WTF is Tim Tebow doing in my man cave?

Rocky Mountain High! Stygian’s been fortunate with this Inter-mountain West bent to IWF’s road schedule; he’s been able to spend much of the last month sleeping in his own bed at his own house. That will probably come to an end soon, Friday morning he, Lilith and Lilah will board a plane to Dallas, and from there it’s off to Kansas City to do a week of all the work that comes with being one of the guys in the main event of a Pay Per View for a major wrestling promotion; radio interviews, fan expos, about three does different stare-down photo ops with Brandon. But for now he’s at his home in Boulder, specifically in his man cave, specifically the back end of it with the entertainment center, the gaming systems, the mini-bar and of particular import, the amp stack and the small selection of guitars; a “Van Halen” striped Las Paul, a Black Gibson SG, a Fender DG 10, and of course the Van Halen frankenstrat Stygian got for Christmas, no points for guessing which one Stygian has over his shoulder as he sits on the stool in the middle of it all, cranking out a really dirty, grungy sounding version of “Cat Scratch Fever” just cranking out those chords and the main riff when someone knocks on the door. It takes them a few tries to finally time it to where Stygian can hear them knocking between chords, but he finally at least thinks he does, so he mutes the amp and looks at the door curiously.

Stygian: Uh, come in?

Asked more than announced. Stygian is new to Boulder; he doesn’t have a lot of friends in the area yet, and his travel schedule usually precludes him from making many. No other wrestler he knows; IWF, UECW or otherwise, lives in the area. The girls never knock when disturbing him in his man cave. He literally has no idea who this could be; so he should be surprised with whomever walks through that door. He’s really surprised when Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow walks in, smiling politely. Stygian sort of stops and stares for several seconds before shaking his head.

Stygian: I did not see that coming.

Tim Tebow: Jason, right?

Stygian jolts as though awakening from a quick nap and nods.

Stygian: Yeah. Yeah, that’s me.

Tim Tebow: Are you alright?

Stygian: If I had to make a list of, hell, a thousand people who I thought would ever walk through that door, you wouldn’t have made it, Mr. Tebow.

Tim Tebow: Don’t call me that, we don’t need to be formal, Tim will be fine.

Stygian: Very well, Tim it is.

Tebow steps forward and sticks out his hand to Stygian, who shakes it, still befuddled.

Stygian: Uh, Tim…what the Hell are you doing here?

Tim Tebow: Oh your wife said I could find you down here.

Stygian: Let me rephrase, what are you doing at my house…at all. You and I don’t exactly travel in the same circles, we aren’t alumni of the same colleges…there are no threads to bind us together, not even if we throw in Kevin Bacon.

Tim Tebow: Kevin Bacon?

Stygian: You’ve never…forget about it. You aren’t here to preach to me, are you?

Tim Tebow: Preach? Why would I be here to preach?

Stygian: Well, you’re sort of big on Jesus, and I’m sort of not. We’re both kind of known for where we stand on Jesus. And I do have the whole “living in sin” and all that going on.

Tebow laughs and shakes his head.

Tim Tebow: No, that’s not how it works. Not to me anyway. If you wanted me to witness for you, I could, but I’m not going to waste your time or mine telling you a bunch of things you don’t want to hear. When you’re ready, Jesus will be there for you.

Stygian: That’s not the first time I’ve ever heard that out of a religious zealot’s mouth. If you mean it, you’d be the first person who kept their word.

Tim Tebow: I’m not sure I like the term zealot.

Stygian: Well, pick a term you do like. Not important, I still don’t know why Tim Tebow is standing in my man cave.

Tim laughs and looks over the room.

Tim Tebow: It’s a nice man cave, makes me want to build one. Maybe I will someday, when things are a little more stable.

Stygian: Ah, yeah, the whole “can’t play in the NFL” thing.

Tim Tebow: God willing, I’ll prove them all wrong. One day at a time, you know?

Stygian: I know that feeling. You think your job is tough to win over people in, try mine.

Tim Tebow: I’ve heard about that. Another wrestler died after he had a match with you, right?

Stygian: Yeah.

Tim Tebow: I was reading about that in the Post, I thought you weren’t responsible for that.

