Post by A.C. Smith on Oct 23, 2012 22:53:35 GMT -4
While night falls over much of the continental United States, it’s a bright, sunshiny day in Japan, where our scene opens on the hustle and bustle of Tokyo’s streets. In the midst of the cars with beeping horns and the bystanders navigating down the city’s sidewalks is the majestic Peninsula Tokyo hotel, which contains some of the most luxurious accommodations not just in the city, but the Land of the Rising Sun as a whole.
A black limo buzzes to the front of the building, and the driver steps out to open the door as a bellhop goes to the trunk to take bags out of the vehicle. Three men step out into the Tokyo sun, first Bobby the Bavarian Man-Bitch and Stevie the Slovakian Slobberknocker, then the Big Apple Asskicker, A.C. Smith.
All three look plenty disheveled after nearly a full day of traveling from New York City. Smith, in particular, looks like he could use a comfortable bed and a massage as he reaches into his back pocket to tip the bellhop.
Bellhop: (in Japanese accent) “Greetings. Welcome to the Tokyo Peninsula Hotel. Will you be heading to your rooms?”
Bobby: “You bet. Whose idea was it to put me next to the screaming baby?”
Stevie: “Did you see the guy sitting next to me? You’d need a crane to move him. A.C., what are we doing?”
A.C.: “You guys do your thing and try not to get arrested. I’ve got a trip I need to make. I may not be back today or tomorrow. Just don’t do anything stupid, alright?”
Smith puts a roll of bills into the bellhop’s jacket pocket, and turns around to hail a cab. Bobby and Stevie are surprised at this development, and even Smith is somewhat reluctant to turn away his luxury accommodations, even for what could just be a few hours.
Bobby: “Wait, where are you going?”
A.C.: “Don’t worry. You wouldn’t understand why I’m going there.”
A cab pulls up, and Smith gets in before rolling the window down.
A.C.: “Sayonara, boys.”
Bobby and Stevie look at each other before spotting a piece of paper on the ground. Bobby picks it up, and the two men read it silently before looking at each other simultaneously.
Stevie: “We’re going to follow him there like some creepy tourists, aren’t we?”
Bobby: “Was there ever any doubt? TAXI!!!”
---
We fade back in to see a bus pulling into a crowded depot. As it rolls past a sign, we zoom in on it, and it reads, in several different dialects, the word, “HIROSHIMA.”
The bus’s engine turns off, and dozens of people file out, not the least of which is A.C. Smith, who looks like he needs a chiropractor in the worst way possible after six additional hours of mass transportation. Undeterred, though, he grabs a waiting cab in the smog-filled air as buses belch their exhaust all around him.
A.C.: “Peace Memorial.”
The cab driver nods, and hammers down the gas like a Formula One driver in training as our scene fades to black.
---
Smith is next seen sitting down just outside a large building, one that’s seen decades of wear and tear but somehow survived one of the deadliest acts of war in the Earth’s history. Tourists around him take pictures, but A.C. takes everything in, only speaking when he’s sufficiently ready to do so.
A.C.: “I don’t expect anyone to make the trip here while we’re in Japan for One Night in Hell, and that’s a real shame. Because one day in 1945, the people of this down were subjected to not just a night in hell, but decades of it.
The first atomic bomb ever to be used in war exploded just above the dome at the top of this building. Tens of thousands of people died, but somehow, this building stayed standing with minimal structural damage. As such, it was kept around as a memorial, and was added to the World Heritage List in the mid-1990’s.
A lot of people in my business are approaching their matches this week in Japan like they’re life-or-death situations. They’re not. I’ve seen too much, and know too much, to ever think otherwise. What happens at the Tokyo Dome this Sunday? Sure, it’s important professionally, and I’m taking this triple threat against Evan HARRISON and Nick Watson as seriously as any match I’ve ever had. But to say that a win would be anything more than extremely satisfying, or anything less than extremely disappointing, lacks perspective, and anyone going that route is nothing short of dead wrong.”
Smith’s been speaking in soft, measured tones, almost as if the building around him is asleep and he doesn’t want to wake it up. He continues.
