041 Purgatory

[Prophet of Ash]

A lot of people ask me
Where the fuck I've been at the last few years.
Shit, I don't know.
But I do know – I'm back now.
Haha!

Limbo

Why doesn't it feel right, Perce?

Since my big “return” against Drakz it just hasn't felt right. Things have been “off”. In ring, I'm crisp, but things have been off and off enough that I haven't bothered to actually sign a new contract because I don't know how much longer I'll be around. I'm drifting off of the old contract and making my $5863.45 per night appearance fee. Percy stares at me for a moment as he swallows a big gulp of his Rockstar. He adjusts his glasses and looks at me.

Why doesn't what feel right?

WFWF. It just isn't the same any more. There's a missing piece. And it's been missing for a long time now.

The title?

I shoot him a piercing glance. He knows he just spit out the wrong thing and immediately tries to back peddle.

Not like that, I'm just saying, you held it for what? Over a year?

A year and five days.

Not that I was keeping track or anything.

March 2012 to March 2013.

That's my point. You carried that title around with you constantly for a year. It became a part of you. You identified yourself as the champion. You were WFWF Champion Phillip Schneider on all the radio broadcasts, the personal appearances, the autograph signings, when we went to the Chicago Toy & Game Fair.. You were promoted as WFWF Champion Phillip Schneider and you hauled the belt around with you too. Then Psycho Circus came around and suddenly, you're not the champion and you're not WFWF.

Percy takes another big drink of his energy drink.

It was you for long enough that it was strange when it wasn't you. Like the blonde hair. You've been blonde long enough that if you went back to your natural hair color it'd be off setting.

I'd have to dye it back to that color. I'm keeping it light because I'm mostly gray now..

A year's a long time, Phil.

But it's not the title. I've not had the title for longer than I had it. And I haven't even really been worrying about the title. You think I couldn't snap Dex in half if I tried? If we tangled I'd have him tapping out in five minutes.

So what is it?

I don't know. Things feel off. I'm starting to think my time is numbered.

Why do you say that?

My last two competitive matches. The title match at Psycho Circus and the match with Drakz. I've lost. Before that, I lost to Mak Cross and I made the poor decision to let my henchmen do my bidding against Penny Shannon and Scarlett Quinn and that recorded a loss on my record too. These are people that aren't even in my league, Drakz excluded. Mak Cross has no business beating me, Percy. What has Mak Cross ever done? Cam Nitta, Cam Nitta isn't someone who should share a marquee bill with me and I don't think anyone would disagree, he's not even playing the same game as me, much less in the same league.

What are you getting at?

What did Dex do? What did he do to “break out”? He ended the career of Zmaster. Remember when Zmaster was “the guy”?

Of course.

But time passed him by and he became obsolete. You know Superbrawl was going to be “it” for me, right?

We've talked about this, yes. What's your point?

Percy seems genuinely perplexed at this revelation.

Because I didn't tell anyone. Because I knew it wouldn't make sense for me to retire at Superbrawl. I knew that Zmaster's retirement was going to take center stage..

I dunno man.. Seemed like all focus ended up on you and Drakz at the end of the night.

Back to my point. Dex became “the star” by being the one to put away Zmaster once and for all. He became “the guy” and had the championship given to him as a result. I beat Zmaster. I beat him within an inch of his life. But I wasn't the one to put him away for good. Dex was. And you know what, I see myself in that situation. Not the young buck, the killer.. I'm the aging veteran. I'm the guy that doesn't have much time left. And I don't want to be Zmaster. I don't want to hang on past my relevance. I hear it already. People saying I'm not as good as I was, that I'm a shell of my former self.. and people like Josh Dean who think they can rattle my cage. Who the fuck is Josh Dean?

He wrestled Brennan at Superbrawl. He says he's a former International champion. I don't remember him being around. May've been around in my little absence, before you parted ways the first time.

So who is he to say he's in my league? Who is he to say I should be using my time with him? If I only have a select few matches left in me, why should I use one of them on him? Because he thinks I'm disrespectful? I am disrespectful. And I don't give a crap. I don't care, Percy. I don't care about anyone in that locker room, I don't care about any of those fans.. I don't care. I'm looking out for me, I'm looking out for my money. I'm looking out for paying my bills and I'm looking out to protect my legacy. And anything else, it can piss off as far as I'm concerned.

Percy leans back in his chair. He's staring me down with a quizzical look in his eyes, like he's absorbing everything I've just said and calculating the exact right response. He's got a chess player's

So why are you letting him bother you?

Huh?

Percy catches me off guard a bit. He catches me by surprise, because I didn't expect THAT from him.

Why are you letting him bother you? Why did this feud start? Who cares that he came out and ran you off from potential homicide in cold blood. What's it matter? Why does it matter that it bothers HIM that you refused to shake Drakz' hand? You didn't shake Drakz' hand, he doesn't like it, who cares. He says he doesn't like it.. so now you're locked into this bitter feud. You're heading into a match. This is you, Phil. You can't just let things go. You probably have the thinnest skin of anyone I've ever met. You can't just take something in stride. Maybe you were wrong. Maybe you should've shaken Drakz' hand at Superbrawl. I mean, you're on the biggest stage in the WFWF and you two, two of the company's legends, just had the greatest match in the history of the company and you don't shake his hand afterward..

Because I don't like him. And why should I aid his celebration?

So you're a poor sport? You can't bite a bit of humble pie for a moment and swallow a pill. You just can't admit that he's the better man..

Drakz is not better than me.

He was at Superbrawl

He's not better than me.

He is.

He's not.

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. I just baited you into an argument and rather than sitting there and moving on with the conversation, you walked right into my trolling. You're gritting your teeth and clinching your fist. You going to fight me in New York now, Phil? I said something you didn't like and now you're going to fight me?

I just stare him down. I am clinching my fist. And I am gritting my teeth.

You going to fight me at Battle at the Garden now, Phil?

.........

......Phil?



Lust

3/13/13

I wake up. I wake up in a cold sweat. It's dark outside and my lights are off, but my room is still illuminated by a slightly darkened Xbox 360 screen. You know the screen saver, when you pause for a long time? Yeah, that. I apparently fell asleep at some point while playing Xbox and had a realization of mortality. I rise from my bed and look around. New Kylie is sound asleep in the chair. She's taken to sleeping in the chair lately. You know how the first few months with a new girlfriend, everything is amazing, she's the coolest girl you've ever met and everything is great in life? Try six months into a relationship. Sex is not as often and isn't an amazing experience any more. Now it's “how can we make this interesting again”. You've heard all of their stories and they've heard all of your's. If you are never apart, you have no stories to talk about and since March, we've rarely been apart. I don't travel for wrestling any more and she has no where to be at all.

Recently I've really been questioning why this relationship even “works”. Why I've taken to supporting this girl, who shows herself to be cold more often than not. She's not a mate. She's not a partner. She's a toy. She's an expensive subscription based toy. Xbox live costs about $20 a month. Netflix is like $13 a month. I subscribed to Loot Crate for six months at $17 a month. She costs about $200 a month. Still cheaper than a prostitute and since she never leaves anywhere, I know I'm not going to catch anything from her.. But it's particularly hard to catch anything when I never touch her any more. The new toy isn't fun any more.

I first met this girl when I was building the Decaying Society. She was interesting. She fit the mold of what I had in mind and feeding and clothing her could be written off as a business expense. That's how I treated The Decaying Society. They weren't friends. They weren't colleges. They were a tax write off. They were a business expense and they were tools for me to get from point a to point b. And if those tools broke, well.. I'd replace them. And I'd keep all of the receipts.

But now, now I'm not really doing anything and neither is she. As I fight this inner debate, my physical being interjects itself into the argument, approaching the sleeping girl and shaking her. It's an out of body experience again. I can see myself doing this, but I'm on cruise control. I'm shaking her.

Get up. Get up right now.

She groggily and grumpily awakens from her slumber. She rubs her eyes and looks at me confused. I'm still shaking her even though she's awake.

We're going to pack up the things that belong to you.. and then you're leaving.

