The Injury That Wrote the Script
Just as any ordinary company divides its ranks from intern all the way up to CEO, our industry had its own hierarchy.
A system stretching from jobber, to low carder, to mid carder, to high mid carder, to main eventer, to legend, and finally to icon.
Nearly every wrestler started out as a jobber and clawed their way up, step by step. Unfortunately, in my past life I never managed to escape the jobber tier — while Shawn Cena climbed methodically until, at last, he reached the very top of that ladder: an Icon.
One of only four icons, it was said, in the entire history of the WWF.
The protagonists of their respective eras — the men who made those eras boom bigger than anyone thought possible.
Of course, only a precious few ever got there. Even main eventers were a rare breed; the vast majority of wrestlers simply fell away somewhere in the mid card. Some retired and became trainers, like I had. Others drifted off to smaller promotions.
But that's all in the past now.
I let the thought drift through my mind at a leisurely pace.
The me of today was a far cry from that miserable man of before. These days I moved back and forth between high mid card and main eventer — and by all accounts, I carried the potential to become a main eventer for good.
And yet there was exactly one reason I couldn't be called a main eventer.
Because I was in a tag team.
In the WWF, tag teams carried a heavy stigma: they were what you did when you couldn't stand on your own. Or a pairing stitched together from two performers the main script had no room for. Or a vehicle for putting a young up-and-comer over.
Because that was the common wisdom, people had begun to expect that the tag team of Sin and Russell was living on borrowed time.
Just as John Michaels had once betrayed his own tag partner and gone solo, so too did we seem destined for the same path.
Frankly, we agreed. The timing was right to break up the team.
The problem so far had been one thing only: how to break it up.
Was I really prepared to commit a betrayal — even if it meant breaking my promise to Willie?
Or would we simply shake hands like reasonable men and go our separate ways?
In terms of impact, the former was overwhelmingly superior. But if I went that route, I'd become the biggest bastard under the sun.
There was also the very real problem of Willie, an actual flesh-and-blood complication that couldn't be scripted away.
And yet it had to be done.
It had to be done precisely because it was me. Not anyone else. Me.
Everything I had ever done in this industry, I had done out of the desire to be the very best. Sin was a character that projected that hunger for success straight out of my own chest — a man who wore his heart on his sleeve, the one who'd do anything to climb higher and to get the crowd roaring.
Which was exactly why I had no choice.
I was certain the fans would curse my name into the ground. But I had no intention of burying Willie's death and simply moving on. I didn't want to run from it, either.
So I would use it — use it to say, out loud and unvarnished, exactly what I believed.
A script that blurred the line between fiction and reality. A storyline with genuine, real-world stakes woven into it. That was the path I had landed on, the one that felt closest to the truth of what this industry could be.
To take one more step forward, I needed to clash with Russell once again.
The question was how.
True, we'd beaten the hell out of each other when we first met, and to this day each of us privately believed he was the better wrestler. A betrayal was entirely plausible on its face — there were probably fans out there already salivating at the thought of that kind of shock.
The problem is believability.
I needed a proper script. Something that would make people think, you know what — given this, I could actually see Sin turning on Russell.
What would it take?
As it turned out, the answer arrived on my doorstep not long after I'd begun turning the problem over.
On a day with no show, Baku suddenly appeared in front of me with a long, heavy sigh.
“…Let's have a little talk.”
“Sure. What's up?”
“Hmm. The front office has been leaning on us. They want a decision, and soon — are we calling you up or not.”
“That'd be Hunter.”
“What do you think? If it's money you're weighing… well, my thinking is, going up is the right call.”
“Just money?”
“…Right. Your ability, too. You're clearly not at the level of this little two-thousand-seat show anymore.”
“What does any of that matter?”
“Is— is that so?”
Baku's eyes went wide.
“I need to see my finishing work through to the end. I'd like you to hold off on the call-up for now.”
“If you're willing to do that for us, hell, that'd be a real kindness.”
“By the way — if I don't get called up this time, who goes instead?”
“Hmm. The office seems to want the Wyatt Family right now.”
“The entire stable?”
