The Man Who Killed Dan Alexander

The snow crunches under Stygian’s feet as he walks through a path in the Rocky Mountains. He is dressed in his trench coat, the Templar Cross on the back glows faintly, as do the buttons which are all done up. The overcast sky makes it impossible to discern what part of the day this is; it is merely “daytime”. He stands on the shelf of a steep granite cliff, looking out through the thick-falling snowflakes across a snow-covered valley bisected by the black waters of a narrow, winding river. Stygian clasps his hands behind his back and lets out a sigh, his breath is visible in the cold winter air.

Stygian: I’ve been searching my soul all week and trying to find a justification. I cannot. I can ask myself a hundred different questions. I can replay that match move-for-move; don’t think I haven’t. I’ve watched the mp4 IWF’s production crew sent me. I’ve gone over it a hundred times in my head. I can remember every hold, every punch, every impact. I’ve asked myself if I should have seen it coming. I ask myself if I should have let off the throttle and alerted the referee. I ask myself if it was necessary to stack up two tables, cover them in barb-wire and Baneblade him through them. I’ve been told by the Salt Lake Police Department, the Salt Lake County Coroner’s Office and the empty suits at the IWF corporate offices that I am not at fault. I’ve been told, and told, and told. Lilith has tried to reassure me. Lilah has tried to reassure me. Friends from other promotions have tried to call me and comfort me. Hell, Alexander Remington, my greatest and deepest rival called me and talked to me candidly for an hour and a half. Everyone has tried to tell me I couldn’t have changed it. Everyone has told me I couldn’t have changed what happened that night.

Stygian: On the other hand, I’ve got Tori Selene burning up Twitter and MTV calling me a murderer. I’ve got Dan Alexander’s mother crying to Nancy Grace, Bob Ley, Dave Meltzer, and on CNN every hour on the hour about how the big bad man killed her baby boy. I’ve had Christopher Nowinski of the Sports Legacy Institute making the rounds trying to tie this into his concussion research, I hear he’s set to sit down with Bob Costas and bury me when his new interview show hits the air. I’ve got every fucking news entity wanting to get comments because they’re running another tired and true “wrestler dies too young” piece. You name it? You name a format? They’ve come after me. Print, broadcast, podcast, radio, television, magazine, newspaper, bloggers out the ass…I’ve got Piers Morgan wanting my input for a panel he’s going to hold on reckless athletes dying young, Anderson Cooper wants me to come on via satellite, Bryant Gumble is doing a piece for his HBO show about it…NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, CNN, HBO…throw three darts at the alphabet and they’ve called me in or called me out. Tori Selene is shooting a memorial video to some autotuned piece of shit about the “man who touched her life”. I’ve got fans calling for my head. Calling in to Boston and Chicago, logging on to the dirt sheets by the score! I value the kind words from the talking heads in IWF who sign the checks and grease the wheels. Reassuring words from Rick Christian, Chuck Matthews, Corey Casey, Johnny Styles and so on and so forth. I value my lovers reassuring me that the death happened well after the match, and he didn’t show any signs of trauma or heart problems through the end. All of that helps me, but there’s no getting around one simple fact. To his loved ones, to the self-appointed moral guardians and gatekeepers in the media, and to an overwhelming number of you; the fans…I am the man who killed Dan Alexander.

Stygian: Last season LeBron James pretty much epitomized arrogance and entitlement by holding a week-long press firestorm culminating in an hour long live special on ESPN culminating in the now-infamous, “I’m taking my talents to South Beach.” He spent the following NBA season being booed out of every arena but the AmericanAirlines Arena. He was crucified in the press, vilified on ESPN and by the likes of Jim Rome and Colin Cowherd on talk radio and he was dubbed “a villain”. LeBron James chased money and a championship to one of the most beautiful cities in North America, and he was hated. Shit, I killed a guy. I’m looking forward to seeing what you idiots throw at me. Because you know what? I didn’t kill Dan Alexander. Dan Alexander was a selfish human being who paid doctors to lie to IWF about a heart condition that should have forced him out of the sport years ago. But if you want to get on the internet, on your blogs, on your wrestlezone forums and on Twitter and call me a killer? If you want to label me as someone cold and brutal and savage enough to beat a man to death with my bare hands in cold blood in front of 15,000 people in the arena, and many more on national cable television…if you pieces of shit want to call me a killer? If you want to make me the most hated man in America? Fine. I accept your sentence, and I will gladly play the role you have cast me in.

