The Making of a Villain
That evening, after a light meal, the three of us gathered at the training facility.
By "the three of us," of course, I meant me and Shina — my fellow GCW rookies — along with Russell.
Even without any particular reason, the three of us had a habit of gravitating toward each other like this ever since we joined the company.
Not that today was without purpose. We had things to discuss.
It was a dark night, and with the big doors thrown wide open to chase away the heat, the drone of night insects drifted in from outside. As if to cut through that near-silence, I sprinted hard across the ring.
Russell and I were in the middle of working out a "spot" — trading a handful of moves back and forth — while Shina watched from ringside, offering his impressions.
It was a somewhat grand undertaking, but we had both agreed to it. Next week's match had expectations riding on it, and we needed to deliver results worthy of the hype.
A good feud and a well-built rivalry raised a wrestler's value enormously.
I trusted Russell's ability. In GCW, he was a competitor with a brilliance no one else could match — and he contrasted beautifully with me. A rivalry with him would be a tremendous asset to my career here.
After bouncing off the ropes, I ran to the far side, ducked between Russell's legs, gripped his shoulder, and spun around behind him. Riding the momentum, I slammed him down into the canvas — the scoop powerslam, a move typically used as a counter.
Counter after counter, until I finally subdued Russell and executed the finishing sequence that would hand me control of the match.
"How's that?"
"Looks good to me."
"Shina, what did you think?"
"…How in the world does your body move like that?"
He seemed genuinely in awe. Russell nodded along in agreement.
"Our chemistry's solid. The crowd should be more than satisfied with this much, don't you think?"
"I'm not so sure."
"Why? Something bothering you?"
"There's no story. I'd say it feels a little… indie, honestly."
"…?"
"Right — I came from that world, remember? That's exactly why I know."
It was something I hadn't really registered in my past life, but it was a trap wrestlers commonly fell into — and a method used endlessly on the independent circuit.
Building a match out of nothing but flashy moves, one after another. That was it.
Those moves carried risk. They chewed through a wrestler's career, and the danger of serious injury only grew. Even so, on the indies there was often no other way to wrestle.
Bookings were frequently made same-day, leaving no room to weave a story into the match, and the only way to get noticed was to dazzle the crowd with spectacle.
"But we have a story. We should be using it."
With a great story that pulled the audience in, you could create immersion far deeper than any string of flashy moves ever could. It was also a method utterly unavailable in indie wrestling, where your opponent changed every single night.
"Let's go this way."
Above all, in my past life I'd spent years suffering after my knee cartilage shattered in my seventh year as a wrestler. My whole career had been one long grind of pain — so this time, I intended to treat my body with care.
"I'm going to provoke you over my knee."
"Your knee?"
"Yeah. Here's the fun part — used well, it's exhilarating. Used poorly, it's nothing but cowardice."
I smiled.
Russell Hart's finisher was the Sharpshooter — a submission hold that tormented the opponent's knees and lower back. And my own finisher was the knee kick, a rising knee driven straight into an opponent's face.
"So from the opening bell, I keep taunting you. Telling everyone you're going to attack my knee like the coward you are."
Presumably the commentators would help spell it out for the audience.
"You're the face, so you'll ignore the provocations at first. But the more I push, the more the people will want to see you come at me with everything you've got."
"…Handled right, that could actually help build my character."
"You differentiate yourself from your great uncle. As a 'rookie,' I mean."
He caught on quickly.
Russell's uncle, Greg Hart, was an unblemished hero — a living legend. These days people called him past his prime, and yet he still commanded staggering popularity among the women, children, and old-timers who craved that heroic image.
But.
"You know as well as I do — being a minor copy of your uncle is a hard road to success."
And besides, that image wasn't a reflection of who Russell actually was.
After a moment of silence, Russell broke into a slow grin — aimed squarely at my knee.
"If I were you, I'd go for it."
"Then you'd better show the crowd exactly what kind of character that makes you."
