INTENSE TITLE MATCH: FLAMBERGE (c) vs. C. MORTGOMERY BYRNES

The familiar trill of the piano that signals the beginning of “You’re Nobody Unless Somebody Loves You” hits on that PA, which only means one thing.

Nick Stuart: C. Mortgomery Byrnes, fresh off losing the Alias Championship at Tropical Turmoil, will get another crack to get another title. He looks like he’s game for the task.

Richard Parker: Well, normally, I’d be rooting for him, but he is going up against a member of the Glueminati. It’s going to be tough. But I might believe in him. Or not. Depends on how I feel.

Nick Stuart: You never cease to amaze me.

Morty heads out, pointing in to the crowd in his own spotlight. It’s the biggest match of his career to date. He inhales deeply before walking to the ring like he has a job to do.

Vince Howard: Introducing first, the challenger, hailing from Horace, North Dakota, and weighing in at 248 pounds, representing the Gamble Adoration Syndicate, he is C! MORTGOMERY! BYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYRNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNES!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

Morty slides under the ring, hops up on the middle turnbuckle, and raises his hands to the jeering crowd. Dean Martin fades off the PA. Run the Jewels begins shortly thereafter.

Nick Stuart: Think FLAMBERGE has first title defense jitters, Rich?

Richard Parker: I don’t think he has jitters. He’s much too confident. It’s one of my favorite things about him, especially now that the FLAMBORGHINI is resting with the fishes.

Nick Stuart: And to think that happened BEFORE he faced off against a mobster.

Richard Parker: Hey, japes are MY thing!

“Oh La La” hits into high gear as FLAMBERGE walks with glorious purpose towards the ring, Intense Championship belt affixed around his waist.

Vince Howard: And his opponent, he is the reigning and defending PRIME Intense Champion, weighing in at 206 pounds and hailing from Strasbourg, France, representing the Glueminati, FLAMMMMMMMMMMMMBERGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

FLAMBERGE slides into the ring, removes his title belt, and hands it to Elvis Nixon who raises it high for the Capital One Arena to see. The arena is tense, neither wrestler one the crowd normally roots for. Still, everyone in attendance craves one thing.

Violence.

The timekeeper’s bell signals the time for what they all wanted has arrived.

DING DING

FLAMBERGE’s steely focus is fixed on the masked enforcer of the GAS. Byrnes shakes his head and begins to jab.

C. Mortgomery Byrnes: Hey, you tryna collect this neck? Ah madone, I’d like to see you try to put me in the Marie Callender’s. Hell, I like them pies.

FLAMBERGE: Cochon sale! PTOO!

C. Montgomery Byrnes: Coochie salad? What? You’se tryna be a freak or somethin’?

FLAMBO has had enough, charging at the former Mortimer Kjedelig, but he sidesteps like a matador at the bullfight. FLAMBO has enough wits about him to hold up before he crashes hard into the turnbuckle, but the gambit has been played. As soon as he turns around, Morty nails him with a snap suplex.

Nick Stuart: A little bit of youthful exuberance costing the Intense Champion there.

Richard Parker: Look, if I had to listen to Morty butcher my language, I’d be mad too. Hell, he butchers the ENGLISH language enough.

Nick Stuart: Don’t you usually root for Byrnes?

Richard Parker: Yeah, but you see, I roll with the Glueminati above anyone else except Hoyt. I’ve got charts, you wanna see them?

Nick Stuart: Rich, this is the main event for the Intense Championship.

Richard Parker: A simple “no” would’ve sufficed, thanks.

As FLAMBO gets up slowly, more out of shock than pain, Morty bails to the outside and looks under the ring skirt. The name of the game is Intense, after all. He pulls out a chair and holds it up to the audience, who RAAAAAAAAAAAHS in approval, less or him and more for the plunder. One problem though.

FLAMBERGE recovered.

THWACK!

Nick Stuart: FLAMBERGE with a hook kick to the chair, planting it in Morty’s face!

Richard Parker: Get hit in the face enough times with a chair and he won’t need a mask to remain hidden from the people out to get him.

Mort drops the chair, which FLAMBO picks up and immediately jams onto the prone former Alias Champ’s throat.

Nick Stuart: Sheer brutality from the Intense Champion here early on.

Richard Parker: It just goes to show how much of a submission expert he is! Unorthodox!

Morty struggles free, but the Champ stays on him, grabbing him as he rolls over, lifting him up to his feet, and in one fluid motion throwing him over his hip into the ring steps. The GAS Enforcer crashes in a heap, holding his side as FLAMBO approaches him looking to continue his assault and make this main event run short of television time.

