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Silence. Deafening, embarrassing silence.
This is not what I expected and yet, now, it seems so utterly predictable.
What are you afraid of, boys? Cat got your tongue?
You can spend minute after tedious minute throwing verbal barbs at Quinn Murphy but you can't spare one for me? Not a single one?
Don't worry. I know you'll bounce back before our match with some last minute words for me. An attempt at claiming the upper-hand, a gesture of competition. That's a given.
But the fact you've waited this long to even dare lob one solitary insult my way?
That says more than any trash-talking promo ever could.
Speaking of which...
Fade in. A black background. A jet black curtain hangs in the distance but for now it is all the camera's lens can see. As we zoom out, ever so gently, however, a man comes into view. A great man. A Virtuoso. Jamie Krenshaw.
JAMIE: Good evening.
Krenshaw stands proudly, wearing some lightly torn old Levis, Converse sneakers and a black SLEEP t-shirt. His trademark wry grin is plastered on his face, always condascending, always awash with the vibe that he knows more than you. He does, by the way.
JAMIE: Two weeks. It's been nearly two weeks and what have my opponent's given me to work with?
Jamie answers his own question.
JAMIE: Nothing. They've sat in silence, occasionally breaking that silence to mock Quinn Murphy's use of eyeliner or verbally fellate themselves more than an aspiring model with a twitter account,
Jamie shakes his head.
JAMIE: Boys, boys, boys. THIS is your tactic? To ignore me? To just close your eyes and hope I go away? "Hey, maybe if we isolate Quinn we can defeat him and not even bother with Krenshaw!" Nice theory, fellas. And by "theory" I mean "mistake" and by "fellas" I mean "cowards".
A grin.
JAMIE: That's right, I said "cowards". I mean, what other word could better define your approach to me thus far? Hanging back, shit-scared to speak first, to raise my ire, perhaps waiting for a glimpse of what I can do so's you can plan your own approach based off mine? Well, I gave you a taste, now what? Nothing. Cowardice. I told you in my last promo that I wasn't here to hold anyone's hand. I'm not here to coddle you or make things easy. I'm here to embarrass you and ensure The Design remains at the forefront of everybody's minds and the top of the card. You two have tasted Main Events recently... well, I hope you enjoyed the taste. I hope you savoured it. Because I'm here now and the moment I sign on the dotted line at South Beach Sunday, I become The DRAW, I become the Main Event.
A wink.
JAMIE: I abruptly knock you off your perch and take everything you've been working for.
Sorry.
JAMIE: You see, unlike you two, I'm not afraid of actual competition. I embrace it. I defeat it. It's been easy for you two lately, stomping around bragging about your victories over majestic names like "War Pig" and "Pete Cormier". Names that will surely go down in the pantheon of wrestling history as men who were hard to defeat.
Jamie can barely keep a straight face.
JAMIE: Yeah, you've droned on and on about the lack of competition here, how only you two are worthy of each other's attention. Well, guess what? Competition just arrived and you two have done nothing but cower and hide from it like a two-year-old girl in a lightning storm. In two short weeks you've shown yourselves up as posers and liars. Braggards without merit. For all your talk of competitive spirit and superiority over the roster, you've wilted and crumpled in the face of something real. You've seen what I am capable of and you've shit your pants, basically.
That grin again.
JAMIE: What was it? Did you watch some old tapes of me? Perhaps stumble across one of my World Title victories in Big Time Wrestling? Or my dominant reign in the TWF, where Jade Diamond , Dustin Iler and I ran roughshod over the entire company? "Who are these guys?" I bet you're asking? They're guys who are better than you, on another plain of quality as compared to you and they were my contemporaries. They were my peers. Understand that and you'll begin to see why all you're blustering on television and your posturing backstage doesn't intimidate me. Hrm, if I were you maybe I'd have stayed silent as well. Then again, if I were you two I probably wouldn't have burst into the Design's locker room and invited a whole world of problems into my otherwise sheltered, "successful" life.
Big mistake.
JAMIE: But, much as I believe your fear of me is as good an indicator as any that you have no chance of besting Quinn and I on Sunday, it's not the only thing I've learnt about you guys in the last two weeks. In the last three months, really. See, while you two have been pinning easybeats and establishing yourselves as the guys who can occasionally Main Event when Jake Dirden and Dominic Pure are otherwise engaged, I've been on the periphery, doing my thing under the Obama mask. But I've also been watching. I've observed everything going on around the company. And what have I learned, you ask? Well, I've learned that Pete Cormier has issues with anger but even bigger issues with winning. I've learned that Devan Nox has a decent rack and a butter-face but that'll do for Dan Pandora because the only other woman in his life is the life-sized Jason Hartnell doll he cut a vagina into.
Jamie catches himself.
JAMIE: Oh, what have I learned about you two? That's the question on your minds, obviously, because you two can only show interest in anything when it relates to yourselves, right? Well, listen up then, ladies, because I am talking to you now. Try to hold back your tears.
Jamie makes a mock sad-face.
JAMIE: Why don't we start with the "Glamorous" one? Throw him a bone...
Suddenly a beep goes off. Jamie, slightly confused, reaches into his pocket and pulls out his iPhone. Reading it casually, and then a little more intently, Krenshaw smiles.
JAMIE: He speaks! Just as predicted, in the dying seconds of the day before our match, "Glamorous" Sebastian Galca has dared to utter my name. Congratulations, Seb, we're all very proud! And what does he have to say?
Krenshaw reads a bit more of the message he's received on the phone. He grins.
JAMIE: Ah, yes, he misses the point. Of course. But let's get to that a bit later. For now, I want to talk about you, Sebastian, not your appraisal of me. Because you make quite a fascinating case study. A pretty-boy, cultured to an extent, obviously coddled in childhood, sheltered, told he really is special and you've taken all those elements and taken someone whose obsessed with... glamour? Glamour?
