Tuesday July 23, 2013
North Marion Speedway- Storage Shed
Indianapolis, Indiana
1:56 PM Local time.
Wendy grimaced as she felt her opponents thighs constrict, tightening the body scissors she was currently in. Leaning back, she focused on her breathing and pain management, as her mind raced through an array of possible escape tactics. Jasmine- her hired sparring partner for the day- was a tough cookie. Only wrestling for six months, she’d become quite the force in the local Circle City Wrestling company, and she was even giving Wendy a bit of a tough time. If she kept this up, she resolved, Wendy would have to recommend her to take part of an upcoming Future Shock.
Wendy looked up at the ceiling, and squinted a little at the large halogen lamp hanging directly overhead. Oddly, her thoughts drifted away to the renovation of her gym, and all the work that needed to be done. That would include completely changing the lighting, making it brighter in here than the lone lamp that sat in the middle. And maybe cooler bulbs? That one lamp alone was making it sweltering in here. Although it was summer... maybe in winter, she’d need all the heat she could get.
Decisons, decisions
To be fair, the renovations were coming along nicely, albeit a bit slow. She had her ring, which was a good start, and had already ordered a wide array of exercise equipment, to be delivered once she had escaped her Beautiful People membership. True, a lot of the renovations required that the ring be removed, but she had already made arrangements for the work to be done while she was abroad on the world tour.
Yes, things were coming a long nicely. She had even come up with a name for the place: The Storm Shelter.
Wendy’s focus snapped back to the present, and her sparring partner still continuing trying to squeeze the life out of her. Gritting her teeth, she grabbed at Jasmine’s legs, trying to pry them apart. She succeeded just enough to slide herself mostly free, and Jasmine, realizing the inevitablity, released the hold, and lunged at her, trying to wrestle her down. But Wendy ducked her shoulder, and Jasmine went flying over her to crash backfirst on the mat. Jasimine sat up, then proceeded to stand up, her back facing Wendy all the while- a huge rookie mistake that Wendy took no hesitation in capitalizing on. Soon, Jasmine was in a dragon sleeper, Wendy’s legs locked around her abdomen to prevent escape. It wasn’t too long before Wendy felt a frustrated tap on her leg, and she let her opponent go.
She was surprised to hear applause, and turned to see Terrence and Cassie had walked in. Terrence was acting like business was usual, but Cassie was enthusiastic as if she had just watched Frank Gotch himself compete. Wendy grinned, slightly embarassed, and she told Jasmine to take a fifteen minute break.
“How are you guys?” Wendy asked, sliding out of the ring, and approaching her husband and his new track manager. Even though Cassie’s trip to St. Louis was almost two weeks away, the young woman was still hard at work evaluating the facility and doing what she could with her limited knowldge. Wendy admired her work ethic.
“Oh, not too bad.” Terrence said. “Was just showing Cassie around the place, and she came up with the most brilliant idea!
“Terrence said that with all your appraisals and estimates, it was probably going to be about a million dollars to make the facility workable, right?
“On the low end, I think,” Wendy said. “Realistically, probably twice that once you factor in the parking lot and pit area, and maintenance buildings.” She glanced at Terrence for confirmation, and her husband nodded.
“Are you able to muster up that kind of money?”
Wendy pursed her lips. SHe hated talking about financial situations. “Probably, if we had to. But it’d involve taking huge risks I don’t think we’re prepared to take. I don’t want to lose our house, or Theresa’s college fund, or anything like that.”
“That’s pretty much what Terrence said. So I suggested to him that we find a way to use the facility to raise the money.”
“Pretty tough to do when it’s not even functional,” Wendy pointed out.
“I know. But all you would need to do is fix the grandstands, and clear out the infield. Maybe bring in a few portable seats, too.”
“For what?” Wendy asked.
“A wrestling show.” Cassie simply replied.
Wendy snorted. “There’d be no way we’d be able to get FFW to come to a race track, Cassie.”
“We’re not talking about FFW, hon.” Terrence said. “An independent event. Something special, like a huge battle royal, that would make people want to watch it. We could even get it on Pay-Per-View. Give a big enough purse to make even some of the biggest names want in, and use the rest of the proceeds to fund the track development.”
Wendy pursed her lips. It was certainly a risky venture as well, but not nearly as much as spending the money outright. If it failed, they probably weren’t out on the streets, and if it succeeded...
“I’ll have to talk with Mr. Kincaid first,” Wendy said. “I don’t want to tick off the company I work for, even if I’m legally allowed to do it And who knows? Maybe we could get FFW to partner with us.”
“That would help,” Terrence agreed, raising his eyebrows in admiration. “I figure we’ll ask Pollaski about it too. See what ideas he has. Funding aside, this could get us massive exposure too. We could become bigger than Eldora!”
“It’s a great idea, Cassie,” Wendy said, giving her friend a hug. “If we can pull this off... I think it will be a good thing for us. And I love that you’re not waiting til you go to St. Louis to start brainstorming. You’re making it obvious that we made the correct decision.
