The Founding Ceremony
Next week’s show would still be held at the old TPA building, but Rebellion’s temporary base of operations had been set at the WWO Performance Center.
Technically they should have reported to headquarters the way Law and Smash Down did, but there was no real need to relocate, so this was how it ended up.
“From here you’ll fly to Vancouver on a charter. After that, headquarters will handle lodging and travel, but if anyone wants to make their own arrangements, let us know in advance.”
The plan was to sweep through seven cities—Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, Sacramento, San Francisco, LA, and San Diego—before coming back.
“There’s Christmas right in the middle of the schedule, so packing a few holiday outfits wouldn’t hurt. The fans will appreciate it.”
Someone muttered that two months was overkill. The staffer shut them up with a single sentence.
“So you’re skipping the Noble Rumble, then?”
Who in their right mind would want to skip the Noble Rumble? A strong showing there could open the door to WrestleMaster. And “strong showing” didn’t mean wins and losses—it meant popularity.
“What’s going through your head?”
“Huh? Oh!”
Selma had been completely out of it all day. Probably because Alf had gone over to NEXT.
“Is this about Alf?”
“…What kind of nonsense is that? I’ve just got some stuff on my mind.”
“That so? Fine, then.”
“Why?”
“I won’t be able to show up here from tomorrow through Monday.”
“Why?”
“There’s the house-care company to deal with, among other things.”
There was also a commercial shoot tomorrow, but I kept that to myself for now.
“Okay. Got it.”
“See you Monday.”
— Bang —
Whether she’d written it drunk or not, there were typos and the flow was a mess. But there was no trouble understanding a single word of it.
Paul read it all the way through, then slammed his palm down on the desk.
“When did this go up?”
“Saturday night. She’s not one of our talent, and it was the weekend, so we only just found out.”
The person who’d posted it on social media was Natasha Blancherd.
“That bitch! If you’re going to leave, leave clean. You’re dropping a pipe bomb on the way out?”
“What do you want us to do?”
“Have you tried contacting her?”
“Phone’s off. Her place in Orlando is empty.”
Her follower count sat around seven hundred thousand—small compared to WWO talent, but not a weight class you could ignore. The post had almost certainly already reached more than a million people.
“We can’t stop the fans from talking among themselves. Just keep it off the press.”
“Would a preemptive response be all right?”
Paul nodded at the staffer’s suggestion.
“Leave the mainstream alone. Clamp down on the wrestling media only. They won’t want this kind of thing going public either.”
“We’re going to need to throw them some other meat, though.”
Paul agreed with that too.
“Hold on.”
He dialed someone.
“It’s me. Paul Levesque.”
“I heard the commercial shoot went well.”
“Hahaha. Glad to hear the acting held up.”
“This is something else. I’d like the article to drop right away. We’ve got a very small bit of trouble at headquarters that needs covering.”
“Appreciate the understanding. We’ll have it up Wednesday. Same timing for Korea, then.”
Paul talked a little longer, hung up, and handed a file to the staffer.
“Use this for the negotiations.”
“What is it?”
“Charina’s commercial deal and the WWO sponsorship.”
“What?”
Only a handful of people knew about the contract with HK Motors, so the staffer was visibly shocked.
“You heard me. The article has to go up Wednesday. Move.”
“Ah—yes.”
“What are you still standing there for? Get going.”
“Yes. Yes, sir.”
Once the staffer left, Paul called Charina as well and told her the contract announcement was going public.
“It was going to come out eventually anyway. I don’t mind. It’s fine.”
“You already got a few B-roll shots that day, right? Once the article drops Wednesday, post a couple of them on Stargram right away.”
“Will do.”
“That’s all for now.”
After that, Paul called in the head of legal and showed him the post.
“Paul, this is murky. No real names, no clear identification of who she’s talking about. We can guess, but we can’t prove it. And she’s not demanding money or compensation either.”
“So we just bury it?”
Paul snapped, but Miura Erickson didn’t so much as flinch. He simply savored the aroma of his coffee.
“This coffee smells fantastic. Mind if I take some with me? Look—you could file for something like interference with business if you really wanted to. But it’s a fight you’d lose for certain. Pure money down the drain. And losing would be the best-case scenario. She’d counter-sue, and you’d end up paying her. You okay with that?”
“Damn it! Damn it!”
Paul lost his temper, but he didn’t start throwing things the way Victor used to. He just stamped the floor with the sole of his shoe.
“She wrote this drunk? Hah. That’s a joke. She polished this sober, more than once. Or someone else wrote it for her. Either way, she was not drunk. She deliberately scrambled the context so she’d have an escape hatch. So drop it. You already lost.”
In the end Paul listened to Miura and held back. He knew a trap when he saw one and had no intention of walking into it. He decided not even to use outside firms to block the story—just ignore it completely.