Stygian: I’m not. He had a degenerative heart condition. He would have died if he hadn’t wrestled me that night. He could have died any time in the last seven years; wrestling me, wrestling someone else, making a pot of coffee…

Tim Tebow: But his girlfriend and his mother are telling people it was your fault.

Stygian: Yeah, a couple of loudmouths get in front of a camera and direct the spotlight onto you no matter what you do, good or bad…I think you probably know even more about that than I do.

Tim Tebow: Probably.

Stygian: Not gonna make a Skip Bayless joke?

Tim Tebow: That’s not really my thing. People will be people; I don’t see the need to play that game with them.

Stygian: Hmm, I could stand to take a page out of that book. I’m not going to, but…

The two of them laugh for a couple seconds.

Stygian: But seriously, Tim, why are you here?

Tim Tebow: Well someone showed me the video of your entrance last week.

Stygian: Aww, Tim I was just messing around, having a little fun. I know I did your…pose…thing and all…

Tim Tebow: Interrupting. I’m not worried about that. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but a lot of people do it. Heck, my last name turned into a verb. You’re not the first guy to do it, you’re not the first guy to do it publicly, you’re not the first guy to do it mockingly.

Stygian: It wasn’t so much mocking as it was taunting 18,000 people.

Tim Tebow: Jason, it doesn’t bother me.

Stygian: Well I kinda said some derisive things about you in my last video, too.

Tim Tebow: Again, you aren’t the first guy. You won’t be the last. I’m not here to confront you about a pro wrestling broadcast or anything you’ve said, to be honest I don’t much watch wrestling. It’s a little too explicit for me. But I was wondering: do you hve the jersey from the other night?

Stygian: The Tom Brady one?

Tim Tebow: Yeah.

Stygian: Not for a lack of trying to get rid of it, but yeah, it made it home, why? You want to burn it?

Tim Tebow: No, I actually want to auction it off.

Stygian: Auction it off?

Tim Tebow: Yeah, I do a lot of charity work.

Stygian: So I’ve heard.

Tim Tebow: And I’ve been going around the Denver area trying to get people to donate different kinds of memorabilia here and there for an auction I’m holding Super Bowl week downtown.

Stygian: And you think a bunch of Broncos fans want the shirt of an opposing quarterback who eliminated their team from the playoffs which was worn by a man to mock them in person, during that selfsame game?

Tim Tebow: Jason, I’ve been holding these auctions for about five years now, if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s to never underestimate something a collector will find valuable. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand why people will pay so much money for mundane items simply because someone famous owned them at one time, but I have no problems taking their money and doing God’s work with it.

Stygian: Fair enough. Why don’t you come on up to the house with me and I’ll get the jersey for you?

Tim Tebow: Actually, do you have those cheerleader uniforms that your, uh…

Stygian: “Lady friends?”

Tim Tebow: …good a definition as any I suppose. Did they make it home?

Stygian: Tim, you may be a man of God, but you’re still a man. Do you think they made it home?

Tim Tebow: Definitely. Would you be willing to donate them too?

Stygian: Yeah, sure. I’ve got no love lost for them, they were fun for a night but, that’s come and gone. We’ll go get everything up at the house.

Tim Tebow: Actually could I get you guys to bring them by the Broncos offices and take some pictures in them and sign certificates of authenticity? I was thinking about mounting and framing them all together for the auctions.

Stygian: Sure. To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if the cheerleader uniforms went for more than the jersey.

Tim Tebow laughs and grins.

Tim Tebow: Yeah, me either. Hey, he points at the blown up Lilith and Lilah Playboy cover, If I could get one of those, without all those pictures around it of course, do you think they’d sign it and I could auction that off too?

Stygian: Sure. But we’re leaving town Friday and I’m not sure when we’ll have the chance to get back here.

Tim Tebow: I can have it here by Friday, what time’s your flight?

Stygian: 2:30.

Tim Tebow: Can you guys come by the Broncos’ offices around 10?

Stygian: Yeah, no problem.

Tim Tebow: Great, we’ll have you guys out of there by noon.

Stygian: Sounds like a plan. Come on, I’ll show you back to the house.

Tim Tebow: Oh, no need, I can find it from here. You go back to whatever you were doing.

Stygian: Alright.

