Joey Styles vs. John Bradshaw Layfield

 

Your winner by KTFO: "Stocky Balboa" Joey Styles!

If I Had Been Vince

(A WWE-themed parody of “Déjà vu” by Roger Waters.)

If I had been Vince

I would have rearranged the veins in my arms to make them more

Resistant to steroids and less prone to injury

If I had been Vince

I would have hired many indie guys and would not have suffered

John Cena to bury even one of them

If I had been McMahon

With my Raw and Smackdown brands

If I had been given the nod

I believe I could have done a better job

If I had been JBL

Patrolling the locker room showers

With an entitled sense of power

And the Twitter feed of a coward

I would be afraid to find Edge alone

I’d have the coldest set of stones

At least until I burn in hell

If I had been JBL

The company’s in ruins

And that’s a damn fact

The cheering fans are gone

The creative well is flat

The matches of dreams with no reason to fight

Because the CEO has to always be right

And it feels like the same old shit

The ratings go down, you’re throwing a fit

Counting the cost of main events lost

Under the mid-card to get slapped by the boss

It’s only $9.99 for the ultimate “April Fools”

Gail Reinhold

NAME: Gail Reinhold

AGE: 30

OCCUPATION: Paladin

CANONS: Final Fantasy Hardcore, Tribe, Hardcore Hell, and Fireball Nightmare

Your eyes don’t deceive you and quite frankly I don’t know why they would unless you were having an acid flashback. Gail Reinhold has been a part of four different failed stories, thus making her the most experienced heroine I’ve ever had (and no, that’s not an invitation for the W-word, so piss off). No matter what canon she was a part of, she was always the eventual arm candy of Deus Shadowheart, the most popular and experienced character I have.

Deus Shadowheart is a smelly barbarian who can rip someone in half with his thumb and forefinger. Gail Reinhold is a beautiful paladin who can be both tough-minded and tenderhearted at the same time. How exactly do these two people find each other attractive? How does a beautiful flower like Gail give consent to a barbaric beast like Deus and then the two live happily ever after? In all the times they’ve been together, it was always because Deus was saving Gail from an abduction, one that happened over and over again, might I add. Doesn’t exactly make Gail a strong feminine role model despite supposedly being a badass magic-wielding paladin.

With the random selection I put my characters through, it’s not likely Deus and Gail will ever be a couple again. They might not even be part of the same canon. Were they ever really good for each other if Gail was only a damsel in distress? How about she actually put her magic and combative skills to good use and save a man’s life for a change. Or save another woman’s life. Or save her own life. Make her tough and independent at the same time. She can still be the tender and emotional sweetie pie I always made her out to be, and that might actually work in making her a flawed character despite being nearly invincible in combat.

In addition to being multi-dimensional as a character, she can also be that way when it comes to the time period she occupies. Paladins are Dungeons & Dragons characters by nature, which in plain English means they’re medieval warriors in medieval times. But what if this was the future? What if she was an intergalactic princess with an energy sword (I can’t say light saber lest I be sued by Disney) and unlimited magic powers? Or here’s a crazy idea: she could actually make it in the modern world with no fantasy or supernatural elements whatsoever. She could be a badass marine, a rookie cop, or a digital Robin Hood, all while using a sword. A cop with a sword? A marine with an energy blade? Hell yeah, now we’re talking!

If Gail does find another story to be a part of, then I can’t make the same mistakes I made with her in the past, which are make her too fragile and kill her off with no sympathy or empathy for her character. Gail has a lot of potential to be something great. She shouldn’t be ruined by an early death or a Mary-Sue stigma. I might have to go all the way with her and make her the main character of whatever story she’s a part of. Gail Reinhold: a badass diva with a blade and an attitude. I like the sound of that! It almost sounds like it has graphic novel implications. Bottom line: I believe in Gail’s star power. She can have the charisma if I give it to her. But the question now is, what story will she be a part of? Let’s go to Random.org to find out!

　

***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“If Natalya won the Divas Title, that wouldn’t be good for Tyson Kidd. He’d have more things to carry.”

-John “Bradshaw” Layfield-

WWE Hell in a Cell: Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins

TITLE: WWE Hell in a Cell: Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins

GENRE: Professional Wrestling Match

RATING: TV-PG for moderate violence and brief language

GRADE: Pass

A Hell in a Cell match is more than a typical steel cage fight. In this case, the cage surrounds the entire ring and exposes the concrete floor. You can’t win the match by escape because there is no escape. It’s just you and your opponent inside a wire mesh cage with no rules or regulations to hold you back. As heel commentator JBL so appropriately puts it, the only limit to your attack is your imagination. Dean Ambrose has a wild imagination in case you couldn’t tell from his erratic behavior. Seth Rollins can be just as sadistic and crazy. The first Hell in a Cell match between John Cena and Randy Orton was…acceptable. But this main event match between Ambrose and Rollins was going to steal the show.

