The Veteran's mic-Work
After that, three singles matches played out in succession before the commercial break arrived.
It was the middle of the show. Having warmed up just enough, we made our way to the Gorilla Position and readied ourselves to head out.
Greg Hart took a deep breath and followed, glancing back at Russell.
"Neither of you, don't be too nervous."
"Yes, uncle."
"As long as we just do our jobs, we should be able to wrap this up with a decent reaction."
"That's right. Let's go out there and kill it."
Having finished his brief words of encouragement, Greg turned his attention to the monitoring TV.
The screen, fresh off the commercial, showed the two commentators.
[And here we go, folks — the arrival of the superstar everyone's been waiting for.]
[I can hardly stand the anticipation. And it looks like the crowd can't either.]
"Greg! You're up!"
"Alright. Off I go."
Greg gave a nod and stood behind the curtain like a fighter jet preparing for launch. Then, with a sharp guitar riff, the cheers erupted.
It feels as if even that roar of the crowd is part of the song.
Only now, watching it firsthand, could I truly grasp his overwhelming presence.
Greg 'Killer' Hart.
The Assassin. The Master of Execution.
A hyper-veteran known by countless epithets.
When he pushed through the curtain and strode forward, the cheers grew even louder.
Faced with the crowd's blazing support, Greg wasn't crushed in the slightest — he simply marched to the ring.
So that's what first-class looks like.
I was in awe. He was on an entirely different level from anyone else. If he'd come out in the main event, the attendance would have been five times larger, and the ovation would have swelled accordingly.
Picking a fight with a man like that meant turning every single fan packed into this arena against you.
Damn it.
Honestly, it made me want to try.
In fact, drawing a torrential wave of boos might be even more fun right now.
Feeling that urge rising, I took a deep breath and steadied myself.
No. No, that's not it.
I was the face now.
My role was to turn those boos into cheers and earn the crowd's acceptance.
Greg took hold of the microphone.
[Alright. Alright. So this is how the GCW crowd does things.]
It was as if he were conducting the audience's reactions like an orchestra. Every time Greg spat out a line, the cheers came surging back.
[This is a fine place, you know. A no-good uncle came all this way worrying about his nephew, so I expect great things from here on.]
Greg's mic-work was an unbroken string of compliments aimed at GCW.
[The talent here is outstanding too. Plenty of guys I'd love to climb into the main event with. A fella like Bobby Ashley, for instance.]
The crowd cheered.
[Broken Wyatt.]
The crowd booed.
It was proof that all these people weren't just Greg's fans — they were GCW viewers first and foremost.
[And what about my nephew, Russell Hart?]
A massive cheer.
[Or how about Sin?]
The crowd sent boos raining down.
And there it was — the point where things went wrong.
The crowd's reaction to me should have been cheers by now. But Greg's arrival had changed everything.
They still hadn't accepted me, the upstart toying with a living legend.
[Fine crowd you are. You've got a good eye for talent. Well, a man ought to fight with his own two hands, shouldn't he?]
As if deliberately drawing my boos to the surface, he stepped closer to the crowd.
[That's exactly how our men fight! Am I right?!]
[Greg! Greg! Greg! Greg! Greg! Greg! Greg! Greg!]
A colossal chant.
Every single person watching from the Gorilla Position stood frozen, mouths agape.
We had all been overwhelmed by the sight of Greg commanding the crowd with nothing but his tongue.
Russell was no exception.
I tapped the shoulder of the kid who was frozen stiff with nerves.
"Shoulders back, Russell."
"......Sin."
"The moment we walk out there, the air in that ring is going to flip completely. Let's trust in what we've built."
Russell nodded.
He was the one going out first.
[Russell, you looked like a man struggling to swallow something out there earlier. If you've got something to say, be a man and come up to the ring and say it to my face.]
"Russell, you're up."
"See you out there."
Russell walked proudly up to the ring, his music blaring.
[Uncle, I'm sorry. I can't do things your way after all.]
[Is that so? And why not?]
[Because I'm not you.]
The crowd booed.
But Russell paid it no mind.
[I love my family. I carry our pride with me. But that doesn't get to decide my beliefs.]
[Beliefs? What beliefs?]
[I choose my own partner.]
[Partner?]
[Yes. We intend to become the GCW Tag Team Champions.]
[With that guy?]
[There are things to learn from him.]
[Like what — cowardly tactics?]
[And how to answer them.]
"Sin, you're up."
A crew member gave the signal mid-segment. I stood behind the curtain, ready to burst out at any moment.
[This is absolutely ridi—]
And the instant after, my music slammed the door on Greg's sentence.
[Booooooooooooo!]
Just like my debut.
Boos every bit as thunderous as back then.
I pushed through the curtain and stepped out, and the jeers swelled to an even greater pitch. But I moved toward the ring with an air of complete ease.
Greg looked down at me with disdain, as if regarding something filthy. Russell let out a long, long sigh.
I climbed onto the ring amid the booing and strode fearlessly up to Greg.
Face to face.
An avalanche of boos came pouring down. The crowd was convinced I'd overstepped my place.
But I ignored it all, grabbed the microphone, and opened my mouth.
"So what does babysitting pay these days?"
"What?"
"Must be pretty lucrative. Coming all the way down here just to keep your nephew in line? I bet the benefits are great."