Tim Tebow: Oh, and Jason? The media, they’ll say whatever gets people to tune in and watch their show. I should know. Whether it’s calling you a murderer, or breaking down every move you make, every facet of your personal life, everything you say or do. The media will twist anything you do around to make it look like something that will get them ratings. Don’t let some talking head on CNN tell you who you are. You may not be Christian, and I may not agree with your lifestyle, but I know of a lot of guys who wouldn’t be willing to donate even a couple hours and some old clothes they weren’t going to use anymore anyway. I might not agree with your decisions, but I think you’re probably a good man. I know you play up certain things to make your job easier, but don’t lose sight of who you really are in this.

Stygian: I’m trying not to. Thanks Tim.

Tim Tebow: Thank you Jason. I’ll see you and your ladies Friday.

Tim Tebow takes his leave, Stygian looks at the guitar and raises his hand to strum the strings, and then he shakes his head. He places the guitar on the nearby stand and turns off the amp stack. He grabs a Raiders hoodie from the back of the door and wraps it around himself, trekking out, past the tarp-covered 442s and into the swirling Rocky Mountain snow. By the time Stygian makes it up the steps and into his snow-blanketed back yard, Tim Tebow has long since departed. Stygian trudges across the yard, trudging through a muddy path he’s worn into the frozen ground from making the trip several times over and back over the last few weeks. He stops at the sliding glass door, bracing himself, removing his boots and stepping into the house. He deposits his boots into a rubber-coated plastic tray placed deliberately for that purpose, divests himself of his Raiders hoodie and hangs it on the back of the closest chair. He moves down the hall, around a bend and into what looks to be some kind of home gym; an open sprawling room with mirrored walls and a rubber floor and four weight machines, one in each corner. It’s the middle of the room, with the yoga mats and horizontal bracers where the girls are doing some kind of stretching. Lilith is dressed in a black sports bra and warmup pants and she’s got her heel resting on the back of one of the cross bars and is bending forward to touch her toes. Lilah, dressed in a pink sports bra and matching spandex shorts has pulled of the weight benches together. She does a handstand, and the winds around into a split between the two benches, making Stygian wince.

Lilith: I don’t know what’s more spectacular; that she can do it with those boobs, or that they don’t fall out when she does it.

Stygian: I don’t even want to, just…yahhhh!

Lilith laughs, Lilah looks up from doing some weird exercise she was doing that involved rotating around and touching her toes, and then the floor in between.

Lilah: He can’t get past me doing the splits.

Lilith: It makes me a little uncomfortable as well, to be honest.

Lilah: But not like it does him.

Lilith: Quite.

Lilah: Oh hey, did that guy find you? The one who Tebows all the time.

Lilith: He does what?

Lilah: You said he does that Tebow thing, like Jason did Saturday in the ring.

Lilith: Lilah he doesn’t “Tebow” he is Tebow. That was Tim Tebow!

Lilah: Really? I thought I would have noticed.

Lilith: I thought so too.

Lilah: I mean a guy who has his cock permanently glued into Skip Bayless’ mouth…

Lilith: What?

Lilah: That show Jason watches in the mornings, before he gets mad and switches over to MacGyver on Netflix! Jason said that Skip guy had Tebow’s cock permanently glued into his mouth. I thought that’d be easy to see in person.

Lilith: Do you think he meant that literally?

Lilah: Ummm…

Lilith: Do you think one man literally, willingly glued another man’s private parts into his mouth?

Lilah: You never know what kinds of weird things get people off. I never thought I’d be tied up and hyperextend my elbow in the shower til I met you two.

Stygian: In Lilah’s defense, there very well could be a glue and fellatio fetish.

Lilith and Lilah both give him a “WTF” look.

Stygian: I’m serious. That’s the wonderful thing about the internet! Just right now, get an image in your mind of the most depraved, vulgar, disgusting thing that two human beings could do to one another sexually.

Lilith: Something we’ve done personally?

Stygian: No, something that would make you physically ill to even consider.

Lilah: Sleeping with Dan Alexander…

Lilith: We of course, he’s dead.

Lilah: No, even when he was alive…

Stygian: Not a specific person, the single most disgusting act you can imagine. Something Lilith wouldn’t do drunk.

