Post by A.C. Smith on Feb 6, 2013 19:53:52 GMT -4
Our scene opens today outside a sports bar in New York City. The watering hole and quasi-lunch establishment with a faded “Barley’s” sign above an old brown front door is a familiar spot to longtime wrestling fans, ones who instantly recognize it as the bar of choice of the Big Apple Asskicker, A.C. Smith.
The outside of the building was renovated several years ago, and as we go through the front door, we see that the inside is a bit more contemporary than we’d expect from a sports bar. The hardwood floors are well-maintained, the tall chairs at the bar are polished, and the bar itself gives off a unique shine, one not often seen at no-frills hangouts in New York City.
It’s mid-afternoon on a Wednesday, so the bar area is far from crowded. In fact, only three men occupy part of the vast space, and they’re packed close together in a corner watching one of the 42-inch high-definition TV’s hanging from the ceiling. To no one’s surprise, the middle man is A.C. Smith, and he’s flanked on his left by Bobby the Bavarian Man-Bitch and to his right by Stevie the Slovakian Slobberknocker.
Smith has the APW Xtreme Championship draped over his left shoulder, and all three are seen drinking Michelob Ultra out of personalized, frozen mugs. We can now see that the trio’s eyes are fixated on ESPNU’s coverage of Signing Day, where dozens of top-notch high school football prospects sign their National Letters of Intent to attend Division I college and universities, and Smith is seen shaking his head slightly.
A.C.: “This is the first of many times you’ll be treated like a piece of meat, kid. May seem like fun now, but in a couple of months, you’ll be just another body on the practice field.”
Bobby: “Sheesh. SOMEONE sounds bitter.”
Stevie: “Are you STILL mad that Rutgers didn’t offer you a wrestling scholarship out of high school?”
Smith turns to Stevie with a slight, crooked smile on his face.
A.C.: “Not at all. I’d say things worked out for the best, wouldn’t you say?”
Smith puts his beverage down and pats the Xtreme Championship with his right hand.
A.C.: “Nah. It just bothers me that some people just don’t get what the whole process is about and how annoying the, ‘LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!,’ act gets after a while. And even though there are a couple of kids every year who seem to have their heads on straight and realize it’s not all about them, that ratio gets worse and worse as time goes on.”
Smith picks up his mug once again, but this time takes a bit longer of a gulp to finish off the brew before putting it back down on its coaster. An eagle-eyed bartender makes his way to the group upon seeing the empty glass.
Bartender: “Want another one, Ace?”
A.C.: “Nah, I’m alright. Gotta get back and handle a few things before I leave for the Great White North. Put whatever these guys drink on my tab, OK?”
Bobby: “You’re leaving?”
Stevie: “You want us to come with you?”
Smith rises to his full 6’8” height and grabs a long black jacket from the back of his chair, whipping his arms through it and straightening it as he addresses his buddies.
A.C.: “That’s OK. This is something I need to do man-to-man. Don’t worry about it.”
Bobby and Stevie are a little confused by this, but they shrug and go back to their beer as Smith nods at the bartender. He goes out the front door, and as he closes it, our scene fades to black.
---
We come back up on Smith sitting in a room we haven’t seen before. He’s sitting in a tall chair, hunched over with the Xtreme Championship again slung over his shoulder. Behind him, a wooden table is well-lit, with plenty of tools and materials on and around it.
Smith is relaxed and approachable in his demeanor, but a look in his eyes portrays an aura of importance in what he’s about to say. After a few seconds, the Big Apple Asskicker opens his mouth to speak.
A.C.: “I could’ve kept Bobby and Stevie around. We could’ve stayed at the bar, cracking jokes and going back and forth with the bartender while watching sports on TV. That said, I’ve always marched to the beat of my own drum, and while staying at Barley’s and shooting the shit with my boys may have been fun, there’s something else that’s of much higher importance that I need to address.
Buckson Gooch and I will do battle at Overdrive this week in a strap match, and I saw what he had to say about me earlier in the week. Consider this my response. In this response, I refuse to talk down upon the following things: His Southern heritage, his appearance, his accent, or whatever the hell Gooch is supposed to mean over in England.
