Debut Match. 3
If it had been some no-name wrestler, he would have left it to the producer or the scenario team leader.
But Olivia was a rare and precious big woman, and Dorothy was a main-event caliber talent who had held the championship multiple times.
So this was something the general manager himself had to handle personally.
Carl called Olivia into his office first.
“Olivia. I’m sorry to ask, but could you job for Lina’s debut match?”
“Hmm. Looks like you’re planning to push her hard.”
“That’s right. It’s not just her star power—things got a little tangled because of Emergency.”
Olivia might look intimidating, but she was a good person with strong bonds among her peers.
“My name’s going to be in Lina’s record. First opponent, first win… Sure. I’m in.”
She agreed so readily, without a moment’s hesitation, that Carl was almost thrown off.
“Uh. Yeah. Thanks.”
“I get it completely. If I were the general manager, I’d make the same call.”
“In exchange, after Emergency I’ll give you the TPA Knockout Intercontinental Championship—the midcard title.”
Carl hadn’t originally planned to go that far, but Olivia’s cooperation was so smooth that his mind changed in an instant.
“Pfft. If I take that, Lina’s just going to snatch it right back, isn’t she?”
“No way… Even with a push, I wouldn’t put the midcard title on her that fast. Olivia. Is there something else you’d rather have?”
After a brief moment of thought, Olivia spoke.
“Just book me a World Championship title match against Anne later on. I don’t mind losing.”
“Deal. Right after your match with Lina. But why the sudden request?”
Carl couldn’t understand why Olivia would so readily accept a loss even for a title match. Normally there would be at least a little haggling.
“I’m not sure, but training with Lina… it feels like the hammering trauma is starting to lift a little. So I want to test myself against someone good.”
Her words made Carl genuinely happy.
“Wow! Olivia! Congratulations. That’s fantastic.”
“It’s not certain. We’ll have to see.”
After that they chatted amicably about the strengths and weaknesses Carl had noticed while watching Lina’s matches, and about Olivia’s recent situation.
“Whew. One hurdle cleared. Dorothy’s the problem.”
She wasn’t a complete piece of work like Natasha, but Dorothy’s pride was every bit as fierce. Even when she had to hand the championship over to Anne, it had taken careful coaxing to get her to agree.
She had spent a short stint in WWO, but until Anne appeared, Dorothy had been the face of TPA—the promotion’s flagship women’s wrestler. She was practically a lock for the TPA Hall of Fame at this rate, so she was not someone you could afford to slight.
When the appointed time came, Dorothy arrived.
“Dorothy. Make yourself comfortable.”
“Sure.”
“Kate. Something to drink…”
Kate, already prepared, immediately handed Dorothy a beverage.
“Hmm. Rosemary tea. I’ve been in and out of this office for years, but this is the first time you’ve given me rosemary tea before I even open my mouth, isn’t it?”
“Heh heh heh. Figured it was about time you got used to it.”
“Only now? And what’s with that villainous laugh?”
“I laughed like a villain? Must have caught it from Harry.”
“Excuses…”
Dorothy shot Carl a sidelong glance, then took a sip of tea.
Carl could only watch her, swallowing hard.
“Nice aroma. Where’d you get it?”
“You like it? I’ll give you the whole bag. Take it.”
“If you’re offering, I won’t say no.”
After savoring the scent once more, Dorothy set the cup down and spoke first.
“I won’t lose to the likes of Selma. But for Lina… I can put her over.”
She said it before Carl even had a chance to bring it up.
“Uh. Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Haaah. General Manager. No—Carl! We’ve known each other for twelve years. Did you really think I wouldn’t figure it out? I’m not some idiot like Anne or Natasha. And!”
“And? And what?”
“I’m a Yale graduate.”
“Right. You are.”
This industry had plenty of wrestlers with delinquent résumés, but it also had more than a few highly educated ones. Chris Jacob, from whom Charina had borrowed various techniques, was a York University graduate from Toronto. “The Kane,” who after retirement became mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee, had graduated from Missouri State University with a degree in social work—and somehow still managed to play that demonic character. Choosing social work with that physique was irony enough on its own.
With Dorothy opening the conversation herself, everything flowed smoothly.
“Thanks for saying it first. In return, I’ll give you the championship after Emergency.”
“Not a drawer, right?”
“Drawer” meant holding the title for the briefest possible time before immediately passing it to someone else.
“A drawer? Since I became general manager I haven’t used a drawer even once. Minimum one month.”
“I’ll give you that.”
“Still, I didn’t expect you to acknowledge Lina this easily.”
At his words Dorothy tilted her head. The old cuteness was gone, but the habitual gesture made Carl think of Dorothy from ten years ago.
“Huh? You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“The practice facility is chaos right now.”
“What is?”
Dorothy began describing the atmosphere in the training hall.
“Anne and Lina are trading chair shots and doing splashes off a 3.6-meter ladder. It’s absolute mayhem.”
“What?”
“Exactly what I said. They’re skipping the tables because there’s no real need to practice those, but… Ugh. A TLC match, just do it half-decently—why are they going this hard in practice?”
Her words made Carl’s heart drop.
“Dorothy, don’t tell me it’s just the two of them?”
“No. Coach Barini and Coach Harrington are right there. And Jet Hardy came to watch too.”
“Jet’s here? What for?”
“He brought his kids. Showing them around the practice facility. So your diamond is perfectly safe. She’ll be sore, sure. Anyway, after seeing them train like that, of course I have to acknowledge her. And she can even hoist Olivia clean overhead. What the hell is that body made of? Oriental mystery or something?”
Carl immediately caught the implication in her last remark.
