How I Won My First World Championship Part V: The Ironing is Delicious

Voice: Now kids, this next part of the story contains lots of bad words that your mother has made me swear on pain of death I won't say in front of you until you're 18.

Boy: Come on, papa, it's not like we haven't heard anyone curse ever before.

Girl: In fact we hear mom say them when she's angry at you and she thinks we're not listening.

Boy: Which is basically all the time.

Voice: Oh... Well, in that case, one of you go and check if your mom's home.

The boy leaps off the sofa and disappears out of shot. The girl looks very bored for a while and after about 30 seconds the boy returns and sits back down on the couch.

Boy: Nowhere to be seen. I think she went to yoga or jazzercise or something.

Voice: Well, in that case you both have to promise to stop listening whenever I'm about to say a bad word.

Girl: Can I promise to stop listening in general?

Voice: No.

Boy: Please?

Voice: You'll regret it...

Boy & Girl: Fine...



Corey Casey: I'm going to make you bleed, and then wipe your own blood away with your carcass after I'm done with you. You'll be nothing more than a vegetable. What would your girlfriend think of that?

There is a click, as of a button being pressed on a remote. We are greeted by a dark room, lit only by the flickering of a TV set. A silhouette of a man can be seen sat, hunched on the couch in front of the TV set, holding a remote control. The image currently displayed on the TV screen is that of Corey Casey and Ruben Ricardo León, stood next to Gunther backstage at Battle Grounds V. The image is paused on the screen but is flickering back and forth one frame in the typical way of old video cassette recorders.

After a few seconds another click is heard as a second button is pushed. The tape rewinds back to the beginning of the sentence.

Corey Casey: I'm going to make you bleed, and then wipe your own blood away with your carcass after I'm done with you. You'll be nothing more than a vegetable. What would your girlfriend think of that?

Click. Paused again. The hand motions as if to rewind the tape again when a door suddenly bursts open, briefly filling the room with light. A female figure walks in and the room goes dark again as she shuts the door behind her. The male figure turns to look at her and places the remote down next to him on the couch.

The two stare at each other for a moment before the female figure moves over to a lightswitch, flicking it on to reveal Ruben Ricardo León and his girlfriend Maria.

Maria: Ruben, what are you doing?

Ruben Ricardo León: Watching a tape of Battle Grounds V...

Maria: Why?

Ruben Ricardo León: You saw my interview with Gunther. You saw how Corey Casey interrupted it and brought you in to things. I have to make him pay!

Maria places her hands on her hips and gives Ruben a look which says “Really?”

Ruben Ricardo León: What?!

Maria: You never struck me as the 'revenge' type.

Ruben considers this for a moment.

Ruben Ricardo León: I'm not... You know that honour is a big thing for me and you are my girlfriend, I have to defend your honour against anyone who besmirches it!

Maria laughs.

Maria: Besmirches?! You're starting to sound like those English jackasses, the Right Honourable Wahtever they're called. I saw the show, OK? Corey didn't besmirch anything. He made a comment that was intended to rile you up before your match this week and it seems to have worked, just forget about it and move on.

Ruben Ricardo León: It hasn't riled me at all. I'm not made or angry, I'm not letting it cloud my judgement about the match, I'm just saying it's not cool that he bring you in to things like that. How do you think he would feel if I was to start talking trash about his fiancée?

Maria: Honestly? I don't think he would care. He knows what you're like. You have too much about you to follow through with any kind of threat against an opponent's family member. And, even though I never thought I would say this, at the moment, so does Corey.

Ruben Ricardo León: What do you mean?

Maria: Corey is a jackass, there's no doubt, and there was a time when he would go to literally any length in order to achieve his goals. Hell, you know what he did to some people back in the days of NLWF. It doesn't bear mentioning. BUT, things are different here in the Insurgency. Wrestlers and their families have the right to a minimum level of security from interference by other competitors in their lives. Corey knows this and he knows that if he screwed with me to get at you or for any other reason that he would be fired on the spot.

Ruben Ricardo León: I suppose.

