INTENSE TITLE: THE ANGLO LUCHADOR (c) vs. JACOB MEPHISTO
Nick Stuart: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to ReVival and do we have a doozy up next!
Richard Parker: The eGG Bandits are wrestling?
Nick Stuart: No, it’s…you know what? Never mind. Let’s head to the ring for the wrestler introductions.
Richard grumbles under his breath something about “trying to make a joke.” as The Dark Horse Always Wins by Blues Saraceno plays through the arena.
Vince Howard: Coming to the ring, hailing from Nazareth, Pennsylvania…standing six-foot five and weighing in at two hundred and sixty-five pounds…he is JAAAAACOOOOOOOB MEEEEPHIIIIIIIISTOOOOOOOOOOO!
The towering Mephisto steps out from Argyle Position and stands menacingly at the top of the ramp. The fans rain boos down on the dark leader as he strides confidently to the ring.
Nick Stuart: The next match is going to be for the Intense Title which means we will almost certainly see some risks that these two wouldn’t normally take.
Richard Parker: And plenty of blood if history is to be believed.
Mephisto saunters confidently to the ring and slithers into the squared circle. He does a quick lap around, circling Jimmy Turnbull like a vulture.
The arena lights go down and instead of sugar skulls on the PRIMEview, the screen shows Latin mambo legend Tito Puente preparing to perform on stage. His version of “Oye Como Va” begins to play as rainbow colored light strobe the entrance.
Nick Stuart: The Intense Champion is honoring one of the true pioneers in music for US Hispanic Heritage Month!
Richard Parker: Tito Puente is one of my favorite guest stars from The Simpsons.
Nick Stuart: He’s known for much more than that, you know.
The Anglo Luchador struts out from Argyle Position, Intense Championship belt strapped tightly around his waist, holding his Fighting for Jonathan shirt close to his abdomen. He stops at the top of the ramp and raises his arms, soaking in the cheers.
Vince Howard: And his opponent, hailing from Philadelphia, PA…standing six feet and weighing in at two hundred and eleven pounds…The Intense Champion…THE AAAAAAANGLOOOOO LUUUUUCHADOOOOOOR!
Nick Stuart: The Anglo Luchador, not only honoring Jonathan Rhine tonight, but also, I’m told, honoring his trainer, Pedro Santamaria, better known as the most successful Puerto Rican luchador ever, “El Mofongo.” Puente is his favorite artist and a Puerto Rican himself.
Richard Parker: I heard Rhine can move his hands now. Hopefully he’s making a wank motion at this shameless pandering.
Nick Stuart: Why do you hate The Anglo Luchador so much?
Richard Parker: Ask Hoyt.
The luchador takes his time slapping hands along the aisle, taking time to look into the ring at his challenger cautiously. He reaches ringside area, leaps up to the apron, and stares daggers at Jacob Mephisto.
Jimmy Turnbull checks over both competitors in a useless gesture, as there are basically no rules, and motions for the bell and the match is underway.
DING DING
The Luchador knows he won’t match power with Mephisto and instead of engaging him in a direct assault, he drops to the canvas and rolls out of the ring. He wastes no time in flipping up the apron and pulling out a weapon, in this case a wooden chair. He rolls back into the ring and motions for Jacob to come at him. The ominous man smiles and circles off to his left, planning his first move.
Nick Stuart: Interesting move, going for the wooden chair. Not something you usually associate with our sport.
Richard Parker: Wood is going to hurt more, in my opinion.
Nick Stuart: Explain.
Richard Parker: Think about it, splinters, shattering, more weight behind the chair. The Anglo Luchadore is diabolical and needs to be stopped.
Nick Stuart: I’m not sure I agree with any of those statements, Richard.
Richard looks skyward.
Richard Parker: It’s OK Hoyt, he will be converted.
Back in the ring, The Anglo Luchador and Mephisto are playing a game of chicken in the ring. They continue to circle and Jacob steps in only to hop back quickly once the chair is brandished. Finally, he decides he has had enough monkeying around and bullrushes the luchadore. The Anglo Luchador swings for all he is worth, but only gets a part of his shoulder as the chair explodes into a cacophony of splinters and shards. Mephisto grimaces as he takes the blow, but leaves the luchador with nothing but fragments of the chair back to fight with. He grasps The Anglo Luchador in a clinch and drops the smaller man to a knee with a family-size headbutt.
