The Anglo Luchador
The drone footage from ReV 29 played on loop on the big screen.
“I already ask too much of him, babe. He’s got his own life…”
“So do we. We’re being watched. What if he sends that psycho into our house?”
Tom did not raise his head from his hands as he sat hunched over on the couch.
“Mike hasn’t wrestled in forever. He’s recovered enough to do his job or jog, but I don’t know the last time he’s thrown a punch. What’s going to happen if he has to scrape?”
Tam snorted.
“The results will be better than if I’m the one who has to fight.”
“What about private security?”
Tam snorted again.
“You saw how useless the fuckin’ REAL cops were, and you want to pay for rent-a-cops?”
Tom finally lifted his head out of his hands and threw back to sprawl on his sofa.
“Fine. We’ll see if Mike can sit with you while I’m out of town.”
–
He was still wearing the clothes he left the arena in last Friday night. No shower. Vinny told him he’d smelled like a “bag of sewer dicks,” to which his mother replied with a one-week YouTube grounding. There was a shower in Mike’s hospital room, but he couldn’t bring himself to use it. Someone had to be there whenever he roused from sleep, and he didn’t want it to be doctors with poor bedside manner. He got up only to go to the bathroom, get in a doctor’s face whenever they absent-mindedly suggested an opioid drip for the pain, or to sneak out to the cafeteria whenever Mike drifted back into sleep.
He was a zombie glued to his phone, texting Tam or Zo or his eyes glazing over whenever he opened the PRIME Jabber app. They banned Foster. Yippee. Maybe ban him and his feral gator from the fucking fed.
He was deflecting in his mind again. There were ways to deal with Paxton Ray, probably. No one found them out yet. Jared Sykes and Anna Daniels used pure violence to do it, and he still found his way back to be as psychotic and ever.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time. Hubris is recognizing this and thinking you’re special enough to break the cycle anyway.
Mike paid the price for his brother’s hubris, Tom thought to himself obsessively, intrusively. Fugue states were common between waking moments. His text tone broke one of them. It was from “B.”
“yo, come out to the house in WI?”
Any other week, yeah. He’d have gone. The gods and Queens decided though the one week where the cigar buddies would tag together would be the one where his brother was beaten within an inch of his life.
–
It was a sentiment that came with obligation. The manifested trope of the Brandon Youngblood tag team match. “Come on out to my house in Wisconsin, we’ll train, film study, and we’ll have that bond necessary to go out and do what must be done”. Even as he hit send on the message, he hoped there wouldn’t be an affirmative to the olive branch.
Emotional awareness wasn’t dead.
The Tower of Babel’s face was held together with gauze and dissolvable stitches. Some would imagine his head would be filled with a tinny ring, scrambled synapses shooting out aches and brain blotches. Unfortunately for Ivan Stanislav, his wasn’t the only head made like a hammer. A half spent cigar in his hand, the doldrums of summer night ebbing with cinders from the fire in his backyard.
He felt cooped up. Agitated. Something was growing underneath his skin. An old familiar feeling he couldn’t snap himself from.
Nor did he wish to.
The Universal Championship wasn’t the only thing on his mind anymore. The next defense, the maintaining of his place at the top of the sport. No. Not when his dead brother and his lost sister became pawns in some Soviet psychological power game. This was the place such snakes slithered. The monsters of the world, finding whatever place they could to strike, and latching on, thinking they had gained dominion. A trope if ever there was one.
Brandon knew exactly what Tom was feeling all too well. That sense of helplessness in having his family so weaponized, made to feel so helpless.
He flipped through his phone, a few idle punches through flights. Decisions, decisions.
Nothing was going to come from stewing in his backyard. This was a different kind of fight.
Time to put an end to the trope.
–
“What if you managed to hand Ivan Stanislav two losses in two days? That might do it. My father and the government and the military might lose faith in him and the cause. Then I’ll finally move on with my life, instead of being shackled to this deadbeat from the 20th Century.”
-Maksim Stepanov
Ivan Stanislav has hurt, maimed, and destroyed all in his wake. In waves, he attacks. Subjugates. Perverts. I didn’t expect any less when it finally became time for us to face. Yet even still, the depths he and his little lap dog Alexei have gone to try and gain control are surprising. I haven’t gone through doors or walls. He hasn’t shown up to hurt my love.