Stygian: I said I was going to destroy IWF’s heroes, and I have done nothing but destroy every man put in front of me. In that respect, what happened to Dan Alexander really shouldn’t surprise you. The fact that he lost and was made an example of after the match is simply me fulfilling the promise I’ve been making to this company since the first day I set foot in it. Now I am branded, forever. I am inexorably linked to the tragic fate of Dan Alexander, gone too soon. It doesn’t matter what doctors and experts say. It hasn’t to the American public, to human beings in general in thousands of years. Doctors? Experts? Christ, we live in a world where 90% of people believe in a god of some kind. Hell we live in a country where 75% of the people are Christian. Think about this for a second. Go walk outside right now. Out of every four people you meet, three of them believe that God put two white people in the jungle without sunscreen and they fucked and now we got people! We got black people, Arab people, oriental people and for the amount of inbreeding; surprisingly few retards. Three out of every four people you meet on the street will tell you that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time! …but he loves you. Really you people have been buying this shit for 2012 years. The real hard-core idiots believe the Earth was created six-thousand years ago and all of the fossils were put here by god to troll us. Despite what science tells us and common sense should wring out of your stupid little minds, you persist to believe all of this bullshit. You believe something that you dedicate every facet of your life and a good percentage of your paycheck to, despite what men who have forgotten more about the way the universe works than I will ever know; I who has advanced degrees in complex fields of science, much less you who are probably one of the millions of people who voted for someone to win American Idol, but couldn’t be bothered to do something like weigh in on such trivial topics such as who should be the President of the United States. That’s the level on intellect I’m dealing with out there in the country. You’ve been presented with verifiable empirical evidence about the creation of the world by high-intelligent, rigorously-instructed individuals; and you still cling to that “invisible man in the sky” thing. If someone screaming louder than everyone else and a 2000 year old book can make you believe that, it’s no wonder an adolescent with a twitter handle and an idiot mother on CNN can convince you I killed Dan Alexander, when a certified medical examiner can tell you I clearly did not. Fine, America. You want a villain, you’ve got one!

Stygian: Long after the Twitter trends stop, the lawsuits are settled and the dust clears form the pile of twisted wreckage Dan pulled into the oncoming lane and forced me to turn him into: I will be haunted by this. It will follow me. I will forever remember that night, I will remember that match more vividly and accurately than I remember losing my virginity, proposing to my wife or my wedding. I will wake up in a cold sweat, haunted by a vision of Dan Alexander going through those tables and the crushing feel that I could have held something back and saved his life. My career will ebb and flow, my popularity will swing back up when you’ve forgiven me, and when I piss you off and lost your favor again, “you killed Dan” chants will follow me into every arena, every stadium, every weekly show and every pay per view. Every time I reach for a belt, strike an opponent or have my hand raised in victory, it will be with Dan Alexander’s blood on them. You can’t judge me, you can’t accuse me, and you can’t exonerate me. Nothing any of you say makes a difference to me. I know what I did, what I didn’t do. I know what hand I played in Dan’s fate. No Tori Selene music video, crying interview from Dan’s mother, or coroner’s report can change what I feel in my heart about that night. I know who I am in my heart, I know what I did. But to you, right now, and to some of you forever, I will always be the man who killed Dan Alexander.

