- Event: Chaos 028
So ya think you got me all scouted now Solex?
Showing up at ringside for what I’m sure was rated a five star match on all the dirt sheet sites by the way. Me and Marvolo tore the fucking house down. Bet ya learned a thing or two from me, didn’t you Solex? All while scouting me out… cause fuck knows there isn’t enough fucking video of me out there to watch. Plus what the fuck new are you gonna learn about The Hardcore Artist? I beat the living fuck out of people with weapons, mainly a barbed wire wrapped hockey stick and I hit like five moves. Then it’s the Game Misconduct and your night is over, hit the showers… you lost. It’s all pretty fucking simple… though maybe not for the simple minded.
Or maybe you wanna see if this whole coming back from the dead things is real? Worried about zombies Solex? You seem like the kind who would thrive in a Walking Dead scenario. I’m sure you are all prepped for the zombie apocalypse. Armed to the nine and ready to shoot them in the head… zombies, I’m definitely still talking about zombies. Bet you’re just drooling from the mouth, waiting for a reason to go all MercDad crazy.
But rest easy Solex, take a deep breath… maybe go shoot some Bud Light if it helps you relax. Cause I’m no zombie… I wasn’t coming back in that same busted ass body. When you make deals with The Devil, you might as well make that shit worth it. Cause how is your body feeling Solex? Today is your birthday and it’s the big four-O. It’s all downhill from here, you’re prime, or whatever you call the “top” of your career is now behind you.
You wanna debate that shit with me? How many World, ICON or LSD titles have you won here in HOW? I’ll wait, cause I know ZERO is a high number for you to count to. Meanwhile I won’t even make you attempt what I can only guess is calculus to you to count to the number nine combined reigns I have had. I know you probably don’t believe in facts cause words and numbers scare you, but the truth is that you don’t know how to win the big ones… that you can’t win the big ones.
Like last year at War Games, my team won and your team, of course, lost. I’m sure that is why Mike Best picked me this year for his team, he knows who helped his son Tyler win it all last year. Like I helped Sulter Kael win it all in twenty twenty-one. Sure, you were on that team too, but you got eliminated by Zion… not the true love beast Zion of today, no, by Ban Hammer dropping Zion. While I took a fucking mace to my face… WHICH YOU FUCKING BROUGHT IN THERE AND ABANDONED… so Sulter Kael and the World Champion, Jiles could safely enter. Now that is a fucking teammate.
I have a winning streak rolling when it comes to War Games, proving that I am a valuable piece in the massive task of trying to win the hardest match in HOW history. While you Solex, only have only showed us that war just might not be your thing after all. I mean this SHOULD be your match… but you just apparently suck as war. I mean you got a convincing cosplay costume, but the reality is you and your piss poorly picked team isn’t gonna do shit this year.
That is of course if you even make it to War Games. A hardcore match against The Hardcore Artist. I give you props there if you show up, cause if you can find a way to knock me off, then it’s a hell of a confidence booster going into War Games. Maybe, just maybe it will help motivate your team into actually thinking they have a chance in Hell to win. It’ll all be a fucking allusion… but at least you poor fuckers will have that thing suckers call hope.
Now if you lose… then the captain of Team Solex has just been defeated by a man who until a few weeks ago was legally dead. You will have lost to the man who I am sure you will soon be trying to run down with a bevy of unintelligent and likely regurgitated insults. Just like myself Solex, you are pretty fucking easy to read. The only difference is that I have gotten results in my career, while you have just had everyone tread on you. Wishing, dreaming… hoping, that you could Make Solex Great… Just Once.
When I win though, I’ll have knocked off a mighty captain and will use that momentum to help Team Mike Best win War Games and hopefully win myself a long overdue second HOW World Title. Cause like I said, when you make a deal with The Devil, you make it fucking count. Thus is it a coincidence I am on the team of GOD’s son? Just imagine that scene Solex. Me standing in the middle of War Games, the sole survivor, Lee and Mike Best at my sides as I stand holding the HOW World Title over the body of… well someone who certainly isn’t you. You’ll have been long since eliminated. Don’t worry if you can’t imagine it though… it will be reality soon enough.
