Post by A.C. Smith on Apr 3, 2013 9:56:26 GMT -4
Our scene opens today in the luxurious New York City penthouse of the Big Apple Asskicker, A.C. Smith. The camera flashes around the rooms we've seen before, though, and we see no signs of activity in any of them. Nothing in the kitchen, or the dining room, or the living room, but we hear the soft echoes of country music coming from a space down a nearby hall.
We go down the hall, and we hang a right into uncharted territory: A.C. Smith's bedroom. It's surprisingly no-frills, with a king-size bed taking up most of the space and an old, beaten-up suitcase open on top of the mattress. There's not much to the room; we see a medium-sized flatscreen TV sitting atop a pair of dressers located next to a private bathroom, with an iPod docking station next to it powered on and spurring the country music into the penthouse.
Smith is packing his suitcase with clothes for the upcoming trip to Panama for this week's Overdrive, and we hear him softly singing along with the music, an old folk tune some would recognize as a song called “Freeborn Man.”
A.C.: “I'm a freeborn man
My home is on my back
I know every inch of highway
Every foot of backroad, and every mile of railroad track...”
Smith puts several pairs of socks in the suitcase and pauses, yelling to someone in another room.
A.C.: “Hey, boys! Don't forget your passports!”
Voice: “We won't!”
We hear two sets of footsteps, and naturally, in walk both Bobby the Bavarian Man-Bitch and Stevie the Slovakian Slobberknocker. Both have passports in hand, and Bobby is shaking his head.
Bobby: “Have we EVER let you down when going to another country?”
Stevie: “I know, right? Oh yee of little faith, A.C.”
A.C.: “Well, Bobby, there was that time in Moscow when you brought the blonde back to the hotel that robbed you and Stevie blind! And Stevie, forgive me for making sure we don't get held up in some room with no air conditioning and nobody else that speaks English within 200 miles of us!”
The APW Xtreme Champion rolls his eyes, shutting off the music before turning back to his buddies. He's carrying himself just a little bit differently now, with a tension that was missing or hidden before Bobby and Stevie entered the bedroom.
A.C.: “You guys all set already?”
Bobby: “Yep. Might as well grab a cab to the airport and just wait for you there.”
A.C.: “Well, there's a first time for everything, I suppose.”
Stevie: “What?! We did what we had to do. Why is that so shocking?”
Bobby: “Yeah, man. Your guard is WAY up right now. What gives?”
A.C.: “I don't know. You guys realize I don't mean anything by it, right? I guess I'm just antsy.”
Bobby: “Antsy? That's not you.”
Stevie: “What's so different about this week?”
A.C.: “Well, for one? My tag team partner.”
A pause fills the room, and Smith goes back to packing while shaking his head for a moment. We see him pull out several white undershirts, all neatly-folded, and he gently packs them in his suitcase.
A.C.: “Evan Harrison is an unknown as far as we're all concerned. I'm not panicking about Buckson Gooch. I turned him back at Rasslemania when I retained my Xtreme Championship on the biggest stage in our business. I'm not panicking about Shadow, who won't know what to do when his own power game gets thrown back in his face by someone much better at using it than he is.
But Harrison, or Envi as others who've just come to know him recently call him? When his head is on straight, and when he's thinking clearly and listening to reason, there are few tag team partners better than him. I know that for a fact, because there was a time when no tag team in this business was more respected than the two of us were. We blew the roof off of every stadium we wrestled in, and we beat the living daylights out of a bunch of really good teams.
But when his head gets too big, and when he gets too satisfied with himself, there's no reasoning with him, as so many people have found out here in APW. He can operate under the delusion that he's so much better than everyone else, that he doesn't need anyone else to survive. And that, of course, is dead wrong. Nobody has given him the kind of beatings I have. Nobody's taken him to hell and back more times than the Big Apple Asskicker, and if he crosses me in the SLIGHTEST this Thursday night in Panama, there's going to be hell to pay.”
Another pause, and an awkward one, before Bobby breaks the silence.
Bobby: “Better now?”
A.C.: “A little.”
Stevie: “Relax, brother. You now what you're capable of, and you know you can beat all three of these guys at once if you have to. And if you know that, chances are Evan does, too.”
Smith seems to lighten up a little after this comment, and he nods ever so slightly in agreement.