A.C.: “I came here for a reason many people, including one of my opponents this week, would never fully understand. If you’re going to travel to another country, you can’t just make yourself at home, shit on the customs of the people accepting you, and leave without paying mind of the damage that’s been done. You need to have some semblance of respect, a sense of what came before you and what’ll come after. If you don’t, you’ll never know enough to be successful, not just in my chosen profession, but in life as a whole.
Evan Harrison, and yes, I still refer to him as such, wouldn’t know respect if it walked up to him, introduced itself, and dropped an Acme anvil on top of his head. This is a guy I know better than just about anyone else, and a guy I once considered one of my closest friends. But after everything we’ve been through together, after all the battles we’ve fought on the same side, someone…ahem, Aubrey Jessica Parker…got into his head and said I was holding him back. And ever since, despite him finally wizening up and dumping her a few months ago, he’s despised me and everything I’ve ever stood for.
I could sit here right now and tell you all the ways that Evan Harrison is screwed up in his criminally-undersized head. But I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to focus on what’s going to be his undoing this Sunday night in the Tokyo Dome. Oddly, on a much smaller scale, it’s what led to Japan’s undoing in the second world war. Funny how things work out.”
Smith allows a slight smile to escape onto his face, but rolls his eyes at the same time. After a few more seconds of gazing at the building, he opens his mouth to speak once again.
A.C.: “Back in the 1940’s, Japan held a ton of territory in the Pacific. American generals devised an ingenious island-hopping strategy to stop Japan’s momentum and prevent a second Pearl Harbor. When it worked, Japanese generals weren’t quite sure what to do. They started blaming themselves, and some even flew kamikaze planes in the fight against the Allies so they’d be remembered for being martyrs instead of idiots.
Of course, needless to say, that strategy didn’t work. The history books still say the Japanese lost World War II, regardless of the person in charge. None of them realized that, long after they were engulfed in flames, nobody would care who lost Okinawa or any of the other dozens of islands the Americans captured. All that mattered was that the Allies won, the Axis Powers lost, and those Axis leaders left alive after the war were either hanged or sentenced to death at the Nuremburg trials.
In what will likely be the only time anyone compares him to some pretty great military minds, Evan Harrison doesn’t get that, at the end of the day, when history books are written, the only person anyone will associate with his losses is himself. Not his sister, Sienna. Not Michael Harris, and not Nick Watson, who I’ll get to later this week. When they open the time capsule years from now and see Evan Harrison taking all the credit for his successes and passing the blame for his failures onto others, he’ll be a laughingstock, and even more of an embarrassment to his profession than he is right now, which is really saying something.”
Even with the words he’s saying, which carry significant bite to them as they come from Smith’s mouth, A.C. is putting forth a calm, practical disposition as he sits on the bench.
A.C.: “I’ve never shied away from saying that Evan and I have each beaten the other several times. It’s been as even a rivalry as you can imagine, and for good reason. As much as we despise each other, and as much as our values have differed this last year or so, we bring out the best in each other once that bell rings. I know that, and Evan knows it, too, even though he may not want to admit it this close to the biggest match of his APW career to date.
The differences between Evan and I couldn’t be bigger. And ultimately, that works out in my favor. Evan puts a lot of pressure on himself to be perfect. And if something happens to throw off that vision, no problem, it must be someone else’s fault. That’s a very delicate line to walk, and when he gets hit hard upside the head, suddenly those values get awful hazy.
I’ve never put the blame for anything that happens from bell-to-bell on anyone except myself. And that’s what makes me so dangerous. If I lose (and hey, who doesn’t?), I know I did something wrong, I go to the videotape, I adjust, and I never, EVER, make that mistake again. Unlike a lot of people in this business, I readily accept that, sometimes, you get beat. It’s not that fact that makes or breaks people in professional wrestling. What determines your success or failure is how you react, how you respond to getting kicked in the nuts.
In fact, that’s EXACTLY how Evan Harrison beat me at Shockwave. He used a cheap shot and he got the victory his ego needed. Good. That works in my favor. Because now…now, I know that the cheap shot’s coming, and now, I can counter it. Evan won’t know what hit him, because he hasn’t planned for that. He’s been too busy lining up people to blame for if he loses or things to buy himself as victory presents if he somehow leaves Japan with the Xtreme Championship. And while he’s been planning for things that don’t matter, things that’ll get lost in the history books, I’ve been preparing for how to maximize my shot at taking him down a peg. And let me tell you now, it’s a DAMN good plan.”
