Before a Chairshot, All Men Are Equal
Chairshot.
Before one, all men are equal.
As I slid up onto the ring with the chair hoisted in my hands, a ripple of dread ran through the crowd — and then they erupted, roaring their approval.
I jabbed the edge of the chair into Eddie's gut where he stood in front of me, wheeled around with the momentum, and swung it hard across his back.
CLANG!
The crowd went even crazier at the vicious sound. Wyatt slid down out of the ring, and I cleaned house, trading blows between Cena and Eddie until both of them lay sprawled on the mat.
In the middle of it all, Russell staggered to his feet. I held the chair out to him.
Russell's brow furrowed with pain as his eyes darted between me and the chair.
[Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!]
The crowd screamed for him to take it, loud enough to shake the rafters. Russell hesitated — then grabbed the chair and swung.
WHAM!
Eddie rolled out of the ring in agony. I kicked Cena out of the ring for good measure.
The two of us stood over the ring and glared at Wyatt. His plan in shambles, Wyatt cracked his fists across the backs of his two henchmen's heads.
With the crowd still chanting 'Yes!' at full volume, Russell and I stood in the ring, breathing hard.
And so the pay-per-view came to an end in a storm of delirious cheers.
That evening, the radio shows rolled on.
Experts who'd watched enough pro wrestling to be sick of it were gushing like little kids, tripping over themselves to talk.
[A double turn! Can you believe it!]
[Has there been a script this brilliant in North American pro wrestling in recent memory?]
[No. Wyatt forms a stable and turns heel, and the two men who hated each other's guts band together to stand against him. It played like a superhero-villain team-up. It was beautiful.]
[And here's the best part — the whole show was built entirely to put over those two rookies, and the crowd's reaction never died once. Tonight's Takedown felt like a show that cut straight to the essence of pro wrestling.]
[Sin and Russell got properly 'over' tonight. The fans are behind them now. They're both ridiculously good-looking, and they're guaranteed to be the superstars carrying GCW's main events going forward.]
[So, pairing those two off — that means they're going the tag team route, right?]
[Has to be. The standard path is to work your way up the card, collecting the mid-tier belts one by one.]
[In that case, you've got to keep Bobby's potential face turn in mind too.]
[Bobby and the Wyatt Family's stable of three colliding. They're drawing up the big picture so naturally you'd hardly notice.]
[So tomorrow's show is where Sin and Russell's team-up becomes official?]
At that point, Baku turned the radio down to a murmur.
Fresh from his shower, he looked at the six of us gathered around and flashed a wide grin.
"That's what they're saying, huh?"
"Then we'd better pull off one hell of a betrayal."
I nodded and held my fist out toward Russell, seated beside me.
Our knuckles bumped lightly, and together we looked across at Bobby, Wyatt, Cena, and Eddie on the other side.
These six were the ones who would spend the next three months together.
The pay-per-view had wrapped in triumph, but we still had promos to shoot for the show airing 'tomorrow'.
Because of the broadcast schedule, the GCW weekly show airing the very next night consisted mostly of aftermath — the fallout from the pay-per-view.
A preview of the next feud, epilogues to the feuds that had just ended. That sort of thing.
So most of the matches were held at throwaway exhibition level, and the performers who'd worked the pay-per-view only cut promos to save their strength.
The show opened with Broken Wyatt and his companions.
He emerged carrying the lantern and the championship belt and began laying out his intentions before the crowd.
"These are my brothers."
Cena and Eddie removed their masks.
Watching their faces on the monitoring TV, I could see the tension etched into them plain as day.
But those stiff, frozen faces read as somehow off — which, as it happened, suited the gimmick perfectly.
"Everyone stands with me. We will purge whatever stands in our way and rise as the rulers of this ring."
[Booooooooooooo!]
The crowd had long since stopped taking Wyatt seriously.
A man who wrecked matches and clung to his belt through cowardice earned no respect.
Wyatt pressed on, unbothered.
