Post by robriot on Apr 25, 2022 16:06:27 GMT -5
There's a strong breeze blowing past the new Wrestle:UK headquarters. There's always going to be a strong breeze blowing past the new Wrestle:UK headquarters. That's one of the consequences of basing the company in England. Everything about these shiny new offices looks fantastic. It's a base from which a new era might be born, and it looks suitably busy. Men in suits scurry back and forth out of the double doors. Passers-by point their camera phones at it and snap a quick picture on their way past. It's a hive of activity - save for one man. One man who's standing stock still and staring at the camera lens.
For the avoidance of doubt, that one man is Rob Riot, who’s rubbing his shaved head as if in a state of deep despair.
"I've seen this too many times. I've been to too many places in too many countries and seen this too many times. See, friends, right now, the whole wrestling world is looking at this beautiful building and thinking it's a beacon of hope. A new frontier. A phoenix emerging from the ashes of Northern Pro Wrestling. I look at it, and I see…"
He turns slowly on his heel, casting his eyes over the office building, taking a moment to look it up and down.
"I see another palace of glass that will one day turn to a desert of sand. I see something else that's been built that will one day fall down. I see death where others see birth, and I see all of this because, in that trendy glass cladding that reflects the city back into the eye of the onlooker, I see myself."
From somewhere within his long, flowing overcoat, Riot pulls out an NPW World Tag Team Championship and throws it onto the floor.
"Another bauble from another dead promotion. I have so many of them now. See, when I came back to this sport in the middle of last year, I tried to convince myself that I wasn't poison. That the Bastards aren't poison. I tried to forget that every promotion we've ever stepped into had fallen apart at the seams within months of our arrival. WrestleWars couldn't hold us. Gate City Wrestling couldn't hold us. Even my own Riot Star Wrestling couldn't hold us, and God knows NPW couldn't hold us. We're too big and too hot. We come in, ratings go up, ticket sales go through the roof and the pressure on the people in the boardroom skyrockets. They've never made so much money before. They've never had so much expectation placed on their shoulders before. They've never had so many eyeballs on them before. The heat gets too much, and they boil alive. Their psyche cracks. They crumble. They fold. Promotions that survived for years before the Bastards rolled into town fall to pieces and die. No promotion can hold us and hope to survive. It was never 'NPW featuring the Bastards.' It was 'The Bastards in NPW.' We were the headline, they were just the stage - and so it remains. And so….and so…"
He rubs his head again. Noticing the NPW tag title belt is still on the floor, he picks it back up and places it back on his shoulder. Nobody ever won it from him, so nobody else has the right to lay their hands on it.
"And so when I get a phone call from a guy telling me 'hey, I've picked up some NPW assets, and I'm opening a new promotion in the UK, we'd love to hire the Bastards,' I have to check myself. I have to take a moment, think about it, talk to Frank and Billy, and answer like a regular human being might answer. Because if it's left to me, the answer would be, ARE YOU COMPLETELY OUT OF YOUR GOD DAMN MIND? If you're the security guard on the gates of an American high school and you see a guy with an AK strapped to his back, do you let him in? If you're working in airport security and a guy comes in with twelve pounds of steel strapped around his waist, do you wave him past the X-Ray machine? Wrestle:UK, do you have a death wish? Do you want this to be over before it begins? Yes, I can see you do. Obviously, you do because otherwise, you wouldn't be gifting us the tag titles by booking us against Ting Tong and Ching Chong, the Fax Machine Twins. Hey boys."
Riot does a deep, mocking, Oriental-style bow.
"I don't know if you two generic goofs even remember this because you've been beaten around the head so often that you ought to have terminal CTE by now, but you used to work for me once. You were in RSW, and I paid you chicken feed to jerk the curtain for me, and you were grateful for it. The reason you were grateful is that aside from looking identical, sounding identical and dressing identical, you're both identically and fundamentally useless at the sport of professional wrestling. How in the blue Hell you're still in the business at all is beyond me, but this match is going to be a very short, very painful lesson about levels. We're on the top level. You're holding the door open for everybody else on level one, and every time I smack either one of you flat-pack identikit create-a-wrestlers in the mouth, you're going to say 'thank you, Mr Riot.' Get it? Got it? Good. If it's any consolation, you won't be the only two Thai boys to get fucked on a pay-per-view broadcast this weekend."
Riot seems done with the broadcast for a moment but then remembers something, snapping his fingers as the thought occurs to him.
