DON’T MESS WITH GRIMNIR THE HOODED POWERBOMB, THAT GUY’S CRAZY

We cut the backstage area, where Matt Mills stands professionally next to a man who unironically wears a big fur cloak with a lion on the shoulder in the year of our lord 2023 and expects to take him seriously.

I mean, he’s standing next to Coral Avalon.

Matt Mills: Ladies and gentlemen, with me at this time… Coral Avalon.

Coral has his hands on his hips, standing next to Matt and looking off in the distance. The moment Matt says his name, he turns to him and nods.

Matt Mills: Mr. Avalon, tonight you’re going up against Lunchbox Larry in one-on-one action. How have you prepared for such an opponent?

Coral offers a shrug.

Coral Avalon: Okay, so usually I get out the tapes or recall from memory what I remember about an opponent. I’m pretty well-traveled, seen a lot of different guys, not to mention an unusual number of food-and-drink-based wrestlers. I’m not just talking berries like my fellow Kings of Popsicles, either. And, well… after sifting through all of the Pancake Pal and Hotcake Hal matches, after finding a match I had with Friar French Frylock… after dimly recalling once wrestling a man in a hot dog mascot costume in Bang! Pro Wrestling when I first started there, you know what I realized?

Matt Mills: What’s that?

Coral Avalon: That I don’t really care that much about who Lunchbox Larry is.

Matt Mills: People have been wondering how the arm’s been since… well, your “vacation” last month.

Coral Avalon: The arm’s doing great, thanks for asking.

He flexes his left arm a few times in front of Mills.

Matt Mills: We heard that the injury you’d been dealing with had something to do with… uh, what was it again? The Crimson Miracle Bloody Blood Death Bicycle?

The single word that Coral answers with is so deadpan that it needs an entire graveyard to contain it.

Coral Avalon: Bolambacycle.

Matt Mills: I’m sorry, did you say “Bolambacycle?”

Coral Avalon: Sorry, it’s better that you don’t ask questions you don’t actually want the answers to, Matt. Unless you want it for Rumor Mills. How’s Gary doing, by the way? Still, uh… still on the run from Justine?

Mills opens his mouth to answer, but before he can say anything, a very large man lumbers up behind him with the stealth and grace of a super spy wearing a cardboard box meant to contain fajitas over his head. This man leans over his shoulder, and whispers one sensual word by his ear. 

Sid Phillips: Powerbombs.

Mills jumps, and lets an uncharacteristically unprofessional word leave his lips.

Matt Mills: Jesus!

Sid smirks as he walks past Mills. Mills is so distracted by Sid walking past him that he also completely misses Joe Fontaine walking right by him, so he almost jumps again when Joe stands in front of the microphone, putting himself between Mills and Coral.

Joe Fontaine: Heyyy, Matty Mills!

Matt Mills: Uh, joining us at this time are the Winds of Change, apparently!

Behind Joe and Sid, Coral has a bemused expression on his face, not exactly thrilled at having precious interview time being usurped by his students. Joe puts a hand on Matt’s shoulder.

Joe Fontaine: Hey, got a sec? We wanna talk a little… business.

Matt pushes Joe’s hand off of his shoulder while addressing him.

Matt Mills: I’m concerned. I saw what you were doing with Simon, so… I suppose I should make sure. No mannequins?

Joe Fontaine: No way! It’s 2023! We’re past that! Like, well past that.

Matt Mills: No Bonafides?

Joe Fontaine: It’s a bit hard to get those guys out of Vegas. You gotta save your Bonafides for the big shows now. Or they just don’t want to hang out with us because we don’t really talk about GUNZ as often as they’d like us to.

Sid Phillips: Not as much interest in powerbombs with those guys.

Joe Fontaine: Yeah. So weird.

Matt Mills: No… weird rumors about unalive chickens. 

Sid Phillips: Nothing weird about it. The chickens were unalive. 

Matt Mills: So, they were dead? 

Joe Fontaine: Okay, so you know how in like the Walking Dead or its six thousand spinoffs nobody gives a crap about, you have undead zombies? This is the reverse of that. They’re alive, but they’re dead inside. Empty shells. The lights might be on, but everyone moved residences a long time ago. Imagine that, but with chickens.

Avalon, from behind the Winds of Change, voices his discontent.

Coral Avalon: You know, guys, I was kind of in the middle of something here…

Joe and Sid completely ignore him, continuing their conversation with Mills instead.

Joe Fontaine: Anyway, we’re here to address the elephant in the room. Elephants have big badonkadonks, right? Anyhoodle. Yeah. We’re here to talk about Culture Shock.

Sid Phillips: Big night.

Joe Fontaine: TWO nights.

Sid Phillips: Two entire nights of powerbombs.

Joe Fontaine: And we, the Winds of Change, are going into the first night against our old friends… enemies… frenemies… the not-Kings of Popsicles. Or whatever they call themselves these days, because those guys have more identities than freakin’ Odin.

Sid Phillips: The All-Powerbomb. The Powerbomb of the Slain. Grimnir, the Hooded Powerbomb.

Joe Fontaine: Now, neither of us have much interest in that big silly battle royale that’s coming up, which means all our focus is on taking what we should’ve taken at UltraViolence last year. And yeah. Maybe those not-berries had our number a little bit. And then they say that, oh no, now we’re facing them at their full might. How can we ever face them at their full might!?

Sid Phillips: I know the answer.

Joe pats Sid on his back.

Joe Fontaine: I know you do, big buddy.

Then he takes his hand and puts it back on Matt Mills’ shoulder. Mills has an expression on his face like he is actively being poisoned.

Joe Fontaine: Fact is, you can throw the Dangerous Mix at those not-berries. You can throw any permutation of the Love Convoy at them… or all of them, like one big Shadow Over Incelmouth, all flailing limbs and impotent nuzzles. You can throw seven Kenny Freemans across different dimensions at them, each of them representing one of the seven deadly sins and becoming malformed abominations as a result. It doesn’t matter. They’ve conquered every challenge.

Mills finally gets around to pushing Joe’s hand off of his shoulder again.

Joe immediately puts it back.

Joe Fontaine: But the way I see it, there’s only one team that can take those belts off of them. It can only be us. No one but us. No one but us has the record to prove that we’re the most qualified bunch in PRIME to bring that historic reign to an end. No one but us has the pedigree, the comradery, the brotherhood to match what they have as a team.

Sid Phillips: No one but us.

Joe Fontaine: So yeah, I wish David Fox and Mushigihara all the luck in the world. But if they actually beat the not-berries, we’re gonna freaking murder them.

Sid Phillips: With powerbombs.

Joe winks at Matt, who wants desperately to remove his hand from his shoulder. There’s a long and awkward moment where the two of them look longingly into each others’ eyes. Emphasis on awkward.

Joe finally realizes the awkwardness of the situation, and decides to make a hasty retreat.

Joe Fontaine: And with that, Winds out! 

He jumps to some place off-camera. Sid watches him do this, and then goes to join him.

Sid Phillips (off-camera): Why do you jump?

Matt watches the two of them go, and then turns back to Coral, who has his right hand on his face and seems to be contemplating whether or not to scream directly into it. He’s apparently thinking better of it.

Matt Mills: Any thoughts?

Coral Avalon: …I’ve created a pair of monsters.

And with that, ReVival 22 goes elsewhere!