“Yep. Word is, Burning Kong is getting its own stable, so they'd send the Wyatts to Rakedown to keep the balance between the two shows.”
The main WWF roster ran on two shows: Monday Night Burning Kong and Friday Night Rakedown.
But what caught my interest was the other piece of news — that the entire Wyatt Family would be moving up to Rakedown.
“Wyatt is the GCW Champion right now. So what happens to the belt?”
“It gets handed over, obviously.”
“To whom?”
“You, most likely. …The moment Harley hears this news, he'll pick you.”
“How would that work?”
“Th— that's… we'll have to figure it out. You got any ideas?”
“Well, first I'd need a situation that justifies me betraying Russell.”
“Betrayal?”
“That's the most conventional way to break up a tag team, isn't it?”
“But if you two did that, the backlash from the fans would be brutal.”
“Which is exactly why we should do it.”
“Hmmm. I'll grant you — pulled off well, it could make one hell of a story.”
My betrayal would land as a shocking heel turn, and in exchange it would elevate Russell's character to new heights. People would tune in week after week to boo me and root for Russell.
Which was exactly why it had to happen.
…At least, that's what I told myself — right up until a genuinely convincing script came along.
“I'm the one who built the Wyatts, so there's nothing strange about the feud itself.”
“But the trouble is, that alone doesn't give you a reason to betray Russell and break up the team.”
“Hmm…”
“For now, I'll pass your intentions along to the creative team and Harley.”
“I'd appreciate that.”
Put enough heads together, and maybe an idea would surface. That was the hope — but sadly, the writers, too, found themselves stumped by this particular puzzle.
Sin and Russell. The duo fans called Sin-Cell.
They needed something — anything — that would make the betrayal feel organic rather than staged.
And the final piece of that puzzle arrived from a place none of us had ever thought to look.
The very next week.
Russell got hurt during a show.
Yes — as bitter as it sounds, that unforeseen misfortune became our opportunity instead.
“Ugh—!”
It happened in an instant.
The first-ever GCW weekly show held in a two-thousand-seat arena. A tag team championship match pitting the duo of Sin-Cell against Wyatt's disciples — in front of two thousand live spectators, no less.
And professional wrestling, performed in real time with no net, had just suffered the worst kind of accident it could possibly suffer.
Flat on the mat, gasping for air, I looked across the ring at Russell, laid out on the far side and groaning in pain.
My mind rewound thirty seconds.
Before the match.
For the debut show in a venue this size, we'd deliberately pushed a faster tempo — we wanted the crowd walking away thinking, damn, I'm glad I came. Aerial maneuvers had been flying from the opening bell; we dodged sudden finishers and fought hard, riding a constant thread of tension.
I had just driven a hard knee kick into Cena's jaw and climbed onto the collapsing man's massive frame to pin him in place.
Thud! Thud!
When that sound rang out twice, something felt off. I looked up — and there was Russell, having fallen from the turnbuckle, moaning like a man in genuine agony.
I couldn't process it.
What?
What just happened?
Russell — blowing a spot?
A dozen questions flashed through my head. Russell couldn't get up. This was the man who, through every moment of his career, had clamped down on his consciousness and forced himself to his feet.
And that was how I knew.
Russell Hart was injured.
The referee hurried over and checked on him — then raised his hands above his head in an X.
Unable to continue. Russell Hart could fight no more. I stood frozen for a moment, and then a chill crawled up my spine.
This situation, plainly put, was shit. Russell was hurt. I didn't know how badly, but if the man couldn't even stand, it was probably serious.
And yet — this miserable accident just might hand me the motive I needed to betray Russell Hart.
It came to me.
The method.
I grabbed a dumbstruck Cena and whispered quietly to him.
“Cena. Listen to me.”
“Wh— what's going on?”
“Russell's hurt. We're changing the match. Right now.”
“Don't tell me this is because of me—?!”
“We're in the middle of a match. Shut your mouth.”
I talked Cena down, then rapidly organized the quickest way to communicate my plan.
“…You and Eddie work together and beat the hell out of me. We've got maybe ten minutes left, so keep it up until about the seven-minute mark. After that, I attack you both with a chair.”
