STRONK! GODSON vs. CORAL AVALON
The lights go out in Arena Mexico.
The beginning of Monster Siren’s “Real Me” hits the PA system as smoke fills the entryway. Lights shine behind the smoke, illuminating a silhouette that stands as a sentinel at the top of the ramp. When the guitars of the song hit, the silhouette bursts through the fog with a single spotlight shining down on him.
The 5-Star Champion of PRIME looks like he’s seen better days, having barely survived a war with Sage Pontiff to keep possession of his championship, and then enduring a brutal betrayal right after the match. His ribs are taped up underneath the championship belt around his waist and the large faux fur cloak he wears to the ring. He carries a battle standard which has two logos on it – one is the familiar PRIME logo. The other is a skull wearing half of a broken crown on it, the logo of the Crownless Kingdom.
Vince Howard: Ladies and gentlemen… the following contest, scheduled for one fall, is a non-title exhibition match! Making his way to the ring… residing in Seattle, Washington, he weighs in tonight at two hundred and fourteen pounds! THE CROWNLESS KING! THE 5-STAR CHAMPION! THIS! IS! COOOOOOOORRRAAAALLLLL AVAAAALOOOOOOONNNN!!
Avalon walks to the ring between rows of smaller yellow and blue lights that illuminate him as he heads for the ring. When he reaches the ring apron, he jumps up onto the apron and steps into the ring, taking care to not lose his regalia in the ropes. He finds the hard cam and puts up two fists with the pinkies and ring fingers out.
His music eventually dies down, with fans in Mexico chanting his name. All he has to do is wait for his opponent.
STRONK DADDY
STRONK DADDY
STRONK DADDY
Those words play on a loop through the arena’s sound system, the opening refrain to the chart-topping, genre-defining hit “STRONKER” by the beautiful, enigmatic FLAV RILLE, only heavily distorted, dulled, chopped ‘n screwed, and underscored by a bone-jarring thumping base.
STRONK DADDY
STRONK DADDY
STRONK DADDY
White lights pulsate inside the arena, briefly illuminating the raucous crowd, perfectly in sync with the words, which sound partly demonic, partly robotic, and definitely foreboding.
HE’S UNSTOPPABBBBLLLLLEEEEE!
The King Stallion’s custom entrance theme kicks in all the way, the song returning to its usual sound, as a lone spotlight shines down on the stage, directly in front of the entrance.
Michael Oliver Best walks out first, dressed to the fucking nines and carrying a weight scale propped against his shoulder. Everywhere they go, the scale goes (within reason), available at the drop of a hat to measure and document the big man’s perpetual bulking progress.
A few seconds later, MOB turns back around and points reverently to the entrance, and the hulking HOW World Champion pushes through the curtain, emerging out onto the stage. He’s immediately met by a MASSIVE but mixed reaction. He’s the Upcoming Large Object, after all—the industry’s best chance at crossover mainstream exposure. Let the man do his thing, okay? Let the man make all our collective lives better.
Atop a portable self-balancing scooter painted HOW red, rocking subtly and unintentionally back and forth, STRONK! scans the Arena Mexico with his typical David Puddy blank stare, bathing in the white light, 97RED respectfully fastened around his waist. The camera shoots him from below, facing upward, making him appear gigantic on the video screen behind him, despite his standing only five feet nine inches tall. As short as he admittedly is for his size, STRONK!’s equally as wide. Ripped to shreds and slathered in baby oil. He’s got the ‘money’ look promoters love (save, once again, for the whole ‘not six foot four thing).
Last out from the back is “the Original” Jeff Garvin, looking like he just rolled out of bed five minutes ago. He wears a faded Tennessee Technician sweatsuit (from 2003) and his short curly brown hair is tamped down on the left side of his head. He carries with him a spit bucket. Once he spots Coral Avalon, his old and greatest nemesis, standing outside the ring, his demeanor instantly shifts. He remembers why he’s here and exactly why he goaded STRONK!, after weeks of half-heartedly training him in old-school Memphis wrestling holds for a desperately needed paycheck, to challenge Avalon for the second-ever PWA show in the first place.
Twenty years later, and he still hates that beady-eyed fucker’s face. What a piece of shit, Garvin thinks. He looks awful.
