False Savior

[The image is grainy, as if recorded from a cheap web-cam. AWOL sits at his computer desk, bleary eyed, tired, looking somewhat beaten down from the previous iteration of the IWC Riot! program, but with a smug smile firmly entrenched upon his face.]

AWOL-So, as much as I hate to admit it, Christian Savior, you have actually managed to draw my curiosity about a certain point. I’ve labored for a good amount of time trying to come up with anything interesting to talk about in the blind for this match, since I’m sure you won’t have anything to contribute until later this evening and Riggs will likely manage not to show up at all. In this case, I’m aided by the fact that we faced each other just last week, so I can simply continue the back-and-forth volley we began before the tag match last week on Riot! However, I simply don’t have the inclination or inspiration to put together anything more elaborate than a simple direct address, and seeing as how I’m currently of a mind to rant and I have this handy web camera here to record it, this will be what I’m releasing to the IWC public at large. You’ll have to excuse the somewhat cheap production value. We can’t all afford the extras budget to have constant sex going on in the background like Porno Lad.

[A shrug of his broad shoulders.]

AWOL-And you’ll have to excuse me as well, Riggs, because this promo is basically not going to be about you in the least. You see, while you and Psycho have managed to fuck up a number of my matches, you’ve actually not managed to prove anything to me that would lead me to believe you have any business being in a match of this caliber. To put it bluntly, Riggs, this is a match for the number one contendership and a spot in the cross-promotional match with the IWC. What I’ve seen of you since my return has solidified exactly three facts about you into my mind that cannot be refuted: first, that you are apparently only capable of managing to be the third most notable or respected wrestler in your stable, falling behind “top draws” like Jackson Adams and Psycho; second, that you were the tomato can they threw into the ring for Cagero to beat down and establish his “legitimacy” as the IWC champion; and third, that someone in the home office, for whatever reason, seems to believe that you are far better than you actually are and has a fondness for tossing you into the deep end with no life preserver. All of these things lead me to the conclusion that you ultimately have no place being here.

Let me make something inescapably clear to you, Riggs: you are out of your league. There is exactly one person in your newly reformed Alpha Generation who even remotely deserves a place in this match, and that is Jackson Adams. I might want to pop his fucking skull like a pimple, if only because he gave the Society some ability to brag about a win over me when he slapped Johnny Kingdom in the face with a chair, but the bottom line is he’s the only one from your group who’s actually accomplished anything in recent weeks. He screwed the Empire at Extinction, he reformed the Alpha Generation, he recruited you and Psycho, and he even managed to get the drop on me last week on Riot! Like him or not, he’s a man on a mission. He’s taking some initiative, which is more than I can say for most of the people in this place. You, on the other hand, seem content to ride the coattails of your betters and let them carry you on, and who can blame you? You’ve managed to finagle a world title shot and a chance at the number one contendership out of talking to invisible ghosts, hanging out with people who actually occasionally do something with their career, and wearing some face-paint Sting threw away in a dumpster behind the TNA arena. Meanwhile, your stable leader, JA, is stuck on the opposite end of the ever-so-compelling “pair the champion up with the guy who took his title” tag team match with absolutely nothing on the line and no reward for winning while you reap the benefits his labors. That’s justice folks. That’s the IWC. Welcome to it.

[A disgusted sneer, quickly replaced by neutrality.]

AWOL-But you, Christian Savior, you I am honestly curious about. You see, this week’s Riot! had to be a singular event in your career. I would go so far as to characterize it as a defining moment for you, an evening that almost embodies a microcosm of your entire existence. All that is Christian Savior was displayed proudly on the Riot! stage for the all the world to see. And what did we observe on this evening of evenings? We saw you, a man who claimed to not care about the world title anymore, dress up in costume to pretend to be another superstar on the roster, steal their world title shot, force a referee to count a pinfall for you after you cheated your way into even participating in the match, and then subsequently be defeated by the man who you were imitating. So in a matter of seconds, you illegitimately stole the world title you claimed to no longer have an interest in and then had it taken away by none other than an SCW escapee, Jason Wheeler. Now, for most people, that would be a full night’s work, but not you Savior. No, no, you had to come out later on and face me with your Porno Stooge, and somehow, despite having a numbers advantage at the beginning of the match and facing my tag team partner whose brain apparently exploded mid-contest, you managed to lose that match as well. Was it shady? You bet it was. Was their outside interference? It was an IWC main event, so that should go without saying. But we established last week Savior that a win was a win, and so by my reckoning that leaves things at 2-1 in my favor between the pair of us.

