Fish&Chips and Keynote Presentations: A 5'2" Mafia Joint
May 30, 2020 18:33:38 GMT -5
BonnieBlue, Jubei, and 2 more like this
Post by Lacklan on May 30, 2020 18:33:38 GMT -5
“Aren’t these the best fish and chips EVER?!”
The voice of Sarah Grey-Lacklan is filled with so much over-the-top enthusiasm that it catches the attention of every diner around. The high-end British pub, The Pilot was busy tonight, with nearly every table full, and many heads turned towards the oddity that was the Grey-Lacklans. With her platinum hair pulled up into an elaborate bun and a red gem sitting on her forehead, Sarah seemed ready to waltz in the halls of Windsor in her red and black gown. Across from her, with her mass of microbraids hanging loosely around her shoulders, Kenzi is positively muted in comparison in her black dress, though the clean and tight cut accentuates her curves enough to entice many looks from interested patrons.
“Seriously legitimate, what we have at the Salty Fisherman at home IS pretty good, but NOTHING compared to the REAL thing!”
Kenzi shakes her head and sighs.
“Sar, you have been dragging me all over the world the last two weeks for the oddest things! Wisconsin...just for cheese, Idaho...just for potatoes, and now...? Look, it's good, I admit. But did we really have to fly sixteen hours for Fish and Chips?! ”
Sarah rolls her eyes so hard that they threaten to pop out of their sockets.
“Of COURSE we did! How ELSE were we going to make sure! Besides, you KNOW you get a little tingle of excitement whenever we come to London. You LOVE hearing a bunch of people that sound like me!”
Kenzi’s caramel cheeks color slightly, though she is able to push it down before they turn their particularly embarrassing shade of purple.
“Don’t be dumb, Babe. I only have eyes for-”
“Yes yes.”
Sarah’s interruption is accompanied by a dismissing wave of a gloved hand.
“You know, you USED to have a sense of humor about that kind of thing! Just because Claire is dead doesn't mean Art4 has to be!”
Kenzi gives her a flat look and her mouth opens to burn her to the ground in retort (R.I.P., Claire!), but Sarah’s eyes go wide.
“Oh Em Gee! Did you know that there was a wrestling show in town?! We should totes go!”
Kenzi’s head whips around as Sarah points and her dark eyes narrow as they focus on a television set in the corner. Alpha Pro Wrestling’s Kingdom Come pay-per-view, as explained by some sportscaster, was about to start and-
“...just so HAPPENS to be down the street from where we are…”
Kenzi slowly turns her head back to Sarah, whose face is a blank slate of serene innocence.
“Wow, what a coin-”
“What IS this about, Sar?!”
Sarah chews on her lips for a few moments.
“Its just a weird coi-”
“Selena!”
The use of her middle name, an intimacy only Kenzi had, stops the next verbal dancing from Sarah’s tongue. She looks away for a moment and allows herself to take in the various other diners who have returned to their meals.
“You’ve been talking about retirement a lot, lately. About hanging up the boots after getting kicked in the face so much over the last few years. About how you have everything you can want.”
She turns back to Kenzi.
“Question: Look at your entire career thus far. Analyze it. Ups and downs. At what point were you happiest? When was your work/life balance at its peak?”
Sarah's question takes Kenzi off guard. She hadn't expected this to be about her moving further and further away from the wrestling business. Over the past few months she had settled into a routine that no longer involved active competition. For the past three years the ring had dominated everything they had done together, but now things were different. Kenzi had never bother to stop and think about how her decision had impacted their lives...not until this very moment. Sarah had drug her around the globe as she continued to pursue the passion that had brought them together and now threatened to distance them. That was the one thing that Kenzi never considered about her choice to hang up her wrestling gear.
"Well?"
Sarah pressed her wife for an answer to her question.
"I think we both know the answer..."
Kenzi's eyes drifted towards the television where a small crowd had gathered to watch the preview for Kingdom Come. The drunken, rowdy lot "OOOH'ed" and "UHHH'ed" as images of their favorites flashed across the screen. She'd missed that reaction...to say otherwise would have been a lie. She gave a heavy sigh and turned back to Sarah.
"Okay...how do we go about getting signed somewhere?"
Sarah blushed.
"Oh...well...ummmm…"
Kenzi's mouth drops open as Sarah nods towards the television just as it splashes the faces of the Grey-Lacklans, in their 5’2” Mafia personas, in a “versus” page with a man and a woman opposite them. The veins in Kenzi's neck pop out as she struggles to contain a scream that would shatter glass. Her dark eyes narrow to vicious slits as she cuts them viciously back to her wife.
“Are you fucking kidding me?! What if I had said no?!”
"Yeah like THAT was ever gonna happen. You have NO d against me in anything! You don't even know what no MEANS when my squat booty is around! And that is a small part of why I love you! Because MY favorite life/work balance is when we're dragging our bodacious booties across the world and taking the fight to it. Now, I'm not necessarily saying that I want to do another craxballs World Tour where we need to bust out our Tardis just to make sure I'm at all the bookings I take, but NOTHING makes me happier than when the G-Ls are showing the world just how kickass we are! So, are you saying no?"