"We are the Wyatt Family."
The instant he named the stable, Bobby's music thundered through the arena.
The crowd erupted in cheers, and Bobby, still limping from the night before as if the shock of it hadn't worn off, raised the mic.
"Wyatt. Last night, you stole that championship belt and ran."
"This is simply the proper path."
"Eat shit. You did the one thing I can't stand. You reached for a weapon other than your own two hands."
The crowd roared its approval — those words were good.
They'd been my suggestion, offered casually.
Bobby was the kind of heel who'd whale on anyone who rubbed him the wrong way, but he'd never once done anything cowardly. I'd seized on exactly that, wove it into his character, and let the fans gravitate to his side naturally.
The newly turned Bobby Ashley was now the gruff, no-frills babyface who fought on nothing but faith in his own strength.
Wyatt let out an eerie laugh.
"And who's the champion right now, exactly? Who is it standing there like a king, draped in that golden symbol?"
"……"
"If you're so sure of yourself, step into this ring, then. Little Bobby."
"Fine."
"Let's see what you've got."
"But I'm not alone. I've got some friends you wronged last night."
Bobby turned to look behind him.
The crowd cheered on instinct, expecting Russell and me to appear. And Russell's music hit first.
But the Russell in front of me just glanced back at me with a smirk.
"How long do we wait?"
"Hmm, about fifteen seconds?"
The fans waiting for our entrance soon realized nobody was coming. Perplexed, they began to rise from their seats.
Bobby wore the same baffled expression. All of it acting, of course.
Harley, who had been watching that reaction stretch to its very limit, finally spoke up.
"Get out there. Now."
"Yes, sir. ……Let's go."
Russell nodded and turned to face me. We grabbed each other by the back of the neck and raised our fists.
"Alright. Let's do this."
And we stumbled out through the curtain, careful not to trip over each other.
The moment we emerged, the punching began.
The puzzled crowd watched Russell and me brawl, then burst into cheers.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bobby throw both arms wide in a look of utter disbelief. Russell and I ignored him and kept slugging away.
The pundits had predicted that our team-up would happen tonight, on this very show.
Unfortunately, we weren't quite there yet. There were still grudges left to burn between us.
Trading fists the whole way, Russell and I brawled our way back through the curtain and out to the backstage area.
The instant we were gone, we dropped the act and crowded around the monitoring TV to watch.
Everyone was still looking bewildered when Wyatt's low, sinister laugh drifted through the arena.
[Are those friends of yours?]
[Goddammit, just— hold on a second.]
Letting out a long sigh, Bobby stormed off as if to come break us up.
As laughter rippled through the crowd, the broadcast cut to a commercial break.
During the break, the Wyatt Family worked the crowd one last time and made their exit, buried under a tidal wave of boos.
And backstage —
The six of us gathered around, delighted at how smoothly everything had gone.
"Your acting was really good, Bobby."
"……You two are maybe a little too popular, huh? The whole room shifts the second you show up."
Bobby laughed, half in exasperation.
We'd barely exchanged a few lines when the commercial ended and the prepared promo aired — the one we'd shot just yesterday.
[Calm down! Sin!]
[Russell! Take it easy!]
[You're dead! You son of a bitch!]
[Come at me then, if you dare! Your Highness!]
Security guards dragged at the four of us as we brawled backstage, and on the screen Bobby shoved his way in between us.
[What the hell are you doing?! This is no time for us to be fighting each other!]
[We get along just fine without some spoiled little princeling around, got it?!]
[I have no intention of teaming with a back-alley thug like you!]
Russell and I were seething, refusing to let an ounce of the hostility fade.
At the flashpoint of the standoff, someone walked slowly into the frame.
[Whoa, whoa. Whoa.]
The crowd erupted. It was Harley — the head of GCW himself.
[What's going on here, kids?]
[Ah — Harley.]
Bobby answered, flustered, and Harley just laughed heartily, looking back and forth between Russell and me.