No…he have gone into the periphery of my life and is dragging my family into all this. My brother. My sister. Like a knife, twisting. He doesn’t know the full breadth of either of them, yet believes he has found this soft place in my shell with where to strike. That stereotypical survivor’s guilt is a valid strategy.
It took longer than intended, Maksim. The opening of spring is now the final salvo of summer. Time. In such throes, your hours must feel like weeks. Years spent chained in the wake of the overbearing and omnipresent. Everything done and everything moving toward singularity. This torture must make for a reverse matryoshka until late September in Chicago.
You all don’t understand what you’re dealing with. At ReVival 35, what do you expect? The simpering of two men licking wounds, questioning themselves to their core and what they could have done to prevent this? I don’t speak for Battaglia. His fight and his reasons aren’t mine. Though, truthfully, I know I poked this bear, kicked the hornet’s nest. I didn’t take your daughter, Ivan; I took your entire purpose in life and smeared shit all over it. I pointed at your failures and the medals that have gone missing from your military jacket as a result. I said to you and Alexei that I know of the mass graves of some of your brothers from Afghanistan as a result of my time in Pakistan.
Ivan and Alexei, you’re not Paxton Ray. You’re not bulldogs off a muzzle. Animals attacking to protect their litter. You manicure your truth and reasons and deny reality itself. So I shocked you in the only way someone could. When everyone goes on about being better than that, that what we need is a hero…they don’t realize how far off they are. History shows you just keep coming. That restrictor plate morals just give you the upper hand.
We still have so far to go, and I’m sorry, Maksim. A twentieth century deadbeat, a relic that you and your people use to sink the world and all you know into a grey, tasteless slosh. Yet he represents the best of your world. The old money and structures that give you soft cushions. You don’t know I am answering your call, Stepanov, and even more, you don’t know that I’m doing so to spite you. Without realizing it, his failures are yours. His actions have consequences that go beyond just him, like roots of a tree. They will come for you, hurt you. Which is fine by me for many reasons. You put your chips on the wrong horses. They couldn’t possibly deliver, to you, the ‘freedom’ you seek. PRIME had a golden opportunity all that time ago? Dig deeper. Study.
Golden opportunities and tickets held end in nightmares against only one man in the ReVival.
Your road to ‘independence’ starts on the eighth.
Does the very thought make your mouth water?
Because it’s sure as hell is making mine.
–
Mike was alert most of the time at least, so he was a little more lax in his vigilance. Shower. Real meals. Sleep deprivation was still an issue, but he made do with jury-rigged combinations of chairs and tables. Both his sons agreed he’d no longer smelled like “sewer dicks” much to the chagrin of their mother for the language. They all appreciated that dad was stepping out of his funk, slowly but surely, even if mentally, he was still chained to guilt.
KNOCK KNOCK
Tom jolted to attention.
“Yeah, come in.”
Expecting a doctor, he nearly fell out of his seat when he saw Brandon Youngblood walk into the hospital room.
“Shit.”
“What…you shocked, Tom?”
“No, I’m just shocked you made it all the way out here. They let you up?”
“Yeah, Tam vouched for me.” His smirk was eerie against the backdrop of gauze and facial scars. “You really married up, you know.”
“No shit.”
Brandon looked around the room, it’s cold sterility surrounding Mike laying in bed. Aside from the clutter of tables and chairs around where Tom was sitting, the room was nearly spotless, a miracle for continual occupancy by a frazzled luchador for a week straight.
“You’ve been posted up in here for a while, I see.”
“It’s the least I can do,” he replied with a sigh. “I’m here all the time, I can make their lives easier a little bit. Would like it if I could make my life or Nora’s life or Mike’s, but I’m just not in a position to do that.”
The Champion shook his head.
“Don’t start with that sob story bullshit again.” A guttural response. Enough to snap any semblance of ease away. “You’ve thrown yourself out into the road and into the fire how many times? It’s Jared’s shtick to live in the world of self doubt. You know what you’re doing. And you know how stubborn you can be. If you didn’t…you wouldn’t have come so close to taking the Universe from me.”
Tom looked up, stone-faced.