Kenzi rolls her eyes, leaning back in her seat.
"NO! But...STILL! Fine...FINE!!! Who are we booked against?"
“THE BLADE!”
Kenzi blinks in surprise at the sudden elation on Sarah’s angular face.
“For YEARS I have been WAITING for this moment, Beloved! Not just ANY wrestler, but THE Blade himself! You have NO idea what he is capable of.”
“wut”
“Seriously legitimate, the guy has, like, super powers. The tales of his heroic and impossible deeds fly far and wide! The entire WORLD knows about John Blade! In fact, I have been working on something…”
Sarah reaches into her purse and rummages for her phone and Kenzi shakes her head and sighs.
“I’ve seen enough of your latest gifs, babe...you and I are going to talk about that Sierra Silver hoe you’ve been interacting with...and I don’t need to see-”
“LOOK!”
Sarah busts out her phone and presses a few buttons. The wallpaper, a picture of Kenzi’s smiling face so hi-def that you can make out every single freckle, dissolves into a Keynote presentation:
Slide One
click
Slide Two
click click click click
Slide Six
click
Slide Seven
click click
Slide Nine
click click click click
Slide Thirteen
click click
Slide Fifteen
“Babe, there is no way that this guy did all of those things.”
“You shut your whore mouth!”
Sarah’s eyes blaze as Kenzi interrupts her.
“John Blade does AMAZING things in the sport of wrestling and literally EVERYONE should be in AWE of him! In fact! IN FACT! He does the most AMAZING thing of ALL literally EVERY MATCH and we should all be STUDYING him for our own paths to success!”
Yet another suffering sigh and shaken head from Kenzi.
“And what is this ‘amazing’ thing that he always does and we should be studying?”
Sarah’s face calms from the Devil and back to the serene Angel.
“He cuts literally the same promo every single time...and has for years! At LEAST six of them! And gets away with it!”
Kenzi blinks in confusion...again...and Sarah brings her attention back to her phone.
“Here...check THIS out…”
Kenzi’s face is a mixture of horror, confusion, and sadness that cannot be easily quantified.
“...wut did I just watch?”
Sarah’s angelic smile fills with the light of mischief to make even Loki nod in approval.
“THAT was a promo from when he fought Drew Stevenson-”
“The dude who said he was going to ‘Cosby’ you?”
“-yep, same dude...who I beat, obvs...but get THIS: This promo? It was from six YEARS ago! See, Daddy was World Champ of this company called SIN Wrestling, right? You know all about it from Lacklanland History 102, of course-”
Kenzi’s lip and forehead burst out in a cold sweat but, thankfully, Sarah doesn’t press her on her supposed knowledge and is able to, at least for the time being, keep the secret of just how many naps she took during her wife’s stories about her family history.
“-and while I wasn’t his valet yet...I was only fifteen at the time, as you know...but I was around alot, and towards the end of his run, BLAMO! This new dude comes to the fed. Super duper strong, right? Powerful as FUCK! But then he opened his mouth and we got THAT piece of nonsense! And guess what? John Blade has been in, like, 100 feds...at least...and traveled all across the globe. Now, I’m usually very cool with that, as freelancing is in my blood, but in all of those travels, John has never GROWN. With all of those feats of strength...and you didn’t even see the slide where it shows him taking the world off Atlas’ shoulder for a bit so that the big man could take a break...and it is just the same dumb shit over and over in his promotional videos AND his approach to matches. It is ALWAYS ‘I’m going to the show to fight my opponent on the night of the show where I fight my opponent and I’m going to beat my opponent on the night of the show and get an opportunity at the World Champion after I beat my opponent on the night of the show where I face my opponent before I get my opportunity to fight the World Champion on the night of the next show.”
“He DID say ‘Entropy Show’ a lot”
“You have NO idea! In that particular interview? He said ‘Entropy Show’ thirty-five times. THIRTY FIVE! I COUNTED!”
“...of course you did…”
“Talk about the very definITION of putting filler in your work in order to make it seem larger! And all these years later? Over six and a half YEARS later? Same shit, different day. Literally every promotional video by him...and Latoya, but I’ll get to her in a sec...it's just the repeating of his opponent’s name, the name of the show, and how this next match is an opportunity to get an opportunity to have an opportunity to be seen by a champion so that he can have an opportunity to be given an opportunity to receive an opportunity to get an opportunity at an opportunity. Sweet Baby Jesus’ smooth butt cheeks, it is the WORST."
Kenzi could only silently run her hands down her face as Sarah continues on.
