Welcome to Rkdawn
The show wrapped up in triumphant fashion.
From here, I was set to travel with Cena and join Rkdawn.
Just as Cena had done on tonight's show, I would be appearing on Rkdawn to advance the Ring Survival feud.
Then, in week three, Rkdawn's roster would swarm out to invade Burning Kong, and in week four, Burning Kong would return the favor and raid Rkdawn. The script was much the same every year, yet Ring Survival never failed to draw big numbers.
It was the novelty of brand warfare, and the romance of it all — wrestlers casting aside every notion of good and evil to band together and fight as one.
Which was why both brands were currently running storylines to hand-pick the five men who would represent them in the 5-on-5 elimination match.
And my role was to crash that very storyline — to storm out, provoke the Rkdawn roster, and get under Cena's skin before walking out.
All of it, of course, pure scripted theater.
In reality, I was standing in a supermarket with Cena, hunting for snacks to sustain us on the long drive ahead.
After mulling over my current physical condition and stamina for a while, I'd been busy sorting through which treats would be both tasty and easy on the body — when Cena appeared beside me lugging an absolutely colossal Twizzler.
Twizzlers. The gummy-rubber candy Americans love. Or was it rubber-flavored gummy?
"How about we just settle for this one?"
"What even is that?"
"A four-foot Twizzler."
"......"
"No way you'll doze off behind the wheel with this. Plus, it's rubber-flavored!"
"Ah, so that flavor really does exist."
"Rubber's my favorite flavor — it doesn't taste like anything!"
"Fine, fine. Just grab a normal one."
"Okay......"
A dejected Cena trudged back the way he'd come. I snorted a laugh and turned to the cooler.
Beast energy drinks — I checked the calorie count and ingredients on the sugar-free version among the lineup and picked up four. Along with those, I grabbed some caffeine gum and, true to Cena's recommendation, a few Twizzlers before checking out.
This would be a drive of over ten hours, and late at night besides — this was all in the name of staying as careful as possible.
Drive long enough and you go on autopilot. You start out a little tense, but somewhere along one of those endlessly straight highways, foot on the gas, your mind simply drifts off somewhere else.
The snacks were precisely the countermeasure for that.
Paper bags in hand, we headed out to the parking lot.
The vehicle that would carry us all the way to Alabama was Cena's truck.
A Dodge Ram.
Sliding into the passenger seat, I was struck by how incomparably comfortable it was compared to any rental car.
"When'd you get this?"
"Uh, a month or two ago?"
"Killer ride."
It had been a long time since I'd been in a car with seats this immaculate. Cena pulled out of the lot right away.
Nearly no road noise, and the stereo playing at just the right volume to tickle the ear — it really was killer.
"Maybe I should get one too."
"Not a bad idea. Fiat just started offering a pickup service."
"Pickup service?"
"Well, it's a system where when I'm flying somewhere for work, they'll deliver the car wherever I want it. It's cheap, and there's no hassle of having to go collect it yourself."
"That's slick."
A service like that would be a godsend for a pro wrestler, no question. We were the kind of people who drove somewhere only to hop on a plane and fly off the moment work called.
But with this? The moment a job wrapped, I could get straight into my own car and hit the road again.
If that was on the table, there was no earthly reason to keep suffering in bargain-bin rentals.
I flashed a grin. "Learned something new today."
"Haha, good to hear. Who knew I'd have something to teach you."
"Hey, you've gotta have something, right?"
"True. I've been growing in my own way lately, you know. Senior Taker's been doting on me like crazy."
"Really? Last I heard, Taker was famous for not giving a damn about the young guys."
"Huh — you knew that?"
"Yeah. Flare told me."
I was lying through my teeth.
"That's just how he looks on the outside. Get to know him once and you'll see he's a hell of a senior. Oh — and I heard he saw you wrestle recently and swore he was going to kill you."
"......"
'Wonderful senior' and 'swore he was going to kill me' were two phrases that refused, on every level, to match.
"He just expressed his desire to get in the ring with you sometime in a slightly rough way. That's how men are, y'know?"
"Sure it is."
"Anyway — senior JBL too, everyone over at Rkdawn's been waiting for you. Haha! And senior Dudley was out there hammering nails into a baseball bat. What a guy, cracking jokes just to make me laugh!"
"No, Cena. I don't know what you think that is, but it's not a joke. That bat is for cracking a skull for real."