Avalon doesn’t look awful. He looks to be in terrific shape.
Garvin, on the other hand, well… twenty years is a long time.
Many bottles of brown were drunk in those twenty years.
A lot of dust has collected on the equipment in his home gym in those twenty years.
Jeff sucks in his beer belly and pats the HOW World Champion on the back encouragingly.
The three men make their way down to the ring, with MOB and Garvin swatting the fans’ hands away as they reach beyond the barricade in hopes of touching STRONK! Daddy. Once inside the ring, STRONK! hands his championship over to MOB; it’s not on the line tonight, but he wears it everywhere. This is actually the first time he’s taken the belt off since winning it at War Games. He sleeps, showers, shits with that thing on. It bestowed upon him his newly acquired “!”, and that means no man is ever taking it off him. Ever.
When this match was made, Coral Avalon was not PRIME’s 5-Star Champion. STRONK! had not yet won War Games. He was not yet the HOW World Champion. What a difference two months makes, right?
DING DING
The moment the bell rang, a living brick wall of meat and hate makes a beeline for his taller but far lighter opponent. Avalon sees him coming and delivers a European uppercut straight to STRONK!’s face that… absolutely doesn’t do a single goddamn thing in deterring Godson from grabbing the Crownless King and flinging him from one side of the ring to the other like he’s taking out the trash.
It’s a suplex, yes, but good luck describing what kind of suplex it is. It’s more like STRONK! grabbed whatever he could of Avalon and said “happy birthday to the ground”.
Avalon bounces when he hits the ground, and comes up rolling into the turnbuckles on the opposite side of the ring. The expression on his face is bewilderment. STRONK! turns and charges Avalon, who manages to get up and kick both feet into STRONK!’s face, using his own momentum against him.
STRONK! backs away, and Coral immediately decides to pull out the big guns and comes charging in with the Rhongomyniad. But STRONK! catches his foot, then reels him into another suplex. This one’s a little more easily defined as a capture suplex, and Coral hits the canvas so hard that he rolls and lands draped face and neck first against the second rope.
Nick Stuart: What a monster this STRONK! is! He’s just flinging Avalon around the ring at-will!
Richard Parker: Look, say what you will about High Octane, and believe me, a lot of people are going to say a lot of things about that place, but they really don’t build guys like STRONK! anywhere except in some sort of secret super soldier lab. So, what I’m saying is that I think we need to issue a formal investigation into whatever secret lab they’re holding underneath the Best Arena, because STRONK! clearly escaped from it and he’s been allowed to do professional wrestling crimes.
The crimes continue as STRONK! moves in on Avalon and starts using his prodigious bulk to press Avalon’s head and neck against the second rope. The referee, Elvis Nixon, is forced to make a five count and admonish STRONK! after he releases the choke at the count of four and a half.
Hey, you know who’s at ringside? Jeff Garvin. You know who has plenty of reason to want to continue choking Coral Avalon? Jeff Garvin. You know who is actually choking him right now while the referee’s back is turned? You already know the answer to that question.
Nick Stuart: Uh, ref? Ref! Look behind you, Elvis!
Richard Parker: What? My monitor’s on the fritz, I don’t see what you’re yelling about.
Garvin only releases the choke when it looks like the referee is going to turn around, and manages to duck under his field of vision and start moving away from the scene of the crime when he does. Thus, Nixon is none the wiser.
Nick Stuart: As if it’s not bad enough that he’s in there against STRONK!, but that weasel out there is making this a handicap match!
Richard Parker: Okay, first of all, that’s Jeff Garvin and he’s a former world champion. Second of all, he’s not a weasel, he’s more like a beer elemental.
STRONK! grabs Avalon in a waistlock and hurls him mightily with a German suplex, planting him somewhere in the zip code of the other side of the ring. STRONK!, a creature with no wasted motion (because he wouldn’t want to burn unnecessary calories), is already moving towards Avalon to throw him again. Avalon’s momentum carries him underneath the bottom rope, and he’s recovering on the other side of the apron when STRONK comes for him.