“Now, this would be totally different if his relentless monotony got the job done. After all, the history of our business is LITTERED with people who only do one or two moves, or use the same tactic, and find success, especially in the various heavyweight divisions. Whether they be super heavyweight pacific islanders who use the same six moves as the rest of their family, or literally giants like Soul Reaver who routinely go for the bearhug with an occasionally double underhook suplex, or roided up jackmonsters who can only do some clotheslines-”
“...like your new boyfriend Richtor…”
“...I call him Vichie…”
“...if he calls you ‘Little Bit’ one more time, I’m going to rip off his junk and feed it to him…”
“...that's pretty graphic, Beloved…”
“...try me…”
“N-E-Ways! Those powerhouses, while limited, find success! Championships! Renown! Respect! But the Blade? His monotony, his ‘same shit, different day,’ the routine that he has followed, without fail, for YEARS, has led to naught but the laughter of even the most addled and useless of fans and peers! Literally everyone knows WHO John is and they ALL laugh at WHAT he is. He is the literal and physical embodiment of the definition of insanity: Expecting a different outcome from the same process. He IS insanity incarnate, and not even in some cool ‘ermahgerd i iz chaos’ kind of way, but in a shitty way which makes his opponents roll their eyes and yawn when they see the booking sheet. Again, it would be different if his approach actually DID something, but all it does for HIM is send him to the loser’s circle. Sure, he’s been able to luck his way into some wins with that insane strength of his...the dude is legit buff as fuck...but its only when facing one-off joke teams like the Alpha Twins or when fighting the shitty version of Flop.”
“wut”
“Don’t ask, its nowhere near as interesting or excellent as everyone around here and our Action cousins think it is.”
“What about this Latoya chick?”
Sarah rolls her eyes and waves her hands.
“Okay. So. Ya know how you and I look nothing alike but have grown to embody one mind?”
Kenzi nods as she looks Sarah up and down. The two of the always garnered second glances regardless of where they went: Sarah, a New Englander albino of such rarity that her eyes shined red in the light, with hair and skin the color of the moon. Kenzi, her own skin a soft caramel color born from a blended family, with a mass of black microbraids. Sarah had once quipped that, had you told 18 Year Old Sarah, that she would end up in a same sex marriage to a black woman from the opposite coast, she would have sent you to the loony bin, but here they were.
“Yes…”
“Well, THEY practically are, too! Both from Boston...ew...not as bad as Connecticut, though…”
Kenzi bites her lip over Sarah’s treatment of the “lesser” New England states, which meant any but her own birthplace of Maine.
“...both using the same moves in every match, both using the same promotional style, and both being the butt of many MANY jokes throughout the industry. Honestly, while WE share one mind, at least we have TWO DISTINCT voices, ya know? Them? You might as well BE booked against that jerkoff Alpha Bros team when you face Blade and Hixx. Well, except for one MAJOR fact that separates them.”
Kenzi raises an eyebrow.
“Hixx has KILLER hair. It is SO fucking cool!”
The earnestness in Sarah’s eyes and voice force a chuckle from Kenzi.
“You and chicks with purple hair.”
“Its cool! I wish MINE could do that.”
Kenzi shivers in sudden disgust at that thought. Sarah was perfect the way she was! Suddenly, Kenzi’s eyes go wide.
“Wait. Wait wait wait. Hixx. I think I know this...GET THE FUCK OUT! She was in Ladies All-Star!”
“Really?”
“Yeah, mang! In my rookie year. She had a handful of matches.”
“How did she do?”
"Guess?"
Kenzi didn't want to be mean. It was true, just like John, Latoya had always been a 'creature of habit' during promos, but that wasn't the point.
“Damnit, Babe! Let me get this straight: YOU, at the tail end of your vacation, signed US, which includes ME, who was PERFECTLY FINE not getting my face kicked in for a living for a little while, to face John Blade and Latoya Hixx?”
Sarah flashes her Billion $$$ and gives an emphatic nod.
"Yep! Now, I know that I wrestled, like, three or four times during this vacay, but those barely counted, ya know? Its really just been about the killer food! But now I'm ready to go full speed and start working towards my next goal...which includes making good on that Christmas present from you! You and me wearing some tag gold around our waists and reminding our peers of what true excellence looks like! Because that is what you and I do, ya know? We are fast, we are strong, we are MODERN. We fly around the world and give men twice our size and a quarter a smart the fight of their lives, we put their shoulders on the mat, and we make them stare up into the lights in shock. WE are both the present AND future of professional wrestling: Second generation stars with championship pedigree, both in our blood and in our deeds, who refuse to give in to the mediocre drivel that people like Blade and Hixx believe is excellence. And another thing-"
Kenzi sighs and clutches the bridge of her nose, pressing gently yet firmly in an attempt to push away the usual stress pain caused by being married to Sarah, as well as drone out the sound of Sarah's monologue. She hated it when Sar went into "Presentation Mode" at the dinner table! The pressure on her nose wasn't quite enough to completely drone out Sarah-
"-and the NINTH time I saw John wrestle when I was seventeen, he-"
-so she raises her hand and motions towards their waiter with her fingers, and the young man obliges by pouring her another glass of wine.