Richard Parker: Speaking of family size, where do you stand on the bulk warehouse store debate, Nick?
Nick Stuart: I don’t know what you’re talking about, Richard. Aren’t they all the same thing?
Richard Parker: What? You can’t be serious, first off there is the meat counter…
Back in the ring, Jacob still has a handful of The Anglo Luchador’s mask and he methodically drops to a knee and transitions into a neck crank headlock. The luchadore flails a bit and tries in vain to break up the hold.
Finally The Anglo Luchador puts a foot up and stands, bringing Jacob with him and he drops a couple elbows into the larger man’s breadbasket before pushing him off into the ropes. The Anglo Luchador runs the opposite direction to pick up steam, but is met with a huge power forearm that launches the smaller man up and over the ropes onto the floor outside the ring.
Nick Stuart: Ok, so the seafood is better at one versus the other but can’t you get a fresher hamburger and two-packs of broiler chickens at the other?
Richard Parker: They want you to think that, but they offset the cost by adding filler and food coloring.
Nick Stuart: They add food coloring to the meat?
Richard Parker: Not just food coloring, but meat glue too. It’s a perfect capitalist venue. Praporshcik Stanislav would be sickened…
Mephisto works his way outside of the ring, sneaking up on The Anglo Luchador. The smaller man is just getting to his feet after being dumped outside the right. Jacob attempts to swing only to have the luchador duck under and deliver a right, then a left, then a right, then a left, then a…well you get the idea. As he does his best Rocky impersonation, Mephisto wobbles on his feet until The Anglo Luchador grabs his arm and whips him into the fan barricade. The metal creaks and crashes as the large man splashes into it.
Nick Stuart: OK, that is fair but what about the toilet paper? Thirty standard rolls worth of toilet paper for twenty four dollars is a great deal in this economy.
Richard Parker: Please, the detergent is where the real savings is at. You’re doing amateur hour on the paper products. Literally flushing money down the toilet.
Nick Stuart: But detergent goes down the drain!
Richard Parker: It’s not a perfect analogy, OK? You haven’t lived until you’ve bought a two gallon jug of detergent. I’ve been washing clothes with the same container for four years…
The Anglo Luchador goes digging for treasure under the ring once again and he comes out with…a basketball? He starts to dribble the ball back and forth, showing off his sick handles before cocking back and launching the ball at Mephisto, hitting him square in the face and drawing an audible OOOOOOH from the crowd.
Jacob goes down holding his face, blood streaming from between his fingers. The luchador runs forward and deftly leaps up to the ring apron before running off the raised platform and delivering an elbow strike to the top of the kneeling man’s head. Mephisto groans loudly and shakes the misty tears from his eyes, revealing a bloody nose from the ball.
Richard Parker: I once did a lap around the store and ate at every kiosk, and the store was so big that by the time I got all the way around the old ladies had forgotten who I was and let me go around a second time. I spent seven and a half hours doing this before they finally kicked me out.
Nick Stuart: Yeah? Well I scanned my member card at thirty six digital kiosks in one day and received an assortment of products ranging from tire plugs to gummy dinosaurs to a one ounce tube of edible liniment.
Richard Parker: I didn’t even have a membership at the time.
Nick Stuart: You fiend!
Richard Parker: *whispers* I think that’s a different show, Nick.
The Anglo Luchador pulls a table from under the ring, not one of those flimsy particle board tables, but a true genuine level plastic folding table, and he sets it up at ringside. An angry Mephisto lunges forward and grabs the luchador by the neck with both hands, lifting him up and blasting him through the plastic table. It blows apart with a booming thud and lays broken at the hinges with The Anglo Luchador gritting his teeth and coughing on top of it.
The leader of the family rolls out and nurses the blood streaming from his nostrils by pinching the bridge of his nose. He lays several boots into the fallen luchador for the earlier blow and starts looking around for another way to incapacitate his foe. Shortly thereafter he finds a production member and steals a rather expensive looking camera from them.
Nick Stuart: You know what impresses me? The quality of the store branded items.
Richard Parker: I’ve read that they both come from the same place.
Nick Stuart: Where did you read that? I haven’t heard anything like that.
