The Icon in the Burger Joint

"Where are you right now?"

Baltimore was practically right next door to Washington.

Come to think of it, hadn't they announced that Burning Kong and Rakedown would be holding a joint house show to ring in the new year?

Philadelphia, wasn't it.

Recalling the main show schedule I'd received by mail, I pressed on. "Could you step out for a bit?"

[Huh? Step out where?]

"Baltimore's between Washington and Philly, so Columbia would be about right. I'm heading that way now, so let's meet there the evening after tomorrow."

[Oh, okay. I can get out. Probably……]

"Call me if anything comes up."

[Yeah. Thanks.]

Cena answered meekly. Hanging up, I stepped on the gas, and the midsize sedan's wheels spun powerfully beneath me as the road unspooled ahead.

Cena's on the chopping block?

The whole situation was absurd.

Think about who we're talking about here.

Shawn Cena.

Not just any run-of-the-mill wrestler — one of the four greatest Icons in the history of North American professional wrestling.

And yet that guy was now staring down the barrel of a release?

Why?

Even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in my past life, Cena had shown steady growth ever since his call-up to Rakedown and become a genuine fan favorite. Playing producer for a moment, I chewed on the question before deciding to untangle the situation step by step.

The call-up timing had been about the same. On top of that, unlike in my past life, Cena had climbed up only after properly drilling his fundamentals with Russell and me.

His in-ring work should be even better, then.

So was it a gimmick problem?

No — if anything, that side was better off too. The Wyatt Family was doing well for itself on Rakedown.

No, wait.

Come to think of it, even that information was a few months stale. The end of the year had been so hectic I hadn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠watched Rakedown at all.

What the hell happened?

Deciding I needed to find out, I dialed Cena again.

[H-hello?]

"Hey, one more thing I wanted to ask. You're still getting booked on the shows, right?"

[Oh? Um……. No, actually.]

"Excuse me?"

[Two other guys got brought in under Wyatt instead of me. With Eddie, that makes four now.]

"You're the only one getting cut?"

[Yeah. Eddie's good. ……They said I'd be getting a new gimmick, but nothing's come of it.]

And suddenly, it all made sense.

Cena had lost his confidence.

Thinking it over, it was entirely believable. Cena hadn't been a particularly self-assured competitor in his rookie days.

Polite, quietly grinding away, growing until he finally reached the very top — but that came later.

In his early twenties, he was just an ordinary young guy who liked lifting weights. Abandoned alone in the middle of a jungle, of course he'd struggle to hold on.

Getting called up as part of the Wyatt Family turned out to be poison instead of a gift. This one, I have to fix for sure.

If Cena were to quit wrestling and history veered off course, every scrap of knowledge I carried would become worthless.

"Cena, let's meet up on your end first."

[O-okay.]

"Don't freak out. It'll work out."

Keeping my voice bright, I did my best to shore up the thoroughly deflated kid on the other end of the line.

And so I arrived in Columbia.

Something I'd felt ever since my past life: every city in America seemed like an island unto itself, cut off from the rest. This place was no different.

Ranks of brick-red streetlights held back the darkness. A faintly eerie sensation crept over me all the same.

In any case, I was well past the time I'd agreed to meet Cena, so I kept driving.

A burger house downtown.

Walking in, I spotted Cena seated by the window. Apparently starving, he was already digging into a hamburger — a striking first impression, to say the least.

……The problem was that the idiot was washing it down with a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Mountain Dew, of all the body-wrecking drinks out there.

And not just any Mountain Dew — a Double Mountain Dew, twice the calories and therefore twice the damage.

"Sin! Over here."

"……You're having a rough time, huh."

"Me? Nah. I'm fine."

He rose from his seat and stuck out his hand. It glistened with grease, and I looked again, half hoping I'd imagined it.

Nope. There it was, plain as day.

The unmistakable traces of french fries.

"Don't tell me you had…… fries too?"

"They do 'em really good here. If I get fired, I'm just gonna live at this place."

Letting out a sigh, I sat down across from Cena and ordered a burger, a salad, and a bottle of water. Watching me do it, Cena's mouth curled into a bitter smile.

"You never change, do you."

"It's called being a professional."

"Man, I wish I could be good at everything like you."

"What's that supposed to mean? You did great in GCW, and your body's still a work of art, kid."

The roles had completely reversed. Hearing lines like that from the future Icon made me feel a little embarrassed, honestly.

"……Feels like I've hit a wall."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I figured if I just did what I did with you guys, I'd be fine. Turns out I'm not. Nobody pays any attention to me."

"That's life."

"Maybe I took this whole business too lightly. The main-roster veterans aren't nice like they were in GCW. Not even a little."

"……You've got something backwards. It's a myth that the GCW crowd was nice. And what difference does any of that make?"

I gave it to him straight.

"Russell and I both told you — you're good. Forget what the veterans say and trust yourself."

"Y-yeah……."

"Got any ideas for a gimmick?"

"They told me to be a heel, so I've been thinking about bad people."

"Ooh, hit me."

"A tax collector."

"Done already."

"A lawyer."

"Meh."

"A corrupt businessman."

"Garbage."

Besides — what exactly was that guy missing out on in life that made him want to wrestle in the first place?

This wasn't working. If I kept letting Cena ramble, I was going to suffocate from sheer frustration. I needed to hand him the answer, fast.

"Okay, first things first — try to get friendlier with the locker room vets. Hey, can you sing? Play any instruments?"

"N-not at all."

"Rap?"

"Never tried."

"……Never?"

"Nope."

"Try it."

Could it be? Was he actually one of those prodigies? Someone who'd never rapped in his life but could make people go this kid needs a rapper gimmick yesterday in a single take?