"Yeah. This'll be fun."
Having fully grasped what I meant, Russell nodded with evident intrigue. A short while later, the two of us began colliding in the ring, putting the match together.
Everything proceeded smoothly.
When the upper management heard our ideas, they sensed we had a great match on our hands and guaranteed us a full twenty minutes. That was an extraordinarily long time for a match between two rookies — and on top of that, it was the main event.
The match that would close out the show. In other words, the company was signaling its intent to push me and Russell hard as the future face and heel of GCW.
Though Husky's gimmick change surely played no small part in us landing the main event.
That, too, had been my suggestion. Thanks to it all, Russell and I attacked the preparation with real hunger — giving meaning to every single spot, shuttling between the creative team and the commentary team to make sure both our voices were heard.
And so the match was born.
Russell made his entrance first, stepping out to his theme music.
[Russell! Russell! Russell!]
The crowd chanted his name over and over, and he smiled with the easy confidence of a man certain of his victory. Then it was my turn.
[Boooooooooooooooo!]
My mere appearance was enough to draw every bit of heat in the building. I sneered at it, deliberately coaxing out even more of a reaction.
By the time we climbed into the ring and squared off, the response was so electric you'd never have believed this was a match between two rookies.
In pro wrestling, the crowd's chants were a crucial element — one of the special traits that set the show apart. A sense of being there, in the moment. And through the audience's reactions, a wrestler's stature became palpable.
A truly great performer draws a reaction just by standing still. We weren't at that level yet, but reaching even this point on the strength of a single well-written script was encouraging.
In that heated atmosphere, we began trading moves and unfolding the match exactly as we had planned.
Avoiding any big moves that would beat up our bodies, we told the story throughout, drawing reaction after reaction from the crowd. I leisurely kept provoking Russell, and every time he mounted a comeback, I cut the momentum off with a cheap shot.
To split the crowd down the middle, we traded punch after punch — and the audience responded in kind.
[Boo! Yeah! Boo! Yeah!]
The Boo that erupted when I struck Russell alternated with the Yeah when Russell floored me. That was how the crowd announced their presence in the show — and thanks to them, the audio never went silent.
Russell crashed to the mat with a thud. After hurling him down, I sprang back to my feet and taunted the fans to buy myself a little time.
[Booooooooooooooo!]
When I went down instead, it was Russell who popped up and flexed for the crowd.
Cleverly, adroitly, we carried the match forward, delighting the people without a single dangerous maneuver.
And so it continued. Russell and I traded move after move, the fight growing steadily rougher. Several spots passed, and at the end of them, I put Russell down.
I rose amid a chorus of jeers. For all my smirking, my mind was running calculations.
Slow it down a little here.
More than fifteen minutes in, I was starting to breathe hard. Right before a match sprinted toward its climax, there came a moment that called for a beat of rest — and this was it.
I reached down, ruffled the hair of Russell where he lay sprawled on the mat, and urged him up.
"Don't screw up."
"…Got it."
After that low exchange of words, I kept bending and straightening my knee, taunting him with it over and over. The commentators, seeing this, would surely elaborate on exactly the story we'd laid out for them.
[Shina is working the mind games on Russell again! He's asking why his knee isn't getting attacked!]
[Apparently he's got no pride as a wrestler whatsoever. Truly despicable conduct.]
Something like that.
Russell staggered, pushing his upper body upright. Down on one knee, he was gasping for air.
As if I'd been waiting for exactly this, I bolted to the far side and rebounded off the ropes with everything I had. Shina's finisher. The knee kick — knee raised, driven mercilessly into an opponent's face.
And in the instant before it landed, the light came back into Russell Hart's eyes.
My rising knee was caught in the hands of Russell, still slumped on the mat.
"Kuh…?!"
A groan escaped me, and then I felt my body pitching backward.
[Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!]
