NOTHING

“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”
– Alexander Graham “Boss Ass OG” Bell

Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean on The USS I Have A Little Dick So Here’s My Big Ass Boat 
May 15th, 2021

After having a door slammed in his face by one Theodore Palmer, Arthur Pleasant enters his cabin on the USS Octane. While everyone in the general vicinity is freaking out over the Cow-Puncher with a forever case of anaphylactic shock getting tossed overboard, High Octane’s Provocateur couldn’t give a sloppy wet fuck about the fate of his fellow High Octanian.

“Did you see that shit out there? He actually threw him overboard. I mean, I thought about doing that to Jack, but… I dunno. Not enough shark in the waters for it to really mean something, I guess. Good luck to Clay, my old… wait for it… chum.”

Yuri groans. Arthur looks at him quizzically.

“Uhhhh, what the fuck is YOUR problem?!”

Yuri groans a second time before turning over in his cot and tossing his Russian cookies into a curved metal basin. Arthur steps back instinctively to avoid any backsplash before cackling with that trademark maniacal laugh of his. Apparently, even Big Russian Motherfuckers can fall victim to the throes of Poseidon.

“Are you serious right now? How are you going to have my back when you can’t even handle a rocky boat? Jesus fuck, Yuri. You’re killin’ me, Smalls.” 

Yuri retches again, ignoring Arthur’s berating. As he continues to fill the basin, he takes a seat on a stool across from his seasick bodyguard and bends his left leg over his right knee. Sighing, Arthur looks on at the sad state of affairs.  

“Maybe I SHOULD have thrown him overboard. I just… you think beating that fucking guy was enough to get me in?” he openly ponders.

Yuri shrugs. After after vomiting again, of course.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so, either. Hm.” shoots back Arthur to the phantom reply.

Yuri wipes the spittle from his lips and goes back to groaning on his cot. It cannot be understated how putrid the smell is. Think half-digested hot dogs unfathomably and sacrilegiously topped with ketchup mixed with a whole lotta vodka.

“You think I should wait and see? See what happens by the time the bookings go up for this next Refueled? Not do anything rash like go up to Lindsay Troy and kick her in her stupid fucking face?”

Yuri signals a thumbs up. Clearly this is to earn some much needed silence from his eccentric employer.

“Brilliant. You’re absolutely right, friend. I can’t tell you how much I value your insight and wisdom. Where would I be in HOW without it, you say? Probably stuck in fucking catering with Bobby Dean and his 4CHIN.” he says, nodding with a half-bow to his own personal Ruski.

Arthur feigns any inkling of emotion that might radiate toward Yuri and his ill-timed sea sickness. The near seven-foot Merc from the Motherland continues groaning and reaches into his pocket for what one can only surmise to be a traveler’s bottle of Dramamine. After twisting the cap off, he pops his head back and downs two tablets, swallowing them without water like a bona fide badass.

“This was an even better talk than the one with Ted. Ha… Ted… talk… ha. Why didn’t I realize the low hanging fruit was there until now? I think I’m slippin’.” he says with deadpan delivery. Shut the fuck up. Y’all love it.

Suddenly, Yuri slams his gigantic titan-like fist into the wall of the cabin. An indentation surfaces from the immediate impact.

“YOU MAKE EXAMPLE OUT OF NEXT OPPONENT! YOU MAKE BLOOD FROM SIDE OF EAR HOLE. YOU…. you… you… y- rrrghhh!!”

Once again, he barfs into the basin. Arthur just stares at the dent in the cabin wall with more than a bit of concern mixed with about a wheelbarrow’s worth of abject horror.

“Holy shit. Lee’s gonna fucking KILL you, Yuri.” he says, shaking his head. 

“How the fuck am I gonna explain that to our- err, MY- dickhead boss?! Dude nearly birthed a fucking shit baby from his shit anus when we trespassed. What the fuck do you think he’s gonna do after vandalizing it?! Forget WARGAMES. Forget LETHAL LOTTERY when and IF that ever fucking happens. Forget fighting anybody but those Hollywood Boyz with a fucking “Z” here on out. Thanks, Yuri. You’re a real pal. You fucking DICK.” he says angrily while bordering on a usual bout of psychosis.

Arthur stands up from his stool and puts his hands behind his head, interlocking his fingers. His face quakes with rage as his hands slowly rip out a couple strands of his own sweaty, raven-colored hair. Kicking the basin of vomit that rests beside Yuri and his cot, chunkage splashes against the walls of their tight quarters as Arthur jumps onto Yuri’s recumbent form.

“I swear to fucking Christ…” he says while slapping a hand over Yuri’s mouth with furious rigor, protecting himself from any further upchucking.

“One way or another? Be it through divine intervention or an outright bribe… I will find a way in. If Darin Zion can beat three people at once, ole Uncle Arthur can certainly find a way into the biggest match of the year.” he says, pausing, “And you… WILL NOT… fuck me on this, Yuri. El comprende, mon ami?”

The Provocateur stands up from the gargantuan of a man who has been rendered helpless under the nauseating sway of the boat and closes his eyes. At peace with his raging proclamation, Arthur looks at the now “technicolored” wall next to the cot Yuri lies on.

