The Moment He Stole Wrestle Imperium
Across the entire United States, there were only ten arenas capable of holding 200,000 people.
Even counting every arena in the world, the number didn't climb past twenty.
It was the kind of obscene spending spree only America — and only the WWF — could pull off.
Standing at the very top of the four-tiered stadium, looking down at the ring below, it seemed no bigger than a thumbnail.
But the colossal screen suspended in the air directly above the ring was set to help the fans follow every moment.
The entrance ramp had been dressed to match this Wrestle Imperium's theme — Casino — bristling with lavish set pieces at every turn. Giant poker chips and roulette wheels, slot machines, and marquees bearing the Wrestle Imperium and WWF logos were genuinely spectacular.
Tomorrow.
That was when the largest pro wrestling event on the planet, Wrestle Imperium, would be held here.
I was taking one last look at the arena alongside Greg Hart.
"Honestly, for a few years after Rock Cold retired, we wouldn't have even dreamed of booking a venue this size," he said.
"So I've heard."
Pro wrestling was an industry that leaned heavily on star power.
Word was that after Rock Cold retired and The Pock walked out, revenue itself had taken a serious hit.
That was why the WWF had taken to renting venues one tier below its usual grade whenever it staged an event.
"But it's an honor that my last match gets to be here."
A 200,000-seat arena.
To perform inside these walls was a privilege beyond measure for any pro wrestler.
"And that's all thanks to you and your friends — the ones who put this industry back on the hot track," he said, resting a hand on my shoulder.
"I told you when we first met. That I looked forward to the day I'd stand across the ring from you."
"Did you?"
"I certainly did. I just never imagined it would turn out to be my retirement match."
"I never thought I'd be the one carrying on your legacy, either, senpai."
"To be precise, it's our era. You're going to defeat us — and with that victory, declare that a new age has arrived."
"But isn't that Cena's role—"
"No. It's yours."
Greg's voice was firm.
"Because tomorrow, you won't just take the belt. You'll take this Greg Hart's entire career — and our whole era with it."
He was right.
I was going to stand across from countless wrestlers in the years to come, and I would say it over and over again.
That I was the man who retired the living legend Greg Hart.
Unlike a championship, it was a feat no wrestler after me would ever duplicate.
And now it stood right before my eyes.
Just then, Greg rose from his seat and gazed down over the arena.
"These seats were fifty dollars, weren't they?"
"Yes. You can't see the match properly from up here — it's more about soaking in the atmosphere."
Prices climbed steeply with sightlines, and seats right behind the barricade commanded well over five hundred dollars.
"I watched a show from a seat like this once, long ago. I couldn't see a thing the wrestlers were doing."
I'd ended up following the match entirely through the big screen.
Greg let out a small chuckle.
"But tomorrow, at least for one moment, that won't be true."
"……"
"At the very least, during your entrance, that seat is going to be the best in the house."
"I'm getting a little nervous just thinking about it."
"It's a brilliant idea, regardless. It'll stand as beautiful proof that you remembered our era."
Greg looked down at the arena, his eyes shining.
April 3, 2005. A Sunday.
With 200,000 fans packed into the stands, Wrestle Imperium was underway.
At least for this one night, the WWF allowed nearly every production flourish without a single cut to the budget.
Wrestle Imperium also served a kind of propagandistic purpose — it was the showcase that proved just how mighty pro wrestling culture had become. For the next full year, Wrestle Imperium 21 would be name-dropped across every media outlet on earth, drawing in fresh audiences by the millions.
The opener, meant to raise the temperature of the crowd, was a singles match between Ray Mysterius and Chavo Viterero.
[Booyaka—! Booyaka—!]
Ray Mysterius was a luchador out of Mexico whose masked mystique and genuine skill had made him a colossal fan favorite on Rakedown.
His opponent, Chavo, was the nephew of Eddie Viterero and a formidable talent in his own right — which made the two of them the perfect pair to fire up the crowd.
Ray's flashy arsenal, all named after the neighborhood he grew up in, flashed across the ring, and the match wrapped up cleanly in his victory. From there, matches from Burning Kong and Rakedown alternated one after another.
The reactions pouring out of 200,000 fans were, moment by moment, enough to leave your ears ringing.
Twenty thousand at the weekly shows.
Fifty thousand at an ordinary pay-per-view.
Between one hundred and one hundred fifty thousand for the Big Four.
And now — two hundred thousand.
I watched it all from the control room on the arena's fourth level.
Ordinarily, show production was handled entirely from Gorilla Position, but Wrestle Imperium was different. A dedicated team had been assembled to oversee the entire arena from a bird's-eye view, coordinating with Gorilla Position to run the event in sync.
And I had been waiting here since the start of the show, because I had something a little special planned for my entrance.
Truthfully, this is making me more nervous than the match itself.
The company had brought in professionals to rig the zipline, put me through training, even run full rehearsals.
But could I actually ride that line down in front of 200,000 people? What if something went wrong…?
I couldn't pretend that thought wasn't there, even if it was only the faintest sliver of doubt.
I worked on converting that nervousness into focus, and I waited for my turn.
The second half of the show.
Three matches remained.
Silverback versus Chris Jenco for the WWF World Championship.
The semi-main: Greg Hart versus Sin for the Intercontinental Championship.
And the main event: JBL versus Shawn Cena for the WWF Universe Championship.
By convention, the semi-main slot should have belonged to the World Championship match, not to us.
But this was Greg Hart's final match, and that was why it had been placed there.
When the Silverback–Jenco match reached its midpoint, a staff member approached me.
"Time to head up, sir."
"……Let's do it."
I'd warmed up plenty.
Nodding, I felt my mouth go bone-dry as I stepped out of the control room and made my way up.