But Avalon is more resilient than he’s given credit for sometimes, and manages to jump up and nail him in the head with an enzuigiri. STRONK! is staggered backwards, allowing Coral to springboard into a dropkick that actually manages to drop the stout monstrosity, though he’s quick to get back up to one knee.
Avalon bounces off the ropes, looking for the Secace forearm, but STRONK! promptly turns and blasts Avalon almost out of his boots with a wicked lariat that turns him upside-down and lands him hard on his stomach.
Nick Stuart: WHAT A LARIAT!
Richard Parker: He’s dead. He’s fucking dead.
Avalon isn’t dead, but he’s certainly not sure where he is right now. STRONK! decides to go for the cover, but the lariat only gets two after Avalon sneaks his shoulder up off of the canvas.
Nick Stuart: It’s been all STRONK! so far in this contest! This man’s power is unreal!
Richard Parker: He’s getting bigger~ He’s getting STRONKer~
Nick Stuart: Oh no. It’s contagious.
STRONK! isn’t just unstoppable, bigger, or STRONKER! He’s also relentless. Relentlesser. Okay, we need to workshop that. Anyhoodle, STRONK! pulls Avalon up to his feet, and lifts him up into the gorilla press slam in a display of easy power. He even lifts Avalon up and down as though he was the world’s least practical barbell.
It also gives Avalon time to slip out, landing on his feet behind STRONK! and going right into an O’Connor roll! It gets two, and STRONK!’s powerful kickout sends Avalon almost flying out of the ring before he catches himself on the ropes. When STRONK! comes charging in to take back his advantage, Avalon slips through the ropes and catches him with another European uppercut. This one is about as effective as the first one, so Avalon hits him with a second. Then a third. All this does is anger STRONK!, and Steve Solex would call for a little SMASH right about now.
That’s when Coral got clever.
Recognizing that his prowess with uppercuts of European origin are about as useful as a slug in a salt factory, Avalon grabs the bottom rope and slides underneath STRONK!’s legs. STRONK! turns and sees Avalon running into the ropes. He goes for another lariat, but Avalon grabs STRONK!’s arm and flips all the way over into a standing headscissors.
Nick Stuart: Wait! Avalon is looking for Excalibur here!
Richard Parker: That’s ridiculous! He’s STRONK!
While Avalon has STRONK!’s arms underhooked, STRONK! easily blocks the attempt at the Excalibur. So Coral rams his knees into his face multiple times to try and soften him up long enough to make the attempt.
The problem is apparent, though. STRONK! Daddy is bigger and STRONKER!, and did we mention that he’s unstoppable? He’s 307.1 pounds of pure muscle. He might not even have an idea of what body fat actually is. He is the man your man wishes he could be, but he can’t be because he is a weak baby man.
Coral is flung. It’s only because of his natural agility and the knowledge that his attempt at the Excalibur had been futile that he’s able to land on his feet. He doesn’t hesitate to run into the ropes in front of him.
Nick Stuart: RHONGO– NO!
Once again, STRONK! catches Avalon’s boot before it can hit him. This time, though, Avalon doesn’t give him the chance to suplex him out of it, as he leaps up with his other leg and hits him with another enzuigiri! This one rocks STRONK, and he falls to one knee.
Richard Parker: Look at all of the work it took just to bring that man down to one knee! He isn’t human! He’s STRONK!
Avalon scrambles to his feet, and grabs STRONK in a waistlock. He wants a German suplex, but his opponent’s low center of gravity is making it difficult. STRONK! eventually throws Avalon off of him with something resembling a judo throw, and then comes after him with another lariat the moment he’s able to regain his balance.
He’s met with a jumping knee.
STRONK! doesn’t quite go down from it, but he’s rocked. As Garvin shouts words of encouragement to his student (something that sounds suspiciously like “get that motherfucker!”), Avalon lands a few elbows to the back of his skull. I’m sorry, did I say a few elbows? My mistake, I meant a shitload of elbows. Avalon landed so many that even STRONK! can’t weather the storm and is dropped to all fours.
That affords Avalon an opportunity to pull something from the playbook of his best student.
Nick Stuart: Avalon… yes, Avalon’s got an octopus hold on STRONK! Can he pull the rabbit out of the hat here and get the submission on the HOW World Champion!?