She slowly stirs to her feet. She's looking around a little bit, trying to gain her bearings. She bends over, flashing a bit of panty ass. Panty ass is awesome when there's a mystery behind it, but when you know it belongs to a girl you've grown to loathe, it's just where poop comes from. She looks around the room and realizes something I knew long before I said “the things that belong to you”.

None of this stuff is mine.

There it is! So why don't you take that pair of pants that you've adopted as your own from my daughter's closet, grab that pair of shoes you swiped from the locker room from Penny Shannon, and you march your happy ass out the door. You know what, maybe go call Penny Shannon, maybe she needs a new fuck toy. You're a fun fuck toy for a few months and maybe she'll get you to your next sugar daddy.

She spouts off the first thing that comes to her mind.

Fuck you.

No see, that's the problem. You aren't fucking me, and that's the only thing you're good at. You aren't fun to talk to. You aren't fun to be around. You don't challenge me mentally. You aren't interested in the types of things that I am. You are a walking, talking, bitching, money grubbing vagina. And you know what? I realized this morning, your vagina isn't worth it. Give and take, and you've taken more than you're giving.

She cracks. She kneels to the floor and starts to cry.

Look, normally you down on your hands and knees would get you out of whatever trouble you're in, but your mouth isn't worth any more than your pussy to me, and that's jack shit, so get your ass up, and get to stepping. You call Percy when you're out the door. Maybe he'll pick you up and take you somewhere. He's a nice guy and is usually willing to clean up my messes.

She grabs a scissor off of the table.

What, you going to cut me? You going to stab me? You think I'm scared of you, a ninety pound bitch swinging a dull scissor? Better turn that blade around and stab yourself because you come at me with that blade, it's going to end up stuck in your little nasty under developed tits.

This really makes her crack. She goes limp and the tears flow down her cheeks.

Bitter truth bitch, your tits look like a 13 year old girl's. And that's not fun for me any more. I think I'll go for a Mexican girl next time. They usually actually look like women when they're your age. Not little kids. But come on bitch, slit your wrist. Take that scissor and slide it across your wrist. You saw back and forth until the blood flows, go up and down too. We want the show and the effect both. You're New Kylie, so follow her foot steps.

She says nothing. She cuts no one. She just drops the scissor, turns, and silently walks out the door. Defeated.



5/1/14

Know how porn isn't really interesting at all when you're not horny? Whores are kind of the same way.

Since unceremoniously dismissing New Kylie from my life, a few things have changed. Most notably, my penis isn't being serviced by an attractive young lady on a 24/7 beck and call. But I've changed in life, too. I had the best match of my career and what some are already calling the WFWF Match of the Year for 2014. Biggest match in WFWF history main event? I don't hear anyone saying “wow, that Heavyweight title match sure was something”. They're talking about how the two old timers went out and gave the fans everything. At Superbrawl, Drakz was the better man. But he won a coin flip. We'll dance again some day, Drakz. But beyond all of that, things finally seem “in order”. I lost my way for a while. For a long while. But I'm back.

I think I started to “lose my way” with Meg. What does the man who has everything he ever wanted ask for? What does he strive for? What are his goals? In a short span of time, I hooked up with a woman I had been pining over for years, sunk an unsinkable ship and in the process, was once again crowned the WFWF World Heavyweight champion. And this was the beginning of my descent into madness.

Then Kylie. How mad do you have to be to get pussy whipped when you're not even getting any? And when I get rid of her, I find a girl that looks exactly like her, who will do any filthy thing I can imagine. I pissed on her, I bled on her, I'd masturbate into a plastic container and save it, just to make her drink old loads in bulk at a later date and she was fine with every bit of it. This is the type of girl New Kylie is. She was sub human. That's why she didn't get her own name. She's just the new Kylie who I actually bang.

But when I've got rid of all of these distractions, things are in order. I got lean. I wrestled the match of my career. I'm focused. People said “oh, Phillip Schneider is just violence for the sake of violence, he's Hostile: The Wrestler” and at Superbrawl, I showed them I'm not just core fundamentals, I AM a God.

My morning runs usually include a stop at McDonalds. McDonalds is about a mile away from my house and a mile away from the tanning salon so it makes a nice stop, pause, maybe eat something, get a drink station. Need to fix my shoes, take something off, put something on.. Here's a place I can do that. And the people working have got used to seeing me. I'm not Phillip Schneider, local hero any more. I'm Phil, small coffee, one sugar, two shots of milk, make sure it's not cream. Sometimes an egg white delight no meat. Rarely apples too. I'm just a guy though.

On one of my runs, I was enjoying my coffee, sandwich, and apples. It was an apple day. It was a cold day in May in Chicago. The last day of April was a bitter cold, windy day and it's spilled over into this morning. I'm almost trying to warm up this morning. You grow used to the warm after bitter cold winters when you get a few weeks of nice weather.. Percy's joined me today on bicycle. He's not much for running and he's really not much for bicycling, but he feels slightly responsible for making sure I don't go on a rampage in downtown Chicago or something, so he's started keeping better tabs on me.

I did the right thing Percy. I did the right thing. How did this happen?

That's the question I've been asking since Superbrawl. I did the right thing. I trained. I ate the right things. I prepared properly. I didn't stab Drakz. I didn't cut him. I wrestled a pure wrestling match. I put on the best pro wrestling match the WFWF has ever seen...

And I lost.

It's been this way since Superbrawl. Phil's been drifting in and out of conversations. It's like I'm only getting half of a phone conversation talking to him face to face. He's certainly been off. The second Superbrawl in a row, the second National title match on Superbrawl.. and the second loss. The illusive championship needed for a Grand Slam champion remains illusive. I thought this new exercising and running was good for him, but now I don't know. It's eight AM and I'd rather be asleep still but the responsible thing sees me riding my bicycle alongside Phil as he runs this morning. I feel he's completely off the deep end following Superbrawl. Like if someone gave him five cents less change he'd pull a knife on them or something. I'm playing babysitter in a way.

It shouldn't be this way. It shouldn't be this way, Percy. The National championship shouldn't be the best match on the show. It shouldn't be something that you have to fight for your life for. It shouldn't be something I still want after ten years in the WFWF. Look at the list of nobodies who've held that title.. The fucking Deville held it. Dead Idol held it. He was FUCKING BLIND PERCY. He could not see and he held that title.

Weren't you...


I took a bite of my sandwich and immediately my “no more girls in my life, I'm focused” mindset is blown. Through the door walks a girl like I've never seen. She has the blondest blonde hair I've ever seen. My hair isn't natural blonde. Naturally, my hair is jet black, but I think I've achieved a nice level of blonde but her's.. Her's is white. And it's clearly natural because her eyebrows are the same color. She's leggy and she doesn't seem to have an ounce of fat on her. This girl is the sexiest girl I've ever seen. I approach her. It's been a long time since I've had to even small talk a potential mate. I say the first thing that comes to mind.

Sup?

The King of Smooth. This guy. She looks at me. I clearly am not at my peak right now. It's cold outside so I'm all bundled up. UnderArmor, a hoody, hand wraps, and shorts. And I'm all sweaty. I don't deserve to be talking to a girl this pretty. She gives me a once over and responds. Her voice makes my dick hard instantly.

Yes?

I think you're the prettiest girl I've ever seen and I would feel stupid if I didn't say something and you suddenly disappeared from my life and I never got to say hi, so hi.

......what was that?

Oh. Hi.

She turns and walks away. She's cold as ice. I've been blown off by this Ice Queen. I follow up.

Are you married? Do you have a boyfriend? Let me buy your breakfast, let's talk.

Well fuck, who the fuck am I to blow off a free meal. Number three. Large drink.

From reserved to cursing like a sailor. She has an angelic voice with a sharp tongue. Fantastic. The fellow at the cash register rings her up and shortly afterward, her food is laid on a tray. She makes her drink and I lead her to the table I was at.

Tell me about yourself. Who are you. Where are you from?

I'm from like two blocks that way..

What do you do for a living?