Another slight smirk creeps onto the face of the Big Apple Asskicker. He peers up at the building, more specifically the dome at its highest point.
A.C.: “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m a closet history buff. See that dome up there? Somehow, someway, that dome was unaffected by the most lethal weapon ever devised in warfare. When Little Boy blew up, killing over 100,000 Japanese citizens, that structure somehow stood, and has stayed that way in the 67-plus years since then.
Nobody knows why, nobody knows how, but it’s still here, still standing tall, and still serving as one of the most powerful reminders of a vital fact of life. And that is, no matter how hard someone or something tries to destroy you and take everything you’ve ever known away from you, they won’t succeed if you’ve got the necessary willpower to persevere.
Evan Harrison has tried to take everything he can away from me these past few months. I don’t know why, and I’m not entirely sure I’ll be able to digest any rhetorical nonsense he spews to try and clear that up. He thought that by beating me the way he did at Shockwave that maybe, just maybe, I’d go away and not bother him as much.
Wrong, wrong, WRONG. Two months ago, a very even match between two of Action Packed Wrestling’s top rising stars ended not with a bang, but a whimper, when Evan Harrison had to cheat to win. Since then, he’s thrown his sister in harm’s way, painted her as a scapegoat, blamed a long-gone Michael Harris for some of his troubles, and where has it gotten him? Not a step closer to where he wants to be, and certainly not without me breathing down his neck, just waiting for an opportunity to exact my sweet, sweet revenge.
That opportunity is coming this Sunday night in front of a worldwide audience at One Night in Hell. Evan Harrison has tried everything to get me off his back. Starting on a different show. Resorting to a low blow at Shockwave when nothing else he tried worked. Throwing his sister and Michael Harris between us as a makeshift barrier. But this Sunday, all those walls come crashing down. While he’s been spinning his wheels, I’ve been improving, waiting for a chance to take the thing Harrison values most, the APW Xtreme Championship, off his waist and onto my shoulder. In just a few days, I get that chance. And I thoroughly intend to make the most of it.”
Smith stands up, still working out the kinks of his day-plus of traveling as he rises to his full 6’8” height. After several shoulder-rolls and neck cracks, A.C. pulls out a phone from his pocket and brings it to his ear.
A.C.: “Yeah, it’s me. I’m ready.”
Smith turns the phone off, putting it back into the pocket of his blue denim jeans before focusing his eyes back on the camera in his presence.
A.C.: “Of course I know that Nick Watson is also in this match. But while I certainly come in looking to reign supreme over him at One Night in Hell, I’m not looking to take his head off. With Evan Harrison, what we have runs deeper than him having something I want. Evan has gone against everything I stand for, and everything I thought I taught him so many years ago.
Evan thinks he’s high and mighty. He thinks he’s above me, and probably that he’s wasting his time with me and Nick Watson this Sunday night. But this Sunday, I come in on a mission, one that can only end with me raising the Action Packed Wrestling Xtreme Championship high over my head as the best fans in the world rejoice in appreciation. And on Sunday night, when he loses his most prized possession, Evan Harrison will have nobody to blame but himself. And if that sends him into the kind of downward spiral I’ve sent so many people into over the years, most recently Michael Harris?
So much the better.”
A cab pulls up to Smith, and he walks to the other side of it before looking back at the camera.
A.C.: “What about Nick Watson, you ask? Well, they DID drop two bombs.”
Smith gets in, shutting the door behind him. Through the open window, we hear Smith directing the driver to his next destination.
A.C.: “Nagasaki, please.”
The cab driver nods and drives off. After a few seconds, though, another cab comes into the frame, and we see Bobby and Stevie in the back seat pointing frantically at the vehicle that just left our camera shot.
Bobby: “THAT’S HIM! FOLLOW THAT CAB!”
The driver stops the car, throwing his hands up in protest. However, Stevie goes into his pocket, pulling out a large wad of bills and throwing it to the front of the cab.
Stevie: “There, you happy? Don’t lose him, let’s go!”
