Post by Justin Kaard on Sept 25, 2015 17:54:00 GMT -5
September 22nd
Justin was restless, too hopped up on adrenaline after his match to simply shower, change, and leave. Instead he’d paced relentlessly along the back halls, grumbling to himself and just generally annoying the backstage staff. It was a stroke of luck that the one of the roaming interview crews hadn’t found him as he really wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone.
He was still seething from the match against The Black Hand, despite being on the winning team. It had been cathartic, getting his hands on old adversaries. It was a high that no drug could match. Justin wanted more. As the last of the nervous energy ablated itself back into the universe, Justin found a monitor that wasn’t being used and settled in to watch the rest of the show.
The current match was coming to a close; Eira had Mentis wrapped in some kind of spidery choke hold and didn’t seem keen to let go. He watched Mentis slam her into the turnbuckle and she just clung on like a mad dog. She was a seriously scary lady, a seriously scary lady that Justin didn’t want to get on the bad side of.
Justin watched with a grimace as Eira’s head was spiked off the mat from a reverse DDT. The grimace turned into a full body one as NCM followed up the DDT with his Fractured Mind finisher. The little bit of the match he’d seen, it was obvious that Eira was dealing with some kind of head injury. Several high impact moves to the noggin in a row definitely weren’t going to do her any favors when she had to pass an imPACT test.
The match was over and NCM was handing Eira her title belt. As NCM was making his way up the ramp, Justin caught sight of a figure in the crowd. Showtime was making a beeline for the ring, for Eira. Justin didn’t even stop to think it through. That ‘fuck it’ mentality that had landed him in this match in the first place took over and he sprinted towards the ring. It would take too long to go around and down the ramp; Justin decided to take a shortcut.
It was a testament to PCW security that they kept the isles as clear as they did. It allowed Justin to make it down to ringside unfettered. He vaulted the barricade with a runners leap and slid sideways into the ring to preserve his momentum. Back on his feet, he drove his shoulder into Showtime’s midsection and hammered him to the ground while pummeling him from above.
As Michael Wryght covered himself from the onslaught of blows, Justin caught the glint of Eira’s North American title from the corner of his eye. Justin rolled off Showtime and grabbed the belt, readying it and himself.
Showtime wobbled to his feet and turned towards Justin. Justin swung the belt for all he was worth and hit…Non Compos Mentis right in the face. Oh shit. Showtime had rolled out of the way in the nick of time and unbeknownst to Kaard, NCM had been sliding into the ring right behind him. Justin looked down at the International champion as acidic tongues of fear licked his nerves and burned within his stomach. What had he done? Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
His internal monologue was cut off mid rant as Showtime slammed into him and drove him to the ground. Now that situations were reversed from a few minutes ago, Justin did everything he could to cover up as Showtime rained down blows of his own.
Suddenly the blows stopped. Justin peaked out from under his crossed arms and found out why. Eira had physically dragged Showtime off of him and had him trapped in a corner. Mentis was just getting to his feet, his eyes glued to Justin and all but wreathed in flames of fury. Justin stood; ready to defend himself from any direction but mostly just ready to get the hell out of the way before this powder keg he’d helped create exploded.
And suddenly PCW security was in the ring and for the second time in two weeks, Justin found himself being tackled by Big Dave Brandt and several of his black shirted security goon squad. Justin was hauled to his feet and found himself behind a wall of black as security struggled to keep everyone separated. He was unceremoniously pulled from the ring, the first of the four to go, and escorted to the back. Security stayed with him the whole way, insisting that he change and leave before things escalated further.
Justin couldn’t blame them, couldn’t even find the energy to be mad at them. They were just guys doing their jobs; it wasn’t fair to hold a grudge against them. And despite it all, he could feel one building. They’d stopped him from getting his hands on Wryght. On the other hand they’d also saved him what probably would have been a hellacious beating at the hands of a very grumpy Non Compos Mentis.
Peals of laughter echoed in Justin’s mind. Grumpy? Really? You were grumpy when someone cut you off in traffic. You were grumpy when you didn’t get enough sleep. You were grumpy when you went to the office coffee machine and they only had decaf. When some upstart who was just receiving a tryout match nailed you in the face with ten pounds of gold during a clash that he technically had no part in? Yeah, that was a little more than grumpy.