“...how to cope with marriage…”
Kenzi takes a deep drink and looks up at the television screen.
“So, when IS this match of ours?”
Sarah’s eyes go wide as she notices the time and stops suddenly in what was likely Paragraph Nine, Subjection Sixteen of the Secondary Conclusion.
“OH SNAP! In, like, fifteen minutes! We gotta go!”
“wut”
Sarah pushes back her seat and tosses her napkin to the table.
“I ninja’d your gear in your bag! Go get dressed and I’ll hail a cab!”
“What do you mean-”
“Oh, come ON! We don’t have time! YOU can’t hail the cab while I change. You’re black! We’d never get there in time!”
“.........”
“No time!”
“Fifteen minutes?! I haven’t even stretched out, yet!”
Sarah’s lips curl upward into a heated smirk. She skips over to Kenzi's side of the table, leans forward, and plants a kiss on her as heated as the smirk. Several fellow patrons either give an appreciative whistle or clutch their pearls in offense, neither of which seems to affect the two. After what seems like a very long time, Sarah pushes off Kenzi and bites her lip hard.
“Oh, I’ll take care of stretching you out!”
She gives Kenzi an exaggerated wink, turns, and bounds away. Kenzi sighs...after taking a moment to appreciate Sarah’s bottom as she bounded away, of course...and looks in her bag. And, indeed, at the bottom, is her set of black and red gear, the matching 5’2” Mafia gear they had made earlier in the year. She paused, wondering if this was the life she really wanted; flying from town to town just to get inside a filthy wrestling ring and try not to get murdered night after night while drunken fans cheered for the opposite outcome. She didn't miss that...she didn't miss that at all...but the look of glee on Sarah's face at the thought of the two of them sharing that same filthy ring, even with opposition the caliber of Blade and Hixx...well...
“Happy wife...happy life…”
Kenzi wrings her hands nervously as she paces back and forth just out of the view of fans in the entranceway. Everything felt weird to her; her black patent leather boots that had curb stomped dozens and dozens of opponents suddenly felt two sizes too small. She absently reaches down and fidgets with the waistband of her tights, wondering if weeks of doing nothing but eating and playing video games had left her with a muffin top. Her long black braids fell into her eyes, obscuring her vision, no matter how many times she swiped them away. She could feel her heart racing, threatening to jackhammer its way right out of her chest.
The crowd roars loudly as the starting cords of “Burn” by The Cure begins to play.
Sarah starts to step through the entrance way, but she pauses as she sees her wife rooted to the spot with a thousand yard stare. A look of concern passes over the albino’s face as she rushes over and takes Kenzi by her shoulders.
“Beloved? Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
Kenzi looks at Sarah with seemingly no recognition at all for a moment, then she blinks and lets out a huge sigh, as if she had just emerged from under raging rapids. There was panic in her dark eyes.
“…why did we pick this song…what in the hell were we thinking?!”
Sarah knew her wife well enough, this wasn’t about theme music. She held Kenzi, one hand inside that of her wife’s and the other caressing the side of her face. When she spoke, her voice was a soothing whisper.
“…you don’t have to do this…I still love you, I always will…”
Sarah wraps her arms around Kenzi, doing what she can to comfort her. Almost instantly, Kenzi’s shoulders slump as she falls fully into the embrace.
“…I know…”
“…what is it? What’s wrong?”
Kenzi pulls back, cutting an eye towards the open entranceway and she can’t help the nervousness that grips her. Her last two in-ring appearances had been utter disasters and now she had a feeling that this was going to be one as well.
“…I…I don’t think I can do this…”
As she utters the words, she looks away.
“PLEASE! It’s Blade and Hixx, I could beat them by myself if I-“
“That’s not it Sar! It’s not about John or Latoya…I know their history, I know their record. That’s not what’s bothering me.”
Sarah was silent for a moment, allowing Kenzi to gather her thoughts.
“I was so ready to give this all up…for good. I decided that I didn’t need this…”
She looks down at her tight fitting ring gear, then out to the entranceway where the cheers of the crowd were reaching a fever pitch.
“…but…what if I fall back in love with this…with all of them? I don’t want to want this anymore…you know?”
Sarah smiles and gives a slight nod, taking her wife’s hand.
“I know.”
The pair step through the entranceway…together.
The voice of Sarah Grey-Lacklan is filled with so much over-the-top enthusiasm that it catches the attention of every diner around. The high-end British pub, The Pilot was busy tonight, with nearly every table full, and many heads turned towards the oddity that was the Grey-Lacklans. With her platinum hair pulled up into an elaborate bun and a red gem sitting on her forehead, Sarah seemed ready to waltz in the halls of Windsor in her red and black gown. Across from her, with her mass of microbraids hanging loosely around her shoulders, Kenzi is positively muted in comparison in her black dress, though the clean and tight cut accentuates her curves enough to entice many looks from interested patrons.