Nick Stuart: The Champion smells blood.

Richard Parker: Wait up, wait up, I thought he was a lizard, not a shark?

Nick Stuart: It’s a metaphor, Rich.

Nick Stuart: Don’t mix metaphors on me! I have a hard enough time keeping up with things as it is.

FLAMBO lifts Mort up again and this time smashes him down, ribs first, on the steps with a swift gourdbuster. He beckons to the crowd, who boos him in response. As the first Alias Champ of the ReVival writhes, the current Intense Champ shouts what can only be assumed as profanity at him in his native tongue before whipping him HARD into the barricade. He follows over while jabbing at the crowd before hopping over the barricade, placing his knee on the barrier, and putting Morty in a chinlock.

Richard Parker: See, look at him! Only the finest lizard brain could think of submissions that creatively!

Nick Stuart: You have no idea what “lizard-brained” actually means, do you, Richard?

Richard Parker: Absolutely not.

Elvis Nixon asks Mort if he wants to submit, but he says something I can’t repeat about Nixon’s mother before saying no. FLAMBERGE breaks the hold voluntarily but not before grabbing Mort by the earholes in his mask and slamming him down back-first against the guardrail. He hops back over the rail, puts a few boots to Mort’s gut for good measure, and heads over to the ring, throwing up the ring skirt himself to look for a weapon. What he finds induces a Pavlovian RAAAAAHHHHH from the crowd.

Nick Stuart: FLAMBERGE’s got a kendo stick!

He flicks it around in his hands playfully for a second before stalking over to Morty with purpose.

CRACK

CRACK

CRACK

Working over his body indiscriminately, FLAMBO looks to put his challenger down the old-fashioned way, with wanton aggregation of strikes all over. He drags Mort to his feet, puts the stick to his throat, and drags him towards the ring, choking him in the process. Handling him like a sack of potatoes, FLAMBO whips Mort onto the apron, straining his neck, and shoves him hard under the ropes. He follows in, popping to his feet and continuing his assault with the ersatz sword in his hands.

CRACK

CRACK

CRACK

Nick Stuart: The Intense Champion showing no mercy here.

Richard Parker: Sad to say dear Mort will be reduced to glue in short order. I wonder what his variant will be called.

Nick Stuart: You’re way too blithe about this, Richard.

Richard Parker: ignoring Nick Maybe Gamble Adhesive Solution? That sounds like a good product name.

With the last crack, FLAMBERGE makes the first pin attempt of the match.

ONE

TWO

Emphatic kickout from the GAS enforcer.

Nick Stuart: Mort still has life left in him.

Richard Parker: still oblivious Or maybe Alias Paste? To commemorate his title win?

Nick Stuart: audible sigh

FLAMBO kicks him in the side before bailing out of the ring and returning with the chair Mort originally pulled from under the ring. He sets it up in the middle of the ring and leans Morty over it so that his high chest is leaning over the point on the back and the rest of his body is propped up the seat pressing against his midsection. He drops back, bounces off the ropes, charges forward, and…

Nick Stuart: AXE KICK TO MORTY ACROSS THE CHAIR! MY GOD!

Richard Parker: audible high-pitched whimper

FLAMBO covers again…

ONE

TWO

Mort’s kickout is much less emphatic this time.

FLAMBERGE gets up with fire behind his eyes, yelling at Elvis Nixon for a slow count.

Nick Stuart: Oh FLAMBERGE is losing his mind here, but I don’t think this is the right call.

Richard Parker: if you can’t call out a referee in the middle of the main event of biweekly television, Nick, when can you call him out?

Nick Stuart: I’m not getting into a semantic debate with you, Rich, but I will let you know that Morty has slipped out of the ring.

Nick is right, Mort has slipped out of the ring and has slidden another chair into the ring. He reaches under the ring again and pulls out a bucket, which he holds onto as he himself reenters the ring in one motion sliding under the bottom rope.

Nick Stuart: Again! FLAMBO’s inexperience and arrogance catching up with him because Mort is right behind him with that bucket.

Richard Parker: TURN AROUND, FLAMBO!

The Champ turns around just in time to get a bucket shot to his gut. Mort then puts the bucket on top of FLAMBO’s head, adjusting the handle to make as a chinstrap for an ersatz helmet. He scurries over to the other chair and sets it up back to back with the chair FLAMBO set up earlier, creating a peak.

