Goodbye, TPA - Part 2
Early Monday morning.
The car that had left New York raced north and, after a little over forty minutes, arrived in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Casey. The neighborhood where her house sat in Orlando was already an affluent enclave thick with mansions, but this place outdid it completely. Along the road, only the gates of the houses were visible; the residences themselves could barely be seen at all.
Then they pulled up in front of one particular estate. Only after she pressed the intercom and announced herself as “Casey Levesque” did the gates swing open, and it took another three minutes of driving before the house itself finally came into view.
They parked haphazardly and went straight inside.
“Casey!”
“Grandpa.”
She gave him a light hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“I was so surprised when you said you were coming all of a sudden.”
“Your face looks so much better.”
“Sitting around eating and doing nothing, I’ve put on a little weight.”
Linking arms with her grandfather, Victor McMahon, she went inside and sat down in the living room. A servant immediately brought out dessert and coffee.
“What have you been up to these days?”
“Hmm. A little light exercise and watching TV. There’s not much else to do in a place like this. It’s not as if I ever liked tennis or golf.”
Victor had lost every scrap of real power at WWO after the sexual harassment scandals and everything that followed. If none of that had happened, he was still healthy enough that he could have climbed into a ring even now and cut a segment.
“You still go out sometimes, don’t you? You stop by the Stamford headquarters now and then.”
“Hmph! Going there only makes me angry.”
“Mom and Dad didn’t do that to you.”
“They didn’t take my side either.”
Victor himself knew it was an unreasonable complaint. Even if Paul or Stacey had stood with him, nothing would have changed… Still, he needed someone to aim his resentment at if he wanted any peace of mind. He had spent his entire life fighting people; without an enemy, it felt as though he would lose the very drive to keep living.
“So what brings you all the way out here?”
“Grandpa, you’ve been watching WWO, right?”
“Watching? What watching! I only see it in the news.”
Victor immediately played dumb. Casey, however, knew perfectly well that her grandfather still watched nothing but wrestling programming.
“Grandpa. I’m going to spoil something for you.”
“Hm?”
“It’ll come out on Law tonight, but knowing a few hours early should be fine, right?”
“What is it?”
Victor’s interest was instantly piqued.
“WWO acquired TPA. And today they’re going to rebrand TPA and launch it as a new brand. Three brands plus NEXT.”
“Hmph! You think that’s easy? When I acquired CEW back in the day, I ran it as three brands just like that… From simple administrative work to dividing the roster, placements, storylines—there’s an enormous amount of work that piles up…”
At her grandfather’s words, Casey’s face lit up with a bright smile.
“That’s why I came.”
“That’s why you came?”
“I became the general manager of the new brand. Teach me so I don’t run it into the ground, Grandpa.”
“Why should I? What’s in it for me if I teach you? There’s no such thing as a free lunch in this world!”
“Tch! You’ve still got plenty of money. What do you want me to do for you?”
“Invite me to the launch!”
That was something she would have to discuss with her mother and father. It was absolutely not a decision she could make alone.
“I’ll see how well you teach me first.”
“Hmph! Who do you think you’re playing the fox with?”
“I don’t have time. I have to be in Pittsburgh by five this evening.”
“That’s got nothing to do with me.”
He said that, but Victor’s eyes glittered sharply as he straightened his posture.
“Casey! The most important thing is the pillar—the marquee name. That’s what gets a brand noticed.”
“I have a marquee. Rina!”
“Hm? Charina’s going to the new brand?”
Casey looked at Victor and burst out laughing.
“Grandpa. You said you don’t watch wrestling. So how do you know Charina?”
“I don’t watch WWO. I watched TPA!”
“Tch!”
Casey clicked her tongue, but Victor didn’t even bother responding and simply kept talking.
“That idiot Paul! Someone on Charina’s level should have been sent to Smash Down. That’s how you build Smash Down up to Law’s level! That’s how you make the two brands fight even harder!”
“I’m going to build the new brand that way. I’ll pull talent from Law and Smash Down too!”
“That’s just leveling everything downward! Tsk tsk! With a head like that, how do you expect to run a business!”
“Then what would you have done, Grandpa?”
