The Roster
Tuesday morning, I got a call from Team Leader Lee Dong-il.
The commercial shoot was set for Friday in Orlando.
"I'll send over the storyline. It shouldn't be too difficult."
"Understood."
"By the way, do you know Korea's been going crazy lately?"
"Huh?"
At my question, Lee Dong-il explained.
"There's a Korean broadcast program called Digging into World History. At the end of last week's episode, they told the guests to prepare for next week on the empresses of the Russian Empire—the Tsarinas."
"No way…"
Lee Dong-il chuckled softly at my reaction.
"Heh. Exactly. When they searched 'Charina' on YouTube, up came wrestler Charina instead of any empress. And on this week's broadcast, the guests raised hell saying they'd only watched pro wrestling matches instead of history, and now it's blowing up."
What is this?
A lucky break?
The crow flies and the pear falls?
This was an absurd coincidence.
According to Lee Dong-il, even as an educational variety show, it still pulled 4–5% ratings.
"I should leave some thank-you comments on the guests' socials, then."
"That would probably help a bit more, wouldn't it? It'll definitely get article coverage, so the impact will be bigger once the commercial airs."
"Got it. I'll check with WWO and handle it. And I should watch the broadcast clips too."
"That would be best. Understood. I'll be in touch again. Take care."
I hung up and opened a Korean portal site.
Seorin-ah was right on the money.
I'd built my character with Seorin-ah as the base, so of course we looked alike. I'd only made her a little younger, the eyes a little bigger, the nose a little higher, the face shape a little softer.
Still, I never expected it to blow up this hard.
I glanced at a few comments, but reading them in Korean made my face burn even worse. The sheer variety of Korean expressions for my looks and body gave me goosebumps—I couldn't keep reading.
I stopped checking the Korean reaction after watching just the clips where I was mentioned.
Anyway, who was I supposed to talk to about this?
I couldn't exactly bring it up with the finance team lead, who didn't even know I was shooting a commercial.
In the end I called Jane and asked.
"You're close with Casey, right? Stuff like this, you ask the brand general manager now."
"We're not that close."
"Whatever! Ask the GM. You have the number, right?"
"Yeah. I'll do that."
So I called Casey, and she politely told me to go ahead and leave the comments. While I had her on the line, I also mentioned the commercial shoot on Friday.
"We can't send you to a commercial shoot alone. Who was the staff member in charge last time?"
"Clint Stevenson from the Performance team."
"Got it. I'll send him along with one security guard."
"Sounds good."
Casey. Straight and clean.
I'd leave the thank-you comments after work, when I felt more at ease.
With everything sorted in a flash, I headed to the WWO Performance Center with a light heart.
"Casey, who was that?"
Casey was at WWO headquarters with her parents, sorting through the talent each brand would pull for the new one.
"Charina. Apparently some Korean celebrities brought her up and it became a whole issue. She's asking if she can leave thank-you comments."
"Of course she should leave those.
Hmm. Korea, huh… Should we actually start thinking about a Korea tour?"
Stacey nodded at Paul's words.
"Not a bad idea. Do a PLE in Japan over the weekend, then midweek shows in Korea. That works."
"Let's think it over slowly. We can't do it next year anyway."
The 2028 schedule—next year's—was already locked in, so there was no room for an Asia tour. If it happened, it would be 2029.
"Casey! Anyone on the list jump out at you?"
The list Casey had been given covered most of the entire WWO roster.
"Dad! Did all these wrestlers volunteer to go themselves?"
"Yeah. The inaugural championship of a brand-new brand is always going to look tempting. Plus, from day one you're recognized as that brand's face."
"And some of them are probably trying to get on your good side, right? In a few years you could be running Law."
Originally they'd planned to persuade people and half-force the moves. But almost everyone except the current champions had said they were fine going to the new brand. Logan Raines had even applied, and so had Charlotte, who'd been a fixture on Smash Down.
"They're all good talent, but I don't know them in person, so it's hard to pick. Can you two recommend some?"
"Kaimus and Troy McIntyre have great work ethics and they listen to the front office. Plus they're best friends, so taking them as a package is way better."
If Paul was saying that much, they had to be solid.
"But Kaimus is pretty old, isn't he?"
"Still usable. His in-ring work isn't bad. And he'll be happy even with the IC title. No big ambitions."
Hearing that, even with Kaimus's age, he didn't look bad as a Secondary Champion. He'd also look plenty strong for the high mid-carders to fight.