“She did blood tests at the academy and again when she got here. It’s not doping. And doping helps you build muscle—it doesn’t make you stronger.”
“Ha! You thought I wouldn’t know that either?”
“Of course not! Just an old man’s worry. Anyway, thanks for bringing it up first.”
“Hmph.”
Dorothy snorted and stood.
“Don’t overdo it in practice.”
“Who’s worrying about whom… Fine, the thinning hair I can overlook, but what about that gut? Do some exercise. Seriously…”
“So prickly.”
“I’m going.”
Dorothy turned, grabbed the doorknob, then looked back at Carl once more.
“NEXT. We can crush them this time, right?”
“Of course. I’ll prepare a great scenario, so don’t worry.”
Dorothy said nothing more and left the room.
“Whew. Now it all comes down to Lina’s in-ring work?”
There was still the matter of the championship contender’s spot in the third week, but that was a conversation for after weeks one and two were finished.
Carl briefly considered going to watch Lina’s practice, then shook the thought away and focused on the backlog of work.
Practice with Anne went smoothly.
I had done plenty of hardcore work in EAW, so the feel I had lost after a few years away came back quickly.
I did, however, abandon one of my original finishers—the moonsault from the top rope that landed me flat on my back.
“If I practiced it consistently I might get the timing back, but I’d rather spend that time on other things. I’ll just use the frog splash. That okay?”
“Fine by me—it’s way safer. Easier to take, too…”
Then I got called in by the general manager and heard about the debut match plans.
The others would debut next Thursday; mine was pushed back a week after that.
Selma was happy that her debut opponent stayed Taina, but that was nothing compared to Alf and James. When they learned they would stay as “Thunder Storms” instead of “Team Heritage,” they shouted with joy.
“Lina’s debut is changed to a win instead.”
“What?”
“Olivia agreed to job for you, so go thank her later. And the week after your debut is locked in against Dorothy, so set up a session with her and get the timing down.”
“Understood.”
Selma’s hand shot up.
“Selma, what is it?”
“Who am I wrestling the week after that?”
“I’m deciding between Dora, Cher, Vanessa, and Isabel. Oh, right—I almost forgot. Your debut is a win now too. Taina already knows, so just change the finish.”
When Selma heard her debut had been flipped to a victory, her eyes trembled. She looked genuinely moved.
“Have any of you worked with Vanessa at the academy?”
Selma immediately shook her head.
“No. We only overlapped for a month, and she didn’t like us much.”
“That so?”
I had treated Vanessa like a ghost, but Selma had occasionally gotten into staring contests with her. More accurately, Vanessa would stare and Selma would stare right back.
“Booking Vanessa might need more thought.”
After that, short clips of Selma’s and the Inquisitors’ dark matches went up on the website. Less than a minute of footage total, but the three of them went absolutely wild.
“Isn’t this basically the same as debuting?”
“Pretty much.”
“Lina, you’re acting all indifferent. Don’t tell me it’s because your face didn’t even show?”
Yeah. That was it.
If a dark-match clip was basically a debut, then if something with me had gone up the way Selma’s had, maybe the main quest would have cleared already.
But the only shots of me were the moment just before the powerbomb where I lifted Olivia, and the rear view of me hoisting her straight up.
When I stayed quiet, Selma jabbed me in the side.
“Tch. Who’s jealous of whom? I start my debut with a loss and you start with a win.”
“In exchange I take chair shots from Anne every single day. Want to take those for me? And your match got flipped to a win too.”
“Nooo! I’m not doing a TLC match until at least a year from now. And only if the championship is locked in.”
Suit yourself.
But could she even become champion in a year? Even I thought a year was too fast for a title run—they probably wouldn’t book it that way.
Time passed, and the day of Selma’s and the Inquisitors’ debuts arrived.
“Selma. Your parents coming?”
“No. I told them absolutely not to come today. I’d get even more nervous if they were here.”
“They’ll be disappointed…”
“Don’t care. If they show up my mental game collapses.”
She really was nervous—her legs were shaking, something I’d never seen from her before.
“Want me to help you loosen up?”
“How?”
“Stand up for a second.”
“How does standing change anything?”
I gave her a sharp slap on the ass. A proper shoot slap.
—Slap!—
The leather shorts made a crisp, satisfying sound.
“Aah! Hey! Where do you think you’re hitting?!”
“What? I can hit you if I want.”
“You hit my ass one more time and I swear I won’t let it go.”
“So? Did it help the nerves?”
“Help? It just pissed me off!”
Her face was flushed and her voice had risen—she really was a little angry.
Huh. Weird.
The girls back home used to slap each other’s butts for fun. Why was she reacting like this? Cultural difference between Korea and America?
“Is slapping the butt not okay?”
“You’ve lived here too—you should know better. Don’t just hit people. It starts real fights. That’s not a joke; it’s an insult.”
“Yeah. Okay. Got it. Sorry.”
Still, maybe thanks to the slap, Selma worked a clean, mistake-free debut.
Around the fifteen-minute mark she hoisted Taina up and hit the angle slam for the pin. Then she flew off the top rope like a bird and drove an elbow drop into her.
Cover.
The referee’s palm slapped the mat three times.
—Ding ding ding—
The ring announcer called out, “The winner of this match… Selma G!” and immediately the screech of car brakes filled the arena—Selma’s theme song.
But louder than the theme was the crowd.
—Selma! Selma! Selma!—
Even from the private locker room you could hear the fans chanting her name at full volume.
Only two thousand people, and they were this loud. What would Law or SmackDown be like? Those places started at ten thousand…
Ha. I hope the two years fly by so we can move up to WWO. Or better yet, get a scouting offer before then.