MAIN EVENT - ALEX CROSS versus JOHNNY RAIKE (Non-Title)

He'd worn the belt all the way home. Louisiana to New York, the Titans of the Midway championship stayed right around the sexy waist of Johnny Raike. Soon he'd have to start training again. Mark Storm looms on the horizon, in possession of a belt Johnny felt he had never lost. He hadn't won it either, but the Party Queen of Queens doesn't trouble with such details; he'd been eliminated in a bullshit way, what matters the technical details? But for that train ride home, Johnny knows only the euphoria of being a newly crowned champion. And pain. Lots of pain.

The next day all the other thoughts came flooding right back. His booking against Alex Cross didn't surprise him; Alex hadn't truly lost the match, why not put the champ and the runner up together? Should sell tickets, maybe even set up a future defense. But for all the logic of the booking, Johnny finds himself getting just a touch annoyed. Was this booking a challenge from Munin? See if you can beat the MMA guy clean? Or perhaps a subtle way of saying he can't? Unlikely, what with a war starting. Munin should have better things to do with her time than fuck with Johnny. Still, once the thought is in there, Johnny finds it hard to dislodge. He'd just have to take it to Cross on his terms.

And all that is leaving aside the GZW related events of the previous night. Granted, Raike would have been a lot more intimidated if John Champa hadn't beaten up a member of his own roster, but this war hadn't started. Johnny would like to talk to Munin about that. Somewhere with witnesses. If she was going to invite a war, then a marshaling of the troops should be imminent, and Johnny intended to have a lot to say about his own personal marshaling. Perhaps a meeting. Offer some free drinks, probably someone would show. Or they'd prove to be as fractious as Johnny Raike currently believes the roster to be, unlikely to mount much of a coordinated counterattack. Well, one way or another, Johnny would be ready. He's Titan of the Midway, and always ready to fight.

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Russet and “Pure Morning” bring us to the garage studio of Johnny Raike, though the PAW star is not in the shot at the moment. All we see is the Titans of the Midway belt resting on a display pedestal. After a few moments of nothing The Most Liberated Man in Professional Wrestling enters the scene, looking from the belt to the camera.

Johnny: “Shhhhh. Let's just enjoy this moment.”

Raike turns back to the belt, look of simple joy on his face to behold the belt. The look of joy is about all he's wearing, the other item being a set of blue satin shorts that would have been too short in the seventies.

Johnny: “There it is. Proof positive of my place in the wrestling world. The Titan of the Midway. Despite not being the biggest or strongest in that match, despite chair shots and kendo stick arm wringers and the biggest DVD I've ever taken, here I am, basking in my own reflected glory. Man it's nice.”

The Sissyboy Savior half-subconsciously rubs his hands up and down his torso.

Johnny: “And I don't even have to come out and talk about how no one thought I could do it. Well, no one not named Calvin Harris anyway. Think I've given him pause for thought at this point. In fact, now would be a great moment for everyone on the roster to take a couple seconds to update your mental evaluations of Johnny Raike. Add in ultraviolent, clever, and borderline prescient if you just so happened to be missing those. And I'd just like to thank everyone who came out to the midway itself to watch me kick ass and take names. You're the true heroes, in that you pay money for tickets without which this broken bird of a sport would surely never fly. You're all culpable in what I do to myself, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Just remember me when my joints don't work and please, send me a new joint. Hell, you can do that nowadays if you really want to.”

A wink and a gun from The Beautiful Nightmare.

Johnny: “But, you know, for all that I am proud to be the very first Titan, for all that I am planning to be the very last and only Titan, it's no secret that I yearn for the very top of the mountain. For the Pure Amusement Championship, and the lights and attention and prestige and money and all the other things that come with climbing to the top of the mountain and daring people to knock you off. And our champion is almost literally a mountain of a man. Giant, muscle-y, hair style and mustache that went out of fashion twenty years ago. Press has it all, except a good idea of how to dress or style himself. Funny, usually people'd assume that the ultraviolent champion would be the guy with too much hair and an over reliance on black in his wardrobe. But then, what is PAW if not surprising?”

A full shrug from the Thigh-High Thriller.