Nick Stuart: I don’t like the looks of this.

FLAMBERGE finally wrests the bucket from the top of his head only to find Morty right in his face, whipping him into the ropes. FLAMBERGE comes charging in, and Mort lifts him up only to fall back, driving the young Frenchman, chest first, into the two chair-back peak with a vicious flapjack.

Nick Stuart: JESUS CHRIST! The Champion is in big trouble now!

Richard Parker: Okay, good, Morty can put this away soon.

Nick Stuart: I’m sorry, weren’t you rooting for FLAMBERGE?

Richard Parker: I take no joy in reporting that Julien Lavigne has lost the mandate of heaven.

Instead of covering, Mort takes one of the chairs, folds it back up, and uses the point to start choking the young Champion. He barks at Elvis.

C. Mortgomery Byrnes: ASK HIM! MADONE, ASK HIM!

Through spittle and obstructed airways, FLAMBO refuses to give up, Mort stops applying pressure and gives the Champion a whack across the chest for good measure before lifting him back up and forcibly sitting him in the chair. He takes the one he folded up, taps it on the mat, then calls his shot.

Richard Parker: He’s a regular Baby Ruth!

Nick Stuart: Don’t you mean Babe Ruth?

Richard Parker: I’m just saying it how Morty would. Have to remain true to my principles.

The facepalm Nick does is audible to the audience at home.

Morty winds up and…

CRACK

FLAMBERGE falls back in the chair from the impact of the chairshot. Morty drops his chair and scampers over to get the pin attempt.

ONE

TWO

Kickout!

The GAS Enforcer slaps the mat and rolls quickly out of the ring. He goes to look under the ring, but he has second thoughts and grabs FLAMBERGE, dragging his torso to hang over the apron. He lands one, two, three elbows on FLAMBO before turning around to face the crowd. He yells something lewd and then…

Nick Stuart: And he’s showing the crowd how much he appreciates them.

Richard Parker: Look, if a man can’t grab his own crotch in front of a crowd in Washington, DC, then I don’t know where he can do it.

Mort turns back to FLAMBO, gives him another elbow to the crown of his skull for good measure, and then pulls the ring skirt away from the apron.

Nick Stuart: Mort has stuffed FLAMBERGE between the ring and the skirt! Headfirst!

Richard Parker: What veteran shrewdness! Once again, showing why I was right to hitch my cart behind the GAS Horse.

Nick Stuart: You’re incorrigible, Rich.

Morty starts stomping recklessly and wildly at the Champion as he tries to free himself from his trap. He finally jostles himself free and rolls under the ring. He crawls out away from Mort’s barrage and slides into the ring with something else in hand.

Richard Parker: Hey, I think FLAMBO has something here.

Nick Stuart: Looks like, a gas can?! Who left a gas can under the ring?

Richard Parker: Sorry, I meant to grab it earlier. But I brought it to light the bonfire at the Friends of Hoyt Club meeting in front of the Capitol later on.

Nick Stuart: I don’t even wanna know.

Morty gives chase into the ring, but FLAMBERGE intercepts him with several stomps to the back of the head. Morty powers through. He shoves FLAMBO out of the way, then charges at him, but FLAMBERGE hits him with a big counter harai goshi throw. Mort crashes into one of the chairs, holding his side, and FLAMBERGE pops up with his arms outstretched before taking three steps forward, tucking his arms tight to his side, and falling forward on his belly.

Nick Stuart: That’s an interesting celebration. Or is he just tired?

Richard Parker: Either way, he’s finally taken control of the match again! Go Glue!

Nick Stuart: I thought he lost the mandate of heaven, Rich.

Richard Parker: It can be regained.

FLAMBO gets up, plants a soccer-style kick in Morty’s gut for good measure, then grabs the gas can. He lifts it up to the crowd, who cheers reflexively for the implied violence before pouring it all over the kendo stick he pulled out earlier. He picks up the stick, and then pulls a lighter out of his pocket. A few clicks, and…

FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!

Nick Stuart: Oh my Lord!

Richard Parker: LIGHTBRINGER! FLAMBERGE IS THE PRINCE WHO WAS PROMISED!

FLAMBERGE waits for for Morty to get to his knees and…

FWOOOOOSH! CRACK!

FWOOOOOSH! CRACK!

Morty pops to his feet, screaming in agony as he holds his skin from the impact from the flaming kendo stick. He bails out of the ring and rolls underneath the skirt while FLAMBO raises the sword to the audience in a pose that will probably spawn 10,000 Instagram posts.