[Boooooooooooo!]
"Or what is it — you hit a certain age and suddenly start thinking about successors? Let's get one thing straight, Greg."
I paused there. The boos aimed at me had buried the sound of my mic.
A little help would be nice right about now.
The moment I looked over with that thought, Greg caught my meaning, raised his own mic, and quieted the crowd.
"Go on, then. Let's hear it."
Thanks to that assist, the mic-work continued. I turned my back on him and rested a hand on Russell's shoulder.
"This stubborn fool right here is going to become greater than you. I guarantee it."
For a moment, the crowd had no reaction at all — the statement was simply too absurd.
Russell stared at me too, his face asking what on earth I was talking about.
Facing them both, I smiled and smoothly tossed Russell a bone.
"Don't be scared~. You don't get it yet, do you? You could turn every single hater in this building into your fans, you know?"
"......Are you an idiot?"
"Call it audacity."
A light wink.
Snorts of laughter rippled through the crowd. I felt the atmosphere flip and pressed on.
"Make no mistake — Greg Hart is a great wrestler. Especially to all of you gathered here, he's the greatest of all time, right?"
The foundation of playing a face is saying what the audience wants to hear on their behalf.
In that sense, what I'd just said was a good line for a babyface.
And sure enough, the crowd answered my words with a monstrous cheer.
Grinning, I climbed up onto the ropes and shouted at the top of my lungs.
"Do you want to see that nephew surpass his great uncle?! To carry on his uncle's page and write the history of a great family with his own hands!!"
The crowd was completely hooked on my words now. They answered with a chant of 'Russell!'
Greg, who had been listening to all this, soon raised his microphone.
"Amusing."
He was smiling.
"Impossible, but amusing."
Overwhelming confidence.
"Past, present, or future — put me anywhere and I'm still the best."
"Oh, is that so?"
"If you want to call me a liar, don't just run your mouth — come at me and prove it. Because right here is the ring."
He took off his jacket.
At the sudden turn, the crowd let out cheers thick with anticipation. Russell flailed his hands in flustered protest.
But Greg, as if he'd been waiting for this exact moment all along, charged at me without a shred of hesitation.
"Ugh?!"
The barrage of hammering blows rocked my body. Just as planned, I went tumbling out of the ring in an instant.
"Come on! Russell!"
Greg turned and threw down the challenge. I shook myself off and scrambled up, then hid where the cameras wouldn't catch me and watched the match unfold.
Starting from chain wrestling, the two men traded holds back and forth. The crowd reacted feverishly.
But of course, there was no way Russell — still a rookie — could hang with Greg, a veteran polished by decades.
This was a segment of one veteran schooling two brats.
At the same time, though, the sight of Russell and me standing up to Greg Hart was about to spark something in the crowd.
Russell was knocked flat out of the ring, and I seized the moment to climb back in.
My rapid-fire punches made Greg stagger for a moment. Boldly, I pressed the attack.
But it didn't last.
"Khhek?!"
Greg countered with a snap suplex. My body spun half a rotation and crashed down, and a groan escaped me from the impact.
And it didn't end there.
Greg sprang back to his feet, snatched my leg with speed several times faster than Russell's, twisted it, and locked in the Sharpshooter.
"Nghhhhhhk?!"
As I writhed under the agony of my lower back and knee being crushed at once, Russell climbed onto the ring and attacked Greg.
The two of us took turns going after Greg Hart like that. But he cooked us with ease.
Before long, the two of us lay sprawled flat on our backs in the ring.
But the man standing over us wasn't in perfect condition either.
Moving with a limp, Greg picked up the microphone that had fallen to the mat.
He's improvising.
Lying on the mat, I watched him limp around and thought to myself.
By the original script, Greg was supposed to obliterate Russell and me while both of us were still fresh. But he had sold for our sake.
I could feel his intent — respecting the two of us as rising stars, a senior protecting our image.
He was, truly, a great professional wrestler.
"Not bad. But you've got the order wrong. Listen up good. Russell. Sin."
He smiled as he looked down at the two of us.
"If you want to make a declaration, you'd better have the accomplishments to back it up. Go become the Tag Team Champions at the very next pay-per-view."
That single line was a promise of the story still to come for Russell and me.
That's right. We would become the Tag Team Champions at the next pay-per-view.
* * *
After the show ended, Greg Hart booked a flight on the spot and headed straight to the city hosting WWF's next show.
He had truly worked for our GCW through his entire vacation, right up to the very end.
Unpaid, no less.
It was the kind of act no ordinary saint could pull off. We felt a debt of gratitude toward him deeper than words.
But gone was gone.
"We've got work to do."
Changed into training gear, I stepped up onto the ring and let the morning sun wash over me.
Standing before me in the crisp morning air were two people.
Russell — and Sheena.
With Greg's help, the two of us had finally become a proper tag team, and that meant we now had a new task ahead of us.
To do justice to our role as a team... we had to create our 'tag team move.'
"You ready?"
"Yeah. Got any good ideas?"
I nodded and turned to Sheena, who stood there looking bewildered.
"I need a favor, Sheena."
"......I'm fine with helping, but what exactly are you planning?"
"First things first — an ideas meeting."
I smiled.
Today, Sheena was scheduled to play the role of our 'teaching material.'