Done a lot of things. Worked fast food, terrible job. Worked at Walmart. Had to hide my tattoos.

She pulls up her sleeve to reveal a skull tattoo. With snakes coming out of the eyes. It's a bit excessive, even for me.

I danced for a little bit too.

Danced?

You know..

She bumps and grinds a little bit, grinding on an imaginary pole and shaking her fantastic ass as she does so.

Danced. It paid really well. But it was toxic. I didn't care about being naked in public. I liked the attention. But the other girls. Fuck bitches, you know. And being around these fucking idiots every day wore on me. $500 a night only works out well when you're not spending $300 a night on drinks to forget the braindead bimbos around you. Beauty or brains, not both.

You seem to have both..

I feel a growth in my pants. I quickly reach in and redirect my growing solder to a downward direction, so that he's not standing at attention and pointing at what he wants. Standing in McDonalds, not in the cold, I'm getting hot. I peel off my hoody, throwing it into the booth. Percy kind of catches it gracelessly. He moves it across the table. He kind of nods at my new friend as he realizes she's looking at him.

And what do you do? You're certainly not the usual slub I see 'round these parts.

I'm in the entertainment industry.

Yeah? You a stripper too? You hung like a horse? Whip your dick out and shake it at bachlorettes for dollars? Most male strippers are gay. You gay? The guy over there, he your bear boyfriend? You're definitely the pretty one. Gay guys are usually one pretty guy, one fat ugly guy. He's the fat ugly one. You're pretty though.

She rambles off words almost faster than she can think. Everyone's got their issues and is a little damaged. She's a lot damaged. Before I can even say anything, she's back to a mile a minute rambling.

You're not gay, are you?

Nope. What gave it away?

You keep staring at my tits when you think I'm not paying attention, for one. And I'm pretty sure you grabbed your dick for a minute when you reached in your pocket earlier.

Guilty.

She laughs a little bit. An angelic laughter.

Me talking about being a stripper get you all hard, even without my clothes off? You want to see my tits? I'll do a personal little dance with you for two hundred. Not here though. Obviously. But no fucking. Get diseases that way and I got a clean bill of health. Some bitches be humpin' on the grind, but not me. What do you do? You said you're in entertainment. You're not a stripper, you're not a model, cause you're pretty but you're not THAT pretty, so what do you do?

You say too many words.

I'm usually a lot better with words, but I'm thrown off by this beautiful girl in my presence. I'm a bit reserved now, I suppose. But I also don't have the words to say because in the thirty seconds I've known this girl, she's said every word possible.

I'm a wrestler.

Like, in the Olympics?

On TV.

She's got a look on her face. A look in her eyes. I can't read it. It's not anger but it's a similar slant to anger. It's nothing positive though.

Hey, you want to get out of here? Maybe go get some good food? We can go back to my place and have a drink..

It's 10 AM.

According to the clock.

So you're an alcoholic wrestler?

No, I just thought.. I thought you'd be the type that'd like a good drink. I'm not a drinker.

But you have drinks ready at your house?

I had this girl who lived with me, who liked to drink.

What, like, a family member?

No.

A friend?

Kind of.

A girlfriend..?

She's out of the picture now. Look, I'm really into you. I want to learn more about you. Come with me? I can send my assistant back to my house to get the car..

You're asking me to go with you and you don't even have a car here?

I was running. He bicycled. He wouldn't be gone long..

I don't even know your name.

I extend my hand, leaning in to her and trying to still seem cool.

Phillip Schneider.

Well Phillip Schneider.. I'm Amy.. And I'm not interested.

And like that, the ice queen walks away. Percy looks up from his sandwich with confusion as she walks out the door, back into the brisk Chicago air. I'm left effectively with my dick in my hand, her gone and me dismissed.


Gluttony

I look out for Phillip Schneider. I look out for what's best for Phillip Schneider and to hell with anyone else.

It's been a while since we were backstage at a WFWF event. Now we're here and it feels like we never left. WFWF Superbrawl. Tempe, Arizona. I remember our first Superbrawl. It wasn't the spectacle it is today. Superbrawl III: A Brave New World. April 2005. I remember that show.. We were the curtain jerkers. And we had the whole night to watch the show from the cramped basketball locker room that housed the entire roster. Ironicly, on that night, we watched the same marquee match up as is currently playing on the television set, Zmaster's final match. Superbrawl VIII in 2014, it's Dex in a mask versus mask match. Superbrawl III, in 2005.. It was the man my best friend is stepping into the ring with, Drakz.

It's been a long and unusual road to Superbrawl VIII. Not just the build up to the show, the actual road to Tempe, Arizona. Phillip Schneider spent almost four hours in airport security for having concealed weapons in his bags in Chicago. Who knew in 2014, it wasn't okay to fly with syringes, razor blades, and an exacto knife in your bag. But beyond the actual unusual travel to Tempe, this has been a wild ride of a build to the match itself.

With Phillip Schneider comes his demons and sometimes his demons don't particularly co-operate with what's the most productive and profitable. He can do great things, but sometimes he's his worst enemy and in the build up to Superbrawl, I genuinely didn't think we were ever going to make it here. Drakz laid out a challenge for a unique match up. One of the reasons Phil walked away and stayed away was the lack of unique and interesting match ups. This one is unique. And Phil said no. The match was handed to him to happen on Scars and Stripes in December, and it didn't happen.

Phil needed something more than a match to really appeal to him. He needed a reward. He needed the National championship to be dangled for the second Superbrawl in a row.

Phil's taping up his hands, or at least starting to. It's a long process to layer his hands and fingers in athletic tape and I can see him moving his eyes back and forth to the television set we're provided with to watch portions of the Zmaster versus Dex match. The private locker room we've been provided with, to Phil's exact specifications, is a much different picture than the locker room we found ourselves in, in 2005. This doesn't stink of wrestler sweat and blood. In fact, there's no other wrestlers in the room. Just myself and Phil. We aren't looking over the shoulders of people taller than us as we sit in the back of the room, trying to see a sputtering in and out picture on a piece of shit monitor.. We're watching a wall mounted 36 inch plasma screen 1080i HDTV. There's no line near a bathroom waiting to use a filthy toilet. There's a clean toilet sitting unoccupied waiting for whatever movements Phillip Schneider may have, The King of Gore's personal porcelain throne.

I'm ready to get this over with so I can go home.

Despite everything that surrounds us, the perfectly climate controlled private room with the exact unusual requests of Phillip Schneider. Jack Link's Beef Jerky, diet Dr. Pepper, blue Poweraid, an Xbox One with Dead Rising 3.. The WFWF spent a lot of money for the exact commercial products that Phillip Schneider demanded for his presence and in return, Phillip Schneider has sat stewing and hasn't cracked the seal on a thing provided.

This is it.

Wait, what?

He rips his wrist tape and wraps it the rest of the way around, pressing it tight to his wrist. He takes his glasses off, laying them on top of his gym bag. He hops up from the black leather sofa and throws an axe kick at nothing. He's getting stretched in our tiny locker room. The background noise announces the demise of the Zmaster, so perhaps that's what my client is referencing, the end of the star of our era.

Tonight, I'm going to go out there, I'm going to beat Drakz within an inch of his life..

He throws a phantom spinning back elbow, letting out a “JSSSSSSSH” sound as he does so.

I'm going to complete the puzzle.... the National title..... to finish my Grand Slam....

With every brief pause, he's throwing palm strikes, lefts and rights alternating.

And then.... I'm going to leave... I'm going to leave this place.... And I'm never coming back..... Nothing will convince me to come back.... No one will talk me into coming back..... I'm gone........ Mother fucker, I'm gone.... Now which way to gorilla?

He heads out the door of our locker room to navigate through the vast catacombs of the stadium to find his way to the gorilla position. He's still stretching his wrists as we make our way walking, I'm trying my best to keep up with his speed walk, while still trying to fathom exactly what he's just said. He nearly plows through someone I can't identify. Wrestler. Low card. I know I've seen them before but I can't put a face to a name. Regardless, they're able to side step at the last second to avoid the charging train that is Phillip Schneider.