Maria: Corey's domination of IWF relies on him maintaining his image as a big scary monster who will stop at absolutely nothing, not even intimidation or murder to get what he wants. All he is doing is trying to make you scared of him so he has the mental advantage over you in the run up to your match this week. If you really want to bug him, don't go out for revenge, make out that it doesn't bother you and that'll piss him off even more.

Once again, Ruben considers this for a few seconds before responding.

Ruben Ricardo León: Nah, it's much more fun to get my revenge on him.

Maria rolls her eyes and sighs.

Maria: And how exactly do you plan on doing that?

Ruben Ricardo León: Now that I don't know yet. I'm hoping the perfect opportunity will present itself to me in the future. Maria Carroll, no-one, and I mean no-one will bring you in to IWF business and get away with it. Not on my watch!



Voice: And that's the story of how I decided I was going to make Corey Casey pay for what he said about me and your mother.

The boy and the girl stare at him in wide eyed disbelief.

Boy: Is that IT?! There wasn't a single cuss word in that whole story.

Voice: ...it was the edited version.

Girl: I thought you were going to make us 'cover our ears' when you said any bad words.

Voice: I was, but then, uhh...

As he begins to trail off, Maria walks on to the scene and stands behind the couch, staring fixedly at the back of the heads of her two children.

Maria: Shame on you two, trying to get your father to tell you naughty words like that. I would say that that is deserving of another story, wouldn't you, honey?

Voice: You know what, I couldn't agree more...



Ruben Ricardo León: Tell me Corey...How fucking embarrassing was that?! I don't even want to know how shitty you felt when you realised that you had been fucked over by Brandon. All that tough talk about how one day I might be worthy of challenging you for the title, and now it looks like the tables may have turned. When I go on to win the Briefcase and cash it in to take my first World Championship I might deem you worthy of a shot.

It's not so much fun when the shoe is on the other foot, is it Corey? Normally, I don't like it when people interfere in my matches but this week I am happy to make an exception on Brandon's behalf because he helped me to do something that I have wanted to do since you started running your mouth before the Gauntlet match a few weeks ago: teach you an important lesson. You like to talk trash, and try and bully people in to doing what you want by making them feel small or insignificant.

The lesson you learned is that your scare tactics aren't going to work on everyone. Whoever else you manage to bend to your will through fear and intimidation, you can guarantee that there will be two people who refuse to take that shit. Whatever happened in that match or the gauntlet, at no point was I scared. You know why? Because when it comes down to it, all bullies are the same. They're good at making themselves look all tough by talking trash and picking on people weaker than them but when they come up against someone that's willing to meet them face to face, they don't know what to do anymore and they choke. And when they come up against two people willing to stand up to them, they get knocked out of the Battle of the Briefcase tournament by someone they called 'embarrassing.'

Does this mean that Brandon and I are going to work together to bring your sorry ass down even further? Probably not. Just because he helped me doesn't mean we like each other, and I sure as hell won't be counting on his support in my semi final match against his brother this week, but if the opportunity comes to fuck with you again in the future, I'm sure it could be possible to work out some kind of mutually beneficial -or in your case, detrimental- agreement so that we can bring you down another peg or two.

You see, Corey, you poked the wrong sleeping Lion. When I found out I was facing you in my quarter final last week I was quite happy to just take the win and leave it at that, but then you made the stupid mistake of bringing Maria in to it, and then it became personal. I don't take many things personally, Corey. I'm pretty much a water off a duck's back kinda guy in that respect, but when you bring my girlfriend in to things you are stepping over a line that it's not easy to come back from, and that's why I'm going to take every possible opportunity to annoy you, get in your way and inconvenience you. I hope you're looking forward to it as much as I am.

I think my victory this week did a good job of setting the standard for this. I know what you're like, Corey, and I know how much it must kill you to be beaten that way. Several people told me before the match “Rule number one around here is don't fuck with Corey Casey in a match with no rules.” This is a statement with a measure of truth to it,. I've seen a lot of your old matches that were no DQ or Double Cage Horror, and you do pretty often clean house, but the fact is, I fucked with Corey Casey in a match with no rules and I won. And the beautiful thing about it is that if it hadn't been for the no DQ rule I probably would have been out of the tournament already. And I know that is what hurts Corey most of all. Irony is so delicious sometimes...