Again, while that’d be the fun and easy thing to do, that’s never been my forte. And besides, Buckson Gooch deserves more than that. He’s one of a select few people that seems to have his head screwed on straight, a guy that knows what he wants and knows the right way to go about it. Because of this, anyone that ever insults his intelligence is dead wrong and setting himself up for failure.
I have no doubt that Buckson Gooch is on track for huge things in Action Packed Wrestling. At Survive and Conquer, the man gave the APW Overdrive Champion, Mark Mania, all he could handle. This Thursday night, I’m expecting one hell of a fight against a man I respect. But where he’s wrong, though, is thinking he can beat me in a strap match, a match that couldn’t be more up my alley if I drew APW’s upper brass a freaking road map.”
Smith chuckles a bit, and our camera zooms out just a little as we see the Big Apple Asskicker’s brown eyes look around the room.
A.C.: “Take a gander at the area around you. I don’t come here, to my own little workshop, all that often, but when I do, it’s for a definitive purpose. They don’t make golf clubs for people my size, so I had to customize them here. When the Police Athletic League needs a volunteer to fix stuff, this is where I go.
Why are we here today, you ask? Because I was digging around and found…this.”
Smith reaches off-screen with his right arm, and the long reach he has takes his right hand and wrist out of the frame momentarily. After a few seconds, the hand comes back with a leather strap in it, one Smith gently raps his open left hand with before refocusing on the camera.
A.C.: “This is something very similar to what will connect Buckson Gooch and myself tomorrow night in Newfoundland. We’ll beat the crap out of each other in good, old-fashioned hand-to-hand combat, and the first person to touch all four top turnbuckles consecutively wins the match.
Buckson Gooch has the mindset, the talent, and the potential to win a lot of matches against a lot of different people. There’s not a lot of people I can say that about, so I truly hope he appreciates the compliment. That said, this match, against the APW Xtreme Champion, someone with more hand-to-hand experience inside AND outside the ring than anyone in any wrestling federation on God’s green Earth? No. Just no.”
Smith again looks down at the strap, and resumes speaking with his eyes looking at what he’s holding.
A.C.: “Being the Xtreme Champion means something now. Unlike when Evan Harrison and Nick Watson held the belt and did everything they could to drag it through the sewer system, this time around, the Xtreme Champion is a guy who thrives on the most intense fights one can imagine.
That’s a reputation I didn’t just earn at the Meltdown Supershow last December, when I beat Watson to capture the title. It’s not something that came around when I beat Michael Lively, or when I beat him again at Survive and Conquer, or when I put forth a showing I’m really proud of in the Survive and Conquer battle royal against 99 other high-class competitors.
No. Even Buckson Gooch admits that my reputation was truly earned as a cop, patrolling the streets of the greatest city on the planet and taking down anyone that threatened its stature. 2,000 stitches in four years showed that, even though the scum of the earth occasionally got in a punch, a kick, a scratch, or a stab, I survived and became a better cop, and a better man, because of those experiences.
Everything on my body tells a story. Now, a bunch of guys who claim to be the future of this business are finely-sculpted, like some Greek statue that’s never been hit before. I’m not a sports car that just came off some European assembly line, ready to go triple-digits on the Autobahn without a second thought. But if you’re looking for the dependable machine, the Chevy truck with 250,000 miles on it that always turns on in cold weather, handles the snow effortlessly, and always gets you where you need to go regardless of age, wear, and tear? That’s me, to a ‘t.’”
Smith’s eyes finally gaze upward at the camera lens, breaking the trance-like glare he had in studying the leather strap in his hands.
A.C.: “Usually, the hardest work I have to do is GETTING someone to fight my battle. My opponents try to dance, try to stick and move, try to avoid my power. They stall. They try to get me to come at them and let my guard down.
Here, though, it’s an entirely different story. Buckson Gooch, as good as he may be and as promising as he may be, has nowhere to run and nowhere to hide when my experience edge inevitably kicks in. The strap is doing the hard part for me. The strap is ensuring that Buckson Gooch is always within arm’s reach, always close enough for me to hit, and always close enough to provide plenty of openings for me to capitalize on.