"Uh, right now?"

"Yeah. Go."

At my words, Cena glanced around the restaurant, then cleared his throat lightly.

And out came the rap.

"Uh, um. H-Sin is really handsome, and he's got flow too, perfect from his head down to his shoes. That's what you call perfection. And that right there is the truth of life."

"………"

"S-sorry."

What was that?

Cena was this bad at rapping? That couldn't be right. Timeline-wise, this was exactly when the rapper gimmick should've……

"The vets asked if anybody in the locker room had a hidden talent, so I did think about writing some lyrics."

"You write lyrics?"

"Never actually did anything with them, though."

So that's it.

It had been the same in my past life. Cena always carried a pen and paper around, scribbling lyrics wherever he went.

So that's how it was.

He wasn't freestyling — he rapped off lyrics he'd written down first. Yet another thing he'd quietly, tirelessly worked at.

Case closed.

Step one: help Cena get his confidence back.

And the road there, inevitably, was rap.

I turned to Cena, still lost in his own gloom, and laid it out for him.

"Cena, here's what we do. Write lyrics first."

"You mean actually rap?"

"Yeah. I'll review everything, so every time you write something, send it to me."

At that, Cena — as if deciding to simply trust me — nodded without a moment's hesitation.

This was going to work. I was sure of it.

A small hotel somewhere in Washington, D.C.

Not long after I got back to my room, a text from Cena came through. Lying on the bed as I read it, I raised an eyebrow.

Not bad at all.

So that's where his talent lived.

Come to think of it, this made far more sense. It wasn't as if Cena had ever trained as a professional rapper — freestyling out of nowhere would've been asking the impossible.

Either way, confirming he had the gift came as a relief. Someone was bound to recognize what he was worth before long.

And Cena would debut with the rapper gimmick, just as history intended.

The question was the approach.

He had to understand the difference between the wrestling gimmicks of the eighties and those of the two-thousands, and know how to use it.

Run a rapper gimmick in the eighties, and the concept would've been a real, working rapper who also wrestles — full stop.

That was the eighties for you: gimmicks straight out of a cartoon. A dentist. A tax collector. Characters drawn with all the depth of a single line.

But the 2000s demanded a different entry point entirely.

If the eighties version was "a rapper who does pro wrestling," the modern answer was a pro wrestler who loves rap.

And Cena hasn't quite ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠made that distinction yet.

I decided I'd spell it out for him clearly later, by phone or text. Having settled that, I fired off a message praising Cena's "excellent lyrics" and went straight to sleep.

He had his path, and I had mine — tomorrow was my very first day on the job.

The next morning.

When I arrived at the arena, the first order of business was signing my player contract.

By the book, a signing like this should happen formally at headquarters, but I'd reviewed the terms in advance and arranged to close the deal directly with the on-site team — which, reading between the lines, meant they wanted to put me to work immediately.

The key provisions ran as follows.

Dense little document, isn't it.

Still, the terms were average for the industry. The typical rookie salary was $200,000 — so why was mine, at $500,000, merely average? The answer lay in the revenue-sharing percentages.

The WWF was the greatest pro wrestling company in the world, and the lion's share of its profits flowed directly from its wrestlers. Viewed that way, the base salary was comically low compared to other promotions.

In exchange, you got a cut of every piece of merchandise sold.

In a sense, the WWF was a character company. Action figures of the wrestlers sold through the roof, and the money from those sales dwarfed any salary.

Which meant a fat base salary wasn't really where the value was.

The percentages are standard-issue.

The remaining clauses were equally ordinary — and it was there that I finally grasped what the company was trying to pull.

A lowball. Pure and simple.

Business as usual: they were counting on the naivety of an indie-circuit kid.

But what could they do about it, though?

I saw the flaws in this contract at a single glance — and the moment I did, the solutions to every problem it would spawn came flooding in right behind them.

Because unlike a TV drama, answering a "one-sided contract" called for a far more elegant touch.

"Well, then."

Seated across the table from me were the senior executives of the on-site team.

"What do you think of the contract?"

"Hmm, I honestly don't know where to start."

"Ha! For a rookie, this is a very generous deal. Half a million dollars. We worked hard to get you that, believe me."

"Thank you. Guess all that rolling around at Never Escape paid off."

"Ah, yes — we were watching from Gorilla Position. That finish was magnificent."

"Truthfully, I don't remember any of it. The shock in that moment was just too great."

"HAHAHA!"

The executives burst into laughter.

The atmosphere was markedly warmer than before. It was a shamelessly thick-skinned performance — but as corporate operators went, their gears were turning fast. The reason they were groveling like this was that Tiffany Maxen had begun flaunting her ambitions in earnest.

She had declared she would personally take the reins of the GCW business and grow it herself.

Which meant the stock of GCW alumni was about to rise across the company.

Exactly one person had the standing to push back against that kind of momentum.

And as luck would have it, mid-conversation, that very gentleman came strolling through the office door.

"What are you people doing in here?"

An old man in his sixties, his face carved deep with wrinkles, entered the room. His gray suit and powerful frame gave away nothing of his age — he could have passed for a man in his twenties from the shoulders down.

"Ch-Chairman……!"

"I've been looking everywhere. Why are you all back here?"

I laughed out of sheer disbelief.

Barging in on an active meeting and bulldozing his way around — exactly the man I remembered. They'd surely reported the contract details to him too, and he'd simply forgotten.

"And just who the hell are you?!"

The moment his eyes landed on me, our chairman let loose his lion's roar.

Bart Maxen.

But astonishingly…… something told me he was about to be a tremendous help with this contract.