In Your Eyes...

[Manhattan White]

~*~APW cameras find a massive group of Asylum fans in the parking lot at the IWC Arena in Long Island, New York. They’re tailgating and arguing over favorite Pay Per View events, favorite wrestlers, and who has the best entrance music. Two fans actually start to square off over spilled cheap beer when the squeal of a megaphone’s siren interrupts the shouting and name-calling. Beers fill the sky over the parking lot as fans salute the incoming Manhattan White, standing atop a pizza delivery car. The car comes to a stop and the passenger door opens, with Irish Pete hopping out and waddling around to the trunk. The delivery guy gets out and starts passing pizzas to Irish Pete who then starts handing them out to the crowd. Manhattan stands on the roof and speaks into the megaphone.~*~

MW: APW fans, is everybody cool?

~*~The fans cheer, splashing beer and tomato sauce on each other, toasting White and Pete.~*~

MW: APW fans, is everybody happy?

~*~Again they cheer. Manhattan smiles as Irish Pete dances a jig.~*~

MW: For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Manhattan White and I’m a professional wrestler.

~*~Manhattan sounds off with a siren noise as the crowd cheers. A drunken fan attempts to dance Irish Pete’s jig, falls and knocks over a beer keg. The fans in the crowd give him the slow clap before Manhattan continues.~*~

MW: But for those of you that follow professional wrestling and don’t know who I am, perhaps you should put your beers down and listen a minute! I’ve been with APW for merely two months and I’m changing the face of this company one event at a time. Critics are already talking about me. They’re already putting pens to paper, thoughts into words, sentences to paragraphs, paragraphs into award winning journalism. They’re amazed that such a newcomer has already headlined a Pay Per View. They’re surprised that Manhattan White’s already in solid running for the big prize, the big belt, the top position of APW’s number one show, on the number one cable channel, Food Network. Their heads spin at the prospect of someone that before this summer had never wrestled a match in their life has already blown the roof off of this company.

I’m not gloating. This is what’s being said about me. It’s what’s being printed about me, that I’m the hottest thing to come out of nowhere since Josie Laws, riding in with the sunrise on an exhausted horse, looking for some shade and a comfortable bed. Even your new champion –

~*~The crowd begins to boo at the mention of Jason Kash. Manhattan hushes them with his hands.~*~

MW: Before our match at One Night in Hell Jason Kash actually told me to my face that the promo I’d shot for the Pay Per View was amazing. Just before we climbed into that ring and stood toe to toe, before the “great” Rico Casteel fell to a bunch of “nobodies,” Jason Kash said that I inspired him. That he hadn’t seen anyone have the balls enough to shoot an in-ring promo in ages, and not only that, but I knocked it out of the park, that I’d brought the house down, that I reached into the hearts of evil-doers everywhere and intimidated them to the point where they shook in their evil-boots and peed in their evil-panties. And, here’s the best part, he couldn’t wait to work with me in the ring!

~*~Manhattan White shrugs at this and continues.~*~

MW: That may not seem like a lot to some of you, to some of the other guys in the locker rooms getting ready for tonight’s show, but to a new guy looking for some sense of balance, waiting for the spotlight that comes with being a newcomer to die down, hoping that a spotlight based on talent and achievement comes along soon enough, well, that’s encouraging.

You know what else is encouraging? The claims that Tommy Knoxville is going to knock my teeth down my throat. Sure, that’s a threat. And to have my actual teeth knocked down my throat, that would probably hurt quite a bit. More and to the point, if I truly thought that Knoxville had the ability to put my chompers down my gullet, I’d probably be worried about tonight’s match. But if you listen to everything the man says, you get to know pretty quickly that Knoxville hasn’t the foggiest clue as to what he’s talking about. In fact, I’m about ninety percent sure that he’s orbiting the same planet that Mike Morrison lives on. Tommy Knoxville seems to think that I skated through the Elimination Chamber match at One Night in Hell, and then also said, in the same promo, that he beat me up! How does that work? How does that happen?

Who here watched One Night in Hell?