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Little Rock, Arkansas
3:44 AM
I sit up in the shitty motel bed, a single yellowed incandescent bulb illuminates the room in a depressingly pitiful way. A can of some local IPA I care not to even remember cause of its mediocre taste is in one hand… and a container of peanut butter filled pretzels in the other. Fuck these things are as addictive as the beer… thanks to the person who got me hooked on them. I grab a couple in my hand, tossing them one by one in my mouth, savoring the taste like they are fucking crack… cause they essentially are, legal crack. Washing them down with a large sip lof the IPA, I mindlessly scroll through Instagram, Untappd and most sadly, fucking Twitter.
I’ve accepted the fact that I am not going to ever sleep again, but still can’t get out of the routine of sitting in bed at night. Or at least this sack of shit that this slum of a motel calls a mattress in the most shaky bed frame I’ve ever slept in. It’s one fifty dollar, meth mouthed hooker bang job away from fucking collasping. But when you come back from the dead, it seems people are not wanting to give you the money you had when you died. So you have to survive off your HOW signing bonus and first couple of paychecks.
Plus I won’t even get into asking Carey for help. She’s going through seemingly worse shit than I am right now. So here I sit in this room that seems like it should be what Hell is… and it’s not too far off. I mean it’s fucking Arkansas. They stuck an A-R in front of another state’s name and couldn’t even pronounce it right. And no, I didn’t… and I will not be fact checking that shit. I’m facing Steve Solex this week, so whatever we say is truth, right? Sure!
Plus there is fuck all to do in this state… or at least fuck all I wanna do. The craft beer scene is fucking pathetic… this IPA is like something you’d brew from a fucking MIster Beer Kit. Whatever, it’s three something in the fucking morning and my eyes are starting to bug out scrolling through the endless mind suck that is social media.
Getting up out of bed, I toss my phone and walk over to the window. Pulling the curtain back I see the shit-tastic ground floor view of beaten up cars. My eyes immediately dart to the one rocking back and forth. I guess someone couldn’t even afford the twenty dollar hourly rate at this sad fuck-tel. I’m honestly burning all the clothes I’m sleeping in and showering for a half hour at the arena when I get there on Sunday
Some people think that Hell is such a horrible place… but it isn’t until you actually see it, you realize that it isn’t much better up here. At least you know what you’re getting down there… they don’t keep trying to fool you like up here. I mean what the fuck Lee, why Little Rock? You couldn’t save this match until next week when we were in New Orleans?
Ok… I get it, there is no chance I’d be sober enough to compete in a match after spending a week partying twenty-four seven on Bourbon Street. Pretty sure you know me better than I know myself at this point. I might have a body like I did in two thousand and eight… but I certainly didn’t bring sober Scottywood back. Fuck that guy. Plus with the soul of older Scotty… with all the memories from the past fifteen years still… there is no way I can’t drink.
The red LEDs of the clock switch over to four in the morning as I just shake my head, I should have planned ahead and brought better beer. Finishing up the can of whatever I’m drinking, I toss it at where I think the trash can is. It of course misses and the remnants of the beer soak into the carpet… by far the least nasty thing soaked into what one can barely say is carpet anymore.
Note to self, next time you make a deal with The Devil, get a bit of cash too. So you don’t have to slum it in a place that smells like a teenagers crusty jerk off sock that has been baking in the sun. I’m seriously thinking about getting cocaine just so I can destroy my nostrils and not smell ever again. That’s what coke does, right?
Suddenly I hear the sound of the door handle trying to be opened. Of course I have the thing locked… so the attempts are futile. But of course it then progresses to a knocking as I just shake my head. I make my way over to the door and undo the locks, not even checking the peephole before opening it. I mean, it’s four in the morning… it’s either a drunk, a junkie or a hooker. I think I can take any of those three.