“Seriously legitimate, what we have at the Salty Fisherman at home IS pretty good, but NOTHING compared to the REAL thing!”
Kenzi shakes her head and sighs.
“Sar, you have been dragging me all over the world the last two weeks for the oddest things! Wisconsin...just for cheese, Idaho...just for potatoes, and now...? Look, it's good, I admit. But did we really have to fly sixteen hours for Fish and Chips?! ”
Sarah rolls her eyes so hard that they threaten to pop out of their sockets.
“Of COURSE we did! How ELSE were we going to make sure! Besides, you KNOW you get a little tingle of excitement whenever we come to London. You LOVE hearing a bunch of people that sound like me!”
Kenzi’s caramel cheeks color slightly, though she is able to push it down before they turn their particularly embarrassing shade of purple.
“Don’t be dumb, Babe. I only have eyes for-”
“Yes yes.”
Sarah’s interruption is accompanied by a dismissing wave of a gloved hand.
“You know, you USED to have a sense of humor about that kind of thing! Just because Claire is dead doesn't mean Art4 has to be!”
Kenzi gives her a flat look and her mouth opens to burn her to the ground in retort (R.I.P., Claire!), but Sarah’s eyes go wide.
“Oh Em Gee! Did you know that there was a wrestling show in town?! We should totes go!”
Kenzi’s head whips around as Sarah points and her dark eyes narrow as they focus on a television set in the corner. Alpha Pro Wrestling’s Kingdom Come pay-per-view, as explained by some sportscaster, was about to start and-
“...just so HAPPENS to be down the street from where we are…”
Kenzi slowly turns her head back to Sarah, whose face is a blank slate of serene innocence.
“Wow, what a coin-”
“What IS this about, Sar?!”
Sarah chews on her lips for a few moments.
“Its just a weird coi-”
“Selena!”
The use of her middle name, an intimacy only Kenzi had, stops the next verbal dancing from Sarah’s tongue. She looks away for a moment and allows herself to take in the various other diners who have returned to their meals.
“You’ve been talking about retirement a lot, lately. About hanging up the boots after getting kicked in the face so much over the last few years. About how you have everything you can want.”
She turns back to Kenzi.
“Question: Look at your entire career thus far. Analyze it. Ups and downs. At what point were you happiest? When was your work/life balance at its peak?”
Sarah's question takes Kenzi off guard. She hadn't expected this to be about her moving further and further away from the wrestling business. Over the past few months she had settled into a routine that no longer involved active competition. For the past three years the ring had dominated everything they had done together, but now things were different. Kenzi had never bother to stop and think about how her decision had impacted their lives...not until this very moment. Sarah had drug her around the globe as she continued to pursue the passion that had brought them together and now threatened to distance them. That was the one thing that Kenzi never considered about her choice to hang up her wrestling gear.
"Well?"
Sarah pressed her wife for an answer to her question.
"I think we both know the answer..."
Kenzi's eyes drifted towards the television where a small crowd had gathered to watch the preview for Kingdom Come. The drunken, rowdy lot "OOOH'ed" and "UHHH'ed" as images of their favorites flashed across the screen. She'd missed that reaction...to say otherwise would have been a lie. She gave a heavy sigh and turned back to Sarah.
"Okay...how do we go about getting signed somewhere?"
Sarah blushed.
"Oh...well...ummmm…"
Kenzi's mouth drops open as Sarah nods towards the television just as it splashes the faces of the Grey-Lacklans, in their 5’2” Mafia personas, in a “versus” page with a man and a woman opposite them. The veins in Kenzi's neck pop out as she struggles to contain a scream that would shatter glass. Her dark eyes narrow to vicious slits as she cuts them viciously back to her wife.
“Are you fucking kidding me?! What if I had said no?!”
"Yeah like THAT was ever gonna happen. You have NO d against me in anything! You don't even know what no MEANS when my squat booty is around! And that is a small part of why I love you! Because MY favorite life/work balance is when we're dragging our bodacious booties across the world and taking the fight to it. Now, I'm not necessarily saying that I want to do another craxballs World Tour where we need to bust out our Tardis just to make sure I'm at all the bookings I take, but NOTHING makes me happier than when the G-Ls are showing the world just how kickass we are! So, are you saying no?"
Kenzi rolls her eyes, leaning back in her seat.
"NO! But...STILL! Fine...FINE!!! Who are we booked against?"
“THE BLADE!”
Kenzi blinks in surprise at the sudden elation on Sarah’s angular face.
“For YEARS I have been WAITING for this moment, Beloved! Not just ANY wrestler, but THE Blade himself! You have NO idea what he is capable of.”
“wut”
“Seriously legitimate, the guy has, like, super powers. The tales of his heroic and impossible deeds fly far and wide! The entire WORLD knows about John Blade! In fact, I have been working on something…”
Sarah reaches into her purse and rummages for her phone and Kenzi shakes her head and sighs.