Meanwhile, without warning, Arthur Pleasant emerges from the back and slowly walks down the ramp. There is no Yuri with him. However, he is holding something in his hand.

Nick Stuart: Arthur Pleasant? He’s here? This can’t be good for Morty.

Richard Parker: And what the hell is that he’s carrying with him?!

Pleasant stops short, waiting for Morty to emerge from underneath the ring, which he does, with a fire extinguisher. He holds it up to the crowd, not noticing Pleasant has emerged from the back. He turns around and slides in the ring, pointing the safety implement at FLAMBERGE, still holding the burning stick. FLAMBO begs off, holding the flaming “sword” above his head while Morty points it menacingly.

Nick Stuart: We have the weirdest Mexican standoff in the history of Mexican standoffs.

Richard Parker: Shh, I wanna see how this goes so I know how to adjust my rooting interests accordingly. I might just say forget it and root for whatever that psychopath Pleasant has planned.

Finally, Morty breaks the uneasy tension, pulls the pin, and squeezes.

FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSHHHHHHHHHHHH

In the confusion, Pleasant advances. His emotionless face turns into a devilish grin as he holds up what looks like a cattle prod. The fans, bloodthirsty heathens that they are, seem to cheer this momentarily. Pleasant calmly slithers into the ring under the bottom rope and stays on the mat. He crawls to Mort,, who has not yet noticed Arthur’s arrival, with great insidiousness.

Nick Stuart: Oh this is gonna be b-

ZzzzzzzzzZZZZZZzzzzt!!!

Richard Parker: WHAT THE HELL?!

That electrical sound comes from Pleasant sticking the cattle prod directly between Mort’s shoulder blades and neck area. Byrnesy drops to the mat and convulses from the 4,001 volts coursing through his body! Pleasant’s face turns into a crooked smile of euphoria as he slides out of the ring, giving a knowing nod to a freshly-powdered FLAMBERGE, who is not one to look a gift horse in the mouth especially after suffering that. He throws down his stick and covers.

ONE

TWO

THREE

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Vince Howard: Your winner, and STILL Intense Champion, FLAMBERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGE!

FLAMBO wipes the powder off him more and rolls out of the ring, getting the hell out of dodge. Pleasant looks on with glee from the ringside area, holding up his cattle prod with a sick smile on his face. The implement looks as if it’s a homemade contraption, replete with smiley faces on it.  

Nick Stuart: This is about to get REALLY bad!!

Richard Parker: I think it goes without saying but I’ll say it anyway, Arthur is giving back what he received from Mort at Tropical Turmoil. Tony Gamble DID warn him!

Sliding back into the ring, Pleasant unfolds the steel chair already in the ring and places it directly over Mort’s head, trapping him in case he comes to from the shock he just received. Taking a microphone out of his waistband, Pleasant speaks into it while looking down at Mort’s eyes rolling to the back of his head.

Arthur Pleasant: You took something of mine at Tropical Turmoil. Tonight? I take something of yours.

Reaching down, Pleasant grabs at the eyeholes of Mort’s mask… AND TEARS THE RIGHT HALF OF IT RIGHT OFF HIS FACE!

Nick Stuart: HE JUST HALF-UNMASKED MORTIMER!

Richard Parker: He has no one else to blame, honestly. That unprovoked attack on Arthur Pleasant at Tropical Turmoil 

Holding a piece of Mort’s mask that he just destroyed and pulled off of Mort’s face, he clutches it in his fist like he’s Bane and just broke Batman’s cowl.

Arthur Pleasant: Oh, and I’d like to introduce you to a good friend of mine. We go back a ways, and he’s been wanting to make his PRIME debut. So, without any further ado… allow me to introduce you to…

Getting up off of the steel chair, he kicks it away and sticks the cattle prod directly into Mort’s gut.

Arthur Pleasant: … Mr. ZAPPENSTEIN!     

ZzzzzzzzzZZZZZZzzzzt!!!

Mort flops around like a fish as Pleasant holds Mr. Zappenstein high into the air! While half the crowd is booing, the other half who hate C. Mortgomery Byrnes are cheering. “Immigrant Song” by Voodoo Prophet hits the speakers as Pleasant stuffs the ripped-off piece of Mort’s mask between his teeth and fangs.

Nick Stuart: Statement. Made. 

Richard Parker: These idiots are gonna psycho the shit out of each other. This should be fun!

The camera zooms in on Pleasant’s sick smile as the screen…

FADE

TO

BLACK.