Stygian: But I won’t hide form it. I won’t hide from you, not any of you. The empty suits called me when I landed in Denver and got home. “Jason,” they said, “take some time off. Hell, we wouldn’t blame you for retiring. If you want to leave IWF, if you think the ghost of Dan Alexander casts such a long shadow that you feel like you can never step out of it, nobody will think any less of you.” And you know what, I thought about it. The fact that Alex Remington and I have been trading barbs back and forth across two companies? No secret. The fact that I just won a bunch of awards at UECW’s end of the year awards and they would welcome me back with open arms? Known. But I will not give you, the miserable, stupid, mouth-breathing crowd of IWF that satisfaction. I will not buckle because Tori Selene is getting in front of every microphone and camera she can, spilling fake tears down her face to splash off her fake tits and wistfully remember the legacy of a man she was fucking to piss her daddy off. I will not let Dan Alexander’s obviously substance-dependent mother grab a torch and pitchfork and lead a crusade to get me yanked off television and blacklisted from the business. Let me tell you two stupid cunts something: the only man who leads a crusade around here is ME. I lead the fucking Black Crusade from Blackrock Spire to the heavyweight title. I lead it and I destroy anything that doesn’t fit into my ideal of what this business or this company should look like. That’s why stacked up two tables, wrapped them in barbwire, doused them in gasoline, lit them on fire and took your woefully inadequate lover, your mentally retarded sun, and drove him through them. I wasn’t trying to kill him, but I was trying to end his career. Bottom line, Dan Alexander didn’t belong in the IWF anymore, and he didn’t belong in the ring. You can label me a murderer, a barbarian and a savage, fine! But Tori? Dan’s Mommy? IWF Fans? You put Dan Alexander in the coffin. You killed Dan Alexander, and you’re using me as a scapegoat. Every time you roared for his entrance music in that arena, you put a nail in his coffin. Every time he told you he was going back to IWF and you didn’t stage an intervention, you put a nail in his coffin. Every time you opted for “love and support” over “talk some sense into” you put a nail in his coffin. If some one of you, if any one of you, any of his thousands of fans, the woman who allegedly loved him, or the toothless bitch whose crotch the doctor yanked him out of had stood up to him and said, “Dan, you’ve slipped. Your work has suffered and you don’t seem to have it anymore,” instead of, “yay, Dan! Good for you!” You could have kept him out of the ring that night. If either of you want to say anything to me about what happened to Dan Alexander, hey, women competing in IWF isn’t unheard of. Tori Selene, Dan’s Momma, if you want justice for Dan, come get it in the ring.

Stygian turns and walks up a short path, winding around a jagged rocky outcropping in the mountain until he happens upon Lilith and Lilah sitting on a wool blanket stretched over a rock. Lilah’s got a pink fleece hooded jacket and matching gloves with black snowboard pants to keep warm, Lilith has a black bomber jacket, with purple gloves and scarf, as well as snowboard pants. They’re amusing themselves by catching snowflakes on their tongues. Stygian clears his throat.

Lilith: Your head any clearer?

Stygian: A little bit.

Lilith: You know it’s not your fault; Dan’s people are just being stupid.

Stygian: They’re in pain. That I can understand.

Lilah: Yeah but that skanky MTV bitch is taking it too far.

Stygian: It keeps her on TV, it’s made her more relevant. She’s milking it for all it’s worth.

Lilith: She barely even cared about Dan. She was using him to generate press coverage and piss off her handlers.

Stygian: Well she can bury him face down and use his butt for a bike rack now.

Lilith: Her I’m getting tired of. I could do with a face-to-face with her. Always calling you a murderer.

Lilah: And calling us sluts.

Lilith: I don’t care about that. We’ve been called worse. But this Tori Selene, she has the potential to do damage. She’s got a million rabid teenage girls as her fan base.

Stygian: Guess I won’t be able to go to the new Twilight in theaters.

Lilah: You were going to go to Twilight with us? Stygian and Lilith both give her a look until it dawns of Lilah. Oh.

Stygian: So she’s tweeting that the Big, Bad Black Dragon killed her handsome prince. That’s what happens to handsome princes when they ride up to a dragon with one hand on their sword and the other on their dick trying to impress a princess half their age. Let Victoria Selene run her dirty whore mouth, as long as she’s talking she’s at least not singing. I did the world two favors by taking out Dan Alexander.