Lilah: Oh, okay.

Stygian: Think of the single most depraved, disgusting, vulgar vile thing you can think of.

Lilith: Alright…

Stygian: Go type it into Google and see if you get fewer than 5000 results.

Lilith: He’s probably right.

Lilah: See? So someone could glue their dick into someone else’s mouth.

Lilith: I still think Jason probably didn’t literally mean Tim Tebow’s penis was fused with Skip Bayless’ mouth permanently, or literally at any point. I think we would have noticed it on First Take, or in one of the games Tim Tebow played in.

Lilah: Not if they CGI’ed it out.

Lilith: Oh fuck…Lilith puts her leg down and grabs a water bottle. The migraine’s starting.

Stygian: Calm yourself Lilith. Lilah, I meant it figuratively.

Lilah: Oh, so I shouldn’t have been looking for Skip Bayless to be attached to his…

Stygian: No, Lilah.

Lilah: My bad.

Lilith: What did he want?

Stygian: He wants out clothes from the other night. The Brady jersey and the cheerleader uniforms. He wants to auction them off for his charity work.

Lilith: Does he really expect them to draw any money?

Stygian: he says he’s been doing these auctions for about five years now, if he thinks he can get something out of them, I’ll believe him.

Lilah: Did he take them?

Stygian: No he wants us to bring them down, pose for pictures, sign some authentication documents, you know.

Lilith: Right, when do we go in?

Stygian: Friday morning, before our flight.

Lilith: Alright, no big deal then.

Stygian: He’s also getting another blow up of your guys’ Playboy cover for you to sign.

Lilith: Sounds good. You ready for your big match this week?

Stygian: I’m ready for this week.

Lilah: And your title match in two weeks?

Stygian: Not yet. To overlook this week would be a grave mistake. The time will come when Brandon MacDonald is my sole focus and the sole summation of my efforts. But to take my eye off of Chuck Matthews? Big mistake.

Lilith: Well, we’ll be here for the next little while if you need us.

Stygian: I think I’ll be fine.

Stygian turns and leaves the gym, going back down the hall and through the living room into the kitchen. He looks in the cupboards and the fridge, and makes a forlorn face.

Stygian: Kinda getting down to the bare bones since we won’t be around for a while after Friday. I might have to make a provisional run to Albertson’s. Eh…coffee first.

Stygian opens the cabinet above the stove and retrieves a red tea pot, a white peper bag, and a French Press. He sets everything but the teapot down, turns ninety degrees and fills the pot with water. He sets the pot on the stove and cranks the burner all the way up. He opens the French Press and dispenses three scoops of coffee into the bottom of the press with a little plastic scoop. The scoop is returned to the cupboard and Stygian faces the camera.

Stygian: When the stars line up for you, the life of one man is but a small price to pay. How do you like me now IWF? You did this, remember. When Brandon MacDonald and his porn star girlfriend have to go crawling back to Dana White for a paycheck because Brandon lost that sweet pro wrestling gig the same night he lost his World Title, remember that you, each and every one of you out there are responsible for this. You know, I showed up with a simple goal. I showed up in IWF with the same playbook I was running UECW with; it was a simple plan that’s worked since time immemorial. It worked for the Greeks, it worked for the Romans, and it worked for Genghis Kahn! For all my intelligence, and I am smarter than any three men in that locker room put together, for all my mastery of strategy, and I am playing chess while the rest of those oafs are playing go fish, for all my long winded speeches and schemes…from hiding that cheese-grater table under the ring at Pick Your Poison, from breaking James Shark’s arm and from putting Dan Alexander out of the sport…for all the thought I put into it, my battle plan is almost vulgar in its simplicity. All I do is show up and start maiming people and telling them “show me where your king is”. Just like Caesar, or Alexander of Macedonia, or Genghis Kahn, I showed up, I beat the hell out of whoever was in front of me, and I said “show me to your king”. Like everyone who tried to resist those men and failed, like everyone who tried to oppose me, who tried to stop me, who tried to stand in my way? They were all carried out on their shields! Some went into hiding, some went into shock; one went into the ground. Finally IWF has showed me her king; that I might take his crown for myself. Upper Limit came and went, and did nothing. When I am done retiring another of your heroes from the sport it will be even more of a shadow of itself than it was before. It will be Corey Casey who won’t get in the ring unless he absolutely wants to—and you know he doesn’t want to get in the ring with me—and Ruben Ricardo Leon, who couldn’t beat me with help and the ref in his pocket. Upper Limit is finished, because when the Dragon takes flight, his “upper limit” is as far as his wings will carry him. None will rise and challenge me after I remove Brandon MacDonald from the Insurgency. Brandon MacDonald is the closest thing this place has ever had to a real champion, and he will leave no true-born heirs. By right of conquest, victor and blood I will claim the golden throne of IWF. All who wrestler under its banner will bend the knee or I…will…DESTROY…THEM! And who will the forlorn fans of IWF have to blame? Themselves. They will have themselves to curse and blame when there are no more heroes. Every one of you who hid behind a twitter handle, or under a message board posting in a wrestling news forum, or bitch about it in an efed chat box, every one of you who called me a killer, a savage, a barbarian for what happened to Dan Alexander? Don’t look to your new king and place the blame, look at yourself in the mirror! You wanted me to be an unrelenting savage, you wanted me to be an unpalatable man. Your words turned into my deeds, that’s why Brandon MacDonald will have to retire, and that’s why Chuck Matthews is going to realize that like Dan Alexander, he is facing a completely different man than he faced a few weeks ago.

