The Winner of the Last Match
The winner of the final match turned out to be JBL, Rkdawn's WWF Universe Champion.
Which meant the final score stood at five to five.
Except JBL had called in his lackey, Orlando Jordan, and stolen the victory through plain cowardice — so if you weighed it that way, the ultimate winner of the night was Burning Kong.
But every single match had been good enough to make that quibble feel trivial.
The best of them all, of course, was our Triple Threat match.
We showed everything the basic structure of that match could possibly hold. Add in the creative final spot on top, and we left second place eating our dust by a mile — easily the match of the night.
That opinion hardened into certainty the moment I finished my shower and found the two men waiting for me.
Greg Hart.
And Casket-Taker.
"You weren't wrong."
"Was I?"
"It was hands-down the hottest match of the night. Watching it, I could feel just how completely old-fashioned my style has become."
"With your skill, sir, that's not old-fashioned — that's mastery."
"Well, I won't argue with that."
Greg grinned, thoroughly pleased with himself.
"But the Silverback versus JBL match was genuinely awful. Those two have racked up plenty of years between them, and their wrestling hasn't improved one inch."
Then he let out a long sigh.
As arrogant as ever about his own abilities. That was the man in a nutshell.
If those two ever heard him say that, it would end in a fight, no question.
Still, his honesty was exactly what proved the remark held no malice.
Just then, the Taker standing beside him turned to Greg with a smile.
"You haven't changed a bit, senpai."
"Sen—"
"That's right, Taker. I've always been this man. Your match tonight looked good too. Getting older is no excuse to slack off, you hear?"
"I'll keep it in mind."
Come to think of it — Taker was the junior one here.
I felt a flicker of absurdity. It had never once occurred to me that the Casket-Taker could be anyone's junior. Then again, by the same logic, he was somebody's son, too. A strange thing to wrap your head around.
Apparently sensing my disrespectful(?) train of thought, Taker spoke up.
"Come to Rkdawn."
"I'm sorry?"
"I'd like to work with you…… at least once."
"Haha, coming from a man with zero gift for words, that's the highest praise there is."
"Th-thank you."
"Though…… I still feel our Russell has quite a ways to go."
"No, sir. Russell and Cena both performed solidly. Without those two, none of it would have been possible."
"Tsk, tsk. You think you can fool our eyes, either of them?"
"……"
"The ace was you. You're the one who carried those two competitors up to that level."
I felt my cheeks go warm.
Legends I had only ever watched from a distance in my past life were acknowledging my skill. It felt genuinely, wonderfully good.
Taker and Greg gripped my shoulders hard, and together they said:
"Nice Job, Kid."
Those were the words the veterans used to say — in my past life — not to me, but to Shawn Cena.
That match became the turning point.
A hardcore match can sell its deception with sheer brutality, but a standard match like yesterday's could not.
And so the doubts of everyone who'd harbored even a sliver of unease about me vanished — gone as cleanly as the acne hiding in the pores of a boy who's finally outgrown puberty.
Within the company, talk slowly began to surface: why not give him the mega push?
Build him as a character who could straddle face and heel — a second Rock Cold, so to speak.
Leaving those voices behind me, I set off to knock out my next schedule.
The agreement between the companies had finally wrapped, and filming was about to begin.
Hell Saw.
A magnificent film — one that lost nothing as the launching pad for my acting career.
Roughly fifteen hours on the road.
Thanks to the camping bus, I'd used the travel time efficiently, and I arrived at the shooting location feeling fresh.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
A film school there.
Pulling into the parking lot, just before stepping off the bus, I offered a greeting to the tired-looking driver.
"Thanks, Jackson."
"Yes, sir. I'll be right here."
"Feel free to use the whole bus — just not the back bed."
He nodded, then wandered into the depths of the bus with a long yawn. Between his help and the bus itself, I'd been able to focus on nothing but work.
Now, where to.
I fished my sunglasses out of my chest pocket, slid them on, and walked into the campus.
Filming was set to proceed on two tightly coordinated schedules, exactly as we'd arranged in advance.
And the Jigsaw I'd be playing was, frankly, a role built for precisely that arrangement.
He only appears with his face uncovered for about the last five minutes of the film.