Johnny: “Now, I'll leave Press and his hygiene behind for the moment. Because I need to focus on Alex Cross. Deal with the last of the fallout from the midway, eh? The sheets, the boards, even the home office here at PAW, they've got everyone talking about the end of that match. Everyone keeps playing up how Alex Cross betrayed me. Twice! About how this is a grudge match, and I'm sure this is the part where you're all expecting me to get really excited and start telling Alex Cross all the ways in which he has wronged me, and all the horrible things I'll do to him to get mine back. Every blow by blow description of how I'll get my vengeance, tell Cross how first things first I'm going to rip his nails out with some rusty pliers, and then I'll think of something that hurts. And it'd be fun to say, and I'm sure you'd find it fun to watch but...”

The American Wet Dream grabs his cigarettes from off a bench and lights up an American Spirit. He takes a deep pull and lets it out slowly.

Johnny: “I don't actually feel that way. I'm not mad at you, Alex. You did what you thought you had to to win the day out on the midway. Hehe, rhymes. If it had worked, I'd maybe feel a little prickly. But when I proposed an alliance to you, I specifically said shaky. I knew what that was; I've read the Art of War. We each entered into a situation knowing that when the moment came we would abandon the team up. You just so happened to strike first after both of those team up moments. Didn't see it coming the first time; thought we might take a bit more out of Harris first. Did see it the second time. Point of fact, I was about a half a second from swinging at you after that second beat down, but then the eyes in the back of my head did their job and it would up with me winding up and cracking you one to the back of the skull. Score another one for misappropriated childrens toys!”

The Hedonistic Hellcat throws up a fist and gives a loud 'Woo!'.

Johnny: “So while I can't say I personally feel a grudge against you, Alex, this is still a very important match for me. Not just because it's my return to the main event spot I love so very much, not because it allows for score settling for things we did to each other in the course of our jobs, but because every match is an important match for me. CJ O'Donnell won't be number one contender forever, and I aim to be the next one. Scratch that, I demand to be the next one. So while this isn't a grudge match for Johnny Raike, it is a vendetta. I have one hell of a personal stake in this match. I have shit to continue proving. And it continues with you, Cross.”

Raike takes another drag of American Spirit, thinking before he speaks.

Johnny: “Thing is, to continue proving myself, I need an Alex Cross that's at the top of his game. Now, I don't know the full details, but I know it's pretty common knowledge that Alex Cross hasn't been having the best personal life of late. Best I can tell, he's off the wagon. I personally believe that going on the wagon at all is a bad decision, but I don't have to agree with Alex Cross to feel for him. I've had occasional struggles with drugs and alcohol. They can be very powerful forces if you don't do things just so. Learning to control them is not easy for most people. I get it, I've been to court ordered rehab. The only practical tip I can give you is that quitting cold turkey is most effective, and AA is a bunch of religious horseshit that only works if you can live a life full of religious horseshit. Sorry to the friends of Bill out there, but it's true. The program has a terribly low success rate, plus “success” is still letting the alcohol control you, only now it's...”

Johnny stops mid-sentence, breathes deep, takes another drag, and smiles slightly to the camera.

Johnny: “Sorry. No one's here to listen to my rant on the poor state of alcohol counseling in this country. And I was offering my sympathies to Alex Cross. This is a hard business, and drinking can seem like it'll make all the bad shit go away. And if you can ride the roller coaster of booze without getting trapped on it, then by all means throw down. But if you're drinking to dull pain, if you're drinking because things aren't going your way, if you drink because you have to and not because you want to, then get some help. I'm not the guy to do it; my rehab really didn't take. But don't destroy your mind while you try to climb the ladder. Or at least wait and let me do it for you. I need you at your best so I know there's no excuses, I need you at your best so there are no questions, and I need you at your best so I can showcase mine. Together we'll prove that the violent can also be the talented, that the truest of warriors excels in all arenas.”

Johnny looks back at his belt, running a hand lightly over the face plate, seemingly deep in thought.

Johnny: “There's a thing that happens in this business, sometimes. An idea that seems to take root in the mind of many of the fans and, it often feels like, most of the wrestlers. The idea that we only excel in one thing, in one style. There's a feeling people get that you're either an ultraviolent, hardcore kinda guy, or you're a mat technician, master of a thousand holds who'd never sully his hands and probably doesn't even know how to fold a chair, let alone swing it it. There is this thought, insidious and creeping, that because I'm amazing when anything goes that I'm somehow not a real wrestler too. That my picking up the bat, putting jewels on my pants, being able to adapt and think ahead in real time, that all my tricks and cleverness are naught but garbage! I've tried to run from the world of hardcore. I sought out the places with the best talent, just trying to get people to forget what I used to do, what I came from. Picked fights with anyone I thought I could earn some points off of, did what I had to do to thrive and tried so hard to wash the scent of blood off me.”