“I’ve seen enough of your latest gifs, babe...you and I are going to talk about that Sierra Silver hoe you’ve been interacting with...and I don’t need to see-”
“LOOK!”
Sarah busts out her phone and presses a few buttons. The wallpaper, a picture of Kenzi’s smiling face so hi-def that you can make out every single freckle, dissolves into a Keynote presentation:
Slide One
The GLORY that is THE BLADE
by S.S.G-L
by S.S.G-L
click
Slide Two
Introduction
OMG HOLY CRAP JOHN IS AMAZING AND
OMG HOLY CRAP JOHN IS AMAZING AND
click click click click
Slide Six
FEAT OF AMAZEBALLZNESS #12:
John once wrestled an entire family of sharks and made them simultaneously tap out while in a giant bearhug
John once wrestled an entire family of sharks and made them simultaneously tap out while in a giant bearhug
click
Slide Seven
FEAT OF AMAZEBALLZNESS #19:
John once stared into the Sun and the sun blinked
John once stared into the Sun and the sun blinked
click click
Slide Nine
FEAT OF AMAZEBALLZNESS #25:
While John was too busy being the greatest wrestler of all time to do the commercials, he still allowed Dos Equis to use moments from his scrapbook to create their “Most Interesting Man” campaign
While John was too busy being the greatest wrestler of all time to do the commercials, he still allowed Dos Equis to use moments from his scrapbook to create their “Most Interesting Man” campaign
click click click click
Slide Thirteen
FEAT OF AMAZEBALLZNESS #37:
John was the personal trainer and body guard for both Chuck Norris and Steven Seagal
John was the personal trainer and body guard for both Chuck Norris and Steven Seagal
click click
Slide Fifteen
FEAT OF AMAZEBALLZNESS #87:
The Guinness Book of World Records went out of business after John spent 30 days and 30 nights setting new records in every category
The Guinness Book of World Records went out of business after John spent 30 days and 30 nights setting new records in every category
“Babe, there is no way that this guy did all of those things.”
“You shut your whore mouth!”
Sarah’s eyes blaze as Kenzi interrupts her.
“John Blade does AMAZING things in the sport of wrestling and literally EVERYONE should be in AWE of him! In fact! IN FACT! He does the most AMAZING thing of ALL literally EVERY MATCH and we should all be STUDYING him for our own paths to success!”
Yet another suffering sigh and shaken head from Kenzi.
“And what is this ‘amazing’ thing that he always does and we should be studying?”
Sarah’s face calms from the Devil and back to the serene Angel.
“He cuts literally the same promo every single time...and has for years! At LEAST six of them! And gets away with it!”
Kenzi blinks in confusion...again...and Sarah brings her attention back to her phone.
“Here...check THIS out…”
Kenzi’s face is a mixture of horror, confusion, and sadness that cannot be easily quantified.
“...wut did I just watch?”
Sarah’s angelic smile fills with the light of mischief to make even Loki nod in approval.
“THAT was a promo from when he fought Drew Stevenson-”
“The dude who said he was going to ‘Cosby’ you?”
“-yep, same dude...who I beat, obvs...but get THIS: This promo? It was from six YEARS ago! See, Daddy was World Champ of this company called SIN Wrestling, right? You know all about it from Lacklanland History 102, of course-”
Kenzi’s lip and forehead burst out in a cold sweat but, thankfully, Sarah doesn’t press her on her supposed knowledge and is able to, at least for the time being, keep the secret of just how many naps she took during her wife’s stories about her family history.
“-and while I wasn’t his valet yet...I was only fifteen at the time, as you know...but I was around alot, and towards the end of his run, BLAMO! This new dude comes to the fed. Super duper strong, right? Powerful as FUCK! But then he opened his mouth and we got THAT piece of nonsense! And guess what? John Blade has been in, like, 100 feds...at least...and traveled all across the globe. Now, I’m usually very cool with that, as freelancing is in my blood, but in all of those travels, John has never GROWN. With all of those feats of strength...and you didn’t even see the slide where it shows him taking the world off Atlas’ shoulder for a bit so that the big man could take a break...and it is just the same dumb shit over and over in his promotional videos AND his approach to matches. It is ALWAYS ‘I’m going to the show to fight my opponent on the night of the show where I fight my opponent and I’m going to beat my opponent on the night of the show and get an opportunity at the World Champion after I beat my opponent on the night of the show where I face my opponent before I get my opportunity to fight the World Champion on the night of the next show.”
“He DID say ‘Entropy Show’ a lot”
“You have NO idea! In that particular interview? He said ‘Entropy Show’ thirty-five times. THIRTY FIVE! I COUNTED!”
