Zugzwang

Mutual. Respect.

You’re a special kind of stupid, aren’t you?

Mr. Scott Stevens, the research machine. Knows all the numbers. Knows all the stats. Knows everything about everyone, catalogues every move they’ve ever learned and how many times they’ve fought a woman in HOW. A living, breathing Stevenspedia. You’d think if there was any living human being you’d wanna do your homework on before opening your stupid mouth and making sounds, it would be me.

Mutual respect.

It didn’t work for Brian Hollywood two weeks ago. It didn’t work for Darin Zion two months ago. It didn’t work for Perfection, or Mary Sue Flair, or any of the other bygones who have tried and failed over the years to project onto me the idea that I “respect” them. For the absolute life of me, I cannot understand why you simpering mouthbreathers not only have the audacity to assume that I respect what you do, but to then actually think that I put any value on your silly, made up word. I’ll see your Stevenspedia and raise you the Encyclopedia Besttanica, dickhead– look up the word respect, and you’ll find the following:

Noun

1. A feeling of deep admiration for someone elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.
2. Due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions of others.

Look into your heart there, Superchief. Do I respect you? Do I feel a deep admiration for anything you’ve done in this business, outside of providing me ten minutes to take a piss when the commercials are entertaining? Do I have due regard for your feelings? Mr. “Tribal Chief”– take that shit back to the USA Network, you walking fucking death of originality. You built yourself a brick shithouse of a fiery white meat promo there, bud, but the problem is that you build it on a fucking swamp. Your entire premise relies on the fictitious idea that I’d attend your fucking funeral for any other reason than to hit on the widow. I don’t respect you. Max Kael doesn’t respect you. John Sektor doesn’t respect you. But maybe the most hilarious bit of fiction you’ve provided for my general entertainment is the idea that Lee Best respects you.

Lee Best has been responsible for the worst moments of your career, Scott.

He’s the reason they cued up Lonesome Loser on the sound system, and watched you get a tampon shoved down your gullet by the literal Queen of Hearts. He’s the man who booked a Scott Stevens on a Pole match, as a fucking goof. He’s the man who suspended you from HOW for pissing hot on an estrogen test, and literally wouldn’t let you do your job anymore. He has mocked you, derided you, and tormented you at every step of your career. He got on live television and denied you a spot in the Hall of Fame, no less than a few fucking months ago. You think that Lee Best respects you?

Holy shit.

You think this match is a reward, don’t you?

This is your final humiliation, Stevens. It wasn’t reverse psychology when I told you not to get all fired up for this match. It wasn’t a trick, or a trap. I was being completely honest with you. This match isn’t your big opportunity to become a real boy, my dude– this match is an insurance policy on the single greatest main event in the history of HOW.

In less than thirty days, Mike Best takes on The Minister, in a literal deathmatch, for the HOW World Championship, at the most infamous HOW pay-per-view of the year. Do you understand the enormity of that match? Do you comprehend the number of buys a pay-per-view like that is going to do? Do you understand that we can literally oversell tickets to Alcatraz, AND make people pay just to watch it on the HOV from the Best Arena? This is perhaps the most defining match in the history of this company– do you really think Lee Best was going to risk handing out a title shot to someone who could fuck that up?

Poor John Rambo doesn’t realize he’s been set up for failure.

This is delicious.

I told you not to get your hopes up, Stevens. I fucking told you. But you went and fucked that up too, didn’t you? You got in your feelings. You set yourself up for disappointment, because even while sucking my dick like you owe me money, you managed to get it in your head that you can beat me at the very best I’ve ever been. Do you want to know why you will never be a top dog again? Do you want to know why you’re the proverbial whipping boy? Do you want to know why Lee Best looks at you like a walking showcase for his main event talent?

It’s because you always give yourself an out.

It’s never your fault, is it? There’s always some obstacle… some stumbling block… keeping you from your destiny. It’s not that you did fuck all to earn your way onto War Games, it’s that Lee didn’t wanna give you a chance. It’s not that you’ve been doing the same bullshit, over and over, for over five years now… you were a little too starstruck to succeed. At least Hollywood had some fire in him when he told me he wanted to be me when he grew up. Not you though– same old dogshit. Same old “boy I suck, but WAIT, I can be GREAT AGAIN!” promo that I said you’d cut. Same old cookie cutter for the same old stale, bitter cookie.

Too much salt in the batch, I reckon.

I’m not frustrated with you because I “know you can do this”, Scott. I’m frustrated with you because you still think you can do this. Because you could run into the same wall fourteen times, and believe with all your heart that on the fifteenth time, it’ll magically move out of the way. How many pitches can whizz past a batter before he realizes the problem isn’t his bat? That the pitchers are getting faster, and he isn’t keeping up? You’ve been striking out for years, and the only solution you’ve ever had is to tell the media that you got fucked by the umpire. I’m not frustrated that you won’t live up to your potential, Scott. I’m frustrated because you aren’t man enough to admit that your potential isn’t as high as you think it is.

You will never beat me.

It will never happen.

