Let the Crowd Decide
Ding ding ding!
The ring bell rang out, announcing our victory.
Still covering one half of Street Times, I rose from my position and thrust a hand into the air. The crowd sang along to our entrance music as I basked in a clean win, soaking up my victory celebration.
Meanwhile, Russell — who had been battling the other opponent down on the floor — climbed back into the ring and planted himself in front of me.
I spread my arms with theatrical arrogance.
"Got something to say?"
"Why didn't you tag me?"
"Hmm, what do you think?"
I smirked.
The match had been built entirely around the 'tense relationship' between Russell and me. We'd dominated it outright, but in another sense it had been a real ordeal.
All match long, the two of us kept colliding and bickering — me ignoring his outstretched hand and refusing to tag, him getting dragged into a tag against his will and grabbing me by the collar in a fury.
Since the pay-per-view, the Wyatt Family had become a common enemy for us both, but Russell and I were still sworn rivals at heart.
Finally, unable to stomach my provocations any longer, Russell threw a punch at my face. I took it flush and stared back at him with an expression of pure incredulity.
Then all hell broke loose.
The crowd roared the names of Sin and Russell back and forth at us. Watching tonight's match, they'd felt one of wrestling's great romantic dreams take shape before their eyes.
Two men who despised each other joining forces against a shared foe.
A classic cliché. Simple — but it was the very foundation of the stories people loved.
By the time the brawl finally ran its course, security guards summoned by Harley had dragged the both of us apart. The crowd answered our story with a feverish ovation.
A few evenings later — at the dorm.
To celebrate the turning of the year, the crew had thrown a party of our own. Beef and all manner of vegetables sizzled away on a massive barbecue grill.
Standing in front of it, flipping ears of corn, I drank down a vitamin drink as the heat from the grill washed over me. The seniors kept pressing drinks into my hands, but I managed to fake my way through every round. Alcohol wasn't good for the body, after all.
Thankfully, everyone else was well past tipsy. Every time I raised an empty glass to my lips without drinking, they just laughed heartily and praised what a big drinker I was.
A night for battle-hardened warriors to unwind and swap old stories. GCW had put on the barbecue for the wrestlers and staff who'd bled for the company all year long.
Too small a reward, you say?
Hardly. Ten thousand dollars from the pay-per-view bonus had landed in my account, and the t-shirts had sold like crazy. Besides, we were professional wrestlers — when it came to eating, there wasn't a soul anywhere who could out-do us.
The freezer truck that had been packed full of meat was already more than half empty. Every batch that came off the grill vanished the moment it hit the table.
"KHAHAHA! Eat! Eat!"
Already three sheets to the wind, Baku devoured meat and booze alike like a man who'd finally set down the weight of the world.
Wrestlers wrestling, staff staff-ing — everyone had done their job brilliantly all year, and the whole group had that loose, relaxed air of people with nothing left to prove. Watching them enjoy the barbecue, I grilled my portion in quiet contentment.
It wasn't that I felt left out or anything like that.
If I overeat, it shows.
Since my regression, I'd settled on an optimal routine and stuck to it without fail. I had no intention of breaking it now. So: alcohol in strict moderation, and meat eaten as slowly as I could manage.
Even so, I was satisfied.
In my past life I'd lived carelessly, and I knew exactly what those brief bursts of hedonistic pleasure were worth. But they never lasted. With a lifetime of memory to teach me that lesson, I'd resolved to keep the athlete in myself under strict control.
What that discipline bought me was honor, money, and a body — an asset beyond price.
There's nothing I'd trade for it.
Smiling to myself, I noticed there were exactly two other people doing precisely what I was doing.
Russell Hart and Shawn Cena.
Both were eating modestly and drinking nothing at all — though for entirely different reasons.
Our eyes met, and Russell wandered over. I flipped a vegetable skewer and spoke up first.
"Not drinking?"
"Training tomorrow."
"Diligent, aren't we."
