Post by RedLetters on Mar 29, 2020 22:52:58 GMT -5
𝕴𝖋 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖐𝖓𝖔𝖜 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖊𝖓𝖊𝖒𝖞 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖐𝖓𝖔𝖜 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗𝖘𝖊𝖑𝖋, 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖓𝖊𝖊𝖉 𝖓𝖔𝖙 𝖋𝖊𝖆𝖗 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖗𝖊𝖘𝖚𝖑𝖙 𝖔𝖋 𝖆 𝖍𝖚𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖊𝖉 𝖇𝖆𝖙𝖙𝖑𝖊𝖘.
March 22nd, 2020,
Hershey, Pennsylvania
Every bitter beat of her black heart throbs loudly enough to echo through the now-empty Hershey Center, hours after Monday Night Metal’s come to an end. The few staff members in attendance can’t interrupt her reliving of this night, starting with her circling the ring. It’s so vivid! Riot comes alive as yells and shouts from APW referees watching her elbow Hixx into a bloodied pulp fall upon death ears. Hell - did corona-virus hype empty out the arena, or did she tune out the crowd?
Every attempt to recall any of those faces in seats strikes out - any memories of anger or disapproval are simple fragments compared to the Red rush of euphoria surging through her veins enough to make her feel like dancing. This was the very first time she stood in the center of an APW ring and held a microphone, and she used it as a lockpick to free herself from her chains - chains like those of the opinions of fans in attendance or at home, or chains from the wrestlers backstage content to watch her fight among the unknown, and chains like those expectations in her head focused on trying to be a wrestler the ‘right’ way. Some viewers loved her carnage - others thought it was in poor taste and overkill - but EVERYONE respected it.
The only change in Riot’s attire is her leather jacket over her black and red shirt along with her pitch-black tights; Hixx’s dried jobber blood on her elbow and fist is still especially visible, given how often she strokes it with her non-bloodied hand to coax her back into recalling this Metal show. Riot returns to gleefully living in that memory as she walks backstage: and there were no pats on the backs, no nods of approval, no condescending smiles or thumbs up for beating whatever bush league competition summoned for her weekly meal, only the pesky sensation of a mosquito buzzing in her peripheral as she began walking through the concrete hallways. After a few seconds of this pest continuing to aggravate her, Red’s senses awaken to Dani Applegate’s voice.
“...Red? Red Riot?”
Riot’s glare meets Dani’s eyes with all the kindness a flyswatter offers a gnat. Observing this, Dani nervously looks at the camera and the microphone in her hands, and softly mentions something in the nature of a quick interview if Riot has a moment. After a few seconds of the Crimson Killer breathing and coming to her senses, Dani seizes the moment with her first question.
“Red Riot, I just wanted to congratulate you on your win tonight. You’ve been racking up win after win in Alpha Pro, and didn’t leave much question as to the message you delivered tonight. Why did you attack Latoya Hixx in calling out North American Champion, Lex Collins?”
Riot impatiently folds both of her hands behind her back and looks to Applegate as if she’s wondering exactly when this interview begins. A few seconds pass without a response, and Dani takes the hint.
“. . . Okay, is your recent behavior in response to being ejected from the tournament for the APW Tag Team championships?”
The tactic of getting answers from Riot by charging in with all of the delicate touch of a katana isn’t lost on Riot. She cups her chin, hides her face for a few seconds in laughter, and ultimately ends up nodding. Dani’s words have left her face reddened, and the veins in her temples throbbing. The tunnel vision from before’s entirely focused on the APW staff person challenging her right now. Still, Riot doesn’t make a peep..
“Do you have anything to say to Hixx? To your fans? To anyone that was surprised tonight?” Dani requests with a disappointed sigh attached to this softball question, only for her to blink with surprise as Red begins clearing her throat.
“How rude of me. Sorry. I’m still riding the fight wave a lil’ bit. Interview, yes.”
The hand covered in dried jobber blood extends, so she can politely take ownership of the microphone Applegate was holding.
As soon as Riot begins speaking, each word leaves her mouth with sarcasm as thick as molasses. “Back to your 'interview questions'. I decided to call out Lex Collins today because I admire his fortitude as a competitor and am very excited to engage in a contest of sportsmanship with him. Maybe because I’m so young and so new to the APW I didn’t realize the proper protocol to issuing a challenge - I’m clearly not tall enough to see all of the signs where you write your name down for a title shot that everyone else seems to be able to see,” she jokes, in the midst of her red-faced, heavy breathing, fist shaking tirade. Despite the sweat dripping from her forehead or her tone rising from a casual speaking tone to that of a mother yelling at her child, she holds onto enough tact for her sarcasm to pervade every word.
