Toward the Halloween Battle
One of the best things about Orlando was the WWO Performance Center and Disneyland. Taxes, the natural environment, public safety—all of that mattered, but there was one more thing.
Compared to LA or New York, the food delivery culture was far more developed. It ranked among the best in the entire United States.
Finding a restaurant that could suddenly handle this many people and still be safe was difficult, and cooking at home myself was out of the question with a crowd this size.
I ordered pizza and Korean-style fried chicken right away, and everyone sprawled across the living room floor and the sofas to dig in.
“So, do the two of you work well together?”
“Charlotte, I never imagined you’d be the one booking a match against Charina yourself.”
“Charlotte, so? You happy? Satisfied?”
At Vianna and Nadia’s questions, Charlotte smiled and nodded.
“We click. Her selling is good, but her sense is even better—makes everything easy. Doesn’t feel like a rookie. Feels like a veteran who’s been grinding for years.”
“Praise from Charlotte is rare. Now I want a crack at her myself.”
“She’s a freak. How does a body that soft generate that kind of power? Should we call NASA?”
“Naomi. Ask after my match.”
“No way! I’m calling first thing tomorrow morning.”
NASA?
Ugh. So this is what conversation sounds like among forty-year-old WWO superstars?
“Have you run through the rehearsal yet?”
“No, we’re still building it. How about you guys?”
“We’ll have the rough outline locked by tomorrow. This one here is better than I expected.”
Naomi reached out and ruffled Selma’s hair as she spoke.
Naomi seemed to have taken a real liking to Selma.
Which made me curious how Selma was holding up.
“Selma. What number are you getting eliminated this time?”
“First, of course. Still, I’ve got a lot of scenes, so I’m happy.”
“Why ‘of course’?”
“Huh?”
At my question, the others looked at me too.
“If the rookie has to go out first, then Alicia should be the one getting eliminated number one.”
“What?”
“Someone was counting pinfalls three! Two! One! A person like that should be the first one out.”
“Pfft. Heh.”
“Hahaha!”
“No way—that’s Alicia? Alicia, is that true?”
“Hey! You! We agreed to keep that secret!”
Alicia, ears burning red, shot up from the sofa and yelled.
“‘Three, two, one, Fire!’ Is that right? Fire… suits your Angry gimmick perfectly.”
“Ah! You’re driving me crazy.”
Nadia and Vianna cackled like they’d just found fresh material to tease her with for days.
Even Selma laughed while carefully avoiding Alicia’s eyes.
Tch! See? This is why you don’t drag everyone over!
Fortunately, they only stayed for dinner before getting up to leave.
“If I hadn’t already booked the hotel, I’d crash here. Shame.”
“Good seeing you. See you in two weeks.”
“Yes. See you in Chicago. Take care.”
As Vianna and Nadia left, Olivia and the others went with them.
Only Selma looked sulky right to the end.
“Sorry, Selma.”
“Whatever. See you later.”
“Yeah. Thursday.”
The next day, Charlotte and I started putting meat on the bones of the match.
Just as Charlotte had said, we had time left, so we added a few more spots.
Then on Wednesday we sat John Michaels, Jane, and Alicia in the audience and ran the match like it was the real thing.
“Shit! That’s insane! You put this together in only four days?”
Michaels mixed swearing into his praise.
“You two have incredible chemistry. Great work.”
Jane offered pure, sincere compliments.
“Please either put our match before these two or drop us completely. Absolutely not right after them.”
Alicia fretted that their match would look bad by comparison.
Thursday morning, Charlotte and Alicia left as well. After seeing them off, I headed to TPA for the first time in a long while.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“Who did you get matched against that you stopped showing up for work?”
Anne and Tyna grabbed me and demanded answers.
“There’s a nondisclosure clause right now, so I can’t say. Sorry.”
“Ugh! Everyone already knows. You’re the only one still treating it like a secret?”
“Apparently so.”
Dorothy and the others really hadn’t said a word. That was the right call.
“Rina.”
“Yes, Producer.”
“Warm the crowd up before the show starts today, same as usual. Can you handle it?”
“Yes. Am I going out alone?”
“Why, you want someone with you?”
“Can Selma come with me?”
“Sure.”
The second the conversation with the producer ended, Selma walked over.
“Why me? I don’t want to.”
“You need to stand in front of crowds more often so you build resistance. If you really hate it, I’ll go alone… What’s it gonna be?”
“Ugh. Fine. I’ll go with you.”
Honestly, if there had been a dark match before the show, we could have skipped this entirely.
But the whole thing had ballooned into such a massive storyline and drawn so much public attention that even WWO couldn’t prepare Halloween Battle with their usual spot-call approach.
If they half-assed the prep and botches started flying, it wouldn’t just be a broadcast disaster—it would be pure humiliation.
So they had almost completely cut dark matches and house shows, giving the talent time to practice.