“And clean this fucking mess up, will you? I’m only making about forty or something grand here, before taxes, and this is easily a couple K’s worth of restorations. For shit’s sake.”, he says, turning his back to his sickly counterpart.

“Slam a door in MY face, will you? Fuck off, you say, huh? Hehe.” he says under his breath to no one in particular as he opens the door to their cabin.

“Time to rip some doors off their hinges.”

|XxXxXxX|

Off the Beaten Path from the Nezu District
The Bunkyo Ward of Tokyo, Japan
May 19th, 2021

Our setting dramatically shifts from the recent past and morphs into the all-important present as we find ourselves on hallowed Japanese ground in the middle of Tokyo. Loose gravel and broken pieces of pavement crackle beneath Arthur’s feet as he lumbers down the bustling residential streets of inner Bunkyo.

After passing through the narrow sections of Snake Street, dodging bikes and beggars with matching scorn, the famous Metro M Korakuen Station Building; a shopping center home to hundreds of street vendors, looms about fifty yards to his right. It was here that he discovered some eight years ago a junkstore troll selling the first wrestling t-shirt that he ever saw with his likeness on it. It was remarkably shitty looking, completely unlicensed, and made with the poorest fabric imaginable, but it was the sentiment that counted.

At least, that’s what Arthur told the idiot selling it before he savagely beat him to a pulp for such a money grubbing infringement on his own yen-starved cash-flow.

Sighing with flickers of nostalgia, Arthur speaks.       

This one’s gonna hurt, Stevie Boy. If I had a soul or gave a fuck about the well-being of anybody else not named Arthur Pleasant, I’d apologize in advance. But my name just so happens to be Arthur Pleasant, and I don’t actually have a soul or a fuck to give. Because unlike a lot of the vapid mouth breathers here in HOW? I don’t practice in saying shit or doing shit that isn’t me just to try and win some kind of promo volley so some fucking neckbeard sitting on his fat fucking ass at home can discriminately judge us like it’ll have any bearing on what we do in the fucking ring.

Fucking seriously? Well alright, then. Let the savagery commence.

Shaking his head and fluttering his lips with equal parts impatience and disdain, Arthur withdraws a lighter from the right pocket of his jeans. From his left pocket, he pulls out a lone cigarette. The last one from a good ole pack of Marlboros. Of course this meant that, by this time tomorrow, he would convert to the awful Golden Bats he used to smoke all those years ago.

First, I utterly decimate a perennial gaijin “young boy” who has two last names. Then, I get a down on his luck old timer with this misnomer for a name adopted from an outdated wrestling style and beat his ass into oblivion. And NOW I get the fucking walking, talking, cocksucking cure for insomnia who wears a mind-numbing gimmick across his chest like a badge of honor. A gimmick, mind you, that’s actually predicated on sarcasm and about as authentic as a Rookie of the Year Michael Jordan basketball card drawn on toilet paper with fucking crayon.

Whose baby did I drop on its head in a prior lifetime to deserve such a string of fucking awfulness? Hm? At least the only man who has beaten me is a true legend and can say I gave him the fight of his life. 

Now here’s the part where I would normally take a little jab at my biggest fan in Lindsay Troy… but I’m actually on her team for WARGAMES now. So, you know, I guess that means I have to be nice to Lieutenant Commander Thundercunt. All of a sudden I feel like that yapping dog chasing the UPS truck that actually manages to catch up to it. Hahaha… but I digress! 

The Provocateur chuckles as he rolls the cigarette back and forth through his fingers.

You know what? I don’t even have to say it because I’ve seen pretty much everyone noteworthy say it already. BUT, I’m gonna say it anyway, ’cause it’s just something that shouldn’t be understated in any way, shape, or form: there is nothing miraculous about you, Steven. Nothing at all. If there’s a less than nothing vacuum of anti-matter that was opened by some production schmuck trying to divide by zero? Then… that. Yeah. You are THAT.

But, you know what? To give you the benefit of the doubt, and like the frighteningly judicious competitor I am, I did my due diligence on my opponent, looked your basic bitch, “vanilla is my favorite ice cream”, “still watch cable TV but WVIA is my favorite channel” ass up. I mean, I had to. Haven’t heard dick about you in any other corner of the world so I felt it necessary. And you know what I found?

Nothing.

Arthur places the cigarette between his lips. Holding a left hand up as a shield, he takes his right hand and, with the flick of a thumb, puts the flame of the lighter to the end of his last morsel of American integrity. After a deep and fulfilling drag, he continues.

I mean, seriously. I really, truly, went out of my goddamn way to research you, Harry. I searched you up and down in the annals of history and… no results found. The fuck?!

Did you mean Scott Stevens? Nope. I sure as fuck didn’t. So let’s try it again, shall we?

Did you mean Steve Solex?

Ugh. NO. Not at ALL.

So let’s do it. Let’s place some parenthesis around our keyword to truly give our search a more concise and timely boost.

Come on, baby.

Whoa. Hallefuckinglujah. 