[He leans forward. The grainy image fails to resolve the sheer intensity of his glare.]

AWOL-Yes, that’s right. You’ve lost to me again. The big dumb bull, the brainless powerhouse, the one who you think just wanders down to the ring and bumbles through things has beaten you once more. I told you once, Savior, that I’ve made a career out of people underestimating me, but the message apparently seems to have failed to sink home. I’m not terribly upset about this, you understand. Frankly, go ahead and keep doing what you’re doing. Pick my promos apart for the points you can twist around in your favor while ignoring the things that make you look foolish. Tell people that you’ve won more IWC titles than me as if that proves something when, in reality, I’ve been in the IWC for only a few months so obviously there’s no way I could manage to equal a year-long reign as world champion. Try to sell me as a brainless clod. Try to convince people you’re better than me. Twist the truth. Lie. Do all the things that you’re best at, and then keep on walking down to the ring and losing to me anyways. It just makes it that much sweeter when the three count falls and, yet again, Christian Savior’s brilliant plans have unraveled around his ears.

[He leans back, a satisfied smile on his face.]

AWOL-Tell me, Savior, how did it feel that night when you went back into the locker room? How did it feel when you had to take off your Zero costume and look at yourself in the mirror? Were you proud of yourself? Did it make you feel like the most dominant force in this company to know that you have to dress up as another man to even get a whiff at a World Title shot? Because I’ll tell you what it looked like to me: pathetic. Fucking pathetic. What I saw in the ring on Riot! was a man whose career, despite his delusions, appears to be on the downturn. What I saw in the ring was a man who has to resort to subterfuge and chicanery to get what he wants, because he knows he doesn’t have the juice anymore. I mean let’s face it, Christian, you’re not exactly news these days. Everything you have, people have handed to you. Porno Lad won your Cartel Title for you, Dan Douglas handed you all the power of authority you hold in the company, and you had to imitate a masked-man to even get the opportunity to take the world title away from Johnny Kingdom. And to top it all off, the real Zero showed up a moment later and took the belt away before you’d barely even had a chance to hold it. You know what all that says to me? That you’re irrelevant, Savior. The world of the IWC has passed you by. You might be a big deal in the SCW, and that should basically surprise no one given the talent pool in that place, but you simply can’t cut it here anymore. There are too many people who are better than you now. Sure, when Johnny Kingdom and I were out of the picture you won a bunch of titles and established a legacy for yourself in the IWC, but now that we’re back look what you’re reduced to. Costumes? Really? That’s the best you can do?

[Mockery. Derision. All of these things adorn the big man’s face.]

AWOL-And look who you have on your side. Look at your allies, Christian. Porno Lad is the best wrestler in your Five Star Society. I’ll repeat that so it can settle in: Porno Lad is the best wrestler in the 5SS. After you get past him, you have Katelyn Parkwood, a pregnant Robin Brooks, and a bunch of other whores, hangers-on, and nobodies who don’t even deserve to be drawing a paycheck for themselves here. How do you look at yourself in the mirror and feel anything but disgust for the leeches you have hanging off of yourself? How do you wake up in the morning and feel anything besides self-loathing at the ridiculous lengths you have to stoop to to achieve even the smallest modicum of success here?