Lilith: Are you embracing this now?

Stygian: They’re gonna call me a killer, they’re going to treat me like a monster, I’ll show them a monster. I don’t need those fucking people. I don’t need the fans. The only people I need are you two, and Rick Christian.

Lilah: Wait, what do you need Rick Christian for? Are you…bisexuality isn’t contagious is it? Cause we can quit for a while.

Lilith: Like hell!

Lilah: I don’t want another dick in our bedroom.

Stygian: Rest assured, Lilah, I just need him to sign my fucking paycheck. Really a trained monkey with a stamp could do that, so I really don’t need Rick Christian.

Lilith: Look, Jason, if this is going to help you move on, I’m all for it. I personally thought you should take a couple weeks off. But if you’re ready, fine. I just don’t think you should be embracing this “killer” thing.

Stygian: I’m not going to start killing people regularly. But I don’t have the energy to keep telling these idiots I didn’t kill Dan. I don’t have the energy to defend the High Impact Title, keep trying to get into the title picture, keep the Black Crusade going, keep playing cat and mouse with Remington…I don’t have the energy, Lil. I just don’t. The stupid fans want to cast me as the monster who beat a man to death. They want to cast me as a soulless barbarian who cruelly murdered a beloved star in his prime. If they want to see that level of depravity, I’m happy to give it to them. Makes my life easier.

Stygian turns and looks into the camera.

Stygian: Where do I begin this week? Do I start with the total clusterfuck that Upper Limit has flexed their muscle to get me in to just to get another belt in their fold? You know something, guys, if you’re going to launch one of these cunning ploys? You really shouldn’t be so transparent. You especially shouldn’t be so transparent with someone smarter than all of you put together. Really, let’s see. We’ve got the classic set up. Two of the guys who have stroke in the company see an opportunity to bolster their little boy band’s credibility by stealing a championship. The look at the High Impact Championship, they see that they’ve got the World and Tag Titles squared away, so they look at the High Impact Title and they say, “we want that, how do we get that?” Well option one is to send one of their own after me and take it. Problem: Nobody in Upper Limit is good enough to beat me. So that plan is out. Well, what next? Okay well shit, we can’t beat Stygian, so, what then? Well…we actually sort of run the company…how could we manipulate the match in such a way that one of us could win it? “How about a guest referee”, someone says, probably Brandon McDonald thinking he’s clever. Then another clever one, probably Casey says, “No, he took out two referees when he fought James Shark.” And Brandon says, “What if I’m the guest referee. I’m the World Champion, certainly he can’t take me out.” And Corey Casey replies, “Maybe not; so he’ll just kill whichever one of us he’s facing, the same way he killed Dan Alexander.”

Lilith: You didn’t kill Dan Alexander.

Stygian: Well, that’s what everyone is saying. Either way, even with the ref in your pocket, it’s difficult to win the match strapped to a back board and wheeled out on a gurney. So they know a simple guest referee is out. So Brandon McDonald says, “well one of you could ring the bell, be the time-keeper.” To which Corey Casey reminds him, “he’s going to cripple the guy, we can’t just extend the match for two months while the other guy gets out of the hospital.” So the plan was rapidly falling by the wayside as Upper Limit realized that they couldn’t come up with a way to make Superman bleed. Then, in a fit of epiphany, Corey Casey rose to his feet—it has to have been Casey, Brandon McDonald isn’t this smart—and said, “Eureka!”

Lilith: Do you really think Corey Casey said, “Eureka!”

Lilah: No, he probably said, “holy fucking shitballs!”

Lilith: After he paused Skyrim.

Stygian: Good points, all of you.

Lilith: Of course we have good points, that’s how we wound up in Playboy.

Stygian: That’s actually a better take on that joke.

Lilah: I like the old joke better.

Lilith: You like Katy Perry.