Casey bristled, but Victor’s tone never changed.
“At least one brand should go R-15. Make it hard-hitting and fast-paced, throw in some steamy matches! Keep the matches under ten minutes and the young kids will find them way easier to watch on YouTube! Tsk. Bunch of idiots.”
“Grandpa. Do you even know what era we’re living in? You can’t just casually go R-15.”
“Do you know what humanity’s first professions were?”
The sudden question made Casey shake her head.
“No.”
“Hunter, thief, soldier, whore. Humanity started with the primal and the violent—taking, fighting, and selling.”
Even if Victor talked like that, Casey had zero intention of making the new brand R-15.
“Never mind that. I’m doing it strictly PG. Just teach me ways to grow a new brand in the current situation, Grandpa.”
Casey clung to Victor’s arm and whined with deliberate cuteness.
“The champion! How you create the first champion will decide whether it succeeds or fails. If you settle for something common like a Noble Rumble or a triple-threat based on name value, it’ll crash and burn.”
“Th-then what?”
Right now the creative team was leaning heavily toward crowning the champion via the Noble Rumble.
“NCAA! March Madness!”
NCAA. The term for the American college basketball tournament known as “March Madness.”
“A tournament?”
“Exactly. It’s a new brand, a blank slate with no stories. You use a tournament to create rivals, enemies, and friends.”
A picture formed in Casey’s mind as well. Still, she worried that running tournaments for both the top-tier and midcard titles might fatigue the fans.
“If we do that for the main title, what about the midcard?”
“What’s there to worry about? For the midcard, just give it to the one who loses in the final. Then run a third-place match and give the third-place finisher a shot at one of the two. Depending on who third place challenges, a story is born, and fourth place will have their own thirst for revenge. And while we’re at it, the Final Four should be cage matches. The final, of course, is TLC.”
“Grandpa. Thank you! Thank you so much.”
This time Casey clung to Victor’s arm with genuine gratitude. She truly felt she had done the right thing by coming all the way out here in the middle of her packed schedule.
After parking at the WWO Performance Center and stepping out, I found Olivia, Anne, Michael, and the others already gathered.
“When did you get here?”
“Around one?”
So they’d been waiting about thirty minutes. Unlike me, who had stopped by the house, they must have packed their things at TPA and come straight over.
“Lunch?”
“We just grabbed something at a hot dog place.”
“Whew. Good thing we sent you guys ahead.”
Dorothy tossed out the remark.
“Why? What happened?”
“I’ll tell you once Selma gets here.”
About ten minutes later Selma arrived, and Dorothy spoke for the group.
“A few of the others at least got a one-week grace period, but Natasha got her contract termination notice right away. No need for a tryout, apparently.”
I had heard that WWO talent hated working with Natasha. So they had simply cut her loose on the spot. Her skills were solid, so there was no need for a tryout—she had failed purely on character.
“She was screaming, cussing out anyone in sight, total chaos.”
“She kicked the locker room door so hard it dented.”
“With a temper like that, of course WWO didn’t want her. Crazy bitch!”
And because Tina, who had never gotten along with Natasha, happened to catch her eye, she had gotten her hair yanked as well.
“What’s she going to do now?”
“Japan or Mexico, probably. She’s got enough name value that she can still get work.”
“That, and she’s so cheap she might just cause an incident.”
A few other wrestlers overheard the conversation as we headed into the Performance Center.
The first day was physicals. Compared to other promotions they were sensitive about doping, so blood tests were mandatory. Beyond that, anyone with an injury history would go to a WWO-designated hospital tomorrow for X-rays or CT scans, and that was that.
“Want to watch Law together at my place?”
“Nah, I’m watching alone tonight.”
“Whyyy?”
“Too noisy!”
“You little shit, Alf!”
Selma tried to drag him along, but he turned her down.
Until now it had been fine, but once we started touring with the new brand, what was I supposed to do about the house? There was nothing worth stealing, but leaving it empty for two weeks at a stretch felt like an open invitation for burglars…
I called Clint, who had been my handler.
“There’s something called a House Sitting Service. A thoroughly vetted person visits periodically to clean, sort the mail, manage the fridge, that sort of thing. Cost depends on the package, but it’ll run you about thirty to a hundred dollars a day. And if you install a smart-home system, you can check the CCTV remotely.”