"Though I don't recall you ever beating me to the gym."
Russell's brow furrowed.
"You really did come up through the indies? You never studied under some famous wrestler?"
"Nope. Nobody paid me any attention back then."
"Why would that be...?"
"Who knows?"
My skill level, most likely. In my past life I'd been nothing but a green rookie — sloppy fundamentals, all reckless bumps and no craft. Of course, that explanation wouldn't hold a drop of water now.
I was still fumbling for a decent excuse when Russell went quiet.
Oh — is he getting the wrong idea?
"It wasn't because of my race."
"N-no, of course not."
Russell answered, flustered. I chuckled wryly, pulled the finished meat off the grill, and piled it onto his plate.
"Eat."
"Ah — no, I've had plenty tonight."
"Don't hold back. Nights like this, with meat this good, don't come around often."
At my insistence, Russell finally smiled faintly, picked up a piece, and took a bite. Right about then, Cena appeared at my elbow and held his plate out toward me.
"What, want more?"
"No — I'll grill it myself. Take this and keep eating."
"......"
Why on earth do we need to share the same plate?
That was my first thought, but he'd gone out of his way to offer. I handed over the tongs and stepped back from the grill, feeling the sweltering heat that had been choking me slowly ebb away. Only once I'd cooled down a little did I start happily tearing into the juicy meat.
The conversation flowed on.
"How'd tonight's match look to you, Cena?"
"Honestly? Total blackout."
"Happens to the best of us. Still, it didn't look bad at all. You kept up with the veteran Lucha Kings just fine."
At that, the two Lucha Kings standing nearby wandered over.
"Match talk again, eh?"
"You kids sure are working hard."
"How'd it look to you two?"
"Build up your flexibility, Cena. Stiff posture can get you killed out there."
"Yes, yes, sir!"
"And our match?"
"Amigo, amigo. Why ask a question with such an obvious answer?"
"You two are the hottest thing in GCW right now. The synergy you create together is no joke."
"He's right."
Now Bobby had joined the circle too.
"With the Wyatts anchoring things as heels, you two are reliably keeping the audience hungry for what comes next."
One by one, more of the roster drifted over, and soon a loose seminar on character work was unfolding in front of the grill.
Of course, everything still has to clear the creative team and the people above them.
But we were the ones who'd have to perform those details with our own bodies, so this kind of study mattered immensely. I was thinking what a healthy sign it was as we all talked — until I felt someone's eyes on us and glanced up.
Baku and Harley, watching our little roundtable and grinning.
Then Baku seemed to hit upon some bright idea and turned to Harley, practically buzzing with excitement.
What's that about?
Suddenly, I was dying to know.
My curiosity was answered completely the very next afternoon.
"We're holding a survey."
"Excuse me?"
Russell, seated across from me, tilted his head at Baku's announcement. I, on the other hand, had a pretty good idea where this was going.
"You two remember what's on your script for next week?"
"Of course—"
"Harley got a request from Bobby to have us do something that would improve our teamwork."
"Ah, right, that. Sin throws a tantrum about why he has to do this stuff, and so do I. We were clearly scheduled to shoot a comedy promo this week, no?"
"Yes, yes."
"So the idea is to let the live audience and the TV viewers decide the outcome instead. Am I right?"
"Oho. Quick on the uptake."
Baku flashed a wide grin. Russell, however, tilted his head again.
"The audience decides? How?"
"A phone poll, obviously. ARS voting."
"That's the one."
"Do you have the manpower to take all those calls? There's going to be quite a lot of them."
"We'll hire staff."
"W-wait, hold on. Then what happens to this week's promo—"
"Well, Harley just thinks up what to assign you next, then films one more promo teasing the vote. Problem solved."
"...How are you somehow three steps ahead of the guy who came up with the idea, Sin?"
"If you narrow it down to a handful of options and have people press a number, the tallying's easy. Toss in a few out-there choices to fire up the imagination while you're at it."
"This will make money."