"Huh? But Sin, if he hits your head with a bat full of nails, you'd die."
"Bullets won't kill you either if they hit you nice and gentle."
"Can't argue with that!"
Cena laughed, loud and hearty.
For a moment, I wanted nothing more than to turn this truck around and drive straight back to Burning Kong — to home.
Then again, those seniors knew nothing about me yet, so I suppose they were itching to whip the new kid into shape.
I kept chatting away at Cena as he drove.
It hadn't actually been all that long since the European tour, but the two of us traded stories like old friends reunited after years apart, catching up until our throats went dry.
And somewhere in that conversation, a certain third member of our trio came to mind.
"When's Russell coming up?"
"Next year, probably? Kid's popularity is no joke these days."
"Some nickname they gave him — 'Rising Icon,' was it? He's the only one in this whole industry who could actually make crowds buy into a name like that."
And the future Shawn Cena, at that.
"I honestly can't figure out how he does it. Truth be told, I don't think I could ever pull off a babyface that pure."
What are you talking about? You're the one who pulls it off better than anyone in history.
I swallowed the words and kept the conversation going. "A righteous, goody-two-shoes character means there'll be plenty of people writing him off as boring, too."
"Exactly. Honestly, folks these days cheer louder for the heels — the ones who say what they mean and stand by their own creed."
"Like you, Cena?"
"You have any idea how much heat I ate up when I feuded with Taker?"
"That was Taker. Anyone who feuds with that old man eats the boos."
"Put that way, being a babyface really is brutal. If I were a face and got that kind of heat off a Taker feud, my momentum would've snapped clean in half."
Cena had a point.
A heel could absorb a certain amount of cheering without it mattering much, but the moment a babyface drew boos, his momentum cratered.
That went double for a face like Russell, who put justice front and center as his supreme value.
The belief in justice was somewhat abstract by nature — which made it all the easier for ornery crowds to turn on it. Containing that required delicate orchestration on every front: the performer's command of the ring, and the direction of the booking itself, both working in concert.
On top of that came the state of the era, and the quality of the opponents built to elevate him.
And to top it all off, even his private life outside the ring had to withstand scrutiny — a gimmick so unforgiving that success itself felt like a stroke of luck.
And Cena, astonishingly, had run that gimmick as a main-eventer for over a decade.
Never quitting. Never cutting a corner. Always, always fair and square. Cena made people believe in that version of himself.
Not a single day off — spending them instead with children battling incurable illness through the Wishmaker Foundation.
A superhero in the flesh. That was a character only Shawn Cena could have made real.
'Russell's success, viewed coldly, was only possible because he was in a smaller promotion.'
Even so, the results were remarkable. The story I'd crafted to lift him up had ended, and from there Russell had kept carrying his role forward with genuine, sustained conviction.
The moment that kid came up and we'd finally work together — I couldn't wait for it.
I rested my chin on the window frame and smiled. The truck was easing out of downtown and merging onto the highway. Cena's pick of music was Snoop-Duck rap from 2004.
It was a mega-hit from back then, so I was half-humming along when Cena spoke up.
"What're you thinking about?"
"Hm?"
"Tiffany?"
"......What?"
"Tiffany Maxen."
"No — how do you even know that?"
Don't tell me Flare spilled it. I was furrowing my brow at that big-mouthed old man when the answer that came back was one I never could have imagined.
"I saw you two at the training facility a while back — the vibe between you was something else. Figured there had to be something going on."
"......"
This idiot had apparently reached that conclusion all on his own, long before Tiffany and I had exchanged a single private word.
The frog who gets stomped on by the very foot that was retreating. Feeling my face burn, I opened my mouth.
"This stays between you and me."
"Whoa, really? Because we're friends?"
"Shut it. ......Tiffany and I, we've been exchanging personal hellos lately, that's all."
"Lately?"
"Yeah. Contrary to your theory, it started after we got back from the European tour."
"Oho, and how did that happen?"
"It's complicated, to say the least...... but, well, I'd always thought she was a stunning woman."
"Can't argue there. Definitely got a face to rival a Hollywood actress. Gets put through the wringer a bit on TV, though."
"That's what won me over. A Hollywood actress would never, ever let herself take that kind of humiliation."
"Ooooh~ someone's smitten~?"
"......I'm getting out of the car."