A.C.: “Oh, if Evan and I work together, there's no stopping us. When he's right, there's no more natural fit than the two of us. He's the flyer, the risk-taker, the stick-and-mover, and I'm the guy who comes in and beats the crap out of people. Maybe you can find two more talented wrestlers than the two of us, but they wouldn't mesh as well as Evan and I do when he's focused.
Buckson Gooch and Shadow? This isn't “the flyer and the brute.” This is, the big, power-based guy, and the other big, power-based guy. You know EXACTLY what you're getting with these guys, and there's no mystery or mystique about it.”
Smith goes back to packing his bag, and he takes a black shaving kit bag and begins examining it as he speaks again.
A.C.: “I've become intimately familiar with Buckson Gooch. He got me once, I beat him in that two-out-of-three falls match, and then he made a huge mistake by getting involved in my business with Michael Lively. He said he was just as worthy a challenger as Lively, but what happened when he got his second chance at the Xtreme Championship? He faltered.
Some would say I got put into an extremely tough situation with two wrestlers who wanted everything I had. But I didn't cry about it. I bucked up, dug down deep, and I retained my title. I'm now in my fourth month as the APW Xtreme Champion, and I couldn't be happier to be in this position, bringing some credibility to a title that had been devoid of it before I won it in December.
Now, Buckson Gooch gets yet another chance at me. But why should any rational person believe that the outcome will change from the past several times we've met? He's never beaten Evan Harrison, and after that one initial 'blind squirrel finding a nut' occurrence, I've had his number. He's got Shadow, sure, but I've got the APW Overdrive Champion, and as much as we don't see eye-to-eye outside the ring, once that bell sounds and the match is underway, I'd like to think we'll both be professional enough for 15, 20 minutes to get the job done.”
Smith zips up the bag and puts it on the top of the clothes in his suitcase, the last piece in a fully-packed piece of luggage. As he begins talking again, he also goes through the mental checklist every traveler has before going abroad, a last-minute, “Do I have everything?,” exam.
A.C.: “And Shadow? Sure, the guy beat up Slade Craven at Rasslemania, and credit to him for it. That's probably one of the biggest wins of his entire career, and I'm sure he enjoyed himself a great deal after all the dust settled.
His problem, though, is that he's in way, WAY over his head at Overdrive. See, I've beaten Slade Craven, too, only I did it in that guy's own game. Remember when he was calling himself the innovator of the ladder match? Well, after I won a spot in the Test for the Best tournament in a ladder match that also featured Nick Watson and Mark Mania, he shut his trap, and to be brutally honest, he hadn't really been a threat to anyone since that moment.
And while Slade Craven stayed in first gear since that encounter last summer, I've floored it and surged to new heights. The work I've been able to do with the APW Xtreme Championship should show that without a shadow of a doubt, no pun intended. I've pinned Michael Lively, an APW Hall of Famer, not once, not twice, but THREE different times. I put forth one heck of a showing at Survive and Conquer, won at Rasslemania, and am set to reign atop the Xtreme division for as long as humanly possible.
So was Shadow's win over Craven impressive? Sure. But it doesn't hold a candle to what I've done, and it also doesn't hold a candle to what Evan Harrison has done. Love him or hate him, he's the Overdrive Champion, a former Xtreme Champion, and a guy who has a ton of wins over high-quality competition. Hell, ask Mark Mania, who he beat at Rasslemania. Mark had beaten Azrael Goeren, beaten a bunch of others, beaten ME, for Christ's sake, and Harrison took away the Overdrive title after one heck of a fight.”
Apparently satisfied that he has everything he needs for the voyage to Central America, Smith reaches to the top section of the luggage, pulling it over the clothes before pulling both zippers around the rectangular bag and meeting them in the middle of the section closest to us.
A.C.: “Shadow's done a fine job, but that's all he's done is a fine job. Nothing more, nothing less, and if he tries to pass himself off as someone who just pulled off some Herculean task, it's complete and utter bullshit. I could say the same for Buckson Gooch, who beat me once but hasn't caught lightning in that bottle again despite several tries. They've done just enough to say they're not totally overmatched in a contest like this, which of course is dead wrong because they are.
If you look at what Evan and I have accomplished in Action Packed Wrestling, it sure as hell goes further than 'doing a fine job.' It's my goal to become the longest-reigning Xtreme Champion in APW history; hell, I'd surpassed Shadow's recent reign before I even left the building in Buffalo last December!”
