The Wishmaker
Stamford, Connecticut — home to WWF headquarters.
In a darkened room, two men sat watching footage thrown against the wall by a beam projector.
[Cover! One, two, three!]
The three-count came down, and the Asian man who had pinned his opponent rose to his feet.
[Shin wins again tonight! What an incredible hot streak this kid is on! Simply amazing!]
The crowd's roar was thunderous.
The wrestler climbed to the top turnbuckle, hoisted the belt high, and played to the crowd.
Of the two men watching, the older one let out a whistle.
"He's like DiCaprio."
His name was Nick Flair.
A legendary pro wrestler who, in his younger days, had clawed his way to Icon status as a heel in promotions outside the WWF.
He was fifty-three this year, yet still an active competitor — thanks, in no small part, to the alimony he owed his third wife.
When his old promotion folded, Nick had come to the WWF, swallowed more than a few indignities along the way, and was slowly finding his footing.
That included an arrangement of sorts with the man sitting right beside him.
"......Are you blind?"
That was the reply from Triple H — the current WWF World Champion.
Hunter, as everyone called him.
A heel specialist with a striking presence, like a golden lion come to life.
Massive, sculpted muscle, and long blonde hair worn down like a mane. Even the shape of his beard mirrored a legend of the distant past: Captain Logan.
"Doesn't DiCaprio declare 'I'm the king of the world!' in that movie?"
"But in that movie, DiCaprio is nothing more than a stowaway."
"Right, right. A mere stowaway aboard a ship as vast as this company."
Nick laughed wickedly.
Hunter was a man of pride bordering on arrogance, and he never hesitated to show it. And yet he was also a man who knew exactly how to keep that wildness coolly hidden when it counted.
"Still, he's not bad. Certainly good enough for a supporting role."
"I think so too. Having a character like that would really liven up the team's dynamic. And he's a good-looking kid."
"You think so?"
"Well, I wouldn't call it a top-of-the-card face, but paired with you? He'd prop you up nicely, no question."
As Nick gave his answer, he frowned at the footage that followed.
"But there's a problem."
On the screen was Shin, competing in a tag team match with Russell Hart.
"The youngest of the Hart Family is running with this 'Shin' kid."
"Nick...... what's the problem with that?"
"I'm saying Greg will have his eyes on him. If we want to pull the kid our way, we'll have to deal with Greg somehow first."
"He's a washed-up old man. If anything, he'd probably step aside himself the moment we offered to take his boy under our wing."
"You think so?"
"And what's he going to say, no? He's retiring soon. Once he's gone, the only Hart left in this business is the nephew."
Hunter flashed a knowing grin.
A veteran with a long career and an ironclad sense of professionalism, he was equally infamous backstage as a political operator favored by none other than the WWF Chairman himself, Bart Maxen.
Right now, with the main creative direction for Burning Kong in motion, he was assembling the members of a brand-new stable.
Triple H as the leader, the former Icon Nick Flair adding gravitas, and two rising stars fronting the group.
For those two slots, Hunter wanted prospects genuinely worth building up — and he had his eye on a big name making waves in the developmental territory: Shin.
Nick mulled over Hunter's words for a moment before tossing out a question.
"By the way — are you certain the kid can come up right now?"
"We bring him up."
"Can we, though? Harley's got a death grip on him this time. Last go-round we practically had to pry him loose."
"There's a reason."
Hunter grinned again.
"His asking price has gotten beyond what a developmental territory can handle."
"Oh?"
"I hear his t-shirt sales are the highest in company history. No reason to let a talent like that rot away in the minors."
Hunter answered with total confidence, then turned his eyes back to Shin on the screen.
The kid was, admittedly, usable — handled well, at least.
As a means of burnishing the great career of Triple H.
By now, the duo of Russell and me had been talked about so often it was coming out of people's ears.
We kept driving the ratings higher and higher, until GCW soon found itself cracking down on scalpers. The number of tourists traveling in from other cities just to see our shows had exploded to the point of shaking the local economies.
Of course, not every one of those fans was purely wholesome about their love for us.
One man bellowed at me while thrusting out a t-shirt with my face printed on it.
"SHIIIIIIN!!!"
"......"
I had just finished a match and was on my way out when I flinched and turned around.
"I made soap molded after my d*ck and sent it to you!! You're gonna use it, right, Shin!!"
A portly man winked and shouted my way.
......There were, occasionally, fans like this. Thankfully, he never went further than that.
Not that it mattered — every gift was screened before it reached me, so I had no memory of ever receiving that soap molded after his... whatever it was.
In any case, these minor side effects aside, the vast majority of fans cheered me on in perfectly ordinary ways.
With the metrics climbing day after day, a proposal eventually made the rounds: why not rent the Rewisi Arena in Atlanta for the weekly show?
The Rewisi was a 2,000-seat indoor arena that a local basketball team used as its home court.
Word was, GCW had rented it as a pay-per-view venue back when the company's revenue had bottomed out.
But that had been a once-every-three-months pay-per-view.
A weekly show was a different story altogether.
And Atlanta being a major city, the convenience factor alone would draw in even more fans.
In other words, the projected revenue from a weekly show there would be more than double what we were making now.
That, in turn, would send the market value of every GCW wrestler soaring.
Pro wrestlers earn more as their names get bigger, after all.
But there was a catch.
Sticking with the current arena cost nothing beyond basic maintenance.
Using the Rewisi, by contrast, meant rent.
Ten thousand dollars a night.
For a 2,000-seat venue, that was a fairly cheap rate — even more so considering the Rewisi sat in the heart of Atlanta, with transportation to match.
But once you stacked other costs on top of the rental fee, it was hardly pocket change.