“I am so dead,” Justin muttered.
September 23rd
Justin stood outside the Pure Class Wrestling Entertainment headquarters in Myrtle Beach. After the debacle that had occurred the night before he was hesitant to go inside and he had a good reason. Justin Kaard had been invited back to PCW on a try-out basis. As in here’s one match, are you still any good? He’d done well for himself in that match, standing toe to toe with everyone at least once, and while he’d not been in place to get the pin fall he’d still done all right. What the tryout had not invited him to do was to get involved in the affairs of another match, in the affairs of two champions.
He’d inserted himself into that situation and now, like it or not, he was a part of it. In the old days that would have meant a match at the pay per view. But this wasn’t the old days, and Justin wasn’t guaranteed a contract or even another match. He steeled himself and crossed the threshold. It was a lot more…artsy then he’d been expecting. Sculptures and paintings filled the space but not to an overwhelming degree.
He checked in with the front desk secretary and made his way to the Human Resources department where he was met with yet another secretary.
“I’m here to see, Mrs. White?”
The secretary looked up from her computer and pointed to the clipboard. Justin signed in and waited.
“Am I just supposed to wait or are you going to page her or…?”
She looked up from her computer again, “Just have a seat, sir. Mrs. White is on a conference call and will be with you shortly.”
If there were two words, when placed side by side, that chilled the blood it wouldn’t actually be conference call. It would be something else like ‘tax audit’, ‘you’re fired’, or ‘hug Grandma’. Never the less, Justin felt that all too familiar icy dread form in the pit of his stomach where it clashed with the hunger pangs. He’d been too nervous to eat this morning. So he sat waiting in the room of waiting where time waited and there was just entirely too much waiting.
A million and a half years later, or twenty minutes, whatever, the waiting finally came to an end. The secretary looked up again and motioned to Justin.
“Mrs. White will see you now, Mr. Kaard.”
Justin headed through the large set of double doors that lead to a much smaller office than he was expecting. An older but still very pretty, and she knew it, woman sat on the other side of the room, waving him over.
“Justin, please have a seat. Can I get you anything; water, coffee, scotch?”
Justin looked incredulous, “It’s like ten in the morning!”
Vivian White smirked, “You’d be surprised.”
“I guess I would be,” Justin mumbled, “but no thank you, I’m fine.”
“I’ll be frank, Justin. You turned a lot of heads last night,” she shuffled through a stack of papers on her desk, “You put on an impressive match that would have been enough to get you a contract. But then you went and involved yourself in that unfortunate situation with Mr. Rhodes, Mr. Wryght, and Miss Eira.”
Justin’s heart sank, “I figured that was what was going to happen. Thanks for the opportunity, I guess. Sorry I didn’t live up to expectations.”
“Didn’t live up to expectations? What more could you have done, Justin?”
“What happened out there was none of my business,” Justin swallowed the lump in his throat, “I should have just left well enough alone.”
Vivian came out from around her desk and perched on the corner, “Now that is a prime example of failing to live up to expectations.”
“Uh,” Justin spluttered, “what?”
Vivian White laughed, “Justin, you didn’t fail any ones expectations, in fact you far surpassed what we as a company were hoping for. You saw an opportunity and you seized it. Which is why we’re not only prepared to offer you a full time contract, we’re also prepared to offer you a spot at the Pay Per View in a match for both titles.”
Justin’s head was swimming, “I,” he paused, “I don’t know what to say. That’s fantastic.”
“Welcome back to Pure Class Wrestling, Justin.”
In less than an hour Justin was back on the streets of Myrtle Beach with a shiny new contract and a shiny new title match. And stark realization that he was probably going to be the most targeted person in that match. The entire reason he’d gone out there was to get his hands on Showtime. That gave the former champion plenty of cause to target Justin in their match up. He was the only one of the three that Justin had any legitimate problem with stemming back from their days in Marshal’s Law. Showtime had been the PCW Champion and the de facto leader of their little group and Justin had taken that away from him. The title, not the leadership position.