Bobby: “That's right! He had the belt for what, 20 minutes?”
A.C.: “That's pretty accurate. And you know who he lost the strap to?”
Stevie: “Evan Harrison!”
Now smiling, Smith nods.
A.C.: “Again, Shadow's likely to talk himself up, but whatever he says is going to be exaggerated tenfold from what he's actually accomplished recently. Sure, he beat Slade Craven. Sure, he's a former Xtreme Champion who wants nothing more than to take down the current one. But I beat Slade Craven at his own high-risk game in a match that also featured a would-be Overdrive Champion and the guy I beat for the Xtreme title, and I'm the longest-reigning Xtreme Champion since John Dionysus. A little disproportionate, wouldn't you say?”
A.C. rolls his eyes.
A.C.: “I may not like the man Evan Harrison has become. But I respect the hell out of what he's accomplished since he followed me over to APW last year. I've never had an issue with tagging with him before, and if he doesn't get big-headed and try anything stupid, this Thursday night in Panama won't be any different.
We're both champions, and deep down, I'd like to think that we can cast our personal problems aside for however long it takes to beat Gooch and Shadow this week on Overdrive. Before the match, I want nothing to do with him. After the match, I'll go back to my dressing room and he'll go back to his. But for 15 or 20 minutes, the two of us will prove how superior we are to Buckson Gooch and Shadow.
This is just a HORRIBLE matchup for those two, and deep down, they know it. They've got the same power game that I have, only they haven't shown they can effectively use it against someone who, when seeing it on the other side of the ring, can counter it. They want to hit hard? I'll hit harder. And then, when they're sucking wind against the ropes, looking for a reprieve that'll never come, in comes Evan Harrison, who'll run circles around them until they collapse.
Maybe we don't know what's going through Evan Harrison's mind. But you know something? Once that bell rings, it really doesn't matter. We've proven what we can do as a tag team before, and we'll do it again this week, even though we haven't exactly seen eye-to-eye lately. Thursday night in Panama, the two of us will come together, for one night only, and beat two guys we know we can beat. And that's really all there is to it.”
Smith picks up his suitcase with his muscular right arm.
A.C.: “You guys ready to go?”
Bobby and Stevie both nod. They exit first, and Smith leaves the room and shuts the door as our scene fades to black.
We go down the hall, and we hang a right into uncharted territory: A.C. Smith's bedroom. It's surprisingly no-frills, with a king-size bed taking up most of the space and an old, beaten-up suitcase open on top of the mattress. There's not much to the room; we see a medium-sized flatscreen TV sitting atop a pair of dressers located next to a private bathroom, with an iPod docking station next to it powered on and spurring the country music into the penthouse.
Smith is packing his suitcase with clothes for the upcoming trip to Panama for this week's Overdrive, and we hear him softly singing along with the music, an old folk tune some would recognize as a song called “Freeborn Man.”
A.C.: “I'm a freeborn man
My home is on my back
I know every inch of highway
Every foot of backroad, and every mile of railroad track...”
Smith puts several pairs of socks in the suitcase and pauses, yelling to someone in another room.
A.C.: “Hey, boys! Don't forget your passports!”
Voice: “We won't!”
We hear two sets of footsteps, and naturally, in walk both Bobby the Bavarian Man-Bitch and Stevie the Slovakian Slobberknocker. Both have passports in hand, and Bobby is shaking his head.
Bobby: “Have we EVER let you down when going to another country?”
Stevie: “I know, right? Oh yee of little faith, A.C.”
A.C.: “Well, Bobby, there was that time in Moscow when you brought the blonde back to the hotel that robbed you and Stevie blind! And Stevie, forgive me for making sure we don't get held up in some room with no air conditioning and nobody else that speaks English within 200 miles of us!”
The APW Xtreme Champion rolls his eyes, shutting off the music before turning back to his buddies. He's carrying himself just a little bit differently now, with a tension that was missing or hidden before Bobby and Stevie entered the bedroom.
A.C.: “You guys all set already?”
Bobby: “Yep. Might as well grab a cab to the airport and just wait for you there.”
A.C.: “Well, there's a first time for everything, I suppose.”
Stevie: “What?! We did what we had to do. Why is that so shocking?”