The pale girl turned a bright red, and Wendy laughed. “I just thought it’d be a interesting concept. Anyways, lets not get too excited until we get the details hammered out.”
“Not excited?” Wendy said, grinning, glancing over her shoulder as Jasmine came back in the room, ready to resume the training session. She headed back towards the ring, turning back around to Cassie.
“It’s wrestling, Cass. There’s no such thing as ‘not excited’.”
=====================
Friday July 26, 2013
Pier 17
Bayside, Texas
11:30 AM Local Time
“It’s funny, the way things work out sometimes.”
Across the bay from Houston is the town of Bayside, a decently sized shipping center for the southeastern Texas area. Most of the piers are used for cargo, but one- Pier 17, is open to the general public for tourism. It is here that we fade in to Wendy, leaning against the railing looking out over Mitchell bay, a massive oil tanker passing behind her.
“It doesn’t matter who you are, or what company you work for, or how successful you’ve been elsewhere. Whenever you enter a company, you can’t help start to daydream about the first time you’ll be main eventing a pay-per-view. You always think about how long, the place, who’s it going to be against, what the announcers will say, and of course, how awesome you will look standing there victorious at the end of the night.”
“When I think back to my first days in this company, I don’t think I ever thought in my wildest dreams that it would take over two years for me to make it here. I came into this company a little overconfident, having had so much success in my previous companies. I thought this one would be the same- going so much as even directly telling Kaitlynn Stryfe that I wanted her spot in the Elimination Chamber match way back at Unstoppable 2.”
Wendy snorts, remembering how badly that got misinterpreted, and what a disaster that whole week ended up being.
“Well, I didn’t get that spot, of course. I’ve yet to have any spot in any FFW Championship match. It’s not me complaining- I’ve had than my fair share of chances to get there with the Femme For All. Each time I fell short... sometimes catastrophically so. It’s all the proof I’ve ever needed to say that FFW is by far the toughest company I’ve ever worked for. I know how good I am, and for me to take this long to get up there... it says more about the women I’ve wrestled with than me.”
“So it may have taken longer than I expected, and it might not be for the title I’ve dreamed of competing for, but somehow, from day one, I always knew that when I made it up here... it’d be Isabella Pazzini standing there to greet me.”
A small crooked smile.
“You saw it in that video last week. My first day in this company, I was taking Isabella to task for what she did to Rori, and two weeks later, she was trying to intimidate me in my own locker room. We’re just so opposite of each other, it’s a natural rivalry. So yeah, it’s been a long time coming, and I think we’ve both known that sooner or later, it was going to happen, and it was going to be huge when it did.”
“But I don’t think it’d ever happen under THIS scenario.”
“Wrestlers retire all the time in this business. Like any professional athlete, we’re inherently expendable. Lose someone on the roster, and there’s twenty more eager to take their place. Lose a main-eventer, and half the roster is fighting to fill that spot. Injuries, company closures, unceremonious terminations, burnout, all of them make the turnover in this sport pretty high, and no one bats an eye at all the comings and goings. And we wrestlers are a stubborn lot too. There’s many a wrestler who’s slogged on, taking beating after beating and looking worse and worse in the fan’s eyes because they just don’t know when to hang it up, and they kill their legacy in the process. So when you have an icon like Isabella saying that’s it, and she hangs it up- the night after her Hall of Fame induction, no less, it’s a pretty big deal.”
Wendy adjusts her position against the railing, and glances aside for just a second, watching a circling seagull.
“There’s a nasty truth in sports that no one ever openly admits, and that’s sometimes the storylines are a bit one-sided. Even though it takes at least two people to compete in a match, often times the match is about one far more than it is about the other. When I faced Kat, it was about me, because it was my first televised match back since my injury, and it took place in my hometown. When I faced Jodie, the narrative was again mostly about me, because it was my first PPV match back, and I was the one who had called out the Power Trip. It’s just the way things are sometimes.. it doesn’t determine who wins and who loses. ”
“Unstoppable, however, win or lose, it’s Isabella’s night. You could take me out of this match, and stick in any other woman, and it’d still be just as big as a deal. So I’m pretty honored that it’s me. That even if it’s just one time, I get Isabella one-on-one, although that certainly ramps up the pressure on me to deliver.”
“Isabella’s legacy... it’s secure. She’s a three-time FFW Champion. She’s beaten dang near every top name on this roster, and a heck of a lot more too boot. She’s now in the Hall of Fame, she’ll be remembered for so much. I could whip her from post to post, not let her get a single move in, beat her in four minutes, and I wouldn’t tarnish that even the slightest.”
Another small shrug. Wendy speaks matter-of-factly about this, although it’s clear she’s not the most pleased.
“I’m not that fortunate. I’m not without accomplishment in this company, but you stack it alongside Isabella’s, and it pales in comparison. I’ve never held the FFW Championship. This is my first ever FFW Pay Per View main event. I’m nowhere near Hall of Fame Credentials yet, and I’m almost remembered as much for supposedly choking away big matches as much as I am for winning them. I’m still building my legacy, and no matter what happens here in Houston...I’ve a long way to go to even come close.”