The driver shakes his head with a, “What have I ever done to deserve THIS?,” look on his face. However, he obliges, and the second cab cruises off and gets smaller as it moves away from the camera. After a few seconds, it’s almost disappeared from our shot, and our scene fades to black.
A black limo buzzes to the front of the building, and the driver steps out to open the door as a bellhop goes to the trunk to take bags out of the vehicle. Three men step out into the Tokyo sun, first Bobby the Bavarian Man-Bitch and Stevie the Slovakian Slobberknocker, then the Big Apple Asskicker, A.C. Smith.
All three look plenty disheveled after nearly a full day of traveling from New York City. Smith, in particular, looks like he could use a comfortable bed and a massage as he reaches into his back pocket to tip the bellhop.
Bellhop: (in Japanese accent) “Greetings. Welcome to the Tokyo Peninsula Hotel. Will you be heading to your rooms?”
Bobby: “You bet. Whose idea was it to put me next to the screaming baby?”
Stevie: “Did you see the guy sitting next to me? You’d need a crane to move him. A.C., what are we doing?”
A.C.: “You guys do your thing and try not to get arrested. I’ve got a trip I need to make. I may not be back today or tomorrow. Just don’t do anything stupid, alright?”
Smith puts a roll of bills into the bellhop’s jacket pocket, and turns around to hail a cab. Bobby and Stevie are surprised at this development, and even Smith is somewhat reluctant to turn away his luxury accommodations, even for what could just be a few hours.
Bobby: “Wait, where are you going?”
A.C.: “Don’t worry. You wouldn’t understand why I’m going there.”
A cab pulls up, and Smith gets in before rolling the window down.
A.C.: “Sayonara, boys.”
Bobby and Stevie look at each other before spotting a piece of paper on the ground. Bobby picks it up, and the two men read it silently before looking at each other simultaneously.
Stevie: “We’re going to follow him there like some creepy tourists, aren’t we?”
Bobby: “Was there ever any doubt? TAXI!!!”
---
We fade back in to see a bus pulling into a crowded depot. As it rolls past a sign, we zoom in on it, and it reads, in several different dialects, the word, “HIROSHIMA.”
The bus’s engine turns off, and dozens of people file out, not the least of which is A.C. Smith, who looks like he needs a chiropractor in the worst way possible after six additional hours of mass transportation. Undeterred, though, he grabs a waiting cab in the smog-filled air as buses belch their exhaust all around him.
A.C.: “Peace Memorial.”
The cab driver nods, and hammers down the gas like a Formula One driver in training as our scene fades to black.
---
Smith is next seen sitting down just outside a large building, one that’s seen decades of wear and tear but somehow survived one of the deadliest acts of war in the Earth’s history. Tourists around him take pictures, but A.C. takes everything in, only speaking when he’s sufficiently ready to do so.
A.C.: “I don’t expect anyone to make the trip here while we’re in Japan for One Night in Hell, and that’s a real shame. Because one day in 1945, the people of this down were subjected to not just a night in hell, but decades of it.
The first atomic bomb ever to be used in war exploded just above the dome at the top of this building. Tens of thousands of people died, but somehow, this building stayed standing with minimal structural damage. As such, it was kept around as a memorial, and was added to the World Heritage List in the mid-1990’s.
A lot of people in my business are approaching their matches this week in Japan like they’re life-or-death situations. They’re not. I’ve seen too much, and know too much, to ever think otherwise. What happens at the Tokyo Dome this Sunday? Sure, it’s important professionally, and I’m taking this triple threat against Evan HARRISON and Nick Watson as seriously as any match I’ve ever had. But to say that a win would be anything more than extremely satisfying, or anything less than extremely disappointing, lacks perspective, and anyone going that route is nothing short of dead wrong.”
Smith’s been speaking in soft, measured tones, almost as if the building around him is asleep and he doesn’t want to wake it up. He continues.
A.C.: “I came here for a reason many people, including one of my opponents this week, would never fully understand. If you’re going to travel to another country, you can’t just make yourself at home, shit on the customs of the people accepting you, and leave without paying mind of the damage that’s been done. You need to have some semblance of respect, a sense of what came before you and what’ll come after. If you don’t, you’ll never know enough to be successful, not just in my chosen profession, but in life as a whole.