“A chair…?”
“If I get DQ'd, the titles don't change hands, so it's fine. I'll take full responsibility.”
Having said my piece, I caught the referee as he returned from sorting out the situation.
“Pass that along, please.”
He was carrying a comm unit linked to the backstage crew. I led Cena down to ringside, where Eddie rose from the mat and came over. I briefed him too, and the three of us restructured the match on the fly.
It wasn't as far-fetched as it sounded — with Wyatt's star on the rise, his two disciples carried considerable standing of their own.
“Kghak!”
I sold every blow with everything I had, absorbing their offense again and again. The crowd, initially distracted with worry over the stretcher-bound Russell, soon locked their attention onto my performance.
Weathering every move in their arsenal, I waited for my moment to arrive.
[Boooooooooooooo!]
Amid the chaos, the relentless double-team assault from Cena and Eddie finally drew a wall of boos from the crowd. The two men ignored it and kept the attack coming. I kept kicking out of every cover and kept taking the punishment.
And at the exact moment the crowd's jeering crested, Eddie hoisted me to my feet — and I whispered into his ear.
“I'm hitting the Low-Blow.”
Eddie answered with his eyes.
I swatted his arm away and drove a kick straight up between his legs. I pulled the blow at the last instant, of course — taking a real shot there is the equivalent of having your insides scrambled. At the same time, I slapped my own thigh hard to sell the sound.
CRACK!
The crowd roared its approval.
But the referee, in perfect opposition, called for the bell — my disqualification. The moment it rang, I let the fury I'd been holding back explode.
That was who I was: a man willing to do anything to win.
And so I took the deliberate disqualification and kept my titles — but the rage wouldn't subside. I turned on Cena and Eddie without mercy.
Naturally, I walked them through every single step of it first.
“Chairs. Now.”
Whispering to the two fallen men, I fetched a steel chair and began the beating in earnest.
CLANG! CRACK!
Chair in hand, I swung across their backs in turn, and with every blow the crowd's cheers swelled louder.
Still — a coward's victory followed by a merciless assault? That was the movement of a flawless villain. The audience couldn't feel it yet, not in the heat of the moment.
Eventually the referees came sprinting out from behind the stage, unable to watch any longer — and spotting them, I stopped.
I spread the chair out between the fallen Cena and Eddie and slumped down onto it, milking the atmosphere for all it was worth, breathing hard, reading the crowd.
Right on schedule.
The fans who'd gotten that first cathartic rush were starting to feel I'd crossed a line — that this had gone too far.
The line a babyface does not cross.
A babyface doesn't attack like a coward. A babyface doesn't pulverize his opponent with sadistic glee.
But the me of right now did. And that was exactly what left our family-oriented audience frozen in their seats.
With Cena and Eddie writhing and moaning on the canvas around me, I sat in their midst and slowly steadied my breathing. The referees climbed in to check on the two men — and one of them then made his way over to me.
“Commercial's coming up soon.”
“Then until then, do the bit — too scared to even come near me.”
“…Got it.”
Acting, in real time.
But then, most of the GCW crew were seasoned veterans. The moment I shot him a flat, intimidating stare, the referee shuffled backward on cue.
Having spent my allotted screen time to the last drop, I returned backstage carrying the frozen silence of the arena with me.
Good.
That would do.
The moment I pushed through the curtain, Harley and Baku — the leaders of this team — came straight for me, as if they'd been waiting.
“I'm sorry.”
I apologized first.
What I'd just done — improvising a disqualification to change the outcome of a championship match — was one of the great taboos of professional wrestling. No belt had changed hands, but it was an usurpation of authority in everything but name.
Harley spoke first.
“Why'd you do it?”
“The moment Russell went down, I felt it — the script could finally write itself.”
“You mean the breakup of the tag team?”
“Yes.”
I nodded with total confidence. And the two men in front of me, far from being angry, looked almost… curious.
And with that, it was settled.
Sin's actions were so audacious that even the industry insiders themselves were now leaning forward, dying to know what happened next.