The kettle steams, and Stygian promptly grabs it and pours the water into the French Press. He digs into the nearby drawer for a long spoon and stirs the grounds into the hot water for a few seconds, the he closes the lid and locks it, pushing down on the plunger of the press until it clicks at the bottom. He digs into a nearby cupboard for an oversized, stainless steel Oakland Raiders cup, and pours the coffee into it. He leaves the press by the stove for now and takes the coffee into the living room with him.

Stygian: Aside from the obvious nightmares about Dan I’ve had lately, and I still have them. No amount of guilt form the media has affected them, nor have the words of medical professionals who assure me it wasn’t my fault. No amount of well-wishes and “you’ll pull throughs” have helped. I can still see myself standing in that emergency room in LDS Hospital—even though I wasn’t there—powerless on the other side of that glass as they shock him, as they shoot adrenaline into his heart, as they try anything to get that flat line to jump, and ultimately, just like in the movies, everyone looks at each other, then the flat line on the screen, then their watches and they pull the sheet up over his face and turn off that infernal droning machine that tells them the obvious: he’s dead. So aside from that fucking nightmare, that I have at least once a night, do you know what really haunts me, Chuck Matthews? Flukes.

Stygian: You see, to me that ring is scared. It’s a hallowed ground of blood sport. It’s like The Coliseum of Rome. It’s like Thunderdome! Two men enter, one man leaves. It should always be that way. Two men enter, one man leaves. I don’t care about the sanctity of the result, as long as there is a result. A tangible result. Two men enter; one man leaves. And so when someone else gets involved in the proceedings, or when the outcome is a draw…it irks me. It leaves me replaying that match over and over in my head. I watch it on tape endlessly again and again and again and again windring if I could have done this differently or that differently…I know it sounds a lot like the guilt I’ve felt over Dan Alexander’s death…yes, an unfortunate wrestling match result is as important to me as the end of a man’s life. What can I say, we’ve all got our priorities. But I’ve been pouring over our match since that night, I’ve been watching it on my laptop during my downtime, I’ve got it on a DVD I break out when I find myself with nothing else to do, I am haunted by that night. Because the more I think about it, you spearing me, and yes I’m calling it the Spear and not the Hollywood fucking Impact. Fuck you. You want to name a new move make it up, like I did with the Baneblade. So you speared me and I caught the back of your bald noggin and took you down with me for a DDT. And you know what haunts me about that night? What haunts me is that it never should have gotten that far.

