Post by Finn Whelan on Jan 27, 2019 20:50:07 GMT -5
THE TIME IS NOW “I can’t CONTAIN myself, I never felt so ALIVE. I’m past the BREAKING POINT, I set my soul on FIRE.”
ATREYU
•••••
“‘Man, I feel so fuckin’ bad for you, since your wife poofed off into existence.’”
The cling-clang of a metallic can slamming against a wall sounds as the view comes from above, the picture of an alleyway shrouded in darkness. The light shining in from the streetlamp gives us all we need to know — brick walls, rising high above the figure in the center of the alleyway, carrying a thick boot that rammed into the can one more time, flinging it harshly against the wall again.
“Let’s talk about the fact that you’ve been trying to get into her pants for five years, but got stuck in the ‘friendzone’ and cockblocked because she was loyal to me. Woe is you. I guess you could say you have more of a chance since, as gross as it sounds yet it fits your modus operandi of begging girls who say no, Aaron can’t exactly say no to you since, you know, she’s dead.”
A derisive snort slips from the figure’s mouth — though they also seem somewhat out of breath — just as the shuffle of shoes clunking over one another echoes into the alleyway.
“‘Man, you ever gonna stop referencing a place that we all know ain’t credible?’”
Pressing a hand against the wall, the figure leans heavily into it, stumbling slightly. The light Irish lilt in his deep tone tells everyone that the only person it could be is Finn Whelan, and the second that he leans close enough into the light, his face is visible. Blood streams down from a cut on his lip, purple encompasses the area around his eye. The Seattle Saint looks like he’s seen far better days.
“Except who’s the one referencing it every time they open their mouth? Last time I checked, you wore that championship on your waist with pride just the same as I did. Mikey Svarro, The Voice of Wrestling, who disappears every six months or so because he’s either trying to get rid of whatever sexually transmitted infection or disease he’s caught from his stripper dates, or he’s in rehab for his drinking problem.”
Finn pauses, turns his head as he sets it upon his forearm and grins slightly.
“See, I can lie too.”
He pushes himself off the wall, stumbling back slightly, before stopping and tilting his head upwards to look up at the sky.
“This isn’t to discount everything you’ve done. I know what I’m stepping up against down in the country’s capital. Lights Out Thirty-One, Mikey Svarro versus Finn Whelan. Crown of the King Cobra Tournament Semi-Finals. This is the second time we’ll have come to graps, and the second time, I swear to God, that you’re going to get cut from another tournament.”
Finally, he lifts his hand and runs the back of it across his mouth, before flinging it away, spreading it across the cracked cement beneath him.
“Your legacy began in the most unlikely of circumstances: reporter turned wrestler. You didn’t train for this. You didn’t become this because you wanted to. and yet here you are, standing in front of us, seemingly still going strong. Multiple championships — important championships, like the Legacy Championship from Bare Bones, the Heavyweight Championship from Global Wrestling Coalition — some won fairly, others with the help of your favorite henchmen…but nevertheless, you’ve been a name across all the multiple opportunities you’ve decided to toss your hat into.
“Hell, if you want to be exact, you made it to the finals of that god-awful Tournament, defeating Randy Fields and two other fucking twatwaffles that don’t even deserve to be named in a four-way match to move on to face me. Me. After I’d spent my time facing Kat Jones in a fucking deathmatch to still move on and kick your ass later in the same night. I won the Shogun. I was the Iron Man of fucking Guerilla Warfare. I was third place in the #QuagCup. I was a fucking champion in Four Corners.”
He shakes his head and then snorts -- he pushes himself backward and stumbles slightly as he takes lumbering, clearly painful steps forward.
“You want to sit there and proclaim that I’m a useless fuck-up in this world and a disappointment to all? At least every time I failed, I stuck through it. At least I made my failures and pushed ahead. SoCal. 4CW. Here. When you fucked off with Reigner and Reyes, I stayed. Every time I fell last season, I got back up and I fucking buried my competition. I became the Trench War Champion the second that I lost in at Guerilla Warfare, I defended and though I lost it to Kimi, I also know I wasn’t in the headspace I should have been. That ends now. My time is now.”