“As such, Latoya Hixx, I’d like to issue an apology. I’m sorry. I’m really fucking sorry. I’m sorry to every bitch who tasted my cleats on the rugby field, every bitch with their head split open from my elbow in the wrestling ring, too, because I spent so much time perfecting my craft and being an apex athlete just to spend my Mondays fighting you, you cosplayer. Do I have anything to say to Hixx? Do you have anything to say to the ants you step on? Didn’t think so.”
Both hands wrap around that microphone, and Riot presses it to Dani’s chest as she demands an answer. Applegate looks to her, then the camera, and Riot begins fuming. “That’s the right thing I’m supposed to say, huh? Right? It isn’t hard to be the good girl that’s just SO happy to be here, I gave it a shot!” Her increasing in volume, as well as the pressure applied to shoving that microphone forward only makes Applegate step back a pace, and Riot practically begins to see red.
“Why’re you looking at me like that, eh? I’m Red Riot, I’m happy to be the product of three generations of wrestling dominance, spending my weeks fighting against people twice my size, half my talent. Thanks to APW, too! I’m so gracious and glad that you all decided I could be worthy enough to fight for second place in your little tag tournament along with a pool of fighters that seem like they were in attendance at whatever rec center you all recruited from.”
“I’m also extremely grateful to every fan in the ring enacting the idea of booing me. They were in stunned silence watching both of these knees drilling that talentless hack Hixx in the face. They were dead quiet when I hit the Red Letters and left her bloodied. The fact that they didn’t like my actions, but are only able to summon the strength to boo when I’m NOT FIGHTING, PROVES MY POINT. Love or hate what I do, you WILL respect me when I’m in the ring.”
“D-do-” Dani looks down, and finally reaches for the microphone being pressed into her chest to hold it up to the woman she's interviewing. She's holding the mic so far from her body that you'd think she's interviewing while trying to exhibit how to social distance. “Do you have anything to say to your detractors after tonight?”
“If you’re keeled over in pain, grinding your fingers into dust to tweet how disappointed you are in me, save it; you’ll need twice as much next week.”
After letting her death grip around that mic drop, Riot turns. She’s sweating more now than she did during her match, the clenched jaw woman does the smartest decision she could possibly make tonight - she leaves. Riot storms down the long, empty hallway with both hands over her mouth as if she’s desperately trying to hold back the urge to scream and let out all of that rage.
March 29rd, 2020,
In the first gym basement Red Riot could find in the Smokey Mountains
“The longer I spend in APW, the more I think I’m losing my fucking mind.” These words are as jarring as her breath is ragged and scattered after a long night of burrowing her frustrations in a gym. Riot stands in a cut-off tank top, bare knuckles, and pushes back a massive dangling from the ceiling of this tiny basement of a gym. A punching bag, a speedbag, and a treadmill might not be all of the bells and whistles, but Planet Fitness is closed; something about a global pandemic? In between getting close to the weighted bag and locking in some dirty boxing, clenched punches, Red muses, “Is it weird to say this place feels like home?”
Red quickly breaks the clench, only to charge forward with a straight elbow to the bag, and it sinks in with a meaty THUD, just like it did to Latoya Hixx on metal. Riot’s sweat-filled brow raises at the noise, and she tries to hide the smile in the corner of her face. “Yeah, yeah, l know. My opinion on what a home is should be taken with a grain of salt. I'm Red Riot, woe is me, sad girl raised in a sexist family, my fighting ain’t something getting daddy’s approval, you’ve heard it before. I’d have an inbox full of offers from the Lifetime channel if I didn’t spend my free-time tonguing down girls,” curses Red, at the dollars from suburban moms she could be making, before she shrugs it off. “Still. This place feels like what home should feel like. When I say that, I think I mean. . .”
“Every opportunity I’ve taken here makes me feel respected. I don’t feel like doing fan-service when I step onto the entrance ramp - I feel like the person that should be serviced, worshiped, and appreciated is Red Riot herself. APW feels like the kinda place where I can walk in, relax, and put my dick on the table? Alpha Pro feels like the type of organization where trying to be someone other than who you are is exhausting, and . . . I think I needed to be here. Growing up knowing I’d never be allowed to step into a ring, all I ever did was fantasize about the kind of wrestler I know I could be! I always had this idea of respect ingrained into my head. . . because you really find out what respect means when you don’t get any. I personally knew what it was like for someone to look at your eyes, then at your body, and say you weren’t going to be shit. Right now, I got paid to stomp Hixx’s teeth out on television." Red pauses, only to allow herself to let getting paid to cave heads in to sink in. After a deep breath, Red yells, "I’m THE shit.”