“The losses – and there’ve been a lot – I can deal with those. The wages of a career. Sometimes you get hot, and sometimes they get hot at your expense. You’re the Champion for a reason. Hayes, Jared, Rocky, they’re all where they are for reasons.” His head drooped into his hands. “I call myself a hero. I shocked a man with a thousand volts. I knew he’d retaliate swiftly and viciously. I couldn’t protect my own family, let alone a little girl I was asked to take care of. People think I’m something I’m totally not. It’s all unraveling.”
“So that’s it?” Brandon furrowed his brow. “Trying to work through where you sit on the fence and giving up? ”
“Didn’t say that,” Tom replied with a sigh. “I just have no fucking clue what to do when every move I make is wrong. Think about it, it’s wrong. Act on impulse, wrong. Choose violence, wrong. Choose technique and containment, wrong.”
“Been there. More than you can remotely imagine.”
Tom laughed. “This where you got sage advice?”
Brandon pulled up a chair and sat.
“Sage? No. Everyone seems to think that I got some ability to offer words to bring people to light.” A scratch at his forehead. “I say it how I feel it. How I think it. And you don’t want to go down the path I did. Nobody should. Because it’s dangerous. Because…at some point…you don’t care whether or not you go off that cliff. You and I…we’ve got a lot in common. But the fact that you’re concerned with how every move is going to go? I’m not your template. Not because of some bullshit record or status in the sport. No…it’s because you care.”
Tom smiled and laughed.
“I appreciate the candor at least.”
Silence, except for the monitors on Mike and his famous Battaglia family snoring. In his sleep, he made sounds louder than a chainsaw. The air was pregnant with the kind of tension between two wrestlers, men steeped in testosterone and patriarchy who found it hard to pronounce feelings other than aggression. An eternity seemed to pass before Tom spoke up.
“I know I’ve been detached lately, but, uh, what Ivan’s been doing to, with your family, it’s fucked up. Your brother and sister. Just…” Tom trailed off; Brandon had no response. Just more storms brewing around his head. “I don’t know what it’s like to walk in your shoes, B. But I do know something about Ivan. Full of shit, as a rule. You gotta be the one to find commonality with him, assuage his massive ego. But once you do that, he becomes pliable.”
Brandon leaned forward, nodding.
“I wonder,” Tom continued. “If you butter his ample wrecker ass up if you can get close enough to stab him. Subvert the whole process.”
“…you think I can’t beat him?”
“That’s not the case at all. But it’s clear this has transcended a normal match for you. Keeping the title isn’t enough. You gotta scorch the earth like you’re the Russian Army and he’s the French general.”
Brandon nodded.
“That’s good advice. But…”
–
A few weeks marks the one year anniversary of your moment, Paxton. Do you feel it? Does Foster? A whole year since the moment you’d been building toward. Most thought the knight slayed the dragon at Colossus. Righted the world. Showed good could prevail.
The truth is messier than the narratives we try to construct. We all wore shirts and appreciated Jonathan Rhine in the aftermath. Shook up by it. I know it had a direct effect on me going into my bout with Nova at last year’s UltraViolence…despite claiming otherwise. And what did that do?
I lost everything.
Losing to Caesar changed trajectories. Changed paths. 2022, I stormed through it, seemingly unbeatable. Unyielding. Forever Universal Champion. One win that night in Las Vegas…and I knew where I was going. On the way to get my life’s work back at Colossus. You played your part. Took a sliver of my mind. Nine months in the weeds. You played your part in that. And, like I imagine Foster is pumping in your head, you believe you have to be on the defensive because I’m judging you. Because I am a hypocrite. Because I think I’m better than you.
Fuck you.
Paxton…you crippled a man. It scared your wife enough to work to take your child away from you. Me better than you? I’m worse than you. I lost my family not to make some grandiose statement in front of the world; I lost all control in the darkness. But I never sat there and pounded the pavement thinking my unborn son was stolen from me.
Actions have consequences.
You can want Nora all you want. It’s not my place to pass judgment on parental capabilities. But your camp needs to spare the world the sanctimony presentation for your motivations. You like hurting people? Great. I’ve noticed this whole time that when it comes down to dealing with someone who can truly hurt you back, you’ve been sparse. A toolbox. You interjected yourself in my world after the fact like you were a fucking glue prick. More monsters of the month.
I don’t give a fuck if you ever see Nora again.