There’s clearly a history between these two -- a long history, riddled with a mix between a friendship and a hatred that neither one of them could really replace. Hell, their interactions with one another whenever they were seen together combined strained egos and overarching dominance as well as an unseen notion of “I’ve got your back”. At least, when they weren’t facing one another.
“You wanna talk SoCal Ultraviolent? I know I failed. But I still never quit. You think you can find ways into my head and catch me off guard, but honestly, if you think you’re the voice of wrestling, then you need to get a fucking laryngectomy because your voice is fading from prominence day after day.”
Or maybe they never would. Maybe it’s all just a lie.
“So go ahead. Reference my recent failures in Four Corners like it matters. Reference every fucking failure I’ve ever made in the past. We all know that what matters is what is made in the company in which we currently stand. The Battleground is my territory. I lost to Emery Layton, arguably the biggest name that there is in Union Battleground -- there’s no shame in that. I lost to Kimitsu Zombie -- again, no shame. And in both? High stakes matches. There is no shame when I’ve made it as a name in this company clearly. When you get respect given from notable names here, that’s when you know you’ve done it.”
He stops at the end of the alleyway, in a quiet street outside a what looks to be a cheap imitation of an Irish pub in Seattle. It’s not clear if Finn has alcohol coursing through his system, but despite his stumbling and clear indicators that he’s gotten into a fight, he seems lucid.
“It doesn’t fuckin’ matter that you’re four-and-oh in this company; when you look at who you’ve faced. Mandi Morrison…who? Becky Balfour, the dumb bitch who complains about being hated by everyone? Danny Colt, who can’t be assed to do a promo eighty-five percent of the time, and Kaelan Laughlin -- who I’m not even fucking sure was Kaelan, considering she’s currently disapparated like Harry Potter under a fuckin’ invisibility cloak. Good match, though.”
A cheap pop at the missing Laughlin woman; but it’s to be said, considering she couldn’t keep Finn’s name out of her fuckin’ mouth with her recreation of history involving the #QuagCup.
“Let’s face it, Mikey. You’re about as threatening as the United States President when he shuts down the government. You claim you’re going to do something fucking great and powerful, even when the odds are against you, and but when it comes to push and shove, you cave under the pressure. That’s what you do now. You gain championships, and then you disappear because why the fuck not? The Battleground doesn’t deserve that. It doesn’t deserve a chance at having you wear the Crown of the King Cobra Championship, only to have you fuck off and never cash in. The fans don’t deserve it. We don’t deserve it.”
Finn steps into the sidewalk, placing his hand against the wall to steady himself as he walks down the street.
“It’s like I said before, Svarro. Do you remember? 2017, I know your alcohol-laced brain will remember this when I say it: you may be the most talented on the fuckin’ roster, but you’re still beatable. You can still be overpowered. You can still fucking lose. And when it comes down to it, do you just want another title to add to your list, or is this something that matters to you? Is this a chance to bring yourself back into the world as someone viable? To proclaim what you used to be? Or is it your last chance at glory before you find your way to the nursing home?”
He stops, narrows his eyes and smiles as he speaks.
“I’ll put you down like the fucking dog you are. You’re standing in my way of making my way to the finals, and like every person that’s stood in my way in the past year, I’ve stepped past them. This championship was nearly mine last year. It will be mine. The time is now. My time is now. Maybe this year, when you step into the Guerilla Warfare ring, you’ll actually make good on your claims of being the winner of it. Because your time in the Crown of the King Cobra Tournament stops now.”
With a mocking salute, a signature of his wife’s sign-offs, Finn tips his head to the side.
“I’ll see you at Lights Out Thirty-One, in the heart of America, in the DAR Constitution Hall, we’ll meet in the main event. As it should be. Then, as expected, I’ll move on in this tournament, and the only person in that arena that will be listening hard to anything that happens will be you and the deafening sound of the arena when my hand is raised again as the victor.”
“My time is now, buddy. See you for drinks afterward.”