If I had my way around here, every match I’d ever be involved in would be a strap match. I’m not your average big man. I can hold my own from a technical standpoint. But I didn’t receive a ton of technical training before I entered the business in 2002. No, all I was was a big, huge, tough guy who knew how to fight.
I built around that nucleus over the years, and turned into the guy nobody wanted to go up against on a big stage with a ton on the line. But underneath everything, beyond the six-time World Champion and the guy who’s entertained the best fans in the world for over a decade, is the same guy who took down the men some of New York’s Finest were too afraid to collar. That guy is alive and well, and that guy is VERY much looking forward to coming out to play on Thursday night in Newfoundland.”
Smith rises to his full height once again, still holding onto the strap with a white-knuckled grip as the back of his huge legs move the chair backward several feet.
A.C.: “What I’m going to do on Thursday night has nothing to do with my feelings toward Buckson Gooch. The man has morals, a sense of right and wrong, and those qualities aren’t seen nearly enough in this business. I hope he enjoys great success here in APW, and I don’t think there’s any doubt that big things are in his future.
His problem, though, is that those big things come AFTER this week, and it’s not really his fault. He’s been thrown into an impossible situation. In hand-to-hand combat, I’ve outfought gunmen, people with knives inside their fist, guys that may as well have been professionally-trained killers. I’m still standing, still attacking each match and each day with the same ferociousness I’ve had for 11 years, and I don’t anticipate any of that changing anytime soon.
Just because I respect Buckson Gooch as a man and as a competitor doesn’t mean I’ll be taking it easy on him. To Gooch’s credit, I don’t think he’d want me to. However, that still doesn’t spare him from the world of hurt he’s got in store for him at Overdrive. Only one of us had this match pretty much written for his exact skillset. Only one of us goes into this match off back-to-back victories over Michael Lively, an APW Hall of Famer. And only one of us will walk out with his reputation intact, one of being one of the toughest men in Action Packed Wrestling with a belt that says so firmly attached to his waist.
Spoiler alert: That person, heh…isn’t Buckson Gooch.”
Smith walks past the camera and out of the shot. We hear a door slam shut behind us with considerable force, and a second or two after that, our scene fades to black.
The outside of the building was renovated several years ago, and as we go through the front door, we see that the inside is a bit more contemporary than we’d expect from a sports bar. The hardwood floors are well-maintained, the tall chairs at the bar are polished, and the bar itself gives off a unique shine, one not often seen at no-frills hangouts in New York City.
It’s mid-afternoon on a Wednesday, so the bar area is far from crowded. In fact, only three men occupy part of the vast space, and they’re packed close together in a corner watching one of the 42-inch high-definition TV’s hanging from the ceiling. To no one’s surprise, the middle man is A.C. Smith, and he’s flanked on his left by Bobby the Bavarian Man-Bitch and to his right by Stevie the Slovakian Slobberknocker.
Smith has the APW Xtreme Championship draped over his left shoulder, and all three are seen drinking Michelob Ultra out of personalized, frozen mugs. We can now see that the trio’s eyes are fixated on ESPNU’s coverage of Signing Day, where dozens of top-notch high school football prospects sign their National Letters of Intent to attend Division I college and universities, and Smith is seen shaking his head slightly.
A.C.: “This is the first of many times you’ll be treated like a piece of meat, kid. May seem like fun now, but in a couple of months, you’ll be just another body on the practice field.”
Bobby: “Sheesh. SOMEONE sounds bitter.”
Stevie: “Are you STILL mad that Rutgers didn’t offer you a wrestling scholarship out of high school?”
Smith turns to Stevie with a slight, crooked smile on his face.
A.C.: “Not at all. I’d say things worked out for the best, wouldn’t you say?”
Smith puts his beverage down and pats the Xtreme Championship with his right hand.
A.C.: “Nah. It just bothers me that some people just don’t get what the whole process is about and how annoying the, ‘LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!,’ act gets after a while. And even though there are a couple of kids every year who seem to have their heads on straight and realize it’s not all about them, that ratio gets worse and worse as time goes on.”
