The Return of Sin
And so the main event began.
The two men of Revolution climbed into the ring first, and the crowd hit them with boos even louder than usual. Fair enough—Revolution was a heel stable, so it was only natural. But the looks on Batista's and Orton's faces were visibly rattled. And no wonder. Revolution's members had spent their entire run sheltered under the iron control of Hunter's booking, their status protected with meticulous care. That was why, heels though they were, plenty of fans had grown genuinely fond of them—after all, they'd won every match that mattered and never once let go of their belts.
But that record had been built on the corpses of babyfaces, and it was dragging the whole industry down with it. The metrics hadn't shown anything dramatic yet—but the rot was there. Stories without the catharsis of a babyface's triumphant victory were bleeding the audience's interest dry. And yet the company couldn't simply go full-tilt shocking, the way Rockcold's Bad Attitude Era once had, because the times had changed—the networks and the broadcast standards boards were tightening their grip on content year by year. The moment when the old era's playbook could no longer keep them alive was creeping closer. Even so, the company still clung to the old ways, which was exactly why they'd pushed Hunter—a supporting act from the previous era—out to the very front of the card.
What a complacent way of thinking. But as a company, they'd had no real choice; there wasn't yet enough evidence on the table to justify a bold swing. And that, in a sense, was precisely what made Revolution the ally I needed. The people were surely starving for a babyface who would smash these men to pieces and bring peace back to Burning Kong. And that babyface would be me.
Booker went out first. The crowd went delirious at the sight of him strutting out to his infectious hip-hop beat. A fan favorite through and through. Technically airtight, gloriously muscled, with acting chops to spare—he was, without question, a magnificent performer. Having whipped the fans into a lather, he stopped at the mouth of the entrance ramp and looked back. On cue, the crew at Gorilla Position worked their equipment, and what poured out next was music I hadn't heard in nearly six months.
Gregorian chant and dubstep. Sacred music, made profane.
"Congratulations on your comeback, Sin."
With Tiffany's smiling send-off, I swept through the curtain.
It was a roar that shook the building to its foundations. And this was no mere welcome for a wrestler making his entrance—this was the return of a legend all of Georgia had been waiting for.
A jacket riddled with bullet holes. A tank top and jeans. That signature cock-eyed swagger. A man prepared to do whatever it took to claw his way to the top. Sin had returned.
Even Booker, standing beside me, could only laugh in disbelief at the sheer wall of sound. He leaned in close, shouting over the music hammering our eardrums.
"These people are out of their minds?!"
"This is just the average."
Having fired back that insolent little reply, I spread my arms wide and let the crowd's ovation wash over me. A wrestler's comeback moment matters every bit as much as a person's first impression, and by that measure, tonight's reaction had blown clean past every projection. The chant, the roar—fans kicked their chairs back and surged to their feet, stretching their arms over the barricade, begging for a single high-five.
The ring announcer bellowed into his mic.
The instant the introduction ended, I drove my index finger into the air above my head.
BOOM! KRA-KOOM! KA-KA-KA-KA-KA-BOOM!!
Explosions tore the air behind me. Columns of fire erupted from the floor, crowning my return in glory, and pyrotechnics that ran roughly a grand a burst lit the road ahead of me. My entrance alone was drawing a pop on the level of a main eventer's—just imagine what the viewers at home were thinking. That man is no ordinary wrestler.
Tonight's show was guaranteed to be the talk of the industry, and it would go a long way toward cementing Sin's image. Having manufactured that moment to perfection, I climbed into the ring beside Booker—and Orton and Batista, visibly overwhelmed, dropped down off the apron to the floor.
The implications of that were enormous. It meant that I, back as Sin, now carried roughly the same stature as the two pillars of Revolution themselves.
The match ended in our victory.
The hot tag—just like always—was mine to make, not Booker's. I was the star of the show. I had Orton and Batista completely under my boot, and the crowd ate up every second of it.
And so the show came to an end.
"Phew."
