in their one and only defense of those belts on a pay-per-view.
And I’m sure Biggs will feed them lies that the two of us, Rebel and Level-One, are officially over the hill and since we can’t compete on the grand stage by ourselves that we have to do so together in a team to keep-up. Here’s a newsflash: the Studs collectively have been even been considered worthy of a title shot outside of their phony reign as tag champions! The reality is that if there were more than one team running around here than the two of you wouldn’t have even sniffed the belts! You were the only team sitting in the locker room and when Jeff got tired of the two of you sniffing around at one another’s underwear, he decided to throw you a bone. Congrats - you took advantage of a one-man-show and haven’t been challenged since. I hate to break the news to either one of the teams competing: it doesn’t matter.
Even if I was eighty-five years old and wheelchair bound, I’d still have Level-One push me down to the ring and teeth or no teeth, I’d bash yours in! It doesn’t matter if I have ot hop to the ring on one leg with a cane being the only thing that gets me there ala Kurt Noble, I’d still run circles around any of the four of you!
Then there is Shadow and Slade Craven.
If we’re being honest, I could think of about three hundred thousand things I’d rather do then step in the ring with either one of you, and believe me when I tell you that it isn’t because of anything you could actually do in the ring! It’s because there are literally going to be thousands of people that are sitting in the crowd this weekend that will probably spend the majority of their time on Sunday eating their own boogers that would be more deserving than you! You have fallen in to the opportunity of a lifetime and if we’re being real, I couldn’t give a rip.
If you think I’m kidding, I thought I’d come up with a few things that I’d rather be doing than bashing your head in on Sunday:
- I’d rather be Kurt Noble’s bridge partner down at the senior citizen center.
- I’d rather vote for Callahan to be president of the APW.
- I’d rather listen to a Pence Weatherlight promo.
- Finally, I’d rather watch President Jeff’s private pole dance for C.J. Gates in the APW offices.
Simply put, I don’t know how many other ways I can put it -- you don’t belong here and you certainly don’t deserve a match for the championship belts.
The ironic part of the whole ordeal is that we’re matched up with a guy named Shadow who is afraid of his own! You have tried desperately to get under my skin with your backhanded antics over the course of the last few Overdrive events but you have failed miserably. It’s going to take more than doing a little damage to the locker room or leaving a love letter stapled to the front door of my locker to make an impact here.
We have all been subjected to your temper tantrums and whine-fits for the chance to even be mentioned among the best teams in the APW. You’re nothing more than the annoying little brother that comes to the ball fields with your glove in hand and your hat turned backwards hoping that because you know a few of the kids playing that you’ll get a chance to actually get in the game. You know who I’m talking about? That kid is normally the morbidly obese one that sits in the corner and brings the peanuts to the cage to kick around when he’s forced to ride the pine. You almost feel sorry for that kid when you see him crying to his mother after the game is over that he didn’t get a chance to play. That’s exactly the way you weaseled your way in to this match! You knew that as soon as Rebel and Level-One were paired together that you weren’t ever going to get a chance to get in the game and cried until Jeff decided to take pity on you and throw you a bone!
You both need to face the facts and accept them for what they are. Both Level-One and I are committed to our mission and will do anything possible to win those belts. Meanwhile, the two of you are comfortable with simply participating in the match and hoping to pad your resume so people will quit complaining that your Hall of Fame induction wasn’t as empty as it really was. While you’re simply happy with just being apart of the match, we have something greater in mind that will ultimately last long after Level-One and Johnny Rebel have walked away from the APW.
Winning at all costs means throwing the rulebook out of the window and not thinking twice about it. Winning means pulling the tights when the referee isn’t looking, using the ropes for additional leverage or even throwing in a low blow when you have the chance. All of you can sit back and think about winning the right way or winning without having to cheat but that’s the difference between every other team and the Sindicate! We don’t care how we win -- just as long as we win! It’s one thing to claim that you’re going to win and it’s another thing to actually follow through with all those claims! We have been doing it for years and have the record to prove it… do you?
#SIMPLY
#F’N
#PUT!