“Could you look into both for me?”
“Sure. I’ll text you the details by tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you.”
So there were solutions after all. It hadn’t been a big deal.
Then I settled in to watch Law.
It opened with the usual self-congratulatory monologue from the wrestler who had won at The Live, followed by the equally common scene of another wrestler who couldn’t stand it picking a fight. Far more talent hadn’t been on The Live, so the show was built around them.
Then, with about twenty minutes left in the broadcast, Stacey walked to the ring carrying a large paper bag.
Her entrance drew boos.
Boooo!
Get out!
Unfazed, she lifted her chin slightly, swept a haughty gaze across the crowd, and took the microphone.
“I made a bet with TPA. And we—Law—won that bet.”
“So I got this.”
Stacey pulled the TPA logo out of the paper bag.
“TPA now belongs to WWO!”
With those words she snapped the TPA logo in half.
Wooooah!
Stacey! Stacey!
Stacey savored the cheers, then waved a hand for quiet.
“Which means the ones you voted for—the Inquisitors, Olivia, Michael, and the rest—are now my talent. And Charina, who took the most votes of all!”
The crowd surged and the cheers grew even louder. It almost felt as if she had used a Spotlight item.
“As of this moment, TPA becomes a new brand. And that brand’s name is—”
She pulled a letter board from the paper bag.
“WWO ‘Rebellion’!”
The Spotlight item had been a joke, of course, but now that I was a wrestler myself I could see just how good Stacey was at cutting promos. With that many people roaring, most people would tense up; she didn’t just stay calm—she dominated them.
“We tried the brand system back in the CEW days. And back then? It completely tanked.”
She let the crowd’s laughter roll for a moment, then fixed her eyes on the audience and the cameras again.
“But this time is different! My will! Paul Levesque’s will! Someone who inherited WWO itself will run it as general manager! Someone who won’t be swayed by any wrestler’s words or by any other general manager. Let me introduce her. The inaugural general manager of Rebellion—Casey Levesque.”
“What? Casey?”
Casey strode out in black high heels and a black office look, her bright blonde hair shining. The skirt was so short I wondered how she was even supposed to sit down.
Woooow—
Casey! Casey!
The male fans were losing their minds.
With a faintly flushed face and the corners of her mouth lifted, Casey approached the ring with a model’s walk, and when she entered, Stacey held the ropes for her.
“Thank you, Mom.”
“From now on, call me Madam Chairwoman.”
“Yes, Madam Chairwoman.”
Casey swept her gaze across the crowd and took a deep breath.
“Whew! This is a seriously nerve-wracking spot. I feel like I might piss myself.”
Hahaha—
Was that her gimmick? Her concept? At Rico Guerrero’s memorial she hadn’t been the least bit nervous, yet now she was pretending to be terrified.
“I’d like to formally introduce myself. I’m Casey Levesque, inaugural general manager of Rebellion. I look forward to working with all of you.”
See? For all the talk about being nervous, she spoke perfectly. Still, the male fans ate it up. Blonde beauty, roughly the right age, and they knew she was young—that was enough for them.
“While I’m up here, I should drop some news that’ll really surprise you, right?”
Yes!
“First, the TPA championships are gone. We’ll crown new champions in a completely new way. And Rebellion is short on talent. So I’m going to pull some wrestlers from Law, Smash Down, and NEXT. I’ll send some the other way as well!”
The crowd grew a little restless. Some people liked the idea of talent being taken; others clearly didn’t.
“General Manager Aaron Pierce, General Manager Nikki Elders—are you surprised? Did I ruin your mood by saying it without consulting you?”
Casey watched the crowd’s reaction for a beat, then lifted only one corner of her mouth.
“And if it does ruin your mood, what are you going to do about it? People like you!”
What was that supposed to be? Was that just American culture? Well, the crowd loved it, so it was probably fine.
“And everyone! Rebellion is moving to Wednesdays and going national! Naturally, NEXT shifts to Thursdays. The new Rebellion roster will be revealed on this Wednesday’s show!”
With that, the storm of a ring segment came to a close.