“...of course you did…”
“Talk about the very definITION of putting filler in your work in order to make it seem larger! And all these years later? Over six and a half YEARS later? Same shit, different day. Literally every promotional video by him...and Latoya, but I’ll get to her in a sec...it's just the repeating of his opponent’s name, the name of the show, and how this next match is an opportunity to get an opportunity to have an opportunity to be seen by a champion so that he can have an opportunity to be given an opportunity to receive an opportunity to get an opportunity at an opportunity. Sweet Baby Jesus’ smooth butt cheeks, it is the WORST."
Kenzi could only silently run her hands down her face as Sarah continues on.
“Now, this would be totally different if his relentless monotony got the job done. After all, the history of our business is LITTERED with people who only do one or two moves, or use the same tactic, and find success, especially in the various heavyweight divisions. Whether they be super heavyweight pacific islanders who use the same six moves as the rest of their family, or literally giants like Soul Reaver who routinely go for the bearhug with an occasionally double underhook suplex, or roided up jackmonsters who can only do some clotheslines-”
“...like your new boyfriend Richtor…”
“...I call him Vichie…”
“...if he calls you ‘Little Bit’ one more time, I’m going to rip off his junk and feed it to him…”
“...that's pretty graphic, Beloved…”
“...try me…”
“N-E-Ways! Those powerhouses, while limited, find success! Championships! Renown! Respect! But the Blade? His monotony, his ‘same shit, different day,’ the routine that he has followed, without fail, for YEARS, has led to naught but the laughter of even the most addled and useless of fans and peers! Literally everyone knows WHO John is and they ALL laugh at WHAT he is. He is the literal and physical embodiment of the definition of insanity: Expecting a different outcome from the same process. He IS insanity incarnate, and not even in some cool ‘ermahgerd i iz chaos’ kind of way, but in a shitty way which makes his opponents roll their eyes and yawn when they see the booking sheet. Again, it would be different if his approach actually DID something, but all it does for HIM is send him to the loser’s circle. Sure, he’s been able to luck his way into some wins with that insane strength of his...the dude is legit buff as fuck...but its only when facing one-off joke teams like the Alpha Twins or when fighting the shitty version of Flop.”
“wut”
“Don’t ask, its nowhere near as interesting or excellent as everyone around here and our Action cousins think it is.”
“What about this Latoya chick?”
Sarah rolls her eyes and waves her hands.
“Okay. So. Ya know how you and I look nothing alike but have grown to embody one mind?”
Kenzi nods as she looks Sarah up and down. The two of the always garnered second glances regardless of where they went: Sarah, a New Englander albino of such rarity that her eyes shined red in the light, with hair and skin the color of the moon. Kenzi, her own skin a soft caramel color born from a blended family, with a mass of black microbraids. Sarah had once quipped that, had you told 18 Year Old Sarah, that she would end up in a same sex marriage to a black woman from the opposite coast, she would have sent you to the loony bin, but here they were.
“Yes…”
“Well, THEY practically are, too! Both from Boston...ew...not as bad as Connecticut, though…”
Kenzi bites her lip over Sarah’s treatment of the “lesser” New England states, which meant any but her own birthplace of Maine.
“...both using the same moves in every match, both using the same promotional style, and both being the butt of many MANY jokes throughout the industry. Honestly, while WE share one mind, at least we have TWO DISTINCT voices, ya know? Them? You might as well BE booked against that jerkoff Alpha Bros team when you face Blade and Hixx. Well, except for one MAJOR fact that separates them.”
Kenzi raises an eyebrow.
“Hixx has KILLER hair. It is SO fucking cool!”
The earnestness in Sarah’s eyes and voice force a chuckle from Kenzi.
“You and chicks with purple hair.”
“Its cool! I wish MINE could do that.”
Kenzi shivers in sudden disgust at that thought. Sarah was perfect the way she was! Suddenly, Kenzi’s eyes go wide.
“Wait. Wait wait wait. Hixx. I think I know this...GET THE FUCK OUT! She was in Ladies All-Star!”
“Really?”
“Yeah, mang! In my rookie year. She had a handful of matches.”
“How did she do?”
"Guess?"
Kenzi didn't want to be mean. It was true, just like John, Latoya had always been a 'creature of habit' during promos, but that wasn't the point.
“Damnit, Babe! Let me get this straight: YOU, at the tail end of your vacation, signed US, which includes ME, who was PERFECTLY FINE not getting my face kicked in for a living for a little while, to face John Blade and Latoya Hixx?”
Sarah flashes her Billion $$$ and gives an emphatic nod.