"Oh, one more thing. Jakie Wenztel. I see you've been Jonesing for me, boy. It's been a long time, and what I want to say to you is…"
He grins.
”Ah, hell. You’ll find out soon enough.”
Riot walks away out of the shot, and this promo is over.
For the avoidance of doubt, that one man is Rob Riot, who’s rubbing his shaved head as if in a state of deep despair.
"I've seen this too many times. I've been to too many places in too many countries and seen this too many times. See, friends, right now, the whole wrestling world is looking at this beautiful building and thinking it's a beacon of hope. A new frontier. A phoenix emerging from the ashes of Northern Pro Wrestling. I look at it, and I see…"
He turns slowly on his heel, casting his eyes over the office building, taking a moment to look it up and down.
"I see another palace of glass that will one day turn to a desert of sand. I see something else that's been built that will one day fall down. I see death where others see birth, and I see all of this because, in that trendy glass cladding that reflects the city back into the eye of the onlooker, I see myself."
From somewhere within his long, flowing overcoat, Riot pulls out an NPW World Tag Team Championship and throws it onto the floor.
"Another bauble from another dead promotion. I have so many of them now. See, when I came back to this sport in the middle of last year, I tried to convince myself that I wasn't poison. That the Bastards aren't poison. I tried to forget that every promotion we've ever stepped into had fallen apart at the seams within months of our arrival. WrestleWars couldn't hold us. Gate City Wrestling couldn't hold us. Even my own Riot Star Wrestling couldn't hold us, and God knows NPW couldn't hold us. We're too big and too hot. We come in, ratings go up, ticket sales go through the roof and the pressure on the people in the boardroom skyrockets. They've never made so much money before. They've never had so much expectation placed on their shoulders before. They've never had so many eyeballs on them before. The heat gets too much, and they boil alive. Their psyche cracks. They crumble. They fold. Promotions that survived for years before the Bastards rolled into town fall to pieces and die. No promotion can hold us and hope to survive. It was never 'NPW featuring the Bastards.' It was 'The Bastards in NPW.' We were the headline, they were just the stage - and so it remains. And so….and so…"
He rubs his head again. Noticing the NPW tag title belt is still on the floor, he picks it back up and places it back on his shoulder. Nobody ever won it from him, so nobody else has the right to lay their hands on it.
"And so when I get a phone call from a guy telling me 'hey, I've picked up some NPW assets, and I'm opening a new promotion in the UK, we'd love to hire the Bastards,' I have to check myself. I have to take a moment, think about it, talk to Frank and Billy, and answer like a regular human being might answer. Because if it's left to me, the answer would be, ARE YOU COMPLETELY OUT OF YOUR GOD DAMN MIND? If you're the security guard on the gates of an American high school and you see a guy with an AK strapped to his back, do you let him in? If you're working in airport security and a guy comes in with twelve pounds of steel strapped around his waist, do you wave him past the X-Ray machine? Wrestle:UK, do you have a death wish? Do you want this to be over before it begins? Yes, I can see you do. Obviously, you do because otherwise, you wouldn't be gifting us the tag titles by booking us against Ting Tong and Ching Chong, the Fax Machine Twins. Hey boys."
Riot does a deep, mocking, Oriental-style bow.
"I don't know if you two generic goofs even remember this because you've been beaten around the head so often that you ought to have terminal CTE by now, but you used to work for me once. You were in RSW, and I paid you chicken feed to jerk the curtain for me, and you were grateful for it. The reason you were grateful is that aside from looking identical, sounding identical and dressing identical, you're both identically and fundamentally useless at the sport of professional wrestling. How in the blue Hell you're still in the business at all is beyond me, but this match is going to be a very short, very painful lesson about levels. We're on the top level. You're holding the door open for everybody else on level one, and every time I smack either one of you flat-pack identikit create-a-wrestlers in the mouth, you're going to say 'thank you, Mr Riot.' Get it? Got it? Good. If it's any consolation, you won't be the only two Thai boys to get fucked on a pay-per-view broadcast this weekend."
Riot seems done with the broadcast for a moment but then remembers something, snapping his fingers as the thought occurs to him.
"Oh, one more thing. Jakie Wenztel. I see you've been Jonesing for me, boy. It's been a long time, and what I want to say to you is…"
He grins.
”Ah, hell. You’ll find out soon enough.”
Riot walks away out of the shot, and this promo is over.