POSTER BOYS
Fade to backstage on a nondescript door, with a cheap piece of notebook paper taped to the front. Words have been hastily scrawled upon it in Magic Marker.
Official Dressing Room Reserved for Five Star Champion of PRIME
(normies KEEP OUT!!)
A production crew member approaches and knocks twice.
Crew Member: We’ll be ready for you in just a couple minutes, sir.
A beat later, the door swings open. Stepping into view to an uproarious reaction from the crowd watching the PRIMEview is none other than “the Escape Artist” Rezin, eyes wide and intense, Five Star Championship slung over one shoulder.
A pair of brooms and a mop fall out of the closet after him and clatter to the floor, but only the crew member seems to notice. The Goat Bastard is preoccupied sniffing and huffing and getting himself mentally in the zone for what he knows will be a hard fight to defend his title.
Without delay, he marches down the hall and kicks his way through a door…
Crew Member: Argyle position is the other way, sir…
The door swings open again and Rezin returns from the MGM Grand’s laundry room, nonchalantly brushing a cluster of soap suds off his shoulder.
Rezin: Right… got it…
Gaffe aside, Rezin maintains his focus as he this time heads down the correct direction.
The Escape Artist turns a corner, camera keeping up with him as he makes his way toward the arena. Then he stops in his tracks when he passes by a large banner hanging across the wall advertising the upcoming Colossus event.
Many of PRIME’s top stars of the past and the future are featured… but he can’t help but notice one is missing.
The one that’s missing is not the young man who walks past; Nate Colton isn’t one of PRIME’s top stars–yet–but also, he is represented on that poster. He slows down as the advertisement catches his eye…and then stops as his attention is drawn to the Escape Artist.
Nate Colton: Champ.
Nate’s address to Rezin is surprisingly formal, and his overall attitude seems a lot colder than usual.
Rezin: Colton.
The Five Star Champion greets the young second-generation athlete with a single curt nod.
Rezin: I see ya survived the Time Lord. Nice goin’.
He tilts his head to Nate’s 2D mirror image smiling back at them from the wall.
Rezin: And wouldn’t you look at that? Ya made the Colossus poster. Guess that means ya cut the mustard, huh? They must really think you’re somethin’ special…
Nate Colton: They must. Probably trying to make me more willing to…what was it? “Lap up an opportunity like that?” I’m sure they love having a “clean-cut white-bread boyscout” on their poster.
Rezin’s face turns in on itself like he’d just been slapped across it.
Rezin: Hey now! I dunno whatever it is ya mighta heard, but those words were spoken in confidence to basketball legend Larry Bird! And ya DAMB sure ain’t the Hick from French Lick! You weren’t even AT that party, if I recall! Unless you were… waitasec…
Suddenly, it hits him.
Rezin: OOOOOOOH…
Nate Colton: Yeah.
The Goat Bastard looks point blank into the camera and winces while biting down on his bottom lip.
Rezin: Totes awkies…
Like the crack of a rawhide whip, Rezin snaps his gaze back to Colton.
Rezin: Yeah, well, WHAT OF IT, huh?! Was I WRONG!?
His open hand slaps Colton on the face.
Chill out, not his actual face; the one on the wall-spanning advertisement.
Rezin: There’s your proof, right there! They put YOU up there to push the product… but not me. The guy who put in the work to earn this…
He raps his knuckles on the face of the Five Star Championship.
Rezin: …for the right to call himself the Five Star Champion of PRIME! The guy who kept it from bein’ walked into some lesser company! The guy who defied the odds and surpassed the expectations and became one of the breakthrough talents of the Revival Era! The number one ranked wrestler in the number one wrestling company on the planet!
The Escape Artist is now good and riled up, eyes darting between poster Colton and actual Colton.
Rezin: So tell me, kid… what the hell do YOU got over ME to earn a place up there?!
Nate Colton: Damned if I know, man. I just go out there and bust my ass, same as anyone else. But this sport means the world to me, and I show that every time I’m in the ring. Maybe that’s resonating with people. Maybe they want to see what can be done with skill and dedication, instead of cutting people open with rusty nails or whatever psycho crap the Love Convoy are gonna do next. So no, I’ve got no idea why you’re not up there.
Now face to face with the Goat Bastard, the Scion of the Colton Family points at his own visage on the flier.
Nate Colton: But I know exactly why I am.
The Five Star Champion responds with a long beat of silence and a wide-eyed glare, before plucking a fresh J into his lips and lighting it up.
Rezin: Poor kid… the parasites are already in your head, and ya don’t even know it. Anyway, if ya don’t mind, I gotta show your pal FLAMBO what’s up.
He snorts two jets of smoke before going past Colton and skulking onward toward the Argyle position. Nate never takes his eyes off the Five Star Champion.
Nate Colton: Lebanon…who the hell do I know from Lebanon? God, that’s gonna bug me all day.