This is it, Percy. This is it.

You're just going to go out there, wrestle your last match...

Yep.

Unannounced...

Yep.

With no pomp and circumstance that it is your last match...

Yep.

That doesn't sound very Phillip Schneider like, why? Why the sudden change of heart?

Because fuck this place, that's why.

Sharp right turn, Phil plows through a black curtain and into a holding bay. There's a load roar of cheers and screams, a tables, ladders, and chairs eight person mayhem taking place about three hundred feet away and actually placed above us on elevated seating. Phil makes his way past the backstage interview area. Someone tries to stop him or say something to him, making the mistake of getting in his path and nearly getting shoved to the ground in the process.

Will you hold up for a damn second? What's your rush? There's still a solid half hour before your match.

I'm ready to get this over with. I'm ready to go out there now.

And the format sheet says TLC, then Penny Shannon and Cameron Stone, then Yukio Blaze and Joe Bishop, THEN Schneider and Drakz. You've still got two full matches.. Now what is this talk about just walking away?

I'm done.

When Phil gets into this sort of mood, he's damn near impossible to talk to. He gets an idea in his head and rolls with it, regardless if it makes sense or is logical at all. These sort of occurrences used to be once in a great while but now they're becoming more and more regular as my friend seems to be losing his grip on reality. The Psycho Circus was what I thought was the boiling point, but if that's the case, then now the pan is boiling over and there's a massive mess everywhere. Phil grabs a bottle of water from a Kraft services table. They're placed all over the building, but I didn't think we'd be visiting them tonight, considering the very exact demands Phil made before climbing on a plane.

What more is there for me? Tonight, I'm going to go out there and treat Drakz like a disgraced whore. I'm going to beat him and when he's dead and buried, I'm going to piss on his corpse. This is it for me, Percy. I've done it all. This is two birds with one stone, the final two birds. Two time World Heavyweight champion, longest reigning. I took that from Johnny Michaels, which was icing on the cake. International title, twice. World Tag Team titles, three times. Two Hall of Fame rings. I beat Michael Kyzer clean in the center of the ring and took the title from him. That was two birds with one stone, too. Now, now this is the final birds. I'm going to go out there and prove to the world that I'm better than Drakz, the last guy running around here who thinks he's better than me and who's got enough of a reasonable doubt in people other than his own mind that it means something to me to smash him... And in the process, I'm grabbing the National title. This is all that's left for me. And when this is done.. I'm going to hop on a plane with my jerky, my Xbox One, and my Poweraid.. and I'm going to go home.

At least the amenities aren't going to waste...

Fuck this place, Percy. Fuck this entire god forsaken industry.


Greed

Trapped under ice
Comfortably cold
I've gone as low as you can go
Feel no remorse
No sense of shame
Time's gonna wash away all pain

I made a god out of blood
Not superiority
I killed the king of deceit
Now I sleep in anarchy.

As we ride down the back roads of Chicago in route to the airport, it's KMFDM “Anarchy” playing through the car stereo. This was supposed to be Phil's entrance theme when he switched to KMFDM, but he decided at the last second he liked All or Nothing a little bit better. I think his indecisiveness is a little bit of what annoyed Sascha from the start. I catch Phil singing along to the song. I'm not surprised. Despite his ruined vocal cords and very gruff voice, he still thinks he can sing. But here, here he takes a very particular elevation in volume on a couple of lines. Feel no remorse. No sense of shame. Time's gonna wash away all pain. He turns the song down for a moment.

That's what makes me a killer, Percy. I feel no remorse. For anyone.

I know.

I've got a broken human genome. You, you feel remorse and compassion for other's pain. I only care about myself and my daughters. Anyone else comes below.

I know, you've made that perfectly clear..

It's why my love life has been a failure. I didn't give a fuck about Meg. Or Alexis.

And here's a bridge we've approached several times but never crossed. What he did to Alexis.. Alexis was special to me. Not just because she was an attractive young girl who seemed to find me charming, in a beauty and the beast sort of way, but because she was a really unique, special young woman. And Phil ran her away.

The problem with Alexis is she thought she was a lot more important than she really was. She thought she was going to be the big dog, then she realized she was a poodle tangling with pit bulls. And too late, too. She never should've entered Survival of the Fittest. And if she found herself in a situation where she was entered against her will like she claimed she was, she could've eliminated herself instantly. She knew what would happen if she won Survival of the Fittest and she was okay with that. She was gunning for me.

She was an eighteen year old girl and you ended her career.

Don't give a fuck, Percy.

I know you don't give a fuck and that's exactly the problem. That young woman looked up to you, she looked at you as a mentor and as a father figure. And she thought that your match was going to be something a lot different than it was.

She should've have. Should've known I'm a fucking monster.

Yeah.. You sure showed everyone how much of a monster you are that night, didn't you.. You knew Meg had a bad back. You used to rub her back every night. You knew exactly why she wasn't wrestling any more. And when you got the chance, you threw her with a German suplex into the ring steps..

She was getting in my way.

She's not corrupt! You weren't trying to win the match, you were trying to cripple Alexis. You and I both know that, and if she hadn't stepped in, I would've.

And I would've dropped you the same way.

Why'd it all have to go down like that, man? Why'd it have to go that far?

It did because it did.

That doesn't even make any sense.

Icarus flew too close to the sun. Her wax wings melted.. She got too close to Satan and Satan kicked her back down to earth in a crash.

You couldn't just go out there and out wrestle her, you had to end her career. It's nonsense. This is why we haven't talked about this, in the two years since it happened, because it still pisses me off.

Necessary evil.

You could've just won the match..

He looks at me with a sparkle in his eyes. A sick sparkle. A smile on his face..

And what fun would that have been?


Anger

I swing my car into the drive way, quickly turn it off and run inside. I want to talk to Samantha as soon as possible. I don’t have to look for her.

She’s standing at the top of the stairs.

And she has an extension cord around her neck.

Sam…

It’s too late Dad. I wanted to talk, but you were too busy. You were too busy raising the son that you always wanted. Tommy Staxx. I watched the video. You said he was the son you always wanted. Well you’ve got your son now and you don’t need me. You go off and play with your son, Dad. You have a damn good time.

Sam, that was just an interview. I was in character…

That’s the thing, Dad.. Your character never ends. You come home on such an adrenaline rush, but you’re dead tired. So you sit up all night on the computer, arguing with people on message boards and on Twitter under fake names.. You have these freaks living here.. You know the one armed guy stole my underwear? I bet you would know that, if you paid any attention to me at all..

……I’m sorry..

It’s too late, Dad. You want to reach out to Scarlett Quinn on TV? You want to mock her for all the father issues SHE’S had? Because her parents are divorced over wrestling? Because her dad was never there for her growing up? NEWS FLASH MOTHER FUCKER, you’re not married to my mom! You were never there for ME growing up. How many school concerts have you been to of mine, Dad, how many? Because I’ve been in the band for SIX YEARS. I bet you don’t even know what instrument I play. Because that’s never important. To you, I’m just a pawn. I’m just a background character who tends to interfere in your life. You catch me stealing at Walmart.. That’s not a Samantha problem.. Oh no.. that’s a Phillip Schneider problem because it’s bad press! You catch me with “sexy underwear” and a condom wrapper, but that’s not a Samantha growing up problem.. Oh no.. that’s a Phillip Schneider has an out of control daughter problem! You moved a woman into MY house without even asking me, Dad..

I can’t fight the tears any more. I feel sick to my stomach, a pain deep in my stomach, as the tears roll down my cheeks.

I’m sorry..