Post by Mikey Svarro on Feb 4, 2019 22:25:53 GMT -5
"s t u m b l e and
FALL."
“They say to keep your friends close, and your enemies closer…”
*FLICK, FLICK*
There’s a few seconds of distorted vision, turning into a black and white scene, before finally the visual levels out. It’s a mighty wide shot, taken from decently far back, managing to get quite a bit of the Lincoln Memorial inside of it. The source of the voice seems unknown, though familiar. A moment later, the shot is zooming forward on one spot in particular, at such an alarming rate it seems as if it may crash into one of the large pillars. It must have been attached to a drone or something that has the ability to move at such a speed, at least. Luckily, it doesn’t, and instead, we’re standing face to face with Mikey Svarro, a cigarette hanging from his mouth.
“I’ve known about your skill inside the ring ever since I first saw you, Finn, back before all these fake fans got behind you. I could see you were going to develop into a real threat, no doubts about that. In seeing that, why wouldn’t I try to keep you on my side? Why wouldn’t I keep my enemies closer, as they say? Many people have said they don’t understand our relationship, one second we could be laughing over a beer and the second could be you all agro about the time I banged your wife...”
Mikey put his hand on the side of his mouth and brought his volume to just barely above a whisper. It was more for theatrics than anything.
“Jeez, I knew her before they even met and I would never commit because I’m a playboy like that, so she had to find her a pussy-whipped bitch - but no reason to hold grudges DAMN.”
His eyes got wide, as he shook his head from side-to-side.
“But you can not deny the fact that I am the ONE person in this industry that knows you the best. Not your so-called ‘brother’ Dickie who poofed into existence like a year ago, and not your so-called sister Elena that’s not even your sister anymore...or never was… or whatever. ME, Mikey Svarro.”
He took another long puff from his cancer stick, before blowing a large cloud of smoke up into the air. The night was cold, causing extra smoke to rise simply from his hot breath. The time gave you time to think about how sad Mikey’s last sentence actually was, Svarro being the one person that knows you better than all.
“That means that you should know me better than the vast majority of people. So you should know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, exactly why at Lights Out Thirty-One in Washington, DC, in front of everyone in DAR Constitution Hall - I’m going to be the one advancing to the final match in the Crown of the King Cobra tournament.”
Svarro rose his eyebrows up and down, taunting the camera a bit, before shrugging his shoulders. He began walking down the steps from the Lincoln Monument, presently fighting the urge to flick his cigarette butt onto the shoe of Mr. Lincoln himself. Mikey was not trynna be fined for some stupid amount of money.
“At least you’d think as much. Yet, ever since Lights Out thirty, where we both advanced, you’ve been trying to puff your chest out at me on Twitter. Come one Whelan, you give yourself away with those sort of antics. You don’t come at people that way and you certainly don’t come at ME that way, unless of course you’re worried. You know I don’t win matches inside the ring…”
Mikey rose his right index finger into the air, shaking it at the camera three times.
“I win matches here…”
He points to his temple, tapping his index finger upon the right side.
“Here…”
Svarro moves his index finger down to his chest, tapping three times upon his heart.
“and anywhere else I damn well please that’s going to mess with you, and wish you wouldn’t have made the mistake of coming at me. You know above all, that I’m a manipulative, strategy-driven thinker. So PLEASE, don’t ever think of spouting out nonsense on your wannabe future win with reasons like I’m supposedly old, or I don’t train for my matches or something. We literally JUST saw how much hype was behind Kaelan, and how I toyed with that mind of hers right up until the end when she was laying on the canvas and unable to get up.”
A rather loud and hearty chuckle escaped, sounding from his chest. He seemed to have something of a point when you pieced it all together, something others often brushed away simply because they hated him so much.
“We’ve seen people swear up and down that they aren’t going to fall for my tricks, and that my school house antics are just little games. But let me ask you a question Finn, can you name five people that HAVE been able to best me at my game? Go ahead, Im waiting.”