And you know what else? You coming together with Stanislav? After what you did to Mikey? Am I supposed to grab Tom by the collar and say “please, don’t destroy yourself to get back at him”? “Don’t stoop to his level”? I want him to embrace the hatred. I want him to not wallow in self defeatism and whining about what he did wrong. Fuck you. Fuck you and fuck Foster.
You might have lost at Colossus, but the lights went off before it happened. We saw it happen with our eyes, but it didn’t count. And…even if it did, does anyone actually think Jared Sykes did more than survive you? You cut him to ribbons. Bludgeoned him. You snapped him into the canvas with a brainbuster to start the damn match.
I talked Jared away from the Mudpits. That was a death sentence for a man with everything to lose who thought he was playing with house money. Tom’s different…and you made it different. You went after his flesh and blood.
I’m done pulling people from fires thinking I’m protecting them.
Because I’m not.
In reality, I’m protecting you.
The free ride’s over.
Your consequences are here.
–
“But?”
Tom’s face indicated a slight amount of hurt. Wrong again.
“But…that’s not how I’ve ever done things.” Brandon continued, “You’re right. You have been detached, but who can blame you? You have young children at home. A wife who is so far beyond this she’s practically a civilian. We’re at different stages of our lives. And your brother didn’t ask for this…”
Tom squinted his eyes, wondering what the Diamond’s angle was.
“I appreciate the sentiment, Tom. Really. Because it shows you care. And that advice might work for someone who didn’t know himself. I know myself. It took me a long time, but I got there. You wanted some advice?”
Tom nodded.
“You have to figure out not who you are, but what you are. Against Paxton…so many people think if they win it’s going to create some mythical moment of goodness. Jared beat him at Colossus. What the fuck did it mean though? He was fighting you for the Intense the very next time out. Jared’s win against the big bad didn’t stop the werewolf from hurting your family.”
Tom leaned forward, intent on the next words out of Youngblood’s mouth.
“You fought me with everything and nearly took the Universal from me. That’s not smoke. It’s not ability or technique having you feeling the way you have been. But you hesitate. You get lost in the plot. And then…you have to rebuild.”
The words stabbed at his heart like an oak stake through a vampire’s. Deep in his brain, behind the tangle and the turmoil, he knew Brandon was correct.
“Fuck rebuilding yourself every time out,” Brandon continued. “You’re a family man. By all I’ve seen, you’re doing your best to be the best father you can be. You’ve tried to make some kind of imprint on that piece of shit Paxton’s daughter. But if you keep fighting the rat race…it’s going to keep happening. Ivan…Paxton…they’ll keep coming. Maybe not for our families…but someone else’s? That has to end. We have to end it. He came for your brother to find out where Nora is…and…hell…do you know where she is?”
Tom shook his head.
“MESSIAH’s after her, B. If Shweta told me, I’d be another liability.”
“Fuck out of here with liability talk. Have you been listening, Tom? You rolled in barbwire and wanted to take eyes just a year ago. And people look at you wanting to be a hero and they cackle. But you know what is heroic? Doing what they couldn’t in putting down the monsters of the world.”
Tom dropped his head again.
“Where the fuck did I go wrong?”
A soft cackle from the Diamond. “I think you need to get out of this room. Get some fresh air. Think your brother would agree.”
Cough, cough.
“He right, doe.”
“Mike? How long you been awake?”
“Enough to-a heard most-a this big lug’s monologue there.”
Brandon chuckled to himself while Tom shook his head and sighed.
“You been here long as you could, big bruh.”
“And I’m going to continue to be here until they discharge you and then after.”
“Bruh, I need a brother, not a babysitter. I can speak for myself now. You gotta go get a pound-a flesh back from that bayou loser for me and pay back the Russian jitbag for all the hard tags he gave you back before Colossus.”
“Jitbag? The fuck…” muttered Brandon to himself.
Tom looked at his brother longingly for a few moments before he made up his mind.
“Yeah, you’re right. So uh, I don’t think it’d be too prudent to go to Wisconsin now. Adds too much jetlag. Maybe we stay here, train at Pedro’s gym?”
Brandon rose from his seat. “Nah. Flynn is coming up. The Trash are going to rep and repeat. And Amy’s working for Rapier the night before. But after…if you need…”
“So, the Wrestle House it is then.”
Brandon shook his head, stifling a laugh. “Don’t fuckin’ call it that.”