I honestly want to know, because as an outside observer your recent stint in the IWC has been almost sad enough to inspire pity from me, and it’s beginning to show in the quality of your promos. You’re flailing, presumably because you’re desperate. You toss out random insults and hope that one of them strikes home. You think you need to explain an allegory to me? News flash: calling someone the weakest link is a metaphor and, I would like to add, a cliché. It is not an allegory. An allegory would be like writing a long promo where you use character representations to try and emphasize a point about the people you’re trying to mock, like L. Frank Baum did when he wrote the original Wizard of Oz to try and argue for the introduction of the silver standard for currency in the United States. Ironically, the concept of allegory is the very thing we’ve been trying to convey to you for months now about why your “parodies” fail to even accomplish their title objective of parodying the people involved in them. But I guess that’s the simple reality of our situation, isn’t it? You’re only interested in the things I say that you can exploit, and the rest goes in one ear and out the other.

“Said but true,” I believe is the way you put it.

Why do I not talk about your style? Well, putting aside for a moment the fact that you typically don’t bother mentioning it either, I frankly don’t see the relevance of the point. We’re not having a wrestling match when we write these lovely little exchanges; we’re conducting a very different type of war: a war of propaganda. Your mischaracterization of me as some sort of lumbering clod that barely knows how to execute a wristlock serves no purpose here besides portraying me in an inferior light, and you know it. In truth, I don’t talk about your style of wrestling because from the ring experience I have with you, I’m not certain you have one. Essentially, you’re a master of the catch as catch can, “whatever shortcut can get me a victory right now” style of wrestling, and beyond that point you don’t have a technique preference. So what is the purpose of commenting on it? I watch film. I prepare, the same as you do. Listing off your top ten move choices and how I’m going to counter them will do nothing besides tip my hand to you before we get in the ring and bore the audience to tears. Moreover, I’ve fought you before, which gives me the best sort of preparation of all. Whether or not I mention to the fans what I’ve seen of you will have exactly zero bearing on the outcome of the match from the moment the bell rings. Sure, I could play the sort of game that you do and try to make something up about you to make people believe that I have an edge where there isn’t one, but I don’t really feel that that’s necessary or even required. People can see what happens when we get in the ring together. Let them make up their own minds.

Basically, I’m beyond the point of even bothering to take what you say seriously, and I think the average IWC fan is getting to that point as well. Every time I see one of your promos against me they sound more rushed and more frantic and less sensible, if that’s even possible, than the last. As I said, you’re just swinging now and hoping to connect with something. It stinks of desperation, Savior, and it’s getting more and more pathetic by the minute. The longer this goes on and the harder you try to spin things, the more wretched it starts to look. Honestly, Bill O’Reilly, Keith Olbermann, and Rush Limbaugh should look to you for tips, because I’ve never seen someone before who was quite so skilled at taking a situation that was clearly not in their favor and, by sheer denial and force of willpower, somehow was capable of finding a way to reshape reality to maintain the illusion that, somehow, someway, despite all points to the contrary, they were in fact somehow still relevant to the world at large. Even now I can hear the enthusiastic clicking of your keyboard as you type out the words in the script for the promo that, you believe, will somehow serve as a rebuttal to the obvious truth of what I’ve said. I have no illusion about this fact. Sometime around 11:59 PM EST this evening there will be another scathing retort from the Savior camp flying across the IWC airways portraying me as some sort of shaved baboon that the federation has cruelly forced to compete against his betters in a triple threat match for the IWC title number one contendership. I look forward to it, really. They make me laugh, as most flat out ridiculous things do. But the problem is, Christian, that with each and every week and each and every lie, the illusion starts to wear down. With every defeat it gets that much thinner, and week by passing week people are starting to see through it.

Soon enough, Savior, you’re going to realize that you’ve lost this thing. Maybe you’ll quit, maybe you’ll let yourself slide into obscurity in the Submissions Title division, or maybe you’ll just keep on persisting despite all common sense until you’re just too broken down and beaten to carry on, but one day soon the Society’s mandate in the IWC is going to end. Project Shatter-Point, whatever the fuck it’s supposed to be, is dead before it even begins, and it’s dead because I’m in the way. I’m going to be the IWC number one contender. I’m going to win this match, and at the cross-over event I’m going to beat Wheeler for the title. It’s as simple as that.

I look forward to your response.

[With a smile, AWOL reaches forward and deactivates the camera.]