Atop the steel framework.
From here, a ladder led straight up through the ceiling.
I approached the zipline coach waiting for me and bowed.
"I'm in your hands."
"Wind's calm and the line's rigged solid — you'll be fine. ……Speaking of which, someone's here to see you."
"Sorry?"
I turned in puzzlement just as a figure emerged from the darkness.
It was Tiffany McMahon.
……Nobody told me she was coming.
"A little nervous, were we?"
"Ah. A bit."
But now some of that had melted away.
Her blonde hair gathered in a single ponytail, she crossed the steel framework and came toward me.
I pulled her into a brief embrace, felt her warmth against me, and forced a slightly awkward smile.
"So what brings you all the way up here?"
"I wanted a front-row seat, obviously. So — are you ready? Ready to steal the show and drive every last person down there insane?"
"Let's take the money this show earns and go play out by the lake together."
"Sounds fun. I'm in."
Steal the show.
What a thing to say.
After a light kiss with Tiffany, I felt the last of my tension dissolve as I turned away.
Once I'd strapped the rigging around my waist and thighs, the drag of a match between Jenco and Silverback finally came to an end.
The crowd, having sat through a formulaic, well-worn contest, was feeling a touch weary.
But the moment the announcement for the next match rang out, their attention snapped back.
[The following contest is your SEMI-MAIN EVENT — Greg Hart versus Sin for the Intercontinental Championship!]
[Waaaaaaaaaaaaghhhhh!!]
The roar of two hundred thousand filled the arena. I climbed up to the stadium ceiling right behind the zipline coach.
Cold wind swept across my cheeks.
And I watched as Greg Hart made his entrance first.
He'd chosen to come out ahead of me — deliberately, to put the spotlight on me — and had made no special demands of the production team.
But he was dead wrong about what would happen.
[Yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhh!!]
Greg Hart entered the arena to a thunderous ovation simply for being Greg Hart.
He handed his sunglasses to a child in the front row, hoisted the belt overhead, and let out a roar — the gesture of a man swearing victory.
Then my music began to echo through the arena.
[Yeeeeeaaaaahhhhh!!]
The crowd roared their approval.
But what appeared on the ramp was not me. It was Stacey Chigler.
For a split second, the ovation faltered — confusion rippling through the stands — and then Stacey's quick thinking saved the moment.
She waved at the fans as if nothing were out of the ordinary, commanding them to cheer for her.
And the crowd, dutifully, began to roar for her again.
It had been the same at Wrestle Imperium 12, during John Michaels' legendary entrance.
Back then, an unrecognizable old man had walked out and left everyone baffled.
But I had built my character around receiving Stacey's help — so that was exactly how the story played.
The moment Stacey climbed onto the ring apron, my music cut out entirely.
A murmur rolled through the stands, and it seemed the ovation might scatter for good.
"Here we go, Sin," the coach said.
Then Stacey pointed a single finger sharply to the sky.
Two hundred thousand gazes locked onto her. Sweeping her finger in an arc, she traced it upward — and pointed straight at the spot where I stood.
The music started again.
Dun-dun-dun—dundun!
Ahh—ahhhhhh—ahhhhhh!
The intro of that music was straight out of The Terminator.
With a prelude that burrowed deep into the brain of everyone who heard it, the commentators erupted.
"I'm getting déjà vu right now! This is unmistakably—!"
"Wrestle Imperium 12! This is history repeating itself! It's summoning the era of John Michaels and Greg Hart!"
"But nothing about this is the same! Look there — look at that spot!"
Headlights sweeping in from either side illuminated the man standing on the ceiling.
He was nothing like John Michaels.
Michaels had danced along to his music; this man simply stood erect, gazing down at everything below him.
Two hundred thousand fans were bearing witness, in the flesh, to the history this man was making.
"This is nothing short of a religion he built with his own two hands! This man is creating a brand-new era!"
"The prophet has come to drag down the Emperor!! And who do you think he is?! He is none other than SIN!!"
FWOOOOSH—!!
Pyrotechnics erupted right beside him, chaining one after another into the air.
The music shifted.
Electric sound blazed through a soaring choral arrangement and flooded the arena.
And the commentator's final words cut straight through the entire arc of Sin's career like a blade:
As 200,000 fans went completely berserk, Sin threw himself onto the zipline and launched down beneath the rafters.
This era had evolved far beyond the one before it.
The men who once wrestled out of tiny carnival tents had gathered, their history compounding year upon year, until it built a corporate dinosaur raking in hundreds of billions of dollars annually.
Sin, riding the line down through the air, felt like the wrestler who had inherited the torch of that entire unbroken lineage.
A baptism of camera flashes.
Sin, plunging toward the arena from dozens of meters up — the camera captured every inch of it perfectly.
During Michaels' entrance, there'd been a small mishap where the zipline's landing point drifted off course. Tonight, nothing could have been more different.
Time had moved on, technology had advanced, and Sin glided down to glide to a stop at precisely his marked position.
Directly above the entrance ramp.
With the help of the crew who had been waiting there, Sin came to a halt, shed his rigging, and descended to the floor.
Then the chant came pouring down.
[SIN! SIN! SIN! SIN! SIN! SIN! SIN! SIN! SIN! SIN! SIN! SIN! SIN!]
Stacey approached Sin where he stood at the top of the ramp and took her place behind him.
The instant Sin thrust his hand skyward, fireworks exploded powerfully at his back.
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA—BOOM!
It was the dream of every man alive, the envy of every woman watching.
And in that very moment, Sin stole Wrestle Imperium — completely.
Truly, it was the moment every single person watching Wrestle Imperium would remember for the rest of their lives.