Looking down at his wrist, he slid the cuff of his suit jacket back a bit. Of course, there was no such watch upon his wrist, but Mikey did it for dramatic effect regardless. He put his cuff back and turned his attention back to the camera, holding his hand up.
“I’ll just stop you right there, because you CAN’T. Not only have I dominated the scene ever since stepping foot in a wrestling ring, but I still remain undefeated here in Union Battleground. Is there anybody else that can say the same? You can say I didn’t work for those wins, and you can judge me for who I won against, but facts are facts, I’m undefeated and your biggest accomplishment is a championship that Kimitsu let you borrow because she had to spend the week with her family that doesn’t know she’s a wrestler or something.”
Svarro laughed, rolling his eyes.
“And you think you’re some sort of authority here for that? You think Union Battleground considers you one of the best because of your little footnote? Sounds more like you’re claiming dominance everytime you grab a microphone simply because you’ve had more matches here. We both know you haven’t been here longer - you actually followed me here. So the ONLY reason is that you have more matches on record, most of them mediocre if you ask me.
They even gave you Comeback of the Year, which I find absolutely hilarious because it describes you better than anything I’ve ever heard. Maybe it should be called ‘most comebacks’ of the year. Which Finn will I be getting at Lights Out, you think? Am I going to get the “My Time is Now” Finn that guns it hard for his goals and gases out in a few matches, or am I going to get the “My Time is Now” Finn that drags his losing streak out before calling another break for 8 weeks, just so he can make a return and call “My Time is Now” again? There are no other Finn Whelan’s that I know of.
Between all those leave of absences, you’ve always been all talk. You’ve never been THE guy. I have. All the times I have, all my triumphs and carrying companies, I did it MY way, while you play by the book and can’t make it to the top. You stumble under pressure, and you fall...every goddamn time.”
His voice was that of a father figure, scolding his young son, as he wagged his finger towards the camera. Though at the same time, he managed to come off incredibly condescending, amirking out of the side of his mouth as he spoke. The world knew Mikey Svarro could lie his way through anything, but there was a lot of truth being said right here and now.
“It took you YEARS to even get your first championship, didn’t it? You sat at a nice 0-5 or something when it came to title matches before you got your hands on the biggest piece of trash this business has to offer. We’ve already covered your fifteen seconds of fame as Trench War Champion, and add fifteen more for the time you won that 4CW title and then lost it immediately in your first defence. You don’t have a single leg to stand on when it comes to credibility, unless you’re speaking about the credibility you try to give yourself. Your narrative lately has been a bigger damn liar than me! Jesus Christ!”
As he walked away from the Lincoln Memorial, seeing it for the very first time and becoming incredibly bored, Svarro couldn’t help but think of the memorial they’d erect for him in Union Battleground one day, saving UB from boring ass wrestlers.
“You’ve still got so much to prove to yourself and no way to accomplish that. Meanwhile I’m turning heads again and you HATE that. The scumbag comes back and hits it big again! I don’t want redemption Finn, but what I do want is to make these people remember who Mikey Svarro is! This business was mine once upon a time, and these people need to see that I could have TAKEN it whenever I wanted. I’m going to win the Crown of the King Cobra, I’m going to hold it until I deem it necessary to cash in and by the end of the year, we’re going to do away with these rocker wannabe stereotype like Whelan and Daniels. Union Battleground needs a villian like Mikey Svarro, the man they love to hate.”
He tipped his head towards the camera in a thankful gesture. He would have tipped his hat except for he wasn’t wearing one.
“Puff your chest at me all you want Finn, but I know the real you, and I know that you aren’t making it to the finals. You may one day have your ‘time’ but it definitely isn’t now, and not at my expense. Most people have a Rise, before the Fall, but you never quite rise.”
Mikey reached into his pocket, pulling out his trusty shades, like always.
“Tune in to Lights Out Thirty-One on February 8th, and in the main event witness Finn Whelan: The Stumble, and Fall.”
He threw his shades onto his face in one motion.
“Listen hard!”
Last Edit: Feb 4, 2019 22:26:40 GMT -5 by Mikey Svarro