Lilah: Hey, so does he!

Lilith: He likes Katy Perry’s boobs.

Lilah: You can’t see her boobs on an iPod!

Lilith turns to look at her husband curiously.

Lilith: She has a point…

Lilah: In this fucking cold, I have two!

The girls laugh and high-five. Stygian groans and rolls his eyes.

Stygian: How didn’t I see that coming?

Lilith: You actually did, you just didn’t stop it.

Stygian: Okay, you got me. So anyway, Corey Casey pauses Skyrim, stands up and says…what was it again?

Lilah: “Holy fucking shit balls!”

Stygian: Says that, and he realizes there is a way after all. “What if we didn’t have to beat Stygian at all?” And Brandon McDonald says, “We don’t have the power to strip belts, only Rick can do that.” And “Corey Casey says, “No, not that. We make it a triple threat match! You be the referee…” Brandon McDonald interrupts and exclaims, “AND YOU WIN THE MATCH!” To which Corey Casey slaps him in the back of the head, like Gibbs on NCIS. “What, are you crazy,” Corey says, “he nearly killed James Shark and he did kill Dan Alexander. I’m not getting in the ring with him. I’m going to be the timekeeper.” Brandon clears his throat and whistles, “oh well, I’m the IWF Champion, I can’t take the High Impact Title. And…uh…you know, I have to be the referee. So that leaves Rueben.” “Rueben it is!” And the plan was almost all settled.

Stygian: Of course, they had to come up with a third man to put in that match. Someone who had been successful. Someone the fans would buy as a High Impact Title contender. Someone who had a list of impressive wins to start with, but had lately fallen back and become inconsistent. He’d become erratic and unreliable. Unfortunately for IWF Tim Tebow has plans this weekend. So they went and found the next best thing: Steel fucking Angel. Steel Angel, Dark Angel, Black Angel, Dark Archangel, Serra Angel, Sunblast Angel, Akroma, Angel of Wrath, California Angel of Los Angeles at Anaheim…that the fuck ever you’re calling yourself these days. I don’t give a give a shit to be honest. I have a boot, you have an ass. My job is to arrange the meeting. Dark Archangel, huh. Man, it’s been an up and down couple of months for you, hasn’t it? Lost the New Blood Title and your win streak, beat Death Angel and retired him again, got a world title match, lost pathetically, had Brandon McDonald break your win streak record, got to feel up Rosalie Knight…had to get in the ring with me. The highs aren’t getting as high, and the lows just keep getting lower, don’t they. It’s a little harder to get wins at this level, isn’t it? Maybe it’s because you don’t belong at this level, Angel. Wait can I say Angel now?

Lilith: Why wouldn’t you be able to?

Stygian: Every other time I ever even thought about saying “Angel” you would go out of your fucking mind, cover my mouth and go on and on about you fucking wall, and me breaking it.

Lilah: Yeah is it me or does he look a lot less like Dav…Lilah looks to Lilith out of the side of her eye warily, before she blurts out: DavidBoreanaz.

Lilith: He doesn’t does he? You know who he looks like…

Stygian: Wait, one of my nicknames is “Superman”. How does that not break the wall?

Lilith: because Superman Returns sucked, in the long run nobody will remember it, or who played the titular role. Henry Cavill is Superman now. In the long run, nobody’s going to remember Brandon, well, you know.

Stygian: Rhymes with “south”?

Lilith: Now you’re pushing it!