A slow, sensual smile crawls across Johnny's face. He leans toward the camera, resting his chin on his fingers.

Johnny: “But then a funny thing happened. While I was out there using only my body, with some occasional wits and cleverness, to get the job done, I got myself into the first HoliCraze Hell tournament. I figured, well, you know what, I'm doing jack shit in FGA, I'm not getting the respect I show, I'm certainly not getting the respect I deserve. Let's go get violent again. And I won. And suddenly the narrative is changing. Suddenly I'm getting noticed again, I'm getting notes from fans, and pats on the back from other wrestlers. One tournament, but three big names and once I showed the world what it was I could do there, wasn't no one telling Johnny Raike he didn't know a wrist lock from a wristwatch! And yet, still, I resisted being the ultraviolent person that lives inside. I rode that wave from HCHT right into WARPED wrestling, right into the den of sickos, pervs, freaks, and fuckbois, and even for them I felt I had to be just a wrestler. Flash forward and the PAW brass are putting me in the Titans match, reward for what I do for this place, and I wanted to resist. I wanted to say, hey, guys, there's no way the Titans championship is going to show the world just how talented of a wrestler I am, what good does it do me to be king of the garbage?”

Johnny holds up a pointer finger, asking for his audience to hold their internal questions.

Johnny: “But then -- it clicked. The fans who don't respect violence, they have a right to that feeling. And any number of promotions out there to cater to that sentiment. And I want those fans to respect me too, but it's not the end of the world when they don't. Not everyone understands what I do, and that's ok. And for the wrestlers that want to look down on me for being fucking phenomenal with a bat in one hand and a flask in another, well there isn't much I can do to change their minds. I could win every award in professional wrestling, I could have the best matches of every year, in the most packed venues for the most prestigious of prizes and it still wouldn't matter to some people. To some, all I'll ever be is a death match trash picker. So I am done chasing down the respect of those that won't give it. And I'll be better than them just to show the world what hypocrites they are.”

The Panty Wearing Panty Dropper claps his hands in front of himself and bounces on his heels, momentarily revealing most of the globes of his ass.

Johnny: “Which brings me back to the match at hand. No thrown together teams, no triple threat out in the great wide open, just two men entering into a ring to fight to one fall. Classic, simple, elegant. At Wicked Seven all my much vaunted prowess with some weaponry means nothing. I won't have it against Alex Cross. I'll have my wrestling talent. And I'll be showing off as much of my wrestling as I can. See, Alex, as the former MMA guy you get automatic credit at being technically gifted. The world assumes of you that you must know all the ways to use your fists and holds to destroy a man. If one of us is going to be considered to have the advantage, they're probably looking at you. Which is great for me; picking up the win in the main event over a mixed martial artist will really go a long way toward my goal of taking the belt off of Press, or CJ, or whoever gets in my way of what I need. I've promised my fans, my people, that I will be the beacon for them, that I will shine out for all the people who've ever been told 'no you can't.' So I'm keeping my eyes on the prize at the top. And I'm coming to show the world that there isn't a match you can give me that I don't know how to fight. Exploding barbed wire cage matches, twenty, thirty, even forty man battle royals, or just the simple challenge of one on one, pinfall or submission. I'm the Beautiful Nightmare in all of them.”

The Idol of Idolatry strikes a series of poses, voguing for the camera, ending with an air kiss.

Johnny: “So on March Thirty-first, the Greek Center in Baton Rouge, I'll be gliding down that aisle to the ring, listening for the bell, and then losing myself in technically perfect violence as I show the world that this Titan is a danger at all times. The tournament is over. There's only one person in line ahead of me. And after I leave Alex Cross lying on the mat at Wicked seven, then my path to the Pure Amusement Championship, my path to being the unified champion, becomes much clearer. And I will so love showing you all my path. See you in a week, Lexie darling!”

Johnny gives a vigorous wave and blows another kiss as the russet and “Pure Morning” return, fading into the Raike in the Cash logo.