Time to Play the Game
"John Michaels……?"
"There's no one else but him."
With the three of them looking at me in puzzlement, I carried on with my explanation.
"I rely on kick-based moves just like you do, senpai."
On top of that, I'd debuted a brand-new finisher at this very Wrestle Imperium.
The Superkick + Running Knee Combo.
The idea was simple and brutal: land the Superkick, and the moment your opponent crumpled to his knees, you charged in and drove a running knee straight into his face.
It was a move whose danger matched its visual impact, blow for blow.
"Long pants would let me use it a little more safely, wouldn't they?"
Everyone nodded along, the logic landing at once. Long pants gave a kicker far more stability — and if the timing of a strike drifted even slightly, they kept you from the ugly accident of cracking your shinbone against someone's skull instead of your boot. And so: long pants. With a tribute to the senpai I respected folded into the design, my new ring gear had settled into this style.
"Then how about this?"
Michaels flipped briskly through a file and held up a photograph. There he was, wearing ring gear of a very distinctive cut. Long pants all the same — but not the spandex material he'd always worn.
"Chaps."
The leather overspread those cowboys of the old frontier had worn over their jeans to keep the dirt off while riding. Michaels hadn't literally worn chaps, but he'd had the style stitched right into the leather of his pants. He began to explain.
"Early in my career I actually came out wearing real chaps and did a whole bit where I stripped them off before the bell. Later on, I just had the pattern worked into the gear itself."
"Both versions looked incredible, sir."
"You could probably pull off that cowboy look without breaking a sweat."
That gave me pause. Honestly, inheriting a cowboy image from Michaels didn't sound like a bad idea at all. But I shook my head.
"It's definitely cool — but if I went that far, I'd just end up a budget version of you, senpai."
"You think so?"
"Yes. Besides, my character has a quiet streak of religiosity baked into it."
"Ah. I see."
"Piling a cowboy on top of that…… it'd start to feel like a hodgepodge."
My ring name, SIN, had been that way from the very start. I had melted my own insecurities and my own hatred into the character, and even now that the gamble had largely paid off, that truth hadn't changed. After tasting one colossal failure in the American wrestling business, I had forged this Sin — a man who would use any means, stoop to any depth, so long as it let him win. A man shaped like the original sin of humanity's history, numb to racism, and of the sins the people of this industry had conjured with their own hands.
"That's my character."
"There's irony in it. You started your career as a heel, and now you're the most beloved babyface in the business."
"When you think about it, it's remarkable. Because of you, people's prejudices and assumptions are being blown to pieces."
"Isn't it the same vein as what Greg pulled off in the late eighties?"
Greg, after all, carried the same weakness I did as a performer. His place of birth — Canada. Even now it mattered, but back then it mattered doubly, in an era when the formula of 'the hero must be American' was treated as gospel. And yet Greg had used sheer charisma to prove that formula wrong.
"It's been proven that you don't have to be an American to reach the top — talent is enough."
"……No, that's not it."
"Sorry?"
"When I worked as a top face, I buried my identity as a Canadian so thoroughly you'd never have found it."
Greg smiled bitterly. He'd always represented, above all else, the 'white American male', he said. Which was exactly why my run couldn't be dismissed as sleight of hand — there was no hiding what I was.
"You might be throwing out a question not just for this industry, but for American society as a whole."
"Aw, come on. You flatter me."
"That's how it feels to me. It's embarrassing to admit, but I honestly believed you had a ceiling."
Greg owned it without flinching.
"Maybe the only real ceiling was the one on my own vision."
"We all have those, senpai. That's what makes this kid remarkable."
I felt my face going red under the unbroken praise of two living legends. If this went on forever, we'd never get anywhere — time to steer back to the original topic.
"Anyway, that's the plan. Leather long pants, and up top I'm thinking a leather jacket in the classic style."
"And you take the jacket off during the match?"
"Yep."
"Sounds good. Shall we leave it with the design team at headquarters for now?"
"Aw, come on, senpai! Sin's a main eventer now — you've got to outsource this!"
Michaels snorted. "Hmm. Maybe you're right?"
"……Do we really have to?"
"Trust me, it'll be different."
Even Greg agreed. I felt a flicker of curiosity. I'd heard that main-event-tier wrestlers routinely hired outside designers for their gear, sure — but I'd never imagined frugal, old-school Greg would be one of them. Hand it to the in-house team and the company covered every penny of the cost. Was getting an outsider really that special a privilege?
Now I was interested.
"If you happen to know a designer, could you recommend one?"
"There's a man they call the best in the business. I'll get you his number later."
Greg nodded, and that settled it. I turned to Russell, who had been listening to our conversation the whole time from beside us.
"What about you? Want in?"
"……Me?"
"Yeah. If you're leaving the Harts anyway, you can't afford to look cheap doing it."
"I think that's a good idea too."
"Well, if my uncle agrees, then."
Having won the agreement, Russell began laying out his own thinking.