Richard Parker: No way!
STRONK! tries to rip his arm out of Avalon’s grip, but Avalon holds firm with both arms against STRONK!’s one. Still, STRONK! is too… Well, STRONK! for the hold to be effective. Coral can’t bend his arm back far enough to really wrench in the hold, and he’s unable to use joint manipulation as he normally would to maintain control. After a few moments, he realizes that the hold could be countered, so he rolls off of STRONK! into a sunset flip. and manages to get him into a pinning combination for a two count.
When STRONK! and Avalon both get to their feet, both make moves to turn the tide of the match. STRONK! goes low, looking for a spear that would’ve surely cut Coral in half. But Coral leapfrogs over him, and when he lands, he runs into the opposite ropes.
Missing the spear takes longer for STRONK! to recover than anyone in Camp STRONK! would’ve liked. Thus, the third time’s the charm.
Nick Stuart: RHONGOMYNIAD!
The vaunted yakuza kick of the Crownless King connects flush on STRONK!’s jaw, and sends him through the ropes and out onto the apron. This isn’t very desirable for Avalon, who would want to connect a second of his “Armaments” to put this match away. Getting STRONK! back into the ring isn’t going to be easy.
So Coral steps out onto the apron to join STRONK!, and once again underhooks the arms for Excalibur. This time, though, STRONK is able to push Avalon off of him. He charges him, only for Avalon to catch him with another boot that turns him around. That’s when Avalon takes STRONK!’s back, locking in a sleeper hold!
Nick Stuart: Sleeper hold locked in, but it’s not going to do anything when they’re outside of the ring!
Richard Parker: I thought this guy was supposed to be smart at wrestling.
Nick Stuart: If STRONK! goes to sleep out here, though, he can’t win the match!
And, indeed, STRONK! appears to be fading in the sleeper hold. Coral leaps up onto STRONK!’s back to force him to carry his weight. It looks like it’s working well enough that STRONK! drops to one knee. Garvin, at ringside, wants desperately to get involved, but he can’t with the referee staring right at the action.
That’s when STRONK! comes alive, like the movie monster rising from his grave with an axe at hand. He stands up, and grabs hold of the top ropes. It’s not exactly a rope break, and Elvis in there is just trying to get them both back in the ring. It doesn’t matter. STRONK! knows what he has to do.
Have you ever taken a tube of toothpaste and just dropped a heavy weight on it? Like, say, a cinderblock? Or, since we’re talking about STRONK! fucking GODSON here, a barbell? Like a big barbell? That Thor might use?
I guess the point of this very long analogy is that STRONK! took Coral Avalon and fell backwards.
Off of the apron. To the floor. With Avalon caught between the concrete floor and the 307.1 pound body of the HOW World Champion.
OHHHHHHH!!!
Richard Parker: JESUS CHRIST!
Nick Stuart: I… I think we need a medical team out here, Richard!
Richard Parker: To hell with that, get a priest!
Avalon hasn’t moved since getting piggybacked to his possible demise off of the apron, while STRONK! is slow to get up. Behind him, Jeff Garvin can’t even hold in his Cheshire cat grin, even as he’s telling STRONK! to take Avalon back into the ring and break him further.
Referee Elvis Nixon renews his ten count after getting over his initial shock. Even though he might love to take the victory by countout, STRONK! doesn’t want to win that way and Garvin is requesting even more punishment. So, the Sultan of STRONK peels Avalon up off of the floor mat, and throws him back into the ring.
Nick Stuart: Just… just pin the man already!
Richard Parker: I don’t think that’s what STRONK!’s trainer wants him to do.
Indeed, Jeff Garvin is shouting at STRONK! to punish Avalon more, as though he believes that Avalon might still have a breath of life in him. STRONK! tries to pick up Avalon, but he has some difficulty because he’s just dead weight. Yet, he is STRONK! and there’s none STRONK!er than him, so he still lifts him up straight off of the canvas and lands a deadlift German suplex, bouncing him mercilessly against the canvas.
Nick Stuart: Someone stop this match!
Richard Parker: STRONK! is beating his corpse so badly that his ghost is going to feel it in whatever part of the afterlife he wound up in. My bet’s on the Field of Reeds. Nice place. Lots of reeds.