• A forgotten totem on the tall and vivid Best Alliance pole. 
• A middling flesh pod carrying a championship belt that his bitch ass didn’t even win.
• A deer in the headlights, mealy mouthed, wanna-be villain halfwit you forget that’s even on the roster two-minutes after watching his promo. 
• A servile little Best Alliance bitch with curtains for pants who should’ve either sued or straight up murdered his fucking seamstress.

Interesting. And by interesting I mean… WOW. And by WOW I mean… HOLY SHIT. And by HOLY SHIT… I mean… hahaha… you’re just a fucking dead man already, aren’t you?

He pauses, taking a drag of the cigarette as the smoke billows up into the atmosphere, disappearing into the night like a faint whisper spoken into an interminable abyss.

Let’s think back to what I said last week when I mentioned having to prove myself to the various nonbelievers here in HOW. And hey, while we’re at it? To the fucking HOG betting lines according to a retired former whatever that now lives vicariously through people who aren’t actually afraid to dip their toes into competition. Annnnnd whatever other bullshit that seems to gain momentum out there in illegal stream-land. Let me ask, out loud, the same question that I asked High Flyer before I signed him up for wrist cutter’s anonymous: THIS is who I am given to prove myself?!

Fuck you.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck you.

This walking bottle of Benadryl laced with Ambien, crossbred with horse tranquilizers, smashed into one coma inducing concoction via mortar and pestle that goes by the name of Steve Harrison?!

Well fuuuuuuck me, then. Whatever. Gimme all the chicken shit you got and I’ll make you a delicious tray of chicken cacciatore out of it. 

But, for real now… it’s a good goddamn thing the made for TV movie, chrome dome David Hasselhoff version of Nick Fury came to his fucking senses and put me in. Or would it be… considering I’m going to be slaughtering every one of his pathetic yes men bitch-asses… the biggest mistake of his life? Food for thought, I suppose.

Because now that I stand firmly inside the castle keep of HOW’s homestretch to WARGAMES, throwing the mutilated carcass of one Harrison comma Steve into the fucking dirt where he belongs, I hold out my hands to the rest of his teammates and say this: Your Friendly Neighborhood Provocateur isn’t fucking playing around anymore.

So as to not be misunderstood, it’s not that I ever really was playing around but… haha… you get what I mean. Trust. 

‘Cause now’s the time to fucking kill.

The orange embers from the cigarette glow boldly before he takes it out of his mouth again and blows another wispy cloud of carcinogenic perfection into the warm-ish night air. He mouths “Nothing” into the camera as he tucks it back in between his lips.

Being on the precipice of some self-indulgent ultraviolence? You… you have a right to know something here, Haroldson What’s-It-Stevies. This has gone from a glorified qualifier to a very uncomfortable, graphic preview. A mere glimpse, if you will, into the fountain of false hopes and unlikely outcomes for Brigadier Bitchtits. This has turned into a painfully honest rundown of just how tailor made a match like WARGAMES is for the nasty, sadistic, pitiless motherfucker that you have the unfortunate duty in facing on the go-home episode of Refueled.

That’s right. The last stop for the fucking bus en route to the demise of the Best Alliance and Rise of the Era of Plea- I meeeeean, The Super Ultimate 412 GrapplerGODS. So when I destroy, devastate, and demoralize the most useless member of the Bee-Ayy in all his cardboard credibility? The rest of your synthetic group of Wish Ordered automatons that masquerade throughout HOW on the daily as an alliance will have no choice but to take a step back and actually see the forest for the fucking trees.

Arthur stops walking for a moment and points in the direction of Korakuen Hall. Which, in all actuality, stands as a shadow from about a thousand feet to the beautiful Tokyo Dome herself. Unquestionably a colossal symbol that’s indicative of things to come. 

You see that up there? You cannot even fathom the type of fucking buzz-saw you’re walking into when you set foot on my home turf. That’s right, you namby-pamby, wishy-washy, cuck-in-the-corner shit silo. Korakuen FUCKING Hall. The Ramayana Temple to my M. Bison, bitch. A temple that worships ME from the time I cut my teeth there, both literally and figuratively, until all these years, scars, and countless casualties of war later. Which means you should be ready yourself to be counted among them.

But as you make your feeble, transparent attempt at impressing your fellow sycophants and fall a mile deep into that waiting, wanting, pit of despair? I want you to remember one thing. I want you to truly think about it as you look me in the eye while I become the turning point in a future documentary of yours that details our chapter in “Dark Side of the Ring: The Self-Destruction and Humiliation of the Idiot Who Calls Himself The Miracle Man”.

Now come slowly bore us all to death with your glass-jawed sack of vanilla-flavored bullshit you fucking awe-inspiring marvel of nothing.

Oh, Teddy. I almost forgot!

Taking one last drag, Arthur blows the inherent smoke toward the camera, flicking his half-smoked cig down onto the ground. Stepping on it to ensure that it doesn’t roll to the side and catch the surrounding grass on fire, Arthur steps to the side, allowing the camera to zoom in on Korakuen Hall.

They close, blocking, or “squishing”, the view of HOW’s final, all-important sojourn before taking that thousand-foot walk north to the inbound spectacle happening at the legendary Tokyo Dome.