You’re SORRY? You’re SORRY?? You’re sorry that my mom abandoned me, and you moved into MY house, and that wasn’t a big enough change so you also had to move your new girlfriend in?? Into MY house? Mom can leave.. You can go run off to Germany.. And go all around the US and Japan and Mexico and where ever else.. But this is MY home.. And you move a girlfriend in here without even asking me? Without even a “hey, Sam, are you okay with this?” because let me tell you, I’m not. Meg wasn’t my mother. She can play pretend like she was a mother figure all she wants, but she’s not.. So what happens.. You get tired of her, so I get to watch you flip her backwards and try to cripple her on national TV and I get to watch you stab a girl who I DID LIKE in Alexis, in the knee with a fucking needle.. And if THAT isn’t the cherry on the shit sundae, you move a new girlfriend in almost immediately. A girl, who LET ME REMIND YOU is less than five years older than me.. And wears clothes smaller than me. That makes you a pervert on top of being a lousy father.

She takes a step up onto the ledge of the stairwell. I want to run up there, grab her, and save her.. But my legs don’t work. I’m frozen in place. My brain is saying go by my legs aren’t getting the message. I’ve got a horrible case of the shakes all through my arms, goosebumps up and down my arms and chest. I try to take a step but just fall.

So now.. This is a Samantha problem. Figure out a way to spin this one to your sob story.

And my heart breaks. She jumps. It’s like bullet speed as I watch her fall through the air. The tension on the electric cord that she’s noosed around her neck tightens. She’s falling through the air. Bullet speed.. I watch her rag doll as she falls.. And as all the tension on the cord is tightened.. I hear a loud pop.

Thank God, it’s not her neck. The hand rail that she’s tied the electric cord to snaps. The wood snaps into about three and splinters off. Samantha doesn’t even slow down in her fall. My bullet speed vision snaps back to reality. And Samantha dead weights all the way to the ground, crashing onto a coffee table below. There’s a hallow thud. It doesn’t break, or have any give at all. It’s solid oak and a cube rather than a square.. Filled with magazines on the inside.. No give at all.. It’s like Sam just fell from twelve feet up to concrete awkwardly.. My legs suddenly work again. I rush over to her. She’s not moving.. But she’s breathing.



Know those times when your life goes into a blur and you lose time? That's what happened here. At some point, I dialed 911. I calmly explained what happened to them. They came and got her. They brought her to the hospital and they brought me along. Somehow, I was coherent enough to remember her name, her medical history, and my own name. I don't remember any of this. I even managed to call her mother.

That was my biggest mistake. That's what brings me back to reality.

Your daughter really screwed up this time. She tried to kill herself? Really Phil? She tried to kill herself? You're father of the fucking year, Phil. You probably think she's going to go home with you after all of this, don't you? When it's all said and done, you'll take her home and back to your sick world. You're sick, Phil. You're sick and you've sickened our daughter. You've made her like you. You want her to be like you? You want her to be fucked up like you?

My ex wife, Ashley Schneider, ex wife who hasn't bothered to give back my name, has made her grand entrance. Or maybe she's been here for a while. The whole time lapse thing. Either way, she's now made her presence felt and is screaming like a maniac at me. Looking around, she's been here for at least a few minutes because she has a coffee cup in her hand. And there goes the coffee cup. She's screaming and carrying on, mostly just saying the same things over and over. Her voice is getting louder but she's not saying anything new. She's like one of those fat black women on Maury. She's just screaming the same thing over and over again, screaming the same thing over and over again. But there's a sudden silence. Well, there was a twack and a sudden silence. From the total chaos and anger, to a silence. The whole world has stopped. But they stopped to see what just happened. I feel a heat running up my hand and I realize why she's stopped screaming. Because I've hit her in the mouth. I've hit her hard enough in the mouth to knock her down and bust her lip. She sits on the ground and sells it. She's a worker. She knows what she's doing and for dramatic effect, she's laying on the ground selling that she got slapped. If she hadn't been acting like a street walking gutter slut, she wouldn't have got slapped down like a street walking gutter slut. But the stinging in my hand is joined by a familiar pressure up my leg. Because apparently in auto pilot, I made the decision that if she's going to lay on the ground and pretend to be dead, she may as well actually be dead and my brain sent the message to my foot “hey, kick her in the face” and you know what? My leg was like “yeah, that's a great idea!” and I drove my size 11 Starters into her face. The emergency room has silenced, but it's like someone turned the audio back on. Because suddenly, I can hear things I couldn't hear before. I hear a baby crying in the distance. I smell. I smell coffee brewing. Or maybe that's the coffee Ashley threw at me earlier. It's seasoned though. It's seasoned with the familiar irony smell of blood.

Someone decides he's going to be the knight and shining armor. He's a young black man. Probably twenty five. He gets between me and Ashley. Like I'm going to do anything else, I've already broken the cliché of “kick'em when they're down” by literally kicking her when she's down, what more am I going to do? Spit on her? Eh, what the hell, seems like a good idea. I lean around Ashley's protector and spit a big wad of saliva down onto Ashley. Our ebony hero thinks he's going to do something about the emptying of fluids onto the trifling wench of the village and rushes me. And then he's on the ground. I've read a fair amount about catatonic states caused by extreme trauma or anger. It can happen to people who've seen wartime casualties. And usually when the catatonic state passes, the offender will feel remorse for their actions. I feel no remorse. No sense of shame. And if it wasn't for the hospital security cameras I was presented as evidence, I likely would still have no recollection of the events that happened on this night, after Samantha's incident. But through those multiple angle, high definition video cameras I was able to witness from a third person perspective my entire vortex of violence. The one punch knock out of Ashley, the subsequent kick to the face, the spitting, the knee to the stomach of an innocent bi-standard. At some point I threw a chair through a window and while it wasn't caught on camera, when my day in court came, I didn't deny it because based on my state, it sure seemed like it fit my profile. And all of this.. this is what led to my time away from the ring. And it led to a six month vacation in Stateville Correctional Center. B Block.


Heresy

Prison has been a relief for me. It's odd. I wrestled a huge match on Pay Per View. I defended my championship belt in probably the craziest match in WFWF history.. That Tuesday, cops met me at the airport and arrested me then and there for aggravated assault and assault with a deadly weapon. I apparently hit her with my phone. Explains where my phone went. The booking officer questioned why I was so cut up and burned, if it was from the altercation. I just said yes. It's easier that way.

Part of the booking process included a medical exam. That was probably the most fun part of it. This nurse, who's job is to inspect hardened criminals, is absolutely disgusted by my appearance, my wounds. And for her job to be considered a success, she had to document every wound that I had on my body and every SCAR I had on my body. What is typically about an hour process became an all day thing as she examined every prick from barbed wire, every slice from the razor blade chair and after Psycho Circus, there were a lot of them.. As she measured and documented the various burns on my body from the Decaying Society lighting that idiotic circus top on fire.. And as the inspection went on, she became more and more disheveled, the wounds and damage all over my body clearly getting the best of her. I had my laughs when she tried to get a blood sample from me, though.

Just hold still for a second, hon.

She spoke with her deep Southern growl. Her voice, defeated, as she's had to go three times for more pages to my medical examination report. Now she was simply wanting to get home to her family (those cats aren't going to feed themselves, you know) and out of this office. Now, she held a piece of rubber and a needle in her hand. If it was Kyzer in this seat, he'd probably be licking his lips. Dinner time. It's an empty syringe.

If you're squeamish from needles, it's okay to look away hon.

Remember those scars on my cheeks? Needles don't really bother me.

She sighs. She's defeated. She feels like a medical robot at this point, here at my beck and call to complete this. She wraps the elastic around my arm and pricks me with the needle. I feel the pump of the needle go up and I look over. Call me perverse but I like the sight of blood. My blood, other people's blood, animal blood, whatever. I like blood. And to my surprise, there's no blood. No blood at all. She pulls the needle out and inspects it. She's looking to make sure it's working right, I guess. The lack of blood would say otherwise. She tries the same injection sight again and again, she gets nothing. So she tries the other arm. And as the plunger goes up, I'm almost as shocked as she is by the lack of blood.

What's wrong with you? I'm hitting the vein.

I lost a lot of blood on Sunday.

You don't understand, there's no blood at all.

I lost a LOT of blood on Sunday..

There's no way.. there's...