There had never been any real tension between Justin and Mentis. They’d faced off in a couple of throw away matches and had both been involved, though on opposite sides, in the War Games match a couple of years ago. There was no real tension between the two; at least until Justin had accidentally smashed him in the face with the title that he’d made famous. Maybe there wouldn’t be any issue between them, maybe they’d go the whole match and never clash. Yeah, no, not a chance. Mentis held grudges, even though it had never been directed at him, Justin had seen them played out more than once and had no intention of becoming the next victim.
Eira was the unknown in this match. Not so much unknown talent wise because Justin was very familiar with what she could do despite never facing her. You didn’t become the first female PCW champion in recent history without being a legitimately tough bitch. And not just that, she was the first female Triple Crown Champion in PCW history. Again, not something you get by being a daisy. The beating she had given and taken in her last match should rightly be the stuff of legends; it was like something out of the Odyssey, the Illiad, or the Incredible Hulk.
As much respect as Justin had for Eira, he wasn’t sure how she would feel about what had happened. From his perspective, it was an attempt at comeuppance against an old rival. From her perspective it probably looked like a ham fisted attempt to be her white knight. All that was missing was a neck beard to scratch and a fedora to tip. While he didn’t know her personally, Justin was pretty sure she’d disembowel any guy that came up to her with a ‘M’lady’. Eira didn’t need to be rescued, she didn’t want to be rescued. And to try was to court death. And not in some cool, neo-gothic "this person is a physical representation of death" kind of way.
Of all the matches that Justin had been in, and he’d been in some doozies, this was the first one he’d participated in that he could recall that required more than one pinfall. No, wait, that wasn’t quite right. He’d been in one other match, with Showtime and Stormm coincidentally enough, that required more than one pin. It was the match that brought him his first undisputed singles title, the PCW world title. This one was a little different. The first fall would net the person the North American title while the second would win the International title. If someone was in position to get both pinfalls….well Justin was pretty sure that wasn’t going to happen.
If memory served correct, and after as many blows to the head as Justin had sustained in his short career it might not serve, this was the second time PCW had put on this particular match. The first one was for the World Title and North American title. Mentis had been in that one too, had won his first North American title in fact. So if anyone had an edge going into this match it was him. That was just fine with Justin, he didn’t need an edge, he’d just bring his own.
Justin was restless, too hopped up on adrenaline after his match to simply shower, change, and leave. Instead he’d paced relentlessly along the back halls, grumbling to himself and just generally annoying the backstage staff. It was a stroke of luck that the one of the roaming interview crews hadn’t found him as he really wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone.
He was still seething from the match against The Black Hand, despite being on the winning team. It had been cathartic, getting his hands on old adversaries. It was a high that no drug could match. Justin wanted more. As the last of the nervous energy ablated itself back into the universe, Justin found a monitor that wasn’t being used and settled in to watch the rest of the show.
The current match was coming to a close; Eira had Mentis wrapped in some kind of spidery choke hold and didn’t seem keen to let go. He watched Mentis slam her into the turnbuckle and she just clung on like a mad dog. She was a seriously scary lady, a seriously scary lady that Justin didn’t want to get on the bad side of.
Justin watched with a grimace as Eira’s head was spiked off the mat from a reverse DDT. The grimace turned into a full body one as NCM followed up the DDT with his Fractured Mind finisher. The little bit of the match he’d seen, it was obvious that Eira was dealing with some kind of head injury. Several high impact moves to the noggin in a row definitely weren’t going to do her any favors when she had to pass an imPACT test.
The match was over and NCM was handing Eira her title belt. As NCM was making his way up the ramp, Justin caught sight of a figure in the crowd. Showtime was making a beeline for the ring, for Eira. Justin didn’t even stop to think it through. That ‘fuck it’ mentality that had landed him in this match in the first place took over and he sprinted towards the ring. It would take too long to go around and down the ramp; Justin decided to take a shortcut.
It was a testament to PCW security that they kept the isles as clear as they did. It allowed Justin to make it down to ringside unfettered. He vaulted the barricade with a runners leap and slid sideways into the ring to preserve his momentum. Back on his feet, he drove his shoulder into Showtime’s midsection and hammered him to the ground while pummeling him from above.
As Michael Wryght covered himself from the onslaught of blows, Justin caught the glint of Eira’s North American title from the corner of his eye. Justin rolled off Showtime and grabbed the belt, readying it and himself.