~*~The crowd gives a resounding ovation.~*~

MW: Right! I was there! I was in Japan when it was happening! I was in that arena, in that ring, in that chamber! I’m not exactly where Tommy was, but he seems to think I was ducking shit WHILE getting my ass handed to me. Now, maybe I’m wrong, maybe I slipped and bumped my head, but until I was eliminated, my name was all up in that match. I was like an STD in Adora Bailey, just all up in that match. Just covering that match in the cruddiness that was me, making that match itch and be all inflamed because I was just all over it. Seriously, go back, watch One Night in Hell, skip to the last match and pay close attention. I was so busy in that match, that I almost had one of those electronic signs that displayed which numbered customer I was now serving.

~*~Manhattan smirks.~*~

MW: Just…like…Adora Bailey…

~*~The crowd coos.~*~

MW: I digress. Not only that, but how do you skate through a match AND have your ass kicked when you out last the people that allegedly do the ass kicking. Like I said, go back and watch. Rico Casteel was the first to go after us no ones, us losers, us overrated nothings dogpiled on his ass and eliminated him first. Who went next? Mike Morrison. Why? Well, because he’s terrible. There I said it. Who went next, though? Who was the next wrestler to go?

That’s right, it was Tommy. Poor little deluded Tommy. Tommy, my friend, let me give you a little bit of an education. First and foremost, your “management” is a mistake. They’ve obviously done right by you so far. Look how unhappy you are, son. You keep getting booked in matches with people that you can’t stand, because we’re constant thorns in your side. And why would we annoy you?

Oh, right. Because you can’t seem to beat me. You can’t. You can’t do it – and don’t you dare think that tag match we had at the last Asylum counts, because if anyone beat anyone in that match, it was Talfourd through and through. You just happened to be on the winning team. No, we only annoy you Tommy, because you can’t seem to win. I mean, think about it, if you kept winning, time and time again, racking up your win to loss ratio, would that be all that annoying? Yea, okay, maybe after a while. But if I had a guaranteed win show after show? Sign me up!

Now! Tommy, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to come to this property tonight, have whichever dumb-dumb is going to be your manager or coach, or the guy that holds your purse during the match, and tell them to bring some sort of video recording device. Have them take a nap this afternoon so they’re well rested, and ask them politely to videotape tonight’s match. This way, before you shoot your next set of promos, you can watch the video of tonight’s match and have your facts straight. This way you don’t get lumped in with Morrison’s crazy-ass anymore. Because really son, if you want to stop being lumped with him, if you want to stop being associated with him, you should probably stop involuntarily nominating yourself as his destined tag team partner, because you sir, are dimmer than a 5-watt lightbulb in a bucket of sand.

Tonight! Tonight I stand toe to toe with the likes of Mike Morrison and Tommy Knoxville, in a three-way match-up. When I came to this organization, I promised you the fans that you would no longer see and be satisfied with the status quo. That you the fans would see something new, something you’ve never before seen, that every event you attend, every show you watch from at home, you’d see something that would make you go, “Wow, that was new, that Manhattan White is an innovator of pain, an inventor of punishment, a wizard in the ring!” And tonight is going to be no different! Not only will the three of us be in that ring, but we’ll also be in there with some of my best friends, Implements of Destruction. You two knuckleheads thought that One Night in Hell was going to be an event? Tonight boys, tonight is going to look like a nightmare compared to One Night in Hell. One Night in Hell was just a practice run!

Because when we stand toe to toe in that ring tonight, when that starting bells goes off, Manhattan White's going to smile in your faces. He’s going to sigh with relief and settle back into a metaphorical couch. Not to let the two of you do all of my dirty work, but because we’ll be busy whipping the shit out of each other, I won’t have to worry about keeping my promise, it’ll just sort of happen. And when you crybabies are lying on your backs, looking into the house lights of the arena, trying to figure out what happened, where you both went wrong, when you’re listening to the bell ring three times, signaling for your demise? Here’s your answer: You underestimated Manhattan White, you stepped into his ring, you played with his toys, and proved to the world, that no matter how much experience you have, when you step into the ring with the Master of Pain, you don’t walk out with smiles on your broken faces.

~*~Manhattan White pulls a boombox out from the pizza delivery car, and brings it up onto the roof with him. He holds the boombox over his head and Say Anything’s the crowd with Childish Gambino’s “Bonfire.” The crowd jams out as Irish Pete breaks into a break-dancing routine as the scene fades.~*~