You say you’ll give anything to win this championship, Scott. You say you’d give your life, but you had the chance and you didn’t take it. So let me just prove something to you, once and for all. Let’s make things more interesting. You beat me on Saturday night and you’re the HOW World Champion– hey, good for you. But let’s negotiate. If you walk away from Refueled with the HOW World Championship, I won’t just give you the belt. I’ll give you everything. I’ll give you my HOW salary. I’ll give you my merchandising royalties. I’ll give you the rights to my likeness, the deed to the Academy, and I’ll make Lee Best scratch me out of his fucking will and let you scribble your name in there in whatever color crayon you prefer. I will give you the literal shirt off my back, Stevens. It’s all yours, and all you have to do is become the HOW World Champion this Saturday night.

But if you lose?

I want one of your children.

No, I’m not kidding. I want physical custody of your firstborn son, legally binding, signed and notarized. I want the opportunity to save one of your miserable little offspring from their failure of a father. I want to prove to you that nurture means a hell of a lot more than nature, by raising one of your weak, soft headed sperm into a champion. He will be my ward, my apprentice, and my greatest success. I’ve inhaled so much cocaine through the head of my big fat cock over the years that I don’t even know if I’m firing live rounds anymore, so in case I can’t bring life into this world, I want to steal some of yours.

I want you to risk one of your kids, Stevens.

I want you to back up all those meaningless words about being willing to sacrifice anything for my championship. I want you to put your sperm where your mouth is, which is something you ought to be used to after all these years blowing yourself. I want to see what you’ll put on the line for the rights to claim your supremacy over me forever, Stevens, so the choice is yours. Accept my challenge and show me you’ve got the balls, or deny my challenge and prove to me that I’m right.

No matter what you choose, I win.

As a matter of fact, let me sweeten the pot. If you beat me, Stevens… I’ll give you the ring. You know what ring I’m talking about. You know what it means to me. It won’t make you a Hall of Famer, but you’ll sure as fuck look the part. I’ll give you the ring, Stevens. I’ll give you the only thing in this world that means more to me than the belt around my waist.

And all it’s going to cost you is a prop bet consisting of one Baby Stevens.

If you think you honestly have the ability to do what no one else has done this era– if you really believe you can pin me, submit me, or knock me the fuck out– then be a man, accept the bet, and come fight me in my home. But before you make a decision, I want you to really think about it.

You ever walk around your house in the dark?

Sounds like a stupid question, but you’ve done it a million times without stopping to think about it. Get up to take a piss in the dark of night, but you don’t bash your leg on the dresser. You don’t stumble into the television. You don’t smash your face on the doorway. Your body knows where to take you, because it’s your home. You could navigate it with your eyes closed.

This week, you’re stepping into my home.

Close your eyes, Stevens. Try to walk around my house in the dark without bashing in your fucking skull. See if you have the same awareness of your surroundings as I do, because there is nowhere on this planet that feels like home more than a HOW ring. I know every inch of that canvas. Every groove of those turnbuckles. Every notch in those ropes. For all the life I lived before my blood ran 97 Red, this still feels like the place where I was truly born. It might be the place where I die. This is where I live, Stevens. And if a stranger tries to come into my home in the darkness?

I will defend my property with my life.

You’re goddamned right that I know what it feels like to be overlooked. I know what it’s like to not get the respect you feel you deserve, but that’s where the similarities between you and I end. Do you know why this title is so important to me? Do you know why I cling so desperately to this 97Red leather strap, as though it’s the only thing keeping me alive? Do you know why I will be literally defending this title to the death at Rumble at the Rock? It isn’t just because I love shiny things, Stevens, it’s because this title is the proof that I was right. That I was right about deserving that respect. That I was right to feel overlooked. That all the people who ever told me that I was dogshit were wrong. They told me that I’d never climb the mountain, and now I’ve climbed it nine times.

Now, I’m ready to stay at the top.

This belt is my fucking baby, Stevens. And if you’re coming for my baby this Saturday night, then I’m coming for yours too. Because this championship means a whole hell of a lot more to me than the sad batch you forgot to pull out of an underwhelmed Mrs. Stevens ten years ago. This championship means more to me than throwing a football around your yard with another genetic failure in a failed wrestling family. This championship is worth more than anything you’ve ever created or could hope to create, so rest assured that I am truly, deadly serious. Everything that I am, signed away to you– my life, my rights, my freedoms and my finances. All of my material goods. The literal rights to my identity, all monies due now and until the day that I die, all for the cost of one less mouth to feed at Thanksgiving.

You’re gonna do a lot of talking and posturing and ensuring me that you’re gonna become the HOW World Champion, and my eyes are gonna glaze over, because there are only two words that matter from this point on: YES or NO. Either you’re a man of your word, or you’re full of shit. Either there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for the title, or you’re a liar. Either you have the balls, or you don’t. And you need to answer me, Stevens, because if you won’t, I swear to the GOD of HOW and every deity that throws lightning that I will take a disqualification on Saturday night faster than you can say “belts don’t change hands on a DQ”. Yes or no, it doesn’t matter. But it’s gonna fucking be one of them. So what’s it gonna be?

Accept the bet?

Or accept the truth?