Stygian: The confluence of events that enabled you to ascend to my level for what will come to be the most glorious night of your career in the years to come, the night you almost beat Stygian…before he put his foot on IWF’s throat, opened his fly and pissed in its open mouth as it was gasping for breath. That will come to be the greatest night of the end of your career, as your decline is marked by bizarre fake amnesia and going around spearing more random people than random muffs your daughter dives in to. You see Chuck, three things came together that night. Three stands woven by the fates into your favor on that momentous night, and all you could muster was a double count out. First of all, you threw me a curve ball. Brian Hunt was only the worst idea for an alter-ego since Clark Kent put on a pair of glasses and said “LOL Nobody Will Notice”! Christ everyone knew it was you, Chuck. Jason Hawk knew, and he’s sustained permanent brain damage trying to jump off the jumbo tron. Rick Christian knew, and he thought signing The Ninja to a contract was a good idea. Matt Biggars knew, and he hasn’t seen the world clearly since Clinton was in office. We all knew Brian Hunt was Chuck Matthews pathetic attempt to get some respect from the fans, after busting his ass for them for so long. Let me tell you something Chuck, there’s only one thing more pathetic than a wrestling fan: it’s someone who panders to them to get cheered. That’s right Chuck, you were actually lower on the evolutionary ladder than a wrestling fan. You were down with invertebrates, and creatures who build houses out of their own shit, and Twilight fans.

Stygian looks down the hall, presumably to make sure Lilith and Lilah didn’t hear him, before sipping coffee and continuing.

Stygian: You created an alter-ego and launched some kind of plan the aim of which eludes me today. I have to admit, looking down the roster, seeing who was there to do any damage, I kinda thought that Upper Limit was built to take down the one lone threat on the roster to the kind of dominance you, and MacDonald and Casey had in mind: me. I really thought that I was the one thing you guys were afraid of. But you decided to stab your tag-team partner in the back for no reason, then you split your daughter in half in a way completely different than how Nick Ridicule used to do it, then you speared her girlfriend into oblivion and sort of went off by yourself with a look on your face that made the rest of us wonder if you weren’t secretly the son of Gary Busey. Since then you’ve sort of kicked around, and been kicked around. Upper Limit and their gardener took you down a peg and shit on the Southern Sledgehammer’s return, and then you’ve sort of been wandering around all crazy like. This leads me to wonder just what the whole point of “Brian Hunt” was, because the second you saw your name on the dotted line next to mine, you abandoned him.

Stygian: You were like the Republican Party in 2008 and Brian Hunt was George Bush. You couldn’t distance yourself from him fast enough. Hell I hear you even through about buying a wig and gluing it to your head before you came out, just because you figured out the one thing I knew inherently: Brian hunt would be killed in the middle of the ring by Stygian. Oh, maybe I should ease up on the “k” word, huh? God knows Tori Selene and Patricia Alexander are just going to edit it into another one of their videos. Hey, Tori, Patricia, why don’t one of you cunts draw some devil horns on me this time? Maybe some smoke coming out of my nose, a little fire out of my ass? I hear Dan was laid to rest this week in Thousand Oaks. Maybe I’ll show up and pour a bottle of Johnny Walker: Black on his grave. Of course, I’m gonna drink it first! Stygian sips his coffee and sighs. Eat shit and die…where was I? Oh yeah, you knew Brian Hunt had no chance against me, so you abandoned what was yet another master stroke of Chuck Matthews insane brush, put aside a year of faking amnesia and banging that ugly bitch with the hockey stick, and you came down to the ring as yourself. I admit now Chuck that I wanted the beating you suffered to be the impetus for your transformation, not the beating you thought you were going to suffer. I admit, I didn’t plan for Chuck Matthews to come down to that ring that night. I was expecting Brian Hunt. AWOOO!

Stygian smirks over the edge of his steaming cup, before taking another sip.