“Because my northern star in wrestling was respect, I’d bring the exact same performance I bring to APW to any bingo hall or VFW willing to watch me bloody anyone with a suicidal streak. I’m the chick that studies every single tape I could get my hands on, and tries to come up with specific plans to use everyone’s strengths against them. I’d never let a single thing slip past me - but after fighting the Enforcers and their disrespectful streak, then watching the way they insult everyone from the third-generation prodigies to the god-damned champions reigning atop APW. . .”
“And the god-damned general manager, interviewers, even the god-damned fans heel to them an' everyone just like them. . . I’m beginning to realize that value on respect should start looking inwards. If I don’t take myself serious, who the fuck else will, right?”
“All that I’m going to fight every match like it might be my last stuff? Sorry, cancel culture takes another victim. That stuff’s dead. Now, let every person stepping in a ring with me fight like they understand it might be their last fight. I’m less focused on compulsively studying into every detail, every match, and every utterance of whatever soul unfortunate enough to have his name next to mine on a card. Instead, I’m stepping up my game. I’m making sure my high-flying, my knee strikes, and my kicks are sharper, week after week."
“Mind you, that’s kicks with an S. Multiple kicks. Rugby, gymnastics, wrestling, even a game of fucking horse-shoes, I’ve always tried to bring diversity to any blank canvass I come across. Red Riot’s a woman with many paintbrushes for many scenarios, whether it’s flips and trips to use my opponent’s weight against me, hard-hitting knees crushing skulls, or brutal striking. If Aaron’s as much of a three-stroke chump in the bed as he is in the ring, I’m surprised he’s kept a wife for this long." The musing out loud comes to a pause so the showcase can begin. Red bounces backwards into a light kickboxing stance, so she can make sure her point stands out with a roundhouse kick to the center of the punchbag. In order to add an exclamation point, Red follows up with a question mark kick - which looks like an ordinary roundhouse kick to the body, then curves up to most fighter's blindspots and catches the bag at head-level. More roundhouse kicks, a scissor kick, and a flying knee right at skull level follow up her argument and land with hard thuds on the red bag.
"Fighting’s so competitive nowadays that everyone’s got a black belt in SOMETHING, I needed to have an arsenal to make a student of karate’s head spin just to call myself a fighter - so hearing Aaron Osmosis walking around, multiple time champion of federations destroyed by the reign of his almighty. . . bicycle kick told me everything I needed to know about ZPW and NPW, and a lot about Aaron."
"When I got asked about what I was going to do in the ring during my debut, I offered one simple reply: I’d rather show you. Red Riot was a fresh new face to most people tuning in and I knew the same thing I know right now - once you see me in the ring, I don’t need to talk about how great I am. You’ll know. Red talks about being a third-generation Riot as a service to everyone who wonders why they can’t do what I can - because they weren’t literally made for this shit. When you talk about what makes you different, your experience in other feds, I laugh. If I turned Hixx upside down and shook her, she’d probably spill some meaningless ‘world’ title belts too. I checked out your old work as much as I could stomach - so understand how informed I am when I say you’re a second-rate wrestler with a third-rate moveset winning championships in fourth-rate feds. It took 600 pounds of muscle to give me my only L in this place - do you really think a kick from a two-hundred pounder barely able to get his leg off the ground is gonna put me down?"
"Speaking of self-respect, I know you’re a decade into the game, but I’ve got a little lesson for you. I didn’t look in the mirror one day and call myself a high-flier. People watching me did. I didn’t call myself the Crimson Killer, but everyone watching me painted with someone else’s blood thought the name stuck. Calling yourself a technician when your moveset consists of everything you’d learn in any fighting school accredited by craigslist, Aaron. Let’s call you what everyone in APW’s been calling you: ‘that guy who got tossed out of a battle royal’, or ‘that guy who looked like a punk to some absolute loser’, or the ‘designated bathroom break guy’ confusing his style having no rhyme or reason as being textbook.” Red pushes the bag back, and steps away to look at her bruised knuckles. Thankfully, calluses manage to make that exercise a lot less painful than it'd be otherwise, but she kisses her knuckles and points them forward. "I use people's weight against them, I beat them senseless, and I paint them red. Simple."
“I’m done having more respect for wrestlers than they have for themselves. I’ll call out every overrated, unskilled loser hiding behind belts proclaiming them champion of the unskilled and overrated. If you don't have enough self-respect to spend more time training and less time interviewing, I'll slaughter you. You’ve got a few weapons here or there Aaron, but I’m a freakin’ arsenal. You desperately want to be seen as 'textbook' style, but I'm a fucking encyclopedia of ways to drop overrated 'champs' on their necks. Most important, this textbook that every ‘vet’ reads from where they boast about winning twenty titles to earn a contract I got handed to me off of a few performances, is getting ripped to shreds by a book of my own creation. It’s a real thriller! This week, I’m killing off an irrelevant, boring character in it - after all, I want my autobiography to fly off the shelf. See you soon."