[You two. Tag match. Tonight.]
[What?]
[Wait, why—?]
[Because it's what the people want.]
As Russell delivered the line to the camera, the crowd answered him with a massive Yes! chant.
The promo ended with the on-screen versions of Russell and me staring in stunned disbelief. Then the commentary booth picked it up.
[So we're getting two tag team matches tonight, Rick?]
[Looks that way! We'll bring you Russell Hart and Sin's opponents as soon as the match card is set!]
[And before that, keep an eye out for the Wyatt Family taking on the Lucha Kings in tag team action!]
At those words, Wyatt and his two henchmen rose from their seats.
I walked over to Cena, who was wound tighter than a spring, and clapped him on the shoulder.
"Debut match. Go kill it."
"I-I'll give it everything!"
"Just follow the lead and ride along. Nothing to worry about."
Russell came over too, offering his encouragement to Cena ahead of his debut. I gave Eddie a nod as well.
"You got this too, Eddie."
"……"
Eddie Morris answered with a gruff, silent nod. Unlike Cena, the kid wasn't showing a thing — though something told me he was feeling it all the same.
The tag team the two of them were facing today was the Lucha Kings, a pair of grizzled veterans with over a decade in the business.
Convinced they'd lost too much value on the main stage to be worth booking, they'd voluntarily requested a demotion to GCW just to teach the young ones.
Their stock had fallen, sure — but in truth they were the real deal, monstrous wrestlers through and through.
With those two carrying the match, there was no way it would go wrong.
That's what I told myself as I saw the three of them off and settled back in front of the monitor.
Honestly, Cena's reaction had been only natural.
We're live on TV, after all.
The strange thing was how comfortable Russell and I had gotten at this. Even Eddie, who never let it show, had to have been nervous as hell.
And so the Lucha Kings stepped up to shepherd those two greenhorns through it.
Just as I'd hoped, the masked veterans guided the rookies through a beautiful match.
Cena and Eddie were the ones executing the moves, but from an insider's eye, you could feel the Lucha Kings' seasoned hands all over it.
There is greatness in Mexico.
Mexican pro wrestling — its performers fought behind masks and built their craft around aerial offense, earning the name luchador.
Per the script we'd all agreed on in advance, the Lucha Kings let themselves be utterly stomped by the two Wyatt Family rookies.
The muscular Cena and the towering Eddie won in a blowout — and yet the match never once felt implausible.
When it ended, Wyatt climbed into the ring to survey his work, and the Wyatt Family put the boots to the Lucha Kings in a post-match beatdown.
[Booooooooooooooo!!]
Bathed in jeers, the Wyatt Family celebrated their victory.
The rookies of the stable destined to lead the industry as GCW's premier villains had polished off their first match in style.
After that came match after match from the performers who hadn't worked the pay-per-view.
It let the pay-per-view talent rest while piling experience onto the rookies. Simple as that.
Russell and I, of course, didn't get that luxury — and the reason was simple enough.
Seniority.
We were owed.
Our opponents were a team called Street Times.
A tag team of two springy Black wrestlers. They made their entrance to a wall of cheers.
Behind them, I was already in position for my own entrance, steadying my breathing.
"Sin, you're up first!"
When the cue came, I swept the curtain aside and stepped out.
The crowd sang along to my theme music. I let them know I appreciated it — nothing showy.
A casual glance back over my shoulder.
Or strolling over to the fans singing right up against the barricade and flashing them a grin.
Their chorus poured even more presence into me. Street Times stared at me, wide-eyed.
The reaction the crowd was sending my way had blown far past anything I'd expected.
[SIN! SIN! SIN! SIN! SIN! SIN! SIN! SIN! SIN! SIN! SIN!]
A chant for the history books.
I brushed right past Street Times, stepped up onto the ring post, and threw my arms out wide to both sides with everything I had.
The roar climbed even higher.
I could feel it in my bones — this babyface turn we were kicking off was going to work beautifully.