The crowd roared. I crashed to the canvas, unable to resist. Russell, up on his feet with my ankle locked in his grip, wasted no time in cinching in the hold.
"Whoa, wait!!"
I flailed my hands — too late. My leg tangled in his thigh, and my body twisted over backward.
The Sharpshooter. The proud signature of the Hart family.
"Gahhaak!!"
The pain compressing my lower back and knee at once tore a scream out of me. I could see the fans at ringside surging to their feet — a colossal wave of cheers, as if to wash away all the frustration I'd fed them.
Russell Hart, for every provocation Shina had thrown at him all match long, was faithfully, meticulously destroying that knee. And with his own tried-and-true finisher, the Sharpshooter, no less.
"Guhhaaaaak!!"
"You wanna give up?!"
The referee had somehow appeared in front of me, face tight with urgency, asking for my decision. I shook my head.
To escape this situation, one of three things had to happen. Break the hold. Somehow crawl to the opposite side and grab the ropes. Or tap out.
Every time I screamed in agony, the crowd's cheers swelled louder. Feeling a strange pleasure(?) in it, I hammed the performance up even harder.
Then the referee gave the signal.
"Let's start wrapping it up."
In time with that, I began executing the final sequence of the match. Reaching back, I dropped into a squat, seized the laces of Russell's boot as he sat braced behind me — and yanked.
"…Wha—?!"
Russell lost his balance and pitched forward onto his face. As the jeers rained down, I shoved him off, sprang up, and bolted for the far side. Off the ropes, I drove my knee straight into the face of Russell as he lifted his head.
Crack—!
A thunderous smack of thigh on flesh rang out, and Russell crumpled backward, flat on the mat. I covered him immediately.
One, two, three—!
Ring-ring-ring!
The bell pealed sharply. Still sprawled across Russell, gasping for breath, I soon whispered my thanks to him.
"…Good work."
"Right back at you."
The low exchange was swallowed by the crowd's roar. Whatever the result, they showered us with generous applause for the great match we'd given them. By now, the commentators were no doubt explaining exactly what a cowardly, underhanded trick I'd used to steal the win.
Being a villain is honestly exhausting work.
Lips twisting into a smirk, I gritted through the pain and got up to finish the remaining performance. When I stepped up onto the ropes of the ring post, a monstrous wall of boos came pouring down. The crowd was sinking back into the show, swept up in my provocation all over again.
[Boooooooooooo!]
I ignored it and peeled off my shirt, parading my physique before the crowd and taunting them further. After months of brutal training, my body stood proudly beside any pro wrestler's — not hulking, but lean, healthy, and strong.
[Booooooooooooooo!!]
When I struck a deliberately exaggerated bodybuilder pose, the jeers only intensified.
This is kind of fun.
If I ever ended up job-hunting somewhere else down the line, I figured I could safely write "son of a bitch" in the experience section of my résumé.
I strutted after the cameras, preening for the booing crowd as if I were already a superstar. I snatched a camera from someone's hands and took my own picture; I plucked popcorn right out of a heckler's box and munched on it.
Then, alone in the ring Russell had vacated, I grabbed the microphone.
"Did you all get a good, long look at who I am?!"
[Boooooooooooooo!!]
"Boo all you want — doesn't change the fact that I'm the best! Semifinals! Finals! I'll beat every single one of—"
In that moment, the sound of someone chuckling darkly rolled through the arena.
[Khehehehehe…….]
I whipped around, startled, toward the giant screen above the entrance ramp.
There, projected across it, was the image of a man sitting in a rocking chair.
[My, my. That was beautiful. Truly something.]
The rocking chair creaked.
The crowd, seeing that sinister figure, fell silent for a heartbeat. The boos that had been raining down on me simply died away, as if by magic.
I was certain of it.
It had arrived a little earlier than it had in the original history — but the "Broken Wyatt" gimmick worked. It landed, without question.
This was the moment a monster worthy of my "dirty tricks" was born.