"Got it. What about the top champion, then?"
At Casey's question, Paul spit out an unexpected name without hesitation.
"Take Sandy Orton and put him there."
"Uncle Sandy? Isn't he injured? And is he even going? He's not on this list."
"Rehab's done. We're just giving him extra time to rest properly. And Sandy's starting to think about retirement, so we should put a belt on him one more time."
"So then in Rebellion, Sandy and Troy's feud starts up again?"
"It can, or it doesn't have to."
Story-wise, Sandy and Troy had clashed plenty of times already. Framing it as picking back up after a quiet stretch would be enough.
"What about the younger guys?"
This time Stacey answered.
"Take Brooke Breaker and Brooks Reed from 'Visions.' And Paulo Hackman with them… Paulo will teach you the administrative stuff you don't know yet."
"Ugh, that guy's way too slick! Not a fan."
When Casey spoke like she was dodging him, Paul and Stacey took turns.
"You've got to deal with people like that too."
"We're pairing Paulo with Selma. That means they have to be on the same brand."
"Hackman with Selma?"
"Yeah. Rina personally asked us to build Selma up as a rival. Oh—and don't tell Selma that."
Casey nodded, but the words still surprised her a good bit.
"Whoa! So they'll be enemies—she's okay with that?"
"She's fine. Neither of them is the type to get weird about that kind of thing."
Beyond that they picked Obama Femi, Joshua, Hank & Tank and others from NEXT, wrapping up the men's side.
"Men's tag teams will be easy, then."
"Yeah. The champions are already decided, for one."
The men's tag team titles would only be held for about two months rather than long-term, and they'd been given to the Dudley Boyz. People might complain about guys in their fifties as champions, but their in-ring work was still decent enough to watch. On top of that, Selma and the Inquisitors—and above all, as payback for raising Charina—had been decided as the reward. Still, this side was a "drawer" too. Hold it for about two months, then spit it right back out. Even that was more than enough to make them happy.
"Let's drop the wrestlers coming in from the indies into tag teams first so they can adjust."
"With the Dudley uncles and the Hardy uncles around, the men's tag division shouldn't have any problems."
"Yeah. Those guys will do a proper job coaching."
Now only the women's side remained.
"Sara Bankis is the champion, right?"
At Casey's words, Paul and Stacey both laughed right away.
"Why are you laughing? Wasn't that the deal? A year with the title?"
"We did agree to a year with the title. But we can't give her the inaugural one."
"Right. You don't hand it straight to the prodigal daughter the moment she comes back."
"Then who?"
"Put Nadia Jackson on it for one month, then switch to Sara. After that, pair Nadia and Olivia as a tag team and make them the women's tag champions."
Unlike the men's, WWO's women's championship title was a single one across every brand.
"Whoa! Then becoming women's tag champions is going to be ridiculously hard."
"Exactly. That's what I want."
From the way Stacey spoke at the end, this had been her idea.
"Raise the value of the women's tag titles a bit more first, then we'll create another one at the secondary level."
"Got it."
Pulling three or four from each brand, the women's side took shape as well.
"By the way, are the wrestlers coming over from Japan any good?"
This time they'd agreed to take two from the Japanese promotion Stardust into Rebellion.
"Both of them are solid for now. Looks like they prepared hard to come to America—they can speak English too. I'll send you the footage; watch it later."
"Will do."
After that, Casey explained how she wanted to structure the championship matches.
"Dad actually only gave you the decent ideas for once. Casey, you did good going over there."
"A tournament's not bad. It's a surefire draw card too. But it still feels a little plain."
"So about that. What if we make the Final Four a cage match into TLC?"
"Then you can't decide second place."
Stacey's counter came immediately.
"Hang two belts up in the air. Put them in bags so no one can see which is which."
"Haha. That'd be fun. I like it a lot."
"Whoever grabs first and it turns out to be the secondary belt—that'd be hilarious. Yeah. That's a real twist! Our girl—that was a really good idea."
"Thank you."
"We can do NEXT's championship the Noble Rumble way, then."
With both of them praising her, Casey looked thoroughly satisfied. The championship match they'd originally planned in Noble Rumble style would be shifted over to NEXT.
After that the three of them polished the overall setup and roster a little more and wrapped up. Now the work of refining the details and finishing everything off belonged to Jane, who had become Rebellion's scenario team lead.