- Event: Chaos 042
Ahhh, ahhh, ahhh, ahhh
Whatever happened to predictability?
Establishing shot of the HOW World Champion STRONK!, BIG STACE, their seven “children,” and Michael Oliver Best crammed into a 2023 Mercedes Benz Sprinter van with its top crudely sawn off. Everyone has a muted expression of joy (if you can call it that) on their face, except for MOB, who looks visibly annoyed and uncomfortable. STRONK! turns and looks directly into the camera that is attached to a drone flying slightly overhead and beside the van; gradually, everyone else does the same.
The camera pulls back to reveal they are driving down the 95th Street Bridge in Chicago, Illinois. Given the fact the bridge is very short, they get to the other end before the opening lyrics can even finish playing.
Superimposed over the shot are the words “STRONK! House.”
The milkman, the paperboy, evening tv?
Cut to Michael Oliver Best sitting on a park bench, unwrapping a deli sandwich, salivating. One of the STRONK! children rush past, too quickly to discern which one, and snatches it from him. He huffs and shakes his head, displeased.
How did I get to living here?
Cut to STRONK!, standing in a suburban driveway that is obviously not his own (because he lives in a damn penthouse apartment), applying ample amounts of baby oil to his hulking chest and polishing his pecs. He tries (and fails) to smile at the camera.
Somebody tell me please!
Cut to some random guy in a light brown jacket on a pier, choppy ocean waters behind him, taking off a pair of sunglasses and smiling for the camera. The identity of this individual will never be explained, and he’ll never be seen again.
This old world’s confusing me
Cut to STRONK Jr. the First, a small female child, lying on her stomach on her bed. For whatever reason, she’s talking into an old fashioned landline phone.
With clouds as mean as you’ve ever seen
Cut to STRONK Jr. the Second, a slightly older female child, seated on her bed, admiring her freshly painted nails and guzzling a shaker cup of mass-gainer. She lets out a hearty burp, but the sound is silenced behind the lyrics and jaunty tune.
Ain’t a bird who knows your tune.
Cut to STRONK Jr. the Third, a tiny Chinese boy, gripping a recently caught bird in his two hands. The bird looks terrified and in serious pain. The boy smiles at the camera.
Cut to STRONK Jr. the Fourth, a Mexican boy, wearing a backpack with a full-sized barbell sticking out of it, ready for school(?). He turns, smiles at the camera, and gives a goofy-looking thumbs-up.
Then a little voice inside you whispers,
Cut to STRONK Jr. the Fifth and Sixth, two oddly terrifying twin boys with shaved domes, standing in a backyard somewhere, ignoring DOG! as he frantically runs circles around them. They stare into the camera, unsmiling and unblinking. The shot remains on them longer than any of the others, as the lyrics demonically distort for a split second, before returning to normal.
It is bone-chilling.
Kid don’t sell your dreams, so soon
Cut to STRONK Jr. the Seventh, also known as STRONK Jr. Supreme Ultimate Performance Edition Remix (or, simply, STRONK Jr. SUPER, or just “SUP” for brevity’s sake), the seventeen-year-old, six-foot-seven, three hundred pound Nigerian “baby” of the family, jumping up and down on his way-too-small bed, and SMASHING his head through the ceiling. He falls to his butt on the bed with a jarring bounce, and smiles at the camera, revealing two gold incisors, the left tooth encrusted with a blood diamond.
Everywhere you look, everywhere you go
Cut to a shot that pans up over a beautiful green field, trees in the background, as the STRONK! Family comes running forward into frame. They are side by side, hands joined together, except for the gigantic SUP, who’s seated on STRONK!’s shoulders.
There’s a heart (There’s a heart), a hand to hold onto.
Cut to STRONK! and BIG STACE arm-wrestling at the kitchen table, their admittedly confusing but loving brood surrounding them. Perspiration jewels on the crown of STRONK!’s head, veins bulging in his neck. STRONK Jr. the Fourth, wearing a green visor, gestures wildly like he’s taking bets.
Everywhere you look, everywhere you go
There’s a place, of somebody who needs you!
Cut to STRONK!, BIG STACE, and the STRONKY! Babies lifting aggressively large dumbbells in the Best Gym.
Everywhere you look
When you’re lost out there and you’re all alone,
Cut to STRONK! waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night on the heels of another night-terror about his time as a small human man, pre-War Games.