Stygian: Fair enough. Where was I? Oh, I think I was ridiculing Dark Archangel. Not that he needs my help. Let’s chart the peaks and valleys, Angel. You go from the next golden boy to a middle of the pack “what ever happened to?” 10-0 to 4-6. That’s like, a reverse Dallas Mavericks, isn’t it? You went from having the match of the night; stealing the show with Aric Voss two months ago, to being someone Brandon McDonald cashed in on to try and legitimize his reign before your star cooled, to being the third man into the High Impact Title match so that Upper Limit could try and solidify their coffers for a little more gold. You can’t spin this any other way, you can’t turn it any other way. You don’t deserve to be here. Choking at New Year’s Evil and bouncing back against Rosalie Knight? Do you really think Rosalie Knight was the number two contender for the High Impact Title before you beat her? You’re the fall guy. They’re running an end around me. Rueben Ricardo Leon? Does he really look like someone who should be getting in the ring with me without an adult present? Christ, he needs a fucking barstool to look my in the crotch. Rueben Ricardo Leon doesn’t belong in that ring with me. What was he? Dime a dozen masked man from Mexico. IWF Champion. Christ there have been more IWF Champions than Spinal Tap drummers and Van Halen lead singers combined. So that doesn’t impress me. Rueben Ricardo Leon is just another way for Upper Limit to shamelessly grab more gold. And you? Look at you, and look at me, Angel. I’m the man who’s crippled three men and killed another. You’re Tim Tebow. Which one of us does it look like Upper Limit threw in this match because they could beat him. Damn sure isn’t me. I’m the guy who has the title they want, you’re the guy they can beat for it. You’re a pawn, Angel, and they’re feeding you to the Black Dragon.

Stygian: Of course, so are you, Ricky Ricardo. Yeah, I know that’s not your name. We all know that’s not your name. Nobody cares. I can count the luchadores who matter to American wrestling fans on one finger, Stygian flips the camera the bird, and it ain’t you…BOOYAKA! I do have to say, I’m kinda of looking forward to this. You are my first luchador. Truly. I’ve fought American high-flyers who owe a great debt to your ilk, and the Dynamite Kid. I’ve fought Japanese flyers and there’s a lot of cross-pollination of styles between guys like El Santo, Blue Demon, Mystico and the late Eddie Gurerro compared to Jushin Liger, Tiger Mask, Yoshihiro Asai and Keiji Mutoh. But the Japanese style blends in that culture’s extensive martial arts history, and a lot of the Canadian technical style. A luchador is a unique monster unto himself. Technical proficiency enough to ground an opponent long enough to get to the top rope and fly themselves. It’s going to be like trying to catch smoke, I already know that. However as anyone who’s ever blown out a birthday cake knows, it just takes one good breeze to send that smoke spiraling away into oblivion.

Stygian: Now I know you’ll point to all the success you had south of the border, all the titles you won there. I don’t know you specifically, but I know you probably did some time over in Japan. Hell we might have even crossed paths here or there and neither of us was relevant enough to the other to matter. You’ve got lots of belts and there’s probably a picture of you somewhere floating around holding a dozen titles off your arms like that famous shot of Ultimo Dragon. And I know this about you, because I know that to even make a weak blip on the American radar, a luchador has to be so exemplary that he merits someone actually turning on Mexican Television to see what they’re about. I know that amongst your kind, amongst the other gifted top-rope performers in the industry, you have to be one of the best. But let’s face it, there aren’t a lot of seven foot, 315 pounds of muscle, cat-like quick killing machines in Lucha Libre, are there? Hell, there aren’t a lot of men with that skill set, at that size in any combat sport. Junior Dos Santos, Alistair Overeeem, Brock Lesnar, Frank Mir, Fedor Emelianenko, the late Mike Awesome…there just aren’t a lot of guys built like me who can do what I do. I’ll guarantee you never ran across one in a mask in Mexico.

Stygian: You know, I take a look at you Rueben and I only have two questions; 1. Does the cast of Power Rangers: Samurai know you’ve been robbing their closets and 2. Aren’t you due back on the set of some soap opera as a womanizing character trying to come to grips with his latent homosexuality? Rueben Ricardo Leon. That’s the most pretentions name I’ve heard…well, since Stygian, Lilith and Lilah I’ll admit. But at least I live up to the image.

Lilith: We live up to the image.

Stygian: Quite right. I mean Stygian conjures up darkness and evil, and hell, I just killed a guy, so I’ve given you that. I’ve given you that in spades. And Lilith, that name is supposed to belong to a hot vamp of a woman with a slightly twisted sense of humor and a possible predilection towards sexual bondage.