Evan Harrison, and yes, I still refer to him as such, wouldn’t know respect if it walked up to him, introduced itself, and dropped an Acme anvil on top of his head. This is a guy I know better than just about anyone else, and a guy I once considered one of my closest friends. But after everything we’ve been through together, after all the battles we’ve fought on the same side, someone…ahem, Aubrey Jessica Parker…got into his head and said I was holding him back. And ever since, despite him finally wizening up and dumping her a few months ago, he’s despised me and everything I’ve ever stood for.
I could sit here right now and tell you all the ways that Evan Harrison is screwed up in his criminally-undersized head. But I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to focus on what’s going to be his undoing this Sunday night in the Tokyo Dome. Oddly, on a much smaller scale, it’s what led to Japan’s undoing in the second world war. Funny how things work out.”
Smith allows a slight smile to escape onto his face, but rolls his eyes at the same time. After a few more seconds of gazing at the building, he opens his mouth to speak once again.
A.C.: “Back in the 1940’s, Japan held a ton of territory in the Pacific. American generals devised an ingenious island-hopping strategy to stop Japan’s momentum and prevent a second Pearl Harbor. When it worked, Japanese generals weren’t quite sure what to do. They started blaming themselves, and some even flew kamikaze planes in the fight against the Allies so they’d be remembered for being martyrs instead of idiots.
Of course, needless to say, that strategy didn’t work. The history books still say the Japanese lost World War II, regardless of the person in charge. None of them realized that, long after they were engulfed in flames, nobody would care who lost Okinawa or any of the other dozens of islands the Americans captured. All that mattered was that the Allies won, the Axis Powers lost, and those Axis leaders left alive after the war were either hanged or sentenced to death at the Nuremburg trials.
In what will likely be the only time anyone compares him to some pretty great military minds, Evan Harrison doesn’t get that, at the end of the day, when history books are written, the only person anyone will associate with his losses is himself. Not his sister, Sienna. Not Michael Harris, and not Nick Watson, who I’ll get to later this week. When they open the time capsule years from now and see Evan Harrison taking all the credit for his successes and passing the blame for his failures onto others, he’ll be a laughingstock, and even more of an embarrassment to his profession than he is right now, which is really saying something.”
Even with the words he’s saying, which carry significant bite to them as they come from Smith’s mouth, A.C. is putting forth a calm, practical disposition as he sits on the bench.
A.C.: “I’ve never shied away from saying that Evan and I have each beaten the other several times. It’s been as even a rivalry as you can imagine, and for good reason. As much as we despise each other, and as much as our values have differed this last year or so, we bring out the best in each other once that bell rings. I know that, and Evan knows it, too, even though he may not want to admit it this close to the biggest match of his APW career to date.
The differences between Evan and I couldn’t be bigger. And ultimately, that works out in my favor. Evan puts a lot of pressure on himself to be perfect. And if something happens to throw off that vision, no problem, it must be someone else’s fault. That’s a very delicate line to walk, and when he gets hit hard upside the head, suddenly those values get awful hazy.
I’ve never put the blame for anything that happens from bell-to-bell on anyone except myself. And that’s what makes me so dangerous. If I lose (and hey, who doesn’t?), I know I did something wrong, I go to the videotape, I adjust, and I never, EVER, make that mistake again. Unlike a lot of people in this business, I readily accept that, sometimes, you get beat. It’s not that fact that makes or breaks people in professional wrestling. What determines your success or failure is how you react, how you respond to getting kicked in the nuts.
In fact, that’s EXACTLY how Evan Harrison beat me at Shockwave. He used a cheap shot and he got the victory his ego needed. Good. That works in my favor. Because now…now, I know that the cheap shot’s coming, and now, I can counter it. Evan won’t know what hit him, because he hasn’t planned for that. He’s been too busy lining up people to blame for if he loses or things to buy himself as victory presents if he somehow leaves Japan with the Xtreme Championship. And while he’s been planning for things that don’t matter, things that’ll get lost in the history books, I’ve been preparing for how to maximize my shot at taking him down a peg. And let me tell you now, it’s a DAMN good plan.”