When I narrowed my eyes at him, Cena snickered and shut off the music. And to that fool of a friend, after a moment's hesitation, I unloaded the whole story — everything there was to tell about Tiffany and me.
And so we arrived at Rkdawn.
The day before the show, I visited the locker room alongside Cena.
It was common practice for wrestlers to be at the arena the night before, running through the final version of the full script. Participation wasn't mandatory, but there was no question it paid to be informed.
At Burning Kong, whether you showed up was left to each wrestler's discretion.
Rkdawn was the exact opposite.
Because Taker was there.
Casket-Taker.
A veteran of the late eighties — meaning he'd shared a locker room with even Captain Logan — and now in his twenty-seventh year, the most senior man in the entire WWF.
In the years to come, he would go down as an industry legend with a career spanning more than four decades.
His gimmicks — the 'mortician,' the 'cult leader,' the 'biker back from the dead' — never quite carried him to Icon-level stardom.
And yet in reality, he was the man even the Icons bowed to.
He did his work exactly as he'd been taught, and he clung to order and propriety with an almost old-fashioned devotion. Rkdawn's veteran roster honored that in kind — and so, unlike Burning Kong, they moved as a single unit.
The result was a locker room with genuinely impressive organizational discipline.
The moment Cena and I stepped inside, every head turned toward me.
Every head but one.
A big man standing well over two meters tall.
These days he was in his biker gimmick, so the look was pure badass — leather vest, denim, a bandana wrapped tight around his head.
Calling up the memory of him from my past life, I walked over and offered the first greeting.
"It's an honor to meet you, Taker. I'm Sin, from Burning Kong."
He was a man of ferocious professional pride — gruff, yes, but exacting in a way that meant he favored wrestlers cut from the same cloth as himself.
The humble, hardworking, true-professional type. The Cena mold.
From the far corner of the locker room, he rose slowly to his feet.
Face to face with him, the sheer force of his presence was staggering. ......And sadly, in my past life, I had never once stood across from Taker like this.
He extended his hand.
"Good to meet you, kid."
"The honor is mine, facing a legend of this industry."
"Yeah. I watched your match. Good stuff."
Whatever the approach, it had landed — Taker gave my shoulder a couple of firm pats.
I smiled and turned to take in the rest of the Rkdawn roster.
"Name's Sin. Looking forward to working with you all this week, seniors!"
"We've met, haven't we?"
"Yes, JBL. It's been a while."
JBL, who'd toured Europe with me, returned my greeting. In keeping with his nouveau-riche Southern heel character, the white cowboy hat was the first thing you noticed.
He had a notoriously filthy temper and a taste for hazarding the rookies, so I'd been quietly bracing myself for how he'd treat me on his home turf.
'This much, I can live with.'
Apparently everything Cena had told me in the truck was just the usual preening bluster seniors loved to lob around.
Beyond that, none of the Rkdawn wrestlers showed me any hostility.
If anything, they all watched me with eyes full of curiosity, which left me feeling oddly good.
Which meant my standing within the WWF had grown to the point where it could no longer be dismissed.
Tomorrow, I'd be making a surprise appearance here on Rkdawn to deepen the Ring Survival feud.
'Just like Cena did on Burning Kong — I'll crash the ring, run my mouth a little, and walk out.'
That would enrage the Rkdawn crew, and they'd raid Burning Kong in return.
But I hadn't heard the details of the script yet, so I found myself curious how it would all actually unfold.
And that was precisely the moment.
The locker room door burst open, and a heavyset man came barreling inside.
My eyes went wide.
'Paul Hagan?'
The genius manager and promoter they called the revolutionary of the industry.
He strode straight up to me, his thick frame swaying, and flung both arms wide.
"So you're the Sin I've been hearing about!"
And then he crushed me in a bear hug.
"Ha— Mr. Hagan?"
"Damn it all! You genius! Devil! Monster! Stack every damn adjective in the dictionary on top of each other and they still wouldn't do your work justice, you magnificent son of a bitch!"
Spitting out coarse profanity with total abandon, he got so worked up that he even kissed me on the cheek.
I froze for a moment, utterly unable to process the situation. Hagan's mouth smelled of chocolate mousse.
One thing, at least, was crystal clear.
"Welcome to Rkdawn!"
The industry's genius promoter was my raging, dyed-in-the-wool superfan.