Lilith: Check, check, quadruple-check.

Stygian: Lilah’s a beautiful but naïve girl with a bra size bigger than her IQ.

Lilah: Uh, check? Lil?

Lilith: Yes darling, check.

Lilah: Okay; check.

Stygian: Rueben Ricardo Leon sounds like an Antonio Banderas character in a period piece. The suave and handsome don who bangs half the rest of the cast; male and female, and wins a sword fight against the dastardly white man played by Gary Oldman at the end of the film to reclaim his family’s lost honor and the heart of his one true love; Selma Hayek. I can understand, I’d kill Gary Oldman to bang Selma Hayek.

Lilah: Yeah, me too.

Lilith: I’d do them both.

Lilah: …yeah, me too.

Stygian: Gary Oldman?

Lilith and Lilah: Sirius Black!

Lilah: Hello…

Stygian: Right…

Stygian sighs and looks to the sky. Wherever the sun is, it’s sinking behind the Rocky Mountains. The silver, storm-swept sky has turned a darker shade of gray and continues to gently pour gently-falling snowflakes on the Black Dragon and his lovelies.

Stygian: I don’t think either of you appreciate what this match really is. Understandable. You two are self-important morons who don’t see the big picture. You think of this merely a High Impact title match. Angel thinks he can win and maybe finally right the sinking ship that his career has become. Of course Angel seems to forget that he consistently chokes against the best this company has to offer. I’m one of the best. I’ve crippled three men and killed another to prove it. I said I was going to carve my way into the elite of this company and I’ve done it in blood. I’ve become precisely the kind of man you regularly and routinely choke against Angel. Because I can see the big picture, I can see where Ricky Ricardo thinks he fits into this scheme as well. Ricky Ricardo thinks he and the rest of N’Sync have this in the bag for him. Tell me something Rick, if this is such a sure thing, why isn’t Corey Casey the one taking the match? Wouldn’t it make sense? Corey Casey is the only member of Upper Limit without a belt. Granted, Ricky’s belt is a tag belt, and nobody in America cares about tag teams anymore. On a personal note, this truly saddens me that tag titles have lost their relevance. I grew up watching many of the legendary tag-team titles of the past, and I spent a great deal of time honing my craft as a tag wrestler in Japan, where tag titles are still very important. But let’s face it Ricky, Brandon’s got the BCS National Championship, I’ve got the Rose Bowl title, Alison Williams has the orange bowl locked up, and you and “Da Hamma”? Well, you guys won the Chick-fil-A Bowl. That’s about where your belts are in relation to the rest of us who have them in this company. But you still have them. Corey Casey doesn’t have a belt and he’s the only member of Upper Limit who doesn’t. So why is he going to sit beside the ring and ring the bell? Even you are too fucking stupid to ask that Ricky. The answer is obvious; hello-o, I just killed a man.

Lilith: I really wish you’d quit saying that.

Stygian: There’s a point to it Lilith. I can’t tell the people what the point is publicly, or it won’t work. I’ll explain it to you privately, in the car, on the way back to Boulder.

Lilah: Yeah, about that, we should go before dark, the worst of this storm is still coming.

Stygian: Do we trust her on this?

Lilith: You grew up in Arizona. She’s from Idaho; I’m from Utah…leave the snow-casting to us until you’ve lived here a little longer.

Stygian: I did go to college in Colorado Springs!

Lilith: I realize that, but we grew up in this.