He looks around his bedroom, finding his children passed out safely on the hardwood floor, as though they just randomly collapsed from exhaustion. He flexes to remind himself that he is STRONK!, ALL CAPS with an exclamation point, and heaves a sigh of relief, before falling back asleep.
A light is waiting to carry you hooooooooome!
Cut to STRONK! viciously choking a crash test dummy MOB procured for him off Ebay, with a printout of Conor Fuse’s face plastered on it, while the STRONK! Family cheers on their patriarch.
The camera pans to the side to find the HOW World Championship hanging from a coat rack. The words “And introducing Big Red as The Thing Conor Fuse Will Never Again Possess” appears on-screen.
Everywhere you look
Everywhere you look
Finally, cut to the STRONK! Family, with Michael Oliver Best, having a picnic consisting of raw steak sandwiches on a sunny day. An emaciated, bloody Abdullah Choi, chained by the neck to a boulder, walks around the perimeter of the picnic blanket, handing out sandwiches and absorbing hard slaps to the face from each of the children.
Superimposed over the shot are the words “Created by Lee MOTHERFUCKING Best” as the camera pulls back and fades out.
(Chip-a-dee-ba-ba-dow!)
—
“What an exhausting week.”
Michael Oliver Best slumps into a camp chair in the corner of his client’s living room. The dark circles under his eyes betray a man craving uninterrupted sleep. He sweeps his splayed digits through his long, white hair, taking stock of the myriad of activities he’d been party to over the past seven days, as well as what lies ahead on the 42nd episode of HOW’s CHAOS television program.
A rematch with Conor Fuse nearly one year in the making, this time with the HOW World Championship on the line.
Between now and Sunday, Godson will spend tens of hours in his brother’s private gym located a few miles away from the condo building in which he now sits. He will cart the King Stallion back and forth at his request. When there’s a title defense on the horizon, STRONK! becomes obsessive with respect to his training regiment. No one needs to push him to lift weights and drill moves; Godson’s endlessly self-motivated, and that goes doubly so now that he has a family for which to provide.
However, like a hungry worm burrowed deep into the brain, Michael Oliver Best wonders whether there is an unfortunate element of distraction introduced by Godson’s new familia situation.
“Ey bapa,” calls a raspy voice from across the room. “Can I get summa dat tasty tap wah-wah or what? I’m fuckin’ parched, Unc. Help a brother out.”
MOB’s eyes dart to the dog cage on the other side of the room. Inside, a disheveled, malnourished Abdullah Choi clutches the steel wires with his bony fingers, his bloodshot eyes begging for freedom and sustenance.
“Who said you could speak?” MOB snaps, rubbing his temples to ease an oncoming migraine. “You’re on death row, awaiting execution.”
“This can’t be fuckin’ legal!” Choi shouts, rattling the cage.
DOG walks over to the side of the cage, lifts his hindleg, and projects a stream of deep yellow piss, which arcs into the cage, splashing the side of Choi, who recoils in disgust. “This is, uhhh, kidnapping! This is, ummm, cruel and unusual punishment!”
“And it’s one hundred percent deserved, no?” responds Michael Oliver Best.
“No!” Choi squirms toward the other side of the cramped cell, trying to escape the blast of putrid dog urine, which surprisingly continues to flow and makes him feel even more aggrieved that a DAMNED WORTHLESS MUTT is better hydrated than he is! “This is criminal behavior! Let me outta here this instant! You let me out, and, uhhh… I’ll spare you. You’ll be spared, bapa! Like you were never here! This is against the Geneva Convention!”
Not gonna lie… for a split second—and only a split second—his reptilian brain, pockmarked and burnt out from years of recreational drug abuse, not to mention just the fact he’s a deplorable POS capable of the most vile of things, contemplates taking a sip from the faucet… but then he realizes what a disgusting, degenerative thought that is and buries it down DEEP.
“I’m not listening, Mister Choi, or whatever your name is,” MOB says. “You’re but a ghost that haunts this penthouse, and I, Michael Oliver Best, don’t believe in ghosts.”
Choi freaks out, kicking his feet wildly and banging his head on the top of the cage as he tries to stand up. He falls back to a supine position, his face beat red, vengeance burning in his eyes. He looks at DOG, who’s finally stopped peeing and is standing there with a kind of satisfied smile on his face.