Bobby: “Yeah, man. Your guard is WAY up right now. What gives?”
A.C.: “I don't know. You guys realize I don't mean anything by it, right? I guess I'm just antsy.”
Bobby: “Antsy? That's not you.”
Stevie: “What's so different about this week?”
A.C.: “Well, for one? My tag team partner.”
A pause fills the room, and Smith goes back to packing while shaking his head for a moment. We see him pull out several white undershirts, all neatly-folded, and he gently packs them in his suitcase.
A.C.: “Evan Harrison is an unknown as far as we're all concerned. I'm not panicking about Buckson Gooch. I turned him back at Rasslemania when I retained my Xtreme Championship on the biggest stage in our business. I'm not panicking about Shadow, who won't know what to do when his own power game gets thrown back in his face by someone much better at using it than he is.
But Harrison, or Envi as others who've just come to know him recently call him? When his head is on straight, and when he's thinking clearly and listening to reason, there are few tag team partners better than him. I know that for a fact, because there was a time when no tag team in this business was more respected than the two of us were. We blew the roof off of every stadium we wrestled in, and we beat the living daylights out of a bunch of really good teams.
But when his head gets too big, and when he gets too satisfied with himself, there's no reasoning with him, as so many people have found out here in APW. He can operate under the delusion that he's so much better than everyone else, that he doesn't need anyone else to survive. And that, of course, is dead wrong. Nobody has given him the kind of beatings I have. Nobody's taken him to hell and back more times than the Big Apple Asskicker, and if he crosses me in the SLIGHTEST this Thursday night in Panama, there's going to be hell to pay.”
Another pause, and an awkward one, before Bobby breaks the silence.
Bobby: “Better now?”
A.C.: “A little.”
Stevie: “Relax, brother. You now what you're capable of, and you know you can beat all three of these guys at once if you have to. And if you know that, chances are Evan does, too.”
Smith seems to lighten up a little after this comment, and he nods ever so slightly in agreement.
A.C.: “Oh, if Evan and I work together, there's no stopping us. When he's right, there's no more natural fit than the two of us. He's the flyer, the risk-taker, the stick-and-mover, and I'm the guy who comes in and beats the crap out of people. Maybe you can find two more talented wrestlers than the two of us, but they wouldn't mesh as well as Evan and I do when he's focused.
Buckson Gooch and Shadow? This isn't “the flyer and the brute.” This is, the big, power-based guy, and the other big, power-based guy. You know EXACTLY what you're getting with these guys, and there's no mystery or mystique about it.”
Smith goes back to packing his bag, and he takes a black shaving kit bag and begins examining it as he speaks again.
A.C.: “I've become intimately familiar with Buckson Gooch. He got me once, I beat him in that two-out-of-three falls match, and then he made a huge mistake by getting involved in my business with Michael Lively. He said he was just as worthy a challenger as Lively, but what happened when he got his second chance at the Xtreme Championship? He faltered.
Some would say I got put into an extremely tough situation with two wrestlers who wanted everything I had. But I didn't cry about it. I bucked up, dug down deep, and I retained my title. I'm now in my fourth month as the APW Xtreme Champion, and I couldn't be happier to be in this position, bringing some credibility to a title that had been devoid of it before I won it in December.
Now, Buckson Gooch gets yet another chance at me. But why should any rational person believe that the outcome will change from the past several times we've met? He's never beaten Evan Harrison, and after that one initial 'blind squirrel finding a nut' occurrence, I've had his number. He's got Shadow, sure, but I've got the APW Overdrive Champion, and as much as we don't see eye-to-eye outside the ring, once that bell sounds and the match is underway, I'd like to think we'll both be professional enough for 15, 20 minutes to get the job done.”
Smith zips up the bag and puts it on the top of the clothes in his suitcase, the last piece in a fully-packed piece of luggage. As he begins talking again, he also goes through the mental checklist every traveler has before going abroad, a last-minute, “Do I have everything?,” exam.
A.C.: “And Shadow? Sure, the guy beat up Slade Craven at Rasslemania, and credit to him for it. That's probably one of the biggest wins of his entire career, and I'm sure he enjoyed himself a great deal after all the dust settled.