Smith picks up his mug once again, but this time takes a bit longer of a gulp to finish off the brew before putting it back down on its coaster. An eagle-eyed bartender makes his way to the group upon seeing the empty glass.
Bartender: “Want another one, Ace?”
A.C.: “Nah, I’m alright. Gotta get back and handle a few things before I leave for the Great White North. Put whatever these guys drink on my tab, OK?”
Bobby: “You’re leaving?”
Stevie: “You want us to come with you?”
Smith rises to his full 6’8” height and grabs a long black jacket from the back of his chair, whipping his arms through it and straightening it as he addresses his buddies.
A.C.: “That’s OK. This is something I need to do man-to-man. Don’t worry about it.”
Bobby and Stevie are a little confused by this, but they shrug and go back to their beer as Smith nods at the bartender. He goes out the front door, and as he closes it, our scene fades to black.
---
We come back up on Smith sitting in a room we haven’t seen before. He’s sitting in a tall chair, hunched over with the Xtreme Championship again slung over his shoulder. Behind him, a wooden table is well-lit, with plenty of tools and materials on and around it.
Smith is relaxed and approachable in his demeanor, but a look in his eyes portrays an aura of importance in what he’s about to say. After a few seconds, the Big Apple Asskicker opens his mouth to speak.
A.C.: “I could’ve kept Bobby and Stevie around. We could’ve stayed at the bar, cracking jokes and going back and forth with the bartender while watching sports on TV. That said, I’ve always marched to the beat of my own drum, and while staying at Barley’s and shooting the shit with my boys may have been fun, there’s something else that’s of much higher importance that I need to address.
Buckson Gooch and I will do battle at Overdrive this week in a strap match, and I saw what he had to say about me earlier in the week. Consider this my response. In this response, I refuse to talk down upon the following things: His Southern heritage, his appearance, his accent, or whatever the hell Gooch is supposed to mean over in England.
Again, while that’d be the fun and easy thing to do, that’s never been my forte. And besides, Buckson Gooch deserves more than that. He’s one of a select few people that seems to have his head screwed on straight, a guy that knows what he wants and knows the right way to go about it. Because of this, anyone that ever insults his intelligence is dead wrong and setting himself up for failure.
I have no doubt that Buckson Gooch is on track for huge things in Action Packed Wrestling. At Survive and Conquer, the man gave the APW Overdrive Champion, Mark Mania, all he could handle. This Thursday night, I’m expecting one hell of a fight against a man I respect. But where he’s wrong, though, is thinking he can beat me in a strap match, a match that couldn’t be more up my alley if I drew APW’s upper brass a freaking road map.”
Smith chuckles a bit, and our camera zooms out just a little as we see the Big Apple Asskicker’s brown eyes look around the room.
A.C.: “Take a gander at the area around you. I don’t come here, to my own little workshop, all that often, but when I do, it’s for a definitive purpose. They don’t make golf clubs for people my size, so I had to customize them here. When the Police Athletic League needs a volunteer to fix stuff, this is where I go.
Why are we here today, you ask? Because I was digging around and found…this.”
Smith reaches off-screen with his right arm, and the long reach he has takes his right hand and wrist out of the frame momentarily. After a few seconds, the hand comes back with a leather strap in it, one Smith gently raps his open left hand with before refocusing on the camera.
A.C.: “This is something very similar to what will connect Buckson Gooch and myself tomorrow night in Newfoundland. We’ll beat the crap out of each other in good, old-fashioned hand-to-hand combat, and the first person to touch all four top turnbuckles consecutively wins the match.
Buckson Gooch has the mindset, the talent, and the potential to win a lot of matches against a lot of different people. There’s not a lot of people I can say that about, so I truly hope he appreciates the compliment. That said, this match, against the APW Xtreme Champion, someone with more hand-to-hand experience inside AND outside the ring than anyone in any wrestling federation on God’s green Earth? No. Just no.”
Smith again looks down at the strap, and resumes speaking with his eyes looking at what he’s holding.