She's stopped mid word. Not only does the blood begin to flow, it flows with a tremendous pressure. It flows with enough pressure that the needle pops out and it begins to pump out of my arm. I know an old trick, so I clinch my fist tight, then release, then clinch it tight again. I can't help but smile as the scarlet volcano erupts, spraying this pepper haired nurse in the face with a picture perfect visceral money shot. She wipes it from her face, sighing as she does so.

We'll just copy some information from another chart and chalk this one up as a loss..

But from there, since that day, my life hasn't had a whole lot of excitement. Wake up. Sit in my cell. Throw my ball against the wall. Go to sleep. I don't even know how many days I've been in here at this point because I've lost track of time. On my first day in here, they realized I was a risk and put me in solitary confinement. A lot of people find religion in prison. I found religion to be delicious. A drug dealer (I assume, he WAS black) presented me with a bible and wished it to give me strength. I know you gain strength through your dietary habits, so I pulled the book open to the bookmark, ripped a page out, and proceeded to eat the bible. I was going to try a second page, but stopped when my new ebony friend decided he wanted to dance. He was coming right at me with a toothbrush that had been sawed into a shank. I caught his wrist, quickly took his weapon from him, locked him in a three fourths chancery for a moment, and then jammed his toothbrush into his scalp. Only about an inch or so deep. Not deep enough to cause any damage but deep enough that I got the visual of him running around like a wounded duck, grabbing at his head and realizing I turned him into a rhinoceros. I had always heard that if you wanted to prove yourself in prison, on your first day in, you should go up and pick a fight with the baddest man in the prison to prove yourself. Unfortunately, no one in Stateville Correctional Center, B Block would be able to prove themselves now, because the baddest man in the prison was now sitting in a solitary cell, bouncing a red ball against the wall and singing songs he doesn't know the words to. God damn you half Japanese girls, you do it to me every time.. all the something something something fellow, and I'm Jello, BABY!

When you sit alone for hours upon days upon weeks in, you're left to your own thought. You're left to reflect. You're left to look back on your life like reading imaginary memoirs.

I really ed up.

That's all that's going through my mind. I could've been a musician. I could've been a writer. I could've been a film maker. I could've set Hollywood on fire. I could've been the next Tom Savini. I'm certainly creative enough and the visceral splatter of bodily fluids don't phase me, fictional or reality. I could've done anything I set my mind to, frankly. At six foot three inches, and two hundred and ten pounds on my best day and a walking around weight more like one eighty, but two Hall of Fame rings in the land of the giants and behemoths, I think I've proven that.

I really ed up.

I went with a profession that not only has no retirement policy, no form of life after death social security, but is compounded and amplified by the destructive force it plays with your body. Your knees, elbows, head, neck.. None of them are the same after even one pro wrestling match, so working professional wrestling into a career is frankly foolish. To do it for ten years of your life is asinine, but the fact remains when it comes time to consider an exit strategy, there really isn't one. There isn't anything that you can transition working as a professional wrestler into. You work in software development and that company goes under, you can take your knowledge from that company to a different one and continue to have a job. If you work at General Motors for twenty years, that plant closes and you lose your pension, well, what you learned at GM still applies to cars as a whole and that Mom and Pop auto parts store will be glad to have you as a highly skilled mechanic. But you put on a resume “I can body slam someone” what's it really going to qualify you for beyond manual labor, and I'd be remiss to say I am six foot three, more like one hundred and ninety pounds now, and a convicted felon, charged with aggravated domestic battery and assault with a deadly weapon, in addition to a record of being attached to a murder, so these manual labor jobs.. they aren't going to call me let's just say.

I really ed up.

It plays through my head as an endlessly branching loop as I attempt to find the source of my ups. I ed up here and it led to this up there, which led to this up here and , I lost my train of thought and I don't remember what I was thinking about so I have to start the entire chain over and now I want to think about something else so I'm thinking about some graffiti I saw on the side of a train like two years ago that just said “turds” in really elaborate letters and it makes me laugh and I miss my ball when it bounces back and now I'm stuck in a cage twenty three hours a day, realizing I ed up with no ball to occupy my time and distract me from my mind playing this loop of ups.

I really ed up

Wrestling's been my main priority for so many years, to the point that it's literally all I know. I can't go work at another job because I have absolutely no skills what so ever. I couldn't work at McDonalds. I don't know how to cook a hamburger. I know how to wrestle. And now, now those skills can't get me out of the situation I've found myself in, stuck in a cage. I went from a cage match with three other people where violence was the solution, to stuck in a cage by myself where violence is the problem.. And I'm left to contemplate my own mortality and my new reality.

I really ed up.


Violence


I've watched it time and time again. It's pornographic to me. I gain pleasure from it. I become aroused as I watch it. But as many times as I watch it, I always have a copy handy. I have the blu ray always sitting on my Playstation 3 in the living room. It's ripped to my iPad. It's on my computer. It's on my phone. I have the highspots on my personal Youtube channel because I never want to be in a situation where I can't watch it. It's gratifying.


Hutton is out on his feet. Schneider has a huge smile on his crimson covered face as his assistant drags the corpse of his rival across the ring. Percy picks Hutton up under the armpits like a child, setting him on the top rope.


Matt Steel: They are standing over this monstrosity and I really don't like what I am pretty sure is about to happen..


Matthew Werner: Death..


Matt Steel: Well, he promised to cripple Hutton..


When Phillip Schneider says something, it's going to happen. I say I'm going to beat you, I'm going to beat you. I say I'm going to cripple you and end your career? Then there's a good chance your name is Hutton Brown.


Schneider wipes the blood and hair from his face. He grabs Hutton by both ears, smearing his own blood on Hutton’s face. Schneider kisses Hutton on the lips.


Matt Steel: Now what the f**k is that?


Matthew Werner: Haven’t you seen The Godfather movies? That’s the kiss of death..


What the cameras didn't show was Hutton Brown waking up in his hotel room with his horse's head in bed with him. I had plans to take him fishing too, had he not got all Christopher Reeves here..


Schneider has a huge grin on his bloody face. He slides behind Hutton, locking him in an inverted full nelson and lifting him up on his back. Hutton is dead weight as Schneider pulls him as high up as he can. He stands up on the top as he takes Hutton up and over, driving Hutton head first, upside down into the tacks, glass, and finally the rail.


Matthew Werner: SWEET JEBUS!


Matt Steel: MY GOD! BEVERLY KILLS 90210, ONTO ALL OF THAT!


No death match stuff. No weapons. No blood. Those are what he said. That was the stipulation going into Superbrawl. It had to be on *his* terms. And then he walked away. But he sure threw himself into the fray of violence with me and Kyzer in Japan, didn't he? Marched right into the war zone of no rope barbed wire and as far as I'm concerned, that means death match stuff, blood, violence, and fractured bones are all well and good.


A huge explosion of glass and tacks shoots both ways, half flying into the crowd, half flying into the ring and showering a less than thrilled Raider. As the carnage settles, Schneider is left sitting in the wreckage. In his arms, still upside down, still planted in the Beverly Kills 90210 landing position, is Hutton Brown. The guard rail didn’t budge at all under the two men’s crashing weight.


Matt Steel: Well, at least we know our guard rails are secure..


Matthew Werner: This is not the time, at all, for jokes Matt.. Hutton Brown is seriously hurt here. There’s no way he’s not. He was out on his feet before all of that. He wasn’t protecting himself at all.. And let’s forget the glass and tacks.. He just came down head first on a galvanized steel guard rail, that didn’t budge at all..


”Acts of cruelty to animals are not mere indications of a minor personality flaw in the abuser; they are symptomatic of a deep mental disturbance. Research in psychology and criminology shows that people who commit acts of cruelty to animals don’t stop there—many of them move on to their fellow humans”. I recall the days prepubescence when I'd catch a chipmunk or a squirrel and slowly torture it over the course of a few days until nature took it's effect, or I got bored. And snapping those tiny twig legs or eventually twisting the neck until it pops, it just wasn't as orgasmic as this moment in time was. It didn't leave me pareuniac for years to follow. Fond memories, sure, but not the state of bliss that cracking the vertebrae of Hutton Brown did. Do onto others who've done onto you.