Stygian: So you had the fact that I wanted Chuck Matthews and was prepared to beat him out of you that night, even if it meant sacrificing the match to a disqualification, coupled with the fact that you’d effected the transformation yourself before you ever came down to the ring. I came down to fight someone else and I didn’t come down to win. Those two should have been enough, Chuck. But when you add the crisis of confidence I was going through that night, Chuck? You should have lit me up like the midnight sky on the fourth of July. I’d just turned 30, been buried alive, been effectively forced out of UECW by the unstable political situation, nearly had my wife leave me, and been forced back to the bottom of the card to “pay my dues” in IWF. I’d just been physically dissected by Dan Alexander and had my pride wounded by the downturn I felt my career had taken at that point. I was a broken, humble, down-trodden mass of self-pity and loathing. I was finding the right My Chemical Romance song away from painting my eyes with black makeup, donning leather wristbands and cutting myself with razor blades. That night Vancouver. You know on the website, they gave that little edition of Battle Grounds another one of their witty titles, which never are, and they called it “Broken Wings”. Of course it was supposed to refer to Steel, at the time, Ange--l and his invincibility being pierced like an altar boys rectum in the rectory...”rectum”, “rectory” don’t think the naming coincidence has escaped my notice…but as I was saying, I’m sure they meant it about Steel…but you know whose wings had been really and truly broken at that time? The Black Dragon. That’s why he was walking from the foot of the spire and carrying a black sword, instead of flying above and raining down an unholy firestorm. That’s why he was talking a mile a minute and none of it made any sense. That’s why he was beatable that night, Chuck. You had every advantage, and you should have put me in the mat for three seconds when you had the chance.

Stygian: Ever since I showed up here, all anyone has done is talk about who I haven’t beaten. They would roll their eyes derisively when I would tell them to go look at what I did to Tim Patrick. They would laugh when I asked them whatever happened to Tyson Rowle. They would shrug their shoulders and say, I beat this man, I beat that man, I did that, I did that. And the one name someone always crowed out with pride if they had the notch in the gun belt was yours, Chuck. Nobody cared about Corey Bull or Steve Relic or Matt Thomas. Nobody cared about Tim Patrick or Tyson Rowle even. Nobody cared that I had beaten Dan Alexander once, because somehow since he lost his cool and realized he couldn’t beat me…it shouldn’t count. But once the name James Shark was carved into my record, people finally took notice.

Stygian sips his coffee and laughs.

Stygian: You know, Corey Casey said he discovered himself in an ashram in Nepal. Good for him. Me? I led a charmed life, I really did. I was blessed. I was the stud athlete in high school, I think my Arizona state record for double-doubles is still the mark to beat. From there I was appointed to the Air Force Academy, and I don’t know if you know this, but you actually have to be nominated by your state government and approved by a panel of officers to get commissioned to a service academy. Then I grew into this chiseled sculpture of a man with this jaw, and these good looks and a smile that makes panties slide off all on their own. Okay, that’s really just a streamlined version of events, but I want to make this point; I was a star athlete, a handsome man and I had a promising career path mapped out in front of me. I had beautiful women, worked on secret Air Force projects and could have gotten a job anywhere I wanted in the aerospace industry…and even then…I didn’t truly know who I was. You see, Corey Casey found himself in an ashram in Nepal, presumably after Liam Neeson told him to pick a blue flower and climb a mountain and a whole bunch of other stuff. Corey found piece and he knew that was the man he was always supposed to be. Not “The Lord”. Not a violent psychopath.

Stygian: You see, I went through high school, I was all-state, I was homecoming king, I banged the hot cheerleader with the big boobs, I went to the Air Force and got to do all sorts of cool shit…hell I got to test-fly reapers and blow up derelict buildings. I did all of these self-actualizing things…and I never met the man I was supposed to be until I found him one night, face-down on a mat covered in his own blood, in a ring wrapped in barb-wire in the Tokyo Dome. I met the man I was supposed to be and he was cut from head to toe, had fresh powder burns from explosives and an the unmistakable smile of pride when he looked across that ring and saw his opponent covered in blood and on fire from a board full of C4. I met the man I was supposed to be and he took that broken man by the throat, dragged him out of the ring and set up a table. He poured a bag of thumb tacks on a table and then he wrapped it in barb wire and lit it on fire, and he picked up that man and drove him through that table and he put his foot on that man’s throat until he counted 1-2-3 and was declared the winner. I met the man I was supposed to be that night, and he reached a barb wire-wrapped hand out to me and he said take my hand, Dragon. Take my hand and I’ll show you a world you’ve never dreamed of and a man you never thought you’d become. It’s no coincidence that that night was the first night Lilith, who had been my valet for the better part of a year, actually bothered to notice me. It’s no coincidence that, that night was the first night people stopped me outside of a venue and asked for autographs. It’s no coincidence that my stalling career took an upwards trajectory that night. Stygian sips down the last of his coffee and sets the empty mug on the table. That Corey case found himself in an ashram in Nepal, a place of peace and harmony suggests that Corey Casey was always supposed to be a man at peace, and he finally found it under all the years of psychosis, and out from under the influence of The Lord. That I found myself on a blood-stained mat in the middle of a barb-wire ring suggests that I was always supposed to be a sadistic son of a bitch and I hid it underneath the All-American clean-cut soldier boy.