Wouldn’t revenue take a hit?
I heard that both the Saturday and Sunday cards for Halloween Battle at the United Center in Chicago had sold out completely.
Twenty-three thousand seats each, and they’d raised prices twenty to fifty percent higher than usual!
So skipping house shows more than made up for it.
Those shows usually doubled as fan meet-and-greets, so the fans might have complained, but this time even they seemed to understand.
“Rina, what am I supposed to say once I’m up there?”
Unlike me, Selma had never done this before.
“Want to talk about the day we first met? How’s that sound?”
“Hmm. The day we took the academy test? We’re allowed to talk about that?”
“Of course. You can sing, you can dance, you can even talk about what happened at the house last night. Just set the stage so the crowd focuses on the ring. You can do that, right?”
“Yeah. That much is easy. But… can I trash-talk Alf?”
Selma! You were doing so well and now you’re already derailing into Alf disses?
“You can, but won’t that tank his popularity?”
“Hmm…”
“Save it for later. After the guy’s a little more successful.”
“Yeah. Better to hold onto it.”
But aren’t you worried about what’ll happen to you?
When Selma and I made our entrance together, the crowd roared their welcome.
If it had only been my name being chanted I might have felt a little bad, but plenty of people were calling for Selma too.
After greeting them, Selma started talking.
“I thought hard about what to say when I got up here. Something about the matches? Everyone does that. So I’m gonna talk about a few months ago. A story nobody knows.”
She watched the crowd’s reaction for a beat, then pointed at me.
“I’m gonna tell you about the day I first met this one. Sound good? You excited?”
Talking about the past, Selma didn’t stumble or look uncomfortable at all. She handled it well.
“The first time I saw her, I thought she was an idiot. Figured some girl who was supposed to be auditioning for an entertainment agency had wandered into the academy because she didn’t know English.”
Hahaha!
“And the guys taking the test that day—I bet a lot of them couldn’t show their real skills because of her and got cut. One guy was doing sit-ups while staring at her and got yelled at. That guy? Dropped on the spot, of course.”
—What about Alf?—
Someone in the crowd asked about Alf.
“Alf? You guys admit I’m pretty cute, right? He grew up looking at me. So when he saw Rina, he just went, ‘Yeah, whatever.’”
Listening to Selma, I didn’t know whether to be speechless or just laugh.
—Booo!—
—Are you kidding?—
—She’s right! Selma’s pretty too!—
—Alf, you eunuch!—
“Hey! Alf’s not a eunuch yet. When I hit him with a low blow every now and then he cries like he’s dying. I’d love to make him one for real, but my dad keeps stopping me, so I’m holding back.”
—Booo! Booo!—
—Poor Alf!—
—You crazy bitch!—
Whoa. The crowd’s immersion is no joke.
“Ah! Time’s up. I’ll save the rest of the story for next time.”
—No!—
—More! Give us more before you go!—
—Have you and Rina showered together?—
Leaving the flood of questions behind, we waved to the crowd and climbed down from the ring.
Back at Gorilla Position, the general manager and the producer heaped praise on Selma.
“Selma. Your mic work has improved a lot.”
“You did great. We can put you out there again next time.”
It was the first time Selma had ever been complimented on her mic work, and she was genuinely thrilled.
“For a while, whenever there’s a spot like this, you take it. Once you get used to it, you’ll be better in real matches too.”
“Yeah. Once I actually did it, it wasn’t a big deal. Guess I was just too tense before.”
“Maybe… So, are you done being mad at me?”
“Hmph! Not even close.”
“What’ll it take to fix it?”
“Let me sleep over at your place this weekend…”
“Ugh. Fine. After Halloween Battle, come crash.”
“Yes!”
Selma’s way too happy about this. Now I feel even worse…
Should I have invited her sooner?
The next day on Smash Down.
With one week left until Halloween Battle, they announced the matchups.
Match Commissioner Carter Angle stepped into the ring.
—What!—
The Smash Down versus TPA card was announced as follows.
Match 1: Jamie Kakil & Briana vs. Donna & Share (Women’s Tag Team Match)
Match 2: Kyla James vs. Elizabeth Walker
Match 3: Mits & Camelot vs. Miguel & Conres
Match 4: Charlotte Flair vs. Charina
Match 5: Jay Wood vs. Luke Palmer
Match 6: Tashani Strackton vs. Anne Clemens (No DQ Match)
Match 7: Wire 5 vs. Heritage & The Inquisitors (4 vs 4 Elimination Tag Match)
Match 8: Alicia Bliss & Nadia Jackson & Vianna Belair vs. Dorothy Oswalt & Olivia Peltz & Selma G (3 vs 3 Elimination Tag Match)
Match 9: Corey Rhodes vs. Michael Santana (Cage Match)
Carter Angle listened to the crowd’s reaction, then pointed his index finger and swept it across the audience.
The ring segment still had life in it.
—What!—