Schneider has soaked in enough of his moment. He rolls Hutton off of him, under the bottom rope, and back into the ring. The referee tries to check on Hutton and Schneider shoves him to his ass.


Matt Steel: No DQ..


Matthew Werner: He’s trying to check on Hutton’s safety to stop the damn match, you cold hearted bastard!


Schneider grabs the left arm and left leg of Hutton and pulls him to the middle of the ring. There, he puts one finger on Hutton’s chest. Reluctantly, the referee makes the count,


... 1 ...


... 2 ...


... 3 ...


Keri Thames: Hutton Brown has been eliminated from this match.


Matt Steel: Hutton Brown has been eliminated from life.[/center][/quote]


There's moments in a man's life that he'll never forget. Moments of pure bliss that are forever engrained into a psyche and into a personality that shape you as an individual. Your “first time” for instance. I remember mine. She was the neighborhood whore, Kim was her name. She blew me to completion in the creek behind our houses, swallowed my vile load without hesitation, then continued sucking until my soldier was prepared to cross behind enemy lines. I pounded at her until my knees went weak and I collapsed, taking her with me into the water and filling her with my DNA. But that moment in time, while vividly painted in my mind and having helped me through nights of self gratification in the past.. It's not painted nearly as vividly in my mind as that hot night in July. I remember the glass, I remember the intoxicating aroma mixture of beer, popcorn, and the metallic crimson scent oozing from Hutton's forehead. I remember everything. It's painted with me forever. It is a defining moment to me. These are the days our lives.


Fraud

The dictionary defines fraud as “wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.” I consider the first few years of my WFWF career to be embedded with fraud. Because while I parade around and pretend to be this fun loving, happy, jovial individual, the fact is deep down inside, I've always been evil. I've always had these desires inside of me, the evil intentions. I like to hurt people.

But to get ahead. To get my foot in the door and to get noticed.. I made people laugh. I said funny things and I made a fool of myself. Los Hobos. It rhymes. It sells t-shirts. Obo the Hobo. It's catchy. People remember what an Obo the Hobo is. And now, ten plus years later, my frauds continue to haunt me. People like Josh Dean, they remember what I did. They remember me and Percy throwing Thunder into a door to open it. They remember regurgitation in a bucket of fried chicken and dumping it on someone's head. He remembers a recreational vehicle we called “The Win a Bagel” because it was cute. He remembers.

I remember too. I remember being ashamed of the things I was doing. Tears of a clown, smile so I don't frown. Do what I have to do get by and put food on the table for my wife and daughter. WFWF, guys gotta do something to set themselves apart and when you have a carnival of weird characters like the evil Dr. Macabre, the crazy foreigner from Finland Saku, and a group calling themselves The Holocaust racial insensitivity be dammed, you've got the mighty Zmaster in his silly red mask on the top of the cards, you've got to do something to set yourself apart. Phillip Schneider wasn't cutting it. Neither was Devon Tatum, the quintessential catch as catch can wrestler. How about that fraud?

There comes a time when you've just got to suck it up and do whatever it is that you've got to do to make your money. Everyone works a job they hate. The best option is to just go in with a positive mental attitude and hope that at the end of the day, you maintain enough of your dignity and enough of your soul that you can look yourself in the mirror. And every time I laced up my boots and put on my wrestling gear, then slid on my torn jean shorts, dirty t-shirt, and tattered flannel over my wrestling gear.. I felt a small portion of my soul melting away. Every time I pandered to the fans for their approval, I felt a small portion of my soul melting away. Piece by piece, section by section, I quickly realized where my soul was.. It's now vacant. It's filled by a void. I'm dead inside and the fraud that was Obo the fun loving Hobo is what killed me.

Percy, do you ever have shame in what we did?

You're going to have to be more specific, pal.

Percy turns around from the desk that he's occupying his time at. He's doing something on the computer. I usually don't ask what Percy is doing when he's using my office, because it's usually stuff I can't be bothered to do myself. But there are times, when he's doing this sort of busy work, that I find myself just hanging out in the office, either so that I have the company, or so that I can observe.

Los Hobos.

Why would I be ashamed of Los Hobos?

Because it wasn't real. Nothing about it was real. And it wasn't realistic. If we're these professional athletes on a large scale television product, why are we dirty and homeless? Why were we living in a cardboard box when we're supposed to be the highest level of professional wrestler in North America?

I think we explained that away as we were being paid in sandwiches. GOOD sandwiches.

That's not the point. Do you not see it as wrong? It was exploitative for one. We were exploiting genuine homeless people for comedic relief. Don't you feel at least a bit of shame in that?

Not at all. It was the blunt of my career and it's what put me into the WFWF Hall of Fame. I realize you've had a career on your own, but I didn't pal. Los Hobos was pretty much it for me.

So you don't feel at least a little bit dirty, pardon the pun, that we were playing a sympathy card that wasn't genuine?

Let me get this straight, just so that I can wrap my brain around exactly what you're saying. You regularly stab opponents with barbeque skewers and needles. You've become a fan of throwing balls of fire into your opponent's or rival's faces. You've stabbed people with forks and most recently, you took the entire television show hostage at knife point. You've ended a dozen careers and you bolster proudly about the names that no one would otherwise remember..

Lincoln Dina, Lightening, BenJa Hart, Mason Dixon, Johnny Albright, Luke Collins, Johnny Knight...

You opened your home to a long time acquaintance turned girlfriend and her student, her student became your student.. and when things went south you purposely tried to cripple said girlfriend by exploiting a past injury and sexually assaulted and physically annihilated the aforementioned eighteen year old girl on national television. You still wrestle wearing the elbow pad that you took off of Hutton Brown's body after you intentionally, deliberately, and maliciously ended his career. That Beverly Kills 90210 off the top rope into all of those weapons ended his career, you know that, and you're proud of that. You spent the better part of an hour trying to rebreak Drakz' back, a back injury that almost ended his career and put him out of action for over a year. But acting like a hobo.. dancing around and pretending to be homeless and doing schtick, THAT'S what you have remorse for? THAT'S what you regret?

Yeah.. Pretty much.

You're a strange cat, Phillip Schneider.

He spins his chair back around and resumes whatever he was working on at the computer as I'm left to my own vices and thoughts.


Treachery


Without WFWF, there is no Phillip Schneider.

Without Phillip Schneider, there is WFWF.

I can change that.


I hate this company. I hate everything to do with this company. And I can't leave. This, this is my penance. I made the choice years and years ago. I declared my loyalties, I waved the WFWF flag.. I could've went elsewhere when the “getting was good”. But I stuck around. And for my loyalty, I was rewarded with Alex Sean publicly mocking and taunting me, until I didn't go elsewhere.. I just went.

I loved wrestling, Alex. I LOVED IT. And you killed that. You stabbed it in the heart and you laughed as it pumped vital fluids and plasma onto the floor. You watched my innocence die, Alex Sean, and it amused you. And then, Obo died. People call me Obo still, same face.. But Obo died. Obo was a kind, gentle, forgiving soul. Obo was Obo the Hobo, the comedy act. Obo was a guy who wouldn't kill just for the fun of killing, wouldn't cut someone down just for his own amusement. That's something Phillip Schneider would do. Phillip Schneider, he's evil.

There's a good and evil to every man. A yin and a yang. The angel and devil. And evil, evil is created when someone's yin is blackened to the same shade as their yang. The angel is suffocated. And the devil reigns supreme. Alex Sean, you and you alone created me. You created this devil. And if anyone is responsible for my evil, it's you. No one will argue that I've changed. I don't do comedy now. I don't make hehe, haha jokes.. I don't cut funny promos. I don't even get involved with funny promos. Ask Trace Demon what happens when someone makes jest of my situation.