“EAW’s one thing, but we’re friendly with a few other companies. Why not give them the real story?”
“Is there a promotion that would happily take Natasha after a stunt like this? Besides, watching Stacey bring TPA in taught me a few things. If some company takes her and goes under, we can just absorb them then, right?”
“Tsk tsk.”
Miura thought Paul was starting to resemble Stacey more and more, but he left it at a click of the tongue and said nothing further.
Paul told his secretary to keep tracking Natasha Blancherd’s location and, for the moment, put the whole mess on ice.
Wednesday.
We headed over to the TPA building—possibly for the last time without realizing it. After only a few days away, the TPA logo was already gone and WWO NEXT had taken its place.
“It’s just one logo swap, but it feels weird, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. It does.”
Inside, familiar faces were already waiting.
“Selma and Rina.”
“You made it? Rina, I heard you locked down a car commercial. Damn impressive.”
Vianna and Nadia immediately started talking about the ad like they already knew.
“Commercial? What are you talking about?”
Selma looked at me like she had no idea what any of this meant.
“Hey! That was under embargo!”
“It hit the press today. What embargo?”
“They told me not to say a word to anyone.”
“Jesus, how many secrets do you even have? You did the same thing last time.”
Selma scolded me, but I couldn’t really explain. She’d been a little empty ever since she and Alf split up.
“Selma! I’ll tell you everything later. Sorry I didn’t say anything.”
“Hmph! Whatever!”
“I’ll buy you a good dinner.”
“Ha! You better make it a proper one.”
“Deal.”
After that I traded greetings with the talent who’d come over from Law and Smash Down. Then Coach Sofia Vanini—who’d crossed over with us from TPA—walked in with two East Asian women in tow.
One looked about my height but maybe sixty kilos, a solid, balanced build. The other was around 160 cm with a compact frame. Both of them were strikingly pretty.
“These two are from Japan’s Stardust—Mizuki Miho and Meguri Aika. They speak decent English, so help them settle in.”
The bigger one was Meguri; the smaller was Mizuki. I hadn’t known them, but both had apparently been big names in Japan. Lilac Valkyrie and Hailey recognized them right away.
“Asuna and Miyu used to talk about you two all the time. Said you’d be coming to WWO soon. And here you are.”
“Miyu’s successors, huh? Welcome.”
After they finished greeting everyone else, they came around to me last.
“Asuna-senpai had nothing but praise for you. Good to meet you.”
“Yeah, you too.”
“She kept saying your selling was incredible. I’d love to work a match with you as soon as we can.”
“Same here.”
Hard to keep a conversation going when you don’t know anything about them. Meguri and Mizuki were wrestlers I’d never seen even in the future.
The main topic among the talent was Natasha’s social media pipe bomb.
“You guys didn’t know?”
It was the first time we were talking about it with the WWO-side talent, so they were genuinely curious.
“Something felt off, but I never thought she’d go this far.”
“She and Tyna always hated each other. I figured she’d take a shot at Tyna on the way out.”
“What was she even thinking?”
“Probably figured EAW would roll out the red carpet for her after a stunt like that.”
“Ugh, that crazy bitch.”
Once that conversation wound down, the talk shifted to my commercial.
“You’re really getting four million over two years?”
“Ah—yes.”
“Wow. You’ve got to be born pretty, I guess.”
“It’s not a fifty-fifty split with the company, right?”
“Of course not. Please stop asking about the contract percentages.”
“I know, I know. But damn—even at sixty-forty that’s still one-point-two million.”
I deflected by promising to buy dinner once on the road and left it there.
The Japanese talent and a few others mostly just listened without jumping in, but there were nearly twenty women in the room alone. Everyone was clustered in little groups, chattering nonstop, and it was pure chaos. Looking across the way, the men’s side looked about the same. Big laughter rolled out from around Sandy Orton, back for the first time in a while.
“So how are they going to pick the champions?”
“Probably a Noble Rumble like NEXT, right?”
“A twenty-person Noble Rumble means no early exits. It’s going to be a bloodbath.”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Didn’t it bother you, though—getting sent to a brand-new brand?”
Olivia’s question got a laugh from Nadia and Hailey.
“The general manager is his daughter. Watching the promos, she’s no pushover either. In a few years this is going to be Casey’s world. Better to get on her good side early.”
“I was getting a little burnt out, honestly. I wanted to work somewhere new. And then they drop a West Coast tour on us? Absolute jackpot.”
Vianna, Mariah, and the others had similar takes.
“I heard everyone except the champions is coming over. Same for the women’s division, and it looks like the men’s side is the same.”
“Miyu and Asuka were supposedly trying to transfer too.”
Hmm. So it didn’t feel like a demotion after all.
The conversations with the talent only finally wrapped up when the producer arrived.