Post by Max Stone on Dec 17, 2022 11:45:10 GMT
PERFECT CREATION
We find ourselves in a DIVE BAR all decorated up for holiday cheer. A classic location for a little match hype. It's karaoke night and the worst karaoke performance ever is coming to an end.
MAX STONE sits at the bar and sips away at a glass of bourbon. The song changes as the couple stays on stage and Max groans.
M: I hate Guns N Roses.
Max downs the rest of his glass and closes his eyes. THE MANIAC is now here and he walks over to the stage. He snatches a microphone from the male singer and then approaches the MC and turns volume sliders down on the mixer.
M (into mic): If there was ever a group of people that needed a spark of light in their blissfully ignorant existence, it's every single person sitting in this bar tonight. I look across this bar and I see hopeless people completely frozen over desperately seeking warmth and guidance... something tangible to believe in... a sense of purpose. Before you all want to cut my throat, I want to let you know that I was just like you up until very recently. A lifeless sad sack wasting away while everyone else was having all the fun. Sitting in a shitty studio apartment watching my peers take the industry that I loved and turned it into a fucking JOKE. It’s a goddamn travesty what professional wrestling morphed into while I wasn’t able to be in the spotlight that I should have never been removed from to begin with. But someone didn’t want me back. Let’s just call him “the other guy.” The other guy fought so hard to keep me repressed and silent until he got so down on himself that he realized the only way he’d ever be worth a damn was to let me back in and get us back to where we belonged.
Nobody has a clue what the hell he's talking about but they're listening.
M: He wanted to come back and be Mr. Nice Guy. He wanted to wrestle for the love of the sport. But guess what? He no longer had the capacity to perform at the level that we need to be at so I made him a deal. A clock began ticking and I told him once that clock hit 12, it’s my way from now on. Who wants to guess what the current time is?
Maniac points to a “COORS LIGHT MOUNTAIN TIME CLOCK” and it just so happens to have hit 11:00.
M: That’s right. 11 o’clock and we should have already reached 12. If I had it my way, we would have reached 12 on December 4th when I took the International Title away from that loud mouth fraud Joe Mountouri but it didn’t happen and we will get into that in a moment. I did not do what I had said I was going to do for four months and it fueled my fire even more but then I came to the realization that the honor of becoming 12 o clock should not be reserved for one man but it should be shared with the ENTIRE ROSTER. At the Ice Crown Rumble, 25 new competitors will join the 4 who are already on my clock and will look down from below as the crown is placed atop my head and the Stone Age begins.
The VERY SAME Stone Age that I have given everyone a chance time after time to accept and because nobody listened, I will have no choice to turn them into FROZEN LIFELESS souls until they welcome in the healing light of our movement.
All of the sudden the entire bar goes COMPLETELY DARK and a BLUE SPOTLIGHT shines down on Maniac.
J Mont, the only reason you're walking into the Ice Crown Rumble with that belt over your shoulder is because you didn't have to beat me to keep it. You kept claiming that I would take the easy road and snatch your title by beating Eoin O’Rourke when in fact you did the very same thing. The easy road is the one that J Mont always takes. Talking a big game like you scored a triple double when you were brought off the bench at the last possible minute and celebrated harder than your teammates who did all the work and I fully expect the same shit in the Rumble when you get to hide behind your CCPE friends and let them do your dirty work while you stand and cheer. But since you’re nice enough to actually show your face around here, I’ll do ya the honor of throwing you over that top rope and when you hit the floor and find yourself rapidly freezing over, you can look back in the ring and see my smiling face.
Eoin, now I know you don’t like me and that’s OK. I crashed your party and took what you perceived to be yours and then you thought you could form a temporary alliance with J Mont thinking it would really work for you. Now you will be aligned once again with your wife Apathy and your old pal Trigger. I imagine you’re still going to feel a little mad that I ruined your plans so I’ll have to look out for the three of you. I’m excited to see the beautiful sight of husband and wife locking eyes one last time before they meet their icy fate.