“You!” Choi growls, pointing at DOG, finger trembling with anger. “If I wasn’t in this cage, I’d skin you alive and not even do anything of value with your pelt! I’d use it to wipe my fucking ass!”
The sound of a door opening causes Choi’s head to snap around in its direction.
MOB smirks. “What was that? Repeat what you just said.”
“I—I’m good, thanks,” Choi stammers, gulps hard, and cowers in his cage, as the whole STRONK! Family rounds the corner into the living room, each with a messy, blood-covered bib tied around their necks, fresh off their sixth feast of the day (and it’s only two in the afternoon).
MOB stands to greet his client. “Mister Godson, how was lunch number three?”
In unison, all nine members of the STRONK! Family let out a lip-rippling belch that poisons the air and turns MOB’s stomach; he fights the urge to vomit.
“BIG STACE ATE A PLATE ON ACCIDENT.”
BIG STACE digs in her mouth and pulls out a small shard of porcelain. She flicks it away. “THE PLATE WAS RED. THE FOOD PLACE IS AT FAULT.”
MOB tiredly nods. “Right. I’ll call a lawyer tomorrow. See if we can’t get you paid for your pain and suffering.”
“IT WAS DELICIOUS,” adds BIG STACE.
While this conversation is happening, the STRONKY! Babies are wreaking havoc on the Sky House, running around like feral animals and lifting whatever isn’t nailed down. Pure pandemonium.
“Now that you’re well fed,” MOB says to his client, “we should head on over to the Best Gym to train and watch some footage of Fuse.”
STRONK! is always down to train—it’s his only joy in life, at least it was before he had a fiancé and family of his own—but the prospect of watching some curated collection of Conor Fuse matches makes him instantly grumpy.
MOB clock the nearly imperceptible change in STRONK!’s demeanor. “What? No good? You think you have this one in the bag?”
“CONOR FUSE IS SMALL AND WEAK AND INCAPABLE OF HARMING STRONK! BECAUSE STRONK! IS BIG AND STRONK,” he says with a flex.
“THAT IS CORRECT. BIG STACE’S BIG HUMAN MAN IS INDESTRUCTIBLE AND DESTRUCTIVE. IT IS A GOOD COMBINATION OF THINGS TO BE,” BIG STACE says, gazing upon the five-foot-nine sculpted physique of the King Stallion.
MOB nods. “Be that—hey! Put that down!”
STRONK Jr. the Second has lifted MOB’s laptop over her head, preparing to hurl it across the room. Rattled by the harsh words of Uncle Oliver, she slowly sets it down on the floor and bawls her eyes out.
“LOOK WHAT YOU DID, UNCLE OLIVER. NOW BIG STACE IS GOING TO HAVE TO SPOT STRONK JR. TWO FOR AN HOUR OF DEADLIFTING BEFORE BED TO DRAIN THE WEEPIES OUT. THAT IS BIG STACE’S SNACKING AND FUCKING TIME.”
MOB bows his head subserviently. “My apologies, madam. I just have documents on there I haven’t saved. I shouldn’t have raised my voice.” He turns to the child. “I’m sorry, Little Miss STRONK.”
The mute child doesn’t respond—he hasn’t heard any of the children speak a single word—and instead walks over the laptop, crunching it with her feet en route to the kitchen to devour some deli meat, as MOB watches in suppressed horror.
“Mister Godson,” MOB says with a sigh, “we really ought to get going. We’re burning daylight as we speak.”
“OKAY.”
—
Yes, you should go first, Conor. You’re the challenger; my client’s the champion. I’m happy you’re showing due respect; that’s very unlike you.
Now, there’s no denying your popularity with the fans, so we’d hate to lose you, that is, strictly from a business perspective.
You bring in all the pale, lonely, weedy geeks that want to squawk about representation and live vicariously through someone that looks and talks like they do.
So, please, don’t quit after this is all said and done; there’s value to Conor Fuse. It just isn’t in the main event, and it isn’t as the flag bearer of this company.
I spoke to my brother recently, and told him, we should create a Fuserweight Championship for little guys like you. It can be yours to carry around airports, show off at video game conventions, and brag to your preteen friends.
We’ll even see if we can dig up the dwarf Marvolo to be the 1(b) to your 1(a). How’s that sound?
I don’t even feel like addressing the nonsense you’ve spewed. I really don’t. But… I must. Just a bit, anyway.
