Break The World
The match came to an end just like that.
When I walked into the locker room, a member of the medical staff was there waiting for me.
"Sin, over here, please."
Still gasping for breath, I did as she asked and sat down in the chair — and immediately a disinfectant-soaked gauze pad was pressed against my forehead.
"Nngh……"
"You took quite a gash there."
"Yeah, I learned to sew in case I ended up running a butcher shop back home."
My little joke made the staffer chuckle, but her hands never stopped moving.
She stitched the wound closed with a medical stapler and finished the treatment. Once the adrenaline wore off, the pain came creeping in slowly.
"Want a painkiller?"
"No, I'm fine."
I shook my head.
Right on cue, Russell appeared carrying an ice pack.
He seemed to have gotten his own rough once-over as well, a piece of gauze stuck to his forehead.
Taking the ice pack he handed me, I flashed a grin and greeted him.
"Good work out there."
"Your punches were vicious."
"So were yours."
Still, we'd matched each other perfectly, so a couple of days of ointment and proper rest would see us right. We'd both been careful, so there was little worry of lasting damage.
"Shirt off, please."
Following the staffer's instruction, I peeled off my undershirt and bared my torso, wincing at the sting of the salve spreading across my chest.
Russell, who was being treated by another staffer nearby, spoke up.
"Think today went well?"
"You just have to look at the stands and you know the answer."
I smiled.
The 3,000-seat arena had filled to the point where there was hardly an empty section to be found.
Our rivalry must have had an enormous effect on ticket sales.
I planned to watch the recorded footage later and confirm it for myself, but I wasn't worried.
The crowd reactions were killer.
They'd raged exactly the way we'd intended them to. The atmosphere felt electrically real, and the immersion of the match soared as a result.
That's a culture unique to pro wrestling, something no other show or sport in the world has.
Communicating with the audience in real time, just like that.
And since it had come off beautifully, I felt certain of it.
That was a hell of a match.
The feeling was new to me.
In my past life, I was a pathetic Asian kung-fu heel who could never buy a single genuine reaction.
Truthfully, I couldn't deny how much Russell's help had mattered here.
It would have been impossible for me to play the role Russell played.
I was an Asian man — a minority in America. Russell, on the other hand, wasn't American either, but he was white.
Yet if we played our rivalry well, the crowd would cheer for both of us all the same.
Russell would overcome his own weakness — being seen as a knockoff copy of Greg — and I, in turn, would overcome the racial weakness I carried.
What a beautiful arrangement.
Honestly, the fact that two rookies could draw a reaction of this magnitude was remarkable in itself.
All that remained now was to carry the rivalry all the way to the pay-per-view.
GCW's weekly show rolled onward toward the pay-per-view.
Russell and I each took a segment every week, keeping the feud alive.
We avoided any physical contact, giving our battered bodies time to heal — but we turned even that into part of the act.
On the weekly show's ring, Russell came out first to air his grievances about my cowardice, and when I followed him out, I soaked up the boos and curses raining down on me.
"You gutless bastard. Unlacing my boot doesn't work, so now you're pulling the referee?"
"Calm down, Russell. I had some bad tacos the night before. Couldn't help it."
"……Tacos?"
"Yeah, you know — that stuff all the fatasses in the crowd love to scarf down."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"I told you, I wasn't feeling well. Guess the tacos had gone a little off."
"Ha. What a pathetic excuse."
Russell laughed in sheer disbelief, then raised the mic again from the center of the ring.
We each stood there with a single strip of medical tape across our split foreheads.
"Fine. Then let's settle it at the pay-per-view. And don't you dare come up with some flimsy excuse again when it happens."
"Deal. At that show, I'll show you exactly what kind of man I am."
The two of us locked eyes and grinned at each other. Watching us, the crowd launched into a 'YES!' chant.
They were the ones disillusioned by the sour finish of our last match, and they wanted us to tear into each other for real this time.