As I look further into the 29 members of this roster who will witness the crowning of their new king, I can't help but feel a pang of disappointment. Caleb Scott is a guy I have some history with. We have aligned and we have been adversaries. If you recall, I defeated Caleb and Fred Debonair in a champions of champions match and Caleb has impressed me both times we've shared the ring. And then he does something foolish and gives in to The Purge so they can go hang out under the bleachers and listen to Bauhaus like the little goths they are. Bela Lugosi is dead and so are the high hopes I had for Caleb Scott. Instead of using the inner darkness as his power, he allows Ryan Hawkins to leverage it and play him like a fucking fiddle. Funny how this alliance blossoms right as most of the roster is about to step in the ring at once. Just a bunch of clickity cliques getting together like the news anchor fight in Anchorman except those guys were actually entertaining.
Another group hoping to have strength in numbers is the Second Coming. They’ve stated their intentions to show up just to help their boy Maverick win so they can all have one big stroke of each other’s egos. I thought there couldn’t be a group out there as slimy and disgraceful as CCPE but the Second Coming might take a close second. Frauds become champions by taking advantage of no disqualification rules to win their championships and the ATG is no different. I took the Hardcore title off of Sebastian Hamilton after he got his whole damn family to help him win it and I walked right up to him and spiked him so hard into the concrete floor that he’s just now coming back to take place in this rumble after being gone for months.
ATG, the two of you weren’t enough to get the job done and then you had to enlist the help of Maverick Tatum to get you over the hump and now you want to return the favor. I’d say the whole bunch of you are reason enough the Stone Age needs to happen and re-align this industry but at least Beckett Marisol was able to take care of business and win her championship without needing any outside help. However, just because she’s the real star of your little outfit by doing what the boys can’t, that doesn’t mean I have any qualms about sending her down to the floor and joining the rest of you as the ice takes hold and transforms the Second Coming into the Second Going.
And that brings us to the last and certainly least: CCPE. Now I can reiterate what I’ve said before about this group but it looks like everyone feels the same way and at this point it’s just low hanging fruit. I think I’m just gonna grab my ladder and climb past the low hanging fruit that is your dear leader going into hiding after he failed to get the job done all the way back at Red Alert. While he’s off doing god knows what, the rest of us are stuck watching as his lap dogs run free digging holes and shitting all over the yard. I thought having J Mont and Fred Debonair in this match was bad enough but now we gotta bring in guys from the outside that also represent this plague on the wrestling industry? Looks like Fred still has the time I pinned him to become Champion of Champions on his mind and decided he needed to phone a friend to come help him out and here we have Xavier Lux to try to rescue the damsel in distress. The venomous one rides into town and begins construction on a throne that must have cost a pretty penny. I might be a little harder on Xavier if he didn’t do the smartest thing anyone has done in a long time and consider me among the best here. But Xavier was wrong about one thing: I’m not the back of the throne, I’m the fucking SWORD. The sword that cuts the hand of an unworthy king that sits atop it. The sword that reminds the entire kingdom that the false royals taking the throne are not equipped to handle the responsibility of being the best in this industry.
But then again maybe he’s just another wide-eyed wrestler with his eyes set on superstardom who will eventually be out of here after a match or two just like so many others that I’ve seen come and go. Hell, Xavier Lux probably isn't the only one in this match who we will be seeing for the last time. Just another one in and out of the door of the IIW as if this place was a timeshare presentation and the prize is getting on TV a couple times.
Bobby Mack?
Terry Marshall?
It doesn’t even matter who I’m talking about anymore because they’re not even going to have the opportunity to thaw out in the warmth that our new tomorrow brings. Forever frozen in the ether never getting to experience the highest highs their new King will make possible… and that won’t be the guy that calls himself the Kingdom. Fred Debonair, I’m not going to lie, defeating you was my favorite moment I’ve had in this company so far. The overlooked and underestimated lowly Hardcore Champion picked you up and dropped you with a Tombstone and it was then I realized I could thank the Hardcore Title for the memories and get rid of it because we were now moving onto our next phase. Since then you’ve started calling yourself The Kingdom but you’re still the same old self absorbed Fred I fought a few months ago. You may be the king of your kingdom but your kingdom will soon exist in my REALITY and it’s there that I am GOD. Bring on the CCPEs, the Celtic Clubs, the Second Comings. Let them all watch as I take this crown then tear this entire industry down to its atomic structure, break its molecular bonds, and rebuild it as my PERFECT CREATION.