Stygian: Fair enough. Either way, I just killed a man Ricky. Corey Casey found peace in an Ashram in Nepal, he no longer has the stomach for the kind of brutality he would have to endure and conjure to survive me; and even back in the days of “The Lord” he might never have had the stomach. Brandon MacDonald can’t stay world champion from a hospital bed, so he isn’t going to take this match. But you? You, Ricky Ricardo? You’re expendable. You’re replaceable. Hell, if I cripple you or god forbid I kill you? Well let’s be honest, nobody will know. Corey Casey will go home to his big house in Boston, grab his gardener, give him your Power Ranger costume, and trot him back out there after he teaches him a few moves and shows him some Jushin Liger matches. Because you might have been the best luchador in all of Mexico, you might have sold out arenas to a bunch of burro ranchers and drug mules south of the border, but this is America; the rednecks and Jesus freaks don’t care what you did down there. I don’t care what you did down there. This isn’t Real Steel where the scrappy little guy who dominates the rag-tag minor leagues has a chance to push through. In my ring, in my world, the gigantic, precision-engineered, unbeatable killing machine wins every time. Every time. This confrontation will be no different. I don’t care who the referee is, I don’t care who the time-keeper is. You think Brandon MacDonald can affect the match as a ref? Why, cause he won’t count for me? I’ll take counting out of it. I’ll beat the pair of you do badly that they come down and cart you out, like Tim Patrick, like Tyson Rowle, like James Shark…like Dan Alexander. I’m seven feet tall, three hundred pounds of muscle and malice.

Stygian: I know what Tori Selene and Patricia Alexander want; they want me exiled. They want to start a cyber-rooted campaign of protest and dissonance so that I will leave IWF, leave the sport, maybe even the country. They’re trying to manipulate the fans into turning against me and rallying behind them and putting pressure on me to do the right thing. They want my head on a stick for something I didn’t really do. Tori, your loverboy was selfish. He had a bad heart, go read the fucking autopsy report. I didn’t kill him. Patricia, your son killed himself. He knew that exerting himself in his condition was going to punch his ticket. I regret nothing I did that night. I was trying to put Dan Alexander out of the company; I was trying to exploit his crisis of confidence and force him to answer that question he asked when he left Pick your Poison after getting his ass kicked and went home to have Tori lick his wounds. Dan was trying to ask if he should retire, I wanted to show him the answer was yes. I don’t regret drilling him with a set of brass knuckles, I don’t regret stacking up those tables and I do not regret driving him through them. I don’t regret that Dan Alexander died, I don’t care that Mrs. Alexander’s baby boy isn’t coming home, and Tori, if that empty bed is too lonely, we’ve always got a little extra room in ours. Dan Alexander died after being in the ring with me. It wasn’t my fault, and it’s not my problem. Nothing that anyone says on TV or on a website is going to make me feel guilty and none of you will make me quit. You have labeled me as the man who killed Dan Alexander, fine. I killed Dan Alexander. And you can turn on MEN every Saturday and see me. You will not force me to leave the company, you will not force me out of the sport, and you will not deter me from my course. I’m coming down the road from Boulder to Denver Saturday; I’m putting my title on the line, fully aware that Upper Limit is going to try and screw me out of it, and I’m going to retain it. You might want to have EMTs and an undertaker on standby, because I already know I won’t get a fair count, or a fair shake from Upper Limit. They think they’re entitled to interject in my match and put my belt on their friend because they founded the company. They think they’re smarter than I am. Neither is true. You won’t get this belt out of my hand until you truly outwit me, and I see this screw job coming from a mile away, and I already have a way out of it; I’m just going to beat the hell out of your masked gardener and your sacrificial lamb until they have to be carried out. No fast count, no new champion, another plan fails. Another emergency room takes in IWF talent. Maybe another mother stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Patricia Alexander and cries about her baby boy never coming home again. I don’t care. I’m going to fill hospitals, and maybe even a few more coffins. Now you see the lengths to which the Black Crusade will go. Now you see how far I am willing to go. For now on, whenever you book me in a match with someone, know that I will show no mercy and give no quarter. No amount of respect for an opponent will change the one simple view I have after last week: I don’t care who’s in the other corner across from me; if he dies, he dies.

Stygian and the girls turn and head further down the path, the camera follows at a safe distance until the three of them climb into a silver Cadillac Escalade EXT, and drive off, down the mountain, vanishing into the falling snow.