Another slight smirk creeps onto the face of the Big Apple Asskicker. He peers up at the building, more specifically the dome at its highest point.
A.C.: “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m a closet history buff. See that dome up there? Somehow, someway, that dome was unaffected by the most lethal weapon ever devised in warfare. When Little Boy blew up, killing over 100,000 Japanese citizens, that structure somehow stood, and has stayed that way in the 67-plus years since then.
Nobody knows why, nobody knows how, but it’s still here, still standing tall, and still serving as one of the most powerful reminders of a vital fact of life. And that is, no matter how hard someone or something tries to destroy you and take everything you’ve ever known away from you, they won’t succeed if you’ve got the necessary willpower to persevere.
Evan Harrison has tried to take everything he can away from me these past few months. I don’t know why, and I’m not entirely sure I’ll be able to digest any rhetorical nonsense he spews to try and clear that up. He thought that by beating me the way he did at Shockwave that maybe, just maybe, I’d go away and not bother him as much.
Wrong, wrong, WRONG. Two months ago, a very even match between two of Action Packed Wrestling’s top rising stars ended not with a bang, but a whimper, when Evan Harrison had to cheat to win. Since then, he’s thrown his sister in harm’s way, painted her as a scapegoat, blamed a long-gone Michael Harris for some of his troubles, and where has it gotten him? Not a step closer to where he wants to be, and certainly not without me breathing down his neck, just waiting for an opportunity to exact my sweet, sweet revenge.
That opportunity is coming this Sunday night in front of a worldwide audience at One Night in Hell. Evan Harrison has tried everything to get me off his back. Starting on a different show. Resorting to a low blow at Shockwave when nothing else he tried worked. Throwing his sister and Michael Harris between us as a makeshift barrier. But this Sunday, all those walls come crashing down. While he’s been spinning his wheels, I’ve been improving, waiting for a chance to take the thing Harrison values most, the APW Xtreme Championship, off his waist and onto my shoulder. In just a few days, I get that chance. And I thoroughly intend to make the most of it.”
Smith stands up, still working out the kinks of his day-plus of traveling as he rises to his full 6’8” height. After several shoulder-rolls and neck cracks, A.C. pulls out a phone from his pocket and brings it to his ear.
A.C.: “Yeah, it’s me. I’m ready.”
Smith turns the phone off, putting it back into the pocket of his blue denim jeans before focusing his eyes back on the camera in his presence.
A.C.: “Of course I know that Nick Watson is also in this match. But while I certainly come in looking to reign supreme over him at One Night in Hell, I’m not looking to take his head off. With Evan Harrison, what we have runs deeper than him having something I want. Evan has gone against everything I stand for, and everything I thought I taught him so many years ago.
Evan thinks he’s high and mighty. He thinks he’s above me, and probably that he’s wasting his time with me and Nick Watson this Sunday night. But this Sunday, I come in on a mission, one that can only end with me raising the Action Packed Wrestling Xtreme Championship high over my head as the best fans in the world rejoice in appreciation. And on Sunday night, when he loses his most prized possession, Evan Harrison will have nobody to blame but himself. And if that sends him into the kind of downward spiral I’ve sent so many people into over the years, most recently Michael Harris?
So much the better.”
A cab pulls up to Smith, and he walks to the other side of it before looking back at the camera.
A.C.: “What about Nick Watson, you ask? Well, they DID drop two bombs.”
Smith gets in, shutting the door behind him. Through the open window, we hear Smith directing the driver to his next destination.
A.C.: “Nagasaki, please.”
The cab driver nods and drives off. After a few seconds, though, another cab comes into the frame, and we see Bobby and Stevie in the back seat pointing frantically at the vehicle that just left our camera shot.
Bobby: “THAT’S HIM! FOLLOW THAT CAB!”
The driver stops the car, throwing his hands up in protest. However, Stevie goes into his pocket, pulling out a large wad of bills and throwing it to the front of the cab.
Stevie: “There, you happy? Don’t lose him, let’s go!”
The driver shakes his head with a, “What have I ever done to deserve THIS?,” look on his face. However, he obliges, and the second cab cruises off and gets smaller as it moves away from the camera. After a few seconds, it’s almost disappeared from our shot, and our scene fades to black.