"How much are you paying us?"
"Hm?"
"Normally when you run something like this, the talent gets a cut. Isn't that right?"
"...Uh..."
Don't tell me this man didn't think of that.
"L-let's, ah, discuss that later—"
"Give us half a percent each. You'll be handling all the prep work on your end, after all. Isn't that about the industry standard?"
"Where did you hear that?"
"Oh, here and there."
I coughed lightly and let it go.
Anyway. If they were making money off us, then by rights a share of that revenue ought to flow back to us. With ARS calls costing around three dollars a pop, this promised to be a comfortably juicy revenue stream.
Not a bad idea at all.
It was a bit ahead of its time, but the WWF had built plenty of storylines around these kinds of 'audience votes' in the future.
And every one of them drew a huge response.
Pro wrestling was, at its heart, a participatory spectacle — give fans a way to take part even from outside the arena, and they couldn't help but love it. Three dollars was nothing — the kind of impulse spend you'd make on a beer-fueled whim.
"So first we'll need ideas worth voting on."
Grinning, I looked back and forth between the two stunned men sitting across from me, then pulled a few interesting concepts from the storylines of the future.
"For comedy, how about we sign up for a 'relationship improvement program'?"
"Relationship... what?"
"The two of us going to counseling. Something like psychiatric therapy. There's a mountain of comedy potential there, trust me."
"Oho..."
"Here's another. Sin wrestles a match in the gear he publicly trashed as a 'gay costume.'"
"Russell wears Sin's ring gear?"
"That's the one."
"No — but do we really need to bring up the gay costume thing at all—"
"If we just keep sweeping it under the rug, the fans will start feeling like the company is manipulating their reactions without their consent."
"Then that would be a problem."
"Which is why I think showing it to them directly and turning the reaction around is the smart play."
"Definitely sound reasoning."
Baku nodded along. And at that, Russell — apparently embarrassed by the interrogation he'd been through — raised a hand, looking sheepish.
"U-um, hold on a second?"
"What now."
"You just said the audience would decide by phone vote. So why does it feel like the outcome's being decided by whatever we pick right now...?"
"Huh? That's easy."
Does he have to question everything?
Baku wore exactly the same expression.
"Because we're going to rig the vote for whichever outcome we like."
That was industry standard, in every industry there was.
Russell's face went slack with genuine shock.
"N-no, wait! That's deceiving the audience! Sin, you're the one who said we mustn't toy with the crowd's reactions—"
What a naive kid.
Ignorance is bliss, I suppose.
Mindful of efficient use of time, GCW decided to shoot several of the promos back to back. And throughout the process, only thoroughly 'trustworthy' people were allowed anywhere near it — if word ever got out that the results were rigged, the backlash would be catastrophic.
Not that I was worried. Everyone involved in the shoot was a department head or above — people who'd worked in this business for years and built up ironclad reputations.
The real problem was that Russell Hart was a nervous wreck about the whole thing.
"Th-this is going to be okay, right?"
"Of course it is."
The set had been fully prepped for the promo shoot. Jacket on, I sipped at a bottle of water and waited for filming to start.
Beside me, Russell was visibly tense, scanning the faces of the crew around the studio.
"Is this really necessary? Just going with whatever the fans vote for?"
"Absolutely necessary."
"Why?"
"Because then we'll have free time, and we can take a little vacation."
"You're going on vacation?"
"Yep. We worked hard all year — we've earned at least a month off."
"...Sin?"
"What now."
"I'll work really hard."
The moment the word vacation left my mouth, a fire lit itself in Russell's eyes.
And honestly, mine had been lit too.
Since my regression, I'd kept putting something off — always too busy, always another week. Now, at last, I felt ready to face it.
My parents.
I wanted to go see the two people I'd never once managed to spoil properly in my past life, and tell them where I stood now. That their son was making it as a professional wrestler. That he was doing well.
Will it be okay?
Somehow, the thought frightened me more than stepping through the ropes ever had.