Normally a match of this caliber would start in the ring and the bell would sound off three times to start the battle. Dean Ambrose didn’t want that. Carrying a kendo stick like a samurai sword with him, he wanted to start on TOP of the cell. Seth Rollins along with his two stooges Joey Mercury and Jamie Noble were (kind of) happy to humor him. Mercury and Noble got kendo stick welts for their troubles and Rollins and Ambrose fell off the cage and crashed through the English and Spanish-speaking announce tables.

It could have been over before it started. Dean Ambrose didn’t want that ending. He got off of his stretcher and chased Seth Rollins down before throwing him in the cell to officially start the match. Once the bell rung three times, these two warriors brutalized each other. They used chairs, sticks, steel stairs, and wooden tables, all in an effort to achieve victory. Corporate Kane was outside the cell and interfered by blasting Ambrose in the face with a fire extinguisher. That didn’t cool off the fire in the Lunatic Fringe’s belly. He wasn’t just pissed off at Seth Rollins; he had a bloodlust for him. He wanted to torture and twist him in the most painful ways possible.

Dean Ambrose was so close to exacting his revenge when he put an unconscious Seth Rollins’ head on top of cinder blocks to set up for Rollins’ own finisher move, the curb stomp. And then the arena went black and strange tongues were being spoken with a lantern and a ghost in the center of the ring. The speaker of that tongues was none other than the hypnotic and frightening Bray Wyatt, who downed Dean Ambrose with a spinning face buster and allowed Seth Rollins to cover Ambrose for the 1-2-3 pin. The match is over, but the emotional scars bleed like waterfalls and the physical pains burn like hellfire.

And now for the actual critique. To put it shortly, this match was as violent and psychotic as anybody could ask for. The blood was minimal, but the pain was at its maximum with the creative use of weaponry and the multi-story fall from the start of the match. This wasn’t just a wrestling match; this was a fight for survival. Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins beat each other so badly after that fall it was amazing they didn’t have a hearse parked outside the arena. You’re damn right they were sore and bruised.

Believe it or not, the finish to the match where Bray Wyatt interfered didn’t bother me in the least bit. Yes, I wanted to see Dean Ambrose curb stomp Seth Rollins’ head into powder and slush. But then again, Bray Wyatt had been off of WWE television for a long time and needed a grand reintroduction. And now that the Hell in a Cell pay-per-view is in the books, we’re looking at a rivalry between Ambrose and Wyatt.

You know what that means? It means two crazies, two psychopaths are going to tear each other apart at some point. Dean Ambrose is like The Joker and Bray Wyatt is like Charles Manson. The two wrestlers have the mindset of serial killers and if they have to bleed each other out to get to the climax of their battle, well, let me put it his way: Seth Rollins is the luckiest guy on the planet. If these two loony tunes play enough mind games with each other for long enough, one of those minds will be running down a sewer drain while the other is bleeding with psychological trauma.

What you have to remember when watching WWE is everything happens for a reason. All you have to do as a fan is wait patiently for your favorites to triumph. It’s not an instant situation. It takes time for a climax to launch. Lots of time.

When Daniel Bryan was screwed out of the WWE Title at Summer Slam 2013, it took him until Wrestlemania XXX, which is an April 2014 pay-per-view to regain it. The point of this analogy is if you’re a fan and you want to see Seth Rollins get brutalized over and over again, but eventually for a final time, wait patiently. WWE waited patiently for Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins to climax and it paid off in the most violent way possible, which is why this match in particular gets a passing grade.

John Bush and George Kerry

Although I’m using former WWE superstars The Basham Brothers as a reference picture, I don’t want you to think John Bush and George Kerry are anything like them except for how they look. During their time in the WWE, Doug and Danny Basham were former WWE Tag Team Champions and had various gimmicks. They started out as a generic tag team and over time became bondage slaves for Shaniqua, secret service agents for John Bradshaw Layfield, and armored security guards for Paul Heyman. While the Basham Brothers don’t work for WWE anymore, they did leave something behind for the fans to remember them by.

John Bush and George Kerry are nothing like that. They are the definition of what a generic tag team should be. They come out to the ring wearing underwear-style tights and boots, they never get the chance to use a microphone, and their theme music is “Voices Inside My Head” by The Police (no disrespect to Sting, Andy Summers, and Stewart Copeland). Their wrestling maneuvers include generic things like the scoop slam, the vertical suplex, the hip toss, the running clothesline, and the double axe handle off the top rope. In short, the most creative thing about John Bush and George Kerry is how they got their ring names: by swapping the names of the 2004 Presidential Election contenders John Kerry (Democrat) and George W. Bush (Republican).