A.C.: “Being the Xtreme Champion means something now. Unlike when Evan Harrison and Nick Watson held the belt and did everything they could to drag it through the sewer system, this time around, the Xtreme Champion is a guy who thrives on the most intense fights one can imagine.
That’s a reputation I didn’t just earn at the Meltdown Supershow last December, when I beat Watson to capture the title. It’s not something that came around when I beat Michael Lively, or when I beat him again at Survive and Conquer, or when I put forth a showing I’m really proud of in the Survive and Conquer battle royal against 99 other high-class competitors.
No. Even Buckson Gooch admits that my reputation was truly earned as a cop, patrolling the streets of the greatest city on the planet and taking down anyone that threatened its stature. 2,000 stitches in four years showed that, even though the scum of the earth occasionally got in a punch, a kick, a scratch, or a stab, I survived and became a better cop, and a better man, because of those experiences.
Everything on my body tells a story. Now, a bunch of guys who claim to be the future of this business are finely-sculpted, like some Greek statue that’s never been hit before. I’m not a sports car that just came off some European assembly line, ready to go triple-digits on the Autobahn without a second thought. But if you’re looking for the dependable machine, the Chevy truck with 250,000 miles on it that always turns on in cold weather, handles the snow effortlessly, and always gets you where you need to go regardless of age, wear, and tear? That’s me, to a ‘t.’”
Smith’s eyes finally gaze upward at the camera lens, breaking the trance-like glare he had in studying the leather strap in his hands.
A.C.: “Usually, the hardest work I have to do is GETTING someone to fight my battle. My opponents try to dance, try to stick and move, try to avoid my power. They stall. They try to get me to come at them and let my guard down.
Here, though, it’s an entirely different story. Buckson Gooch, as good as he may be and as promising as he may be, has nowhere to run and nowhere to hide when my experience edge inevitably kicks in. The strap is doing the hard part for me. The strap is ensuring that Buckson Gooch is always within arm’s reach, always close enough for me to hit, and always close enough to provide plenty of openings for me to capitalize on.
If I had my way around here, every match I’d ever be involved in would be a strap match. I’m not your average big man. I can hold my own from a technical standpoint. But I didn’t receive a ton of technical training before I entered the business in 2002. No, all I was was a big, huge, tough guy who knew how to fight.
I built around that nucleus over the years, and turned into the guy nobody wanted to go up against on a big stage with a ton on the line. But underneath everything, beyond the six-time World Champion and the guy who’s entertained the best fans in the world for over a decade, is the same guy who took down the men some of New York’s Finest were too afraid to collar. That guy is alive and well, and that guy is VERY much looking forward to coming out to play on Thursday night in Newfoundland.”
Smith rises to his full height once again, still holding onto the strap with a white-knuckled grip as the back of his huge legs move the chair backward several feet.
A.C.: “What I’m going to do on Thursday night has nothing to do with my feelings toward Buckson Gooch. The man has morals, a sense of right and wrong, and those qualities aren’t seen nearly enough in this business. I hope he enjoys great success here in APW, and I don’t think there’s any doubt that big things are in his future.
His problem, though, is that those big things come AFTER this week, and it’s not really his fault. He’s been thrown into an impossible situation. In hand-to-hand combat, I’ve outfought gunmen, people with knives inside their fist, guys that may as well have been professionally-trained killers. I’m still standing, still attacking each match and each day with the same ferociousness I’ve had for 11 years, and I don’t anticipate any of that changing anytime soon.
Just because I respect Buckson Gooch as a man and as a competitor doesn’t mean I’ll be taking it easy on him. To Gooch’s credit, I don’t think he’d want me to. However, that still doesn’t spare him from the world of hurt he’s got in store for him at Overdrive. Only one of us had this match pretty much written for his exact skillset. Only one of us goes into this match off back-to-back victories over Michael Lively, an APW Hall of Famer. And only one of us will walk out with his reputation intact, one of being one of the toughest men in Action Packed Wrestling with a belt that says so firmly attached to his waist.
Spoiler alert: That person, heh…isn’t Buckson Gooch.”
Smith walks past the camera and out of the shot. We hear a door slam shut behind us with considerable force, and a second or two after that, our scene fades to black.