"After the turn, I want to push a 'King of Hearts' gimmick."
"Alongside Revolution."
"Exactly. I'll make my ambition explicit — climbing higher than my retired uncle ever did — and set myself against Sin."
"Build your image by casting Hunter out, and it should hold together well enough."
"And to carry that ambition, I want pants that set me apart from the other three."
What Russell settled on was a pair of drawers-style trunks.
"These."
Orton had triangle, I had long, Shina had roughly half-length — so drawers-style really was the only style left on the board.
"What if I added a robe for the entrance? Something to pile on the grandeur."
"Oh, that could work."
"Hearing you say that puts my mind at ease."
Russell flashed a faint smile. And truly — the image was different from anything he'd worn before, and yet the outfit would suit a heel's ostentation perfectly. On top of that, Russell had a genuinely good physique; when he peeled that robe off and let his body do the talking, the whole performance would only look cooler.
"What about the rest?"
"Full pads, for a start."
"Good call. It'll read as technical."
"If it reads that way, then it's exactly what I intended."
We spent a while grinding through the details, then got straight on the phone to the designer Greg had recommended.
Keeeeeeeeeeeeee—!
The moment Russell Hart's music hit, the fans packed into the arena began pouring down a tidal wave of boos.
Sitting on the sofa inside the bus, I couldn't help but grin — the crowd was reacting exactly the way we'd predicted. Right now, Burning Kong was airing live from the complete opposite side of the country, and I was checking it out like a man at a private screening. Sin wasn't scheduled to appear on Burning Kong tonight…… and yet the show was still unfolding entirely under his shadow.
Russell, dressed in plain civilian clothes, climbed into the ring, and the crowd screamed my name loud enough to shake the arena off its foundations.
What are you going to do here?
I thought of Russell, and of the words he'd given me: I'll figure something out. Talking over a crowd like this — ignoring that wall of noise and pressing on — was brutally difficult. Sure enough, the moment Russell took the mic, the boos swelled to something monstrous. Loud enough to swallow whole any line he might deliver.
And in that moment, I watched, waiting to see what Russell would do next.
"Ha."
A laugh. That was all.
Russell stepped up onto the turnbuckle in the corner — and then, right there, lay back across the top and left ropes with his arms folded behind his head like a pillow.
I couldn't hold back my admiration.
He's opening like THAT?
The crowd went silent. It was a gesture Russell had never once shown them before, and the sheer strangeness of it snapped their will to boo straight in half. And in that silence, every one of them saw the ghost of a certain man. John Michaels. The signature pose that the arrogant heel of a bygone era had struck from the top turnbuckle, his and his alone — and now Russell Hart, nephew of Greg Hart, was doing it back. There was no mistaking it for anything but a shot at the Sin whom Greg had anointed.
A strong opening.
Watching the screen, I felt like a nation hearing a declaration of war. Russell Hart. Damn, he was good. He had undeniably grown. Because he was speaking the emotions that actually lived inside his own heart, every word landed with real weight.
Russell ground his teeth.
No one in the arena — not me, not the crowd — could look away. I hung on every syllable more intently than anyone watching.
By now even the boos had stopped. Every line out of Russell's mouth hooked the crowd's curiosity and pulled.
The mic dropped from his hand. Russell walked out through the Gorilla Position without so much as a glance back, and the crowd, confronted with a man who had shown them conviction and nothing but conviction, fell dead silent.
Exactly as planned.
The booking was right. For Russell to become a heel who earned genuine, unfiltered hatred, he first had to be understood. Only once people knew who he was could they invest themselves in his story. Of course, mishandle it here and you risked the opposite — fans sympathizing with Russell and treating him as an outright babyface. Which was precisely why we'd prepared the card of Triple H's return and his expulsion from Revolution.
Burning Kong rolled on after Russell's promo. A few matches came and went, and each ongoing feud deepened a notch. The quality was passable across the board, but there was no depth to any of it. Even the world title program was limping along, directionless.
That suits me fine, honestly.
If anything, I figured that side would keep stewing in its bad atmosphere for a while. Triple H, the man who was supposed to return and inject life into the show, had seen his entire plan violently rewritten, after all. Most likely it would devolve into the same song and dance: the reactionless, invincible monster champion Silverback rampaging around with the belt, night after night.
On screen, Silverback roared over the fallen body of his next victim(?). Then a commercial break. Word came that Triple H would return in the main event. How would Russell and the members of Revolution play this script out? I genuinely looked forward to finding out.
The commercials ended, and Burning Kong came back on the air. The camera swept across the entire arena.
The commentator had barely finished screaming when green light flooded the arena and a familiar theme poured out over the crowd.
Half a year since he'd been gone. The return of a big name like Triple H wrung a roar of celebration out of the crowd that was, quite simply, monstrous. And that was exactly what gave the subsequent script — his ambush, his turn to the side of good — its undeniable legitimacy.
Don't screw this up.
I watched Hunter make his way up the entrance ramp, and I willed him on.