A shake of the head.
JAMIE: And just what does glamour mean in modern society, Sebastian? Just what values have you taken and built your personality off of? You seem to consider yourself intelligent? World-weary and sophisticated, am I right? And yet you dwell in the pit that is the wrestling industry and rely on your model's face to appeal to the vapid masses? Some would call that playing to your strengths. Others might suggest that the way you live your life so contradicts the way you want to be seen that it simply couldn't be true. Me? I think the truth lies somewhere in between. I mean, you're verbose, or atleast have Thesaurus.com bookmarked on your web browser, so you're not as dumb as, say, Brent Kersh. But you also spend your nights performing in skintight underwear for a caucus of braying men so you're not as sophisticated as, say, this guy:
That wry grin again. JAMIE: You label my little stint under the Obama mask a failure? I'm sorry, just how long did Dirden hold onto that belt? Just how many men who tried to stand up to The Design fell at my feet? Halloween Hostility, which was supposed to be our big moment, backfired, yes. But that's a mere glitch. And, honestly Galca, are you genuinely naive enough to think Jamie Krenshaw firing off shots from the sidelines is the same thing as Jamie Krenshaw unleashed on the rest of the roster on the frontline? The change that has come and the change you seem intent to deny is that I am no longer restrained and following orders. I'm in the spotlight now, unmasked and unleashed. While you're at pains to pretend that means nothing, a second straight loss for you in that many shows will prove you wrong. The loss. JAMIE: Ah, the big loss. The dropped title. How conveniently you cast that aside. You lost to someone just as good as yourself, right? A mirror image? Please. You've claimed all along that Carl Thompson is the only competition you have in SSW. And you lost to him. So what does that say about you? That you're fine to fluff your record with wins over minnows but you can't get it done on the big stage? You choke when it's not all one-way traffic? No matter how you try to write off that loss you don't come out of it looking any better. In your big Main Event, against your first "real" competition, you failed. How well does that bode for this coming week, Sebby? Well? JAMIE: You can call into question the partnership between Quinn and I, and hey, I had some doubts too, but the reality is you're now a proven failure and you're tag-teaming with the man who handed you that label. Enjoy that, Sebastian. Just be sure to hold tight onto those coat-tails, you don't want to get left behind. NEXT. JAMIE: Which brings us to Carl Thompson. The self-proclaimed Mr. Awesome. Again, a title that tells us a lot about you. I'll be honest, Carl. For a while I kinda liked you. All the pomp and circumstance of your entrances, the big-talk, the egomania. I thought you were a pitch-perfect parody of the frat-boy jock who allows minor achievements to go to his head. You know, that sad guy who at age 35 will still tell you about the time he threw the winning pass in the "big game" back at College. That guy who drinks a few beers every night to try and silence his inner-shame as he watches his wife who used to be the Prom Queen balloon out and become fatter than her mother. That guy who talks about the marks he got in school because since then, he hasn't done anything worth bragging about. I thought your act was killer. Then I realised you weren't joking. Jamie's furrowed brow indicates pity. JAMIE: And much like Mr. Galca, it seems your already gigantic ego has been allowed to flourish as you take down easybeats and establish a record that, while impressive on paper, means jack-shit in reality. Just how insecure are you, Carl? I mean, between crowbarring the word "awesome" into every conversation like some stoner playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and carrying your own fake title, just how big a wall have you had to build between the man you want to be and the man you actually are? Can one see the other at this point? Because the man you think you are, chiseled from granite, holding the Awesome Championship and beating all-comers should really take a look at the dude on the other side of the wall with his ridiculous sharp cheekbones, toy belt and ever-motoring mouth repeating "I AM GOOD, REALLY, I'M AWESOME, LOOK AT ME, I SWEAR I'M AS GOOD AS I SAY I AM THAT'S WHY I HAVE TO KEEP REPEATING IT LIKE SOME RETARDED MANTRA". The man you are. Sorry to break the illusion. JAMIE: Look, I'll hand you one piece of credit I couldn't pass on to Galca: You actually won on the last show. You said you were facing your first real challenge and you succeeded. Huzzah! to you. I hope you celebrated heartily because after reaching such "lofty" heights the abrupt fall this weekend is going to be pretty nasty. See, if you thought Sebastian Galca was a challenge then you're about to have that word redefined for you. Sebastian Galca is a pup, a baby, a fresh-faced urchin vying for attention. I am a pitbull, a monster, an arse-kicking veteran who can make you tap out before the ref's even had time to search you for weapons. I'm the real deal, Carl, and your silence regarding me indicates that maybe, just maybe, you have come to realise that. That's something, right? JAMIE: But again, your insecurity will force you to speak out. The denial so prevalent in your brain, so fundamental to your being won't allow my appraisal to go unchallenged. And that's fine. I understand my words aren't enough to tear that wall down. For the man you wish you were to see the man you really are, you'll have to lose. You'll have to lose face, you'll have to lose faith, you'll have to lose a match. This Sunday, I can make all those things happen. Quinn and I. And we will. Because you were stupid enough to come asking for favours from men you had no right to speak to. That wall you built up, that ego it engendered, it led you to us and now we'll lead you toward your own inevitable disappointment. And you'll no longer be undefeated. You'll no longer be awesome. And again, that wry grin. JAMIE: But me? I'll once again reclaim my throne, my label as being not just undefeated but undefeatable. Not just "awesome" but transcendent. And that's not a firestorm of insecurity bringing out those words, Carl. That's over a decade of accomplishments. Accomplishments that happened in real life. Not just college and high school. Fade out. See you in Panama City, ladies.
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 Not "glamorous", not even "awesome". Simply transcendent. |