Garvin wants another one, and STRONK! is never one to want to disappoint his trainer. So he grabs a still-downed Avalon by the waist and does it again. Avalon seemingly makes no attempt to fight back, and is dropped nearly on his head by the second one.
Nick Stuart: Elvis Nixon has not stopped this match, and I don’t understand why!?
Richard Parker: His only job is to count to three!
Nick Stuart: His job is to ensure the safety of everyone in that ring, Richard!
Richard Parker: Wow, if that’s the case, he really sucks at his job.
STRONK! stands, but his breathing is starting to labor. STRONK! won the absolute brutality of War Games by picking his spots and preying on a Conor Fuse too preoccupied by celebrating, but in a one-on-one contest, he is a sprint kind of guy. A marathon? Ain’t nobody’s got the time for that.
So, when he goes to pick Avalon up for the third one, he’s noticeably slower than the first two times he did it. He’d much rather just finish this. He’d rather just put in the Loop Hold and cash in his paycheck courtesy of Lee Best for a job well done in smashing a PRIME champion.
But a job’s a job. He picked up Avalon by the waist and delivered a third German suplex.
But then something miraculous happened. Avalon lands on as close to his feet as possible given his physical well-being, before dropping to one knee. STRONK! only realizes that Avalon hadn’t been properly suplexed when Garvin is screaming frantically at him, so he turns to go inflict more punishment on him.
He’s too slow.
SMACK!
Richard Parker: What!?
Nick Stuart: You could’ve heard that knee from space!
It’s a straight knee, the kind that his championship-caliber former understudy in Japan liked to use to finish her opponents. STRONK! had shrugged off a lot of Avalon’s strikes throughout this contest, but that one rocked him.
Richard Parker: How is that man standing?
Nick Stuart: Standing might be a strong word…
Indeed, Avalon’s on shaky legs, and it’s not just because he drove his knee into a tank in the vague shape of a handsome, impossibly muscled human man. After a few moments of standing there, seemingly unsure of what he’s doing, he collapses on one knee. Was it a last gasp? Garvin could sense that STRONK! needed to finish things before Avalon did any of that plucky underdog shit he hated, and shouted at him to do just that. Why did STRONK! screw around so much, anyway?
STRONK! is holding his jaw like something got knocked loose from it. Probably nothing, man’s gonna spit out motor oil any second now. Still, he has a job to do. He moves towards Avalon with every intention to kill him. His stringy meat would not even be fit for STRONKuums.
But as STRONK! moves in for the kill, going for his patented vertical drop brainbuster, he is again kneed in the head. When Avalon falls back down un-brainbustered, he quickly gets an inside cradle!
ONE!
TWO!
NO!
Nick Stuart: Avalon nearly stole it right there!
Richard Parker: Does this man’s theft know no bounds!?
STRONK! is actually slower to get up than Avalon, whose adrenaline is going into overdrive to compensate for the damage he’s taken. STRONK! still goes for another lariat, but Avalon ducks it and grabs the waistlock. He wants the German suplex again, but STRONK! attempts to use his low center of gravity again. And yet…
…he finds himself being lifted up.
Richard Parker: Impossible!
After a long, agonizing delay and surprising show of power from the lean Crownless King, he manages to complete the suplex with a bridge!
ONE!
TWO!
NO!
Once again, STRONK! kicks out, but he does so as bewildered as he is exhausted. Avalon needs the ropes to get to his feet, but he’s up before STRONK! is. STRONK! staggers into Avalon, swinging wildly. Avalon ducks and lands the Lungblower backbreaker, but he doesn’t go for the cover. Instead, he rolls underneath the bottom rope and goes up to the top rope.
Nick Stuart: Coral Avalon is making a miraculous comeback here! He’s up on the top rope, could it be time for the Carnwennan!?
It isn’t, but that’s not because of STRONK!… it’s because of Jeff Garvin.
Garvin jumps up on the apron and while he doesn’t do anything directly, his presence is a distraction for both Avalon and Elvis Nixon.
Nick Stuart: No! Get that snake off of the apron!