Showtime wobbled to his feet and turned towards Justin. Justin swung the belt for all he was worth and hit…Non Compos Mentis right in the face. Oh shit. Showtime had rolled out of the way in the nick of time and unbeknownst to Kaard, NCM had been sliding into the ring right behind him. Justin looked down at the International champion as acidic tongues of fear licked his nerves and burned within his stomach. What had he done? Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
His internal monologue was cut off mid rant as Showtime slammed into him and drove him to the ground. Now that situations were reversed from a few minutes ago, Justin did everything he could to cover up as Showtime rained down blows of his own.
Suddenly the blows stopped. Justin peaked out from under his crossed arms and found out why. Eira had physically dragged Showtime off of him and had him trapped in a corner. Mentis was just getting to his feet, his eyes glued to Justin and all but wreathed in flames of fury. Justin stood; ready to defend himself from any direction but mostly just ready to get the hell out of the way before this powder keg he’d helped create exploded.
And suddenly PCW security was in the ring and for the second time in two weeks, Justin found himself being tackled by Big Dave Brandt and several of his black shirted security goon squad. Justin was hauled to his feet and found himself behind a wall of black as security struggled to keep everyone separated. He was unceremoniously pulled from the ring, the first of the four to go, and escorted to the back. Security stayed with him the whole way, insisting that he change and leave before things escalated further.
Justin couldn’t blame them, couldn’t even find the energy to be mad at them. They were just guys doing their jobs; it wasn’t fair to hold a grudge against them. And despite it all, he could feel one building. They’d stopped him from getting his hands on Wryght. On the other hand they’d also saved him what probably would have been a hellacious beating at the hands of a very grumpy Non Compos Mentis.
Peals of laughter echoed in Justin’s mind. Grumpy? Really? You were grumpy when someone cut you off in traffic. You were grumpy when you didn’t get enough sleep. You were grumpy when you went to the office coffee machine and they only had decaf. When some upstart who was just receiving a tryout match nailed you in the face with ten pounds of gold during a clash that he technically had no part in? Yeah, that was a little more than grumpy.
“I am so dead,” Justin muttered.
September 23rd
Justin stood outside the Pure Class Wrestling Entertainment headquarters in Myrtle Beach. After the debacle that had occurred the night before he was hesitant to go inside and he had a good reason. Justin Kaard had been invited back to PCW on a try-out basis. As in here’s one match, are you still any good? He’d done well for himself in that match, standing toe to toe with everyone at least once, and while he’d not been in place to get the pin fall he’d still done all right. What the tryout had not invited him to do was to get involved in the affairs of another match, in the affairs of two champions.
He’d inserted himself into that situation and now, like it or not, he was a part of it. In the old days that would have meant a match at the pay per view. But this wasn’t the old days, and Justin wasn’t guaranteed a contract or even another match. He steeled himself and crossed the threshold. It was a lot more…artsy then he’d been expecting. Sculptures and paintings filled the space but not to an overwhelming degree.
He checked in with the front desk secretary and made his way to the Human Resources department where he was met with yet another secretary.
“I’m here to see, Mrs. White?”
The secretary looked up from her computer and pointed to the clipboard. Justin signed in and waited.
“Am I just supposed to wait or are you going to page her or…?”
She looked up from her computer again, “Just have a seat, sir. Mrs. White is on a conference call and will be with you shortly.”
If there were two words, when placed side by side, that chilled the blood it wouldn’t actually be conference call. It would be something else like ‘tax audit’, ‘you’re fired’, or ‘hug Grandma’. Never the less, Justin felt that all too familiar icy dread form in the pit of his stomach where it clashed with the hunger pangs. He’d been too nervous to eat this morning. So he sat waiting in the room of waiting where time waited and there was just entirely too much waiting.
A million and a half years later, or twenty minutes, whatever, the waiting finally came to an end. The secretary looked up again and motioned to Justin.
“Mrs. White will see you now, Mr. Kaard.”
Justin headed through the large set of double doors that lead to a much smaller office than he was expecting. An older but still very pretty, and she knew it, woman sat on the other side of the room, waving him over.
“Justin, please have a seat. Can I get you anything; water, coffee, scotch?”