“So the opportunity to beat another Former FFW Champion and Hall of Famer... well, that’s definitely one I’d like to capitalize on. And this is my one shot at this one. No rematches. Sunday morning, Isabella wakes up no longer a wrestler, and anything I haven’t done before that time is lost to me forever.”
Another glance out into the bay, and a deep sigh.
“And forever is something I certainly don’t have, and there’s nothing like a match like this to remind me of that. Isabella’s hanging it up, and she’s a year younger than me! Granted, I did have a five year mini-retirement, and havent’ been in matches nearly as brutal as Isabella has, but it still makes me wonder- how long do I have left? Three years? Five years? Ten years? Does anyone really see me doing this at the age of forty-two... or thirty-seven?”
“Well, whenever my time is, it’s not now. I’m healthy, I’m strong, I honestly feel like I’m performing at the highest level of my life, and I have way more left to do before I ride of into the sunset. So while the pay-per-view, the night, heck the entire weekend might belong to Isabella Pazzini, I intend to take the one thing that’s fully in my right to do so, and that’s the match.”
Wendy’s voice, already calm, goes quiet, as she takes a couple of minutes to compose her thoughts.
“So that’s the professional aspect of this match. But of course, there’s a far deeper, more personal one to this too. Everyone saw how much it’s been brewing for me and her over the past year or so...”
“Isabella, do you remember that day in Baltimore? It was almost two years ago. We met on the waterfront, much like this one. You had just been jumped by the A-List, and removed from Samantha’s good graces. And you told me that you wanted to stop being the monster. You told me that you wanted to do some good, and stop the unfairness that was plaguing the company, and not let Ms. Star run rampant on the world.”
“And even though our tag team was a miserable failure, I still stood by you, and you me. You saved me when Crystal Hilton tried to ruin my career. And then little by little, you drifted away. I invited you to the Super Bowl in Indianapolis... you never even responded. I invited you to dinner, or to a sight seeing trip. And you flat out ignored me. And then... in May, when you attacked Stacey after her match with Shane... and told me to get lost when I asked you what was going on. I couldn’t believe you were slipping”
Another great sigh, as Wendy looks sadly at the camera.
“And then at Conviction, it was over. You became the monster again. You threw Jennifer Stryfe off the video screen. And you joined the very thing you had gone out and RECRUITED me to fight! You turned your back on me, you turned your back on the fans, you turned your back on everything you said that day in Baltimore!”
“Was any of it ever even real, Isabella? Or was everything you said on the waterfront a lie? You were going to fight the monster, instead you embraced it. You were going to take on Ms. Star’s treachery, instead you joined it. And you begged me to join in... for what? Your own sick sense of a joke?”
Wendy shakes her head, grimacing.
“I expected to be far more angry going into this match than I turned out to be. This is a woman I’ve wanted at for the better part of two years now. This is a woman who’s come to embody everything wrong with our sport today. This is a woman who destroyed nearly everything just so she could steal a title belt from a woman she hated.”
“But I guess, in the end, it doesn’t really matter. Once Unstoppable goes off the air, you’re done. You’re out of here, and you’re not mine, or anyone else’s problem anymore. I could stand here and read you the riot act until I’m blue in the face, and it’d be energy wasted. So I’m just going to ask one question.”
“How do you want to go out?”
WEndy chuckles softly, at the simplicity of her question, and the obvious answer to it.
“Obviously with a win, of course. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I already said, and no one can deny, that your wrestling legacy is secure. The fans will always remember you as one of the greatest FFW wrestlers of all time... if not THE greatest. But that’s Isabella Pazzini the wrestler. What about Isabella Pazzini the person?”
“You hear so much about important first impressions are, but last impressions are even more. It might take a lot of time and energy, but you can always overcome a bad first impression. Last impressions, however, that’s it. There’s no going back to redeem yourself. Whatever impression you make is the one people will remember.”
“And what will that be? Are you going to go out Isabella the monster? Trying to end my career on the same night you end yours? Go out cheating, biting, clawing, in the most hateable way possible? Disdain everything, leave one final black mark on your reputation? Disappear backstage, and send the fans home happy with the fact that they’re never going to see you again?”
Wendy’s emerald eyes bore directly into the camera, and even though her voice is quiet, she is clearly passionate.
“Or are you going to go out on a more positive note? The Isabella Pazzini the fans had always so desperately wanted you to be? The Isabella Pazzini you could have been, and once were, for oh so brief a time?”
“I’m prepared either way. The choice is yours, and yours alone. Because Sunday morning, all you will be to Femme Fatale Wrestling is a memory, a vivid one that will last a long time, but a memory nonetheless.”
Wendy pushes herself away from the railing, and gives the camera one final, small smile.
“It’s up to you how fond that memory is going to be.”
THe scene fades, and a quote appears on the screen in elegantly crafted scrpit, before also fading to dark.
“For when the One Great Scorer comes
To mark against your name
He marks- Not that you won or lost
But how you played the game.”
- Grantland Rice.
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