Avalon realizes what Garvin is doing just in time to leap off the top rope and avoid a STRONK! that was about to meet him in the corner. He lands in a roll, and ends up in the opposite corner. STRONK! comes after him with the speed of a man who just hit a burst of adrenaline that his body labored to keep up with, so Coral used the ropes to jump up and over STRONK!
When he ran out of the corner, he ran towards the ropes.
Right towards Garvin.
Nick Stuart: RHONGOMYNIAD TO GARVIN!
Richard Parker: No!
The Original has no idea what hit him. He’s hated Coral Avalon for twenty long years, and yet he’s unlikely to have ever seen him do a yakuza kick before tonight. The Tennessee Technician is unlikely to know that Avalon’s version of the kick is named for the spear of King Arthur, let alone being able to spell or pronounce it. All he knows is that he’s not eating solid food for a couple of days because of it.
Coral Avalon does not make a lot of mistakes inside a wrestling ring, but this is most certainly one of them.
Because it affords STRONK! an opportunity.
Nick Stuart: STRONK! from behind! STRONK!… THAT’S THE LOOP HOLD!
Richard Parker: Never should’ve taken your eyes off of the prize, Avalon!
It is fortuitous that Avalon was still tangled up in the ropes after the Rhongoymniad when STRONK! got him in the choke sleeper. It means that the hold that won him the HOW World Championship isn’t yet legal. It means that there’s still hope.
STRONK! is very powerful, indeed, but he still gives up a lot of leverage from being shorter than Avalon. And in his efforts to rip Avalon off of the ropes, he loses Avalon’s back. The hold becomes closer to a side headlock. The hold becomes something Coral can counter.
A Saito suplex sends STRONK! to the canvas. The sheer jolt of the impact is enough to break the hold.
Nick Stuart: Where is Avalon getting this strength!?
Richard Parker: I don’t know, but I think that’s his limit, Nick.
Indeed, both men seem equally as slow to get up. The brief period in which Avalon had been in the Loop Hold has sapped much of his strength, and if STRONK! got the Loop Hold on him in the middle of the ring, you might need to call a coroner for him. Yet, STRONK! is gassed. He’s well past his limits in this sort of match. It’s something Jeff Garvin – once he’s able to recover from getting that kick in the face – may have to train his meal ticket to deal with.
Avalon’s just a little bit faster. He charges STRONK! and nails him, full force, with maybe the hardest charging European uppercut he’s ever thrown in his life. STRONK! hits the ropes upon impact and falls out of the ring in a daze. Before he even has time to get his bearings, Avalon is flying after him with a tope suicida!
Nick Stuart: TOPE SUICIDA! They’re right out here in front of us, Rich!
Richard Parker: Get them away! I don’t like this!
Avalon grabs STRONK! by the head and tries to pull him up to get him back into the ring. But STRONK! isn’t budging, as even gassed, he’s still a 307.1 pound muscle monstrosity. He refuses to do anything Avalon wants him to do. His efforts are hampered by the fact that Jeff Garvin, despite having been kicked in the face earlier, is once again ambulatory enough to try and sneak up on Coral.
Coral turns around and sees him. The expression he gives him is withering.
Nick Stuart: That snake in the grass, Garvin, once again!
Richard Parker: I mean, he’s not in the grass. This is a decidedly un-grassy environment. I’m just saying, it’s very bad camouflage for a snake.
Jeff Garvin hates Coral Avalon. It’s an old hatred, dating back to when Coral was a young and unproven rookie over twenty years ago. He would like nothing more than to bury Avalon in a ditch somewhere and piss on it afterwards. But Garvin is a shell of what he once was in 2002, and Avalon has become one of the best wrestlers in the world in that time.
Not that Garvin would ever admit it.
Of course, this match isn’t entirely about Avalon and Garvin, because that shit was twenty years ago, in a world far and away from PWA-02. This is about Coral Avalon and STRONK! GODSON. And STRONK! has ways to remind you that it’s about him, too.
Nick Stuart: No! Look out!
It’s too late, Nick. Not that Coral can hear you. Coral turns only in time for STRONK to grab him and fling him into the ring post. He hits it with his back and collapses on the ground near the entry ramp.
Richard Parker: Oh, he gon’ die now.