You keep talking about what happened last year like it’s something to be proud of, but you and I both know that you didn’t beat STRONK! at his best.
He barely showed up.
You beat a broken, shell of a man that was devastated over the death of a loved one.
You beat Stronk—not STRONK! He may have been three hundred pounds, but he was not mentally invested.
How do I know this? Because when you had the opportunity to prove it wasn’t a fluke, STRONK! choked you out cold to win War Games.
‘But—but—BUT! There were other guys in the match! And my team sucked! And my hair hurt! And I had period cramps!’
Excuses, excuses, excuses.
You’re still the same Conor Fuse you were back in May. Adding a little bass to your voice and talking about how much you want to kill a man doesn’t change anything.
You were soundly beaten. But you’re not to blame for that.
STRONK! was, and still is, your genetic superior.
You’ve been all up in your feelings since day one of the Modern STRONK! Era, ever since he walked through the doors here, because you could plainly see you were no longer the hot, new thing that was turning heads and building a future HOF resume.
You were the old model… now rendered obsolete.
A complete non-factor.
Dust in the wind.
Let me ask: how many championships have you won in the past year?
Outside of your hollow victory over Mister Godson, who have you beaten?
Why are you even IN THIS MATCH?
It should be my nephew. I mean, he kicked your ass in the HOFC just recently, did he not?
So why?
Because you won some multi-man match?
According to you, multi-man’s don’t count. Too many externalities at play. Not a controlled environment.
Whatever.
You’re in this match, honestly, because of a stale win over a man that is exponentially better now than he was back then.
You’re in this match because my brother wants to give his favorite wrestler an opportunity to put a bow on his redemption arc.
STRONK! would eat STRONK for Second Breakfast and complain that it wasn’t filling enough.
But you keep harping on and on about it because it’s the only worthwhile thing you’ve done in this promotion since my client arrived.
Since debuting in February of 2022, my client has:
Won the HOTv Championship.
Won the LSD Championship.
Won War Games—the most prestigious accolade this company has.
Captured the HOW World Championship and defended it TWICE already against the likes of Dan Ryan and scum-of-the-earth Jace Parker Davidson.
He’s defending at a faster clip than America ever did and against stiffer competition.
Dan Ryan was ranked number-one when Godson defeated him. STRONK! is the only man to beat him this year in one-on-one competition.
So, look, I get it.
I. Get. It.
You’re insecure.
You’ve got nothing to big yourself up about this calendar year, and you’re staring down the barrel of a tank that’s going to blow you to smithereens and leave what’s left of you to be picked apart by the bottom-rung scavengers of this fed.
Your career trajectory is lookin’ awful similar to that of Scott Stevens, if I’m being honest.
What? Too harsh?
In the absence of any evidence that you’re still top-tier, still a worthwhile and deserving challenger, you resort to fourth-wall-breaking nonsense that has no place in a wrestling promo.
For the love of GOD, who WRITES a PROMO in WRESTLING, you DIPSHIT?
STRONK! is not trying to be funny. This is his life. In the context of this company, what’s seen on-screen is reality, and Mister Godson has no concept of what’s amusing or funny or silly or whatever—he just is what he is.
And what he is, is a man who has only been beaten TWICE in this company in singles matches.
Once to Jatt Star.
Once to you.
That’s it.
No one else.
What’s comedic about that?
Dan Ryan, bless his old, geriatric soul, tried to come at us from the same angle, and it fell flatter than your twinkboy ass, Conor.
News flash: we don’t care if you find the Adventures of STRONK! entertaining.
Couldn’t care less.
We’re about winning and, boy, we’re doing pretty good in that department.
But let me momentarily address the entertainment aspect of this business, and compare you to my client.
What ARE you anymore, Conor?
Is there anything even remotely interesting about you?
You want to distance yourself from your gimmick, because you wanna be a SERIOUS GROWN-UP BOY now. But all that remains is a vanilla husk spouting boring trash talk; you want to be witty and clever and on the level of my nephew with the zingers, but you just aren’t that good at it.
My client isn’t going to address you. Not one word.
He has nothing to say to you.
Ain’t got the time.
That’s why I’m here:
To clear out the minefield of distractions.
He’s busy training. Getting ready to beat your ass at CHAOS.
You should do the same; less talk, maybe lift some weights and eat a steak.
Now, if you don’t mind, I have to get back to babysitting.
Sigh…