Stygian: I lost that man for a long time, Chuck. A long time. Months went by and I didn’t know him, or know where to find him. But just as the jolt of a defibrillator brings back a dead man, the jolt of sadism can bring a memory to life. It started with James Shark. When he climbed into that ring at Pick Your Poison, after what I thought was the start of my ascension, when he punched me in the mouth without fear of reparation or wrath, I knew something was wrong. I was no longer that man. Nobody feared me; nobody was worried about crossing me. I had lost my edge. And as much respect as I have for the Old Spice Guy, I don’t think helped me find myself at the summit of Everest so much as he showed me I was missing something. Something I dug down and looked for all that time. Something James Shark helped me find. James Shark and I beat the living hell out of one another for twenty two minutes, and people are still talking about it. That match will forever hold a place in my heart, Chuck, because you see, for all his taunting…for all his homophobic epithets and racial slurs, for all of the narrow-minded filth and hatred that comes from that cesspool James Shark calls a mouth…he did one thing. When I climbed to that apron and found him in my grasp, and I looked down and saw the selfsame table he’d intended to drive me through…in that instant I flashed back to the first time I met that man, the man I’ve always known I was supposed to be in the Tokyo Dome, and I saw him smile. He smiled and said “DO IT” and I did. I drove James Shark through that table and I knew in that instant I was back. I finally had a name IWF had to respect on my resume. And since then I went from telling everyone I was elite to showing I was. Dan Alexander? I don’t know how healthy Dan Alexander was that night. I don’t know just how far gone he was. That he was game, that he was equal to the task, that he looked like the Dan of old tells me that I beat him, at his best, and his health didn’t start failing til later. The next week I took the former golden boy, the man who was destined for greatness, the Dark Archangel, and Ruben Ricardo Leon, one of the finest luchadores to ever compete…I took a former IWF Champion and a man many had thought was destined to be the next one, and I beat them, in the middle of the ring, with a referee who was more crooked than Corey Casey’s dick after Gunther got done kicking it at City of Evil. The odds were against me, and I beat two of the anointed ones. Like I said, my battle plan—for all my posturing and strategizing, my battle plan has always been simple, show up, start destroying, and say “show me to your king, so that I can take his crown for myself.” The time for killing kings will soon be at hand. But for now the mission is clear. You deserve this Chuck. You deserve to know you didn’t have enough, that you would never have enough to beat me. And I deserve vindication. I fluke tie wiped off my record by defeating you definitively, in the middle of the ring. You want to be the man, you had your chance. You hit me with your best shot and you missed. Now that my wings are mended and my mind is clear, it’s time for you to see my best shot. Don’t think you absorbed it on that momentous night in Vancouver. I was a shell of the man I was in UECW, and the man I am now. I’m not the guy telling everyone I should be the next IWF Champion, I am the man who will become the next IWF champion. But don’t be sad, there’s no shame in losing this match. It’s a good loss. It’s only right that you should lose, so that when I retire IWF’s favorite son, and take it’s crown, you will be able to comfort yourself with the knowledge—as I take the company you and your friend built, and crash it into ruins, only for it to be rebuilt—you can take solace in the knowledge that you couldn’t have stopped me. When a new dominant species becomes the apex predator in an ecosystem it forces what’s called a biological imperative: the ecosystem must force an evolutionary response or it becomes extinct. For too long the NLWF dinosaur has been top of the food chain around here and the system has grown weak and stagnant. Brandon’s going away in a couple of weeks; you’re going down this week. What will IWF come to when its new apex predator takes his rightful place? How will IWF evolve when the last remnants of the NLWFasaurus is gone, and the Black Dragon sits on the throne? You get a taste, Chuck, and you get it Saturday. IWF was your creation, but now it’s my world. It’s time for everyone else to evolve…or die.

Stygian grabs his mug and stands, vanishing into the kitchen as we fade out.