Then again, if we filled all 2,000 seats, ticket sales alone would more than cover it, with plenty left over.
Add merchandise revenue on top, and the numbers would balloon like a snowball rolling downhill.
In the end, it came down to a choice.
Pay the opportunity cost and gamble — or simply stay the course and keep playing the loyal developmental territory.
And the people of GCW, as if bewitched by something, all wanted to shoulder the risk.
So did I.
Not everyone in GCW would get 'called up' to become superstars in the WWF. Growing the pond was a great help to them, if nothing else.
......Or so I thought.
"No."
Harley said it flatly.
We were in the conference room, with the entire leadership gathered.
Baku had summoned me to this meeting as well, and hearing Harley's answer, I smirked to myself.
Of course.
No matter how badly we wanted it, as a company there was no reason to take on a risk that big.
GCW's role, first and foremost, was to develop the wrestlers who would go up to the main show and shine.
Fulfill that role, and the job was done. Whatever profits GCW turned were a drop in the bucket next to the WWF main roster.
Everyone fell silent at Harley's words, which echoed my own thoughts.
"B-but Harley, wouldn't it be a waste? We've got this much talent gathered in one place."
"Exactly. Our main event champions, Bobby and Wyatt, are still carrying the division, and Sheamus in the midcard is gearing up for a call-up."
"The tag division's in great shape too. Sin-Cell made Adam and Chris's team seriously entertaining."
"Those two drew heat so well that we won't be short of lower-card hands to feed the machine for a good while."
"Plus the newly released Adam & Chris t-shirts are selling great."
"......? Who's buying those."
"The fans."
"Then why are they buying yours—"
"Apparently, Shin did a segment where he said you should gift the shirt to whoever you wanted to tell to eat sh*t—"
"—and sales jumped three hundred percent."
"......All that, from that."
Harley stared at me like I'd lost my mind. I avoided that expectant gaze of his.
Well, the truth was—
There was a way to persuade the higher-ups. It had already come to mind.
I was just weighing when to bring it up and how to make them understand.
And it seemed like this was the perfect moment.
"Harley, so to sum up — the top brass has no interest in expanding the GCW business?"
"That's right. Got something hanging on it?"
"Then what they want from us is nothing more than the role of a developmental territory — a farm that grows wrestlers with marketable gimmicks."
"You could say that."
I said it deliberately, as if double-checking.
In their eyes right now, I was a pro wrestler blessed with a dazzling talent — physically and mentally.
But even someone like me, suddenly weighing in on the WWF's inner politics with counterproposals? That would raise eyebrows.
So the most natural flow was to frame it as if the idea had just occurred to me from listening to Harley.
"Then how about this."
"Hm?"
"We trial-run, on our side, the very thing the WWF wants validated."
"......? What's that supposed to mean."
"Blood-soaked, adult-oriented drama is still all the rage on the main show right now, isn't it?"
"Right — the Bad Attitude Era."
The most provocative era in the history of pro wrestling — and, at the same time, the era that birthed the most problems.
Adult-oriented storylines. Betrayal, bloodshed, and sex saturating every inch of the product.
That was the Bad Attitude Era.
But that era didn't last long after Rockcold's retirement; it slid into a transitional period, dragging the WWF into decline with it.
The man who reversed that slide and pulled in a whole new audience was Shawn Cena.
The PG Era.
The simplicity of evil falling and good prevailing. Viewed a certain way, it was the era closest of all to the original blueprint of 1980s pro wrestling — the era Captain Logan had built.
"As you all know, the WWF is currently running a charity campaign. Why do you think that is?"
"Image laundering."
"Exactly."
I nodded.
These days, the WWF's content was routinely criticized as having crossed the line into gratuitous territory.
The company was aware of it too — working hard to polish its image precisely so no one would come sniffing around looking for trouble.
"What we'd be doing is proving that all of it can translate into money."
"Money?"
"Yes. We'd be showing that a return to the Captain Logan era works. And once that's on the table, wouldn't the top brass want to test just how far the results we produce actually hold up?"
Which meant it would lead straight to expanding GCW.
"......Kid."
Harley lifted his head, his eyes sharp as blades.
The crinkled gleam in them lit up.
"Yes, Harley?"
"You don't, by any chance, know someone up on the main roster, do you?"
"......I don't."
"Then it's a genuinely insane idea. You really are a lunatic."
He burst out laughing.
The others still looked puzzled, but you could tell the shape of it was starting to come into focus for them. Into that moment, Harley rose from his seat and pressed on.
"Then lay the plan out for us. How exactly do you resurrect the Captain Logan era here in GCW?"
"Simple."
"Ho! You've already thought it that far through?"
"Do you remember a while back, when Russell and I visited the pediatric cancer ward?"
"Of course I remember. It made for a great article — the response was solid."
"What if we expanded on that and turned it into a full 'Wishmaker' foundation? I imagine even the higher-ups would green-light that."
"Wishmaker......?"
Everyone looked puzzled.
The Wishmaker Foundation.
The most famous wish-granting organization in the world, dedicated to fulfilling the dreams of children battling incurable illnesses.
'I want to be ~~.'
'I want to do ~~.'
Or, 'I want to meet ~~.'
"We invite the children who want it to our shows. Completely independent of the storylines, no strings attached. It'll make for a beautiful drama."
"If that's the case......"
"Yes — it would clearly help the image-improvement campaign already running on the main show. And on top of that, we'd gradually shift our own storylines so kids and families could watch them too."
And last of all—
"It would let us give the children we invite a happy memory they'll keep forever."
At my words, everyone nodded their heads as if they'd only been waiting for it.