The unfortunate reality is that my brain was killed years ago. Just the body remains. And the body knows that the WFWF holds some sort of significance, but it doesn't understand that it's a good thing or a bad thing. It just knows it's a thing. And looking around, I don't see anything to convince me that it's a good thing. You've got a guy who couldn't get by on his own merits as the owner of the company, and when he becomes the owner, he becomes the top star, WHERE HAVE I HEARD THAT STORY BEFORE? The WFWF has a guy as the champion who'd be lucky to have opened cards when I was at my peak. Dex couldn't have ended my run. Dex couldn't have beaten Kyzer, Drakz, Trace Demon, Scarlett Quinn, Shawn Malakai, or hell, Johnny Michaels. Dex isn't the champion. Dex has the championship belt and he's going to be announced as the champion in New York City, but Dex isn't the champion. To be the man, you've got to beat the man, and Dex didn't beat the man. Dex beat Zmaster. Zmaster hasn't been “the man” in 10 years. You beat up a senior citizen, Dex. That doesn't make you the greatest in the company, that makes you a common thug.

So Josh Dean, Drakz, Dex, Trace Demon, Thunder, whoever.. you can call me Obo. But if you enter that ring, you look to the other side of that 20x20 wood and steel enclosure, and you think you're looking at Obo, the guy who reigned supreme here in 2007.. You think you're looking at Obo the Hobo, the tag team sensation of 2004, you're sadly mistaken. Ten years have passed. Ten years is a long time. And I got a lot of pain. You look at my body. Look at my face. My face tells my pain. These marks and lines, they don't go away. The markings I have from my wars within the squared circle have changed me and they're with me forever. This, this doesn't go away. I'm not the same person in any way as I was in 2004. And for anyone to even think that, it's foolish.

I'm not a superhero. The entire concept of a superhero sickens me, in fact. Look at Batman. Here's a guy that at his base is just an average, every day guy. But when he puts on his suit covered in gadgets, gismos, and dodads, he becomes The Batman. He's extraordinary. He's super. I think at Superbrawl, I proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, I don't need gismos, gadgets, or devices to be effective and do what I do and I certainly don't need a uniform to gain my powers.

The idea of a superhero is what sickens me, though. Here's a guy who does good because it's the right thing to do. Not for personal gain, notoriety, whatever.. They do it because it's right. Call me a born villain, but I don't particularly care if what I'm doing is right or wrong, I care how it directly benefits me. I'm not looking out for society as a whole because society as a whole sickens me. Why should I stick up for the average Joe Schmo when he'd rather have me lynched than look me in the eye and say “thank you”.

I realized a long time ago that doing the right thing wasn't the right thing. I was a good guy. I made hehe haha comedy and I was fairly successful. I was funny in fact. But funny doesn't equal money and while I entertained the masses, I was bouncing checks to buy groceries to feed my family. But I show a little vicious streak.. and suddenly I've got the International title belt slung over my shoulder. Show my mean spirit and lack of compassion and I've got the World Heavyweight title thrown over my shoulder. Align myself with a similarly ruthless and malicious individual and I've got the World Tag Team championships once more.

Yukio Blaze can wear the white hat and trumpet that he's the last of a dying breed, that he's a hero. I don't want the Batsuit. I don't want the Batcave and I don't even want to steer the Batmobile. I'm not a rolemodel nor am I someone that children should want to be. I'm a survivor. I'm the bottom of the barrel scum that's leftover when everything else is gone. Because I can't go. I've got no where to go. This, the WFWF.. This is my purgatory.

You can say I'm disrespectful. I wouldn't call it that at all. I'd say I have a lack of human compassion and a genuine lack of care for those in front of me. A lack of human compassion is the true root of all evil. And I am the face of evil. Mason Dixon found that out. Another name lost to time. Benja Hart, Lincoln Dina, Lionhart, Eric Adams, …..Hutton Brown. They all tangled with the undisputed King of Gore and met their ultimate demise. They stepped into the vortex of violence and were never seen again.

But it's disrespectful. It's disrespectful that after attempting to maim him for an hour plus, after going directly after his surgically repaired and professionally rehabilitated back, when Drakz caught me by surprise in an arm bar, I wasn't willing to shake his hand. I'd rather have pulled a box cutter out of my boot and shanked his hand. I'm not like you, Josh. I don't need the admiration of my peers and I don't need the admiration of the crowd. I don't do this for sport. I do this for money. I do this to feed my family and the people I compete with directly oppose what I'm trying to do, because the winner's share of the purse is significantly larger than the loser's share.

Josh Dean, you come on WFWF TV and you say all the things you want. You seen me break Mason Dixon's arm. You knew his arm was snapped like a twig. Why didn't you come out the second I did it to be the knight in shining armor? Instead you let me further abuse him. You let the cat play with the dead mouse, throw it around a bit. Torment and torture it. And only when I decided to end him did you come out all fired up, full of piss and vinegar and say your piece. Guess what, Josh? You're not worthy.

You're not worthy of my presence. That's why you've been sitting. You've been frothing. You've had yourself ready for a climax for weeks now and I've been sitting back watching you. The best swordsman in the land isn't afraid of the second best swordsman. He's afraid of the worst. Because while he knows he's better than the second best swordsman in the land, the worst swordsman is completely unpredictable and will make erratic moves that are unscoutable, unpreventable, and those type of movements will catch even a master. Josh Dean, for the last few months, I've been scouting you. I've been watching you. David Brennan, Drakz, Dave Demento, one match after another and every time you step foot into the ring. Every time I hear “Perfect Strangers”, it's music to my ears, because every single time you step foot into that eighteen by eighteen ring, you expose one more weakness. One more quirk. One more idiosyncrasy that I can exploit.

I've been studying your footage Josh. Either live as it happens or on tape delay when I have to get involved personally. And I'm realizing something, Josh. I'm realizing that when I bring the violence, you shut down. When I bludgeoned and brutalized Mason Dixon, when I ENDED HIS CAREER.. You had to make it stop. It had nothing to do with you and you had to make it stop. When I threw fire in your face, you freaked out. You ran for the hills. When I cracked Dave Demento's skull with a steel chair, it sent you off the deep end.

Let me ask you, New York City, it's a “respect match”, THE ONLY WAY the match will end is for one person to say “I respect you” to the other. That means no count out, no disqualifications, no pin falls, no submissions.. …...no referee stoppages. Josh Dean, ask yourself, if within the sanctioning bodies of pro wrestling, I'm willing to stab barbeque skewers into people's skulls, smash razor blade chairs into my opponent's flesh, and throw fire into YOUR face, what am I going to do when it's not about gaining a pin fall? What am I going to do, when I'm literally beating you to submission? Not joint manipulation, but beaten to a submissive state, where you have nothing left, you have to submit that I am the better man and you respect me. Is that why you're so spooked, Josh? That why you've got the dark bags under your eyes? That why you're staying up all night, laying there thinking about your flesh ripping?

Josh, you keep saying I'm the bad guy. You keep misleading the people into thinking that you're the squeaky clean babyface and I'm the heel. Let me ask you, Josh. Who interjected themselves into who's match? Who came out when they weren't needed and instigated this feud? It wasn't I. I didn't come out and punch you in the nose after your match with David Brennan. But when I wasn't quite done with that bottom scum Mason Dixon, you made your way out there and you tried to attack me. Then you slandered my good name. So the way I see it, everything that's happened since then, including whatever happens at Battle at the Garden... It's completely validated. This, this is on your shoulders. This is your fault.

You ed with the Devil.

[Drakz]

Brilliant stuff my friend, just brilliant. I liked the way you added more to previous scenes we already knew about. The insight into Schneider's state of mind before the Superbrawl match was great as well. I noticed you put in a couple of scenes from your RP against me but you then went on to further them so it made sense as I know you didn't have them there for any reason other than to remind the reader what you're talking about. They weren't there for competitive reasons per say.

I find it funny that in both your RP and mine for this show we've both had run ins with women that have had our characters look like idiots. Great minds etc etc.

What enjoyed the most about this entire thing though was the back and forth between Phillip and Percy. The growing friction between them throughout and the way that Percy isn't afraid to tell Schneider what he thinks. He's about the only person who can get away with it I suppose.

If you really do only have a select few matches left in you then I'm very excited to see where you take Schneider before the end.

Bravo.