You’re asking yourself why I would ever have a use for plain Jane motherfuckers like John Bush and George Kerry. Maybe it’s because they’re a manifestation of what I’m like when in public. On the internet, I have a strong presence. I post short stories, Fireball Nightmare chapters, Garrison’s Library entries, Deviant Art journals, and the occasional thread on a Good Reads group I’m a part of. Even in the real world when I’m talking with my own friends and family, I’m popping off jokes left and right and never miss a beat.

In public life, I’m anything but exciting. I keep to myself except for when I make a purchase, I never smile, I never say “Hi” to anybody, and whenever somebody tries to make conversation with me, I give them the most basic, short answer I can find. For example, when I’m getting a quarter-yearly buzz cut at Hair Masters, my barber will try to make small talk with me. She’ll ask me things like, “What do you do for a living?” and my answer is simple: “I’m unemployed”, an answer that is delivered with a blunt affect. Sometimes she’ll ask, “What are your plans for the evening?” and I’ll say, “I don’t have any.” Personally, I’m never in the mood for small talk with someone who is only friendly to me because I’m a customer and not because they’re actually interested in my boring ass life.

John Bush and George Kerry are a representation of my plain Jane traits. I often fantasize about being a manager in the WWE and having verbal spats with Stephanie McMahon and Triple H (both of which deserve the Wrestling Observer Newsletter award this year for Worst Gimmick). Unfortunately, if I tried to be as talkative in the ring as I am on the internet, I would stutter and my voice power would be minimal. That’s why I hated giving presentations in college and high school: I fumble over my words too easily and the teacher penalizes me for basically being a hardcore introvert. But if John Bush and George Kerry are going to rage against the machine and tell everybody they’re full of shit, they’ll cease to become boring in the eyes of the public. Maybe they’ll get better names and better gimmicks as a result of that. Who knows?

　

***WRESTLING DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

JBL: You’d be in a bad mood if you won the lottery!

MICHAEL COLE: I did win the lottery and I only got two dollars!

"Rebellion" by CFO$

For my 29^th birthday, my sister-in-law turned platonic life partner Susan got me a Roku device, which is basically an on-demand service for my TV. One of the things I downloaded with this Roku was the WWE Network and one of the shows I watch on the WWE Network is NXT, where superstars put on kick-ass matches until they’re called to the main WWE roster to perform on Raw or Smackdown. Two of those wrestlers who brutalize their opponents and climb the ladder of success are Konnor and Viktor, better known as The Ascension.

Every WWE superstar and diva needs their own entrance music to psych them up before a big match. Those entrance themes are created by CFO$. So what kind of music do you give two barbarians like Konnor and Viktor, who both have bodies of Greek titans and the rage of jungle beasts? In order to match their primitive aggression, you need music that is equally aggressive and hard-hitting. That’s where the CFO$ song “Rebellion” comes in.

If you’re standing in the opposite corner from The Ascension and you hear “Rebellion” in all of its heavy metal double bass drum glory playing, you’d better be wearing a diaper. Those two barbarians aren’t there to magic tricks or put on a ballet recital. Konnor and Viktor are there for one reason: to rip their opponents to pieces like a pack of rabid wolves on a wounded deer. You talk about meat on the table? That’s cute, because in order to feed The Ascension’s appetite for blood and flesh, you’d need an entire meat truck full of juicy morsels.

Listening to badass heavy metal music and watching The Ascension in action is very inspiring for an author like me who uses anger and aggression in his writing. Along with Diablo II, this NXT tag team has restored my faith in the barbarian’s ways. Eat, sleep, rage, repeat. I too wish to have characters in my story who emulate this violent lifestyle. I’m already trying to do that with Deus and Diva Shadowheart and their Fireball Nightmare story. I’ve already done it with short stories in my Dragon Machinegun e-book. I will do it again with Dragon Machinegun 2: Reload.

The barbaric tribes are hungry and there’s so much tender flesh for them to consume. To quote Ryback before he turned heel in the WWE, feed me more! And who cares about forks and knives when you’ve got an oversized battleaxe in either hand. Or a morning star. Or a sword. Or a spear. Or maybe even the NXT Tag Team Championship belts. Either way, somebody is having lunch today and it’s going to be delicious!

　

***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Everything I say goes right over Michael Cole’s head. It’s like throwing a Frisbee to a guy sitting down.”

-John “Bradshaw” Layfield-