“SCOTTY!!!” Screams someone who literally has no concept what four in the morning is.
It’s of course Frankie.
Ok… whistle! Thirty second timeout. I may need to tell you a bit of backstory here. Like how I may not have reached out to Frankie since well… no longer being dead. Yeah, I know, I’m a shitty fucking person, add it to the many fucking reasons I ended up down there in Hell after I died. But that shit, if you can believe it or not… is fucking complicated.
Watching for months the ones… or in my case, the literal two people who gave a shit about me, Frankie and Bobbinette mourn my loss. You all got a front row seat to the shit show that was Bobbinette’s life over the past couple months. Well imagine how my son, someone whose whole life pretty much depended on me, took it. You want to talk about torture… sit and watch that shit.
So how do you confront someone you have put through that kind of pain? Put through that kind of pain because I wanted to win a wrestling match, because I wanted to crucify Scott Stevens. This business isn’t very conducive to holding relationships because of this mentality. Where you’d put everything and everyone in your life behind the desire to win. So when you are able to hold on to a relationship… it means that much more.
Fuck, making me dig into emotions. I know I don’t have them often… but if The Hardcore Artist has one soft spot, one weakness… it’s Frankie. And fuck you if you tried to say it was beer! That shit to me is like spinach is to Popeye. But yeah, as you can tell, he doesn’t seem mad… I knew he’d be nothing but excited. I’m sure the look on his face… the reaction when he saw me walk out at the end of Chaos… was nothing but pure ecstasy. But I also know the look on his face when he accepted the reality I was gone. That’s a hard image to get out of your head.
“Hey… how… how did you find me?” I ask as Frankie ignores the question and nearly tackles me with a hug.
“Easy… come on, get in here before you get attacked by one of these two dollar hookers. Fuckers are cheaper than beer.” I jab to no one, as the joke goes straight over Frankie’s head. He’s just happy to finally see me in person.
“I talked to a few people in HOW, they found out where you were staying. I just had to come visit… to see you in person… to make sure it was real. You know Lee’s pretty good at that CGI stuff.” Frankie states as still stares at Scotty with a bit of disbelief.
“Yeah, he is… but I am real… not CGI.” I stammer out, not really knowing what to say.
“I have so much to tell you… so much from the past six months.” He exclaims… fuck, it has been six months? Wow… at least a month of that is since I have been back.
“Well this is not exactly the best place to have that conversation… I wouldn’t even step on this carpet. Do you wanna go somewhere else?” I ask, trying to save Frankie’s shoes from the same fate of every other item of clothing I am wearing.
“Sure! I got a hotel room at the Sheraton a couple miles away. We can go there!” Smiles Frankie as he grabs my hand. I debate just leaving everything I have in this fucking hell-hole of a room… but I got a few items in my suitcase that haven’t been contaminated by… I’m guessing no less than five diseases.
“Ok, I’ll meet you outside. Did you Uber here? Do you need to call another one?” I ask as Frankie just nods his head, already buried in his phone ordering another Uber. Fuck, he can order Ubers now on his own… what else have I missed in the last six months?
I grab my bags as I exit the room… not even bothering to close the door. I paid in cash, they have nothing of mine on record… fuck them. Hope this place burns to the fucking ground tomorrow with the owners inside. They surely won’t miss a beat when they are in Hell.
And while that might suck for them… it only seems like a slight step up from what I am going to have to go through. This isn’t gonna be easy… but I guess it’s part of the price I have to pay to be back here. For better or worse, this was my choice. I wanted to return… and now I have to live with that choice… with the good… and with the bad.
“You build any good LEGO sets over the last six months?” I ask, knowing that will distract the conversation for a good thirty minutes.
“I just built this awesome X-Wing set! I can’t wait to show it to you…” Fires back Frankie almost before the words even finish leaving my mouth. I smirk back, sorta happy to reclaim a sense of normality, even if for the moment. It’s gonna be a long road… but I guess I have to start it somewhere.