His problem, though, is that he's in way, WAY over his head at Overdrive. See, I've beaten Slade Craven, too, only I did it in that guy's own game. Remember when he was calling himself the innovator of the ladder match? Well, after I won a spot in the Test for the Best tournament in a ladder match that also featured Nick Watson and Mark Mania, he shut his trap, and to be brutally honest, he hadn't really been a threat to anyone since that moment.
And while Slade Craven stayed in first gear since that encounter last summer, I've floored it and surged to new heights. The work I've been able to do with the APW Xtreme Championship should show that without a shadow of a doubt, no pun intended. I've pinned Michael Lively, an APW Hall of Famer, not once, not twice, but THREE different times. I put forth one heck of a showing at Survive and Conquer, won at Rasslemania, and am set to reign atop the Xtreme division for as long as humanly possible.
So was Shadow's win over Craven impressive? Sure. But it doesn't hold a candle to what I've done, and it also doesn't hold a candle to what Evan Harrison has done. Love him or hate him, he's the Overdrive Champion, a former Xtreme Champion, and a guy who has a ton of wins over high-quality competition. Hell, ask Mark Mania, who he beat at Rasslemania. Mark had beaten Azrael Goeren, beaten a bunch of others, beaten ME, for Christ's sake, and Harrison took away the Overdrive title after one heck of a fight.”
Apparently satisfied that he has everything he needs for the voyage to Central America, Smith reaches to the top section of the luggage, pulling it over the clothes before pulling both zippers around the rectangular bag and meeting them in the middle of the section closest to us.
A.C.: “Shadow's done a fine job, but that's all he's done is a fine job. Nothing more, nothing less, and if he tries to pass himself off as someone who just pulled off some Herculean task, it's complete and utter bullshit. I could say the same for Buckson Gooch, who beat me once but hasn't caught lightning in that bottle again despite several tries. They've done just enough to say they're not totally overmatched in a contest like this, which of course is dead wrong because they are.
If you look at what Evan and I have accomplished in Action Packed Wrestling, it sure as hell goes further than 'doing a fine job.' It's my goal to become the longest-reigning Xtreme Champion in APW history; hell, I'd surpassed Shadow's recent reign before I even left the building in Buffalo last December!”
Bobby: “That's right! He had the belt for what, 20 minutes?”
A.C.: “That's pretty accurate. And you know who he lost the strap to?”
Stevie: “Evan Harrison!”
Now smiling, Smith nods.
A.C.: “Again, Shadow's likely to talk himself up, but whatever he says is going to be exaggerated tenfold from what he's actually accomplished recently. Sure, he beat Slade Craven. Sure, he's a former Xtreme Champion who wants nothing more than to take down the current one. But I beat Slade Craven at his own high-risk game in a match that also featured a would-be Overdrive Champion and the guy I beat for the Xtreme title, and I'm the longest-reigning Xtreme Champion since John Dionysus. A little disproportionate, wouldn't you say?”
A.C. rolls his eyes.
A.C.: “I may not like the man Evan Harrison has become. But I respect the hell out of what he's accomplished since he followed me over to APW last year. I've never had an issue with tagging with him before, and if he doesn't get big-headed and try anything stupid, this Thursday night in Panama won't be any different.
We're both champions, and deep down, I'd like to think that we can cast our personal problems aside for however long it takes to beat Gooch and Shadow this week on Overdrive. Before the match, I want nothing to do with him. After the match, I'll go back to my dressing room and he'll go back to his. But for 15 or 20 minutes, the two of us will prove how superior we are to Buckson Gooch and Shadow.
This is just a HORRIBLE matchup for those two, and deep down, they know it. They've got the same power game that I have, only they haven't shown they can effectively use it against someone who, when seeing it on the other side of the ring, can counter it. They want to hit hard? I'll hit harder. And then, when they're sucking wind against the ropes, looking for a reprieve that'll never come, in comes Evan Harrison, who'll run circles around them until they collapse.
Maybe we don't know what's going through Evan Harrison's mind. But you know something? Once that bell rings, it really doesn't matter. We've proven what we can do as a tag team before, and we'll do it again this week, even though we haven't exactly seen eye-to-eye lately. Thursday night in Panama, the two of us will come together, for one night only, and beat two guys we know we can beat. And that's really all there is to it.”
Smith picks up his suitcase with his muscular right arm.
A.C.: “You guys ready to go?”
Bobby and Stevie both nod. They exit first, and Smith leaves the room and shuts the door as our scene fades to black.