Every other appearance is masked — and even those amount to a single scene.
Which meant, in practice, that the vast majority of the shoot would go on without me.
That was Hell Saw for you.
How did everything line up this perfectly?
It felt even better knowing that my connection here had come down to pure luck.
Shot on the film school's sets and the streets of downtown Philadelphia, this movie goes on to become an colossal hit.
Truly a dragon rising from a ditch — it set an entirely new standard for the industry.
Hollywood's capitalists would subsequently squeeze it dry through thirteen sequels before the whole thing collapsed completely.
But my Jigsaw only appears through the second film, so that whole mess had nothing to do with me.
Walking along while reminiscing about Hell Saw, I met the director waiting in front of the main building.
"Sin~!"
"Jay Z."
"Ring Survival was incredible! What a match!"
"Thank you."
"Ah — hmm. Is it awkward, talking about this when you've come here to work?"
"Then we'll talk plenty once the work's done."
"Deal! There are some great restaurants around here — we'll grab a meal together after!"
Thankfully the school was on break, so there wasn't a soul around who might recognize me.
I stepped inside with James, and he led me to a nearby classroom.
This really is a bare-bones operation.
He had to hold production meetings in a film school classroom because he couldn't afford so much as an office.
Reading my expression, James gave an awkward laugh.
"I'm embarrassed, honestly. I only graduated recently, so my first film is being made with the school's support."
"No reason to apologize. I chose it because the script was good."
"Haha. Truth is, we stretched this thing out of what used to be a short film, so I keep wondering whether it'll actually hold up."
"……"
Is this the kind of man who volunteers the things nobody needs to hear?
Not that it bothered me — I knew full well this movie would be a smash hit.
Still, the man could use an injection of confidence.
"It's really something, you know."
"Sir?"
"Your script. Honestly, when I read it, I fell in love with it."
"H-haha. You're too kind."
"I'm not. It was genuinely brilliant."
I said it with a smile.
Analyzing the script that had arrived by mail, imagining my movements through the final scene — somewhere in there, certainty had taken root. Hell Saw was unmistakably a work made with every ounce of James Kwan's love for it.
Enough that it made me feel responsible in turn.
Which meant I had no intention of phoning anything in.
Today I was meeting the crew for the first time, and at the director's request, I'd come here for the camera test.
Once we'd covered the basics, we rose from our seats and started down the quiet corridor.
Kwan smiled as he spoke.
"I wanted to run a check on how we'll shoot the final scene."
"Ah, that scene. It does seem hard to picture clearly in your head, doesn't it?"
"Oh — you understand."
"There's a lot of actors gathered in one place, and it's the climax of the film — everyone's emotionally at a fever pitch, and on top of that you have to land the twist. That's a lot to coordinate."
"……You know your stuff."
"We structure our biggest matches the same way."
I laughed, a little sheepishly.
It was a lot like staging theater.
Granted, not every pro wrestler worked this way — but drawing on what I'd learned as a producer, I had always paid close attention to my blocking.
The stage. The camera. The sightlines of the crowd. The space of the ring itself.
How I would appear. How my rhythm with my opponent would be built. Every piece of it had to be checked.
Watching me rattle off the professional terminology, the director began to look at me with just a little more trust than before.
……Though he'd already trusted me so completely that I wasn't sure there was anywhere higher to climb.
Chattering away in that warm atmosphere, we stepped into the prepared indoor studio.
"Alright, everybody!"
With preparations in full swing, James Kwan called out in a booming voice.
"This is Sin, our Jigsaw killer! Everyone say hello, then let's run a camera check!"
At the director's call, close to twenty people — actors included — gathered from every direction.
And I understood at once.
The stares weren't exactly warm.
The moment word spread that a pro wrestler would be taking the role of Jigsaw — the most important character in the film — a quiet undercurrent of worry had crept through the room.
Which was why James Kwan kept heaping praise on me in front of everyone.
"He was magnificent, I'm telling you! He understands the mind of Jigsaw down to the bone—!"
Even so, the doubt refused to dissolve. Then one man stepped casually forward and offered me his hand.
"Good to meet you, Sin."
A face I knew.
The actor playing Jodang, the doctor — one of the film's two central victims.