My ears still ringing faintly, I sat alone in the locker room. Everyone else had clocked out. The distant clatter of the ring being broken down drifted through the walls, but I was waiting for someone—Hunter. I was the one who had deliberately called for him, and though our agreed time had long since passed, he still hadn't shown. I'd expected as much, so I switched on the radio sitting abandoned in the corner, tuned the dial, and waited. Voices came through before long. I'd been listening to these shows all along, but a reaction like tonight's was a rare treat. The wrestling journalists were straining to keep the excitement out of their voices—which, paradoxically, only proved how excited they were.
"…Has the WWF completely lost its mind lately?"
"They'd have to have, booking something this awesome."
"I think so too. But then GCW… well. That was the same, wasn't it."
"What do you mean? GCW's doing just fine with Russell running things."
"Trace it back further. We're talking about a man on his way to becoming GCW's Icon."
"Ah. You mean Sin."
"Right—and it's the same story this time. From what I hear, Sin himself is the one driving this entire angle."
"He was something during the Kung-Fury run, too. A paradigm shift. He shattered the world as we knew it, and made it look good."
"Wrestlers toss around catchphrases all the time—but this kid actually goes out and makes them real."
It was exactly the reaction I'd been hoping for, and it felt good. In real life and in the scripted world both, I had always worked toward that—and now the experts had seen straight through to it. To why my catchphrase was Break The World.
The conversation rolled on.
"What is professional wrestling, anyway? Watching this kid, I feel like I'm arguing about its very essence."
"It's sports entertainment."
"That's the company line. Ask ten people, you'll get ten answers."
"True enough. And this kid is breaking apart the pro wrestling we thought we knew."
"When he first came up to the main roster, I wondered how he'd survive. Turns out he'd quietly forged himself a weapon."
"A weapon?"
"Tiffany McMahon."
"Ah—she made her return this time too, didn't she?"
"I told you she'd taken over GCW, right? And it turned out that was Sin's handiwork all along… what happened in reality had seeped straight into the scripted world."
"So he means to grow GCW even bigger."
"It's one of his business holdings, after all. And Bart's at a point where he needs change, so I suppose he decided to hand them the reins."
"And it paid off in a colossal way."
"It did. Tonight, Orton could barely even lay a proper hand on Sin."
"Bwahaha! The kid's still got miles to go. A heel stalling his beatdown mid-swing just because the crowd boos when he throws a shot—unbelievable."
"That's what I've been saying—the boy is sorely lacking."
"Sounds like a pile of horseshit to me."
A voice cut in. I turned my head and found Hunter planted in the doorway, striking a power pose, his string of Vienna sausages lined up behind him.
"I figured you'd come alone."
"We were all going to grab a few beers after the show. Care to come along?"
"I don't drink."
"Shame. …If you've got business with me, I'll send the boys off."
"I'd appreciate that."
I smiled sweetly. As I turned with him, my eyes met Orton's, still standing outside the door. At one flick of Hunter's gaze, all three of them withdrew without a word of protest.
"So. What's this about?"
"Thought we should talk."
"Oh? A deep, scholarly debate about that piece-of-trash radio, perhaps?"
"I don't think what they're saying is all that terrible, honestly."
"The problem is they're airing the business's secrets. Thanks to the spies these sons of bitches plant, the show's immersion snaps in half and the gate suffers for it."
"Everyone already knows it's fake, so what difference does it make? What matters is whether you show people what they want to see—or you don't."
Come to think of it, Hunter was one of the wrestlers those newsletter ghouls shredded most mercilessly. They barely even treated him like a wrestler at all, so that said everything—and their verdict could not have been further from mine. Hunter, too, belonged in the upper ranks of WWF history as a genuinely great performer. He was simply perceived as too greedy, and so the fans undervalued him something fierce. Granted, he'd mostly earned that himself. Still, I figured he'd be a good deal better off learning to take some of the weight off those shoulders.
But anyway.
"What did you think of tonight?"
"Tonight?"