And so we carried the rivalry forward, stacking anticipation for the pay-per-view higher and higher.
But there was one difference from before: after that second match, the air between us had softened considerably.
Russell and I had gradually begun to acknowledge each other's ability.
With the rivalry carried on like that, the pay-per-view arrived at our doorstep before we knew it.
Technique drills. Physical conditioning. Promo shoots. Idea meetings. Script checks. Acting practice. Show tapings.
After weeks of that routine, the moment the taping of the final show before the pay-per-view wrapped, I hopped straight in a car and headed into downtown Atlanta.
The pay-per-view wasn't being held at the usual GCW arena.
Because a special show could draw a much bigger gate, the company had rented an outside venue.
They'd settled on a sports arena in downtown Atlanta with a capacity of 10,000.
So it's this place.
It was familiar ground.
In my past life I'd spent a long stretch in GCW, and I'd competed at plenty of pay-per-views.
As the designated jobber who lost every single one, mind you.
Thanks to that, though, I knew the layout like the back of my hand — along with everything that set this arena apart from the others.
"What are you brooding about?"
I'd been staring up at the arena for a while when Russell walked over, having just finished parking.
He'd brought me out here on purpose.
He wanted to talk through the things we'd need to watch out for in the match.
"Nothing. Nothing at all."
The biggest match of my career, past lives included, was about to happen.
And on top of that, astonishingly, it was a match people were genuinely excited for.
Feeling my chest tighten with something heavy and nameless, I walked into the arena alongside Russell.
Passing through security, down the corridor, and into the venue proper, an overwhelming sight spread out before us.
"Whoa……"
Even Russell looked stunned.
A natural reaction. The scale was simply on another level compared to the GCW arena we usually worked.
It felt like standing in outer space.
The ceiling was packed with countless lights, all of them trained on the ring at the heart of the arena.
With the illumination dialed down to a minimum for the set construction going on, everything around us was pitch black.
It was the kind of atmosphere where you wouldn't bat an eye if someone came bursting through that distant curtain at any moment.
Thank God the crew down below were still hauling materials and rigging the structures, at least.
Snorting a laugh, I plopped down into a chair right beside the entrance we'd come through.
"Russell, get over here."
"R-right."
"How's it hitting you?"
"It's… obscenely big."
"This is the baseline for a WWF main show."
"So I've heard……"
Russell was already wound tight with nerves. Surprisingly, the man had a bit of a confidence problem — thanks to his uncle, I suspected.
I could hardly blame him.
The weight of a legendary family name had been pressing down on him his whole life.
And since he'd never once achieved anything purely on his own merit, the pressure had to be crushing.
I should lighten that load a little.
With that thought, I opened my mouth, my eyes going serious.
"Don't worry, Russell. You're about to wrestle the best wrestler in the world."
"……What?"
"The match we're going to have is going to blow the world apart. Break The World."
"……You really believe that?"
"Of course I do. And if you hold up your end, it'll be something absolutely magical."
Russell snorted a laugh.
"Right. That's the kind of guy you are."
"Guts matter, Russell. Guts. If you want a lie to look like the truth, the man telling it has to stand tall."
And it helped even more if you actually believed it yourself. Which was why I was speaking from my own life.
A man who had endured every humiliation life could throw at him, pushed through it all, and set out to become the best.
I thought it.
I am the best.
I wanted to believe it was true.
I could lead Russell forward — and Russell, in turn, could help carry me to an even higher place.
"……Hey, Sin. Can I say something?"
"Hm? What now."
"I've been wondering for a while — are you sure about the finish we're going with?"
"Relax, my friend. This is the story the people want."
I answered with total conviction.
The final showdown between Russell and me would end in a way completely different from our first two matches.
For the sake of my turn to the good side.
The day before the pay-per-view.
Gathered before the colossal screen of the Atlanta sports arena, the roster was watching the commercial that had been airing on television across the country right up until today.