He was older than me and carried no small pride in his craft, yet his hand came out friendly and open.
He was probably trying to thaw the frosty air in the room. Something in that moved me, and I took the handshake.
"The pleasure's mine, Dr. Jodang."
"Well, well — you know my name."
"Around here, I'm Jigsaw."
"That's right. If there's anything you don't know, ask me. Doesn't look like it, but I've worked hard in this business a long time."
"Please look after me, then. I'll give this role everything I have."
After exchanging greetings with Jodang, the natural leader of the group, the atmosphere loosened considerably.
James Kwan was the real captain, of course — but unlike the director, Jodang seemed to be the one who led people on a human level.
Thanks to him, I managed to buy a small reprieve from the wall of skeptical stares raining down on me.
All that remained was to nail the camera test and earn their recognition — to prove that a pro wrestler, above all else, is a performer who acts on a stage.
Just as The Pock had said, the film world's habit of looking down on actors who came out of pro wrestling was a regular occurrence.
And it wasn't hard to see why.
It was simply true that an ordinary wrestler, measured against a trained actor, covered a far narrower spectrum of performance.
Unlike those chameleons who transformed eight ways to Sunday depending on the project, a wrestler kept playing one role tethered to one fixed image.
The Pock was The Pock.
As The Pock, his acting had reached its absolute peak — but the instant he stepped outside that persona, he turned visibly awkward.
Determined to escape that same trap, I had been grinding through script analysis ever since the screenplay landed in my hands.
It was Acting 101 — the very thing I'd hammered into performers with weak ring acting back in my producer days.
Working out what the director intended, how it would read on camera, and settling in advance how to deliver every line.
At the same time, mapping the overall story so I could shape what my role was and how to build it.
In that sense, the Hell Saw of my past life was an enormous help.
And so — unlike the original — I had perfectly internalized a Jigsaw retooled by the director to fit me as an actor.
Let's give it a shot.
I intended to deliver a performance stunning enough to knock these people clean off their feet.
……Ah, well. That was the wish, anyway.
Truthfully, I was a little nervous.
Not that I had ever let that stop me from putting on the best show possible.
"Right, then. Let's begin."
At that moment, James Kwan — having finished walking through every instruction and confirmation one by one — clapped his hands and approached us.
"This is just a camera test, so think of it as a script reading and an ensemble run rolled into one!"
Cracked tile. A filthy bathtub and toilet. Tangles of pipe.
In its low-budget Hell Saw, this set appeared again and again throughout the film.
So today's purpose was to run through the film's climax once, end to end, and confirm the images in the director's head.
"Okay! Everyone to your positions!"
At his word, the actors playing the doctor and the paparazzo — Jodang and Actor B — sat down against opposite walls.
Then they clamped on the prepared shackles and glanced slyly back at me.
"Don't put too much weight on your shoulders."
"Thank you."
I gave Jodang a smile, planted myself between the two men, and dropped flat onto the cold, filthy floor.
A killer disguised as a corpse.
The scene began where that twist is revealed and every one of them is swallowed by shock.
The hour Jigsaw had promised crept closer, and the two victims now faced their final choice.
Jodang exploded, screaming.
"That's it! I'm getting out of here — I have to save my family!!"
"No!!"
The only way off the shackle wasn't the chain — it was cutting off the leg.
Jodang made the gesture of sawing through his own leg, choosing that brutal reality.
Flat on the ground, I tracked his every movement with precision and painted the final moment inside my head.
My character was a slight departure from the Jigsaw of the past life's Hell Saw.
That Jigsaw had been a madman dying of cancer, staging his murder games to teach people the value of life.
My Jigsaw was different.
The details had changed. He was now a man burned across his entire body, face included, dying an excruciating death.
The backstory had shifted from the original — and understanding that, I imagined the agony of a man burning alive.
Then I gave it image and form.
The killer I would play, built on the foundation of my past life's Jigsaw.
This scene — where the directing turns ferocious and Jigsaw's identity is laid bare — was without question the most important passage in the film.
One by one, the other actors finished their performances, and at last it was my turn.
Every eye in the room on me.
I let out a groan of pure agony and slowly rose from the floor.