Richard Parker: Mike McGee’s personal blog. He talks about some interesting things like receiving practices, worker compensation for extended leave of absence, and my personal favorite: “Rollin’ the dice on store made sushi rolls”…
The Anglo Luchador gets to his feet holding the rail and gets waffled hard in the face by a video camera. As he goes down to the ground, he begins to bleed from the wound that he received from Jace Parker Davidson a couple of weeks ago. Mephisto smirks, clearly deliberate in his attack, knowing they will have to restitch the wound that had previously been just closing.
Jacob grabs The Anglo Luchador and rolls him back into the ring. The luchador is clearly seeing the wear of multiple recent battles on his body, and he struggles to stand up under his own power. Mephisto looks to grasp his opponent into a DDT position and stops for a moment to savor the boo’s of the crowd.
Nick Stuart: Look, nobody is saying you can’t get a six pound vat of Crisco at this place ok? I just don’t see why anyone would need that!
Richard Parker: Oh don’t act like you’ve never needed six pounds of rendered oil, Nick. I bet you are a butter flavored man.
Nick Stuart: As it so happens, yes I do like the buttery flavor best. But that is hardly here nor there. A real shopper just gets the two pack of vegetable oil. It’s six quarts of goodness.
Richard Parker: Six pounds of Crisco!
Nick Stuart: Six Quarts of Vegetable Oil!
Richard Parker: Six Pounds of Crisco…
A Mephisto stalls, it allows The Anglo Luchador to slip free and headbutt Jacob right in the breadbasket. As Mephisto stumbles back with the wind knocked out of him, the old luchador scrambles to find any weapon he can, which happens to be a shard of the broken wooden chair from the beginning of the match. He swings it forward in a stabbing and Jacob barely dodges being impaled like some sort of ersatz Dracula.
The luchador swings again, and this time rakes it across Mephisto’s back, gouging a ravine into his lumbar region. The Anglo Luchadore watches Jacob trip forward and grab his back, then quickly rolls out of the ring. He goes for the real deal this time and “borrows” a steel chair from a ring assistant.
Richard Parker: I bought a forty count of AA batteries for eighteen dollars!
Nick Stuart: I bought a sixty seven and a half ounce box of Cheez-Its!
Richard Parker: Two Piece Mango Wood Lantern Set!
Nick Stuart: Five pack of boxer briefs!
Richard Stuart: Three hundred and sixty five tablets of non-drowsy allergy medication!
Nick and Richard at the same time: A HOTDOG AND SODA FOR A BUCK FIFTY!
Nick Stuart: Wait, you go to the same store I do?
Richard Parker: The one over by The University Medical Center?
Nick Stuart: YES!
Back in the ring, The Anglo Luchador slides in behind Mephisto and watches, circling behind. Jimmy Turnbull watches, ready to count at any moment. As Jacob turns around, he takes a huge shot to the head from the chair, but stays on his feet. The old luchador cocks back and swings again, denting the chair and dropping Mephisto to a knee and his head toward the mat.
A trickle of blood starts to run down Mephistos face now, and even though one would swear it should be black, it is indeed red. The patriarch lifts his head defiantly and sprays a gob of blood from his nose on the mat, begging the old luchador to hit him again.
Jacob locks eyes with The Anglo Luchador, smiling as he is hit for the third time with the steel chair over the head. As TAL drops into a pinning position, he reaches over, grabbing Mephisto’s leg and steps over the other leg in a hook and pin to insure that his opponent will not kick out easily.
Jimmy Turnbull slides into position, drops to the mat and lifts his hand to make the count.
ONE!
TWO!
THREE!
DING DING DING!
Vince Howard: Here is your winner…and STILL Intense Champion…THE AAAAAAANGLOOOOO LUUUUUCHADOOOOOOR!
“Oye Como Va” plays and The Anglo Luchador gingerly makes his way out of the ring and up the ramp, victorious, as Jacob Mephisto receives medical care in the ring.
Nick Stuart: A fine match tonight folks. Despite Jacob Mephisto’s best effort, The Anglo Luchador secures a victory and keeps his belt for another day.
Richard Parker: I can’t believe that damn luchador wins again. Well, I guess we both know where Jacob Mephisto can get an industrial sized box of gauze though.
Nick Stuart: Boy do we ever! And with that, ladies and gentlemen, it is time to continue with ReVival!