[I WILL become champion.]
Bobby Ashley, muscles rippling in full glory, hurled a boulder and roared at the sky. Right after him, a strange man appeared at his side, holding a lantern aloft.
[Follow the one-eyed flock.]
Broken Wyatt.
As if to shroud the two men standing face to face, the WWF and GCW logos burst onto the screen.
Not bad.
Sitting on the couch, I fought down the sigh that wanted to escape.
Granted, this was 2002.
And the truth was, the pro wrestling industry had never been particularly video-friendly. It was, in a sense, a theatrical stage.
This was also right around the dawn of the '3D' graphics boom, so someone had slapped the technique onto everything, and the resulting 'WWF + GCW' logo was genuinely stomach-turning.
Not that I could hop into the future and bring the technology back with me.
Since I'd have to live with it, the commercial kept rolling.
The tag team champions and their challengers.
The women's champion and her challenger.
Then came the rest of this week's pay-per-view match card, the phone number for ordering, and the logos.
And then the spot for Russell and me aired.
[Honor. Faith. Loyalty.]
Russell Hart stood beneath a single shaft of light, spreading his wings (courtesy of some wretched CG).
And from the darkness on the opposite side of the frame, I emerged, smirked behind my sunglasses, and delivered my line.
[I've seen a hundred guys just like you.]
Followed by yet another eyesore of a logo.
All things considered, we got off easy.
I felt a sigh of relief slip out. The original plan had been for devil's wings to sprout from my back too.
Now THAT would have been truly hideous.
In any case, once the roster had watched the commercial through to the very end, everyone — without anyone needing to go first — clapped as one.
A round of applause for everyone at GCW who had produced something this spectacular, lousy CG and all.
I smiled too.
This was the absolute maximum they could squeeze out of a roster of barely twenty wrestlers.
Broken Wyatt, the storm center of the show. The tag teams and the women's division, there to add variety and a sense of occasion.
And at the end, the rivalry of Russell and me — picked as the future of the show, and its wild card.
Amid that applause, Harley and Baku came walking down the entrance ramp.
The rest of the staff were already stationed at their posts for tomorrow as well.
Harley began his speech.
"Somebody once said that strip the water-balloon muscles off a wrestler, and all you've got left is a small-minded little weasel playing office politics."
Everyone listened intently.
"It was the same in my era. If the politics didn't go your way, you swung the logic of the beast, and you kept doing it, over and over. You were like that too, once — though, well…… things have gotten a whole lot better around here now, haven't they?"
Harley smirked.
"You know why that is?"
"Can't say I do."
The one who answered was Bobby.
"It's because we finally have breathing room. The times moved on, this business established itself as a genre of its own, and now we can coexist without anyone having to bury anybody."
His gaze turned toward me.
"I won't bother saying who gave us that breathing room back. After all, we all ended up learning the fundamentals from a green-as-grass rookie."
"……"
The wrestlers turned to look at me.
Trust was written all over their faces.
They were the faces of men thinking, this guy — I could take a dangerous piledriver from him and know I'd be safe.
Swelling with pride, I squared my shoulders.
"Even when you're up on the main stage, never forget this moment. One day every one of us is going to fade into a handful of ash — but the moment we leave behind, that lasts forever."
Beautiful words.
Every one of us had come into this business because we wanted to leave behind some 'something' of our own.
All of it standing on the blood spilled by the countless wrestlers who came before us — men who fought even the people they had to entrust their own bodies to, just to survive.
We grew up watching their painted performances. And when we woke up to reality, we turned out to be the kind of people who could accept it — even knowing it was fake.
Tomorrow, we step out to show the world a 'painted fake.'
Harley looked out over the roster, burning with fighting spirit, and broke into a wide grin.
"Let's go raise some hell, you young pups."
At those words, the roster's roar filled the entire arena.
What a hell of a speech.
Tomorrow's pay-per-view couldn't come fast enough.