While this last show of strength from STRONK! has turned the tides, STRONK! isn’t doing good. He’s red going on purple. He’s breathing hard enough that the front row might need to worry about hypoxia soon. As Jeff Garvin is looking underneath the ring apron for something, STRONK! rolls back into the ring to break up the ten count, then rolls back out to stalk after Avalon.
It’s now that Jeff reveals what he has found: A table.
Nick Stuart: Oh, come on! Now we’ve got a table out here!
Richard Parker: What? People like tables.
He sets it up as STRONK! pulls a weary Avalon to his feet. STRONK! puts Avalon on the table, and then climbs up to the ring apron. This way, he doesn’t need to do anything more than fall on him. At his state of exhaustion, it’s the best option. Garvin tries to hold Avalon down to prevent him from getting out of the way.
There’s a problem, though. Two, actually.
STRONK! is too weary, and Avalon’s fighting back. He headbutts Garvin in the face, knocking him down and away, then gets off of the table to meet STRONK! on the apron.
Nick Stuart: Avalon’s back up! He’s on the apron, fighting it out with STRONK!
STRONK!’s blows don’t have the same effect they did earlier in the match, but Avalon needs to pour everything into his European uppercuts just to have any effect on the brick wall in front of him. STRONK! surprises him with a kick in the gut like something out of a film about Spartans, backing him away.
He turns Avalon around and goes for his old favorite, the backdrop driver. If he lands this, it might not just be over for the match, but for a man’s career. But Avalon flips over and somehow lands on his feet on the apron, a narrow and precise landing with no margin for error. STRONK! turns and gets met with the yakuza kick.
Nick Stuart: ANOTHER RHONGOMYNIAD!
Richard Parker: I swear, he’s just doing that to make you shout that word a lot tonight.
STRONK! doesn’t go down. The man is a monster. You might find someone like him emerging from Camp Crystal Lake in a hockey mask and a machete. However, he is stunned. Avalon grabs STRONK! and underhooks his arms.
He gives a pointed look to Garvin, recovering at ringside from the headbutt.
And then, with every last bit of his power, drops himself and STRONK through the table with a double underhook piledriver.
CRASH!
RAHHHHHHHHH!!!
Richard Parker: I… WHAT THE HELL!?
Nick Stuart: EXCALIBUR OFF OF THE APRON! THROUGH THE TABLE! NOTHING BUT CARNAGE OUT HERE!
Elvis Nixon had already been up to a five count when the Excalibur happened. He’s as shocked as everyone else by what’s happened out there. But he has a job to do.
SIX.
Coral Avalon has risked everything to get to this point. But he’s unable to get up. 307.1 pounds of dead weight lies on top of him.
SEVEN.
STRONK! is an animal forged from STRONKuums and hate. But he’s unable to get up, either. He might be unconscious.
EIGHT.
Jeff Garvin is in a panic, his nose bloodied from the headbutt. This can’t be happening. This is supposed to be revenge. A chance to destroy his enemy one last time. He tries to wake STRONK! up, dumping a bottle of water on his head.
NINE.
But STRONK! remains down, and so does Coral Avalon.
TEN!
DING DING DING
BOOOOOOOO!!!
Dissatisfaction erupts from the crowd, as Elvis Nixon goes over to Vince Howard to consult with him on the decision.
Vince Howard: Ladies and gentlemen… As a result of a double count out, this match has been ruled a NO CONTEST!
BOOOOOOOO!!!
Doctors and EMTs stream out to check on the conditions of both men, as the crowd continues to boo.
Nick Stuart: Folks, this was a wild one…
Richard Parker: We laughed, we cried, we watched Coral Avalon sail through the air forehead-first because that’s the only way he can sail…
Nick Stuart: But… this battle of HOW vs. PRIME has ended in a draw, and I can’t imagine anyone on either side of this one is happy about that.
Richard Parker: Well, I can think of one guy. He threw a copyright law book at a man the other day, I heard!
The scene closes on both Avalon and STRONK! being helped out of the ringside area by attending doctors, and we move on with the show, but not before a bewildered, angry Jeff Garvin sticks his face in a camera and growls, “You all saw that! He accosted me! I’m going to sue that motherf—”