"The show. You've been around the block, so I was curious how you'd read it."
"A show that made a fool out of me."
Hunter shot me a sidelong glare.
"Out of nowhere they shove me into that worthless 'contract fraud' angle, and our standing has been blown to smithereens."
"It's not implausible, though."
"Isn't it?"
"We already crossed paths back when I was GCW Champion. So by that logic, an angle like this isn't beyond belief either."
"An angle where I was so terrified of you I doctored a contract… you honestly believe that tracks?"
"Of course it does. You could stand to fear me a little more."
"And why the hell would I?"
"Because that's how a new payday opens up."
I clicked the radio off. A dead stillness followed. From outside, only the faint clatter of equipment being struck filtered through.
"Get a grip, Hunter. Can't you feel the show dying?"
"…You're saying that off this year's first-quarter numbers, aren't you?"
"That jump wasn't your doing—that was the new TV contract."
"And who do you think secured that contr—"
"Rockcold, you dumbass."
I let it land ugly. The reason I'd called Hunter here in the first place was that I wanted to hammer one thing home beyond any doubt: the show was going to change. I could feel it. Judging by tonight's reaction, Bart Maxen was clearly prepared to push us hard—but a problem remained. Revolution would never swallow it, and the odds of them digging in their heels were high. As long as I held the absolute trump card named Tiffany, there was little they could actually do about it. That aside, though, the people I'd be working shoulder to shoulder with were precisely these men. Which meant I had to persuade them—talk them into actively cooperating with the angle where they lay their belts down. And when it came to kneading this slab of muscle, fear came first. …Not that I was the kind of man who enjoyed any of this. Even so, in the wrestlers' world of 2004, this was how it had to be done.
"The Pock, McKind, Casket-Taker—and then you. And you were not the protagonist of that era."
"…Mind your tongue, kid."
"Kid? If you want to call me that, start by acting like you've earned the right."
I pressed in on him. He stayed planted in his chair, unmoving even as I came to a stop a hand's breadth away. It was the same psychology as the newsletter people—he wasn't frozen so much as too furious to let it show.
"Play to your strengths. And your greatest strength is that you can make stars."
"Of whom—you?"
"No. Booker-Lee."
I shook my head slowly.
"And the stage for it will be Wrestle Imperium. That's how it ought to be."
"This is delusional nonsense…"
"Want to bet on it? Ah—we already did, didn't we. And you lost. Did you take my comeback lightly just because Kung-Fury was a funny little bastard?"
"That was Georgia being Georgia."
"Georgia's reaction has already spread across the world. I've proven I belong at that level. But Orton? All that boy hears is people calling him an idiot."
"…"
"Listen to me. Orton's talent is first-rate. But the wrong booking is wrecking him as a performer, right now, in real time."
"So now you're saying Bart's booking is the problem?"
"This bastard's passing the buck? Is Revolution Bart's idea? It was yours, and you know it. Do I look like a sucker to you?"
Hunter fell silent once more. He held out for a moment longer, then let out a long, slow breath and rose from his chair.
"…Fine. I'll admit tonight's angle was good. But there's no telling how far that momentum carries."
"I can tell you exactly how far."
Because I regressed! I already know everything!
…Of course, I couldn't actually say any of that. Hunter stalked out of the room, his neck burning crimson to the collar.
I snickered as I watched that enormous back retreat. Huh. That was fun. Turns out I had a taste for it. Hunter hadn't landed a single counterpunch in the whole exchange—who knew I could talk to that monster like this? Though pride being pride, something told me he'd keep resisting for a good while yet.
And what, exactly, did he plan to stop?
We were going to use Revolution as our ladder, rung by rung, all the way up.
With that settled, I packed my things and headed back to the hotel. I blew off the boys' invitations to go drinking and locked in exactly one appointment—a booking session with Tiffany. Then, just as I was settling in for an honest night's sleep, a text message arrived. Late at night. I flipped open my clamshell phone to check it, and the sender was someone I never would have guessed.