"Yep! Now, I know that I wrestled, like, three or four times during this vacay, but those barely counted, ya know? Its really just been about the killer food! But now I'm ready to go full speed and start working towards my next goal...which includes making good on that Christmas present from you! You and me wearing some tag gold around our waists and reminding our peers of what true excellence looks like! Because that is what you and I do, ya know? We are fast, we are strong, we are MODERN. We fly around the world and give men twice our size and a quarter a smart the fight of their lives, we put their shoulders on the mat, and we make them stare up into the lights in shock. WE are both the present AND future of professional wrestling: Second generation stars with championship pedigree, both in our blood and in our deeds, who refuse to give in to the mediocre drivel that people like Blade and Hixx believe is excellence. And another thing-"
Kenzi sighs and clutches the bridge of her nose, pressing gently yet firmly in an attempt to push away the usual stress pain caused by being married to Sarah, as well as drone out the sound of Sarah's monologue. She hated it when Sar went into "Presentation Mode" at the dinner table! The pressure on her nose wasn't quite enough to completely drone out Sarah-
"-and the NINTH time I saw John wrestle when I was seventeen, he-"
-so she raises her hand and motions towards their waiter with her fingers, and the young man obliges by pouring her another glass of wine.
“...how to cope with marriage…”
Kenzi takes a deep drink and looks up at the television screen.
“So, when IS this match of ours?”
Sarah’s eyes go wide as she notices the time and stops suddenly in what was likely Paragraph Nine, Subjection Sixteen of the Secondary Conclusion.
“OH SNAP! In, like, fifteen minutes! We gotta go!”
“wut”
Sarah pushes back her seat and tosses her napkin to the table.
“I ninja’d your gear in your bag! Go get dressed and I’ll hail a cab!”
“What do you mean-”
“Oh, come ON! We don’t have time! YOU can’t hail the cab while I change. You’re black! We’d never get there in time!”
“.........”
“No time!”
“Fifteen minutes?! I haven’t even stretched out, yet!”
Sarah’s lips curl upward into a heated smirk. She skips over to Kenzi's side of the table, leans forward, and plants a kiss on her as heated as the smirk. Several fellow patrons either give an appreciative whistle or clutch their pearls in offense, neither of which seems to affect the two. After what seems like a very long time, Sarah pushes off Kenzi and bites her lip hard.
“Oh, I’ll take care of stretching you out!”
She gives Kenzi an exaggerated wink, turns, and bounds away. Kenzi sighs...after taking a moment to appreciate Sarah’s bottom as she bounded away, of course...and looks in her bag. And, indeed, at the bottom, is her set of black and red gear, the matching 5’2” Mafia gear they had made earlier in the year. She paused, wondering if this was the life she really wanted; flying from town to town just to get inside a filthy wrestling ring and try not to get murdered night after night while drunken fans cheered for the opposite outcome. She didn't miss that...she didn't miss that at all...but the look of glee on Sarah's face at the thought of the two of them sharing that same filthy ring, even with opposition the caliber of Blade and Hixx...well...
“Happy wife...happy life…”
~~Twelve Minutes Later~~
Kenzi wrings her hands nervously as she paces back and forth just out of the view of fans in the entranceway. Everything felt weird to her; her black patent leather boots that had curb stomped dozens and dozens of opponents suddenly felt two sizes too small. She absently reaches down and fidgets with the waistband of her tights, wondering if weeks of doing nothing but eating and playing video games had left her with a muffin top. Her long black braids fell into her eyes, obscuring her vision, no matter how many times she swiped them away. She could feel her heart racing, threatening to jackhammer its way right out of her chest.
The crowd roars loudly as the starting cords of “Burn” by The Cure begins to play.
Sarah starts to step through the entrance way, but she pauses as she sees her wife rooted to the spot with a thousand yard stare. A look of concern passes over the albino’s face as she rushes over and takes Kenzi by her shoulders.
“Beloved? Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
Kenzi looks at Sarah with seemingly no recognition at all for a moment, then she blinks and lets out a huge sigh, as if she had just emerged from under raging rapids. There was panic in her dark eyes.
“…why did we pick this song…what in the hell were we thinking?!”
Sarah knew her wife well enough, this wasn’t about theme music. She held Kenzi, one hand inside that of her wife’s and the other caressing the side of her face. When she spoke, her voice was a soothing whisper.
“…you don’t have to do this…I still love you, I always will…”
Sarah wraps her arms around Kenzi, doing what she can to comfort her. Almost instantly, Kenzi’s shoulders slump as she falls fully into the embrace.
“…I know…”
“…what is it? What’s wrong?”
Kenzi pulls back, cutting an eye towards the open entranceway and she can’t help the nervousness that grips her. Her last two in-ring appearances had been utter disasters and now she had a feeling that this was going to be one as well.
“…I…I don’t think I can do this…”
As she utters the words, she looks away.
“PLEASE! It’s Blade and Hixx, I could beat them by myself if I-“
“That’s not it Sar! It’s not about John or Latoya…I know their history, I know their record. That’s not what’s bothering me.”
Sarah was silent for a moment, allowing Kenzi to gather her thoughts.
“I was so ready to give this all up…for good. I decided that I didn’t need this…”
She looks down at her tight fitting ring gear, then out to the entranceway where the cheers of the crowd were reaching a fever pitch.
“…but…what if I fall back in love with this…with all of them? I don’t want to want this anymore…you know?”
Sarah smiles and gives a slight nod, taking her wife’s hand.
“I know.”
The pair step through the entranceway…together.