Justin looked incredulous, “It’s like ten in the morning!”
Vivian White smirked, “You’d be surprised.”
“I guess I would be,” Justin mumbled, “but no thank you, I’m fine.”
“I’ll be frank, Justin. You turned a lot of heads last night,” she shuffled through a stack of papers on her desk, “You put on an impressive match that would have been enough to get you a contract. But then you went and involved yourself in that unfortunate situation with Mr. Rhodes, Mr. Wryght, and Miss Eira.”
Justin’s heart sank, “I figured that was what was going to happen. Thanks for the opportunity, I guess. Sorry I didn’t live up to expectations.”
“Didn’t live up to expectations? What more could you have done, Justin?”
“What happened out there was none of my business,” Justin swallowed the lump in his throat, “I should have just left well enough alone.”
Vivian came out from around her desk and perched on the corner, “Now that is a prime example of failing to live up to expectations.”
“Uh,” Justin spluttered, “what?”
Vivian White laughed, “Justin, you didn’t fail any ones expectations, in fact you far surpassed what we as a company were hoping for. You saw an opportunity and you seized it. Which is why we’re not only prepared to offer you a full time contract, we’re also prepared to offer you a spot at the Pay Per View in a match for both titles.”
Justin’s head was swimming, “I,” he paused, “I don’t know what to say. That’s fantastic.”
“Welcome back to Pure Class Wrestling, Justin.”
In less than an hour Justin was back on the streets of Myrtle Beach with a shiny new contract and a shiny new title match. And stark realization that he was probably going to be the most targeted person in that match. The entire reason he’d gone out there was to get his hands on Showtime. That gave the former champion plenty of cause to target Justin in their match up. He was the only one of the three that Justin had any legitimate problem with stemming back from their days in Marshal’s Law. Showtime had been the PCW Champion and the de facto leader of their little group and Justin had taken that away from him. The title, not the leadership position.
There had never been any real tension between Justin and Mentis. They’d faced off in a couple of throw away matches and had both been involved, though on opposite sides, in the War Games match a couple of years ago. There was no real tension between the two; at least until Justin had accidentally smashed him in the face with the title that he’d made famous. Maybe there wouldn’t be any issue between them, maybe they’d go the whole match and never clash. Yeah, no, not a chance. Mentis held grudges, even though it had never been directed at him, Justin had seen them played out more than once and had no intention of becoming the next victim.
Eira was the unknown in this match. Not so much unknown talent wise because Justin was very familiar with what she could do despite never facing her. You didn’t become the first female PCW champion in recent history without being a legitimately tough bitch. And not just that, she was the first female Triple Crown Champion in PCW history. Again, not something you get by being a daisy. The beating she had given and taken in her last match should rightly be the stuff of legends; it was like something out of the Odyssey, the Illiad, or the Incredible Hulk.
As much respect as Justin had for Eira, he wasn’t sure how she would feel about what had happened. From his perspective, it was an attempt at comeuppance against an old rival. From her perspective it probably looked like a ham fisted attempt to be her white knight. All that was missing was a neck beard to scratch and a fedora to tip. While he didn’t know her personally, Justin was pretty sure she’d disembowel any guy that came up to her with a ‘M’lady’. Eira didn’t need to be rescued, she didn’t want to be rescued. And to try was to court death. And not in some cool, neo-gothic "this person is a physical representation of death" kind of way.
Of all the matches that Justin had been in, and he’d been in some doozies, this was the first one he’d participated in that he could recall that required more than one pinfall. No, wait, that wasn’t quite right. He’d been in one other match, with Showtime and Stormm coincidentally enough, that required more than one pin. It was the match that brought him his first undisputed singles title, the PCW world title. This one was a little different. The first fall would net the person the North American title while the second would win the International title. If someone was in position to get both pinfalls….well Justin was pretty sure that wasn’t going to happen.
If memory served correct, and after as many blows to the head as Justin had sustained in his short career it might not serve, this was the second time PCW had put on this particular match. The first one was for the World Title and North American title. Mentis had been in that one too, had won his first North American title in fact. So if anyone had an edge going into this match it was him. That was just fine with Justin, he didn’t need an edge, he’d just bring his own.
